"Don't I? I'm sorry, Merton! But I'm tired, I can't take the trouble."
"Your hair, my lady----"
"I think I shall cut it off! It's only a bother."
"My lady, your beautiful hair?"
"No, I shan't cut it off. It's too much trouble. Everything's too much
trouble."
She hardly looked at herself in the glass before going downstairs,
though she knew that Sonia O'Rane would have spent hours in preparing
herself. But it was preordained whether she looked well ... or wanted to
look well.
Throughout dinner her mind struggled under the incubus. Predestination
peeped round every conversational corner, explaining and stultifying
everything. When O'Rane spoke sympathetically of Jim Loring's death, she
answered almost callously that it must have been preordained. Since
leaving Mrs. Savage, she had tried vainly to discover some point in
which she was superior to an animal that was born at the stockman's
bidding, to be killed for lamb or shorn for wool or kept to bear other
sheep at the stockman's bidding and ultimately killed for mutton.
"You see, I believe in Destiny," Barbara explained. "Destiny meant you
to be wounded and Jim to be killed and some one else to be untouched. If
Destiny didn't mean me to be burned, I could put my finger in the flame
of that candle. Everything we do----"
O'Rane shook his head and laughed.
"You don't believe that, Lady Barbara. You don't believe that you've no
choice whether you're good or bad, kind or unkind--that you're
helpless."
"I am waiting for you to find fault with my logic," she answered.
"I won't try. I wish I could see you, though! You sound serious, but in
the old days, when I looked at you, there was a sort of etherealized
smile----"
"Ah, don't!" Barbara shivered.
"----It gave you away.... I'm sorry! I'm getting so used to being blind
that I forget other people's feelings.... Your voice is quite serious,
and I'm getting wonderful at voices. Shall I tell you something about
yours? A change I've noticed?" He waited to assure himself that they
were not overheard. "Lady Barbara, are you very unhappy about something?
It's not curiosity; I want to help, if I can. When you're blind, you
become a bit of an impressionist. If any one asked me to describe you,
I'm glad to say that I can still remember exactly what you used to look
like, but, when I describe you to myself, I get a massing of colours, a
glorious freedom of line that no one else might recognize for you. Your
voice would make me crowd my canvas with red, blood red. Pain is always
red to me. And you give me the impression of horrible pain. More than
that, I'm afraid you've giving in to it. I don't ask for your
confidence, but, if I'm right, I should like to help."
Barbara was too much startled to do more than thank him and say that she
was not very well.
"Ah, that was a pity!" he sighed.
"But I can't help it, can I?"
"It was a pity to say that. You've covered my picture with a thin
grey-yellow wash--Thames water--which dulls my colours."
"Do you mean that I'm not speaking the truth?" she asked stiffly.
"I had no right to say what I did," he answered apologetically. "But you
sounded so heart-broken."
"Well, in addition to being not very well, I'm _not_ particularly happy.
Life's such a hopeless thing, if you can't control it."
"And _you_ say that, Lady Barbara, with your brains and your looks and
your health and your money----"
"Even if I've got them all, they needn't make me happy.... They _don't_!
Sometimes I feel that, if I could give them all up, if I could make one
gigantic sacrifice, I might be happy.... You're not sorry to have been
fighting, are you? But I wonder what equal sacrifice a woman can make."
"Ah, to die with credit is the easiest thing in the world," O'Rane
answered, as he pushed back his chair.
When she was half-way upstairs, Barbara excused herself and went to her
room. Sonia and her husband were so happy that their happiness hurt
her; she grudged it them. There was no reason under heaven why she
should not be as happy, but Destiny had not yet ordained it. Perhaps
Destiny had decided that she should see it for a moment and then have it
snatched from her. It was a variant of her old fear that she would have
to marry Jack and then fall in love with some one else; then she had
regarded such a fate as her punishment. Destiny, she now felt, did not
concern itself with rewards and punishments; it was altogether too
arbitrary.
She lay on her bed without undressing and thought over the day's
emotions. Of all that she had done she only regretted her momentary
panic when she ran away from Mrs. Savage; and, the more she regretted
it, the more determined she became to go again and to demand full
answers to all her questions. As soon as her mind was made up, she felt
better. People might call her superstitious, gullible or anything else
they pleased, but they should not say that she was a coward. Jumping up
from the bed, she tidied her hair and went down to the drawing-room in
time to find Sonia saying good-bye.
