They had been standing before one of the orchids, a bronzelike
exotic on which a single bloom, a flower with strange pale lilac and
green petals, had just burst forth. Bab, filled with admiration, had
exclaimed at its beauty, and David had plucked it from the plant.
At the old gardener's evident dismay he laughed lightly.
"What's the difference, McNare? Here, Bab," he said, and handed her the
flower. "Pin it on your waist."
McNare's distress still persisted.
"Ye've pluckit it, my orchid!" he cried. "Yon's the Sanctu, Maister
Davvy; 'twull be the prize of a'!"
But David only laughed again. If a prize it would be fit, then, for a
lady to wear. It was fortunate McNare had it ready to pick. At this
point, however, with quick understanding he detected something in the
old gardener's expression, and his bantering ceased. The ancient face
had grown grayer, more furrowed.
"It was my bairn!" said McNare. "It was the apple o' my eye! I'd gi'ed
it a year and more's care." He drew the back of one horny hand across
his eyes.
"McNare!" cried David contritely.
Bab turned away as David impulsively put a hand on the old gardener's
shoulder. That was like David. He would not for the world have hurt
another.
A shadow seemed to have fallen on his spirit when he rejoined her. He
was repressed, less eager, less animatedly talkative. He pointed to the
flower in her hand.
"You don't want that, Bab," he said suddenly. "Throw it away."
Throw away the blossom which before the calamity McNare had said was
priceless! Bab hesitated, but David insisted on it.
"It's blighted, Bab. You mustn't have about you anything that isn't all
suggestive of happiness. Not today certainly, and never if I can help
it."
She gazed at him with softened, thoughtful eyes. It was some time
before David regained his spirits. From the greenhouses he took her
through Byewolde's stables, past rows of stalls and boxes where a dozen
or more tenants lived in pampered luxury. The coachman, a ruddy-faced,
beefy gentleman of the old school, kicked a foot out behind him as
he touched his hat to David and Bab. He, too, like McNare, was an
old-time servitor in that house; and with a bustling anxiety to serve
and to please he kept the three stable grooms on the jump, parading his
charges before the visitors. The sleek, satiny-coated animals--cobs,
coach horses, and finally a pair of thoroughbred hunters--Bab could
have admired interminably. Just then, however, a bell in the near-by
farm began to clang.
"One o'clock," David announced. "Crabbe will worry unless we make
haste!"
So Bab regretfully climbed back into the motor. A moment later they
dashed up under the high Doric portico again. She and David lunched
alone. In the big, low-ceiled dining-room, rich with its hangings and
its paneling of mahogany, bright with the array of silver and cut
glass on table and sideboard, Crabbe served them with soft-footed,
silent deference. At the end of the room the French windows stood open,
and from her place at the head of the table, ensconced behind the
massive Beeston tea service, Bab looked out, first on a long stretch
of velvety lawn, then at its background, the wall of evergreens that
guarded the sunken garden. The sunlight of that perfect day still
shone upon it. Allured by all this, she sat gazing on the prospect
dreamy-eyed. How delightful it all was! How splendid! And to think that
once, a few months before, she had been a nobody, a little waif in a
boarding house! Bab herself hardly could believe it. A deep breath
escaped her.
"David, isn't it wonderful!" she murmured.
David, as she spoke, awoke abruptly from a reverie.
"Wonderful!" he agreed as he looked up at her. Then he comprehended.
"You mean all this, don't you?" he asked.
Bab nodded and, his eyes fixed on hers, David for a moment sat silent.
The luncheon had been served, and Crabbe at a signal from him had
left the room. In the brief interval that David sat gazing at her,
Bab saw a change come over him. Again his eyes brightened, deepening
with animation. Again she saw dawn in them the look of purpose she had
seen there that morning. Pushing back his chair, he arose, and with
a hand on the table to support him he came slowly toward her. Bab's
eyes fell. Never before had she felt herself so alone with him--with
anyone, for that matter. Had this been their wedding day, their first
few moments together, she could not have felt more conscious. The color
crowded into her face. She dared not look up now. Then as she sat
there, her eyes lowered, she felt David's hand slip beneath her chin.
