"No. What? Where?"
She could see by his face that he was drawing her into some iniquitous,
secret by-path of diversion.
"There, just behind you. Turn round--this way--but don't look as if
you'd spotted him.... Did you ever see anything like him? He's like a
Newfoundland dog trying to look over a gate. It wouldn't be half so
funny if he wasn't so dignified all the time."
She didn't approve of Horry. He wasn't decent. But the dignity--it _was_
wonderful.
Horry went on. "What on earth did the mater ask that woman for? She
might have known he'd make a fool of himself."
"Oh, Horry, you mustn't. It's awful of you. You really _are_ a little
beast."
"I'm not. Fancy doing it at his own garden party. He never thinks of
_us_. Look at the dear little mater, there, pretending she doesn't see
him. _That's_ what makes me mad, Barbara."
"Well, you ought to pretend you don't see it, too."
"I've been pretending the whole blessed afternoon. But it's no good
pretending with _you_. You jolly well see everything."
"I don't go and draw other people's attention to it."
"Oh, come, how about Ralph? You know you wouldn't let him miss him."
"Ralph? Oh, Ralph's different. I shouldn't point him out to Lady
Corbett."
"No more should I. _You_'re different, too. You and Ralph and me are the
only people capable of appreciating him. Though I wouldn't swear that
the mater doesn't, sometimes."
"Yes. But you go too far, Horry. You're cruel to him, and we're not."
"It's all very well for you. He isn't your father.... Oh, Lord, he's
craning his neck over Markham's shoulder now. What his face must look
like from the other side--"
"If you found your father drunk under a lilac bush I believe you'd go
and fetch me to look at him."
"I would, if he was as funny as he is now.... But I say, you know, I
can't have him going on like that. I've got to stop it, somehow. What
would you do if you were me?"
"Do? I think I should ask him to go and take Lady Corbett in to tea."
"Good."
Horry strode up to his father. "I say, pater, aren't you going to take
Lady Corbett in to tea?"
At the sheer sound of his son's voice Mr. Waddington's dignity stood
firm. But he went off to find Lady Corbett all the same.
When it was all over the garden party was pronounced a great success,
and Mr. Waddington was very agreeably rallied on his discovery, taxed
with trying to keep it to himself, and warned that, he wasn't going to
have it all his own way.
"It's our turn now," said Major Markham, "to have a look in."
And their turn was constantly coming round again; they were always
looking in at the White House. First, Major Markham called. Then Sir
John Corbett of Underwoods, Mr. Thurston of The Elms, and Mr. Hawtrey of
Medlicott called and brought their wives. These ladies, however, didn't
like Mrs. Levitt, and they were not at home when she returned their
calls. Mrs. Levitt's visiting card had its place in three collections
and there the matter ended. But Mr. Thurston and Mr. Hawtrey continued
to call with a delightful sense of doing something that their wives
considered improper. Major Markham--as a bachelor his movements were
more untrammelled--declared it his ambition to "cut Waddy out." _He_ was
everlastingly calling at the White House. His fastidious correctness,
the correctness that hadn't "liked the look of her," excused this
intensive culture of Mrs. Levitt on the grounds that she was "well
connected"; she knew all his sister's people.
And Mrs. Levitt took good care to let Mr. Waddington know of these
visits, and of her little bridge parties in the evening. "Just Mr.
Thurston and Mr. Hawtrey and Major Markham and me." He was teased and
worried by his visions of Elise perpetually surrounded by Thurston and
Hawtrey and the Major. Supposing--only supposing that--driven by
despair, of course--she married that fellow Markham? For the first time
in his life Mr. Waddington experienced jealousy. Elise had ceased to be
the subject of dreamy, doubtful speculation and had become the object of
an uneasy passion. He could give her passion, if it was passion that she
wanted; but, because of Fanny, he could not give her a position in the
county, and it was just possible that Elise might prefer a position.
And Elise was happy, happy in her communion with Mr. Thurston and Mr.