"Oh, don't go yet," said Barbara. "I had such a headache that I had to
lie down, but it's better now. I haven't had a moment with you the whole
evening."
"We've promised to go to a party," Sonia answered. "To-night's the
hundred and fiftieth performance of Eric Lane's play, and he's giving a
supper on the stage. Why don't you come too?"
"I haven't been asked. And I don't know him."
"Oh, that doesn't matter! I don't know him, but David was up at Oxford
with him."
"I think I'll wait until I've met him. You're not going too, George?"
"I'm bound for the same debauch, I'm afraid. Barbara, will you dine
with me some time to meet him? I'll try to fix a night and telephone to
you in the morning."
"I shall love that."
She went to bed, feeling that she would sleep; but her nerves were
unsettled by the memory of her encounter with Mrs. Savage. After trying
to read, she jumped up and began walking about the room. She was never
conscious of having gone outside, but some time later she found herself
in the hall, lying on a table with a rug round her. Lady Crawleigh was
standing over her with a white face and frightened eyes; her maid
hovered in the background, with her hair in curl-papers and a grotesque
mackintosh over her nightgown. Farther away stood an unmistakable
policeman with close-cropped black hair and a line of white at the top
of his forehead. Barbara reflected that she had never before seen a
policeman without his helmet. Then she sat up and stared round her.
"What's happened?"
"My darling child, lie still," Lady Crawleigh implored. "How do you
feel?"
"I'm all right."
"You were walking in your sleep. Oh, Babs, you've given us all such a
fright! D'you know, you'd actually got outside.... Anything might have
happened to you!"
Barbara looked from her mother to the policeman.
"Outside?" she repeated.
"You'd unlocked the door and pushed back both bolts--Aston's quite sure
he bolted top and bottom----"
"And I went out like this?" Barbara interrupted. She pulled up the end
of the rug and found that she was barefooted and in her nightdress. "I
can't remember.... I went to bed; I _do_ remember that it was very hot
and that I walked about the room...."
The policeman coughed and prepared to retire. Lady Crawleigh despatched
the maid for her purse, but Barbara was too much dazed even to thank
him. A dream which had been wonderfully vivid a moment before was fading
from her recollection, driven out scene by scene at the sound of her
mother's frightened voice. She had fancied that she was again sitting
with Mrs. Savage and that the flicker of kindliness which had for a
moment lighted up the gaunt face and smouldering dark eyes was once more
visible. In another moment everything would have been told....
"I suppose I was going for a walk. What's the time?"
"It's one o'clock," answered Lady Crawleigh. "I sat up to finish some
writing.... My darling child, are you sure you're all right now?"
Barbara stood for a moment to test her strength and then walked to the
stairs.
"Yes, thanks. I'll go back to bed now. I'm sorry to have frightened
everybody."
"I'll come with you, Babs. If you want anything in the night----"
"I'm really all right!" Barbara was so much exhausted that this time she
knew she would be able to sleep. She did not know, however, what she
might say in her sleep. "You can lock both doors, mother; and I couldn't
throw myself out of the window, if I tried. I couldn't sleep, if I had
any one in the room; I should feel I was being watched."
"But just for to-night----"
"I shan't go to bed, unless you do what I ask."
Lady Crawleigh knew well when it was useless to argue, and Barbara went
up alone. Mrs. Savage had called her; if the dream had not been so
rudely disturbed, she would have been able to remember the form of the
call as she still remembered its urgency. But that hardly mattered now;
she was only strengthened in her determination to go back to
Knightsbridge in the morning. She fell asleep, happier than she had been
for a year. Lady Crawleigh peeped into the room once or twice during the
night, but Barbara did not stir until the telephone-bell rang by her
bed-side at half-past nine. A strange male voice enquired for her and
seemed more than usually anxious to be certain of her identity.
"We are Furnivall and Morton, solicitors," said the voice. "It is Mr.
Morton speaking. Is that Lady Barbara Neave?"
"Yes."
"You _are_--Lady Barbara Neave? You are acquainted with a client of
ours, Mrs. Savage."
The combination of Mrs. Savage and a slightly hectoring solicitor who
insisted on speaking to her at half-past nine disconcerted Barbara.
