puzzled, for he was dispassionate, and no one else in the house seemed
to suspect anything. Eric was grateful to her for cutting all
circumlocution. “I like her, Eric, I like her immensely. She’s sweetly
pretty; I think she’s intelligent, too... You can’t expect any great
experience at that age, but then most girls of the present day are
wofully unpractical; she’ll have to learn, like the rest. So far as one
can tell on very short acquaintance, she’s a thoroughly nice little
girl... I always think a man should try to marry a woman whose
experiences are behind and not in front of her. Of course, they’re
growing all the time, but, like children, they grow so much more
quickly when they’re very young. In that way a man’s in danger of
marrying a child and finding soon afterwards that she’s grown into a
woman that he doesn’t recognize... Have you known her long, Eric?”
“No. And, while I know her very intimately in some ways, I hardly know
her at all in others. That’s why I wanted a general, outside opinion.
It’s more than possible, mother, that I may come to you one day and
tell you that we’re going to be married.”
Lady Lane nodded and kissed him lightly on the forehead:
“Well, I hope you’ll be very happy, dear Eric.” His mother was
delightfully practical and restrained. She looked out on the world with
steady eyes, treating emotion as an indecency. Eric wondered why none
of her calm nerves had descended to him. “She’s devoted to you, you’ve
only to say the word. Up to the present—?”
She paused interrogatively.
“Nothing’s fixed definitely,” Eric answered. “It’s rather hard to
explain, but there’s what I suppose you might call “an understanding.”
I can tell you this much: we’ve both of us seen that in love it’s
possible to be quite certain of yourself and then to find, rather
painfully, that you’ve been utterly mistaken. Yes, even at her age,
poor child... We’ve both learned the lesson and paid the price; we
don’t want to make any more mistakes. I’ve burned my fingers
sufficiently to have become very unromantic... Don’t you think we’re
right to wait?”
Lady Lane did not know what answer to give. Since Eric had seen the
blemishes in one woman, he was looking for them in all; soon he would
see nothing else.
“You mustn’t wait too long; that’s the only thing,” she advised him.
“I don’t want to take any risks.” He seemed to tell every one that—Ivy,
Gaisford and his mother.
“But, in marriage, risks are necessary. Marriage is always an
adventure, a blind leap. You don’t begin to know anything about a woman
until you’re married to her. Even if you waited until you thought there
was nothing more to learn, the girl becomes a wife, Eric, and the wife
becomes a mother. Even she doesn’t see how big the change is until long
afterwards, when she has time to look back and compare. _I_ don’t want
you to run any risks, my precious son.”
“I know... And _I_ want peace and quiet with somebody I love and
somebody who loves me,” he answered wearily. “You remember the last
time we had a talk in this room?”
“Well, Ivy loves you. Of course you’ve got a certain name, a certain
position; she’s a good deal dazzled by that.”
“That isn’t the biggest factor with her... Shall we go up? You won’t
say anything about this to the others, will you?”
They walked through the hall and up the stairs, arm in arm. Lady Lane
paused outside the door of her room and kissed Eric good-night.
“God bless you and make you happy, Eric,” she whispered.
“Thank you... I met Barbara the other night, mother.”
“Yes?”
“It was at a big dinner. I don’t want to meet her again; it brought
everything back much too vividly.”
“I’m afraid you’re bound to meet her occasionally.”
“I don’t think she’ll try to force a meeting.” Eric passed his hand
over his eyes, and his mother looked at him with concern. He was
beginning to shew her so many familiar danger-marks; and she prayed
that he would make up his mind before his nerves broke down again. “I
may be wrong,” he went on slowly; “it may be my colossal egotism, but I
thought that under all the vitality she was profoundly miserable. It
wasn’t an exhibition of remorse conducted for my benefit. I think she
saw that she’d made a mistake and put all her money on a losing number.
She didn’t trouble to hide it....”
“Well, my dear, she has only herself to thank.”
Eric shivered involuntarily:
“I don’t wish my worst enemy that degree of torture. And I can see no
way out of it for her.”
“And, even if you could, it wouldn’t be your business. She must lead
her life, Eric, and you must lead yours.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER NINE
A DOUBLE ESCAPE
“... Love so, then, if thou wilt! Give all thou canst
Away to the new faces—disentranced,
(Say it and think it) obdurate no more:
Re-issue looks and words from the old mint,
Pass them afresh, no matter whose the print
Image and superscription once they bore!
