own way that I thought that would be enough." She broke off into a cough
and gave Sonia time to get out of the room. "If you want to see whether
I've got any pride, I haven't--just now. I ask you again. I told you I
wasn't in the mood to go to the play; I'm worried out of my mind. But I
don't fancy being alone all the evening. If it's too much _trouble_
to--talk up to my level, don't come. But I should like you to."
There was a moment's laughter--deliberately mocking or ingenuously
unrestrained; she could never make out whether Jack was naturally or
intentionally stupid.
"I can't resist the pathetic, Lady Barbara. What time shall I come?"
"We might dine about half-past eight. If you want to meet mother and
make certain that I'm not compromising you, come earlier."
The taunt was left unanswered; but it was noticeable that Jack arrived
in Berkeley Square at eight o'clock, when the car was at the door and
the door itself open. In the hall Lord Crawleigh was being helped into a
fur-coat, and a blushing young footman was paying the penalty of
inexperience, clumsiness and some one else's hasty dinner. Lady
Crawleigh steered a course round the storm-centre and approached the
stranger with the outstretched hand of hurried welcome.
"Mr. Waring? You must forgive our running away like this; the wretched
play starts at a quarter past eight. Babs will be down in a moment. You
won't keep her up late, will you? We've got to go on to a party at the
Carnforths, so I must leave you to see that she goes to bed in good
time. She's rather overdone."
With a flying introduction to Lord Crawleigh, she rustled down the steps
and into the car. Jack was shewn into the morning-room, where he
smoothed his hair, straightened his tie and settled down to the evening
paper, paying as little attention to the Japanese prints on the walls as
he had done in the hall to a pair of historic porcelain vases which
appeared from time to time at loan exhibitions and were beyond price. At
Oxford and in the Temple his attitude to art was one of toleration,
ungrudging and unpatronizing. "I suppose it's all right," he would say,
when Eric Lane tried to interest him in a new discovery. "Not my line of
country, though."
Lady Barbara came down, as he was finishing the report of a case in
which he had appeared that day in the Court of Appeal. He was too much
engrossed to notice that she was ten minutes late.
"'_Blame me not, poor sufferer; that I tarried_,'" she began. "I had
such an awful headache that I could hardly get up; and I thought it
would be straining our friendship if I asked you to dine with me in my
room. There's not the least need for you to ask if I'm feeling better,"
she pouted.
Jack laughed and laid his paper tidily on the table.
"Sorry! I--I warned you I wasn't a social animal. I hope you're all
right now."
"Better. I feel rather as if some one had been putting hot coals at the
back of my eyes." She paused and looked at him invitingly.
_"'But thy dark eyes are not dimm'd, proud Iseult!
And thy beauty never was more fair.'_
Some people _never_ take their cues."
"I haven't a book of the words, I'm afraid."
"And you've probably never heard of Matthew Arnold."
"Oh, yes, I have. He translated Homer or something. My tutor was always
quoting him."
"You're wonderfully banal at times, Mr. Waring."
"Well, I warned you that I shouldn't be able to stay the course," he
answered unabashed.
They dined in amicable dulness. Lady Barbara, who generally shewed a
knack of knowing what she wanted and going straight for it, could not
define what had made her invite him. His conversation was a minute-gun
fire of laboured conventional questions about theatres, the House of
Commons and her plans for Christmas. She lacked the lightness of spirit
to banter him about his Cockney clerk, still less to work up a scene out
of her conversation on the telephone. The humiliation of the Croxton
Ball seemed very far away; and, now that she was face to face with him,
she found it hard to believe that she had sat half the night staring
vengefully into the fire and plotting to punish her glib critic. He was
tough of hide as Fatty Webster....
The name, flashing through her mind, conjured up a picture which she had
striven to forget--a hot, scented room with men and women shrinking
against the walls, a dead girl in the middle and a convulsive,
hysterical witch opposite her. She wondered whether they were still
there, what the doctor had said....
"I hadn't time to see the paper to-night," she said. "Was there anything
in it?"
"I don't think so. We won our appeal--the Great Southern Railway case; I
don't know whether you've been following it--but they're sure to take it
to the House of Lords. Otherwise--oh, your friend Webster seems to be in
trouble again."
