1
"Tea is in the library, miss."
This announcement, together with Partridge's extraordinary increase of
importance, would have told her that the master had returned, even if
she had not seen, through the half-open door of the cloak-room, Mr.
Waddington's overcoat hanging by its shoulders and surmounted by his
grey slouch hat.
With a rapid, furtive movement the butler closed the door on these
sanctities; and she noted the subdued quiet of his footsteps as he led
the way down the dark oak-panelled corridor, through the smoke-room, and
into the library beyond. She also caught a surprising sight of her own
face in the glass over the smoke-room chimneypiece, her dark eyes
shining, the cool, wind-beaten flush on her young cheeks, the curled
mouth flowering, geranium red on rose white.
This Barbara of the looking-glass smiled at her in passing with such
gay, irresponsible amusement that it fairly took her breath away. Its
origin became clear to her as Ralph Bevan's words shot into her mind:
"I don't want to spoil him for you." She foresaw a possible intimacy in
which Horatio Bysshe Waddington would become the unique though
unofficial tie between them. She was aware that it pleased her to share
a secret jest with Ralph Bevan.
She found Fanny established behind her tea-table in the low room, dim
with its oak panelling above the long lines of the bookcases, where
Fanny's fluttering smile made movement and a sort of light.
Her husband sat facing her in his brown leather chair and in the pose,
the wonderful pose of his portrait; only the sobriety of his navy-blue
serge had fined it down, giving him a factitious slenderness. He hadn't
seen her come in. He sat there in innocence and unawareness; and
afterwards it gave her a little pang of remorse remembering how innocent
he had then seemed to her and unaware.
"This is my husband, Barbara. Horatio, you haven't met Miss Madden."
His eyes bulged with the startled innocence of a creature taken unaware.
He had just lifted his face, with its dripping moustache, from his
teacup, and though he carried off this awkwardness with an unabashed
sweep of his pocket-handkerchief, you could see that he was sensitive;
he hated you to catch him in any gesture that was less than noble. All
his gestures were noble and his attitudes. He was noble as he got up,
slowly, unfolding his great height, tightening by a movement of his
shoulders his great breadth. He looked down at her superbly and held out
his hand; it closed on hers in a large genial clasp.
"So this is my secretary, is it?"
"Yes. And don't forget she's my companion as well as your secretary."
"I never forget anything that you wish me to remember." (Only he said
"nevah" and "remembah"; he bowed as he said it in a very courtly way.)
Barbara noticed that his black hair and moustache were lightly grizzled,
there was loose flesh about his eyelids, his chin had doubled, and his
cheeks were sagging from the bone, otherwise he was exactly like his
portrait; these changes made him look, if anything, more incorruptibly
dignified and more solemn. He had remained on his feet (for his breeding
was perfect), moving between the tea-table and Barbara, bringing her
tea, milk and sugar, and things to eat. Altogether he was so simple, so
genial and unmysterious that Barbara could only suppose that Ralph had
been making fun of her, of her wonder, her curiosity.
"My dear, what a colour you've got!"
Fanny put up her hands to her own cheeks to draw attention to Barbara's.
"You _are_ growing a country girl, aren't you? You should have seen her
white face when she came, Horatio."
"What has she been doing to herself?" He had settled again into his
chair and his attitude.
"She's been out walking with Ralph."
"With Ralph? Is _he_ here still?"
"Why shouldn't he be?"
Mr. Waddington shrugged his immense shoulders. "It's a question of
taste. If he _likes_ to hang about the place after his behaviour--"
"Poor boy! whatever has he done? 'Behaviour' makes it sound as if it had
been something awful."
"We needn't go into it, I think."
"But you _are_ going into it, darling, all the time. Do you mean to keep
it up against him for ever?"
"I'm not keeping anything up. What Ralph Bevan does is no concern of
mine. Since I'm not to be inconvenienced by it--since Miss Madden has
come to my rescue so charmingly--I shall not give it another thought."
He turned to Barbara as to a change of subject. "Had you any
difficulty"--(his voice was measured and important)--"in finding your
way here?"
"None at all."
"Ah, that one-thirty train is excellent. Excellent. But if you had not
told the guard to stop at the Hill you would have been carried on to
Cheltenham. Which would have been very awkward for you. Very awkward
indeed."
