reasonableness of a man with numberless troublesome little brothers and
sisters. Don't worry about me! It may be a wrong-headed sort of pride,
but, when I've _asked_ a man for a thing, I'd sooner starve than take it
from anybody else."
Over the drone of voices came the tap of the leader's baton. George
shuffled from one foot to the other, shrugged his shoulders and hurried
away with a lop-sided smile. The middle of the room quickly cleared
until Barbara was left by herself, with the procession pressed in twos
by the walls. As the first chord was struck, Summertown called out:
"Once round and then down, Babs?"
"Oh, twice, I think," she called back. "I want to see you all."
As the couples moved forward, she retreated to an armchair on a dais by
the door, smiling down on them and returning their bows. There was a
stiff nod from her father, walking with Lady Maitland, and a sweet,
perplexed smile from her mother, who was with Lord Poynter. Oakleigh,
with the Duchess of Ross on his arm, again shrugged his shoulders, but
she had little attention to spare for him; immediately behind, Violet
Hunter-Oakleigh was walking with Val Arden.
Barbara looked quickly round the room, and, as the procession completed
its first circuit, Loring came up and stood beside her.
"I told Violet it was your birthday," he said abruptly.
"And she let you go? I told you she would!"
"Oh, no one's likely to fight over my body! And Violet's too well-bred
to make even a veiled scene. Besides, I think she understood--to the
uttermost farthing."
"Then there's not the least need for you to be grumpy. Sit down on the
arm of my chair, but don't topple me over. Have you ever seen anything
quite so grotesque as poor Johnnie Carstairs? In case you don't know,
he's supposed to represent Danton."
"I daresay. I don't want to talk about Johnnie Carstairs. Barbara, I've
had enough of these antics."
He stood stiffly at a distance, towering over her and refusing to see
the hand that invited him to her chair.
"Jim, are you angry with me?" she asked in surprise. "Remember, you
challenged me; you ought to take a beating in good part."
"Oh, I don't greatly care how you behave to me, but I resent being made
an instrument of rudeness to others. You've got to apologize to Violet."
"For giving her Val Arden instead of you for a partner? My dear, you're
about equally tiresome in different ways, but Val is far more amusing. I
rather expect Violet to come up and thank me. Do you like to challenge
me over that?"
"I've no doubt that, if I challenged you to play leap-frog with Murano,
you'd do it. I don't challenge you to do anything."
Barbara laughed softly.
"Is my impetuous cousin learning prudence? Jim, you're a dreadful old
blusterer! From the distant security of Surinam you can be valiant--and
hideously cruel--Oh, yes, I've got a memory--like other people--and a
skin to be flayed--like other people--and feelings to be hurt--like
other people. And it hurts to be hit from behind when you're down--and
hit by your own family. You're not so valiant at close quarters--either
three weeks ago or to-night."
The tail of the procession was drawing near, and she rose and stood
ready to fall in.
"I didn't send that cable to hurt you particularly," said Loring. "I was
so disgusted that I didn't want to have you inside the house."
"Yet I'm always coming to lunch and dinner--even to breakfast
occasionally."
"Yes, your mother interceded for you. It won't work a second time.
Please understand that you are not a _persona grata_ at my house."
Barbara laughed mischievously and then became menacingly emphatic.
"If that's another challenge, my impetuous cousin doesn't seem to have
learned prudence! Jim, as a rule I don't interfere with you, and, if you
won't interfere with me, there's no need for us to quarrel. You were
good enough to call me a devil the other day; well, if you want your
quarrel, you shall have it. But you'll be beaten. I've beaten you
to-night, I've beaten father. I've _won_. And I've won because I go
straight ahead and, when I threaten a thing, I do it. Men seem only to
bluster. You. And father. You all think you can bully me. A man once
said to me that, when I became engaged, he'd send all good wishes or
something--and a dog-whip to my husband as a wedding-present."
"Jack Waring said that."
"Did he tell you? When?"
"I've forgotten. We've discussed you more than once, and I've given him
a very candid opinion of you."
Barbara tossed her head, but her eyes were enquiring.
"What did you say?"
"Oh, it varies from time to time, as you shew yourself in different
lights. Until this evening I didn't fully appreciate how vindictive you
could be."
