and a second in prospect, when her energies were claimed by a new
problem. From an untraced source came the report that Barbara was
becoming very intimate with young Waring. He had spent a week-end at the
Abbey, unobtrusively burying himself in the smoking-room for most of the
time; and Barbara had included him in big and small dinner-parties in
Berkeley Square. Save that he was a Protestant with only the few
hundreds that he earned, he was unexceptionable; Eton, New College and
the bar covered past and present, and for the future he stood second in
succession to Penley and his uncle's title; in temperament and character
he was reported to be dull and wholly dependable. It was a paradox of
Barbara's position, her mother felt, that, when the interlocked Catholic
families had been ruled out, she seemed to have no associates except
nonentities like Gerald Deganway and John Gaymer, who were family
furniture rather than friends, or young politicians, like George
Oakleigh, or literary freaks, like Mr. Arden, or the really rather
dreadful people like the stout young man with all the cars, Mr. Webster,
who was always getting her into one scrape or another: the less said
about them, the better. Barbara was lamentably gregarious in her
friendships, but in these latter days all girls were allowed so much
liberty, they seemed to know so much and to be so intolerant of
restraint....
Lady Crawleigh was not at present equal to a struggle on the question of
religion. The Church had become unyielding about mixed marriages; that
was the wretched Sonia Dainton's excuse for breaking off her engagement
to Jim Loring, and, when she had nothing else to disturb her mind, Lady
Crawleigh was haunted by the fear that Barbara, who was deplorably lax,
would make some terrible scandal by marrying a Protestant without
getting a dispensation. Of course, it would not be a true marriage, and
no Catholic would consent to know her,--but it was the sort of thing
that Babs would do.
The untraced rumour, like many another, travelled far before reaching
those most intimately concerned. Jack Waring had devoted so many years
to a middle-aged pose and the ostentatious avoidance of all social life
that his own friends commented in outspoken amusement on his
recantation. In the winter months of 1913 he began to appear at dances,
though he still refused to take an active part. "Who's the man with Babs
Neave?" quickly became "Who's the man who's always with Babs Neave?"
and, before long, "Is anything going to happen about Babs Neave and Jack
Waring?" Derision at the fall of a misogynist passed through speculation
to resentment.
"Jack simply monopolizes Babs nowadays," complained Summertown one night
in the New Year at a dance in his mother's house. He was aggrieved at
being unable to attract Barbara's notice and had summoned Deganway,
Arden and Oakleigh to a meeting of protest in the smoking-room. "Wonder
what she sees in him," he grumbled. "He's a good fellow and all that
sort of thing--capital company on a desert island, if you wanted plenty
of bar shop, but he's taking all the bubble out of her. I tried to rope
her in for my party at the Albert Hall, but, when she heard who was
coming, she refused. Damned offensive, I thought. Said that people had
been talking about her so much that she had to be very careful. And old
Jack nodded--you could see she was doing it to please him; it'll be an
awful chuck-away if she marries him."
"She will not marry him," Arden predicted. "If for no other reason, Lady
Lilith has still to discover a heart."
"What's she doing it for, then?" asked Oakleigh. "I'm very fond of Jack,
he's a thoroughly good fellow, but he's _rather_ a bore."
"What man can choose from among a woman's motives?" demanded Arden.
"Perhaps she finds a difficulty in getting rid of him. There was a time
when she was certainly intrigued, when she pursued him relentlessly.
Perhaps she feels a glow of respectability from his presence; one's
cook, if not a _cordon bleu_, was recommended to one as 'a regular
communicant.'... Perhaps she chose him to see what she could make of
him, as _le Bon Dieu_ chose the Jews. But she will not marry him.... One
has a certain instinct."
He shook his head sagaciously and dismissed the subject. But a new
mile-stone had been reached when four men could be found gathering to
discuss Jack's marriage to Barbara as even a remote possibility. Similar
discussions had for some weeks taken place in little groups round the
walls of the ball-rooms. Lady Knightrider, who had known Jack longest
and best, confided to a friend that he was an excellent influence, a man
who would stand no nonsense from the girl; he was fearless and unmoved
by Barbara's tantrums and had once spoken very sensibly when she revived
the absurd project of leaving her parents and taking a house by herself.