Lady Barbara felt as if he had struck her over the heart.
"What's he been doing?" she asked after a pause.
"Well, this time I think he was more sinned against than sinning. He had
some people to tea in his flat, and one of them was inconsiderate enough
to die on the premises."
"Oh, how dreadful!" She was quite satisfied with her inflection.
"Where's the paper? Herbert, will you get me the evening paper out of
the morning-room?"
"It's only a line or so in the stop-press," Jack warned her.
"But I want to see who was there!"
He looked at her closely, for her voice had risen in excitement. When it
was too late, she realized that it would have been more natural to ask
who had died. Before Jack's eyes her own fell, but she had time to
wonder again whether he was stupidly incurious or deliberately
secretive. There were moments when his "superiority" seemed more than a
manner, when she felt bare and trapped. The placid, round-cheeked smile
might have belonged to a cheerful ploughboy, but the commonplace grey
eyes were sometimes intelligent and always watchful.
When the paper came, she felt that he was looking through her, and her
hands trembled.
"Did you know the girl?" he asked.
"I met her once--for a moment. What a horrible thing to happen!"
"You must be glad you weren't there."
"What d'you mean?"
As the indignant, frightened question broke from her, she felt that she
was behaving like a stage criminal and betraying herself because the
audience expected it of her. It was a barrister's business to lure you
on with innocent questions.... She was convinced that Jack knew
everything and was playing with her.
"You always used to go about with him," he pointed out; and she wondered
what base satisfaction one human being could derive from torturing
another.
"It's curious the way you dislike people without knowing them," she
answered. "Now, shall I behave like a perfect Victorian and leave you to
your wine while I do a little embroidery in the drawing-room? I haven't
_got_ any embroidery and, if I had, I couldn't do it. Or would you like
me to sit with you?"
When it was too late, she knew that she wanted to escape and collect
herself before he went on with his inquisition.
"You won't smoke while I'm drinking port-wine, will you?" he asked
without answering her question; and his impudence determined her to
throw away the opportunity of retreat.
She prepared a crushing retort, discarded it for one more crushing and
suddenly realized that in her present state he could beat her and very
easily make her cry. If she cried, too, he would only think that she was
acting....
"Please let me have _one_ cigarette," she begged. "I'll go to the other
end of the room."
As she walked away to the fire-place and stood with her elbow on the
mantel-piece and her head half in shadow, Jack thought for a moment of
asking her to come back; but he was not wholly reconciled to the
practice of smoking among women, and Colonel Waring had taught him that
to drink a vintage wine with a tainted palate was even less excusable
than to enter a church without removing one's hat.
"Wouldn't you like a chair?" he asked by way of compromise.
"I prefer standing, thanks. Mr. Waring, I told you on the telephone that
I was worried out of my mind. I don't know how much you've heard, but I
was _with_ Fatty Webster when that girl died. Did you know that?"
The placid, plough-boy smile faded slowly; and, as he raised his
eyebrows, Lady Barbara appreciated that she was betraying herself
gratuitously.
"I only know what's in the paper. What happened?"
She retained enough judgement to see that she must now tell him
everything, enough prudence to exact a promise of secrecy. As she
described Madame Hilary and the _séance_, she could see prim disapproval
on his features, deepening with every name and incident in the story.
For a man with no great range of facial expression, he succeeded in
conveying categorical contempt for her manner of life, her friends and
herself; and she forgot her troubles in a warm rush of anger.
"Just let me understand," he interrupted, as the story drew to an end.
"Are you coming to me for advice, do you think I can help you? Or are
you just entertaining me with your latest escapade?"
Lady Barbara gripped the edge of the mantel-piece to keep control of
herself.
"Perhaps I thought I might get a little sympathy," she answered.
Jack lay back in his chair, pushing away his wine-glass and reaching for
his coffee-cup. He chose a cigar and pierced it; and every act in its
deliberation and absorbed care for his own comfort set her on fire to
ruffle his exasperating composure.
"I should have thought the others had a prior claim on any sympathy
that's going about."
"I'm afraid no amount of sympathy will bring the dead back to life," she
answered in a whisper.
