Jack picked up a cigarette, which he regarded absently, frowning again.
"You could never marry a man who wasn't a Catholic?" he repeated.
"No. Jack, don't let's talk about this any more! If I'm to blame for
making you unhappy.... Oh, try to forgive me! If you let me think I'd
spoiled your life---- Please take me home."
He roused himself from contemplation of the gilt name and address on the
cigarette and walked with her into the house.
"Is your car coming back for you?" he asked with a detachment that she
admired.
"Yes. You can take it on, if you like. Or perhaps you'd rather _not_
come with me.... I suppose you won't be coming to the Abbey to-morrow?"
"I intended to."
"Jack, it can't do any good!"
"Do you withdraw the invitation?"
"I'd rather you didn't come. Later on we may be able to meet.... You
won't believe me now, but time is a wonderful healer----"
He interrupted her with a laugh of grating boisterousness.
"Is there anything to heal?"
It was after four o'clock when Barbara returned home alone from Ross
House; but, though she went quietly to bed, Lady Crawleigh interrupted
her undressing. The Duchess of Ross was the latest busybody to wonder
audibly whether young Waring was serious, and it was high time for the
girl to know that people were talking about her.
"There was such a mob that, when Jack and I had got away from it, we
didn't go back," sighed Barbara wearily, to explain her lateness. "I
wish Eleanor Ross didn't know quite so many people. Oh, mother, Jack
can't come to the Abbey this week-end. He's writing to you, but he asked
me to give you that message."
Lady Crawleigh picked up a pendant, head-band and bracelet of fire-opals
from their scattered hiding-places on the floor, trying not to seem
either too much surprised or too indifferent. Then she knelt, with a
cracking of knee-joints, to search for the missing half of a pair of
ear-rings. Barbara, she reflected, had evidently done one thing--or
perhaps the other--or even neither; mercifully she could not do both.
"He's really no business to chop and change like that at the last
moment," she complained. "What's happened?"
"He's kept in London," Barbara answered. "Don't bother to look for those
things, mother; Merton will be so disappointed, if there's nothing for
her to tidy. She always waits till I'm fast asleep, _really_ tired, and
then throws tepid tea at me with one hand and knocks over all the
furniture with the other.... I can hardly keep my eyes open. You'll let
me go to sleep, won't you?"
Lady Crawleigh scrambled to her feet and came to the side of the bed, an
undignified, shrunken figure in a blue _peignoir_ and satin slippers,
with grey-black hair secured in thick short plaits.
"My child, is anything the matter?"
Barbara was lying with one bare arm over her eyes, as though the light
hurt her. She had not waited to brush her hair, and the room was
littered with furiously scattered clothes.
"I'm only tired," she said. "I've never known anything so hot as that
place."
"Well, go to sleep." Lady Crawleigh shewed no sign of leaving the
bedside. "On the whole perhaps it's just as well that he _isn't_ coming
to the Abbey. Some one was saying to-night----"
"Mother, I'm not going to marry Jack!"
Lady Crawleigh's eyes opened with innocent surprise.
"My darling, who ever said anything about it?"
Barbara laughed hardly.
"You were going to, weren't you? I thought I'd save time. Jack.... I've
had a--remarkable evening, but I don't think I want to talk about it."
Lady Crawleigh changed the lights, but she continued to hover between
the bed and the door, picking up a glove here and a stocking there,
glancing stealthily at Barbara and flogging her imagination to guess
what had taken place. The girl was a little exacting with men, and there
might have been a quarrel; but it was rather drastic for Jack to default
from the Abbey at the last moment. He had possibly received an
unexpected rebuff; but then the rebuff was unexpected by every one, for
Barbara had shewn him all the encouragement that a woman could give.
Possibly she had encouraged him too much and received a rebuff
herself....
"Darling----"
"I'm _so_ tired, mother."
She seemed without resistance or power to assert herself, as though she
had been bullied and beaten. Lady Crawleigh felt a need to protect her,
as she had not felt it for ten years; Barbara was usually stoical with
bodily pains, and a wound to her pride or an ache at her heart was
shared with no one.
"Yes, darling, I won't keep you awake, but has there been any
unpleasantness? I mean, I have to think about the future--about inviting
him here."