"And you're going to add that--with two more strokes of your delicate
brush? I'm afraid Jack thinks too highly of me to be convinced by your
picture."
"Well, I'd hardly say that."
"He doesn't talk about dog-whips any more. He doesn't abuse me and bully
me. It's no good, Jim. The moment any one tries to coerce me--it's like
slapping your hand down on an open wound; you set every nerve quivering
in rebellion. If you were gentle and kind ... George Oakleigh was
charming to me after you'd gone; I'd have done anything for him. I'd do
anything for you, if you behaved like that. I don't want to quarrel with
you or with any one; you'd find me great fun, if you'd only be friends.
Fancy going on like this--and on my birthday, too!"
"After to-night I have no wish to be friends."
For an instant her eyes narrowed and her lips hardened in a thin
straight line. Then she broke into a laugh.
"Well, for to-night at least let's keep up appearances!"
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE LAUREL AND THE ROSE
"And some say, that it was at that time Pyrrhus answered one, who
rejoiced with him for the victory they had won: If we win another
of the price, quoth he, we are utterly undone."
PLUTARCH: "PYRRHUS."
The season ended in a riot of sound and colour before Jack received his
promised report on the "Children's Party." In the last week of July
Bertrand Oakleigh gave a dinner in Princes' Gardens to celebrate Deryk
Lancing's engagement to Mrs. Dawson and Loring's to Miss
Hunter-Oakleigh. It was Jack's first public appearance outside a club
since the Ross House ball, and he was riddled with questions by his
friends, who wanted to know whether he had been ill and, if not, why he
had been in hiding for two months. Before dinner began, he escaped into
a corner and asked if there was any hope of seeing Loring privately
before he went to Monmouthshire.
"I should like a talk with you some time," he added.
"Yes, I know you would," Loring answered, smiling a little wistfully.
"I'm taking Vi down immediately after lunch to-morrow, but, if you care
to come round to-night----? We'll get away as soon as we can, and, after
I've taken her home, I'm at your service for as long as you like."
"Thanks. I'll be at your place between half-past eleven and twelve. When
are you going to be married?"
"At the beginning of September, if there's no hitch. I see from
to-night's papers that there's every possibility of a row between
Austria and Servia, which is a bore, because we wanted to spend our
honeymoon in Dalmatia."
When Loring entered his library at midnight, Jack was contentedly
smoking a cigar and looking at a richly illustrated book on trout-flies.
Closing the book, he accepted a brandy and soda and took up his stand by
the fire-place.
"I heard you say you were giving a party at Chepstow," he began. "I was
wondering whether Babs was going."
"Allowing for her rather erratic temperament, I should say 'yes.' I
didn't want her, but she's invited herself." Loring described the
'Children's Party,' ending, "After that, I decided to have no more to do
with her, but I was reckoning without Vi. As soon as the engagement was
announced, Barbara called and virtually persuaded her that _she'd_
arranged the whole thing by inviting us both to her ball and opening my
eyes to the fact that I was in love. I wasn't in the mood then to
quarrel with my worst enemy, so I said she could come.... Jack, have you
seen or heard anything of her lately?"
"Not since Ross House. What's she been doing?"
"Oh, nothing in particular. She's won her laurels, and there's no
temptation. When all's said and done, the Children's Party was a big
idea. She's made a unique position for herself; there's no one of her
age, there's not an unmarried girl in England, who can compete with
her--my sister Amy, Phyllis Knightrider, Sally Farwell, even Sonia, who
makes the running for her; there are precious few married women, even
among the political lot and semi-public hostesses, who can touch her;
and, when it comes to a tussle between a girl of twenty-one and a woman
like Harriet Pebbleridge, who's as solid and well-established as the
Nelson Column, it's Barbara who wins. I'm told she's had a perfect crop
of invitations to become visitor or patroness or vice-chairman of
different things; she rules over committees on anything from a national
theatre to an art guild--and does it uncommon well, I believe.... How
do you stand with her now? You're very likely to meet, if you pay your
annual visit to Raglan."
"That's why I asked. I want to."
Loring was conscious that he had been talking rather volubly to postpone
what he knew Jack had come there to discuss; inevitably advice would
have to be given, an opinion expressed, responsibility shouldered.