"Look up, Bab!" he whispered. She obeyed awkwardly. His eyes, she
noticed, had grown very serious. "Listen, dear," said David. "All that
I've shown you I showed you with a purpose. I wanted you to know that
some day it all will be mine--you understand, don't you--ours, Bab,
yours and mine! That's why I showed it to you!" Then she felt the hand
that held her face up to his tighten. "Remember," he added, "it's
yours--ours--Bab, no matter what happens! What's mine will always be
yours. You understand?"
Bab was looking up at him with parted lips.
"Yes," she murmured wonderingly.
"Yours and mine! That's why I showed it to you, Bab!" And then, "I love
you! I love you!" he whispered.
XX
It was a week after this that one afternoon Crabbe brought up to the
pretty chintz-hung bedroom, now Bab's, the card of a visitor who was
waiting in a pony cart outside. Bab, as she read the name, exclaimed
with pleasure.
"Linda Blair!"
"And begging pardon, please," added Crabbe, "the young lady asks
particular if you'll see her."
Bab directed him to ask Miss Blair upstairs at once. The Beestons by
now were settled for the summer at Byewolde. Beeston himself, entirely
recovered from the illness that earlier in the year had threatened to
lay him low, every day was to be seen walking or driving about the
place. Bab was his constant companion. After his queer behavior the
evening of the dance Beeston had resumed toward her his former air of
gruff indulgence. To all appearances he might have been the most doting
of grandfathers, Bab the most beloved of grandchildren. Miss Elvira,
too, was as natural. All that one could descry in the least unusual
about her was a smile, grim and covert, that off and on lighted her
craggy features.
The week had been a full one for Bab. The engagement David had not yet
revealed, but had it been openly known the countryside could not have
done more in the way of making Bab's days at Byewolde memorable. Here
in the country she had been accepted, been taken for herself, far more
than had been the case in the city. One reason for this was that in
town the people were engrossed with their own affairs; there time sped
too swiftly for them to give much thought to a newcomer. At Eastbourne,
however, where the pace was less swift, the various households more
closely associated, more of an opportunity was afforded to make Bab
feel she was really welcome.
She was left little time to herself. This was as she wished it; for
all the new life, new scenes, new activities, thoroughly entertained
her. Life in town, brilliant as it had been, had not appealed to her as
this did. The reason, perhaps, was that in New York her surroundings
had been too new to seem real. She had been a little staggered by
her first acquaintance with luxury. The money everything cost had
especially bewildered her. Now, however, she had begun to grow
accustomed to it all. Money and the luxury it brings had become a
commonplace. Already she had begun to lean upon it as a necessity. The
animation of her new life, too, had become a second nature. She was
rarely unoccupied. Every night she dined out; mornings and afternoons
she either rode or drove with her new friends, now not so new either;
or, alone with David, the two rambled in his roadster up and down
the many unfrequented byroads of the island. Polo practice had begun
at the country club; occasionally there was a drag hunt too; and at
these events, where the neighborhood turned out in force, David seemed
anxious to have her seen.
"You don't mind being dragged round like this, do you?" David asked one
day. "I want you to meet everyone, you know."
Bab didn't mind in the least. Now that she had got over her first
feeling of strangeness there was nothing she liked more. However, in
all this new life, among all her new friends, there was one person who
from the first had filled her with a subtle feeling of disquiet. And
this person was Linda Blair. Was Linda her friend? Bab wished she knew.
She liked the girl; more than that, she admired her. Linda, besides,
had been a playmate of David's since childhood. But of late, it seemed
to Bab, she had begun to notice about Linda an air of chilly, growing
reserve. There was in her expression, too, a veiled disapproval. Bab
wondered what she had done to offend her. She was still debating the
question when Crabbe ushered in the caller.
"How do you do, Bab?" said Linda, and with a quick smile Bab put out
her hand.
"How nice of you to come!" she returned. Determined not to be stiff,
or show that she had noticed Linda's air of reserve, Bab tried to make
her welcome very real, and she succeeded in this. But Linda's call she
soon saw was not merely social. The girl crossed the room hesitantly, a
slender, quiet creature, more womanly than girlish; and, having taken
the chair by the window that Bab indicated, she sat waiting for Crabbe
to withdraw. Obviously there was some special reason for her visit.
"You'll have tea, won't you?" asked Bab.
