“I’m comin’ home with you,” Larrupper announced, stepping after her
into the Heron brougham. His face was quite colourless, and he did not
look at her. “Old Grange is followin’ behind with the car, but there’s
somethin’ I want to say to you, an’ it won’t improve with keepin’. Then
I’m goin’ back for a chin-chin with Blackburn.”
“You’re not to say anything to Billy!” Verity exclaimed angrily. “Leave
him to Mr. Grant. You’ll only make things worse.”
“That’s just what I want to make ’em!” Larry responded grimly. “I mean
to make ’em so bad that there’ll be no dancin’ except on crutches for
the next six months. It’s no use arguin’, my dear girl. This is a man’s
job, so you may as well stop worryin’.”
“Oh, but don’t you understand----?” Verity began piteously, and
stopped, for she had seen his face by a passing lamp, and she was
afraid. They drove back to Heron in silence.
Mrs. Cantacute was already upstairs when they got in, and they went up
together to tell her how things had gone. She worshipped every hair of
Larry’s head, and he spent many an hour with her, cheering her after
his own peculiar fashion.
Oh, it had been a complete success! they informed her, carefully
leaving awkward details to be broken later. A crowded house and a most
appreciative audience. Everything, in fact, that could be desired.
“And how did my favourite song go?” gentle Mrs. Cantacute inquired
eagerly. “You know the one I mean, don’t you?--the song with the pretty
refrain--‘Honey.’”
Verity coloured to the roots of her hair under her paint, for Larrupper
was looking at her mercilessly across the bed.
“Oh, it was the song of the evenin’!” he answered easily and with
effusion. “Went like steam an’ took like influenza. Everybody in the
place goin’ away hummin’ it, even carpin’ old Savaury an’ his pampered
darlin’ of a coachman. I mustn’t stop, though, dear old sweetheart.
Grange is outside, waitin’, an’ he’ll be hungry after all that yowlin’.”
“Send him in for something,” Mrs. Cantacute begged, as he stooped to
kiss her. “And mind you get what you want yourself, Lionel. You know
you are at home here, don’t you?”
“Thank you, old dear!” Larry answered gently, without looking at her;
but when he was downstairs again, he refused Verity’s hospitality
brusquely.
“I don’t want anythin’ in that line,” he said rather roughly, “and
old Grange can go on starvin’ a bit longer, for a change! I told you
I’d somethin’ to say to you, but I don’t fancy talkin’ to a painted
marionette, so suppose you go away an’ wash your face!”
“I’m not in a mood for being ‘talked to,’” she replied, flushing
indignantly under his disapproving gaze, “and if you can’t be even
moderately polite, you had better go away and let me get off to bed,
for I’m simply dead tired.”
“You’ll have to keep awake, anyhow, till I’m through,” he said
doggedly. “But I want to talk to the girl I’m used to seein’, an’ not
to a music-hall turn. You’d better do what I say, or there’ll be all
the more time goin’ beggin’ for Billy.”
When she had gone, he remained beside the dying fire, alternately
staring moodily at the flickering coal and addressing himself gloomily
in the overmantel. Deborah had been right, he told himself, miserably.
The crisis in their light love-making had come at last, and neither he
nor Verity knew how to meet it. Would the bond between them really bear
the strain? Or would to-morrow see the beginning of a new and empty
life, separated from the old, happy, laughing one for ever?
She came back presently without her cap, her little face faintly
flushed, her shining hair brushed in smooth waves from its Madonna-like
parting.
“Now what is it?” she asked peremptorily, anything but Madonna-like in
demeanour. “You seem in a shockingly bad temper, and I can’t think why.
After all, Billy-boy is no concern of yours in any way, and you’ve got
to promise me before you go that you’ll leave him alone.”
“It’s every decent man’s concern when a low cad’s insultin’ a lady,”
Larrupper answered stubbornly. “I ought never to have allowed you to
have anythin’ to do with him, but you’re always so set on havin’ your
own way, there’s no movin’ you. Well, you can have any way you find
pleasin’ when I’m through with Billy.”
“No, no, Larrupper--_please_!” she begged, growing alarmed before his
steady grimness. “It’s true I ought never to have asked him, but I
thought he would keep straight for me--indeed I did! He’s never failed
me before. There seems to have been a sort of fate in it. Oh, I know I
did wrong in not leaving him alone, but you won’t improve matters by
going for him or--or hammering him. He’ll only turn nasty, and never
look at any of us again. That’s the way to send him to the dogs for
life.”
“An’ the best place for him!” Larry added heartily. “It’s no use
bullyin’ me. This is man’s work, as I told you before. An’ I’m not
starvin’ old Grange for the pleasure of talkin’ about Blackburn.