"Apart from a formal invitation, she's made no effort to meet you? Jack,
I _wonder_ whether she's been playing the game with you. It's
incomprehensible to me that a girl should let you get to the point of
proposing and then fall back on something that's either non-essential or
else so important that she ought to have warned you beforehand."
"I'm afraid you're rather biassed against poor Barbara."
Four years earlier, Loring knew that he would have been as immovable, if
any one had suggested that Sonia had a blemish. Oakleigh had tried and
failed; but he was right in trying....
"If you've said anything that's rankled.... She's vindictive, as she
shewed by making a scene over the cable episode twelve months later. And
she's full of mischief. And you, who take things rather seriously,
probably don't appreciate that nothing matters to her except the
moment--and her vanity. In effect the only thing she could find to say
about you that night was that she'd cured you of criticizing her and
talking about dog-whips. You've not seen her for a couple of months; why
not wait a bit longer? As I told you months ago in this room, if she
_wants_ you, she'll contrive to meet you in some way."
"With her vanity?"
"Yes, if she cares for you more than for her vanity. You see that I
can't very well keep her away from Chepstow, but I think you'd be wise
to postpone your visit to Raglan."
The book of trout-flies was becoming irksome. Jack lifted it from his
knees and restored it to its shelf. Then he ranged for a moment in front
of the glazed cases, reading the titles and whistling to himself between
his teeth.
"It's too late. I've taken the plunge," he said at last, without turning
round. "I don't propose to discuss it with you, Jim; but I shall
certainly come to your party, and the only thing I ask you to do is
_not_ to tell Babs I'm coming. I want to pick up the swords exactly
where we dropped them. You've nothing more to tell me about her? I've
been kept on short commons of news lately."
The last few days had been so crowded with his own new happiness that
Loring had lost count of time; he had forgotten that everybody else was
not standing still; he had almost forgotten that the world held any one
but Violet and him.
"I--wish--to--God you hadn't done it," he cried in spite of himself.
"There was no point in waiting."
"And if you're wrong?"
"But I'm not."
Jack's face, as he turned from the books, was composed and assured.
"She never promised to marry you, if you _did_ become a Catholic,"
Loring persisted. "You're banking so frightfully on some mysterious
instinct."
"I'm as certain of her as you are of Miss Hunter-Oakleigh."
"I was certain of Sonia four years ago. _If_ you're wrong?"
Jack was silent for many moment before answering.
"Well, she and you and I shall know about it; and none of us will have
much interest in talking about it.... For the rest--well, my poor family
will be spared a nasty jar."
"You haven't told them yet?"
"No, I thought I'd wait till I'd got something to shew for my apparent
lapse from sanity."
When they parted, it was Jack who went to bed with a tolerably tranquil
mind and Loring who first tramped the library like a caged beast and
then put on his hat and wandered aimlessly into the streets. He was no
nearer conviction when Lady Knightrider called next morning to warn him
that there had been some unexplained friction between Jack and Barbara
earlier in the season and to ask whether it was politic for them to meet
at Chepstow.
"Jack knows she's going to be with us," was all that he could answer.
"He asked specially; he's very anxious to meet her again."
"Oh, well!... I only wanted to be sure that there was no
unpleasantness."
"Unpleasantness?"
Loring laughed incredulously; but, when his aunt was gone and he
returned to his letters, the word echoed maddeningly.
As Jack had asked that Barbara should not be warned in advance of their
meeting, the Chepstow party had to be handled strategically at
Paddington. Lady Knightrider and Phyllis, Charles Framlingham and Jack
were in a reserved carriage at the back of the train, and Barbara was
deftly flanked by an obscuring bodyguard consisting of Arden, Deganway,
four maids and a footman. Whatever the outcome of their meeting, her
sense of the dramatic would have been excited if she had known that Jack
and she were in different parts of the same train, travelling to the end
of England for the last round in their long contest. For himself, Loring
only wished that he could get rid of Barbara and of her elaborate
atmosphere of mystery and intrigue; if she decided to marry Jack, he
would rather not have it said by the Warings that he had abetted their
son in a course which they would never condone: if there were any kind
of unpleasantness, he would sooner have it happen elsewhere than at
Loring Castle.... And in the meantime Barbara sat in her corner,
sparring impartially with Deganway and Arden.