"My dear Horatio, what did you suppose she _would_ do?"
"My dear Fanny, there are many things she might have done. She might
have got into the wrong coach at Paddington and been carried on to
Worcester."
"And that," said Barbara, "would have been much worse than Cheltenham."
"The very thought of it," said Fanny, "makes me shudder. But thank God,
Barbara, you didn't do any of those things."
Mr. Waddington shifted the crossing of his legs as a big dog shifts his
paws when you laugh at him; the more Fanny laughed the more dignified
and solemn he became.
"You haven't told me yet, Horatio, what you did in London."
"I was just going to tell you when Miss Madden--so delightfully--came
in."
At that Barbara thought it discreet to dismiss herself, but Fanny called
her back. "What are you running away for? He didn't do anything in
London he wouldn't like you to hear about."
"On the contrary, I particularly wish Miss Madden to hear about it. I
am starting a branch of the National League of Liberty in Wyck. You may
have heard of it?"
"Yes. I've _heard_ of it. I've even seen the prospectus."
"Good. Well, Fanny, I lunched yesterday with Sir Maurice Gedge, and he's
as keen as mustard. He agrees with me that the League will be no good,
no good at all, until it's taken up strong in the provinces. He wants me
to start at once. Just as soon as I can get my Committee."
"My dear, if you've got to have a Committee first you'll never start."
"It depends altogether on who I get. And it'll be _my_ Committee. Sir
Maurice was very emphatic about that. He agrees with me that if you want
a thing done, and done well, you must do it yourself. There can only be
_one_ moving spirit. The Committee will have nothing to do but carry out
my ideas."
"Then be sure you get a Committee that hasn't any of its own."
"That will not be difficult," said Mr. Waddington, "in Wyck.... The
first thing is the prospectus. That's where you come in, Miss Madden."
"You mean the first thing is that Barbara draws up the prospectus."
"Under my supervision."
"The next thing," Fanny said, "is to conceal your prospectus from your
Committee till it's in print. You come to your Committee with your
prospectus. You don't offer it for discussion."
"Supposing," Barbara said, "they insist on discussing it?"
"They won't," said Fanny, "once it's printed, especially if it's paid
for. You must get Pyecraft to send in his bill at once. And if they _do_
start discussing you can put them off with the date and place of the
meeting and the wording of the posters. That'll give them something to
talk about. I suppose you'll be chairman."
"Well, I think, in the circumstances, they could hardly appoint anybody
else."
"I don't know. Somebody might suggest Sir John Corbett."
Mr. Waddington's face sagged with dismay as Fanny presented this
unpleasant possibility.
"I don't think Sir John would care about it. I shall suggest it to him
myself; but I don't think--."
After all, Sir John Corbett was a lazy man.
"When you've roused Sir John, if you ever _do_ rouse him, then you'll
have to round up all the towns and villages for twenty miles. It's a
pity you can't have Ralph; he would have rounded them for you in no time
on his motor-bike."
"I am quite capable of rounding them all up myself, thank you."
"Well, dear," said Fanny placably, "it'll keep you busy for the next six
months, and that'll be nice. You won't miss the war then so much, will
you?"
"_Miss the war_?"
"Yes, you do miss it, darling. He was a special constable, Barbara; and
he sat on tribunals; and he drove his motor-car like mad on government
service. He had no end of a time. It's no use your saying you didn't
enjoy it, Horatio, for you did."
"I was glad to be of service to my country as much as any soldier, but
to say that I enjoyed the war--"
"If there hadn't been a war there wouldn't have been any service to be
glad about."
"My dear Fanny, it's a perfectly horrible suggestion. Do you mean to say
that I would have brought about that--that infamous tragedy, that I
would have sent thousands and thousands of our lads to their deaths to
get a job for myself? If I thought for one moment that you were
serious--"
"You don't like me to be anything else, dear."
"I certainly don't like you to joke about such subjects."
"Oh, come," said Fanny, "we all enjoyed our war jobs except poor Ralph,
who got gassed first thing, and _then_ concussed with a shell-burst."
"Oh, did he?" said Barbara.
"He did. And don't you think, Horatio, considering the rotten time he's
had, and that he lost a lucrative job through the war, and that you've
done him out of his secretaryship, don't you think you might forgive
him?"
