Court. But, if he felt secure from impertinent questions, Jack would
have paid a high price to meet any one who could give him tidings of
Barbara. Until six months before, he had been content with his own
company, but the daily close intimacy had set up an itch for
confidences. He wanted to know how she was and what she was doing,
whether she was missing him. In three weeks there had been no sign of
capitulation. And he depended for news of her on chance paragraphs in
the illustrated papers. Eric entered the train at Paddington with the
current number of the _Catch_, containing a full-page photograph of her
in eastern dress. There was also an Albert Hall group in which she
figured with half a dozen of the very people who were not good enough
for her. It was disappointing, and others were disappointed too.
"_I've no news for you, but I've been thinking over this business a
good deal_," Loring had written two days earlier. "_I can promise you a
very friendly reception from the family, if and when you do adjust your
differences with Barbara. My aunt, Kathleen Knightrider, is in despair;
she says you were the only person who ever had any influence over Babs.
Now that you've disappeared, she's picking up with all the old lot.
Crawleigh's afraid to protest, because he doesn't want to precipitate a
row. She comes of age in a few weeks, and then no one can stop her...._"
Jack was wondering with vague dissatisfaction how much more time to give
her for making a move, when his hand was forced. On returning to London
after the week-end, he lighted on a photograph with the description,
"_Lady Barbara Neave, Who is Giving a Sensational Ball. See p. 7._" He
turned to the page indicated and read a gossipy half-column over the
signature of "A Woman About Town."
"_A mad world, my masters! But an amusing one, don't you think? The
oldsters say 'What next, what next?' but the youngsters always have
'next' up their sleeves, and it's always better than the last. Youth for
ever! We had the Shakespeare Ball, and the Regency Ball threw it into
the shade. Then the Young Bachelors took the field--and were driven from
it (with full honours of war, and all thanks to you, dear young
bachelors, for a glorious evening) by The Rest. Mrs. Leo Butler gave her
Night in a Persian Garden, and Lady Hessler retaliated with her Daybreak
Dance, which started at four--it's still going on, for all I know. A mad
world! And the oldsters are being attacked by the madness. These
'boy-and-girl' dances were squeezing them into the cold, so they gave a
ball to themselves where only the married could hope for admission. 'The
Hags' Hop,' said irreverent Youth and bided its time for revenge. And
now it is coming--in Ascot Week. I rub my eyes, for the World and His
Wife will be at the Bodmin Lodge ball, as they have always been and as
their fathers and mothers were before them._ Ascot Week? Bodmin Lodge?
_One would as soon compete with the Royal Enclosure as with the Bodmin
Lodge ball. Yet--it is not the whisper of my faithful little bird, but
an engraved card--'Lady Barbara Neave, At Home.' Fancy Dress, she says
in one corner. At the Empire Hotel. And my little bird tells me that it
will rival and outshine the Jubilee Ball at Devonshire House, when we
were all tiny tots. If I know anything of Lady Barbara, it will be the
ball of the season. Youth for ever! But it is a mad world. 'What are our
girls coming to?' the oldsters ask. 'A girl giving a ball!' 'And a
wonderful ball it will be,' say I. Best wishes, Lady Barbara!"_
Jack assumed that Barbara must be organizing a ball for some charity and
thought no more of the announcement until he met Loring at the County
Club that night before dinner and was hurried into the cool and deserted
billiard-room.
"I say, _have_ you seen about my precious cousin's latest freak?" Loring
began. "There's been the most colossal row!"
"I saw an announcement about a ball in one of the papers," Jack
answered.
"_One_ of them! She's got it in every rag in the kingdom, morning and
evening, penny plain and twopence coloured. Barbara's thorough; I'll say
that for her. There's no going back."
He paused to fan himself and ring for a glass of sherry.
"What exactly was the row?" asked Jack.
"Well, you know, she's coming of age next week; and the Crawleighs
thought it was a good opportunity for working off old scores. Nominally
it was to be Barbara's party, but, when they started on their list, she
found that some of her more objectionable friends were being cut out.
I've no doubt Crawleigh did it as tactlessly as possible, and Barbara
took it as a challenge. Both sides fought the question on principle,
Crawleigh lost his temper on principle, Babs--on principle--kept hers
and said that, if her friends couldn't come to the house, she'd give a
party for them elsewhere."
"Characteristic," Jack murmured.