"I wasn't thinking of her. But the others did at least stand their
ground."
"You mean I deserted my friends?" she demanded furiously.
"Well, of course you did,--if they are your friends. It wasn't your
fault, but it wasn't theirs, either. Because your own record of inquests
doesn't court enquiry, you're allowed to cut and run."
"I couldn't have done any good by staying."
He made no answer until he had found matches and lighted his cigar. It
was evidently important that the coffee and brandy and tobacco should
march abreast; evidently science and art went to the skilled lighting of
a cigar; a man--or at least Jack Waring--could not be expected to attend
to other people's troubles until he had made sure of his own comfort.
"Ah, there I disagree," he said at length. "It would have made all the
difference in the world. First of all you'd have proved that you _were_
the sort of person one can go tiger-shooting with--it wasn't a
particularly _proud_ thing to do, was it?--and then you'd have proved
to yourself that you'd got the moral courage to refuse a cheap
surrender; and you'd have learned that eccentric amusements have to be
paid for at blackmailing prices: you could go into court with an easy
conscience, if you'd been having tea at Rumpelmayer's and the girl had
died there. In the next place----"
Lady Barbara turned her head slowly and succeeded in stopping him
without saying a word.
"I should be careful, if I were you, Mr. Waring," she recommended, as he
paused.
"My dear Lady Barbara, you introduced the subject. You can't have all
the fun of posing as a candidate for sympathy.... If you'd stayed, it
would have changed your whole life. There would have been such an outcry
that you'd have been broken; people simply wouldn't meet you. Not only
Loring House would be closed to you----"
A coffee-spoon rattled onto the floor, as she turned on him again.
"I _won't_ be spoken to like this!"
"It may come yet, of course," Jack went on reflectively, hardly noticing
her furious interruption. "These things always _do_ get out----"
"Are you trying to frighten me?" she asked. But she was frightened long
before he entered the house. This was the kind of mishap to bring her
months of ill luck....
Jack was angry without shewing it or guessing the reason. The young
actress's death shocked him less than Lady Barbara's easy acceptance of
it. To her and to Sonia Dainton, to Erckmann and the baroness, to
Webster and Pennington, the dead girl was a nonentity from another
world; they were sorry that she had died so young, they were shocked
that she had died at all; but, had she been a Kanaka or Lascar
bunker-rat, they could not have troubled less to wonder whether she had
mother or sisters to mourn her; she was a super from the theatrical
underworld, and her ill-judged time and place of dying had put them
into a very embarrassing position. When Jack hinted at a social boycott
of Barbara, he was threatening, what he only lacked power to enforce;
she deserved punishment, and, if he could not punish her as she
deserved, he could at least get far away from her to a society which
took death seriously.
"I'm not sufficiently interested, I'm afraid," he answered with languid
boredom that thinly veiled his disgust.
"But you'd like to see me 'broken', you'd feel so superior----," she
taunted.
He looked at his watch and slowly pushed back his chair.
"Why you invited me I don't quite know," he mused. "Surely not to help
you out with one of your little dramatic scenes?... Now, about
to-morrow--will you be up to coming to this show?"
"No! And even I might think twice before going to a theatre while that
girl's still unburied. That's why I'm here now, why I gave myself the
pleasure of asking you to dine with me.... And you may be quite
comfortable in your mind; you won't ever need to risk your reputation by
being seen in my company again."
Jack could see that her nerves were sadly unstrung, but he could not
understand the restless vanity which always posed her in the limelight
ahead of the world in novelty and extravagance and yet so lacked
confidence that she was wounded if any dared criticize.
"I accept my dismissal," he said good-humouredly. Nothing would induce
him to give her the satisfaction of a parting scene. His training at
home, at Eton and at New College taught him that an Englishman might
legitimately display every quality but emotion. "I warned you that I was
not a social success."
"Have you tried very hard? You always talk to me as if I'd no more
feeling than that table."
Lady Barbara needed concentration to analyze him. She knew that a man
is usually cruel only to those whom he likes or loathes; and it dawned
upon her that, when an unsocial animal consented to meet her at all, he
would not try to hurt her unless he cared for her.
