left her. That day her engagement had been announced. David, deciding
to wait no more, had given the news to his intimates. Tomorrow every
newspaper in the city would have it. What should she say to Varick
now in answer to his question? Was she to tell him that the happy man
she had left at home? Was she to tell him, too, why she had left him
there? The fact that David was announcing the engagement had caused her
to seek solitude. She wanted time. She needed the opportunity to face
herself before she must face Beeston, Miss Elvira and, last of all,
David's parents. Yes, but what about Varick? She had not dreamed of
facing him!
The night of her dance--that moment when first she had told him of
the promise she'd given David--the revelation had not been nearly so
trying. Emotion had dulled her. She had been excited, overwrought, the
pang of it had been blunted. She had found no time to ruminate, to
taste its bitterness. Now, however, in the cold, everyday light of the
fact as it was, as it ever would be, there was no soothing opiate of
emotion to dull the pain. She had indeed not counted on facing him. She
would almost rather have faced the truth itself. Varick all the time
was looking at her.
"Bab," he asked, "tell me just one thing. Are you happy?"
Her eyes drifted hazily away. Happy? The word somehow seemed an
affront. Why was it that happiness had always to be dragged in? Linda
had asked would David be happy? Here Varick was asking would Bab
herself be happy? Why must everything so depend on her? She wished
devoutly she could for once be freed of the responsibility. If only
things could be made happy for her!
"Won't you answer?" asked Varick.
She had sat looking at him in silence. Of the storm, the ferment
that was seething in her mind, Varick had no hint. Her face was set.
Outwardly, with her lips tightly compressed, her mouth rigid, she
looked reserved, affronted, if anything, at what he asked. The question
was not one that could lightly be asked of any woman, least of all
a woman who had just promised herself. Varick saw her eyes, as he
thought, harden. Then she looked away. He did not know, however, that
why she did so was that of a sudden the eyes had clouded mistily. Their
mistiness she would not have him see. But he was not dissuaded. As he
gazed at her Varick's own face grew set.
"Look at me, Bab! Be angry if you like, but you've got to answer. If
you're happy, say so, and I won't bother you. But I want you to tell
me."
Reaching up, he took in his the small gloved hand that clung to the
rail of the Hempstead cart. She made no effort to release it. They were
quite alone. The hunt, swinging westward over the open fields, had
carried with it the first of the field; the others, with the onlookers
following in traps and motors, had streamed away down a near-by road.
Round these two was the wood, its leafy walls a haven of cloistered,
quiet privacy.
"I want you to tell me, little girl," said Varick. His hold on the
hand under his tightened reassuringly. "I just want to be sure you're
glad, contented. If you are, then it's all right; I won't say a word.
If you're not glad, though, not happy, then I want to help you. Don't
you understand, Bab?" She still did not reply, but sat perched on the
cart's high pad staring straight ahead of her. The effort to answer him
was beyond her. Then for the first time he seemed to see her misery.
"Why, Bab!" he cried.
His air changed instantly, awakening to quick activity. He bade her
sit as she was and, flinging the reins of his mount over a fence post
handy, he took the cob by the bit. The cart he turned in the road. This
accomplished, he returned to the tethered thoroughbred and, gathering
the reins in hand, climbed into the saddle.
"Drive along, Bab," he directed; "I'll follow."
There was another byroad, a turn-off from the main drive, a short way
beyond; and there, as if of his own accord, the cob swung on. Tunneled
in that aisle of greenery Varick and Bab were alone, alone indeed.
Reaching over as his mount cantered on beside the cob, he touched the
hand that held the reins.
"Pull up, Bab," he said, adding then: "You must not feel like that. Now
tell me what's wrong." Her mouth was quivering. She had been sitting
there all the time with the tears brimming in her eyes. "You know,"
Varick added quietly, "I want to help you."
That fixed it.
"Oh, Bayard, Bayard!" cried Bab brokenly. He did not speak, but he
again slipped from the saddle and, with the reins looped over his arm,
came and stood beside the wheel.
"How can I tell you!" she went on. "The other night, the time when
you danced with me, I knew what I ought to do, but I couldn't. It
was all so strange, all so sudden. I'd been blinded by it. All the
new life I'd lived, that and all it had brought me, seemed to have
blurred everything. It wasn't just what they'd said to me that made me
turn from you; all along, from the very first, from the time at Mrs.