"Very. It sounded like an empty threat, but that little devil--she _is_
a little devil, Jack. If I were in your place, I'd no more think of
marrying her than of marrying a wild animal--well, she was going to make
this an Austerlitz or a Waterloo--no drawn battles for Babs; she
deliberately chose the night of the Bodmin Lodge ball and invited
everybody she'd ever heard of. I got my card within twenty hours of the
original row."
"Are you going?"
Loring laughed grimly and postponed answering the question.
"She's thorough!" he repeated. "I was still at breakfast, when she came
in; I gather she's doing a house-to-house canvass. 'Jim darling, you're
coming to my party, aren't you?' she said. 'I want it to be a success.'
'I am not,' I said. 'I heard about the row and I think you're behaving
abominably.' 'It'll look bad, if my own--loving--cousin stops away from
my coming-of-age ball,' she said, her eyes simply gleaming with devilry.
'Jim, if you all go against me, you'll spoil my party, and father'll
think he's won. Then I shall go away and live by myself; and that
_would_ make a scandal, which you'd hate.' I told her that she was a
little devil--in case she didn't know it before. Then she came behind my
chair and put her arms round my neck; and I called her a number of other
things. Mark you, I dislike her; I think she's intrinsically unsound,
but I'm not in the least surprised that you fell in love with her; she
knows her job so well. She said with a tear in her voice--and in her
eyes; if you ever see her blinking quickly, it's just to make herself
cry.... All right, but you may as well know these things _before_ you
marry her--she said, 'Jim darling, I love you, but you _do_ make it hard
for us to be friends.' I told her again that I wasn't coming to her
ball. She sighed and began putting on her gloves. At the door she turned
round and said, 'Jim, you know the little paragraph "Among those
present..."? Sometimes it's "Among those who accepted invitations...."
_I'm_ going to have a special paragraph--"Among those who _refused_
invitations was the Marquess Loring."' Then she became a hundred per
cent. devil; she was thoroughly enjoying herself. 'I won't let it stop
at that! I'm going to have this thing properly advertised. In the
morning you'll see wonderful descriptions and pictures of the ball--and
that paragraph. And the evening papers will comment on it--all the
disreputable ones; I'm the greatest friends with all the really
disreputable papers. And next day you'll see pictures of yourself in the
disreputable daily papers--"Lord Loring, Who is Reported to have said
'Damned if I do!' when _his cousin_ Lady Barbara Neave invited him to
her ball." I don't want to do it; it'll be a great deal of trouble; but
this quarrel has been forced on me, and, if you drive me to it, I shall
go through to the end.'" Loring sighed and fanned himself again. "You
can't argue with a woman, when she's like that. I said I'd come. My
mother and Amy came in, and she talked them over inside two
minutes--left them with the idea that the Crawleighs habitually tied her
to the bed-post and took a cat-o'-nine-tails to her (I wish they would);
then she went off to continue the house-to-house canvass. It's
heart-breaking!"
Jack listened with relief to the end of the tale. He had feared
something worse, but he would almost rather hear of Barbara's
misbehaving herself than not hear of her at all.
"There's no great harm done," he suggested.
"It's a toss-up. She can't blackmail everybody as she blackmailed me.
God knows! you can do most things in the year of grace 1914, but an
unmarried girl, with parents living, _doesn't_ give balls on her own.
Any number of people have rather raised their eyebrows in talking to me
about it. If it's a success, there's about a six-to-four odds-on chance
that people will think it rather a joke, Barbara's latest freak. But, if
the thing's a failure, if any one starts a movement against it, then
Barbara will declare war on society. Don't make any mistake; this isn't
a fit of temper, it's a phase in her natural development. I've seen it
coming for a long time; she wants to be in the position where a thing
becomes right because she does it; she's always disregarded the law and
now she wants to make the law. If the girl only had _sisters_! They
_might_ keep her in order.... You know, there's a certain magnificence
about her; she's surrounded herself with every natural difficulty she
could find--Bodmin Lodge; she's raiding the Pebbleridge preserve in
broad day-light, she's asked Lady Pebbleridge to come on after her own
party. Fancy dress--she's set herself to rival the Devonshire House
ball.... Jack, is that the girl you want to marry? D'you imagine you'll
ever be able to control her? If you'd seen her standing by the door--it
was Joan of Arc giving the signal for battle."
"She can't blackmail me."
"What else is she doing now? She's blackmailing every one."
"Well, obviously I can't stop it until communications are
re-established."
