"When it comes to the point," she said, "one can only be wise for
oneself."
"I'm glad you see that. It makes it much easier for me."
"It does. You mustn't think you're responsible for me just because
you've adopted me."
"Don't talk to me about adoption! When you know perfectly well what I
did it for."
"Why--what _did_ you do it for?"
"To make things safe for us. To keep Fanny from knowing. To keep myself
from knowing, Barbara. To keep you.... But it's too late to camouflage
it. We know where we stand now."
"I don't think _I_ do."
"You do. You do."
Mr. Waddington tossed his cigarette into the fire with a passionate
gesture of abandonment. He came to her. She saw his coming. She saw it
chiefly as the approach of a canary yellow waistcoat. She fixed her
attention on the waistcoat as if it were the centre of her own mental
equilibrium.
There was a bend in the waistcoat. Mr. Waddington was stooping over her
with his face peering into hers. She sat motionless, held under his face
by curiosity and fear. The whole phenomenon seemed to her incredible.
Too incredible as yet to call for protest. It was as if it were not
happening; as if she were merely waiting to see it happen before she
cried out. Yet she was frightened.
This state lasted for one instant. The next she was in his arms. His
mouth, thrust out under the big, rough moustache, was running over her
face, like--like--while she pressed her hands hard against the canary
yellow waistcoat, pushing him off, her mind disengaged itself from the
struggle and reported--like a vacuum cleaner. That was it. Vacuum
cleaner.
He gave back. There was no evil violence in him, and she got on her
feet.
"How could you?" she cried. "How could you be such a perfect pig?"
"_Don't_ say that to me, Barbara. Even in fun.... You know you love
me."
"I don't. I don't."
"You do. You know you do. You know you want me to take you in my arms.
Why be so cruel to yourself?"
"To myself? I'd kill myself before I let you.... Why, I'd kill you."
"No. No. No. You only think you would, you little spitfire."
He had given back altogether and now leaned against the chimneypiece,
not beaten, not abashed, but smiling at her in a triumphant certitude.
For so long the glamour of his illusion held him.
"Nothing you can say, Barbara, will persuade me that you don't care for
me."
"Then you must be mad. Mad as a hatter."
"All men go mad at times. You must make allowances. Listen--"
"I won't listen. I don't want to hear another word."
She was going.
He saw her intention; but he was nearer to the door than she was, and by
a quick though ponderous movement he got there first. He stood before
her with his back to the door. (He had the wild thought of locking it,
but chivalry forbade him.)
"You can go in a minute," he said. "But you've got to listen to me
first. You've got to be fair to me. I may be mad; but if I didn't care
for you--madly--I wouldn't have supposed for an instant that you cared
for me. I wouldn't have thought of such a thing."
"But I _don't_, I tell you."
"And I tell you, you do. Do you suppose after all you've done for
me--"
"I haven't done anything."
"Done? Look at the way you've worked for me. I've never known anything
like your devotion, Barbara."
"Oh, _that_! It was only my job."
"Was it your job to save me from that horrible woman?"
"Oh, yes; it was all in the day's work."
"My dear Barbara, no woman ever does a day's work like that for a man
unless she cares for him. And unless she wants him to care for her."
"As it happens, it was Fanny I cared for. I was thinking of Fanny all
the time.... If _you'd_ think about Fanny more and about Mrs. Levitt and
people less, it would be a good thing."
"It's too late to think about Fanny now. That's only your sweetness and
goodness."
"Please don't lie. If you really thought me sweet and good you wouldn't
expect me to be a substitute for Mrs. Levitt."
"Don't talk about Mrs. Levitt. Do you suppose I think of you in the same
sentence? That was a different thing altogether."
"Was it? Was it so very different?"
He saw that she remembered. "It was. A man may lose his head ten times
over without losing his heart once. If it's Mrs. Levitt you're thinking
about, you can put that out of your mind for ever."
"It isn't only Mrs. Levitt. There's Ralph Bevan. You've forgotten Ralph
Bevan."
"What has Ralph Bevan got to do with it?"
"Simply this, that I'm engaged to be married to him."
"To be married? To be married to Ralph Bevan? Oh, Barbara, why didn't
you tell me?"
