"too big" to do. The one tiresome phrase was reinforced by others as
insistent and tiresome. Some one--probably his stiff little sister--had
taught him the word "grisette." "That may be all very well for a
grisette, but you...." Some one--probably his mother--had divided a
girl's behaviour into what was "hoydenish" and what was not; Barbara
felt that she had all the markings of a pedigree hoyden. He contributed
a few phrases of his own, assuring her gravely that this or that was
"simply not done, you know;" and, as other men drew breath before
embarking on a new sentence, he introduced every new count in the
indictment with an apology that was but a veiled further reproach. "I
expect you think I'm an awful prude.... I may be old-fashioned, but I've
always been brought up to believe...."
After the misdemeanours, the sins of the spirit.
"You admit that you're frightfully vain and spoiled," he began
pleasantly. "You admit that you expect every one to do exactly what you
want without even being asked...." He traced the deleterious effect of
such vanity on her character. Whatever was going on--from a pageant to a
sale of work--she must be in it; her photograph must be in every paper.
And, when there was no opportunity for public display, she made it,
forced it. Hence this chain of escapades; it was self-advertisement,
and, God knew, she was too big for that sort of thing.
At first Barbara listened in amazement; then she became so angry that
her attention wandered, as she debated whether to stalk out of the room
or to turn on him with all her resources of invective. But to run away
was to spare him his punishment. He should apologize for each word, on
his knees. And when he had made recantation, he could go.
"If you were my wife, I should have to change all that," he ended.
Barbara touched her cheeks and was surprised to find them cool.
"You've--rather made mincemeat of me," she sighed, because a sigh loosed
some of her pent anger, and she could not be sure of her speaking voice.
"Jack, in addition to the vanity, do you think I've got any pride?...
Let's go and see how the others are getting on. It's such a pity you
don't play bridge."
As he got up, Jack touched her hand.
"I say, have I said anything to offend you?"
"A fly isn't 'offended' when some boy pulls its legs out one by one.
_Please_ let go my hand, Jack! You must admit I've listened patiently;
I've not said a word in my defence--I suppose you think there's nothing
_to_ be said;--but I don't feel I can stand any more.... Or do you want
to make me cry again?"
Her eyes opened and shut quickly; and, by the time that she turned to
him, they were filled with tears.
"Barbara! It had to be said some time! But I honestly didn't mean to
hurt you. Listen----"
"Not in my own house! I _do_ count for something here! Don't make me
cry! Don't humiliate me before all of them! It's only to-night. You need
never see me again."
Her sudden abasement inflamed him as though he had struck her and she
were begging for mercy.
"Barbara! forgive me! I want to say something to you." Though both were
speaking almost in whispers, there was a change in his voice. Barbara
looked at him mistily through a film of tears and saw that he was going
to ask her to marry him before she was ready. When the time came, it
should be of her choosing; and they would not be at one end of a room
with three bridge-tables at the other.
"No! I want to talk to you. May I? It's my turn, Jack." As she smiled at
him, a tear trickled down her cheek, and she brushed it away with her
hand. He stared at her without understanding, for, though she could be
regal or pathetic, she seemed incapable of ill-temper or resentment.
"Don't you see that, with father, I was brought up in the limelight
since I was a child? Try to imagine how much I've always done and then
tell me if I'm likely to be content with--well, the very domestic life
you say your sister leads. Remember, too, that I've a passion for some
things, which you could never understand. You don't like Sir Adolf, no
more do I, but I'd go anywhere for good music. And, more than that, I'd
be friends with any one, if he had temperament and interested me. I want
the _whole_ of life.... If a thing's not _wrong_, I don't care whether
it's unconventional: if there's nothing wrong in roulette, if I play it
under my father's eyes at Monte Carlo, I'll play it in London; and, if
there's a silly law to drive an innocent thing under ground, I'll play
it under ground. '_Publish and be damned. Your affectionate
Wellington._' I admire people who are too big to mind what's said in the
servants' hall.... But don't let's wrangle on our last night! I'm sorry
if I've disappointed you."
As she took a step towards the bridge-tables, Jack felt that he was
losing her; yet he would only stultify himself by an apology.
"I'm afraid I don't put things very happily," he compromised.
"No more than that?"
"Well, it's your turn now."
