theatre,” interrupted Carstairs. “Well, I mustn’t throw stones; my old
mother wants to stick him with Herrig on a long lease. _I_ think it’s a
bit of a gamble, because no one knows anything about them. The Embassy
shuts up like an oyster, if you mention their name; and the Brazilian
colony don’t seem much the wiser.”
“Oh, _I_ heard—Now, let me see, what _did_ I hear?,” said Deganway,
letting fall his eye-glass and frowning. “He got a contract for
building a new railway and, because the contract said nothing about
bridges, he stopped short, whenever he came to a river, and started
again on the other side. Then they gave him a new contract to build the
bridges and link up his system. _That’s_ where he made his profit; but
Brazil wasn’t healthy, when he’d finished, so he bolted with the
boodle. So romantic! He didn’t bolt quick enough, though; _she_
overtook him just as the gangway was being cast off.”
He laughed thinly; but Eric had heard enough from him and, turning
away, he found himself face to face with Lady John Carstairs.
“Do _all_ English people make fun of a woman before eating her food,”
she said rather sharply, with a quelling gesture at her husband, as
they shook hands.
“Only the better-bred,” Eric answered. “It’s one of the things you have
to get used to. What’s Madame Pinto like? I don’t even know her by
sight.”
“Oh, she’s quite harmless, but you can’t pick up everything in a day.
I’ve been here six months and I can’t yet keep all my own husband’s
relations distinct... Ah, here they are!”
She turned with a smile, as a stout, sallow woman in a pink dress
advanced apologetically into the lounge with a tall, saturnine husband
at her heels. Both looked round with dizzy shyness, breaking into
shrill effusiveness, when they recognized a face and could fit it with
an approximate name. Madame Pinto de Vasconcellos spoke fluent English
with a strong accent; her husband limited himself to a bow, a handshake
and a clipped “How do you do?,” as his wife’s friends brought up their
own friends to be introduced. From time to time, pretending to count
the numbers, he peered furtively at a type-written list, but, as Lady
Poynter undertook the introductions and never remembered more than one
name, his initial perplexity deepened to bewilderment.
Eric was caught and pushed forward with a hasty, “You know Madame
Pinto, don’t you? Now, is it worth while waiting for the Oakleighs?
Barbara was born a week late, and she’s never caught up.”
Though he fancied that for the last fortnight he had forgotten Barbara
and that for the last three months he had rehearsed himself into
impassivity, Eric knew that the muscles of his face were stiffening.
Lady Poynter was happily too much preoccupied to notice any sign of
embarrassment, and in a moment he was at ease again. It would be a
strain on his fortitude, perhaps, if he were placed next to Barbara;
but he knew that he could meet her and sit composedly at the same
table. He knew also that this meeting had to take place....
Lady Poynter possessed herself of the type-written list and suggested
that they should begin without waiting any longer. As he peered at the
name-cards, Eric was relieved to find that he was five places away from
Barbara, on the same side of the table, between Ivy and Madame Pinto;
he was further relieved that he was facing the door so that he would
probably see her before she saw him....
As dinner began, his hostess exchanged bewilderment for frank
recklessness.
“I do not know half these people,” she confided loudly. “I meet so
many. Tell me, Mr. ——,” she reached for powdered sugar and tried
without success to read Eric’s name-card, “the woman next to Lord
Poynter; who is she?”
“That’s Lady John Carstairs,” Eric answered. “Her husband’s on Lady
Maitland’s right; and that’s his mother, the Duchess of Ross, between
your husband and Mr. Deganway.”
“Ah, thank you. It is so confusing at first. I have made the most
dreadful mistakes through not knowing who every one was.”
“Well, Lady John says she doesn’t yet know her own relations,” Eric
answered reassuringly. “She’s an American, you know.”
Madame Pinto rolled her eyes in consternation:
“I did not know. We met at Lady Poynter’s house, and I said terrible
things about North America. In my country—Brazil, you know... You are
not an American?”
“You can say anything you like to me, Madame Pinto. Political, racial,
religious... By the way, half these people are Catholics, you know....”
He broke off, as the door opened to admit Barbara and George Oakleigh.
Eric felt his features stiffening again, as she looked round to
identify her hostess and came forward with an exaggerated apology. She
had always dominated any room that she entered; she dominated this one.