"Then for the love of Heaven----No, I won't say that."
"Go on."
Loring looked at him closely and shrugged his shoulders.
"I wonder whether _you're_ responsible for this new outbreak of hers?
This is the way she used to behave a year ago and for some time before
that. Then she dropped it. Now she's started again.... My difficulty is
that I don't know if she cares for you, if she's capable of caring for
any one. This may be her vindication--to shew that she _can_ do
anything. Or she may be fond of you, she may feel she's lost you. She's
got the pride of a spoilt child. I think now, though I didn't think it
when you dined with me, that she'll never climb down voluntarily.
_Possibly_ she's trying to forget you."
Jack roused with a jerk and then dropped his head between his hands. He
had never imagined that she was as lonely as he had been.
"What d'you suggest, Jim?"
"I don't know. If she's gone Berserk on your account, I warn you that
she's in the mood to marry the first man in the street who's kind to
her. _I_ felt like that after the break-up with Sonia. This ball is only
a symptom."
Loring ceased staring out of the window and glanced down at his
companion. Jack was still sitting with his fists pressed against his
temples, motionless and silent. A member flung open the door, peered
round the room and withdrew. As the clock chimed eight, Loring looked at
his watch, scribbled a telephone message and rang for a page.
"You've shifted your ground since last we discussed this subject," Jack
observed at length.
"I don't know...."
"Oh, yes. You want me to stop the Berserk phase. You think I'm at the
bottom of it? Well, I've got my share of pride or vanity or whatever you
like to call it. I've asked her once, and she turned me down because I
wasn't a Catholic. I'm not going to call daily, like a milkman. Do you
want me to go to her and say I'm a Catholic?"
Loring shook his head resolutely.
"I'm not going to take the responsibility of that."
"Responsibility be damned! You've taken the responsibility of saying
that I've brought about all this trouble and that, apparently, I'm the
only person who can stop it. You're not naturally sanctimonious, Jim,
but you've got a wonderful passion for not committing yourself. Will
you take the responsibility of not repeating our conversation to
anybody?"
Loring looked up with startled eyes, but the door slammed before he
could answer.
For perhaps three days the success of "The Children's Party," as
Barbara's costume ball came to be designated, hung in the balance. Some
of those who might not have objected to the ball itself disliked
Barbara's association with it and the salvo of press welcome which
advertised a private party as though it were a public charity. But,
while her critics murmured, Barbara was telephoning, writing and driving
round London to divide and win over the enemy, always using the promises
of her first victims to persuade the others. If Lady Loring consented to
come, who less exalted had the right to raise her voice? Because it had
never been done before, was that a reason why it should not be done now?
Novelty and organization effected much, curiosity more; for Deganway,
with his genius for discovering other people's secrets, published abroad
that there had been civil war in Berkeley Square and that the ball was
Barbara's declaration of independence.
"The Crawleighs simply don't know what to do!" he exclaimed gleefully on
the fourth day of the campaign. "Positively _everybody's_ coming--except
the Pebbleridges, of course; I saw Harriet Pebbleridge yesterday, and
she's _perfectly_ furious."
"One was told that the parents were formally invited," said Val Arden,
"but it was made clear that they must comport themselves as guests. Lady
Lilith would receive alone. You are thinking of looking in, George? Yes?
One had some difficulty in deciding on a suitable costume. A Modern
Financier--after our good Sir Adolf Erckmann? Were one's health more
robust, one would be tempted to give a party 'As Others See Us' and to
insist that one's guests should each personate a friend. Chastening,
chastening! One would expose oneself to indifferent parodies by Lady
Maitland, whom one has had the ill fortune to offend...."
For ten days the theatrical costumiers were kept busy. Historic dresses
were disinterred, chain armour was taken down from the walls; and there
was bitter rivalry between those who simultaneously selected the same
character. When every one had made his choice, Barbara intimated that
she would like photographs of all; and for another week the studios were
thronged. It was agreed at the outset that no one would go to Bodmin
Lodge and the Empire Hotel on the same night; and, as the discussion of
costumes ruled out every other interest, Barbara found herself besieged
with requests for invitations; to be omitted was to be disgraced; and
she had the gratification of sending belated cards to more than one
critic who in the first excited hours had protested that brute force
alone would send her to the Empire Hotel under such auspices.