"Thanks, no," murmured Linda; "I can stay only a minute. I must be
going on directly."
Bab dismissed the butler, and with a growing interest seated herself
in a chair opposite her visitor. There was a formality about Miss
Blair's manner that did not escape her. Though pleasant enough, she had
something in her manner that held Bab effectually at a distance.
The conversation at the outset was aimless. To Linda manifestly it was
an effort, and at times she came perilously near to rambling. There was
to be a luncheon at the country club the week following, and she talked
of that. Then, apropos of nothing, she remarked on a picture show she
had seen in town, veering from that to a projected run of the drag
hounds the following Saturday, the last meet of the season. Bab, in
the pauses, led on the talk as best she could. But it was a difficult
matter. Suddenly, in the midst of a sentence--something or other about
a race meet the month following at the country club--Linda broke off
with awkward abruptness. A faint frown of irritation swept across her
brows.
"Let's be frank," she said bluntly; "I didn't come here for this. I've
something I'd like to ask you." Her dark eyes on the girl opposite her,
for a moment she paused. "Bab," she then asked quietly, "what are you
doing to David?"
Blunt as the question was, and disconcerting, Bab already had guessed
this was the purpose that had brought Linda to see her. She saw now,
too, that it must have been her affair with David that had caused
Linda's chilly reserve. Linda must have guessed what was happening.
The color rushed into her face, which only added to her anger, for she
resented showing her feelings.
"What do you mean?" she asked coldly.
"Don't be angry," Linda begged; "I don't mean to offend you. David, you
know, has been my friend, my playmate, all my life. It's not just you
that I question; I would have asked any girl. Don't you understand?
David's a man, of course; but then, too, David's different. I can't
stand by and see him hurt. Think how much he's had to bear already."
Bab looked at her in undisguised amazement.
"Hurt?" she repeated. "Why should you think I would hurt him?"
Linda smiled at her gently.
"You know perfectly, Bab."
"I do not," Bab returned crisply; "I know what you suggest, of
course--that I am--well, leading him on, to put it vulgarly. Isn't that
what you mean by hurting him?"
"Precisely!"
"And you really think I am doing that?"
"No; I only asked whether you are."
Bab with an effort got rid of the note of irritation in her tone. If
she must fence she would at least fence with art. So she returned
Linda's quiet smile.
"You've known David, as you say, all your life. Why, then, did you come
to me? Why didn't you ask him?"
A quick change swept into the other's expressive eyes, and Bab beheld
it with surprise. It seemed to Bab almost as if she winced.
"Stop and think! You don't for a moment believe I'd let him know, do
you? I at least don't mean to hurt him!"
Bab waited until she had finished.
"Yes," she said, "but that doesn't prevent your hurting me. You still
suggest that I am amusing myself at his expense!"
Linda shook her head.
"No; I merely beg you not to! That's why I came here to see you."
"I dare say," said Bab quietly; "but there's one thing you overlook.
You seem to forget, Linda, that what in another girl might seem
significant, on my part would be harmless. Have you thought of that?"
"Harmless?" interrogated Linda.
"Exactly," smiled Bab. "David, you remember, is my cousin."
It was a clincher. Bab, as she delivered the thrust, rather
complimented herself on her cleverness. Somehow, though, the riposte
fell short of its expected result. Linda's expression did not alter.
Concern was still deeply written in her eyes. Her mouth quivered,
setting itself as if again she had winced.
"David doesn't think so," she said.
The retort fairly took Bab's breath away. It was as Linda said. David
indeed did not think so; and there dawned on Bab then what she had been
guilty of in hiding the truth. David she was to marry, yet virtually
she had denied it. What was more, in her denial she had displayed an
attitude of defiance that might easily be construed as shame. Again she
colored, irritation uppermost in her feelings. She was incensed as much
at herself as at Linda. She was angered, besides, that she had agreed
to conceal her engagement. Why had she done it? But what annoyed her
most was her own clumsiness in handling the present situation.
"David," said Linda slowly, "thinks you love him."
Bab had been seated in a low chair, her head negligently thrown back
and her fingers laced together in her lap. Now she got suddenly to her
feet.
"I don't see any reason why we should go on like this. I know David
loves me, Linda, and I'm going to marry him."