It seemed for a moment that he might get his wish and avert the meeting.
Lady Knightrider wrote two days later to ask whether the arrangements
for the ball held good. Her son had written from London to say that "a
man in the War Office" did not see how hostilities could be prevented.
The word was to be interpreted in its widest sense; an outbreak between
Austria and Servia was inevitable, and it was no less inevitable that
Russia should come to the support of Servia and Germany to the aid of
Austria. Then France would throw in her lot with Russia, and Great
Britain with France. The sequence was automatic and inevitable. The
diplomatists might possibly find a safety-valve, but, unless they did,
there would be war, "and that," proclaimed Victor Knightrider, "is where
we come in."
"_It's all so unnecessary and so dreadful_," wrote his mother, "_that
one feels almost wicked to talk of things like dancing until we see what
is going to happen. Of course, you understand that, if the ball takes
place, I shall come; I'm so happy about you and dear Violet that nothing
would keep me away from a gathering like this. But, if you decide to
postpone it till a less stormy day...._"
Loring debated with himself and with his mother, before deciding to
leave his arrangements unchanged. No one could pretend to be satisfied
with the political outlook, but war on Victor Knightrider's
all-embracing scale was inconceivable.
"_Unless there's any change for the worse before Friday_," he wrote in
reply, "_I propose to go on._"
The papers, morning and evening, confirmed him in his optimism. A world
at war had only to be imagined in order to be dismissed. It was not
until the late afternoon before the ball that George Oakleigh, O'Rane
and Summertown, deriving their information from different sources and
speaking with different degrees of conviction and gravity, persuaded him
that, even if the incredible did not take place, at least a great many
intelligent observers thought that it would. At Raglan no one shared
Lady Knightrider's alarms. Phyllis and Framlingham were as much resolved
not to be cheated of the ball as Jack was determined to meet Barbara. He
assured his hostess that Victor was only trying to make her flesh creep.
For two days Framlingham and Phyllis played tennis or motored together,
and for two days Jack walked up and down one bank of the stream that
bordered the Knightrider property, meditatively thrashing the water and
smoking one pipe after another. His luncheon he carried with him when he
left the house after breakfast; on both days Lady Knightrider drove
through the woods in her pony-carriage with a tea-basket and drove back
again because she lacked courage to ask him about Barbara.
On the morning of the ball, the optimism of the preceding days declined
sharply. The news could hardly be called worse, because the papers
contained nothing but the death-rattle of the Buckingham Palace
Conference. But a presentiment of evil sprang up and was fed by crazy
invention and baseless gossip. Victor wrote again with extracts from the
prophecies of two journalists, the private secretary to a minister and
the same "man in the War Office." Jack received a gloomy letter from
Eric Lane, and Framlingham was warned to keep himself within reach of a
telegraph office.
"It's too late for Jim to stop the thing now," said Jack.
"He'd have been wiser to stop it at the beginning of the week. Of
course, he can't be expected to feel quite as I do. If we go to war, the
Guards will be sent out before any one. And that means Victor."
It was tea-time before she desisted from the last of her vacillations,
and the car was ordered to the door. Wrapped in coats and dust-rugs,
they drove through Raglan in blazing sunlight and reached Loring Castle
as the first stars appeared. The men were still in the long
banqueting-hall, and Lady Knightrider put her head in at the door to ask
whether she might drink Jim's health. Jack stayed behind in the hall,
trying to get his bearings in a strange house. A sound of voices came to
him through an open door on the opposite side, and, without waiting to
take off his coat, he walked on tip-toe and looked in.
Barbara was standing by the fire-place, a coffee-cup in her hand,
talking to Violet Hunter-Oakleigh. Slender and tall, a study in black
and white, ghostly and arresting, she might have incarnated herself from
an Aubrey Beardsley drawing. Her dress was raven's wing and silver, not
unlike the one that she had worn at Croxton; there was a gleaming band
around her hair, and silver heels to her shoes. As he looked at her,
Jack remembered Loring's phrase in describing a distant view of Sonia at
the Coronation, after their engagement had been broken off. He felt that
same "tug at the heart" and told himself that he must be steady; though
Barbara did not expect him, he felt sure that she would betray little
surprise and no embarrassment.
