work to finish. Lady Maitland, will you think me very rude if I run
away? It’s so kind of you to let me come.”
“We were honoured to have you, I’m sure,” Lady Maitland answered. “And
now that you have found your way here—”
“That’s too charming,” he interrupted before she could finish the
dreaded sentence.
The judge said good-night warmly to his guest and less warmly to his
daughter, adding, before the doors were securely closed, that Lane
seemed a sensible, steady, decent young fellow.
Ivy offered smiling congratulations.
“Eric, I thought you were never coming!,” she whispered. “My dear, you
were wonderful! Mother’s in love with you! And you could hear what a
success you’d been with father. Was it a very terrible evening? I
didn’t notice anything except that you were there; I couldn’t see any
one else. I suppose father was disapproving of me, as usual....”
She stopped speaking, as the front door was opened for them.
“We must get things right with your people somehow,” said Eric
reflectively. “I think it’s awful when children don’t get on well with
their parents.”
“But, my dear, is it my fault? I don’t believe father ever cared for me
much, but he really hates me now.”
“If he does, it’s because he was very fond of you before... Nature’s
substitute....”
Ivy slipped her arm through his and walked for some moments in silence.
A taxi was on the rank by Gloucester Road Station, and they got into it.
“There’s only one substitute for love,” she whispered. “A greater
love... Isn’t that true?”
“I hope so.”
“We’ll make it so.”
“_If_, Ivy. Remember that for a month—”
“A month! But it’ll be just the same. I shall be with you every day. ‘I
suppose nine o’clock’s out of the question,’” she mimicked. “I’ll come
at eight or seven or six. And stay till mid-night.”
“And a nice character I should get from your father. He’s made me
responsible for you, Ivy... Eaton Place. And you _have_ been happy?”
“Oh, Eric, I wish it wasn’t over! Happy!”
Eric laughed and helped her out of the taxi. Her happiness was so
radiant that he felt it could not last. As he drove away he wondered
whether she had been as radiant with Gaymer. Such intensity of passion
was frightening; love that grew from seed to flower and fruit in a
single day might die in a single night....
Ivy stood on the doorstep until he was out of sight. Eric stared long
at an unlighted cigarette and then searched his pockets for a match. He
was bewildered and a little nervous and utterly exhausted....
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER EIGHT
HALF-HONEYMOON
“... And by and by my Soul return’d to me,
And answer’d ‘I Myself am Heav’n and Hell:
Heav’n but the Vision of fulfill’d Desire,
And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire...”
EDWARD FITZGERALD: “RUBÁIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM.”
A fortnight before Whitsuntide Lord Pentyre engaged a taxi for the day
and drove round London, belatedly assembling a house-party for Croxton
Hall.
“Mothers aren’t fit to be trusted!,” he explained querulously to
Deganway, when they met in the smoking-room of the County Club. “I
suppose it’s the war. They’ve got utterly out of hand... And you could
always rely on mine to collect the worst-assorted cranks, crooks and
bores in the length and breadth of Buckinghamshire. I vaguely left
things to her... You must help me out, Gerry; we’ll make up a party of
our own and freeze out the others.”
Deganway called for a draft list of the guests before committing
himself.
“General Sir Maurice Maitland,” he read, letting fall his eye-glass in
blank dismay. “Oh, my dear, he’ll want to talk to me about the war; no
one can make him understand that it’s _over_... Lady Maitland... She
always wants to know what I’m going to do about Russia and _will_ make
me responsible for the peace conference... Ivy... Oh, that’s the niece;
Eric Lane has a wild passion for her—”
“I saw him at Maidenhead with her last Sunday. Happy thought! He shall
come and talk to her... I want one or two bright souls who’ll talk to
_me_ and perhaps take a hand in a little game of poker. You, me, Babs
Oakleigh, Sonia O’Rane, my young brother,—Amy Loring doesn’t play—the
Pinto de Vasconcellos....”
“Oh, Bobbie, _can_ we bear them for the whole of a long week-end?,”
asked Deganway with misgiving. “Madame is mortally offended with any
man who doesn’t make love to her, and the husband with any man who
does. I should hate to be knifed or garotted or whatever they do in
Brazil or wherever they come from.”
“I don’t know them. Margaret Poynter wished them on to my mother.”
“I don’t know them either. I dine with them, and that’s surely
enough... Well, I’ll see you through with them, if you’ll do the same
for me another time.”