Hawtrey and in the thought that their wives detested her; happy in her
increasing intimacy with Major Markham and in her consciousness of being
well connected; above all, happy in Mr. Waddington's uneasiness.
Meanwhile Fanny Waddington kept on calling. "If I don't," she said,
"the poor woman will be done for."
She couldn't see any harm in Mrs. Levitt.
3
Barbara and Ralph Bevan had been for one of their long walks. They were
coming back down the Park when they met, first, Henry, the gardener's
boy, carrying a basket of fat, golden pears.
"Where are you going with those lovely pears, Henry?"
"Mrs. Levitt's, miss." The boy grinned and twinkled; you could almost
have fancied that he knew.
Farther on, near the white gate, they could see Mr. Waddington and two
ladies. He had evidently gone out to open the gate, and was walking on
with them, unable to tear himself away. The ladies were Mrs. Rickards
and Mrs. Levitt.
They stopped. You could see the flutter of their hands and faces,
suggesting a final triangular exchange of playfulness.
Then Mr. Waddington, executing a complicated movement of farewell, a bow
and a half turn, a gambolling skip, the gesture of his ungovernable
youth.
Then, as he went from them, the abandonment of Mrs. Rickards and Mrs.
Levitt to disgraceful laughter.
Mrs. Levitt clutched her sister's arm and clung to it, almost
perceptibly reeling, as if she said: "Hold me up or I shall collapse.
It's too much. Too--too--too--too much." They came on with a peculiar
rolling, helpless walk, rocked by the intolerable explosions of their
mirth, dabbing their mouths and eyes with their pocket-handkerchiefs in
a tortured struggle for control.
They recovered sufficiently to pass Ralph and Barbara with serious,
sidelong bows. And then there was a sound, a thin, wheezing, soaring yet
stifled sound, the cry of a conquered hysteria.
"Did you see that, Ralph?"
"I did. I heard it."
"_He_ couldn't, could he?"
"Oh, Lord, no.... They appreciate him, too, Barbara."
"That isn't the way," she said. "We don't want him appreciated that way.
That rich, gross way."
"No. It isn't nearly subtle enough. Any fool could see that his
caracoling was funny. They don't know him as we know him. They don't
know what he really is."
"It was an outrage. It's like taking a fine thing and vulgarizing it.
They'd no _business_. And it was cruel, too, to laugh at him like that
before his back was turned. When they're going to eat his pears, too."
"The fact is, Barbara, nobody _does_ appreciate him as you and I do."
"Horry?"
"No. Not Horry. He goes too far. Horry's indecent. Fanny, perhaps,
sometimes."
"Fanny doesn't see one half of him. She doesn't see his Mrs. Levitt
side."
"Have _you_ seen it, Barbara?"
"Of course I have."
"You never told me. It isn't fair to go discovering things on your own
and not telling me. We must make a compact. To tell each other the very
instant we see a thing. We might keep count and give points to which of
us sees most. Mrs. Levitt ought to have been a hundred to your score."
"I'm afraid I can't score with Mrs. Levitt. You saw that, too."
"It'll be a game for gods, Barbara."
"But, Ralph, there might be things we _couldn't_ tell each other. It
mightn't be fair to him."
"Telling each other isn't like telling other people. Hang it all, if
we're making a study of him we're making a study. Science is science.
We've no right to suppress anything. At any moment one of us might see
something absolutely vital."
"Whatever we do we musn't be unfair to him."
"But he's ours, isn't he? We can't be unfair to him. And we've got to
be fair to each other. Think of the frightful advantage you might have
over me. You're bound to see more things than I do."
"I might see more, but you'll understand more."
"Well, then, you can't do without me. It's a compact, isn't it, that we
don't keep things back?"
As for Mrs. Levitt's handling of their theme they resented it as an
abominable profanation.
"Do you think he's in love with her?" Barbara said.
"What _he_ would call being in love and we shouldn't."
"Do you think he's like that--he's always been like that?"
"I think he was probably 'like that' when he was young."