"Ralph didn't want me to, till nearer the time."
"The time.... Did it come to that?"
"It did," said Barbara.
He moved from the doorway and began walking up and down the room. She
might now have gone out, but she didn't go. She _had_ to see what he
would make of it.
At his last turn he faced her and stood still.
"Poor child," he said, "so that's what I've driven you to?"
Amazement kept her silent.
"Sit down," he said, "we must go through this together."
Amazement made her sit down. Certainly they must go through it, to see
what he would look like at the end. He was unsurpassable. She mustn't
miss him.
"Look here, Barbara." He spoke in a tone of forced, unnatural calm. "I
don't think you quite understand the situation. I'm sure you don't
realize for one moment how serious it is."
"I don't. You mustn't expect me to take it seriously."
"That's because you don't take yourself seriously enough, dear. In some
ways you're singularly humble. I don't believe you really know how deep
this thing has gone with me, or you wouldn't have talked about Mrs.
Levitt....
"... It's life and death, Barbara. Life and death.... I'll make a
confession. It wasn't serious at first. It wasn't love at first sight.
But it's gone all the deeper for that. I didn't know how deep it was
till the other day. And I had so much to think of. So many claims.
Fanny--"
"Yes. Don't forget Fanny."
"I am not forgetting her. Fanny isn't going to mind as you think she
minds. As you would mind yourself if you were in her place. Things don't
go so deep with Fanny as all that.... And she isn't going to hold me
against my will. She's not that sort.... Listen, now. Please listen."
Barbara sat still, listening. She would let him go to the end of his
tether.
"I'll confess. In the beginning I hadn't thought of a divorce. I
couldn't bear the idea of going through all that unpleasantness. But I'd
go through it ten times over rather than that you should marry Ralph
Bevan.... Wait now.... Before I spoke to you to-day I'd made up my
mind to ask Fanny to divorce me. I know she'll do it. Your name shan't
be allowed to appear. The moment I get her consent we'll go off together
somewhere. Italy or the Riviera. I've got everything planned, everything
ready. I saw to that when I was in London. I've bought everything--"
She saw forked lightnings on a magenta Waddington.
"What are you laughing at, Barbara?"
He stood over her, distressed. Was _Barbara_ going to treat him to a fit
of hysterics?
"Don't laugh. Don't be silly, child."
But Barbara went on laughing, with her face in the cushions, abandoned
to her vision. From far up the park they heard the sound of Kimber's
hooter, then the grinding of the car, with Fanny in it, on the gravel
outside. Barbara sat up suddenly and dried her eyes.
They stared at each other, the stare of accomplices.
"Come, child," he said, "pull yourself together."
Barbara got up and looked in the glass and saw the green jade necklace
hanging on her still. She took it off and laid it on the table beside
the forgotten sketch-book.
"I think," she said, "you must have meant this for Mrs. Levitt. But you
may thank your stars it's only me, this time."
He pretended not to hear her, not to see the necklace, not to know that
she was going from him. She stood a moment with her back to the door,
facing him. It was her turn to stand there and be listened to.
"Mr. Waddington," she said, "some people might think you wicked. I only
think you funny."
He drew himself up and looked noble.
"Funny? If that's your idea of me, you had better marry Ralph Bevan."
"I almost think I had."
And she laughed again. Not Mrs. Levitt's laughter, gross with
experience. He had borne that without much pain. Girl's laughter it was,
young and innocent and pure, and ten times more cruel.
"You don't know," she said, "you don't know how funny you are," and left
him.
Mr. Waddington took up the necklace and kissed it. He rubbed it against
his cheek and kissed it. A slip of paper had fallen from the table to
the floor. He knew what was written on it: "From Horatio Bysshe
Waddington to his Little April Girl." He took it up and put it in his
pocket. He took up the sketch-book.
"The little thing," he thought. "Now, if it hadn't been for her
ridiculous jealousy of Elise--if it hadn't been for Fanny--if it hadn't
been for the little thing's sweetness and goodness--" Her goodness. She
was a saint. A saint. It was Barbara's virtue, not Barbara, that had
repulsed him.
This was the only credible explanation of her behaviour, the only one he
could bear to live with.
He opened the sketch-book.
It was Fanny, coming in that instant, who saved him from the worst.
