Miss Maitland. Amy Loring told me at dinner. How is she? I was
wondering if there was anything I could do. You’ve got all the doctors
and nurses you want, of course, but it must be such an upset for a
bachelor establishment. My husband wanted to know if you’d care for a
bed here; we can give you a little room where you’ll be able to work
undisturbed....”
As he thanked her, Eric smiled wearily to himself at the speed and
thoroughness of Gaisford’s workings. In twenty-four hours it would be
known from one end of his little London to the other that “Connie
Maitland’s niece, who was helping Eric Lane in the absence of his
secretary,” had collapsed unexpectedly with appendicitis. He assisted
the report on its way by cancelling two dinner invitations and an
engagement for the week-end; growing bold in mendacity, he stereotyped
the story, as he had told it to the judge, and despatched it with a
late bulletin to his mother. By this time there was no harm in telling
Lady Maitland that she might come any day, provided that she did not
try to stay more than a moment.
The swift-flying rumour of London dinner-tables was sometimes an
occasion for blessing. In three weeks’ time Ivy could be moved; the
news of their engagement would flash from house to house; ‘romance,’
hard-worked and ill-used, would be pressed into service as
thought-saving description until he might hope to be spared, even in
the echo of a whisper, hearing the name of Barbara Neave or of John
Gaymer. He was too tired to cope with the tumult which their names
conjured up; he tried to forget them....
Yet even now Gaymer could not be left where he was.
“_There is one thing which I must add to our conversation of this
evening_,” Eric wrote. “_Ivy and I are definitely engaged to be
married. I write this in confidence, as the engagement cannot be
announced until I have been through the formality of seeing her father.
This I hope to do immediately. You will probably agree that this is the
most definite answer to the question which you were proposing to
raise._”
He signed the letter and returned to the unexplored pile in front of
him. The invitations stretched far into the summer, but for the future
he must take Ivy into partnership in dealing with them; there were the
customary appeals for money, opinions and advice, the usual requests
for interviews, articles and lectures; a long envelope contained the
draft of the will which he had instructed his solicitors to make for
safeguarding Ivy in the event of his dying suddenly. The necessity had
almost passed; but, as he read through the provisions, he filled in her
name and rang for his two maids to come and witness his signature. From
investments alone they would have rather more than a thousand a year,
which was tolerable even in days of swollen prices; in addition he
could reasonably hope that his plays would not all cease suddenly and
at the same moment to yield him any fees. His income, taken on an
average, was probably far bigger than Mr. Justice Maitland enjoyed from
salary and securities.
Eric became absorbed in his calculations and worked at them until he
was too tired to see any more. Ivy and he would have enough for a flat
in London and a cottage in the country; they could winter abroad and
travel to their hearts’ content; when children came, they could be
given the best upbringing and education, as befitted the beautiful,
dark-haired, grey-eyed children that Ivy would bear. Hitherto he had
never thought of himself as a father; and he fell asleep with a new,
delightful picture of Ivy holding their first child in her arms,
herself but a child still....
Next day a budget of sympathetic enquiries awaited him, and he was kept
busy with pen and telephone. There were presents of flowers and fruit,
offers of personal assistance, general invitations and an embarrassing
procession of callers. Eric debated with himself whether to issue
orders that Captain Gaymer was not to be admitted; he decided that, if
his letter were not enough of a deterrent, there would at least be no
attempt at a forced entry for some days.
Though he kept reassuring himself, it was a shock to receive a letter
in the evening and to trace the straggling, unfamiliar writing down to
the signature “Yours sincerely John Gaymer.” Eric felt his heart
beating more quickly as he turned to the opening words:
“_I have your letter. All that you say may be true, but it doesn’t
affect my point. So far as I know, the facts have never been put before
Ivy. Will you tell her that I should like to see her as soon as she’s
well enough? The issue is quite plain._”
Eric locked the letter away in a despatch-box and walked up and down
the library, trying to compose himself before Gaisford came in from the
sick-room. Even without Gaymer, the last few weeks had been
sufficiently exhausting—first Ivy, then Barbara and the succession of
unnerving encounters with her; and, before that, the shock of her
marriage, the torturing sense of betrayal, the endless nights and days
of inward raving and outward stoicism in which he had travelled and
lectured and written from end to end of America like an effigy of
himself with the spirit torn out and bleeding apart; and, before that,
the two years of illness and madness. It was not surprising if he
sometimes felt that something in his head, just behind the eyes, would
snap; it was unpleasantly surprising to calculate that he had not felt
well for months, that he was half-consciously waiting to hear the snap.