There’s somethin’ else. That parson was makin’ love to you!”
Verity crimsoned for the third time, slowly and painfully. She had
never before known a moment’s embarrassment with Larrupper, but
to-night he seemed like a stranger, with his black brows drawn
together, and his gloomy eyes searching hers. There was something
menacing about the set of his heavy shoulders and the droop of his
bullet head.
“Yes,” she admitted in a low tone. “He--asked me to marry him. It
doesn’t seem fair to tell you, but I think you know, without it. You
needn’t be jealous,” she finished quickly, following an hysterical
impulse to say the most hopelessly wrong thing possible.
“Jealous?” Larry’s dark face flushed violently. “Jealous of old
Grant? Did you think I came bargin’ in at this time of night just
to tell you I was jealous? Then you’re wrong. I came to ask you a
straight question, an’ if you can give me a straight answer without
any shilly-shallyin’--and the right one, mind you!--I’ll make a night
of it with old Grange over the ’84 port. But if you can’t--if you
_can’t_----!” A dog-like anticipation of trouble came into his dark
eyes as he looked at her, and his hand shook on the mantelpiece, for
everything hung on that question, and he was afraid both of the answer
and of himself.
“It’s just this!” he said heavily. “A man doesn’t go askin’ girls to
marry him without thinkin’ about it a bit beforehand, especially when
he’s tuckered out like an Aunt Sally an’ a bit of Barnum mixed. Old
Grant isn’t the sort, either, to be plungin’ into proposals without
so much as a twinge of warnin’. He must have been goin’ that way for
weeks, poor old chap, an’ gettin’ worked up for the jumpin’-off. Now
I’m askin’ you--did you know he was fallin’ in love with you, or did
you not?”
“Yes, I knew,” Verity answered, quietly but without hesitation, as
he paused for breath. “It isn’t difficult to know a thing like that,
Larry, whether one wants to or not.”
“No, I suppose it’s generally shoutin’,” he agreed moodily. “I’d have
seen it myself if I’d gone to the trouble of lookin’. But there’s
somethin’ more. A girl can’t help a man carin’ for her, but she can
play fair, all the same. Did you do right by old Grant, my dear--or
did you lend him a hand to makin’ a fool of himself, leadin’ him on
with your smiles an’ your pretty little ways? Did you play fair by the
parson, old girl--that’s what I’m wantin’ to know?”
She said nothing, this time, only turned her head away from him,
and slid a hand over her eyes, while he stood beside her, breathing
heavily, doggedly demanding the truth he hated but had already guessed.
“Oh, darlin’, can’t you lie to me!” she heard him say under his breath,
passionately beseeching, and she shook her head without turning,
knowing there was no need of words. He uttered a curious sound,
half-sob, half-exclamation, and after that there was a long pause. Then
she felt him leave her and move across to the door.
“I must be gettin’ off,” he said easily and cheerfully. “Old Grange
will be freezin’, I’m afraid, an’ he’ll not get the ’84, after all,
dear old thing! Hope you won’t be too dog-tired in the mornin’.”
She straightened herself then, and swung round, looking at him with
miserable eyes.
“I always knew this was bound to happen,” she said. “I knew a day would
come when you would see me as I am, and not just as you chose to see
me. You’ve always made an idol of me, though I’ve tried hard enough, in
all conscience, to undeceive you! I’m not a goddess to be worshipped
or a baby to be petted and soothed. I’m simply a woman chock-full of
faults, and if you’d shown me you knew it and didn’t mind, you could
have had me long since. Now--I’ll never be your idol again. It’s true
that I knew Mr. Grant cared--true that I encouraged him. I won’t lie to
you. I was jealous of his influence in the village, and I knew that if
he fell in love with me he’d have to lay down his arms. So I led him
on. Do you hear, Larry? Take that home, and get it deep down into your
soul. _I led him on!_”
Larrupper winced sharply and unmistakably, but he smiled quite
pleasantly.
“What’s the use of worryin’?” he replied, falling back upon his usual
formula. “We’ll all be feelin’ better, to-morrow, an’ we’ll swim along
somehow without smashin’ one another, you’ll see! You’ll not think me
rude to be goin’, will you? I’m sure I can hear old Grange weepin’
outside.”
He opened the door; then paused again.
“There’s just one other thing, if you don’t mind my mentionin’ it? You
told old Grant that you were goin’ to marry Lionel Lyndesay. Well, it
isn’t true about Lionel, whatever it may once have been about Larry.
Larry’s wantin’ you with every little bit of him, but Lionel isn’t
goin’ to take the risk!”