That evening Phyllis Knightrider epitomised and retailed a conversation
which she had not been intended to hear by saying to Barbara, as they
drove to the dance, "Mother's quite made up her mind that you ought to
marry Jack Waring. She says he's the only man she knows who can keep you
in order."
The attack was opened three hours later from the opposite flank, when
Gerald Deganway put up his eye-glass and stared at Jack with an
affectation of shocked gravity.
"My dear, every one's talking about you," he exclaimed. "It's becoming
quite a scandal."
"_What's_ becoming a scandal?" asked Jack.
"You and Babs Neave."
"What a pity it is that people can't mind their own business!"
Any one acquainted with Deganway knew better than to take his gossip at
face-value, but Jack was amazed to find that he had given material for
chatter and speculation even to Deganway. To be a friend of Barbara
Neave, as Arden once said, was like going for a walk with an arc-lamp;
but they had been frigidly circumspect and restrained. Two week-ends at
Crawleigh Abbey, perhaps six dinners in London and twice that number of
dances, where he looked in at supper-time and left after an hour,
covered their public intimacy. For a moment Jack was roused to violent
irritation towards Deganway, then he dismissed the irritation in
gratitude for the warning. There was no time to lose, if this kind of
nonsense was being talked, and he stationed himself at the door of the
ball-room and pounced upon Barbara at the end of the dance.
"You're not really hungry, are you?" she asked, when he suggested that
they should have supper together.
"I want to talk with you," he answered.
Barbara started imperceptibly. Jack was less self-possessed than usual;
of any other man she would argue from a varied experience that he
meditated proposing to her.
"I'll come down, if you like," she answered gently. She always achieved
success with Jack when her voice grew caressing and she promised to do
a thing, if he liked. "I hope I'm not in disgrace?"
"You? Oh, no. I'm going away on circuit to-morrow, though," he said,
tidying away a litter of dirty plates from the only unoccupied table.
"When will you be back?"
Jack helped her to a cutlet as though he were serving out rations,
sprinkled his own with salt, cut his roll in two, prospected for a clean
glass and poured out some champagne, which he tasted cautiously, with a
murmured, "'04 Bollinger! It's a crime to waste that on a ball!" For a
man not naturally greedy, supper was very absorbing.
"I shall be away for a week or two," he explained, precipitately adding,
"at least."
Barbara's eyes were on his face, but he had no attention to spare from
the cutlet.
"Ring me up, when you come back, and suggest a night for dinner," she
said.
"I shall have a good deal of work to do when I get back. I've been
getting very slack lately. _And_ dissipated; you've been making me keep
too late hours."
Barbara sighed wearily.
"As if I 'made' you do anything! Will you be back before Easter?"
"Oh, yes."
"Would you like to come to Crawleigh for Easter?"
He went through the same ceremonial with a second cutlet and then said,
without looking up:
"I shall be going to my people for Easter."
Barbara raised her eyebrows and turned half away.
"I apologize," she murmured.
"Why?"
"For bothering you with unwelcome invitations."
This time there was no hesitation, though Jack was conscious that his
voice and lips were unsteady.
"It doesn't do much good, does it?" he asked with a lop-sided smile.
"What doesn't?"
"Our meeting."
"I thought you liked being with me; and I thought it gratified your
missionary spirit," she added tartly.
"But does it do much good beyond affording a topic of conversation for
congenital idiots? I'm looking ahead, Lady Barbara."
"What does that mean?"
Jack glanced at her for the first time. He imagined that he could look
her in the eyes without embarrassment; but his hand trembled, and he saw
that he had spilt the champagne. She must have seen it, too; she could
be in no doubt of his meaning. He had intended to warn her that the
congenital idiots were coupling their names; and he had now to warn
himself that, if he saw any more of the girl, if she ever again looked
at him through smiling, half closed eyes, murmuring that she would do
what he wished because he wished it, he was quite capable of making a
fool of himself. It would not be serious, because any union between a
Catholic and the straitly reared son of bitterly Evangelical parents was
unthinkable; it would not be serious, because every one knew that
Barbara would soon have seven thousand a year of her own, provided
always that she married a Catholic, while he might hope very shortly to
be making seven hundred a year, which already had to pay for the rent of
chambers and club bedroom, share of clerk, subscription to Law Reports,
expenses of circuit, club subscriptions, food, drink, tobacco, clothes
and sundries. It would not be serious, but it might be very unsettling.