While she paused a studied moment in the door-way, every one
involuntarily turned to look at her; the comfortable clatter of
conversation grew still and died away, to be succeeded by blurred cries
of welcome: “Babs!” “Dear Barbara, how sweet you look to-night!” “Babs
darling!” Eric had stood a dozen times, like George Oakleigh, a pace
behind her, as she came into the room; like him, a little embarrassed
to be late; like him, exulting in the theatrical magnificence of her
entry....
Ivy touched his arm and whispered:
“Is that Lady Barbara? I’ve only seen her in the distance before. Eric,
how fascinating she is!”
Barbara brought her apology to an end and looked for her chair. Her
eyes met Eric’s, and, as she passed him, she shook hands and murmured,
“How are you?” There was a final spurt of welcome from the men on
either side of her, as she sat down; and Eric tried to remember what he
had been discussing before her interruption.
Madame Pinto had lost no time in establishing him as her confidant and
adviser; with her second glass of champagne, matter-of-course
friendliness warmed to embarrassingly out-spoken coquetry.
“You are clever and nice,” she proclaimed resonantly, darting a swift
glance from under darkened eye-lashes and touching his hand with
sparkling, ring-laden fingers. “Those two, now? Who are they?”
“George Oakleigh and his wife,” Eric answered in an undertone. “He used
to be in the House—in Parliament, you know. She was Lady Barbara Neave,
daughter of Lord Crawleigh, our Governor-General in Canada at one time,
then Viceroy of India. She’s related to almost everybody here—first
cousin of Carstairs, first cousin of Lady Amy Loring....”
Madame Pinto nodded vehemently until her diamonds quivered and flashed.
“I remember! I met her at lunch with Lady Poynter. And, also, I have
heard of her,” she answered. “That young man in your Ministry of
Foreign Affairs—”
“Deganway? You mustn’t take all he says too literally,” interposed Eric.
Madame Pinto’s voice was more penetrating than she knew; and he could
see that Barbara was sitting inattentive to her neighbours.
“He said that she had broken all your hearts, one after another... I am
not surprised.”
“You _must_ be careful,” Eric whispered in agony. “She’ll hear.”
Barbara had already heard and was pretending that she had not,
galvanizing herself to an interest in her neighbour. Madame Pinto
looked down the table and saw her preoccupied.
“Ah, you are one of all those relations! I am sorry, Mr. ——?”
“An old friend,” Eric answered brusquely.
Perhaps it was feminine curiosity, perhaps Madame Pinto felt
subconsciously that she was being headed off something of interest,
perhaps she had a perverse talent for the _mal à propos_. Certainly it
seemed as though nothing would satisfy her until she had plumbed the
bottomless pool of gossip in which Deganway had submerged Barbara; and
for the hundredth time Eric wished that some one would thrash Deganway
or cut his tongue out.
“I hear you’re taking a house in London,” he began hurriedly.
Madame Pinto was not to be so easily diverted from her quest.
“Mr. Deganway told me,” she pursued, “that, when she was sixteen, a man
blew his brains out, because she would not marry him. He says that,
ever since, she has expected it of all the others.”
“The first part of the story’s probably untrue; the second certainly
is,” Eric answered curtly. “I know her very well, Madame Pinto. She’s
always been rather unconventional, she’s always been greatly admired
and very much in the public eye. The result is that no story is too
fantastic to be believed about her by people who don’t know her.
Deganway _does_; and he’s no business to talk such nonsense... I used
to see a great deal of Lady Barbara before her marriage; I look back on
her friendship as one of the greatest achievements of my life. Steele
said of Lady Elizabeth Hastings that to love her was a liberal
education; I should like to think that my friendship meant half as much
to any one.... Do you know Carstairs well? He’s in the Diplomatic, and
I believe he was out in Rio once....”
The abrupt transition from low-voiced, tense earnestness to a
conversational drawl convinced even Madame Pinto that he was forcibly
dismissing Barbara from discussion.
“Have I said something dreadful?,” she asked with an unabashed smile.
“Didn’t I tell you that you could say anything you liked to me?,” he
laughed. “Political, racial, religious? I only draw the line at
something personal, when it concerns a friend of mine and doesn’t
happen to be true. Deganway ought to know better.”
As he turned to Ivy, Eric glanced involuntarily past her and was in
time to see Barbara looking quickly away. She, then, had heard, too.
And probably half a dozen more on either side, but they did not matter.