"What Mrs. Savage do you mean?" she asked.
"Mrs. Savage of Knightsbridge. You called on her yesterday. I am sorry
to say that there has been a misunderstanding, and our client is in a
position of some difficulty. She gave me your name, and, after thinking
the matter over very carefully, I felt that you were the person who
could be of most service to her. Mrs. Savage assured me that you would
do anything in your power to help her, so I need not apologize for
troubling you at this rather unseasonable hour."
The voice paused, and Barbara found herself trembling. It was not
blackmail to tell her that she would do anything in her power to help
some one but the tone could be so confident as to be menacing. Barbara
had never been brought into contact with solicitors; she knew from books
that it was prudent and legitimate to refer them to one's own
solicitors, but it would argue an uneasy conscience to be so summary
before she had given Mr. Morton time to explain himself.
"What has happened?" she asked.
"Some malicious person has been writing letters to the Home Office,"
explained Mr. Morton, "and the long and the short of it is that it's
necessary for us to produce evidence as to character. If you would be
kind enough----"
"But I don't know her," Barbara protested. "I've only met her twice."
"That does not matter. One of the charges against our client is that she
trades on the credulity of ignorant people who have been made unbalanced
by the war and that, when she has got these same ignorant people into
her grasp, she extorts money from them. You and I know that such a
charge is grotesquely untrue. Our client had devoted her whole life to
the study of what I may conveniently call 'the occult'; she has never
advertised or solicited business--her peculiar powers have made that
unnecessary--and those who have consulted her, so far from being
credulous or ignorant people, are drawn to her by a common interest in a
study which, though still in its infancy, is capable of almost infinite
development." Barbara fancied that Mr. Morton must be reading aloud the
draft of the defence which he had prepared for Mrs. Savage. "We feel
that the Home Office will take a different view of the case, when
confronted with a few of the people whom the anonymous informant is good
enough to call ignorant and credulous. I am therefore collecting a few
statements from some of the very many people who consulted our client. I
shall be glad to know that you will allow me to call on you and suggest
to you the general form in which these statements are being drawn."
Barbara was vaguely relieved to find that Mrs. Savage was once more on
the defensive and that the solicitor with the ominous voice was asking
favours rather than uttering threats. She would have liked to help, if
it had been possible; a year before she would undoubtedly have
responded; but now she dreaded the publicity of a newspaper report, and
there would be a scene with her father to which she felt wholly unequal.
The common sense of the world, too, would only rank her with the
credulous ignorant.
"You can get other people who know her better, surely?" Barbara
suggested.
"I want to get every one I can," answered Mr. Morton. "Your name, if I
may say so, will carry a great deal of weight. We wish to show the Home
Office the _kind_ of people who went to our client."
Barbara was quite convinced by now that she did not want to be known as
"the kind of person" who consulted Mrs. Savage, though in an hour's time
she would have been on her way to Knightsbridge.
"I think I'd sooner be left out of it," she said.
"I'm afraid we can't afford to spare you."
"But you can't _make_ me!"
There was a pause, followed by a warning cough, and Mr. Morton began to
speak more slowly and emphatically.
"If the Home Office authorities are ill-advised enough to recommend a
prosecution, it will be necessary for you to attend. We want to avoid
that, of course; we want to satisfy the authorities--without any
unpleasantness--that they are under a misapprehension. A statement from
you----"
"But would it be published?"
"That we should have to decide later. Our client has also been wantonly
attacked by certain papers, and it is our business to see that she is
cleared of all suspicion."
"I shan't say anything, if it's going to be published in the papers,"
Barbara rejoined obstinately.
Mr. Morton hesitated again and became even more impressive.
"I'm afraid--you'll understand, of course, that this is in no sense a
threat--I'm afraid that you'll regret it later. If we're unable to
settle the matter out of hand, if there's a prosecution----"
"But I've really nothing to do with it! You can't drag me in!" Barbara
cried.
"Have you never heard of a _subpoena_?"
A threat, like any other challenge, roused Barbara to combat, however
ill and reluctant she might be; and, when roused, her first act was to
throw aside prudence like a cloak that was fettering her sword-arm.