He was sitting with his head bent forward, squeezing his fists against
his temples, when the doctor came in. The door was open, and Eric never
knew how long Gaisford had stood watching him before he looked up; and,
though he rallied at once and asked steadily enough for the evening
report, he felt trapped.
“She’s doing very nicely,” said Gaisford, still looking at him
curiously. “If you don’t let people see her till I give you leave—.”
“You can trust me for that,” Eric interrupted.
“And if I say you’re not to see her yourself?”
“I shouldn’t dream of going near her against your orders!”
The doctor silenced him with a grunt and began digging like an
industrious terrier among the papers on the writing table.
“Tell me where you keep your cigars and don’t become theatrical,” he
advised. “Since when have you started this flattering regard for my
orders?”
“I’ve done everything you’ve told me to.”
“Since yesterday morning. In other days I used to prescribe for you,
I’ve even pulled you out of one or two tight corners for which
posterity is likely to be more grateful to me than you are. Shoo! Shoo!
Shoo! _Seniores priores._ _I’m doing_ the talking. Well, you’ve always
had the sense and justice to admit that you wouldn’t have got into
eighty per cent. of those same tight corners, if you’d followed my
orders earlier. D’you remember the man in Kipling who always prophesied
trouble in the Balkans in the spring? It was a fairly safe shot. I
always seem to prophesy a nervous breakdown in about a fortnight’s time
for you. Before you go to bed this night, I’m going to overhaul you;
and then you’re going away—not for my sake, nor for yours, but for your
young woman’s. You’re no use to her, if you smash up; and you’re going
to smash up, unless you take in sail. What’s the trouble? I left a
message last night to say she was out of danger.”
“And, before that, you sent me off to have a nice, bright dinner... I
tumbled across that swine Gaymer, and you may be amused to hear that we
dined together. Gaymer had never suspected anything till that moment;
he appreciated that there was a certain coolness and he was leaving her
to come to her senses! _Now...._”
Eric jumped up and shut the door, conscious that he was scoring bad
marks against himself by his restlessness but hardly caring to keep up
pretences any longer.
“Well?” said Gaisford.
“I don’t know... He swears he’s in love with her, wants to marry her.
And he’s made up his mind to see her.”
“_I_ shall have something to say about that for the next three weeks.”
“And by then the engagement will be announced. The judge told me he was
going away to-morrow, but as soon as he comes back....”
“What’s troubling you, then?”
Eric continued to pace up and down between the windows and the door,
staring at the carpet, locking and unlocking his fingers behind his
back and trying to find words for the new doubt which Ivy had not
resolved even when she promised herself to him the night before:
“I’m not easy in my mind... I don’t know... Does a woman _ever_ break
her first lover’s spell? I seem uncertain of everything.”
“Then you’d better put it to the test. You’ll be a fool to marry her,
if you think she’ll come at the other man’s whistle. I told you
that—weeks ago, in this very room, when we first discussed it. Let him
see her, let her make up her mind.”
“She’s _made_ it up. If he comes, she’ll send him away again.”
“Then she _has_ broken the spell? I don’t know whether I’m not
following you very well....”
Eric laughed mirthlessly:
“I’m not surprised. Sometimes, Gaisford, you get a feeling which won’t
bear analysis or definition or argument; it’s just there... I left
Gaymer yesterday in a state of panic. I felt that he was the better
man. He was doing prodigies of valour in the war, while I was
collecting rejection papers; and I sometimes wonder whether women care
for anything but the best animal on the market. Fastidiousness in
conduct, super-culture, the ability to ‘see two points in Hamlet’s soul
unseized by the Germans yet’—all that may appeal to some, but they’re
atrophied women, without sex. The war has made our scale of values very
primitive... When I was at school, I wasn’t allowed to play games; and,
if other people despised me in consequence, you bet your life I
despised myself more; I never had a friend, in consequence, till I went
up to Oxford... The war was a fair test whether a man was a man—in
courage, physical endurance, ability to command and to obey,
herd-capacity to protect the female, the young, the home. Well, I
couldn’t survive that test. Better a live crock than a dead hero, you
may think, if you happen to be one of the crocks; but, when I left
Gaymer last night, when I stood leaning against a tree in the Park
picturing the pair of us as two males fighting for one female, I said,
‘You drunken brute, you’re the better man.’ And, if I feel that, a
woman will feel it, too... Ivy loves me; I’m quite sure of that. But
I’ve never imagined she felt any passion for me, you wouldn’t expect it
in her present state. Undoubtedly she once felt passion for Gaymer...