"I could never criticize one of my guests."
She gave him time to see that no reply was possible, then took another
step towards the bridge players. More strongly than ever he felt that he
was losing her.
"I hope I shall be one of your guests again, Barbara."
She shook her head and smiled with tired gentleness. Jack discovered
that she was capable, in her quiet passages, of great dignity, which
contributed to his general conception of her as "big" and punished him
more completely than if she had lost her temper and made a scene.
"But you can't like hurting me.... And I've tried to be so sweet to you.
You don't want to come again?"
"But I do."
He hoped to hear her say "Why?" so that he could recover ground and
secure a good jumping-off place for their next meeting.
"Then I'll ask you. I told you at Croxton that I loved doing what people
asked. We shall be coming up to London next week. But I shall never make
you see my point of view."
"I think I've made you see mine."
Barbara turned away without answering, and Jack interpreted her silence
as surrender. She whispered good-night to her mother and went to her
room for fear of insulting him in public. Everything could be forgiven
except this last blatant, avowed assumption that he had bullied her into
submission. His punishment became a matter of duty.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A MATTER OF PLEASURE
"But what will not ambition and revenge
Descend to? Who aspires, must down as low
As high he soar'd, obnoxious, first or last,
To basest things. Revenge, at first though sweet
Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils...."
MILTON: "PARADISE LOST."
"_My Dear Barbara,_
"_I have seen so little of you lately that I don't know what your
movements are. Are you expecting me at the Abbey next week-end? And
shall I find you at Ross House on Friday? I particularly want to
talk to you._
"_Ever yours_,
"JACK WARING."
The letter, written nearly a month after Barbara's Easter party, was
Jack's first documentary admission that a state of war had been
proclaimed and that he was tardily conscious of it. On returning to
London, Barbara invited him to dine, as she had promised; but she
invited so many other people at the same time that he had little
opportunity of talking to her. In the excitement and rush of the early
season, as she darted from dinner to play and from play to ball, it was
impossible to catch her in a serious mood. Jack followed at a
non-committal distance and tried to get her to himself occasionally for
a moment at supper; but, after he had made two of these abortive
attempts, she explained with gentle reproof that it was hardly fair to
expect her to give up dancing because he himself refused to learn; if
he wanted to see her, he could wait and take her home; she would not be
later than three or perhaps four.... After two experiments, Jack changed
his tactics; he could not stay up all night, if he had to be in court
next day at ten o'clock, and there was little intimacy or romance in
driving home with a girl who either dropped asleep or treated the taxi
as an omnibus for distributing her friends about London.
When they met, her good-humour and friendliness reassured him, but they
met so seldom that he made no progress. Letters were unsatisfactory, for
he was afraid of saying too much and always wanted to write "without
prejudice" at the head of the sheet. She never answered more than one in
three; and, though he wrote about himself and his work, she hardly
responded to his suggestion that she had a right to know what he was
doing and that he had no less a right to expect her to be interested in
it. This, he decided, was the fruit of twenty years' spoiling; the
effort--if need be, the abasement--must come on his side.
After a week in which he did not meet her at all, Jack convinced himself
that love could not be conducted on a limited liability basis; no man
achieved passion and saved his face at the same time. It would have been
easier to treat marriage like a casual invitation to dinner and to say
"Will you marry me? No? Well, it does not matter; I thought I'd just ask
you ..."; but a woman was not to be won until she saw that it mattered
more than anything else. After deep thought and with momentarily
increasing reluctance, he went to an address which he had found in the
_Morning Post_, paid three guineas and for a conscientious hour at a
time practised steps and pranced round a studio off the King's Road with
two fluffy sisters who taught him a little of dancing and much of
humility. From the first they despised his clumsiness and resented his
lofty refusal to talk, smoke, drink tea or take them out to dinner; but
their dislike and contempt were nothing to his own sense of shame. Once
back in the County Club, a man among men, deferentially--as became a
young member--asking the chairman of the Wine Committee whether they had
enough of the '84 Dow to sell it by the glass, he wondered what Mr.