Re-coin thyself and give it them to spend,—
It all comes to the same thing at the end,
Since mine thou wast, mine art and mine shalt be,
Faithful or faithless, sealing up the sum
Or lavish of my treasure, thou must come
Back to the heart’s place here I keep for thee!...”
ROBERT BROWNING: “ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND.”
“I wonder what’s in store for us this time,” mused Deganway, as he
paced up and down the platform at Euston with Carstairs. “Bobbie
Pentyre has a genius for mismanaging a house-party. No technique, no
personality—”
“It’s not for want of experience,” interposed Carstairs gloomily. “It
must be ten years since I first stayed at Croxton, and something has
always gone wrong... The food’s improved, but the wine has
deteriorated. He knows such odd people, too... But that’s his mother’s
fault; she finds good in every one, makes a boast of it. Lord! I don’t
see why we shouldn’t have a Monroe doctrine against _rastaquouères_!”
Madame Pinto de Vasconcellos and Lady Maitland were being wedged into
place by their maids, while their husbands remained on the platform to
finish their cigars. Eric appeared with Ivy and was followed by Amy
Loring and Lady John Carstairs, later by Mrs. O’Rane and her husband.
“I didn’t know _you_ were going to be here!,” cried Amy, as she caught
sight of Eric.
“It’s not too late for me to go back, if you’d prefer it,” he answered
with a smile. “Carstairs and Gerry have decided that it’s going to be a
sticky party.”
“Oh, I should love you to come...” She blew a kiss to Ivy; but a frown
of misgiving settled on her face as she led Eric away from the
carriage-door. “You know John Gaymer’s invited himself? I’m sure it’s
only because he knows he’ll meet Ivy... I do hate rows and intrigues
and scenes and schemings!”
“I don’t think he’ll get much satisfaction from her,” Eric answered
reassuringly.
“I hope to goodness you’re right,” said Amy. “Unfortunately, Johnny’s
had a rebuff recently in another quarter... Some actress, I believe...
Sonia knows the whole story....”
She walked to and fro by the door, gazing anxiously down the platform;
then, on an impulse, she took O’Rane’s arm, whispered in his ear and
led him away from the others.
“Nothing serious, I hope?,” he murmured.
“Then you can hear there’s _something_ wrong!,” she laughed. “I wish
people’s voices told _me_ as much... No, I just wanted you to pull the
party together as much as possible; it’s not _too_ well chosen, and
poor Bobbie isn’t very clever at seeing a squall until he’s run right
into it. Do you remember poor Jim’s last ball at Chepstow on the eve of
the war? I shall never forget how wonderful you were in keeping things
going then. So, if you _do_ feel a storm brewing...?”
O’Rane nodded, and they walked back to rejoin Eric. The last stragglers
were being urged into their places and the doors slammed, when her eyes
opened wider. Looking past her, Eric saw a man in the light-blue
uniform of the Air Force.
“I was hoping they’d be left behind,” murmured Amy, as she got into the
carriage.
“Who’s with him?,” Eric asked.
“Barbara,” she answered shortly.
“Some one told me she’d gone to Ireland,” he said indifferently.
“No. George has only gone for two days on business, and she’s such a
bad sailor that she preferred to stay behind... My dear Babs, you
_nearly_ lost the train!”
A leap, a scramble and the support of anxious hands landed the
last-comers in safety, as the platform slid from under their feet.
Barbara felt her way into a vacant corner and looked round to see who
was in the carriage, nodding easily to Eric when his turn came. She
seemed so radiantly well and happy that he wondered whether she was
trying to make him forget the damning expression of tragedy which he
had seen on her face a week before. The train was not out of the
station before she had focussed all attention on herself, and she kept
the carriage in amused subjection until the journey’s end. Once or
twice Eric stole a glance at Ivy; but, if she felt shock or
embarrassment at being with Gaymer, she concealed it as nonchalantly as
he did and listened with the rest to Barbara’s picturesque story of a
luncheon with Gaymer, the theft of a general’s car, a scheme for flying
to Croxton, the breakdown of the car, the beguilement of a taxi-driver
from his dinner and a breakneck drive to a barren aerodrome and from
the aerodrome to Euston. She told a story as well as ever, he found,
always shewing herself in the absurdest light; and one story followed
another until the train drew in to Croxton.
“I’m so glad Lady Barbara’s here,” said Ivy, as they secured a car to
themselves.