"You see ... I'm--a practising barrister," he explained. "That means
that I work for my living and am looking forward to doing so for the
best part of my life."
"And I've been wasting your time? I'm sorry, Jack. I like you, when
you're gentle and don't find fault with me. I didn't mean to be
selfish."
She had not thought it prudent to use his Christian name since the
disastrous night of the Croxton Ball.
"I've loved it," he answered. "I always told you that I thought a
tremendous lot of you. But I have to work. I sometimes think that, so
long as a man's decently dressed, a girl never bothers to think whether
he's got twopence a year or ten thousand," he added with a touch of
bitterness.
"Can't you manage Easter at Crawleigh?" she asked.
He picked up his gloves and offered her a cigarette.
"Don't you understand?"
"I don't understand about money; people make such an absurd fuss over
it. I understand that, as usual, you're making me ask twice for what
most men would give me without asking; and that's sometimes a little
humiliating. Still, you say I'm a law unto myself. Will you come?" He
still hesitated; and she leaned forward with her hand on his sleeve.
"Have I _ever_ refused to do anything you asked?"
"I don't think you have," said Jack slowly. "I--shall be delighted to
come."
He drove her home that night, wondering what she meant by saying in such
a context that she was a law unto herself. As the taxi left Berkeley
Square, he half thought of driving to the Temple and talking to Eric
Lane. But he had nothing to say and did not know what he wanted. He was
elated and a little frightened; never before had he so sorely needed
cold, brutal advice; and this question, which he did not yet dare to
define, was one which he would have to solve by himself. As he
undressed, he wondered what Barbara was doing, what she had meant,
whether she had meant anything....
He was away from London for three weeks; and in that time he
unhurriedly made up his mind to marry her. Lying awake in his berth on
the night train to Newcastle, he decided that he must have fallen in
love with her at the Croxton ball. As a bachelor his responsibilities
and troubles were confined within the four walls of his bedroom at a
very comfortable club; he lived like a prince on four or five hundred a
year; and he had never needed the companionship of a woman--least of
all, of a woman whom he had instinctively avoided for three years and
who quarrelled with him daily when they had at last met. He appreciated
now that they quarrelled because he could not bear to see her cheapening
herself, because he was already in love with her.
And she must have fallen in love with him at the same time; though he
lectured her until she broke down and cried, she begged him to come back
and give her another chance. The night when she first invited him to
dine with her marked her transition to certainty, but it was only when
they were parting that their two certainties engaged and interlocked.
While he pronged his cutlet and sprinkled it with salt, eyes prudently
averted, each discovered that the other was becoming a habit; he liked
her sudden petulance and sudden softening, her restless changes and
lightning vitality; and he wondered in sudden humility what she, with
her charm and quickness, could see in him. Her family, hitherto
friendly, would be disappointed; for she could marry any one, and they
would murmur that she had thrown herself away on a poor man who might,
indeed, gamble his way into silk, but would never rise to the Bench, the
Appeal Court or the House of Lords. She would forfeit her godfather's
fortune by marrying a Protestant; and, if they were to live at all, the
Crawleighs must come to their aid. Perhaps the Crawleighs disliked mixed
marriages as much as the Warings....
Jack turned on the light and frowned at the imitation maple-wood
compartment. He must be prepared for a struggle. _Imprimis_ the
theological history of the Warings began with Zachary Macaulay, diverged
into abolitionism, collected and tidied itself under Lord John Russell
and the No-Popery movement and came to an inglorious and unseen end,
when the family purged itself politically of a whig taint. Mr. Kensit
was a tough, awkward mouthful, and, in the absence of a more restrained
leader, the Warings did their good to Protestantism by stealth. The
colonel fought an honourable fight for the Geneva gown; he talked of
"clergymen" and "communion-tables," where others lisped papistically of
"priests" and "altars"; and there were heated and unconvincing arguments
in the vicarage library about the ornaments rubric. But, if they no
longer took a part in public ecclesiastical controversy, the family
would choke at Barbara's name. The colonel was vaguely disquieted when
Jack, under the guidance of Jim Loring, drifted into "that Catholic set"
(he refrained from calling them Papists out of consideration for Jack's
feelings, but he frequently abbreviated their definition to "R. C's");
to marry an "R. C." was hardly more venial than to marry a black woman
or to wear a ring in one's nose. And since this insolent _Ne temere_
decree....