Pentyre reached for his crutches and returned to his taxi. After
drawing blank at the Eclectic Club, he found John Carstairs at Hale’s
and Eric at the Thespian. The draft list was again submitted for
approval, with Ivy’s name prominently exposed as a bait; and, with an
effort of concentration, Eric addressed himself to the invitation. For
ten days he had been too much preoccupied to think of a world outside
Eaton Place and Ryder Street; week-end parties were no doubt being made
up; strange, half-forgotten voices summoned him to dine and go to the
opera, but he lived and worked in a dream bounded by unconsciousness
from the moment when Ivy left him at night till the moment when she
reappeared next day.
“Most of the party will be coming on Friday afternoon,” Pentyre
explained.
“Where to?,” asked Eric.
“Croxton, of course, you idiot! Do pay a _little_ attention! You
needn’t pretend you’ve never been there. Well, what about it?”
Eric stretched out his hand for the list and, on reading it again,
discovered that he had read it the first time without taking in any of
the names.
“I should love to come,” he answered absently.
Pentyre limped away in search of new victims, leaving Eric to dine with
Dr. Gaisford. An accomplice is entitled to full confidence, and Eric
had invited the doctor to receive a report on the Maidenhead
expedition; when Pentyre burst disturbingly in on his reverie, he was
wondering how much to tell. A week had passed since Ivy entered upon
her duties as secretary; on the first day she walked sedately into the
library, as nine o’clock was striking, then listened for the door to
close behind her and fluttered into his arms.
“I came so early that I had to wait outside for a quarter of an hour,”
she said, putting up her face to be kissed. “How are you, Eric?”
“Hardly awake yet,” he answered. “I usually dictate from my bed, at
this hour, but I didn’t want to embarrass you, so I’m dressed long
before my time.”
“But what a shame!... Won’t you kiss me good-morning, Eric?”
He shook his head and laughed. A half honeymoon was too dangerous an
experiment with a girl who was supposed to be considering
dispassionately whether she wanted to marry him. And, if he expected to
leave England in six or eight weeks’ time, there was abundant work to
be done first.
“I shall _probably_ call you ‘Miss Maitland’ from nine till six,” he
told her. “Do you like working with or without a hat? I’ll shew you
where I keep my typewriter and stationery and files and things; and
then I can give you enough letters to keep you occupied till
lunch-time.”
He was leading the way to the door, when Ivy laid her hand on his arm.
“Don’t be so horribly efficient for _five_ minutes,” she begged. “I
haven’t seen you since last night, Eric! _Such_ a long time! And I want
to be shewn your flat. I was too miserable to see anything when I was
here before.”
In a day and a night she had recovered her self-respect and composure;
she had slept well, and the shadows under her eyes had faded. Eric had
not the heart to chill her new-found happiness.
“Five minutes, then,” he conceded. “But we shall have to work twice as
fast afterwards. Did your aunt raise any objection to your coming here?”
“Oh, she was delighted... Eric, you _have_ got the loveliest rooms. We
shall live here, of course; I couldn’t bear to go anywhere else.”
“_If_,” he warned her.
“_When_,” she amended. “Eric, why d’you insist on waiting a month?
D’you want to see if you’ll get tired of me?”
“No, I just want to be sure that you know your own mind. Sudden
conversions are always dangerous. And you’re too precious to me to be
married on a snap division. So for a month we won’t say or do anything
that ties your hands in any way. I’m not giving a hint to any one, even
my own people; I’m not proposing to make any allusion to you.”
Before three days had passed Eric found that it was easier to take this
resolution than to live up to it. Amy Loring stopped him in the street
to say:
“I hear the little Maitland girl is working for you now. I’m so glad.”
“My secretary’s gone for a holiday,” he answered, unconsciously putting
himself on his guard. “Ivy kindly consented to come in her place for a
few weeks.”
“I was told you’d taken her on permanently.”
“Oh, no! Who did you hear that from?”
“Johnnie Gaymer. He seems to have transferred his affections to another
quarter. I won’t mention names, but a woman—she’s rather a friend of
mine; at least, her husband is; and, while he’s away, she’s been
getting much too intimate with Johnnie—I talked to her... And then I
talked to him. Whether it ever does any good I don’t know, but I did
tell him very frankly to keep his hands off other people’s property.
And, while I was on the subject, I told him to leave this Maitland
child alone. It was then that he told me she’d gone to you.”
