On the birthday morning Fanny had called out to Barbara as she passed
her bedroom door:
"Barbara, come here."
Fanny was staring, fascinated, at four pairs of silk pyjamas spread out
before her on the bed. Remarkable pyjamas, of a fierce magenta with
forked lightning in orange running about all over them.
"Good God, Fanny!"
"You may well say 'Good God.' What would you say if you'd got to...?
I'm not a nervous woman, but--"
"It's a mercy he didn't get them eighteen years ago," said Barbara, "or
Horry might have been born an idiot."
"Yellow waistcoats are all very well," said Fanny. "But what _can_ he
have been thinking of?"
"I don't know," said Barbara. Somehow the pattern called up,
irresistibly, the image of Mrs. Levitt.
"Perhaps," she said, "he thinks he's Jupiter."
"Well, I'm not What's-her-name, and I don't want to be blasted. So I'll
put them somewhere where he can't find them."
At that moment they had heard Mr. Waddington coming through his
dressing-room and Barbara had run away by the door into the corridor.
"Who took those things out of my wardrobe?" he said. He was gazing,
dreamily, affectionately almost, at the pyjamas.
"I did."
"And what for?"
"To look at them. Can you wonder? Horatio, if you wear them I'll apply
for a separation."
"You needn't worry."
There was a queer look in his face, significant and furtive. And Fanny's
mind, with one of its rapid flights, darted off from the pyjamas.
"What are you going to do about Barbara?" she said.
"_Do_ about her?"
"Yes. You know we were going to adopt her if we liked her enough. And we
do like her enough, don't we?"
"I have no paternal feeling for Barbara," said Mr. Waddington. "The
parental relation does not appeal to me as desirable or suitable."
"I should have thought, considering her age and your age, it was very
suitable indeed."
"Not if it entails obligations that I might regret."
"You're going to provide for her, aren't you? That isn't an obligation,
surely, you'll regret?"
"I can provide for her without adopting her."
"How? It's no good just leaving her something in your will."
"I shall continue half her salary," said Mr. Waddington, "as an
allowance."
"Yes. But will you give her a marriage portion if she marries?"
He was silent. His mind reeled with the blow.
"If she marries," he said, "with my consent and my approval--yes."
"If that isn't a parental attitude! And supposing she doesn't?"
"She isn't thinking of marrying."
"You don't know what she's thinking of."
"Neither, I venture to say, do you."
"Well--I don't see how I can adopt her, if you don't."
"I didn't say I wouldn't adopt her."
"Then you will?"
He snapped back at her with an incredible ferocity.
"I suppose I shall have to. Don't _worry_ me!"
He then lifted up the pyjamas from the bed and carried them into his
dressing-room. Through the open door she saw him, mounted on a chair,
laying them out, tenderly, on the top shelf of the wardrobe: as if he
were storing them for some mysterious and romantic purpose in which
Fanny was not included.
"Perhaps, after all," she thought, "he only bought them because they
make him feel young."
All the morning, that morning of Barbara's birthday and adoption Mr.
Waddington's thoughtful gloom continued. And in the afternoon he shut
himself up in his library and gave orders that he was not to be
disturbed.
3
Barbara was in the morning-room.
They had given her the morning-room for a study, and she was alone in
it, amusing herself with her pocket sketch-book.
The sketch-book was Barbara's and Ralph's secret. Sometimes it lived for
days with Ralph at the White Hart. Sometimes it lived with Barbara, in
her coat pocket, or in her bureau under lock and key. She was obsessed
with the fear that some day she would leave it about and Fanny would
find it, or Mr. Waddington. Or any minute Mr. Waddington might come on
her and catch her with it. It would be awful if she were caught. For
that remarkable collection contained several pen-and-ink drawings of Mr.
Waddington, and Barbara added to their number daily.
But at the moment, the long interval between an unusually early birthday
tea and an unusually late birthday dinner, she was safe. Fanny had gone
over to Medlicott in the car. Mr. Waddington was tucked away in his
library, reading in perfect innocence and simplicity and peace. It
wasn't even likely that Ralph would turn up, for he had gone over to
Oxford, and it was on his account that the birthday dinner was put off
till half-past eight. There would be hours and hours.
She had just finished the last of three drawings of Mr. Waddington: Mr.
Waddington standing up before the long looking-glass in his new pyjamas;
Mr. Waddington appearing in the doorway of Fanny's bedroom as Jupiter,
with forked lightning zig-zagging out of him into every corner; Mr.
Waddington stooping to climb into his bed, a broad back view with
lightnings blazing out of it.
And it was that moment that Mr. Waddington chose to come in to present
the green jade necklace. He was wearing his canary yellow waistcoat.
Barbara closed her sketch-book hurriedly and laid it on the table. She
kept one arm over it while she received and opened the leather case
where the green necklace lay on its white cushion.
"For _me_? Oh, it's too heavenly. How awfully sweet of you."
"Do you like it, Barbara?"
"I love it."
Compunction stung her when she thought of her drawings, especially the
one where he was getting into bed. She said to herself: "I'll never do
it again. Never again.... And I won't show it to Ralph."
"Put it on," he commanded, "and let me see you in it."
She lifted it from the case. She raised her arms and clasped it round
her neck; she went to the looking-glass. And, after the first rapt
moment of admiration, Mr. Waddington possessed himself of the uncovered
sketch-book. Barbara saw him in the looking-glass. She turned, with a
cry:
"You mustn't! You mustn't look at it."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't let anybody see my sketches."
"You'll let _me_."
"I _won't_!" She dashed at him, clutching his arm and hanging her weight
on it. He shook himself free and raised the sketch-book high above her
head. She jumped up, tearing at it, but his grip held.
He delighted in his power. He laughed.
"Give it me this instant," she said.
"Aha! She's got her little secrets, has she?"
"Yes. Yes. They're all there. You've no business to look at them."
He caracoled heavily, dodging her attack, enjoying the youthful violence
of the struggle.
"Come," he said, "ask me nicely."
"Please, then. _Please_ give it me."
He gave it, bowing profoundly over her hand as she took it.
"I wouldn't look into your dear little secrets for the world," he said.
They sat down amicably.
"You'll let me stay with you a little while?"
"Please do. Won't you have one of my cigarettes?"
He took one, turning it in his fingers and smiling at it--a lingering,
sentimental smile.
"I think I know your secret," he said presently.
"Do you?" Her mind rushed to Ralph.
"I think so. And I think you know mine."
"Yours?"
"Yes. Mine. We can't go on living like this, so close to each other,
without knowing. We may try to keep things from each other, but we
can't. I feel as if you'd seen everything."