"Oh, I know you can make me come, if you want to," she said. "If you and
Mrs. Savage think it's worth while. I've only met her twice--yesterday
and about two years ago. She hasn't forgotten the first meeting. You can
ask her if she thinks it's worth while."
Barbara hung up the receiver and lay back in bed, breathing quickly. Her
mother came in a moment later to enquire how she was and found her with
flushed cheeks and dilated pupils.
"My darling, what's the matter?" she cried.
"Oh, I'm worried! Everything worries me!" answered Barbara with a catch
in her breath. "Oh, that telephone again!"
This time it was George Oakleigh, and his tone of gentle concern worried
her until she wanted to scream and beg to be left alone.
"Good-morning, Barbara. I tried to get through to you before, but your
line was engaged. I hope you're better this morning. Well, I went to
Eric Lane's party last night after leaving you; I've made him promise to
dine with me on Thursday, it's his only free evening for weeks. Is that
any good to you? Even if you don't like his play, I think you'll like
him."
Barbara felt that, if by pressing a button she could compass Lane's
death, she would press it cheerfully and promptly. Then perhaps she
would escape having him thrust down her throat every few hours.
"George, it's sweet of you," she said, straining to speak graciously,
"but I don't know that I shall feel up to it. All my nerves seem to have
gone wrong."
"I'm so sorry; I thought he might amuse you. Would you like to leave it
open? Thursday. He's dining with me in any event. If you ring me up
between now and then.... Take care of yourself, dear Barbara; you're too
precious to lose."
"Oh, I'm not going to die young," she laughed nervously. "The gods don't
love me enough for that."
As she put the telephone away again, Lady Crawleigh came back to the
bed; she had only troubled to gather one thing from the conversation,
and that was the rare admission from Barbara's own lips that she was too
ill to accept an invitation.
"Darling, I thought that after last night it would be a good thing for
you to see Dr. Gaisford," she said. "Perhaps he can give you a
tonic----"
"Oh, I don't want to see a doctor," Barbara interrupted. "My wretched
body's all right. No doctor in the world can do me any good."
"But you're not yourself at all. And you've _never_ walked in your sleep
before. There _must_ be something a little wrong, when you begin doing
that."
Barbara said nothing, because she felt that her nerves were tingling and
that she might break out with something so unnaturally irritable and
rude that Dr. Gaisford would be summoned without the chance of an
appeal. It was absurd to talk about sleep-walking; it was not in sleep
that she had walked down the stairs and through the door-way. A trance
it might fairly be called; but, where memory failed, instinct told her
that she was obeying a call; she had no doubt that, when the policeman
stopped her, she was on her way to Mrs. Savage; and she would there have
heard something--perhaps everything....
"I was only restless," said Barbara at length, pulling the bed-clothes
about with an impatient hand.
"You're not _thinking_ of getting up, are you?"
Since she could not go back to Knightsbridge, Barbara was undecided
what to do. At least she had to remain within reach of the telephone,
for Mr. Morton might reopen communication at any moment; and she had to
remain at home to secure that, if Mrs. Savage made a personal appeal, it
should not be intercepted this time by Lord Crawleigh. Bed was as good a
place as any other....
Mr. Morton left her undisturbed, but two days later she heard the last
of Mrs. Savage. At some period of her wandering career May Tennigen,
sometimes known as "Madame Hilary" or "Mrs. Savage," had become a
naturalized American; the Home Office, working sympathetically with the
War Office, which suspected her activities, decided to dispense with a
prosecution and to return her to the country of her adoption. When
Barbara read of the deportation, she was first relieved and then plunged
into despair. Her last contact with certainty had been broken. Lady
Crawleigh came in to find her crying in her sleep; later she began to
talk feverishly and in the morning Dr. Gaisford was summoned.
"She was dreadfully overworked in the hospital," explained Lady
Crawleigh. "And I don't think she's got over it yet. _You_ know how
naughty she is as a rule, when she's told to stay in bed; now she won't
get up. She says there's no point in getting up, that there's nothing to
do. She says that, if she's _fated_ to get up--or something like
that.... She says she's got no will of her own, that we've none of us
got wills. That from _Barbara_!"
The doctor's task was easy in one respect, for Barbara did whatever she
was told. If Destiny contrived a man and crossed the thread of his life
with hers and made him a physician and sent him with a stethoscope and a
fountain-pen to write prescriptions, what was the use of protesting? She
could take the medicine--or leave it untouched; that had been arranged
for her beforehand. Everything was arranged beforehand, but she had
lost the means of finding out what Destiny had in store for her....