“His intelligence department is good,” Eric commented. “She only came
to me two days ago.”
“I expect Johnnie feels that his nose is a little out of joint.”
Eric smiled, but he was disquieted; though he saw and heard nothing of
Gaymer, he could not help thinking of him; he had been brooding
uneasily when Pentyre came into the club; he continued to worry himself
with vague doubts as he waited for Gaisford.
“Well, I suppose I may say we’re on probation,” Eric announced, when
the doctor arrived for dinner. “I put the whole case before the girl,
the day after our talk, and we’re taking a month to see how we get on
before she makes her final decision. I hope that may be accounted to me
for prudence. By the way, she’s working for me as secretary for a few
weeks.”
“So I heard.”
“Damnation!”
The doctor laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
“You know, Eric, you’re as much of an ostrich as you’ve always been,”
he said. “Either credit people with the faculty of sight, or be
philosophical and say you don’t care what other people think.”
“I _don’t_ care,—but it’s annoying,” said Eric inconsequently. “How did
you hear?”
“From Barbara Oakleigh.”
Eric was startled, and his expression and tone grew hard.
“It’s very good of her to interest herself in me,” he murmured.
Gaisford ignored the sneer and gave Eric time to recover his urbanity.
“It’s very natural,” he amended. “I told you, when you first came back,
that you’d played far too big a part in her life for her to let go of
you without a struggle. You may think that, after the harm she’s done,
she’d keep away out of common decency—that’s a man’s point of view—;
but, when a woman gets down to what she considers vital, common decency
has no meaning for her. The function of woman—”
“What did she say?,” Eric interrupted, blowing away the froth of
generalization.
“We had a long talk. She asked if I’d seen you, and I said ‘Yes.’ How
were you? I said you were better than you’d been in ten years. Did you
seem happy? ‘Very,’ I said. (I’m devoted to Barbara in spite of
everything, but she wanted the luxury of feeling that she’d spoilt your
life and of pretending to be inconsolable about it; I couldn’t allow
that). She asked if you ever mentioned her; I said ‘no’... Then I could
see that she wasn’t satisfied, for her next question was—who was the
girl who was working for you; and was she the girl who was always with
you at the opera? I said, truthfully enough, that I didn’t know... Be
warned, my friend.”
“I wonder how she heard,” was all that Eric would answer; but he was
aflame with resentment at the thought that Barbara even unconsciously
dreamed of overturning the flimsy shelter which he was so patiently
erecting from the rubble and ruin of his life.
Gaisford looked at him out of the corner of his eye and saw that he was
frowning. He saw, too, that, were Barbara to question him now, he could
not so truthfully pay tributes to Eric’s health.
“Well, I wish you the best of luck, my son,” he said. “Of course, it’s
an enormous risk, but I think you do at least see that; and you’re
giving yourself as fair a chance as circumstances allow.”
“You’re—temperate in your enthusiasm,” Eric laughed.
“I’ve reached an age when I no longer look for perfection—even the
perfect marriage,” Gaisford said at length. “And I’ve outgrown romance.
And I’ve not many ideals left. When everything else is burnt out, I
want to know that you’ve found companionship. You’re as bad as all the
rest, Eric; at present you’re doing this for a new emotion... I don’t
_know_ this girl—, but is she going to be a _companion_? It’s an awful
thing to marry some one who’s not educated up to your standard; it’s
like playing bridge eternally with a partner who doesn’t know one suit
from another.”
“She’s—a companion all right,” said Eric softly, remembering with a
warm rush of gratitude the new colour that she had already brought into
his life. Ivy was quick and receptive; he found her also well-read and
intelligent, with a personal standpoint towards books and ideas which
she had taken up by herself and would not surrender without a struggle;
if she picked up her generation’s catch-words, it was because she was
still too young to understand the emancipation of which every one was
talking. Best of all, she was adaptable by nature, and he could see her
moulding herself to his form in the single hope of bringing him
happiness. “She’s companion enough to make me forget everything
else—already,” he added.
“_Already?_ It doesn’t occur to you that you’re both drunk with romance
at the moment? The reason why your two-penny-halfpenny plays are so
popular is that we all love telling ourselves stories and escaping into
a world where we can be as dramatic and romantic and purposeful and
magnanimous as a character in a book—or as you and this child are being
at this moment. Admit that you’re both enjoying it! The heroics, the
tragedy, the sacrifice—”
“I’m making no sacrifice, Gaisford,” Eric interrupted, soberly.