"I'm not going to join your musical-comedy chorus of adulators, when I
think you ought to be soundly whipped; I'm not even going to say, 'Oh,
that's Barbara Neave's way; she's always a law unto herself.' I think
that's the thinnest excuse.... Why did you insist on telling me about it
at all? It's like some one boasting that he smokes a hundred cigarettes
a day.... But your mother said I was to send you to bed early. Good-bye,
Lady Barbara."
She walked with him into the hall and watched his elaborate and
characteristic care in arranging his scarf.
"I seem to have failed again," she sighed; and this time there was an
unaffected wistfulness in her voice.
"What were you trying to bring off?" he asked harshly.
"I hardly know.... I'm _not_ trying to make a scene now, but don't you
think you've been a bit hard on me? I was a fool ever to have anything
to do with Fatty Webster: good. I was a fool to go to that _séance_:
good. If you like, I was a coward to come away. But what actually
happened was just bad luck, and you've been talking as if it was my
fault. I didn't enjoy it very much, I don't like thinking about it; it's
just possible that it was a very horrible shock. I wasn't asking you to
approve of it, but you might have been a little bit more sympathetic."
Her lips were trembling, and Jack remembered with consternation the
night of the Croxton ball when he had made her cry. Then and now he had
said nothing that he wanted to retract, but all reasonable discussion
ended when tears were brought in as an argument.
"It must have been beastly for you," he assented. "I should have been
more sympathetic, perhaps, if I'd thought that it would have any
permanent effect on you."
"Don't you think it will?"
"I shan't be there to see," he laughed. "I've been dismissed."
Barbara sighed and reminded him of her headache by drawing her hand
slowly across her eyes. Since the night of the ball, when he sat beside
her at the piano, he had forgotten how beautiful her hands were.
"You made me lose my temper. I'm sorry, if I said anything rude. There!
Do you want to be dismissed?"
The softening in her tone was infectious, and Jack smiled.
"I like you, when you're like this. But the more we meet, the more I
shall ruffle your plumage. Why on earth did you ask me to dine with you
to-night?"
Lady Barbara looked at him and looked away before answering. To put her
feeling into words was at once to overstate it; but she had hovered that
afternoon on a shadow-line and for the first time in her life she had
lost confidence in herself and reached out towards some one strong
enough to help her, perhaps strong enough to check her. It was an
impulse inspired by the contrast of Sonia sobbing in her chair and
Jack's assured voice on the telephone; the impulse would pass, when her
nerves were steady again, but her spirit was changed and no longer
self-sufficient.
"I wanted to tell you that I couldn't come to the theatre with you
to-morrow," she improvised and wondered whether he would trouble to
notice the glaring inadequacy of the excuse. She wondered, too, why she
had chosen Jack rather than another.... "Mr. Waring, once in a way I
give a party at Crawleigh; no officials, no politicians--just my
friends. I'm arranging one quite soon. Will you come? Just for the
week-end. It won't interfere with your work."
Jack hesitated and fingered his hat in embarrassment.
"You know, I'm no good at that sort of thing," he grumbled.
"But you like talking to me,--when I'm on my good behaviour."
"How long will it last?"
"As long as you're there," she laughed.
"In other words, you're going to make _me_ responsible?"
"Doesn't that appeal to your missionary spirit?"
Jack looked at her and decided that even a formal protest would only
feed her vanity. He stared abstractedly at her as though she were a
horse led out for his inspection. Suddenly she smiled, and, as her face
lit up with vitality and mischief, the haggard expression vanished and
left her beautiful. Perhaps the smile had come in answer to an
unsuspected light of admiration in his own eyes; perhaps she was a
better actress than he thought and could transform herself at will; no
one could gain her reputation as a coquette without earning it and
working for it.
"It isn't fair to abuse me for behaving badly," she pouted, "if you're
too lazy to make me behave well."
"I have a living to earn. You'd want one man's undivided attention," he
answered.
"But I should be very repaying."
"You'd be amusing for a time. But it would be a wearing life; I'm
doubtful even about this week-end."
"But you'll come?"
"If you haven't quarrelled with me or got into any fresh scrape by
then." He turned on the door-step to shake hands with her. "When you
marry, Lady Barbara, I shall send your husband my warmest
congratulations."