"It's her Austerlitz and my uncle's Waterloo," said Loring to Jack, when
they met two days before the ball. He was careful not to ask what his
friend had been doing since last they met. "It's her great vindication;
Crawleigh's _asked_ to be allowed to come--to avoid a scandal. She's
stampeded London; everybody's accepted, and I believe they'll all come
for fear people will think they've not been invited. It's as bad as
that."
"There's one person who didn't accept," said Jack, with a crooked smile.
"She invited you? Well, it would have been rather pointed to leave you
out. And she wouldn't be human, if she didn't want you to see her in her
triumph."
"I shall depend on you to tell me all about it," said Jack.
"Oh, I shall just shake hands with her and then go straight home to
bed."
As the day approached, the excitement redoubled until Barbara herself
began to fear an anticlimax. Only the need of registering her triumph
prevailed over physical exhaustion and sustained her in the stifling
hostility of Berkeley Square. Her father and mother drove with her to
the hotel and were formally announced. They would have liked to loiter
near her and to suggest that they were the hosts and were indulging
their daughter's whim, but Barbara urged them into the ball-room and
returned alone to her place at the head of the stairs. There for an hour
she received and tried to keep count of her guests. Congratulations
poured in upon her; she was complimented on her enterprise, her looks,
her dress.
"No one but you would have _thought_ of doing such a thing," cried Lady
Maitland admiringly.
"Oh, I expect a great many people thought of it, but I was the only one
who _did_ it," she answered, and the phrase comforted her.
Bobbie Pentyre, who had been sent to spy out the nakedness of Bodmin
Lodge, arrived late with the report that it was almost deserted and that
Lady Pebbleridge, black with rage, had announced that she would never
give another ball, if people deserted her at the last moment like this.
"She said that your leavings weren't good enough for her," he added. "I
thought that was rather rude to the people who had toiled all the way
out to Knightsbridge, so I handed it on to any one who I thought would
be interested, and that emptied the house quicker than ever."
"I'm sorry if her party's a failure," said Barbara, "but--if people
prefer coming to me...?"
She walked with him to the door of the ball-room. The crowd was too
great for dancing, and her guests were parading four abreast, until she
should give the signal and march at their head to supper. Inside the
doorway her father was standing in the robes of John, first baron, Lord
High Chancellor of England. She went up to him and slipped her arm
through his.
"Am I forgiven, father?" she asked with a smile. "You know how I hate
people to be angry with me."
"It's all very well to ask for forgiveness when you've got your own
way," said Lord Crawleigh with a vengeful tug at his blonde moustache.
"But, if I want my own way, haven't I inherited that from you?" she
asked gently. "It's no good trying to bully me, because I won't be
bullied. You admit now that there was nothing very sinful in this ball?"
"I didn't say it was sinful," Lord Crawleigh returned sharply. "I said
that such a thing had never been done before. There was no precedent."
"But every one will do it now!" she cried proudly. "That you won't see,
father; I _establish_ precedents."
"I don't see it and I won't see it."
Barbara sighed and looked down on him with half-closed eyes and drooping
mouth.
"Don't you like to see me happy, father? Won't you kiss me and say I'm
forgiven?"
Lord Crawleigh stiffened and drew away, as Loring came up from behind,
pushing open his visor.
"Well, I've kept my promise, Barbara," he began coldly. "The prodigal
daughter scene didn't go with much of a swing, I thought."
"The prodigal son never promised not to be prodigal again. He was tired
and hungry, poor boy, and nobody cared for him. _I'm_ tired, too; I've
been standing ever since a quarter past ten. And I'm hungry. Would you
like to take me down to supper?"
Her pleading voice seemed to bring to the surface everything that was
hard in Loring's kindly nature.
"Not in the least, thank you, Barbara," he said, "after the way you
blackmailed me into coming here. I've kept my promise and I should be
half-way home by now if I hadn't run into Violet Hunter-Oakleigh. I'm
having supper with her."
"Ah, I invited her specially to please you. Every one says you're in
love with each other. She's a dear girl, but I think she's got fatty
degeneration of the conscience." She looked thoughtfully at her cousin,
and her face lit up with a mischievous smile. "Jim, darling! I only said
that to see if it would make you angry. So you are in love with her?
Well, I'm really very fond of Violet, even if she does cross herself
when I come into the room.... If you knew how absurd it was to look
angry in that costume! I'm not having a great success with my relations
to-night. Sometimes I wish father were just a little bit fonder of me."
Loring turned away in disgust.
"You tried repentance with him, and it didn't come off. For heaven's
sake don't try the pathetic with me. I'm not a responsive audience."