You want to know what’s worrying me. Well, it’s just that.”
“And you’ve lost confidence in yourself so much that, if the girl came
to you every quarter of an hour, protesting that she preferred you and
didn’t want to see the other man, you still wouldn’t believe her. Go
away for a holiday, Eric. If I agreed with your sex-generalizations
about ‘better men’ and ‘finer animals’—I don’t; and I suspect you of
taking your psychology from novels by unmarried women—, I should tell
you you’re becoming relatively worse and worse every day that you
neglect your health. Go right away for a few weeks.”
“I don’t like leaving Ivy at Gaymer’s mercy.”
“Then agree with him that he may come and get his _congé_ from the
girl’s own lips, if he’ll promise not to bother her till she’s well
again. Now I’m going home. And you’d better cut off to bed and stop
thinking about anything.”
The next morning Eric drafted, copied and redrafted a letter to Gaymer:
“_I have not given your message to Ivy_,” he wrote finally, “_because
she is not well enough to be worried even with a hint of such a thing.
I should have thought that she had made her meaning quite clear, but,
if you need to be convinced by hearing it again from her, I will
suggest that she disabuse your mind once and for all. Whether she will
see you or not I cannot say; and, if she refuse, I shall not allow you
to molest her. If she consent, it must be on one condition; you must
not attempt to see her or to communicate with her for a month from now.
If you tell me that you agree, I will put this proposal before her._”
There was no answer to the letter, but, as Eric left his club the
following night, he met Gaymer returning from dinner with the Poynters
in Belgrave Square. They so narrowly avoided a collision that it was
useless for either to pretend that he had not seen the other. Both
stopped short and stood silent; then Eric said:
“Hullo!”
Gaymer half put out his hand, withdrew it and put it out again.
“Hullo!,” he answered with unwonted apparent cordiality. “You going my
way?”
“I’m rather tired. I think I shall take the Tube to Dover Street,” said
Eric, reflecting rapidly that Gaymer could not reach Buckingham Gate by
that route without fetching a wide compass.
“Split the difference and walk with me as far as Lancaster House,”
Gaymer suggested. “I got your letter. I’ll say at once that I accept
the conditions. You’d probably prefer to have it in writing—”
“That’s not necessary, is it?,” Eric interrupted quickly and in
embarrassment.
Gaymer chuckled malevolently. He had hitherto spoken seriously and with
a touch of dignity, hiding any antagonism that he might feel under an
easy but disconcerting friendliness. The dignity and restraint were
shattered by the chuckle.
“You mean that, if I’m going to break my word,” he said, “I shall break
it just the same whether it was in writing or not?”
“No, I meant that, if you gave me your word, I should accept it without
any bonds or witnesses.”
“Devilish good of you...” Gaymer paused and took out his
cigarette-case. “You talk just like your own plays.” He paused again
and fumbled with an automatic lighter. “Babs Neave always used to say
that.”
In his turn Eric paused and began to fill a pipe. They had gone too far
into the Green Park for him to branch off and seek the Down Street
station; he could not turn on his heel and refuse to walk farther with
the fellow; yet Gaymer was steadily and progressively attacking him,
first with common rudeness, then with a sneer at his work, finally with
a depth-charge which he exploded to see what effect the name of Barbara
would produce. Gaymer had known much and suspected all; he had been
present, when Eric and Barbara first met at dinner with Lady Poynter;
he had speculated with the rest of them and had once interrogated
Barbara about her “writer fellow” until she froze his jesting...
Intoxication might explain much, but it provided no motive for the
baiting unless Gaymer wanted the satisfaction of a brawl which would
contribute nothing to the problem of Ivy.
“Even off the stage one accepts a man’s word, until he’s proved that
it’s unworthy of acceptance,” said Eric.
“And you’re satisfied with mine?,” asked Gaymer. “It’s not so long
since you thought I’d broken my word to Ivy.”