When she had restored the sketch-book to its refuge in the bureau and
locked it in, she turned to him.
"Horatio," she said, "as Ralph's coming to dinner to-night I'd better
tell you that he and Barbara are engaged to be married."
"She has told me herself.... That child, Fanny, is a saint. A little
saint."
"How did you find that out? Do you think it takes a saint to marry
Ralph?"
"I think it takes a saint to--to marry Ralph, since you put it that
way."
4
"Dearest Fanny:
"I'm sorry, but Mr. Waddington and I have had a scrap. It's made things
impossible, and I'm going to Ralph. He'll turn out for me, so there
won't be any scandal.
"You know how awfully I love you, that's why you'll forgive me if I
don't come back.
"Always your loving
"Barbara."
"P.S.--I'm frightfully sorry about my birthday dinner. But I don't feel
birthdayish or dinnerish, either. I want Ralph. Nothing but Ralph."
That would make Fanny think it was Ralph they had quarrelled about.
Barbara put this note on Fanny's dressing-table. Then she went up to the
White Hart, to Ralph Bevan. She waited in his sitting-room till he came
back from Oxford.
"Hallo, old thing, what are _you_ doing here?"
"Ralph--do you awfully mind if we don't dine at the Manor?"
"If we don't--why?"
"Because I've left them. And I don't want to go back. Do you think I
could get a room here?"
"What's up?"
"I've had a simply awful scrap with Waddy, and I can't stick it there.
Between us we've made it impossible."
"What's he been up to?"
"Oh, never mind."
"He's been making love to you."
"If you call it making love."
"The old swine!"
As he said it, he felt the words and his own fury fall short of the
fantastic quality of Waddington.
"No. He isn't." (Barbara felt it.) "He was simply more funny than you
can imagine.... He had on a canary yellow waistcoat."
In spite of his fury he smiled.
"I think he'd bought it for that."
"Oh, Barbara, what he must have looked like!"
"Yes. If only you could have seen him. But that's the worst of all his
best things. They only happen when you're alone with him."
"You remember--we wondered whether he'd do it again, whether he'd go one
better?"
"Yes, Ralph. We little thought it would be me."
"How he does surpass himself!"
"The funniest thing was he thought I was in love with _him_."
"He didn't!"
"He did. Because of the way I'd worked for him. He thought that proved
it."
"Yes. Yes. I suppose he _would_ think it.... Look here--he didn't do
anything, did he?"
"He kissed me. _That_ wasn't funny."
"The putrid old sinner. If he _wasn't_ so old I'd wring his neck for
him."
"No, no. That's all wrong. It's not the way we agreed to take him. We'd
think it funny enough if he'd done it to somebody else. It's pure
accident that it's me."
"No doubt that's the proper philosophic view. I wonder whether Mrs.
Levitt takes it."
"Ralph--it wasn't a bit like his Mrs. Levitt stunt. The awful thing was
he really meant it. He'd planned it all out. We were to go off together
to the Riviera, and he was to wear his canary waistcoat."
"Did he say that?"
"No. But you could see he thought it. And he was going to get Fanny to
divorce him."
"Good God! He went as far as that?"
"As far as that. He was so cocksure, you see. I'm afraid it's been a bit
of a shock to him."
"Well, it's a thundering good thing I've got a job at last."
"_Have_ you?"
"Yes. We can get married the day after tomorrow if we like.
Blackadder's given me the editorship of the _New Review_."
"No? Oh, Ralph, how topping."
"That's what I ran up to Oxford for, to see him and settle everything.
It's a fairly decent screw. The thing's got no end of hacking, and it's
up to me to make it last."
"I say--Fanny'll he pleased."
As they were talking about it, the landlady of the White Hart came in to
tell them that Mrs. Waddington was downstairs and wanted to speak to
Miss Madden.
"All right," Ralph said. "Show Mrs. Waddington up. I'll clear out."
"Oh, Ralph, what am I to say to her?"
"Tell her the truth, if she wants it. She won't mind."
"She will--frightfully."
"Not so frightfully as you think."
"That's what _he_ said."
"Well, he's right there, the old beast."
5
"Barbara _dear_," said Fanny when they were alone together, "what on
earth has happened?"