For a brief moment Linda stared at her with every indication of
amazement and incredulity. "You marry David!" she gasped. But when Bab
assured her this was so, Linda looked neither relieved nor gratified.
"Marry David?" she again repeated; and then in her eyes once more rose
that vague cloud, a shadow of inward trouble. "Don't think me rude,
Bab," said Linda hesitantly, "but will you tell me why you are going to
marry him?"
"Why?" echoed Bab. Her discomfort, her righteous indignation perhaps
at this point got the better of her. Linda, had she been David's own
sister, could not have been more insistent. A sister, indeed, would
have thought twice before she'd have ventured to go so far.
"Look here, Linda," said Bab, her voice matching in tone the angry
glint in her eye; "I've been frank with you; now you be frank with me.
Why do you wish to know all this? Is it because you'd like to marry
David yourself?"
The shot went straight to its mark. Bab saw her visitor catch swiftly
at her breath.
"I--marry David?" In Linda's air, however, was pain, not discomfiture.
The shadow in her eyes darkened perceptibly. "You don't understand,
Bab; David and I were brought up together. We've been playmates since I
was a baby. If he were my own kin, my own brother, I could not love him
more. But that doesn't mean I could marry him. I don't love him that
way."
The words, each freighted with significance, thundered their accusation
in Bab's startled mind. Linda did not love him that way! Bab, as she
sat staring at the speaker, recalled her own reflections in the matter.
She, too, had loved David as if bound to him by some tie of blood. She,
too, had felt for him that same companionship. Beyond that, though, how
else had she felt for him? How else had she loved the man she was to
marry? She was still staring at her visitor, the question in her mind
still unanswered, when Linda suddenly spoke.
"Why are you marrying him, Bab? Don't you know?"
Bab found her tongue then.
"Because I--I----" She did not finish the sentence, but began another
instead. "Why shouldn't I marry him?" she demanded, her voice strong
with indignation. "Why shouldn't I marry David? I know he loves me;
isn't that enough? I know he isn't marrying me for my money; he's
marrying me for myself. That's why I'm marrying David."
Linda still was steadily eyeing her.
"And is that really the reason?"
"It's one reason," returned Bab.
Again Linda studied her with curious intentness.
"Bab," she said finally, her tone as grave as her air, "if there were
someone else you loved, really loved, and you could assure yourself he
was not marrying you for your money, then would you still marry David?"
Bab's breath in her amazement came swiftly.
"Someone else?" she repeated. Then she demanded: "Why do you ask?"
Linda quietly arose, as she did so picking up the driving gloves she
had laid on a table near her. She began now deliberately to put them
on. Changing the topic abruptly and ignoring Bab's question, she
drifted toward the door. In the hall downstairs she turned with a smile
and held out her hand.
"Bayard Varick will be at Eastbourne tomorrow, Bab. He's coming to us
for the week-end."
XXI
Linda had said she did not love David that way! Bab's mind still clung
to that speech, wrestling with it dully. Five o'clock had struck from
the spire of Eastbourne church as the pony cart, with a smart cob
clinking in the shafts, drifted along a shady byway in the Beeston
woods. They were the same woods in which Bab had spent that first
morning at Byewolde with David, but she was alone now. There was not
even a groom beside her on the seat of the Hempstead cart in which she
was jogging along.
She had wanted to be alone. Ever since that moment when Linda had
uttered those memorable words Bab had felt she must get off by herself
and think things over. Then, too, Linda had said Varick was to visit
Eastbourne. He was to spend the week-end at the Blairs' place near by.
As the clock in the church tower struck, Bab mechanically counted the
strokes. Five! He must be there now!
In view of Bab's firm resolve to marry David, her reflections
concerning Varick seemed rather disconcerting. Varick, she'd told
herself, had gone out of her life. She was done with him. But Bab
somehow had not foreseen that Varick, like a ghost, would not down.
She had not reflected that his life and hers must of a necessity cross
continually. Left to herself, to the resolve she had made, she could
have married David with perhaps no more than a qualm or so. She loved
him, she knew. She might not love him, perhaps, as a wife should love
her husband, but then what matter was that? Round her in the life she
now was leading, countless women were married with much less right.
They did not love at all. It was for convenience they married--for
place, for power. Rarely, it seemed to her, did they marry just for
love. And the marriages, after all, did not turn out so badly. Some
of the women--quite a few, in fact--even learned to love their men.