"Nor a very intelligent audience either, perhaps. You never know when
I'm sincere. I _do_ feel it most frightfully that I never seem to get on
properly with mother and father; I love them--and yet I can't live their
life. The last three weeks have been horrible--one scene after another
until I was worn out; I was sent to Coventry. And to-night I felt
dreadfully tired and, though the ball's been a success and everybody's
been sweet, I felt horribly lonely; people were calling me 'dear' and
'darling' and saying how beautiful I looked, and all the time nobody
really loved me--heart and soul. I was quite sincere; I wanted to be
friends with father. Jim, won't you take me down to supper? I want to be
friends with you."
She looked up to him with beseeching, tired eyes and disarming pathos.
Loring surveyed her gravely for a moment and then broke into a laugh.
"So it was all leading up to that? My dear Barbara, if any one loved
you--heart and soul--which you wouldn't deserve, you simply wouldn't
recognize it.... I've already told you that I'm having supper with
Violet."
"And you won't--ask her to excuse you?"
"No."
"She'd let you go, if you reminded her that this is my birthday party."
"I shan't remind her."
Barbara threw up her chin and clasped her hands behind her.
"You think I can't _make_ you take me in to supper?"
"I'm quite sure of it."
"I see. Well, ride your ways, Laird of Chepstow. They are waiting for me
to head the procession. You had better take my place--with Violet. Tell
them that I am not going down. And, if they ask why, say that I begged
my cousin Lord Loring--as a present to me on my twenty-first
birthday--to take me down to supper. Say that I was tired and hungry.
You needn't say that you refused; they'll guess that."
She walked a few steps into the room; and Loring, after a moment's
hesitation, followed her.
"Do behave yourself, Barbara," he whispered irritably.
"Am I misbehaving? No one else seems to have noticed it ... George! I
haven't the least idea what you're supposed to be, but you look
adorable."
"I'm a Spanish nobleman, _temp._ Philip the Second," Oakleigh answered.
"You know, Armada and all that sort of thing. Barbara, I've been
commissioned to tell you that the poor old Duchess of Ross is faint with
hunger."
"Ah, poor soul, so am I! Are you taking her down? How sweet of you!
She's so greedy and so malicious. I believe I told the band to play us
in with "Pomp and Circumstance." Form them up, George, and tell Murano
to begin."
"But you'll have to lead off."
"I'm not going to have any supper."
"Why not? You deserve it, if anybody does."
"I've not found any one who'll associate with me at supper."
"D'you mean that every one's paired off and left you? That's monstrous.
Look here, I don't like to leave my present partner stranded, but, if
you can hold out for twenty minutes, may I come back and take you down?"
Barbara looked at Loring out of the corner of her eye and thanked George
with a tired smile.
"I shall be too faint to eat anything by then," she answered. "But it
was sweet of you to offer, and you're a living lesson in manners for my
cousin."
Oakleigh looked from one to the other.
"Hullo! Have you two been quarrelling?"
"No, it's my fault. I've offended him," Barbara explained. "You see,
it's my birthday, and, ever since I was a baby, everybody's done
everything I wanted on my birthday. I wanted to have supper with Jim, so
I refused Bobbie Pentyre and Charlie Framlingham and Johnnie Carstairs.
Then I asked Jim, and I'm afraid he thought that a girl oughtn't to ask
a man to take her to supper--even her own cousin, at her own ball, on
her own birthday."
There was a conciliatory laugh from Oakleigh, but Loring frowned with
ill humour.
"That's not true, Barbara," he said.
"I'm sorry, Jim; it was the only reason I could think of. When I first
asked you, I didn't know you were engaged."
The two men looked at each other; and Barbara smiled a welcome to
Summertown, who came forward cautiously, with the tail of his eye on a
trailing sword.
"I say, Babs, Murano wants to know whether he's to play the jolly old
march-past."
"Oh, yes! Tell him to begin. You've got some one to take down to
supper? Good boy! Will you lead off? I'm not going down."
Summertown's sword flashed to the salute and rattled clumsily back into
its scabbard. He returned to the orchestra, and Loring, after a survey
of the room to find his partner, followed quickly after him. Oakleigh
laid his hand persuasively on Barbara's wrist and lowered his voice.
"Your ball's been such an astounding success that I hope you're not
going to spoil it for the sake of a quarrel with Jim."
Barbara pressed his hand gently.