"Before he married Fanny?"
"Before he married Fanny."
"And after?"
"After, I should imagine he went pretty straight. It was only the way he
had when he was young. Now he's middle-aged he's gone back to it, just
to prove to himself that he's young still. I take it the poor old thing
got scared when he found himself past fifty, and he _had_ to start a
proof. It's his egoism all over again. I don't suppose he really cares a
rap for Mrs. Levitt."
"You don't think his heart beats faster when he sees her coming?"
"I don't. Horatio's heart beats faster when he sees himself making love
to her."
"I see. It's just middle age."
"Just middle age."
"Don't you think, perhaps, Fanny does see it?"
"No. Not that. Not that. At least I hope not."
X
1
Mr. Waddington's _Ramblings Through the Cotswolds_ were to be profusely
illustrated. The question was: photographs or original drawings? And he
had decided, after much consideration, on photographs taken by
Pyecraft's man. For a book of such capital importance the work of an
inferior or obscure illustrator was not to be thought of for an instant.
But there were grave disadvantages in employing a distinguished artist.
It would entail not only heavy expenses, but a disastrous rivalry. The
illustrations, so far from drawing attention to the text and fixing it
firmly there, would inevitably distract it. And the artist's celebrated
name would have to figure conspicuously, in exact proportion to his
celebrity, on the title page and in all the reviews and advertisements
where, properly speaking, Horatio Bysshe Waddington should stand alone.
It was even possible, as Fanny very intelligently pointed out, that a
sufficiently distinguished illustrator might succeed in capturing the
enthusiasm of the critics to the utter extinction of the author, who
might consider himself lucky if he was mentioned at all.
But Fanny had shown rather less intelligence in using this argument to
support her suggestion that Barbara Madden should illustrate the book.
She had more than once come upon the child, sitting on a camp-stool
above Mrs. Levitt's house, making a sketch of the steep street, all
cream white and pink and grey, opening out on to the many-coloured
fields and the blue eastern air. And she had conceived a preposterous
admiration for Barbara Madden's work.
"It'll be an enchanting book if she illustrates it, Horatio."
"_If_ she illustrates it!"
But when he tried to show Fanny the absurdity of the idea--Horatio
Bysshe Waddington illustrated by Barbara Madden--she laughed in his face
and told him he was a conceited old thing. To which he replied, with
dignified self-restraint, that he was writing a serious and important
book. It would be foolish to pretend that it was not serious and
important. He hoped he had no overweening opinion of its merits, but one
must preserve some sense of proportion and propriety--some sanity.
"Poor little Barbara!"
"It isn't poor little Barbara's book, my dear."
"No," said Fanny. "It isn't."
Meanwhile, if the book was to be ready for publication in the spring,
the photographs would have to be taken at once, before the light and the
leaves were gone.
So Pyecraft and Pyecraft's man came with their best camera, and
photographed and photographed, as long as the fine weather lasted. They
photographed the Market Square, Wyck-on-the-Hill; they photographed the
church; they photographed Lower Wyck village and the Manor House, the
residence--corrected to seat--of Mr. Horatio Bysshe Waddington, the
author. They photographed the Tudor porch, showing the figures of the
author and of Mrs. Waddington, his wife, and Miss Barbara Madden, his
secretary. They photographed the author sitting in his garden; they
photographed him in his park, mounted on his mare, Speedwell; and they
photographed him in his motor-car. Then they came in and looked at the
library and photographed that, with Mr. Waddington sitting in it at his
writing-table.
"I suppose, sir," Mr. Pyecraft said, "you'd wish it taken from one end
to show the proportions?"
"Certainly," said Mr. Waddington.
And when Pyecraft came the next day with the proofs he said, "I think,
sir, we've got the proportions very well."
Mr. Waddington stared at the proofs, holding them in a hand that
trembled slightly with emotion. With a just annoyance. For though
Pyecraft had certainly got the proportions of the library, Mr.
Waddington's head was reduced to a mere black spot in the far corner.