Justice Maitland or old Bertrand Oakleigh would think if they dreamed
that he was lately escaped from an abomination called Effie, who
revolved in a sticky fog of cheap chocolates, and a vulgarity named Dot,
who called him "old boy." If Summertown or Gerry Deganway caught him
slinking away from chambers to be told that his knees were too stiff or
that he must hold his partner more tightly.... Jack blushed hotly and
wondered why he had not been taught to dance as a child.
And for all his pains he got little credit. At his next meeting with
Barbara, he chose one of her favourite waltzes and suggested that she
might "risk it" with him. In the infinitely small chatter of the tired
woman round the walls it was remarked for a week that Jack Waring, who
did not usually dance, might very often be seen dancing with Babs Neave.
Val Arden accosted him with surprise and congratulated Barbara in his
presence on having humanized him.
"But _I_ haven't done anything," she answered.
"You said it was rather pointless for a man to come to a ball, if he
didn't dance," Jack pointed out.
"And you did this to please me," she laughed. "How long did it take?
Only a fortnight? I wonder how long it would take you to learn bridge.
There's such a mob of people everywhere that I've made it a rule never
to dance till after supper. George Oakleigh's collecting a table now."
As so often lately, this was not the moment for a man to advance his
suit, but Jack could not decide whether Barbara, like all the girls in
these restless, neurotic months, was too much excited to be serious or
whether she was deliberately tantalizing him and deferring surrender to
set a higher value on herself. As secretly as he had learned dancing, he
set himself to master the leads and returns of bridge. Starting with
"Auction for Beginners," he proceeded painfully to "Advanced Auction
Bridge," and challenged his parents and sister to an experimental game
during his next week-end at Red Roofs. The experiment was not repeated;
Colonel Waring, who carried into bridge the formalism and irritability
of a whist-racked youth, told him that he did not seem to have a "card
head," and, after a night of helpless anger against the unreasonableness
of women, Jack launched his ultimatum to Barbara with an indignant
resolve that she should not trifle with him any longer.
There was little enough of the love-letter in his few words and
colourless phrasing, but Barbara felt a tremor as she read them. The
letter awaited her, with others, when she came home after a party; she
read it first, then poured herself a cup of cocoa, then read the others
and came back to it. This, then, was his capitulation to a woman of such
ill-repute that he dared not confess to his own parents that he even
knew her.
"_My dear Jack_," she wrote in reply. "_Yes, I shall be there on Friday
and look forward to seeing you._"
It read naturally, but gave her hypercritical mind the sense that she
was meeting him half-way; she would not let him say that his broadest
hint had been a warning.
"_My dear Jack_," she tried again. "_I've promised faithfully to go to
the Marlings on Friday; there's rather a panic there, because poor dear
Lady M. thinks that every one will desert her for Ross House--it's her
own fault for choosing that night. If I can possibly get away, I shall
look in for a few minutes. If not, we shall meet at the Abbey next day.
Of course, we're expecting you then._"
Though this read even more naturally, Barbara was not wholly satisfied.
She left the letter in the hall, then retrieved and carried it into her
bedroom to see how it looked by morning light. As she undressed, she saw
with surprise that there was an unaccustomed flush on either cheek and
that her lips were tightly compressed. Jack had hurt her even more than
she appreciated; and he was now going to be taught his lesson. The
"haggard Venus".... The sight of her thin face and deep-set, glowing
eyes made her feel a tragic actress in spite of herself. She was
word-perfect in the scene, for she had rehearsed it every time that his
bluff, sweeping condemnation had touched her vanity. No doubt he would
still try to be bluff and off-hand, but she was resolved to make him
plead humbly and to take back every reproach, one by one.
Barbara sat down before an open window in her bedroom; outside, the
silent night was like a hushed and darkened auditorium for her speech.
"But we've nothing in common! You know you hate the life I had. I'm
afraid I can't alter it, Jack. You'd take away all my friends, but they
interest me; I've got music and books and pictures in common with them.
Even if you got over your dislike, you'd hate to sit in a corner while
we talked about the things that do mean everything to me. And I'm afraid
I should always be shocking you. I've _told_ you that I _must_ have
every new experience; I'd sooner be dead than live a sort of half-life,
_afraid_ to do this, _afraid_ to do that--just because no one had done
it before. I've got too much vitality.... Jack, you've seen eagles in
captivity? Well! That's what would happen to me if I couldn't spread my
wings and soar, soar, soar.... If I married any one who didn't soar with
me. You wouldn't like to hear people say, 'She's grown so old and
lifeless since she married.'