Tilney's, I'd felt you didn't think I was as good as you were. When the
money came I thought it would change things. Then the more I thought
the more I knew it wouldn't. I was still as I'd always been; if you
married me I'd still be the same. And then my grandfather told me it
would be like you to want to marry me now, to want me for my--my money.
And David didn't. He wanted me for myself, just that. I could be sure
of that; he'd have his own money, you know. He'll be as rich as I'll be
some day."
"As rich as you'll be, Bab?"
"Yes," Bab answered--"when grandfather dies, that is."
Varick dared not meet her eyes. In his heart he could have wept for
her. Presently his glance returned to her.
"Then it wasn't just David's money, David's position, that tempted you?
That's not why you took him, is it?"
"David's money--tempt me?" Her astonishment was genuine. "Why should
it?"
Varick did not pursue the question. Again he laid his hand on hers, and
again she let it lie there.
"Some day you'll understand," he said quietly; "you'll see, too, that
neither has your money made any difference with me."
Bab's voice at this broke again She knew now, she protested, that it
hadn't. It made Varick smile whimsically to hear her.
"And you don't think me dreadful?" she pleaded.
"Dreadful?" He laughed. "Of course not!"
"You said you'd help me. Bayard, what am I to do?"
Varick was still smiling. In the smile, though, was now nothing
whimsical.
"I don't know, Bab."
"You don't know!" Varick slowly shook his head. "Do you mean that?"
asked Bab, her eyes wondering.
He stirred uncomfortably.
"I'm afraid so. Don't you see you're the one who must help yourself
there? I can't decide that for you; it wouldn't be right."
Her wonder grew. What wouldn't be right? Hadn't he voluntarily offered
to help her?
"You don't understand," said Varick; "I'll help you any way I can, Bab,
but not that way. I can't tell you whether you must marry David. Your
conscience will have to decide that. It's hardly right for me even to
comfort you. Can't you see it?"
"Don't you love me?" she asked slowly. "Is that it?"
Varick smiled anew.
"You know I do," he answered. "But if you'd think, you'd see, too, I
have no right even to tell you that."
The fine ethics of this, however, Bab was in no mood to comprehend.
Love is woman's one fierce, common right. She wages it as man wages
war--instinctively. And as in war, in love--as she often sees it--all
things are fair.
"It's just this, Bab," said Varick; "you've given your word to David
Lloyd. You're his woman, the one he's going to marry. With that promise
still standing, you're as much his as if you were his wife. I can't
tell you anything, Bab; I mustn't even tell you that I love you."
Trying to keep his feelings from showing in his face, he fastened his
eyes on hers. "I was a friend of his once. I can't stab him in the back
like that. If you love him, Bab, marry him. If you don't, then decide
whatever way you can. But don't ask me to decide for you. I can't! I
never can!"
"You mean that you won't?"
"I'm afraid so," he responded gently.
"You won't help me at all?"
"Not that way, Bab. It's a question I wouldn't help any woman decide.
What's more, I'd not marry a woman who wouldn't or who couldn't decide
it for herself. If you love David Lloyd, your course lies open. If you
don't love him, it lies equally open. You'll have to do the choosing."
He released the hand he held in his and began fumbling with the reins
looped across his arm. The thoroughbred, busily cropping the roadside
grass, lifted its shapely head, its muzzle nuzzling Varick's shoulder.
Varick's lips were firmly pressed together. He did not look at Bab. "I
must be going; we can't stay on here," he murmured. "Shall I see you
again?"
With what composure she could command she turned toward him. Inwardly
now the turmoil of her emotions rose to concert pitch. Of its
fierceness, however, evidently he saw nothing. Bab's eyes again had in
them that look of hardness that had been there at first. "Good-by,"
she said methodically. She did not bother to say whether they should
meet or not. She felt within her shame a fierce self-condemnation. The
fact she did not blink--she had flung herself at Varick's head, and
Varick virtually had refused her! She had cheapened herself! With a
fierce struggle to hold back the flood of tears, the hurt that flung
its signals in her eyes, she gathered up the reins, then spoke to the
waiting cob. The cart rolled swiftly up the road. Speeding along, it
turned a bend in the wood's tunneled greenery. Behind it in the road
the thoroughbred and its rider were left standing.