He wondered whether she would try to speak to him after dinner. She
would love the dramatic sense of humility in thanking him for his
defence....
“I sent my mother a line before dinner to fix up about the week-end,”
Eric announced at random. “I forget if I warned you that my father had
a serious illness last autumn....”
His family and home provided a subject for discussion with Ivy until
the end of dinner. While Madam Pinto was talking, it seemed as though
they were rivetted to their chairs through all eternity; as soon as he
was set free, their plates were snatched away almost before they could
see what had been placed before them. Lulled by the drone of his own
voice, Eric roused with a start to hear the Duchess of Ross asking her
son whether he had room for her in his car, as she had to be at another
party by eleven. One or two of the men looked at their watches; chairs
were pushed back and heads dived under the table in search of gloves
and bags. Barbara stood up and took in the room at a glance; and Eric
felt that her personality spread through the air like a wave of
electricity. Ivy was talking to Lady Maitland, Madame Pinto was
receiving thanks and showering _adieux_ on her guests; alone and apart,
he was too far from any one to take cover.
Barbara began to draw on her gloves and walked slowly towards the door.
As she came opposite him, she turned almost in afterthought, looking up
for an instant before concentrating afresh on the buttons of her glove.
“It was nice of you to stand up for me against that odious woman,
Eric,” she whispered.
“One lie more or less hardly matters at this season, Lady Barbara.”
“Dear God! don’t call me that!”
Eric had a full armoury of bitterness, but opportunity killed any
desire to use it. He had been ready to find Barbara falsely repentant
or as falsely defiant; she would perhaps explain, perhaps scoff; he had
not expected that she would plead for mercy because he had unwittingly
hurt her.
“_I_ did not seek this meeting,” he answered.
“You never used to be vindictive.”
“I’m doing my best to forget anything I was, anything I’ve done.”
“You hate me as much as that? I thought... No, I hoped, I _hoped_ you
meant it when you said that to love me was a liberal education.”
Her softly reproachful tone puffed into flame every memory of his own
three years’ suffering, which to her was but an occasion for snatching
at a compliment.
“If so, a liberal education has no place for romance. You cured me of
that. It was not your fault. As you know, I’d been a semi-invalid all
my life; I’d been brought up among women who shewed me only
unselfishness and devotion and patience and sacrifice. I could trust
them; they told the truth. When you used the same terms, I thought they
meant the same things to you.”
She bit her lip until it shewed grey under the white gleam of her teeth:
“Well, I hope you at least will be happy, Eric, some time. When you
are, you’ll become magnanimous again. Then perhaps you’ll forgive me.”
“I can’t feel that my forgiveness plays much part in your happiness.”
“I sometimes wonder if I’ve ever known what happiness means...
Good-bye, Eric.”
She held out her hand and stood looking at him with eyelids flickering
as though he had struck her in the face; she was wincing before a
second blow. To act was so much second nature to her that her attitude
of unfriended humility might be a pose; but Eric felt that, inasmuch as
she had not descended to his duel of bitterness, she had prevailed in
the encounter. He hated the whole evening, with its need to lie in her
defence and his own bursting desire to escape the charge of magnanimity.
Eric drew his hand away, but he could not help looking at her
flickering lids and reproachful eyes. So she had stood a score of times
when she had goaded him to madness and his taut nerves had snapped. No
longer acting, but suddenly hurt, suddenly shocked, suddenly tired;
sorry to have maddened him, but helplessly torn and unable to let him
go; and always gently maternal, yearning to comfort, to forgive... Her
lips were parted; Eric could have sworn that her hands twitched as
though she were once more going to throw her arms round him and seal
her forgiveness with a kiss. With theatrical timeliness he heard George
Oakleigh excusing himself from accepting an invitation....
It was impossible to stop looking at her... Why George? He wanted to
fling the question at her, demanding why she had married George
Oakleigh instead of waiting, though he knew that their love was
paralysed before they parted. Waiting would have done no good. But why
George, if he had not made her happy? She did not hint that she had
married the wrong man, but it was written in her eyes; tragedy had come
home to a woman who had played mock-tragic parts all her life...
Loneliness... Despair... And Eric had fancied that the suffering had
been all on his side, that she had at worst been worried to know how to
explain away her treatment of him....
“Thursday, yes. I don’t think we’re doing anything on Thursday. I’ll
ask Babs.”