"Is she worried about anything?" asked the doctor.
"Not that I know of," Lady Crawleigh answered.
Since the time eighteen months before, when Barbara said bluntly,
"Mother, I'm not going to marry Jack," they had not discussed him. When
he was reported "missing," Barbara never commented on her mother's
letter, even with a phrase of conventional regret; she did not seem to
discuss him with any one, she had rejected her aunt's sympathy, and, if
she were breaking her heart for him, it was strange that even in sleep
she never referred to him.
When the doctor left, Lady Crawleigh resolved that Barbara _must_ be
coaxed into saying why she was so miserable. But, if it was hard to
corkscrew anything out of her when she was obstinately rebellious, it
was harder still when she cowered like a beaten dog. For three nights
she had lain moaning "Happy ... I do want to be happy.... Won't any one
make me happy?" Lady Crawleigh alluded vaguely to restless nights, and
the doctor prescribed a sedative.
For the first time in more than twelve months Barbara slept peacefully
and awoke with the memory of a delightful dream. After the disturbance
of her encounter with Mrs. Savage, her memory had at last gone back to
the day when she fainted in the train. Twice in the night a voice was
heard speaking to her very softly, with a child's confiding gentleness;
then the child himself appeared, standing over her and holding out both
hands until she got up from the grass and walked with him. She found
that she, too, was a child, with bare arms and legs and her hair hanging
loose and blowing into her face until he brushed it aside and kissed
her. They walked with their arms twined about each other's waists, and,
when Barbara looked wonderingly at their blue ephods, he said "The Blue
Bird," and she answered, "Of course! The Blue Bird" and knew that he
was come to bring her happiness.
They set out seriously, for there was no time to be lost, through a long
narrow garden built like a cliff road, terrace under terrace, with a
silver ribbon of water turning in a cascade from the end of each terrace
on to the one below. There were fig trees on either side, and he made
her sit down in the shade while he gathered the warm soft figs and
tossed them into her lap.
"Spain," she said. "We must go on."
"Aren't you happy here?" he asked.
"Yes. I love you."
"And I love you."
"But we must go on," she repeated.
He bent forward on one knee and kissed her feet.
"You are tired. Rest here, where you are happy."
"I am very happy, but we must go on."
He stood up and lifted her in his arms until she laid her cheek against
his and clasped her hands round his neck.
"I am too heavy," she protested. "You are only a child."
"I cannot let you hurt your feet on all these stones," he answered.
"You are very good to me."
"I love you. If you will stay here, I will take care of you always. You
will be happy. You will never be hurt. I will watch over you, and no one
shall come near you."
She looked from under the shade of the fig-tree on to the silver ribbon
of water falling in cascades from one terrace to another.
"No one _is_ near us. We are alone in the world."
"And I love you; and you love me."
She struggled out of his arms and darted forward.
"We must go on."
"When you are happy?"
"Yes. _I_ have to go on. Who are you?"
"I cannot tell you. I have not lived till now."
"I never lived till you told me that you loved me. Kiss me! Kiss my
eyes! I love you and I am happy.... But I have to go on. You are a
child."
"Like you. Let me kiss your hand."
"My eyes! Kiss my eyes! They were aching, but you have made me
happy...."
Barbara was still speaking when she awoke. Her arms were thrown wide, as
though she were waiting to embrace some one, and she heard her own
whispered "happy."
The door creaked. A wedge of yellow light advanced, broadening, into the
room and slowly climbed the opposite wall. Through half-closed eyes she
saw her mother; and, though she shut her eyes, she could feel that her
mother was crossing the room, standing by her, watching her. Then the
door creaked again. Barbara sighed with relief. In another moment sleep
would have been banished, but now she might hope to recapture it. Spain
... The Generalife Garden ... Sunshine hot on her face ... Black stains
of shadow from the fig trees ... The sweet, creamy figs ... Quivering
waves of heat flung back and up from the burning earth on to her bare
ankles ... A child in blue ephod kissing her feet in adoration....
She could not remember his face. But, if she did not wake herself by
thinking too hard of him, he would come back. He _must_ come back....