"Oh, nothing. We just had a bit of a tiff, that's all."
"About Ralph? He told me it was Ralph."
"You might say it was Ralph. He came into it."
"Into what?"
"Oh, the general situation."
"Nonsense. Horatio was making love to you. I could see by his face....
You needn't mind telling me straight out I've seen it coming."
"Since when?"
"I don't know. It must have begun long before I saw it."
"How long do you think?"
"Oh, before Mrs. Levitt."
"Mrs. Levitt?"
"She may have been only a safety valve. That's why I made him adopt you.
I thought it would stop it. In common decency. But it seems it only
brought it to a head."
"No. It was his canary waistcoat did that, Fanny."
The ghost of dead mirth rose up in Fanny's eyes.
"You're muddling cause and effect, my dear. He wasn't in love because he
bought the waistcoat. He bought the waistcoat because he was in love.
And those other things--the romantic pyjamas--because he thought they'd
make him look younger."
"Well then," said Barbara, "it was a vicious circle. The waistcoat put
it into his head that afternoon."
"It doesn't much matter how it happened."
"I'm awfully sorry, Fanny. I wouldn't have let it happen for the world,
if I'd known it was going to. But who could have known?"
"My dear, it wasn't your fault."
"Do you mind frightfully?"
Fanny looked away.
"It depends," she said. "What did you say to him?"
"I said a lot of things, but they weren't a bit of good. Then I'm afraid
I laughed."
"You laughed at him?"
"I couldn't help it, Fanny. He was so funny."
"Oh!" Fanny caught her breath back on a sob. "That's what I can't bear,
Barbara--his being laughed at."
"I know," said Barbara.
"By the way, when you're dying dear, if you should be dying at any time,
it'll be a consolation to you to know that he didn't see your
drawings--"
"Did _you_ see them?"
"Only the one he was looking at when I came in."
"Was it--was it the one where he was getting into bed?"
"No. He was only hunting."
"God has been kinder to me than I deserve then."
"He's been kinder to him, too, I fancy."
She went on. "I want you to see this thing straight. Understand. I don't
mind his being in love with you. I knew he was. Head over ears in love.
And I didn't mind a bit."
"I think he was reckoning on that. He knew you'd forgive him."
"Forgive him? It wasn't even a question of forgiveness. I was _glad_. I
thought: If only he could have one real feeling. If only he could care
for something or somebody that wasn't himself.... I think he cared for
you, Barbara. It wasn't just himself. And I loved him for it."
"You darling! And you don't hate me?"
"You know I don't But I'd love you even more if you'd loved him."
"If I'd loved him?"
"Yes. If you'd gone away with him and made him happy. If you hadn't
laughed at him, Barbara."
"I know. It was awful of me. But what could I do?"
"What could you do? We all do it. I do it. Mrs. Levitt did it."
"I didn't do it like Mrs. Levitt."
"No. But you were just one more. Think of it. All his life to be laughed
at. And when he was making love, too; the most serious thing, Barbara,
that anybody can do. I tell you I can't bear it. I'd have given him to
you ten times first."
"Then," said Barbara, "you _have_ got to forgive me."
"If I don't, it's because it's my own sin and I can't forgive myself....
"... Besides, I let it happen. Because I thought it would cure him."
"Of falling in love?"
"Of trying to be young when he didn't feel it. I thought he'd see how
impossible it was. But that's the sad part of it. He _would_ have felt
young, Barbara, if you'd loved him. If I'd loved him I could have kept
him young. I told you," she said, "it was all my fault."
"You told me Ralph and I would never be old. Is that what you meant?"
"Yes."
They sat silent a moment, looking down through Ralph's window into the
Market Square.
And presently they saw Mr. Waddington pass the corner of the Town Hall
and cross the wide, open space to the Dower House.
"You must come back with me, Barbara. If you don't everybody'll know
what's happened."
"I can't, Fanny."
"He won't be there. You won't see him till your wedding day. He's going
to stay with Granny. He says she isn't very well."
"I'm sorry she isn't well."
"She's perfectly well. That isn't what he's going for."
Across the Square they could see the door of the Dower House open and
receive him. Fanny smiled.
"He's going back to his mother to be made young again," she said.