He was still obviously exploring for a quarrel, but Eric would not help
him.
“It’s easier, if we confine ourselves to the future,” he said. “You’ve
given me your word and you can see Ivy—if she’ll see you; I’ll ask her
to—as soon as she’s well enough. And you won’t try to get in touch with
her till then, will you? I shan’t do anything to prejudice you. As a
matter of fact, I’m going away for a few weeks, but, until the time
comes, I’ll promise not to queer your pitch, if you’ll promise to wait
till you’re sent for. Is that a bargain? After all, it’s not to the
interest of either of us to injure her health.”
They had reached Lancaster House, and Eric held out his hand. Gaymer
hesitated for a moment and then gripped it.
“I was only ragging you, Lane,” he said with an awkward laugh. “Dining
with Aunt Margaret fairly gets on my nerves: she’s like a gramophone
with all the newest and most expensive “intellectual” records. Turn the
handle, put in a new needle; “The Psychoanalyst’s Ragtime Holiday, as
played by the Freud-Jung syncopated orchestra”... Does she know
_anything_ about _anything_?... And that fellow Poynter riles me. ’Told
me to-night that my job had fallen through and I was to be patient...
He’s simply not trying... I’ll keep the bargain—letter and spirit. In
the meantime you’re not announcing the engagement? I can’t consent to
that, you know; it prejudices my chances, if Ivy has that to explain
away.”
“I’ll wait till she’s seen you, if you like,” said Eric. “Honestly, it
won’t make any difference to you, but I want to play fair. Good-night.
One of us will write to you soon.”
The next day he broke the news to Ivy that he was going to the country.
Her face fell at the prospect of being left alone, but the doctor came
in before the discussion was over and quenched the first smoke of
opposition.
“I think I ought to tell you that I’ve seen something of Gaymer the
last few days,” Eric told her, when he came to say good-bye. “He’s very
anxious to see you. He didn’t know you were ill, he didn’t suspect any
reason why you should be. I don’t quite know what he told you at
Croxton, but he assures me that he regards himself as being still
engaged to you. I reminded him that you’d already given him his answer,
but he persisted that there are new facts. If you don’t want to see
him—”
“I don’t!,” Ivy cried in apprehension. “You must keep him away.”
It was an appeal for protection, but Eric could not protect her against
an attack which had not been launched. It wrung his heart to see Ivy
helpless and pleading, but he was so tired that he would gladly have
dropped into a trance where responsibility and striving were unknown,
where he could rest, where no one could blame him or attack him or
appeal to him....
“He won’t take it from me,” he pointed out—and was hurt to see that Ivy
was disappointed in him for the first time. He wondered how Gaymer
would have spoken and acted, if the positions had been reversed....
“I can’t see him without you!”
“My child, then don’t see him at all. When you feel well enough, send
him a line and tell him that nothing he could ever say or do would make
any difference.”
When Eric reached Lashmar Mill-House, he found that an inaccurate but
serviceable legend had already been woven round Ivy’s illness. For days
and nights, he gathered, he had been nursing her single-handed, which
accounted for a natural look of fatigue on his face; for the operation
his flat had been turned upside down, and he had now been driven out to
make way for a second nurse. It was an explanation which barred all
speculation about his own health and absolved him from confessing that
he was himself in Gaisford’s hands.
“Will you be able to have Ivy down here, when she’s fit to move?,” he
asked.
“Of course,” Lady Lane answered warmly.
“She’ll be convalescent in a fortnight or three weeks. I was thinking
of staying here in the meantime... The country’s looking very
beautiful. I think I shall go for a stroll before dinner.”
He walked through the house and crossed the mill-stream into the woods
by the plank-bridge over the wheel. Unless he prompted her, his mother
would patiently abstain from asking him about Ivy; but there was an
unspoken question in her very silence, she was sharing his anxiety and
his hopes, waiting hungrily to be told that all was well. It was
curious that he felt so much less certain of Ivy since she had promised
to marry him. Gaymer was so sure of himself that he must inevitably
overpower her; people always seemed to win if they were convinced that
they would win....
And, conversely, no man ever won unless he believed in himself. Eric
pulled himself together physically, holding his head up and walking
boldly instead of shambling. He believed in himself and he believed in
Ivy. Unless a woman were dead to honour and gratitude, he had nothing
to fear.