George was still juggling with his invitation: he must have kept it
aloft for hours by now... And he was coming to draw Barbara into the
game.
“Good-bye, Lady Barbara,” said Eric.
She winced again:
“Do you need that to make yourself secure? If you knew how it hurt!
Whatever I’ve done... I haven’t defended myself, have I, Eric? And,
whatever you think of me, won’t you say you forgive me, if I tell you
that I need it, that it will make a difference to me? Do you want me to
feel that I’ve killed your generosity—in addition to everything else?”
“I’ll say it, if it’s any consolation to you.”
“Thank you, Eric. You needn’t be afraid, I’ve had my share of
education, too. I didn’t know you were going to be here to-night; I’ve
tried not to embarrass you. If it’s any help for you to know where I’m
dining and that sort of thing... I’ll do anything I can not to make
things harder.”
Eric shook his head quickly and looked up, as George crossed the room.
Barbara’s moment of sincerity had passed: she had passed the
half-obliterated line between emotion and drama. Already she was
weaving a romance about the pair of them: there was to be a life’s
passion thwarted, two starved hearts beating in remote loneliness,
resignation on her side and chivalry on his, with ingenious romantic
appliances to keep the starved hearts starving; they were to spend as
much quixotic contrivance on keeping apart as ever a pair of lovers had
given to daily clandestine meetings... A sensationalist to the core...
The distraction would keep her dramatic sense stimulated for years; in
the endless possibilities of make-believe she might forget her tragedy.
He would almost have abetted her, if so he might forget the look of
tragedy which he had seen in her eyes; but he could not trust her....
“We’ll take our chance,” he said. “I shall possibly be going away
fairly soon.”
George was waiting patiently until they had finished.
“I say, Babs, are we doing anything on Thursday?” he asked. “Madame
Pinto wants us to lunch, and I said I thought we could.”
She looked at her husband with a smile of gentle reproach:
“Darling George, we’ve got the O’Ranes lunching with us. Am I right in
thinking that you’ve forgotten all about them?”
Eric bowed and turned away. “_Am I right in thinking...?_” It was a
familiar trick of speech; Barbara had used it to him on the night of
their first meeting nearly four years ago. It hurt him to hear her
using it to George, though he did not mind her calling him “darling”.
Women were a promiscuous sex, transferring their hearts and bodies as
light-heartedly as a servant took a new situation “to better
herself”... As he passed out of sound of their voices, he felt that
this evening he had had the greatest escape of his life; Barbara would
not try to meet him again, and he could keep her at arm’s length, if
she did. He only hoped that he would forget that look of tragedy....
Ivy was waiting for him by the door, and he felt that he owed her an
explanation, perhaps an apology....
“Aunt Connie’s gone home in Lady Poynter’s car,” she announced. “She’s
left her own for us. I’d better drop you at your flat and take it on
home.”
“I’ll just say good-bye...” He darted back and rejoined her a moment
later. “Well, thank goodness _that’s_ over. Of all the forcible feeders
who outrage total strangers in the sacred name of hospitality... Did
you enjoy yourself, Ivy?”
She pressed his hand, once more at ease; and he wondered whether she
fancied that she was rescuing him for herself from Barbara.
“I love being with you—as you know, you vain thing!,” she answered.
“Shall I tell you something? I went into the dining-room before dinner
and found Mr. Deganway and Lord Pentyre working round the table. Lord
Pentyre said, ‘Any luck, Gerry? I’ve drawn Amy Loring and Connie
Maitland. Might be worse.’ And Mr Deganway said, ‘Oh, my dear, I’m
between Eleanor Ross and Margaret Poynter. I don’t think I can bear
that; I shall break down and cry.’ So he changed the cards. Well, you
said you hoped we should be together, I didn’t see why I shouldn’t look
after myself; so I changed places with Lady John and put myself next to
you. Were you pleased?”
“You badly brought-up child! Yes, I was pleased, but I wish you’d given
me Lady John on the other side instead of the Vasconcellos woman.”
He settled comfortably in his corner of the car, reminded inevitably of
the nights three years ago, when he drove home with Barbara, discussing
the party that they had left. She was the first woman to break down the
isolated self-sufficiency of the bachelor and to teach him the
indulgent delight of sharing trivialities; and, from the day when she
dropped out of his life, he had been groping blindly for anything that
would breach the wall of desolation and silence which was her parting
gift....