“You’re incorrigible! You were _bound_ to say that! It’s in the part.
Well, well! I only beg you—because I’m fond of you—not to make a farce
of what you call your probation. Imagine yourself criticizing some one
else’s play instead of living in one of your own. Detachment,
detachment!”
For the next few days Eric conscientiously tried to regard his
secretary as a soulless, amorphous machine; Ivy, however, was made too
much of a piece to work mechanically from nine till half-past one, then
give rein to her feelings from half-past one till three and again
relapse into a machine. She toiled as though her life and his career
depended on every letter that she wrote; her eyes shone when he came
into the room; and she took in every movement of his body and every
trick of voice and speech. At the end of the day she sprang up like a
child released from school and threw her arms round him.
“Do you _always_ work like this?,” she asked him one night. “It _must_
be bad for you.”
“I don’t call _this_ work,” he answered. “The atmosphere’s too highly
charged with Miss Ivy Maitland for that. But I want to get my present
job finished, so that, _if_ I go to America—”
“_When_,” she interrupted with a pleading smile that taxed his
fortitude. It was hardly possible to keep at an artificial distance
without robbing her of her precarious security.
“We’ll discuss that in three weeks’ time. _If_ I go, I want to go with
a clear conscience.”
“You insist on waiting?”
“We can’t take any risk, Ivy,” he sighed.
She pushed him gently into a chair and knelt on the floor by his side,
resting her face on her hands and looking at him with an adoration
which seemed still too great for her to comprehend.
“My darling, do you think I don’t love you more and more every day?,”
she asked. “I don’t _want_ to wait. Sometimes I grow frightened, Eric;
I wonder if you’ll repent... I know you love me, or you wouldn’t have
done what you have done—”
“But you wouldn’t be a woman, if you didn’t want me to tell you at
short intervals that I still loved you. I’m trying to get a cool
judgement from you.”
“And I don’t want to be cool or temperate or sensible. I... I want not
to be frightened again, Eric.”
Her eyes, wistful with discouragement, filled with tears and fell until
he could see the long lashes black against her cheeks. Since their
return from Maidenhead, she had never complained; and Eric was in
danger of forgetting that she had anything to fear. Putting his arm
round her waist, he lifted her on to the arm of the chair.
“You’ve nothing to be afraid of, Ivy,” he whispered, stroking her short
black hair until she grew calm at his touch. “I shouldn’t go back on my
promise, even if I wanted to. And it happens that I don’t want to.”
“But you _do_ love me, Eric? I’ve been thinking—quite a lot and quite
cold-bloodedly. I can’t take what you’re offering, unless you love me.
It would be too much, I should have no right... If I did anything,
after this, to make you wretched... And I _shouldn’t_ take it.... You
said you’d marry me in spite of everything, but I sometimes think
you’re marrying me _because_ of everything, _because_ I’ve made such a
mess of my life, _because_ you were divinely sorry for me. But do you
love me apart from that? If I told you that the whole thing was a
dream—”
“I should call it a device of destiny for bringing us together...” He
stopped abruptly, afraid to trust his voice, as her eyes lit up. “And,
by the same test, if that _were_ only a dream, would you want to marry
me?,” he continued.
“Yes.”
“More than any one you’ve ever met or are likely to meet?”
“Yes.” Eric sighed and lapsed into silence; for the first time in ten
days he felt sure of himself. “But I shan’t love you a bit,” she
pouted, “if you’re cold and remote when we’re married.”
“If... All right, I won’t tease you, Ivy child, if it frightens you.
What can I say to keep you from ever being frightened again? Shall I
tell you that my heart and head and everything inside me were dead
until a few days ago? You’ve brought me to life again...” He leaned his
head against her shoulder, staring into the empty fire and talking more
to himself than to her. “What d’you think it means to me to feel that
this room’s alive, alive with you? When I’m called, my first thought is
that in two hours I shall see you. An hour and a half, one hour... When
you come in, Ivy, it’s all dark outside. It’s not what I should call
easy to work with you. I want to break the typewriter and pick you up
in my arms... Is it just a coincidence that I’ve happened to lunch at
home every day this week? Or is it possible that I’ve been looking
forward to it ever since the last moment when we were off duty
together? Is it coincidence that I’ve been to the opera every night
this week—Aida, ye all powerful gods! and another dose of Louise—and
that I’ve sat two feet behind you so that I could see your face lit up
and knew that you were happy?” Her hand stole down over his shoulder,
and he seized and kissed it. “And I wonder if you’ll ever guess how
amazingly empty these rooms seem when I come back at night and find
you’re not here—and _won’t_ be here till next day?”