A fallen tree trunk barred his path. He was glad to sit down on it,
because he was too tired to go on walking with any pleasure, and his
train of thought had incapacitated him like a blow at the back of his
knees. Barbara, who admitted always that she loved him, even when it
was too late, had broken down at that test; he had confidently left
everything to her honour and gratitude... Women were not to be
trusted... But he trusted Ivy... Yet _should_ he trust her?
The moment’s pause had not rested him, but he jumped up because it was
harder to brood when he was walking quickly. Besides, this holiday had
to be taken very seriously. He had thought out a scheme which was to
put him in hard physical condition; a plunge into the mill-pool as soon
as he was called, a sensible breakfast instead of the jaded Londoner’s
tea and toast, a glance at his letters and the papers, one pipe (and no
more; no cigarettes, either), a line to Ivy and then a good tramp, wet
or fine, from ten till one, a bath and change of clothes, luncheon,
another pipe, a second walk till tea or, perhaps, dinner, a third pipe
and a book, with bed at half-past ten. That, if anything, would keep
him from worrying and make him sleep. He looked at his watch and almost
decided to begin the treatment then and there with six miles on the
high-road before dinner. If he elected to saunter on through the woods,
it was because he was really too tired to face the glare of the road
and the exertion of hard walking.
It was easier to keep his resolution of going to bed early, though he
made an unpromising start next day. Instead of the usual maid with
letters and hot water, his mother came in unexpectedly with breakfast
on a tray.
“You looked so tired last night that I thought I’d let you have your
sleep out,” she explained. “I waited till eleven and then, thinking I
heard signs of life—My dear boy, how hot you are!” She put down the
tray and laid her hand on his chest. “Your pyjamas are wringing wet!”
“Too many bed-clothes, I expect,” answered Eric, as he inspected the
handwriting on his letters.
“There’s only one blanket. And it wasn’t at all a hot night.”
“Ah, but I can undertake to sweat away about two pounds a night in
mid-winter. I suppose it’s because I kick about in bed so much.”
“But you haven’t any flesh to spare. I wish you weren’t so thin, Eric.”
“You mustn’t worry, mother. It’s beyond the wit of man to make me fat.”
Lady Lane did not pursue the subject, but she continued to look
anxiously at him. To turn her thoughts, he handed her a note from the
nurse reporting that Dr. Gaisford was wholly satisfied with Miss
Maitland’s progress and would in future not need to see her more than
once a day.
“That ought to make you happier, Eric,” said his mother.
“It does. I don’t know what I should do, if I lost Ivy...” His voice
was graver than he had intended, and he decided to go on and to fortify
himself by taking his mother into his confidence. “You remember the
last time we discussed her? You do like her, mother, don’t you? You
do—approve? As soon as she’s well enough, we’re going to get everything
fixed up. Don’t tell the guv’nor yet, because you know he’s
temperamentally incapable of keeping a secret. But you are pleased,
aren’t you?”
Lady Lane bent down and kissed his forehead.
“My blessed boy! It’s time you had a little happiness. And it’s
certainly time you had a wife to look after you.”
What with his letters and the papers, which Sir Francis brought up in
person, Eric narrowly avoided being late for luncheon; and his scheme
of diet and exercise was again postponed by his mother’s suggestion
that he should come out with her in the car. He salved his conscience
in consenting by the reflection that he would at least be in the open
air; when, however, Lady Lane suggested after tea that he should lie
down until dinner, he began to scent a conspiracy.
“You’re looking so wretchedly tired and thin that I want to keep you
from working,” confessed his mother.
“Well, I’ll join the conspiracy,” said Eric.
For a week he spent half the day in bed and the other half motoring or
walking in Lashmar Woods. If he failed to put on any weight, at least
he began to feel less tired. The ghosts that lay in wait for him in
London seemed to have been driven away by the sunshine and scented wind
of the garden. Every day the nurse wrote that Ivy was maintaining
steady progress; he had two reassuring letters from Gaisford and at
last a pencilled note from Ivy herself.
“_I’m almost well and longing to see you. Thank you for all your divine
letters. I’m counting the days till you come here to fetch me away. Do
thank your mother for asking me—and for the flowers. I had a long
letter from J. G. this morning, explaining and arguing and asking when
he might come to see me. He said he’d been expecting to hear from you
and couldn’t make out why you’d not written. I told him it was no good;
in fact, I wrote just what I told you I would._”