“She always makes a house-party go with a swing,” answered Eric. “I
say, Ivy, if Gaymer gives you any trouble, let me know. I don’t suppose
he will... But, as a matter of fact, does he quite appreciate how he
stands? The last time you and he were together, you were engaged to
him. Have you ever broken off the engagement?”
“Not in words. Except for a moment at Maidenhead, I haven’t spoken or
written to him since that night. And I don’t want to now. I never want
to see him again. If he tried to talk to me—”
“You never told him why you wanted to be married without waiting for
him to be demobilized?”
Ivy’s cheeks flamed, and she turned her head so that he should not see
her face.
“With that woman there, in the next room?,” she cried. “I wasn’t going
to beg for mercy. I left it to his honour... And then I told him he
hadn’t any honour. And he said that, if _that_ was what I thought of
him—”
“Then he still doesn’t know?” Eric persisted. “If he comes and makes a
nuisance of himself, are you going to tell him?”
Ivy shook her head passionately:
“No! D’you think I’d look at him, if he begged me to? He shall see that
I don’t need him...” She turned suddenly with a look of pleading in her
eyes. “Eric, you won’t make me tell him?”
“Of course not! Keep out of his way as much as possible and tell him
that you simply don’t want to talk to him. Don’t make a scene, because
he’s probably more experienced in scene-making than you are.”
Though Gaymer had sat without speaking the whole way from Euston, a
feeling of tension, first experienced in advance by Amy Loring,
gradually spread to Eric and Ivy. In spite of Barbara’s high spirits,
uneasiness developed slowly into an antagonism which was made apparent
to the sensitive hearing of O’Rane less by the words spoken than by the
significant silences. The arrival at Croxton Hall created a temporary
diversion. As Gaymer quickly disappeared into the smoking-room on
learning that he would find whisky and soda there, Eric was spared all
danger of conflict with him. Ivy went at once to her room and only
reappeared under the protection of Amy Loring; Barbara was caught and
retained at the bridge-table until the dressing-gong sounded. Despite
the sombre forebodings of Deganway and Carstairs, Eric began to feel
that the week-end might pass without mishap, though he wished
fervently, as he bathed and dressed, that it was the last night of his
visit instead of the first.
When they went in to dinner, he was so much preoccupied with looking to
see who was on either side of Ivy that he did not notice at first that
he had himself been placed next to Barbara. The discovery that she was
within a foot of him steadied his nerves like the first bomb in an
air-raid. For half of the meal he talked with composure to Lady
Pentyre; then turned and tossed Barbara the shuttlecock of their
conversation, leaving her to shew whether she was content with safe
impersonalities or whether she was still bound to improvize a romantic
drama out of their meeting.
“Lady Pentyre’s just been telling me that my bedroom’s supposed to be
haunted,” he began. “She’s offered me another, without a bathroom, but
I told her that all the ghost-proof rooms in the world aren’t
compensation for the exclusive possession of a bath.”
“I suppose you’ve got my old room,” said Barbara reflectively. “I came
here, the winter before the war, for the Croxton Ball... Lady Pentyre
offered it to me again, but... I thought I’d leave it to some one who
didn’t take quite so many ghosts with him wherever he went...” She
shivered almost imperceptibly as she looked round the room, pretending
an interest in ill-executed portraits of mediocre Pentyres, none of
whom achieved higher rank than that of colonel, commander or dean. “It
was here... I told you the story... the first time you ever dined with
me... as soon as I knew that you were a friend of Jack’s. I had to get
it off my conscience.”
“I don’t think _I’ve_ been here since Bobbie’s coming-of-age,” Eric
answered. “Several of us motored over from Oxford: Deganway, Sinclair,
Raney, Summertown... That loving-cup on the side-table; I believe
you’ll find all our names on it—a joint present from all the other
members of the old Phoenix Club. There are none too many of them left
now,” he added with a sigh. “It doesn’t do to let yourself see
ghosts....”
Barbara was paying as little attention to the history of the loving-cup
as he had paid to her reflections on the haunted room. It was evident
now that she was preparing some kind of dramatic scene; and, though her
talent was hampered by the presence of others, he would not give her a
chance of playing a part that she might continue later in less
publicity. Eric was not likely to forget the first time that he dined
with her: with evenly balanced triumph and consternation she had
described her long and still unended duel with his best friend. Jack
Waring, it seemed, had snubbed her, and she took her revenge by making
him fall in love with her; when he proposed, she refused him because he
was not a Catholic; when he became a Catholic, she refused him again
and then, in superstitious terror that she was imperilling a man’s
soul, swore that she would marry him whenever he asked her again. Eric
was unlikely to forget that dinner because it was almost the first
skirmish in the long campaign by which Barbara set herself to make him
too fall in love with her; and, when she had succeeded only too well,
they discovered that her oath to Jack Waring still kept them apart.