Jack had heard it quoted, but had never sought enlightenment lest he
should pour oil on the sinking fires. Colonel Waring treated religious
controversy as his safety-valve and needed no encouragement. But it was
time for Jack to find out where he stood.
Val Arden was discovered unexpectedly in the hotel at Leeds, and Jack
invited him to dine with the bar mess after the first day of the
Assizes.
"One was persuaded to deliver a lecture," the novelist explained. "The
hard-headed men of the West Riding will think twice before repeating the
venture; but it was an experience for them, and one escaped with one's
life. The North is very remote. One is still remembered in London? Yes?
One's friends are in reasonable health?"
"They're bearing up," Jack answered. "Jim Loring's back in England."
"A sadder and a wiser man, one hears. Well, if a man wants romance, he
must be prepared to pay for it. One feels that it is worth the
inconvenience of three years' exile not to be married to Sonia Dainton.
You know the full sad story? No? It should be a lesson."
At dinner he weighted his gossip and airy moralizing with serviceable
information. Jack learned that a Catholic could only obtain dispensation
for a mixed marriage, if the non-Catholic undertook that all the
children of the marriage should be brought up in the Catholic faith. It
seemed an unequal stipulation, but the only alternative was for the
Catholic to defy the Church and to renounce his faith, which was no less
unequal. When Arden was gone to bed, Jack surveyed the problem from the
standpoint of his family, of Barbara and of himself. There would be a
bitter fight at Red Roofs and another at Crawleigh Abbey; but the
alternative was to give up Barbara. Neither of them submitted easily to
opposition.
He returned to London a few days before Easter, only concerned to wonder
how a man prepared the ground before asking a girl to marry him; he had
talked vaguely of admiration, but he had never made love to Barbara. And
he must find out whether the Crawleighs regarded him as a _persona
grata_. And he must explain to Barbara his financial position and the
kind of life that a barrister led; and they must have a talk about this
religious business....
Barbara herself, and the party which she had gathered for Easter at the
Abbey, gave him generous opportunity. With Loring and his sister,--both
persuaded by their mother "to give Babs one last chance"--with
Summertown and Sally Farwell, Pentyre, Victor Knightrider, Gerald
Deganway, Charles Framlingham and a leavening of the Crawleighs'
official friends to entertain one another, there was no difficulty in
slipping away unobserved. So long as Barbara distributed herself
equitably at luncheon and dinner, no one seemed to miss her at other
times; and, as Jack did not play bridge, some one had to talk to him in
the evenings.
She welcomed him with the mood and language of their last night together
in London.
"Well, I hope the practising barrister made a lot of money," she said to
him the first evening after dinner.
"I had rather a good assize," he answered. "My fair share at Leeds and
more than my fair share at Newcastle. In money, it wouldn't seem much to
you, but I'm quite pleased."
A word of congratulation launched him on a conscientious survey of his
fees and cases from the delivery of his first brief. In succeeding
conversation he threw further slabs of information at her by schedule,
talking of himself with simple-minded absorption. Finance was polished
off the first night; the Waring family, three times sub-divided,
occupied the following day, and with healthy relentlessness he
overhauled Catholicism in particular and revealed religion in general.
The conversation, if one-sided and monotonous, was at least amicable
until a smouldering brand from the theological bonfire, waved to life in
the kindling breeze of personality, set her ablaze.
"Of course, the whole bag of tricks wants overhauling," said Jack of the
Established Church and its liturgy. "When a fellow's ordained, he _says_
he believes all sorts of things that he doesn't, really. Every
congregation mouths responses like so many parrots, but if you tackled
any single member with a plain question, he'd have to admit that he
didn't believe the whole business exactly as it's set out in the
pleadings. Well, I've got a legal mind. If you say Christ _descended_
into _Hell_ and on the third day _rose_ again from the dead and
_ascended_ into Heaven, I want to know if you mean it literally or
figuratively? That's one of the beauties of _your_ Church; you don't
admit any doubt or vagueness."