Lady Loring was seated near the door, and, as they shook hands, Barbara
turned and caught sight of him. He could not see whether her expression
changed, but in a moment she had left Violet and was coming across the
room to him.
"I never expected to see you here!" she exclaimed, holding out her hand
and watching him with eyes that were unreflecting pools of deep blue.
"I'm staying with Lady Knightrider at Raglan, and she brought me over,"
he explained.
"I thought you must have gone abroad or something. You've quite
disappeared lately."
"I've been rather busy."
"No one seemed to know what had happened to you."
As Lady Loring moved away, he examined her critically.
"You're looking very well, Babs. And I've heard a great deal about
_you_."
"You always had a talent for that," she laughed. "And for commenting
very freely on what you heard. What have you been doing with yourself?"
"I'll tell you at supper, if you'll consent to have supper with me."
He was speaking in the tone and terms that he had used in the old
days--before the Ross House ball, before the disastrous Easter gathering
at Crawleigh.
"I've promised it to Val Arden," she answered in the same measure. "And
two other people, now that I come to think of it."
"Well, promise me--and keep the promise."
"But why should I disappoint them?"
"I feel you owe it to me, after we've not met for so long."
Barbara could not wholly hide from him that she was puzzled.
"I'll--see," she said.
"You used to be more gracious; you used to say, 'Yes--if you want me
to.'"
"That was in the old days," she answered quickly and saw, too late, that
she had needlessly raised the temperature of the discussion.
"Nothing's happened to change it, I hope," said Jack easily.
After the first embarrassment of the meeting, he felt that he was
holding his own and that Barbara was mystified and uncomfortable.
"Jack, you've not forgotten our _last_ meeting?" she asked.
"It was at Ross House. We had supper together then----"
"Well, you don't want to--repeat it, do you?" she asked deliberately.
"I want to have supper with you again."
She was undecided whether to be distressed or intrigued. Jack could
always arouse her combativeness by criticizing, or--as now--by coolly
taking her for granted. But she did not want to repeat the Ross House
scene. He had an unpleasant faculty of frightening her--and yet to be
frightened by him was not wholly unpleasant....
"You can find some one else far more amusing," she suggested.
"I don't even know who's here."
"But you didn't know I was going to be here."
"I asked Jim--five days ago.... I came straight in here without even
taking off my coat. Barbara, may I have supper with you?"
Insensibility, which was his chief characteristic, counted for much. A
brazen desire, which she could understand, to treat the Ross House
meeting as if it had never occurred might count for more. Barbara would
sooner have bandied epigrams with Val Arden or flirted with his
supplanter, but she felt that she would be unable to sleep until she
knew why Jack had disappeared for more than two months and then followed
her to a remote castle in Monmouthshire--and why he came to her, like a
needle to a magnet, without waiting to get rid of his scarf and coat.
"I'll have supper with you, if you want me to," she said.
A sound of voices behind him warned Jack that the men were coming out of
the banqueting-hall, and, as he hurried to get rid of his overcoat
before any of them could grow inquisitive about his surreptitious visit
to the drawing-room, the doors were flung open and the first cars
rolled into sight. Loring threw away the end of his cigar and ran
upstairs to help his mother receive their guests. A group of men
gathered round the open fire-place, pulling on their gloves and waiting
for the rest of their parties. Jack stood with them for a few minutes,
wondering what to do with himself until supper. He was in no mood to
dance or to debate the possibility of war or to chatter about Jim's
engagement or to discuss what he meant to do during the vacation. He
could only think of one thing at a time and he had not determined
whether they were to publish the news then and there or to wait until
they were back in London. He would have liked to proclaim it at supper
and to see every man and woman rising to drink their health, but he
decided, on reflection, that he must talk to Lord Crawleigh before
making the announcement.
Phyllis Knightrider and her mother came out of the drawing-room and went
upstairs. He followed them and, in duty, asked for a dance; but, as soon
as it was over, he escaped to the terrace in front of the castle and sat
down by himself as far as possible from the door. Barbara's curiosity
was piqued; and, if he met her before supper, she would disturb him with
artless little questions instead of waiting to hear the whole story.
Yet, if she would trouble to think, there was no room for curiosity.
"You are dancing? No?" said Val Arden behind him. "One can offer you the
half of a tolerable lair, not too near the music and adequately
provisioned."