“I _know_. When I get back... I pray for you, Eric. I never used to
pray before. At least, it never meant anything to me, but now... I
thank God for you; and I feel He understands... He understands that
you’ve interceded for me. And I pray Him to forgive me and shew me some
way of paying you back. And sometimes I pray Him to make me patient;
and sometimes, when I’m frightened, I pray Him just to make the weeks
pass quickly. Ah, my dear one!” Her fingers tightened on his wrist, and
the voice at his ear trembled. “If anything happened to you!”
“Nothing’s going to, Ivy!”
“But _ever_? You’re sixteen years older than I am. When I’m seventy—”
“You’ll have had more than enough of me then.”
“Please God, I shall die before you, Eric!”
“Well, I’ll promise not to marry again,” he laughed. “Ivy, are you too
tired to take down one more letter?”
“My darling, of course not!”
“I want you to write to my solicitors. I’ve never made a will; and, of
course, I shall have to make another, _if_ and _when_ we marry, but I
don’t want to run even the remotest risk. I gather that you can’t look
to your father with any certainty?”
“He told me so—quite definitely. If I _chose_ to cut myself adrift—”
“Well, I’m going to tell my solicitors to draft a will; I’ll leave your
name blank and fill it in afterwards. Then, if I drop down dead in the
street—”
“Don’t, Eric!”
It was seven o’clock before he had finished, and they both had to dress
and make their way out to dinner by a quarter past eight. Eric walked
into Ryder Street to find her a taxi and to post his letters.
“What do you say to coming to my people for this next week-end?,” he
asked. “We won’t tell them anything, of course, but I should like you
to meet them. I’m committed to going any way; and I can take you on the
plea of work, if necessary. My younger brother was away fighting, when
he came of age, so we’re celebrating it now. Will you come? Good. We’ll
discuss details at dinner; you’re coming to this Brazilian show at the
Ritz, aren’t you?”
“Madame Pinto de Vasconcellos? Yes, Aunt Connie’s taking me.”
“Let’s hope we’re together. It threatens to be a tiresome evening.”
His dinner-party, heralded by a flamboyant card of invitation and
reinforced by the personal appeals of Lady Maitland, Mrs. Shelley and
Lady Poynter, had threatened him for three weeks. Early in the season a
taciturn and swarthy South American had descended upon London with a
wife, a bottomless purse and inexhaustible letters of introduction.
Madame Pinto had noteworthy diamonds, vitality, an interest in the more
obvious forms of flirtation and a hunger for entertaining. Her first
letter of introduction was presented to Lady Poynter, who telephoned to
six friends in twice six minutes: “If you will help me out with this
Pinto woman, I’ll do the same for you”; and for three weeks the
Brazilians were pushed from house to house by those who were menaced by
their own Madame Pinto—under other names—or who had launched Madame
Pintos in the past. Gerry Deganway, whose name headed every list of
those whom it did not matter inviting to meet the Pinto de
Vasconcellos, tracked them round London and sketched a map of their
progress from Belgrave Square and Lady Poynter, where they were
submerged by symbolist poets and rapidly expelled because they
“contributed nothing” to the symposium, by way of Eaton Place, where
Lady Maitland sold them boxes for charity concerts, to Grosvenor Square
and Croxton Hall, where Lady Pentyre took them in because, in her son’s
words, she knew no better and would be kind to any one.
Thereafter gratitude or vindictiveness urged them to reprisals, and for
three more weeks Lady Poynter arranged “Pinto parties” on the principle
that, if her friends would keep her in countenance on one day, she
would do the same for them when their turn came. The formula was
incorporated in the code of social honour, till a man would more
readily have malingered on the eve of an attack than failed to succour
a friend who was struck down by a Pinto invitation. Eric had resisted
for some weeks: but Lady Poynter at last presented an ultimatum, which
he saw no means of evading.
There was already a considerable nucleus when he reached the hotel a
few minutes before the advertised time for dinner; and those who knew
nothing of their host were industriously adding to the saga collected
by those who did.
“Why does Margaret Poynter _do_ these things?,” squeaked Deganway with
a petulant glance round the company. “She’s _too_ tiresome. What she
can _hope_ to get out of it—”