"I can't make out how you ever came to fall in love with me, thinking
of me as you do. There are hundreds of girls just as pretty--much
prettier, in fact. Sally Farwell. Sonia Dainton. I'm vain and I'm not
going to pretend that I don't think myself much higher than _them_, but
it's the things which put me higher that you'll never appreciate--never,
never, never! You think they're wrong or cheap or vulgar.... Jack,
you're in love at present, you're not seeing clearly; but you know in
the bottom of your heart that you'll never change me. Well! Do you want
to spend the rest of your life with a woman you despise, do you want to
despise the mother of your children?... Yes, you actually used the
word--it hurt me so much that I'm not likely to forget it--but, if you
like, I'll try to forget it, I'll _say_ I forget it.... Of course, I
_forgive_! My dear, this is much too important for us both to have any
silly little personal feeling.... And, whenever you say I'm 'big,' I
hope it means that I've got a big soul, that I'm generous.... Dear, I'm
not asking you to apologize, but you admit you said that I was vulgar?
And now you say it's untrue? Well, _I_ haven't changed? It's love....
But love doesn't last for ever. To be happily married, you want common
sympathies, common tastes--something that will last for ever, when
love's burnt out.
"I suppose I ought to be--flattered that you think well enough of me to
want to marry me.... Sometimes you were a little hard on me.... But
flattery ... one's own _amour propre_ is so small.... I can't marry you,
Jack. No! Nothing you could ever say or do.... How you ever fell in love
with me, thinking as you do.... Or _did_, rather. You don't think quite
so badly of me now. But our happiness--for all our lives--No, please,
Jack; don't say anything! You must never speak of this again, of course;
I think it would be better for us not to meet. It's bound to be
difficult, you know ... difficult and painful. I don't mean that you're
to cut me in the street, but if we allowed ourselves to drift
_gradually_ apart.... And now don't think I'm heartless, if I tell you
that you'll get over this. Time heals all things, Jack. You're hurt now;
it's as if I'd hit your head and the blood were running into your eyes.
But in time.... We'll say good-bye now. You may kiss me, if you like,
Jack, but--I think you'd better not. The best thing you can do is to
forget all about me."
As she sat in a carved chair, whispering the words to herself, the drama
of the scene swept Barbara off her balance and left her breathless. The
flush had died out of her cheeks, and all emotion was concentrated in
the trembling whisper of her voice and in her eyes, tragic, tortured and
black, staring through the window into the silent auditorium of the
night.
And Jack, who called her theatrical, never admitted that she could
act....
The wind set her shivering, and she pulled the curtains together. The
rehearsal had excited her, and, when she got into bed, there were
gestures, which she felt she could improve, and phrases, which stood in
need of polish. Jack would not appreciate the subtilty of the scene; he
would go away--perhaps not quite so well satisfied with himself, but
vaguely grateful for her gentleness in blunting the edge of
disappointment. He would feel sure that she had been very wise, very
maternal; and, if any one questioned him out of curiosity or a desire to
be sympathetic, her bitterest critic would become her staunchest
champion. "It was rather a wipe in the eye for me," she could imagine
his saying, "because I was very hard hit; I am still. After all, there's
no one to compare with her.... But I thought she behaved awfully well;
and it couldn't have been easy for her; I'm not really sure that she
didn't feel it more than I did--I mean, she saw I wasn't enjoying
myself much and she did everything she could.... I was conscious at the
time that I'd never loved her so much, I'd never appreciated what I was
losing until I lost her. Of course, I always knew that she was
_big_...."
Many men had proposed to her, but none had done justice to his
opportunity. She wondered how Jack would begin.... Men never troubled
about a setting--or a time; they procrastinated and procrastinated until
the car was at the door or the train was starting. If she were in his
place, there would be splendour of setting and superb eloquence of
rolling, romantic phrases. There was colour in the world when Cyrano de
Bergerac swung down the street, quarrelling and making love, or when he
stood dying and already preparing his bow to the Court of Heaven. But
nowadays all emotion was starved; men were ashamed even of emotion's
gestures, the bloom and the beauty of language. Barbara picked up a
volume of Shakespeare and read where the book opened of its own accord.