But had Bab looked back before it was too late she would have seen
something that perhaps would have stilled the tempest of resentment,
of bitter hurt, that raged within her. Varick still stood there in the
road, the reins dangling from his hand, looking after her. Then, when
he could no longer see the slim figure perched swaying in the high
cart, his eyes dropped, and he stood on, his shoulders drooping, his
hands thrust deep in his pockets. Forgotten, the thoroughbred once more
fell to cropping the grass.
"Poor little girl!" whispered Varick. "My poor, poor little Bab!"
* * * * *
It was long after six when the cob, its flanks white with lather, came
stepping swiftly up the drive to the portico at Byewolde. A groom from
the stable was waiting. He gave one look at the horse, then glanced
sideways at his mistress. Ordinarily she was not one to push an animal
to its limit. But Bab gave no heed. Her bedroom was where she longed
to be. Above all she wished to get there before any of the household
should see her. The fates willed otherwise, it seemed.
"Begging pardon, please," said Crabbe as he opened the door for her;
"Mrs. Lloyd will be in your sitting-room. She'll wish to see you."
Bab's heart clanged with sudden apprehension.
"Mrs. Lloyd?"
"Yes, miss; she's been waiting above an hour now. She said you were
please to go to her immediately."
Bab slowly made her way up the stairs. It was the engagement, of
course, that had brought Mrs. Lloyd hurrying to Byewolde. She had heard
the announcement that afternoon. Bab opened the sitting-room door and
stepped inside. Not above five minutes later the door again opened and
Mrs. Lloyd emerged. She came quietly, discreetly, as if not to disturb
others in that household. Her pale, usually expressionless face was
lighted now with an ironic smile. She had just seen Bab. And, from A to
izzard, she had divulged to her the story of Mr. Mapleson's forgery.
XXII
Dinner at Byewolde always was at eight; and downstairs in the big hall
the corner clock sonorously boomed that hour. There followed a knock
at the sitting-room door; and as she heard it Bab stirred restlessly.
Listening, she held her breath. It was only Hibberd, however.
"Dinner is served, please. Thank you."
Bab made no reply. Waiting until she heard the manservant's footfalls
retreat along the hall, she again returned to her hurried preparations.
Mrs. Lloyd's interview had been brief--hurried, in fact. Her father
and Miss Elvira were driving, she knew; but at any moment they might
return. Consequently time was precious.
Once Bab had grasped all that her aunt's disclosures conveyed, Mrs.
Lloyd's other remarks fell on her ears unheeded. Dazed, she sat staring
in front of her. She awoke finally to the fact that Mrs. Lloyd was
still addressing her.
"Under the circumstances," David's mother was saying, "we cannot
sanction, of course, any further intimacy with our son." They had
never sanctioned it, Bab told herself bitterly. "Do you understand?"
continued Mrs. Lloyd; and at the same time she laid her hand on Bab's
arm.
Bab shrank as if an iron had seared her.
"Don't touch me!" she whispered.
It was more than physical aversion that Mrs. Lloyd had instilled in
Bab. She wondered how she could ever have planned so blandly to marry
David in spite of his parents. Now, of course, it was quite out of
the question. That Bab, as a Beeston and an heiress, should defy them
was one thing; but it was quite another that Bab, the boarding-house
waif, should attempt such a thing. Her end achieved, Mrs. Lloyd had not
lingered. She departed conscious she had done her duty.
Bab, still half-dazed, sat on where her aunt had left her. She had no
tears. The relief they would have afforded she was denied. Presently,
however, the fire raging within her soul seemed to rouse her to a
feverish animation. She felt she must do something! Below, under
the portico, a grinding of wheels along the gravel of the driveway
warned her that Beeston and Miss Elvira had returned. A glance at the
mantel told her she had a little more than an hour to herself. Before
dinner they would nap, then dress. She had until eight to make her
preparations. After that there would be inquiries. She must hurry!
There was David, too. She had not seen him since early in the day; and
he might come in at any moment. The thought of him was a swift reminder
of something else.
Her fingers clumsy, she began fumbling at the bosom of her dress.
David that morning had begged her to slip the ring, his diamond, on
her finger. But Bab had shaken her head. There had been reasons in her
mind even then why she had not cared to wear it before the people about
her. Now, with fingers that were bungling in their haste, she dragged
open the clasp of the chain. The gem, like a drop of dew, rested in her
hand; but without a look at it she dropped it on a near-by table. There
it lay, blazing star-like as the light fell upon it. What to do with it
she would decide later. Meanwhile she hurried.