"Oh, there's no reason why you shouldn't invite him. He can please
himself whether he comes or not."
Lady Crawleigh hesitated a moment longer, then tip-toed to the door and
turned off the lights. Nothing was to be learned from Barbara at
present.
No elucidation came from the letter of apology which she received from
Jack next day. He was unexpectedly detained in London, but hoped that he
might be forgiven and invited again some time later in the summer. It
was a question of private business, which would keep him very fully
occupied for some weeks. He would have given longer warning, if
possible, but the business had only come to him in the middle of the
night, as it were.... Lady Crawleigh tore up the letter impatiently,
then pieced it together and read it with perplexed attention. If there
had been no quarrel, no rebuff, no unpleasantness, he would not
underline this private business and hint that he did not want to be
invited to the house for the present; if there had been a quarrel, it
was incomprehensible that he should ask to be given another chance later
in the summer.
But for the phrase, "I've had a remarkable evening, but I don't think I
want to talk about it," Barbara might simply be tired. Certainly, she
was in excellent spirits next day, and the whole party at the Abbey
revolved round her and shone with her radiance. On their return to
London she threw herself as insatiably as ever into all that was going
on. The only difference now was that she never danced with Jack, because
he had disappeared; and she never mentioned his name. Others also
remarked his disappearance, and, though the excuse of private business
was bravely presented, they at least were not satisfied. Lady Crawleigh
suggested inviting him to a musical party, from which it might have been
noticeable to exclude him; Barbara raised no objection, but Jack replied
from his chambers that he was unfortunately compelled to refuse all
invitations at present.
It was mysterious and annoying, for an absurd amount of gossip was
swirling and eddying among the weary, chilled women who sat night after
night round ball-room walls. Deganway professed to have seen an
impertinent paragraph in the column of _The Sphinx_ headed "Riddles for
Our Readers"; and, for every one who enquired what had happened to Jack,
Lady Crawleigh knew that a dozen must be asking themselves why Barbara
had made so public an exhibition of herself, if she did not mean to let
anything come of it. And there was an added mystery and vexation when
Jim Loring said: "I've the best reason for knowing there's nothing to
worry about," in a tone which shewed that he was himself deeply worried.
He met his aunt on the morrow of a confession which lasted from ten
o'clock until two next morning. Jack had invited himself to dinner at
Loring House, stipulated that no one else should be present and pledged
his host to secrecy.
"I can't quite trust my own judgement," he drawled, when they were
alone after dinner. "A new factor, you know.... I haven't quite adjusted
myself to it.... I don't suppose it's any news to you that I want to
marry your cousin Barbara? Well, I've every reason to think she would
marry me to-morrow but for the unfortunate circumstance that she's a
Catholic and I'm not."
Loring involuntarily winced and looked away, recalling his own shipwreck
on a similar rock, the months of dull agony and the empty years of
wandering, which had but lately come to an end. It was the first time
that they had met alone, and Jim was more than three years older; new
lines were visible at the corners of his eyes, his face and body were
heavier and more inelastic. A note of bitterness broke over-often
through the habitual irony of his voice, as though his spirit were still
raw under its dressing of tolerant boredom.
"If any one knows anything on that subject," he murmured, "you've come
to the right man. Have you--actually put it to her?"
"Oh, yes. We're hung up on that. Barbara says that she could never marry
a man who wasn't a Catholic."
"But that's absurd! The Church itself----"
"So I told her, but she goes one better than her Church. Jim, I feel
that there's the makings of a first-class tragedy, if we're not very
careful ... and very clever. I want to marry her more than anything in
the world. There's nothing--I think there's literally nothing I wouldn't
do to bring it off. She--well, we went into it pretty thoroughly the
other night. I could see she was torn in two.... I--didn't press it. I
knew that, if she felt as strongly as that--in her bones--, I shouldn't
sweep her off her feet, however much she seemed to be convinced at the
moment. It didn't look like being permanent. I had to find some other
way out."