"Put off your maiden blushes; avouch the thoughts of your heart with the
looks of an empress; take me by the hand, and say 'Harry of England, I
am thine': which word thou shalt no sooner bless mine ear withal, but I
will tell thee aloud 'England is thine, Ireland is thine, France is
thine, and Henry Plantagenet is thine; who, though I speak it before his
face, if he be no fellow with the best king, thou shalt find the best
king of good fellows.' Come, your answer in broken music.... You have
witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is more eloquence in a sugar touch
of them than in the tongues of the French council."
Barbara sat up in bed, clasping her hands round her knees and thinking
of days when colour still shone in the world and when she made a part of
it. India still lived gorgeously. She could still conjure up her
triumphant arrival at Bombay, the roll of the saluting guns, the guard
of honour, the lined streets and majestic progress of the new
viceroy....
On the evening of the ball she was careful to dress in such fashion that
she should not seem to have taken any extra care, but her maid looked at
her with undisguised admiration, and at dinner Lady Crawleigh woke to
articulate enthusiasm. Barbara smiled to herself, as she put on her
cloak and fastened a spray of orchids in her dress. Every one seemed
eager and excited: her mother had more than once brought Jack's name
into conversation without venturing farther: and, of course, all the
world loved a lover. From Phyllis Knightrider she knew that her aunts
looked with hope and relief on the determined, steady young man who had
at last been found to keep her in order. She wondered what they would
say when he disappeared without explanation.... She wondered how Jack
would begin and whether he would come first to Lady Marling's to make
sure of not missing her. Catching sight of herself in a mirror, she
smiled again, though she was beginning to feel a little nervous. She
wondered how Jack had been spending the first part of the evening....
At half-past eleven he arrived to find her surrounded by four men of
whom each claimed that she had promised him the next dance.
"I came to see if you were thinking of starting for Ross House," Jack
explained. "Have you got your car here?"
"Mother's taken it on," she answered. "But Sir Deryk--you know Sir Deryk
Lancing, don't you? Mr. Waring--Sir Deryk's offered me his. We'll give
you a lift."
Jack hid his disappointment under an adequate bow and accompanied her
downstairs. Young Lancing's presence disquieted him. Though numberless
men made rival calls on her, there had so far been no serious cause for
jealousy; but Lancing had so much in his favour that Jack felt an insane
desire to establish something discreditable against him. He was young,
healthy, good-looking and highly gifted; Barbara had more than once
quoted him as an authority on music; he was something of an
archæologist; and his black-figure pottery at Aston Ripley was no less
famous than his collection of eighteenth-century miniatures. He was
worth between twenty and twenty-five million pounds, he was a baronet;
and he was unmarried. Their tastes harmonized; every one would say that
it was a most suitable alliance. And some would whisper that she had
come very near to throwing herself away on Jack Waring. People ought not
to be allowed to be so rich....
He strode bare-headed on to the pavement, feeling helpless and trying to
persuade himself that he was only nervous. As they drove to Ross House,
he watched and listened to Lancing and Barbara, envying them their ease
and wondering whether it was fair for two people to exclude the third
from conversation by choosing an impossible subject. Rimski-Korsakoff
... Ivan le Terrible ... Chaliapin.... While Barbara got rid of her
cloak, he consciously tried to make friends with Lancing; they had
apparently been at Eton together and had overlapped at Oxford. There was
no harm in the fellow; though he was unutterably bored and made no
attempt to hide it, he could not be dismissed as a conceited ass....
Barbara took an unconscionable time to shed one cloak.... And, when she
returned to the hall, a newly arriving horde was already engulfing her.
"The first one's mine, isn't it?" Jack called out anxiously. "You
promised it me in the car."
The anxiety was almost hysterical, and other people must be noticing it.
"Yes. And then Sir Deryk," answered Barbara. "Then Jack Summertown. Then
Gerry. George?" She gave Oakleigh a quick smile over an undulating sea
of heads and held up four fingers. "No, _missing_ four! Jim? Missing
five! What an _appalling_ crowd! I don't see any prospect of supper."
"May I have that with you--after Jim Loring?" asked Jack. Then he
lowered his voice. "I don't see much prospect of that talk with you."
The voice was peevish, and other people must be noticing that, too.