Of course a good many didn't, but then why dwell on that? She already
loved David as a companion; in time she might learn to love him in
another way. Probably she would.
The cob, hacking along at his own free will, now all at once pricked
up his ears. Over the treetops from the near-by side of the wood the
breeze brought a quick burst of sound. Bab heard it dully. It was a
hunt day at the country club, the season's last, and the hounds were
out. Clucking aimlessly to the cob, she again plunged into her reverie.
The scene with Linda the day before had helped to clarify Bab's
impressions. She began now to see things in their actual light. She saw
even the truth concerning herself and Varick. What if he had sought to
marry her once he learned she had money? He loved her, didn't he? She
knew he did. She knew, too, he would marry no one he did not love, no
matter how much money they had. Then in the midst of this reflection,
her mind in its ferment going over and over it again, a new realization
came to her. Of her love for Varick there could be no question! She
knew how she loved him, this man who had gone out of her life. She
loved him as she wished to God she could love David, the man she was
going to marry. But she had given her promise to David, and she could
not break it.
The cob again pricked up his ears. Bab aimlessly fingering the lines,
felt him bear all at once against the bit. Just then in an open field
beside the wood the hounds swept past in full cry.
"Steady, boy!"
Full of life, vigorously skittish, the cob had begun to prance. Bab
pulled it down to its four feet presently, and sat waiting for the
chase to go on. Hard after the racing hounds came the vanguard of the
field, the riders who followed, three men and a girl out far ahead. The
men were strangers, but the girl Bab knew. She was the daughter of one
of the Beestons' neighbors, an elfish, harum-scarum creature, whose
chief delight seemed to be a reckless disregard of life and limb--her
own, however. Perched on a big, raw-boned roan thoroughbred she took
the in-and-out, the jump into the road and over into the field beyond
with the aplomb of a veteran. The next instant she was gone, flashing
out of view.
Bab was still gazing after her when there was a crash and crackling of
brush close beside her. A fourth rider, topping the roadside fence,
flew into view. His horse instantly she recognized. It was one from the
Blairs' stable, a thoroughbred that Bab often had seen Linda riding.
The next instant she had recognized its rider. It was Varick!
Bab's heart beneath her trim linen jacket gave a thump, and she sat
staring at him in wonder. The color, a moment later, poured into her
face. Already, before he saw her, Varick's mount had bucked into the
road and, crossing it at a stride, was gathering himself to take the
fence beyond. Varick pulled him up sharply. The horse, his eyes rolling
with excitement, fought at the bit, and for a moment his rider had
difficulty in getting him in hand. Then, quivering, the animal trotted
toward the cart.
"Hello!" Varick hailed cheerfully. "I didn't expect to see you."
Sliding from the saddle, he slipped the reins over his arm. "Nice to
see you, Bab," and he held out a hand to her.
She had never before seen him in riding things. The things themselves
she had seen, and she remembered them, the boots especially. Slim and
slender, neat on their wooden trees, they'd stood in a corner of his
room at Mrs. Tilney's. What visions they'd created. And now in the
boots, in his smart, well-cut riding clothes, how well he looked, how
pleasant, smiling and well-bred! In contrast Bab felt herself _gauche_
and uncomfortable. It did not make it any easier for her that he seemed
in no way awkward or constrained. He stood beside the cart looking up
at her, and with an effort Bab murmured a response to his greeting. As
she finished, her air confused, he smiled faintly.
"I've been hearing about you," he announced.
Hearing about her? Bab sharply pulled herself together. In Varick's
tone was something more than the mere raillery the speech conveyed. She
thought, too, she knew where it was he had been hearing of her.
"I dare say," returned Bab; "you're at Linda Blair's."
The subtle innuendo of this he did not seem to heed. A quick light came
into his eyes.
"Linda told you I was coming, did she?" He smiled brightly. "Linda's a
dear, isn't she?" he exclaimed.
Bab long had heard of Varick's friendliness with Linda. His admiration
of her, too, was evident. It was not from Linda, though, that Varick
had heard of Bab. Of that his next speech assured her.
"Where's the happy man, Bab? I heard the news at the country club, you
know. Why are you alone?"