She was engrossed in her preparations when a footfall sounded suddenly
in the hall. It was her maid, Mawson. As a precaution Bab had locked
both the bedroom door and the door of the sitting-room adjoining.
Having knocked, and Bab making no response, Mawson tried first one
door, then the other. Her breath held, Bab stood in the middle of the
room waiting. Mawson, she hoped, would depart. After a moment, however,
the woman again tapped on the door. It was the hour when, every
evening, she was required to help dress her young mistress for dinner.
"Half-past seven, please!" she called apologetically. It was evident
that she thought Bab asleep.
Bab went to the door. She did not open it, for she did not wish Mawson
to see within.
"I won't need you, Mawson," she directed.
The maid still remained.
"Shan't I lay out your things, miss?"
"Thank you, no," Bab returned.
Mawson went away after that; but her footfalls were slow and lagging,
as though she were uncertain what to do. She was probably puzzling over
the two locked doors. Bab, her ear to the door panel, waited until she
had made sure of the woman's departure.
A glance at the clock caused her to start with apprehension. Half-past
seven! Only half an hour was left her. If she hurried, however, in that
half-hour she might accomplish much. With feverish animation she darted
through the doorway that led to the sitting-room. There, standing on
a chair, was a black leather traveling bag. With this she returned to
the bedroom. Every drawer of her dressing table had been pulled out.
Scattered on the bed was a haphazard assortment of the things she had
selected from the dressing table's contents.
Bab was going away. In a few minutes now she would have turned her back
on that house for good. Her dream, like the thin veiling of a cloud,
had dissipated, vanishing into the thinness of the air! As her fingers
picked swiftly among the things spread out before her, Bab glanced
again at the clock. Twenty minutes now! In twenty minutes everything
would be ended.
To leave this place at once had been her first impulse the instant she
had come to her wits again after Mrs. Lloyd's departure. She did not
quibble. She had perhaps backed and filled, been uncertain and weak
over the other problems that had confronted her; in this, though, she
had clearly seen the way. Now that she knew the truth about herself,
there was no question in her mind as to what she should do. She had
loved her new home. She had loved, too, the life, the surroundings that
went with it. But, much as it allured her, she meant to pay for it
no such price as would now be necessary. Mrs. Lloyd had not deceived
her. Bab knew she need only appeal to David to remain there, fixed
indefinitely among those surroundings. But she wanted the real thing,
or else nothing. Her one thought now was to get away. She had not begun
yet to think of the future.
All at once out in the hall she heard a sound. Bab caught at her
breath. Along the corridor, straight toward her door, came the measured
slow tread now so familiar to her. There followed a knock on her door.
She did not answer. Outside she could hear David as he propped himself
on his crutches.
"Bab," he called. She still did not answer. "Bab!" he called again.
In the tense stillness of the room the thick, hurried ticking of the
clock upon the mantel beat on her ears like sledge strokes. She did
not move. She dared hardly breathe. Beside the door she could hear him
as he moved restlessly, one hand on the panels to support him. Then
through the woodwork came to her a sigh--a deep and painful inspiration.
"David," she said. "Oh, don't!"
A stifled exclamation came from the hall without. Bab, however, did not
open the door.
"Let me in," pleaded David. His voice, in its thickness, she hardly
knew. As he spoke he rattled the doorknob.
"You can't come in," Bab said wearily. "I can't see you."
He was silent for a moment. She could hear him move again, shifting on
his crutches.
"Where have you been, Bab? All the afternoon I've been hunting you. I
tried to get to you first."
To get to her first? She knew at once what he meant.
"You've seen your mother then?"
"Yes, Bab." His voice was toneless, its depth of weariedness abysmal.
After another pause, while apparently he waited for her reply, David
spoke again: "Bab, it makes no difference to me. The other day when I
told you nothing would, I meant it. Open the door, won't you?"
As gently as she could Bab answered him:
"I can't, David--not now. I'll let you know when I can."
Over her shoulder she threw a swift glance at the clock. Ten minutes
to eight. At eight Beeston, as was his wont, would come stamping down
the stair. It was he whom she dreaded meeting. Now that she realized he
knew everything, she dared not face him.
"You're not coming down then?" David finally asked.
Go down to dinner and face again that grim, indomitable figure at the
head of the table? Bab quailed at the thought.
"No. And you must go now, please," she said.
"Can't I see you just a moment?" he begged.