The car stopped at the door of his flat in Ryder Street, and Ivy put up
her face to be kissed.
“Good-night, darling Eric,” she whispered.
“Good-night, sweetheart.”
As the car drove away, he stood irresolutely in the hall, swinging his
keys. A widower remarrying.... He was beginning to treat Ivy very much
as he had treated Barbara, thinking of her and for her in the same way,
using the words which had once been sacred to Barbara. And Ivy was
fitting herself into his life as Barbara had once done... Promiscuity
was not the differentia of woman....
Two days later his mother wrote colourlessly to say that she would be
delighted to see Miss Maitland for the week-end. If she speculated on
the person and destiny of a girl whose name her son had not mentioned
until that moment, she kept her own counsel. When they travelled down
to Winchester on the Saturday afternoon, a Remington was included in
their luggage, and Eric reminded Ivy that they must keep up the
pretense that she had come to help him with his work. Though they had
rehearsed their parts, both were a little self-conscious; and to their
oversensitive appreciation every one at first seemed elaborately
anxious not to betray surprise. Sybil met them at the station and
greeted Ivy with unreserved friendliness; Lady Lane welcomed her in the
hall, and, when Eric went upstairs to dress, Basil came into his room
with ingenuous congratulations.
“Very nice line in secretaries, old thing,” he observed, throwing
himself on Eric’s bed. “And it’s like you to keep her to yourself, you
old dog, when I’ve been mouldering for two years in Salonica and simply
yearning for refined female society.”
“I took the earliest possible opportunity,” Eric answered. “She’s only
been with me a fortnight, while my permanent secretary’s taking a
holiday; and she’s only going to be with me another fortnight.”
“Well, send her along to my jolly old office, when she’s through with
you,” Basil suggested swiftly. “You’ve simply no conception of the sort
of thing that’s blown in during the war. Every sign of staying, too.”
“I don’t think she’s on the look-out for that kind of job. I know her
people, and, when she heard I was alone and secretaryless, she very
kindly volunteered to come and lend me a hand till the other girl came
back.”
Basil wagged his head dubiously.
“I call it very trusting of her parents,” he said. “Fresh sweet English
girl, young bachelor of doubtful morality, notoriously associated with
the stage... I don’t like it at all. I think I must warn her about you.”
“I doubt if you’ll cut much ice... Is any one dining, or are we
treating her to unrelieved family?”
“The Warings are coming over to ease the monotony. And, by the same
token, I’d better go and dress!”
Basil, then, suspected nothing; Geoffrey would think what Basil told
him to think; his father would awake to interest when the engagement
was announced—and not before. There remained his mother and Sybil.
Lady Lane was by herself in the drawing-room, when he went down, and
she laid aside her paper to say:
“My dear, what a sweet little girl! Where did you find her?”
Whether it were deliberate encouragement or not, Eric was pleased:
“I met her in America first of all. She’s a daughter of the judge. I
gather he knew the guv’nor in some prehistoric period.”
“I don’t remember the name.” Lady Lane waited, as though she expected
that Eric might have something more to tell her; then she repeated: “A
sweet little girl. You’re lucky to find her. What’s happened to the
other one?”
“She’s only having a holiday. Ivy very kindly volunteered to come in
her place.”
He used the Christian name deliberately and left his mother to draw her
own inferences. There was a second silence; and, because she asked
nothing more, he felt that, before he left the house, he must take his
mother into his confidence.
Throughout dinner he tried to keep one eye on his family and the other
on Ivy. She was achieving a marked success, which was not confined to
his younger brothers. Sybil and the Warings made at least a show of
surrender, and her success reacted on Ivy. Though she dared not look at
him, Eric could see that her eyes were shining as on the day when he
had brought her back from Maidenhead; she was feeling, as clearly as if
she cried it aloud, that he had the most delightful parents and
brothers and sister in the world.
It was after eleven—and late for Lashmar Mill-House—before the Warings
left. Eric waited to fasten the windows, while his mother turned out
the lights; they met in his father’s work-room.
“I quite forgot to ask Miss Maitland if she’d like her breakfast sent
up to her,” said Lady Lane, as she collected the day’s papers and
dropped them into a basket.
“She never eats any—except tea and toast,” Eric answered. “Before you
go up, mother, I should like you to tell me candidly what you think of
her.”