"Thank you. I think that's the first time you've come near doing me
justice."
"As a wedding-present," he continued, "I shall send him a little
silver-mounted dog-whip."
CHAPTER SEVEN
A MATTER OF DUTY
"My lord master, you have heard the design I am upon which is to
marry.... I humbly beseech you ... to give me your best advice
therein." "Then," answered Pantagruel, "seeing you have so decreed
and taken deliberation theron ... what need is there of further
talk thereof, but forthwith to put into execution what you have
resolved." "Yea, but," quoth Panurge, "I would be loth to act
anything therein without your counsel had thereto." "It is my
judgment also," quoth Pantagruel, "and I advise you to it."
"Nevertheless," quoth Panurge, "if you think it were much better
for me to remain a bachelor, as I am, than to run headlong upon new
hare-brained undertakings of conjugal adventure, I would rather
choose not to marry." "Not marry then," said Pantagruel. "Yea,
but," quoth Panurge, "would you have me so solitarily drag out the
whole course of my life without the comfort of a matrimonial
consort? You know it is written Vae Soli; and a single person is
never seen to reap the joy and solace that is found among those
that are wedlockt." "Wedlock it then, in the name of God," quoth
Pantagruel. "But if," quoth Panurge, "..."
_Rabelais: How Panurge asketh counsel of
Pantagruel whether he should
marry yea or no._
A week before Christmas, Loring cabled to his mother that he was on his
way back to England; in the spring of 1914 he landed at Southampton and
travelled unobtrusively to London while his yacht proceeded to Glasgow
for overhauling and repairs. And, from the moment when his cable was
received, an unconscious adjustment of relationships began,
crystallizing in a series of informal family councils.
Ever since the ultimatum from Surinam, Lady Barbara had not set foot in
House of Steynes or Loring House. It was plausible to pretend that in
Jim's absence his mother was not entertaining, but on his return all
three branches of the family decided that they could not afford the
scandal of an open breach and of a Catholic house divided against
itself. Lady Crawleigh enlisted the support of Lady Knightrider and made
an attack in force on Lady Loring. Thirty years before, the three
sisters had, each in her own way, been celebrated; Lady Crawleigh had
the good looks, Lady Knightrider the good temper and Lady Loring the
brains; and their marriages, one after another, to a Scottish baronet
and two of the richest Catholic peers in England were felt to be
fundamentally satisfactory. As they had begun, so they went on; Kathleen
Knightrider bore a daughter and a son, Eleanor Loring a son and a
daughter, Doreen Crawleigh three sons and two daughters, of whom the
younger died in infancy. The three husbands were above criticism in life
and position; if Sir Charles Knightrider was little more than amateur
landscape-gardener and ornithologist, Lord Loring was very nearly at the
head of the Catholic laity in England; while Lord Crawleigh's succession
of great offices, which he not only filled but adorned, would have
satisfied the most ambitious woman. If the individuality of the three
wives became merged in their husbands, they still made a strong social
combination.
"I hear Jim's on his way home," said Lady Crawleigh without preamble.
"When he comes, Eleanor, we shall have to make peace between him and
Barbara."
"I'll talk to Jim," answered his mother doubtfully. "But you know how
obstinate he is." She was divided between loyalty to her son and pity
for her sister, who could not enjoy having to plead like this for her
own daughter. "I do hope this will be a lesson to dear Barbara."
"I hope so, too," sighed Lady Crawleigh.
If she spoke without conviction, it was because her brain was giddy with
successive shocks. The secret of Dolly May's death was kept for exactly
five days after the inquest. Then a gaunt woman, giving no name,
demanded to see Barbara and, on hearing that she was in the country,
bearded Lord Crawleigh, who promptly threatened her with attentions from
the police. All previous courts of enquiry were trivial by comparison
with the inquisition now erected; but, as the attack developed,
Barbara's resistance developed equally, and she warned her parents that,
on the day when she came of age, she would move into a house of her own
where she could receive friends of every complexion and practice magic
of every colour. If the form of the threat was old, its clarity and
vigour were new; Barbara had less than six months to wait for her
majority and independence.