"Not tonight," Bab answered. There was a moment's silence, then she
heard David heavily and painfully plod his way along the hall, and the
thump! thump! of his crutches finally died away. When she turned from
the door Bab's eyes were filled with tears. Even David had left her now.
Five minutes more! At half-past eight, only a short half-hour now, the
train for the city would leave Eastbourne, and after that there would
be no train until well along toward midnight. The station was a mile
away. She remembered, too, she would have her bag to carry. She must
hurry.
She had no plans further than that she would go to New York. Mrs.
Tilney's, however, was not her destination. She could never return to
the boarding house so long as Varick was there.
To him she had so far hardly given a thought, but now she wondered
vaguely whether he had known of the fraud all along. Probably he had.
The significance of this, however, she did not debate. To her dazed
mind it seemed long ages since she had met him in the wood, and she
herself must have grown years older and wiser since then. All at once
she was overwhelmed by a terrible loneliness. If she only had someone
to whom she could appeal! If even Mr. Mapy were only with her!
At first Bab had thought that she never again would care to see the
little man, that the bitter memory of what his act had cost her would
remain between them always. Now she no longer felt that way. Her mind
in its loneliness dwelt on the fact of how Mr. Mapy had loved her. It
was this love after all that had led him to attempt that ridiculous
fraud. And at the thought of the sorrowful, solitary little man, a
sudden longing filled her to see him again. She would go to him, and
perhaps in some new place they might begin life over again happily.
A startled exclamation here escaped Bab. A glance at the clock had
shown her it wanted only a minute or two of eight. Spurred now to a new
activity, she began tumbling into the bag the last of the things she
had laid out on the bed. She could take little with her, of course; she
saw that. The door of the closet near-by stood open and showed long
rows of dresses--all the daintiest, the most costly. There were on the
floor of the closet, too, double rows of little boots and shoes, and
in the highboy against the wall were gloves, silk stockings, ribbons,
scarfs. She must leave all these behind her. Only the smallest, the
most personal, of belongings she was taking along. She did not own the
others. They had been given to Barbara Beeston, the heiress--not to
Bab, the boarding-house waif. With a wistful, brave little smile she
was bending over to sort out a few handkerchiefs to take with her when
out from among them fell a small morocco case. It was Beeston's pearl!
The gem lay in its velvet bed gleaming up at her like a conjuring eye.
In its exquisite beauty it seemed to symbolize all the refinement of
that life of wealth and splendor she was now renouncing. For the first
time she really grasped what she was giving up.
Just then the mantle clock struck eight. As the chime's silvery notes
cried the hour a step on the stair again startled Bab. She paused, once
more breathless. It was only Hibberd, however.
"Dinner is served, please. Thank you," said the servant.
Bab did not answer. Presently, the man's footfalls having died away,
she turned back again to her packing. Nothing of all these things round
her was hers. She could not lay claim even to the clothes she stood in.
What she took, therefore, must be such things as afterward she would be
able to replace. She had a grim satisfaction in this. A minute or so
later Bab stealthily unlocked the bedroom door and stepped out into the
hall.
The house was silent. The Beestons, brother and sister, either had not
yet come down or were already in the dining-room. It seemed to Bab she
heard remotely in that stillness a sustained murmur of voices. It was
as if somewhere behind the closed doors of that house someone spoke,
his speech broken and disjointed. But the important thing for the
moment was that the way was clear. One last swift look Bab threw about
her; then, her hand on the rail, she darted swiftly, silently, down the
stairway. A moment later she had almost reached the door.
"Where are you going?" asked a voice.
It was Beeston. He had been sitting there all the time on watch. As
Bab, a gasp escaping her, shrank back guiltily, the man's gnarled hands
tightened themselves on the arms of the chair in which he sat, and he
lurched heavily to his feet. She had never seen his face so menacing.
His brows twitched as he gleamed at her from under them, and she saw
his jaws work dryly together. His voice had not raised itself when he
spoke, but low, restrained, it rang like a trumpet.
"Going, were you--running away! Is that it?" A mirthless laugh, a
sneer, left him. "Well, you're not going!"
His stick thumping the hardwood floor like a pavior's maul, he hobbled
swiftly toward the door. Then, when he had interposed himself between
it and Bab, he halted. His face, she saw, had no kindliness for her,
but in it, instead, was a look of fierce determination--the will of a
remorseless, masterful man.