"Of course," said Horatio, "I forgive him."
He had got up to go and had reached the door when Fanny called him back.
"And I can write and ask him to come and dine to-morrow night, can't I?
I want to be quite sure that he _does_ dine."
"I have never said or implied," said Horatio, "that he was not to come
and dine."
With that he left them.
"The beautiful thing about Horatio," said Fanny, "is that he never bears
a grudge against people, no matter what he's done to them. I've no doubt
that Ralph was excessively provoking and put him in the wrong, and yet,
though he was in the wrong, and knows he was in it, he doesn't resent
it. He doesn't resent it the least little bit."
2
Barbara wondered how and where she would be expected to spend her
evenings now that Fanny's husband had come home. Being secretary to Mr.
Waddington and companion to Fanny wouldn't mean being companion to both
of them at once. So when Horatio appeared in the drawing-room after
coffee, she asked if she might sit in the morning-room and write
letters.
"Do you want to sit in the morning-room?" said Fanny.
"Well, I ought to write those letters."
"There's a fire in the library. You can write there. Can't she,
Horatio?"
Mr. Waddington looked up with the benign expression he had had when he
came on Barbara alone in the drawing-room before dinner, a look so
directed to her neck and shoulders that it told her how well her low-cut
evening frock became her.
"She shall sit anywhere she likes. The library is hers whenever she
wants to use it."
Barbara thought she would rather like the library. As she went she
couldn't help seeing a look on Fanny's face that pleaded, that would
have kept her with her. She thought: She doesn't want to be alone with
him.
She judged it better to ignore that look.
She had been about an hour in the library; she had written her letters
and chosen a book and curled herself up in the big leather chair and was
reading when Mr. Waddington came in. He took no notice of her at first,
but established himself at the writing-table with his back to her. He
would, of course, want her to go. She uncurled herself and went quietly
to the door.
Mr. Waddington looked up.
"You needn't go," he said.
Something in his face made her wonder whether she ought to stay. She
remembered that she was Mrs. Waddington's companion.
"Mrs. Waddington may want me."
"Mrs. Waddington has gone to bed.... Don't go--unless you're tired. I'm
getting my thoughts on paper and I may want you."
She remembered that she was Mr. Waddington's secretary.
She went back to her chair. It was only his face that had made her
wonder. His great back, bent to his task, was like another person there;
absorbed and unmoved, it chaperoned them. From time to time she heard
brief scratches of his pen as he got a thought down. It was ten o'clock.
When the half-hour struck Mr. Waddington gave a thick "Ha!" of
irritation and got up.
"It's no use," he said. "I'm not in form to-night. I suppose it's the
journey."
He came to the fireplace and sat down heavily in the opposite chair.
Barbara was aware of his eyes, considering, appraising her.
"My wife tells me she has had a delightful time with you."
"I've had a delightful time with her."
"I'm glad. My wife is a very delightful woman; but, you know, you
mustn't take everything she says too seriously."
"I won't. I'm not a very serious person myself."
"Don't say that. Don't say that."
"Very well. I think, if you don't want me, I'll say good night."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously."
He had risen as she rose and went to open the door for her. He escorted
her through the smoke-room and stood there at the further door, holding
out his hand, benignant and superbly solemn.
"Good night, then," he said.
She told herself that she was wrong, quite wrong about his poor old
face. There was nothing in it, nothing but that grave and unadventurous
benignity. His mood had been, she judged, purely paternal. Paternal and
childlike, too; pathetic, if you came to think of it, in his clinging to
her presence, her companionship. "It must have been my little evil
mind," she thought.
3
As she went along the corridor she remembered she had left her knitting
in the drawing-room. She turned to fetch it and found Fanny still there,
wide awake with her feet on the fender, and reading "Tono-Bungay."
"Oh, Mrs. Waddington, I thought you'd gone to bed."
"So did I, dear. But I changed my mind when I found myself alone with
Wells. He's too heavenly for words."
Barbara saw it in a flash, then. She knew what she, the companion and
secretary, was there for. She was there to keep him off her, so that
Fanny might have more time to find herself alone in.
She saw it all.
"'Tono-Bungay,'" she said. "Was _that_ what you sent me out with Mr.
Bevan for?"
"It was. How clever of you, Barbara."