He paused and relit his cigar. The door was ajar, and Loring got up to
close it; then, instead of going back to his chair, he took a turn up
and down the library, with his chin on his chest and his hands thrust
deep into his pockets. Three years ago he had come back to that room
from his last farewell with Sonia Dainton; he has distractedly summoned
George Oakleigh to advise him and had paced up and down, up and down,
flinging half-smoked cigarettes into the fire-place. And Oakleigh, whom
he had invoked for help, would only tell him brutally that love was over
and that he must set his teeth and face it.... Now again no other advice
was possible.
"I'm dam' sorry, Jack," he muttered.
His voice quavered in sympathy, because their tragedies had so much in
common. He had never lost his heart to any one but Sonia, as Jack had
lost his only to Babs Neave; they had been immune for the first thirty
years of their life, and they were paying for their self-denial and
their affronting indifference to woman. Jack probably enjoyed exposing
his soul as little as he had done with George.
"It's rather a mess, isn't it?" said Jack.
"What are you going to do? Look here, we're old enough friends for me to
talk freely to you. It hurts like hell at the time, but one _does_ get
over it. As you know, I went abroad for some years and tried to forget.
I should be--_embarrassed_, if I sat next to Sonia at dinner to-night,
but I shouldn't get the same tug at the heart that I got when I just saw
her for a moment in the distance--at the Coronation. You'd better go
away."
Jack smiled and then turned his head, finally resting his chin on one
fist and staring at the empty fire-place so that his face should be
hidden.
"I'm not going away," he answered. "I've every intention of marrying
Barbara. I feel that we were made for each other."
"But what are you going to do?" Loring repeated, as he paused again.
"I propose to become a Catholic."
Loring started and sat down on the arm of a chair without speaking.
Jack's natural stolidity was a guarantee against melodrama.
"You can't do that, Jack," he said at length.
"We know several people who have."
"I won't criticize them, because they may already have been Catholics in
everything but name. They're entitled to the benefit of the doubt. But
you and I have talked religion a hundred times. It wouldn't be straight
dealing."
"Then I'm glad I've not talked religion with any one else. There'll be
no one else to give me away. _I'm_ entitled to the benefit of the
doubt."
"No one would believe you; Barbara certainly wouldn't; and you'd never
be able to impose on yourself. You'd always feel dishonoured, Jack."
There was a long silence, in which Loring was visibly the more
embarrassed. Jack smoked his cigar tranquilly, looking ahead of him at
the fire-place and not striving to pose either as hero or as cynic.
"My dear Jim," he answered at length, "if this were an _easy_ question,
where I could trust my own judgement, I wouldn't inflict my troubles on
you like this. I won't pretend I _like_ it. If you could suggest a
better way.... Now, when once the thing's done, there's no discussion; I
don't question Barbara's _bona fides_ and I won't let her question mine.
Any children will be full-blooded Catholics, and the question will never
be raised again. I've completed a formality; she will in fact marry a
Catholic, which is what she's sticking out for, and I'll see to it that
no shadow of difference ever arises from religion. It's not easy, God
knows. Incidentally, the entire world will say I'm marrying her for her
money and getting converted so that she shan't forfeit it. Always a
pleasant thing to hear.... However, necessity knows no law."
"That's tied round the neck of every crime and immorality in the
world's history."
Jack looked up with the first sign of interest that his face had shewn.
"You really think that would be a crime? I've come to you for your
opinion. A crime against Barbara?"
"Against yourself. I don't think it would affect her. Do you know
anything about the course of preparation before you're received into the
Church? You'll have to tell one lie after another, weeks and weeks of
them. And, when you've been received, you'll have to continue. D'you
propose to go regularly to Mass? Will you go to Confession?"
Barbara's reputation for laxity was widely known and disapproved.
"I'll do whatever my wife does," Jack promised.
Though he pretended to keep an open mind, he was inviting criticism only
for the satisfaction of demolishing it. Loring was still shocked and
doubly shocked that he could make no impression on his friend's stubborn
insensibility.
"Have you discussed it with your people?" he asked.
"I've discussed it with no one. It'll be hell for them, of course."
"They won't be taken in."
Jack smiled a little ruefully and took up his position in front of the
fire-place, facing his friend.