“It doesn’t _do_...!” Barbara echoed. “You can’t always _help_ it... I
think of the last time I was here... and now! When I believed in God, I
often used to think what fun He must be having with me!”
“I can’t think God spends much time making people unhappy,” said Eric.
“They do it so well for themselves. He has only to create a little
egotism....”
Barbara crumbled her bread in silence, waiting to assure herself that
they were not being overheard.
“You still think it was egotism that kept me from marrying you, Eric?
It wasn’t. Fear, if you like; superstition... I _had_ promised Jack, I
was ready to stand all my life barefoot in the snow, waiting for him to
forgive me... I loved you, as I’ve never loved any one before or since;
you know that. But you wouldn’t wait. It would have been a terribly
easy way out... when I _wanted_ to... The night after you said good-bye
I telephoned to Jack, I asked him to come and see me... D’you remember
abusing me because I was _vain_? I hadn’t much vanity then, Eric. As
soon as Jack recognized my voice—it was the first time we’d spoken
alone since his release from Germany, since the war, since that ghastly
night when I swore on the Cross that, if he wanted me, I’d marry him—he
hung up the receiver. And then I knew at last... It may interest you to
hear that my famous pride was still flourishing so vigorously next
morning that I drove round to your flat as soon as I was dressed. They
told me you’d started for Liverpool. I didn’t know your ship, or I’d
have come on board.”
It might be morbid luxury of self-torture—Eric had lived through his
own nights and days of might-have-beens—, or a despairing effort to
recapture him, or a blend of the two, or a connoisseur’s appreciation
of dramatic irony; impulse and calculation, sincerity and
sensationalism were always curiously intermixed with Barbara.
“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” he answered coldly.
“Superstition, if you like... Or vanity... I knew that night that you
put something in life before love. You were _afraid_ of Jack, but you
never pretended to be in love with him... However, I don’t think these
_post mortems_ do any good. Amy Loring tells me that George is in
Ireland. Is it true that he’s selling his place there?”
“He would, if he could find any one to buy it. We haven’t very much
money. You see, I forfeited mine by marrying a Protestant and I don’t
care to go to my family... We may as well have it out, Eric. I married
him—dear God! I’d have married any one who spoke a kind word to me when
you went away... I’m trying to make him happy, I’m trying to make
amends to every one I’ve injured, but it’s rather a long list.”
“I hardly know Ireland at all,” Eric continued in disregard of his
emotional cue. “He invited me to Lake House years ago, but I couldn’t
afford the time....”
Barbara nodded mechanically, by now unconscious that he was trying to
head her off reminiscent dissection, hardly conscious that he had
spoken.
“It’s not quite what I expected of life,” she murmured humbly. “But
you... Are you happy, Eric?”
“Perfectly, thank you.”
“I’m glad. Time’s a wonderful healer. I always told you to go away and
forget me. You said you couldn’t.”
“I haven’t forgotten, but I’ve adjusted some of my values.”
Barbara stole a glance at him and then looked away, with eyes narrowed
in pain, over the head of the man opposite her, over the shoulders of
the footman, blankly and dizzily into the shadows at the end of the
room.
“Until humanity has no value at all...” she whispered. “Ah, Eric... If
I could wipe it all out and draw a sponge over your memory so that we
met as we met that first evening at Margaret Poynter’s, if I could make
you loving, tender—not to me, God knows!—, if I could cure your
bitterness of spirit and teach you not to condemn all women because one
woman once wrecked your life... Eric, if you could see yourself as I
still see you that first night... like a faun, with big startled
eyes...” She found her voice rising and stopped abruptly. “I think Lady
Pentyre told me it was the ghost of a woman who’d been killed in the
Civil War. You’re not afraid of ghosts?”
“Like everything else, they have to be faced boldly.”