_"'What are the laws of nature, not to bend
If the Church bid them?'"_
murmured Barbara.
"You believe that?"
"It was a quotation. I'm sorry."
"It's a logical point of view. With us you pick and choose. In the
marriage service it's becoming the fashion for a girl to say she'll
'love and honour' her husband. Now, the Prayer Book says, 'love, honour
and _obey_.' If I were a parson, I'd refuse to go on with the service
until she'd said 'obey.'"
"But if she doesn't mean to?" asked Barbara. "I think it's degrading."
"If it comes to a tussle, the woman has to give in; so why is she
degraded by recognizing it and promising beforehand?"
"She doesn't have to. You couldn't make me--even with a dog-whip."
Though he affected a laugh, Jack had many times regretted the phrase.
Barbara kept it in the forefront of her memory and persistently threw it
down as a challenge to herself, when her natural independence flagged.
"You'd obey me without that. You can't have two captains on one ship. I
don't suppose that any modern husband goes about saying, 'I order you to
do this'; he tries to dovetail their two lives into one----"
"Then there wouldn't be much obedience, if I always got my own way."
"That you certainly wouldn't do!" he laughed.
"What d'you mean?"
Jack looked down the long drawing-room and reflected before answering.
It was the last night of his visit to Crawleigh Abbey, and he was hardly
prepared for a declaration. Though he had conscientiously put Barbara in
possession of all material information, she had received it without
comment. In four days he had not brought her any nearer; sometimes it
seemed as if she were not trying to help him, and all that he had
achieved was to fall four days more in love with her. Instinctively he
felt that this was not the most favourable time for a parade of
authority; but he had defined his attitude towards every other relevant
issue, and it was tidier not to leave his task unfinished. Before
marriage or immediately after, he would have to indicate certain people
whom he did not care for her to meet, certain things that he did not
care for her to do. The theatrical connection, for instance, would have
to be cut; Colonel Waring often said that, thirty years ago, an actress
was never received at the big houses. Now there was a considerable
group, ranging from Manders at the top to quarter-bred anonymities at
the bottom, who regarded her as belonging to their world.
"If you were married to me, I should change your mode of
life--drastically," he answered.
"What do you find so very unsatisfactory in it?"
Her tone was in itself a warning; but, if she challenged him to make out
his case, Jack could not refuse the challenge.
"You're too big for your company," he began from the familiar text.
"Take me as a typical case. I knew of you years before I knew you; and
I--on account _of_ your friends, you know--I'd have gone miles to avoid
meeting you. To me--and the world at large--you were simply a girl who
forced yourself into the limelight and got up to mischief with people
that you simply ought never to have known. Since I've got to know you
and like you, by Jove, I'd give ten years of my life to get _un_said the
sort of things I used to hear about you. I remember thinking, before I
met you, 'If she were my _sister_....'"
"What kind of things did you hear?" asked Barbara quietly.
"I needn't particularize," he answered.
Barbara shrugged her shoulders and relaxed her attention, only to
concentrate it again as she found him particularizing in merciless
detail. There were crimes, misdemeanours and sins of the spirit. The
stolen car, the mangled chauffeur and the endless, unforgettable inquest
were dragged to the light; Jack spared her the coroner's rasping
comments, but he could not resist another allusion to the Surinam cable.
There was a raided roulette-party, when Summertown had helped her into
safety by the fire-escape. (She found time to wonder how he had heard of
it; either Val Arden or Summertown was running up a bill against
himself.) There was an embarrassing encounter at a night club, where she
had gone with Sir Adolf Erckmann's party: all would have been well, if
Sonia Dainton had not come with Webster and if Webster had not been
drunk. As it was, there had been the makings of unpleasantness. George
Oakleigh had taken Sonia home, Webster had become quite helpless; and,
in trying to dispose of him, they had all attracted a good deal of
notice. Then there was the episode of Madame Hilary. So much for the
crimes.
"You take a great interest in the movements of some one you despise,"
commented Barbara. She wondered why she consented to listen to him, but
she was unequal to the self-denial of going away while she was being
discussed.
"My dear girl, these things fly from one end of London to the other
almost before you've done them. You _won't_ recognize how well known you
are! D'you appreciate that I should let myself in for a first-class row
with my people, if I told them that we were friends? All rot, of course;
but there you are."