"They won't be taken in," he agreed. "They'll hate it. _I_ hate it. It's
a lie, a chain of lies. I don't expect that I shall ever be able to
invent excuses or tell myself a fairy-tale to get round it. The best I
can say is that it's the only means and that the end must justify the
means. I can't defend myself, Jim."
It was difficult to reason with a man who admitted every charge in
advance, and Loring was puzzled to know why they were arguing at all.
"You're committing a crime against yourself--and making your family
perfectly miserable," he pointed out. "I know people rob and murder,
when they're in love, but why come and tell me about it?"
"I wanted you as a barometer--for my own sanity. _Have_ I lost touch
with reality?"
"I think you're quite mad. I've been through it myself; and I was just
as mad. The best advice I can give you is to go away from Babs for three
or six months and see how you feel. If it's as bad as ever at the
end.... No, I'm damned if I take the responsibility of encouraging you;
I feel as badly about it as that."
Both started guiltily as the butler came in with a tray of decanters and
glasses, and Jack murmured, "Jove! It's getting late." When they were
alone again, he took a second cigar and flung himself into an arm-chair.
"We might make a present of this to Eric Lane," he said grimly, "for one
of his plays. I've never before been up against a thing where there was
so little chance of compromise. Or, if I have, I've always said,
"There's only one possible thing to do," and I've tried to do it. D'you
remember Raney's cheerful prophecy my last night in Oxford? Within ten
years we should all have made such fools of ourselves that we should
wish we were dead. Nine years ago. Your undergraduate is a sexless
creature; we none of us thought then that a mere woman could mess up our
lives.... Well, I've had a run for my money."
"There's only one possible thing to do here," said Loring emphatically,
holding him back as he tried to change the subject.
"You weren't such a sea-green incorruptible three years ago."
"When _I_ made a fool of _my_self.... There's no comparison. I was
prepared to flout the Church and marry without dispensation; it wouldn't
have been a valid marriage in the eyes of the Church, and the whole of
Catholic society would have cut me. But I never offered Sonia to change
one faith for another or to pretend that I had."
Jack sprang violently out of his chair and strode to Loring's sofa,
standing over him with legs apart and arms akimbo.
"But if she'd insisted? You've got to be honest about this."
Loring looked up at the unwontedly white face and burning eyes above
him; then he looked away, whistled to himself and shrugged his
shoulders.
"I'd have done it," he answered.
"Well, that's how _I_ feel now."
"And if Babs were married already?"
Jack turned away with a mirthless laugh.
"Damn you, Jim!" he cried.
"Not a bit of it! You _would_ stop short of some things."
"But then I should be injuring another man."
"He might rejoice to be rid of her. And here you're injuring yourself."
There was a long silence, and Loring tried to ease it by filling two
tumblers with brandy and soda. Jack returned to his chair, drawing
furiously at his cigar and rapidly smoothing the back of his head.
"I'm not going to give her up," he said at length.
"You can at least go away and think it over. Don't meet her. Work as
you've never worked before. Mark you, the best thing is to go _right_
away. She won't help you a bit. Women are cruel and women are selfish.
If she's made up her mind that she can't marry you, she'll do the next
best thing for herself and take good care that she gets all the time,
attention, affection that she can out of you. And your nerves will
crack. If you live within telephoning or writing distance, you're done
for. _I_ saw that for myself. When I got back to England a few months
ago, I only consented to stay in London when I heard that Sonia had gone
abroad. She'd have tried to get on _some_ kind of terms with me. If I'd
still been smashed up, she'd have wanted to have a look at her
handiwork; if I'd completely recovered, she'd want to see whether she
still had the power to cast a spell over me. And, if she felt she'd done
me a great wrong, she'd have wanted to vindicate herself. Women drown
bad consciences in self-justification. Will you go away?"
"I'll think about it. Jim, did _you_ know that Babs took her religion so
seriously?"
"No, but then I don't know her at all well."