There was a moment’s deepening silence, and Lady Pentyre caught the
eyes of the women. It was only when he was free from the tension of
Barbara’s presence that Eric realized her power. No other woman set his
nerves tingling and his blood racing through his veins, and no other
woman responded to him as Barbara did. When she flung her crude
emotionalism at him, he was still never sure of himself; a very little
more would go to his head... He looked round the table, counting the
empty chairs and calculating the dinners that he had still to eat; with
reasonable luck Lady Pentyre would not put him next to her for another
meal.
A hand was laid on his knee, and he found O’Rane trying to speak to
him. Pentyre and Gaymer were arguing with irritating heat about some
trivial and forgotten aspect of the war, and it was difficult for any
one else to make his voice heard.
“Our intrepid airman is becoming the least little bit of a nuisance,”
murmured O’Rane. “I thought he was a bit thick when he got into the
train at Euston, though he didn’t say much. I shall have to take him in
hand; he used to be quite a nice boy.”
Eric’s attention had wandered until he was hardly conscious of his
surroundings.
“I... scarcely know him,” he answered.
“You’ll find him worth cultivating... when you’ve overcome your dislike
of him,” said O’Rane with a softly malicious laugh.
Gaymer’s voice could be heard growing in assertiveness; and, though
Pentyre interrupted from time to time, his resistance gradually
weakened until he faint-heartedly cut his opponent short by suggesting
to General Maitland and Don Pinto that they should all go into the
drawing-room.
“Strategic retreat,” commented Gaymer in thick scorn.
He was flushed and combative, but still master of himself; and, as he
crossed the hall and entered the drawing-room, his manner changed. Eric
watched him being absorbed into a bridge-four with the Maitlands and
Barbara; the rubber ended without unpleasantness, and he began to
wonder whether he had not imagined all the tension which he seemed to
feel from the moment when he caught sight of Barbara and Gaymer
hurrying along the platform. It was difficult to see what either of
them could do; Barbara had already played her scene and had not been
encouraged to repeat it; Gaymer had hardly spoken to Ivy, and he could
see that she was taking pains never to be left alone....
It might be nothing but coincidence that they were all meeting in the
same house, but Eric did not want a single-handed encounter with a man
whose hostility had been latent ever since their first meeting three
years before. When the women went up to bed, he only stayed in the
smoking-room long enough to choose a book. Gaymer threw him an abrupt
but not uncivil “good-night,” and he walked upstairs with vague, tired
relief that he had survived the first evening without altercation.
There was a note on his dressing-table: “_Good-night, beloved. Sleep
well. God bless you. Ivy._” He smiled and began to undress. At the end
of the passage he heard doors shutting; as he got into bed, there was a
slow clatter on the stairs, followed by “Good-night, Pentyre,”
“Good-night, General. You’re sure you’ve everything you want?” There
followed a belated “good-night” in the unmistakable clipped utterance
of Don Pinto de Vasconcellos. Half-an-hour later Eric heard O’Rane and
Gaymer coming up and separating, with suppressed chuckles, outside his
door; their footsteps grew faint, and in another moment the house sank
into silence.
Feeling too tired to begin a new book, Eric turned out the light and
was settling himself comfortably in bed when he saw a square outline of
yellow round the door of the bathroom. He raised himself on his elbow
with a murmur of annoyance, when the door opened slowly and he saw a
tall figure in a loose white wrap. For a startled, uncertain moment he
remembered Lady Pentyre’s warning that the room was haunted and
Barbara’s addition that the visitant was a woman who had been killed in
the Civil War. While he did not believe in ghosts, his hand explored
nervously for the electric-light switch; some one might be playing a
practical joke, but Pentyre was still unable to walk without crutches,
and Gaymer had barely had time to get to his own room. Possibly—he had
forgotten or neglected the geography of the house—some one had mistaken
his door.
“Hullo?”
“Eric!”
It was Barbara’s voice; and his hand trembled as it turned the switch.
Her hair rippled in waves over her shoulders; her eyes shone burningly,
and the fingers that held the wrap together were shaking; with the
other hand she clung for support to the edge of the door. Eric saw that
her face was colourless, that her bosom rose and fell with her quick
breathing; as she took a step forward, he noticed that her feet were
bare and thrust hurriedly into slippers trodden down at the heel; and,
as she moved, the dumb paralysis of surprise left him.
“What on earth are you doing here?,” he cried.
“Hush! Eric... I was afraid one of the others might come in, so I
waited. I thought they’d never go to bed... Eric, you think I’ve done
you a great wrong—I have! I admit it!—But, if I can’t undo the harm
I’ve done....”