"I'm taking all she says at face-value, allowing for a little natural
rhetoric----"
"Well, I shouldn't--with any woman," Loring interrupted. "Look here,
Jack. You and Babs have got yourselves into a tangle. You can get out of
it by refusing to see her again--which you won't entertain; or by
perjuring yourself--which I hope and pray you won't do; or by _her_
climbing down a bit. One of you has to make the sacrifice; and I'm
inclined to think Solomon would have said that, if she's not prepared to
climb down--you're not asking her to do anything that the Church
forbids--she's not in earnest, she's not worth having. Solomon would
have said that, if she put you in the second place, she didn't want
you.... I wonder whether she does. For all I know she's just made up her
mind to add your scalp to her belt. Why the deuce did she let you
propose to her--you did _actually_, didn't you?--if she meant to bring
up this objection at the last minute?"
"It was only when _I_ began to trot out the objections that she
recognized them. Jim, this is a question of instinct; whether a woman's
really in love with you or whether she's only pretending may be _felt_,
but no one can _prove_ it. I take it--though I've had no
experience--that there's always a moment when a woman surrenders, not
only in words but with all her being. If you'd ever broken in a horse,
you'd know what I mean. It's like that with her."
Loring raised his eyebrows in passing surprise at the comparison no less
than at Jack's assurance.
"Well, I'm glad to hear it," he said without conviction. "If you're
right, she'll climb down. If she won't climb down, it means she doesn't
want you."
Jack pondered for a while without answering; then he looked at his watch
and jumped up with a murmur of dismay.
"Jim, d'you know it's just on two?"
"I wonder what time it was when I'd finished pouring out my troubles to
George that night! I hope it's going to be all right, Jack, though a
mixed marriage is a hideous gamble. And Babs is a fair gamble in
herself. And I wish I felt as certain of her as you do. Mind, three
months----"
"I don't commit myself to any specific period," Jack interrupted, as
they went into the hall. Barbara had the obstinate vanity of a spoilt
and wilful child; after refusing to yield on one point, she was capable
of sacrificing even her own happiness to sustain her refusal.
"If she holds out for three months," said Loring gravely, "it'll mean
that there's something in her life bigger than you."
Jack laughed and ran down the steps into Curzon Street. That she wanted
him was never in doubt since her first advances at the Croxton ball.
"Good-night, Jim, and many thanks. You'll hear from me before I die."
"Best of luck, old man," Loring called back, with such heartiness as he
could force into his voice.
CHAPTER TEN
VINDICATION
"Casilda: But it's so undignified--it's so degrading! A Grandee of
Spain turned into a public company! Such a thing was never heard
of!
Duke: My child, the Duke of Plaza-Toro does not follow fashions--he
leads them."
W. S. GILBERT: "THE GONDOLIERS."
At the beginning of June Jack received a letter in a well-known
hand-writing from a familiar address.
"_Pump Court, Temple, E. C._
"_Have you ever done your duty by the University of Oxford? I mean, have
you ever taken your M. A.? I haven't, though I ought to have years ago,
and I'm sure you haven't, either. What do you think about going up next
Degree Day? I'll find out when it is and order rooms and pack your
suit-case and take it to Paddington and buy a ticket and generally
nursemaid you, as I used to do in the days before you were a social
success. I never see you nowadays either on the Winchester train or in
London; they say that you have deserted your various clubs for the
gilded saloons of Mayfair. Let me know what's happened to you. Ever
yours,_
_Eric Lane._"
Jack welcomed the diversion and wrote an enthusiastic acceptance. For
some months he had been too much occupied with Barbara to spare regrets
for Eric, but he was sorry to feel that they were drifting apart. And
the invitation gave him an excuse for spending a long week-end out of
London. Since the Ross House ball he had held no communication with
Barbara; since his unburdening of soul to Jim Loring he had avoided
every one who might ask him why he was in hiding or report to her that
he had been tracked down. Lady Knightrider tried once or twice to secure
him for dinner, but after a few failures she accepted his plea of
private work. And very soon the inquisitive had other food for their
curiosity. Arden concentrated his attention on a possible match between
Loring and Miss Hunter-Oakleigh; Summertown threw needful light on a
newly discovered intrigue between Mrs. Welman and Sir Deryk Lancing; and
Deganway confined his energies to scandalous speculation about a motor
tour which Sir Adolf Erckmann was conducting in South Europe with his
sister, young Webster, Sonia Dainton and others of less stable
reputation.
"Delighted to come" Jack wrote to Eric. "Let me know the day and the
train; everything else I leave to you. It's ages since I saw you."