me so, when you write like that! I have to come up on Sunday for a
charity concert at the Olympic, where I'm a patroness or something. If
you really want to see me for only a moment, is it possible for you to
meet me at Winchester? The train gets in at 12.29 and leaves at 12.33
(aren't I getting clever with the time-table? As a matter of fact I
made father's secretary work it all out for me). If you'd like to wait
on the platform, I'll put my head out of the window and we can be
together for a moment. Dear Eric, I do hope you're not in any kind of
trouble! When you become telegraphic in manner, I always grow nervous.
Barbara._"
There was suppressed excitement at the Mill-House on Saturday night,
when he put in a claim for the car, announced his intention of driving
himself and instructed the maids with unusual particularity to see that
he did not oversleep himself.
"We're being very mysterious," murmured Sybil.
Eric smiled and said nothing.
He went to bed early in hope that a long night's rest would steady his
nerves for an interview which would not be the less trying for its
brevity and which, he now saw, had been made inevitably dramatic. It was
a perfect autumn morning, as he climbed into the car, with a scented
mist rising before his eyes, under the mild warmth of a November sun;
Lashmar Woods flaunted their last dwindling recklessness of colour, from
ivy-green through fading red to russet and lemon-yellow. He had a rare
feeling of peace, as he surrendered to the voiceless magic of the still
countryside and to whimsical memories of his own childhood. Life was so
much simpler then! Life would again be so much simpler when he had Babs
driving by his side. . . . (If he could only drag her from the train and
take her home to astonish and subjugate his parents! It would be worth a
little mystery to effect that!)
If she dropped like a stone out of his life, he would raise both hands
to Heaven and pray God to take away his reason and draw a sponge across
his memory. . . .
Barbara was leaning out of the window, as the train drew into the
station. Eric ran to her compartment; but for a time they were
victimized by the nervous antics of an old lady with cumbrous luggage,
who stood in the doorway calling with shrill helplessness for a porter.
"I see your play's going to be produced at the end of the month," said
Barbara, waving her hand towards a paper on the opposite seat.
"Are you coming with me to the first night?" he asked.
"Of course!" She watched the departure of the old lady with
ill-suppressed eagerness. "Thank goodness, she's gone! What is it, Eric?
Why did you want to see me like this?"
"I always want to see you!" he laughed uneasily. Ever since he received
her letter, he had been rehearsing an effective little speech; but it
was gone from his mind now, and he found himself nervously clearing his
throat. "Babs, I'm in rather a hole and I want to do the right thing.
For some reason you always talk about my generosity. I've been thinking
it over. . . . You're absolutely free, Babs."
"But--why?" she asked blankly.
"Before writing to you, I'd heard from Jack. He'll probably be in
England within a week. I--don't want you to feel . . ." He had to leave
the sentence unfinished.
Barbara had become very pale and for a moment she said nothing.
"This--doesn't mean that you're--saying good-bye?" she faltered.
"It's a present, not an ultimatum," Eric answered sharply.
So she could still try to make the best of both worlds.
"You've always been wonderfully generous!" she whispered. "I can never
repay you."
From her tone and phrasing Eric knew that he had failed. His own
sacrifice neither stirred nor shamed her into equal generosity; the
volley was over, and the shuttlecock had dropped to the ground.
"Have you tried?" he asked sharply.
There was a whistle and a jolt, as the train began to move. Eric stepped
off the foot-board, raised his hat slightly and turned on his heel.
Mechanically he set his watch by the station clock. The train had come
in late, but it was leaving on time.
"Rather less than two minutes, if anything," he murmured, as he started
the engine. "Five weeks since we became engaged. . . ."
Half-way home he steered for a government lorry which was standing
unattended by the side of the road. Something older and stronger than
himself paralyzed the malevolent muscles of his arm, and the car swerved
into safety. . . .
* * * * *
"_The slavery of centuries and her own short-lived blooming have
robbed woman of open initiative in sex-warfare: she forces man to
make the attack, pretending indifference or ignorance. Instead of
striking a bargain, she then insists on nominal surrender, which
never deceives her. But she is deceived by her own false valuation;
she can only see herself in the image that she makes for the
beguilement of man. Vanity is the strongest thing of all._"--From
the Diary of Eric Lane.
CHAPTER NINE
THE EDUCATION OF BARBARA NEAVE
"The mob decrees such feat no crown, perchance,
But--why call crowning the reward of quest?"
ROBERT BROWNING: "_Aristophanes' Apology._"
1
In the second week of November Manders began to rehearse "Mother's Son,"
and, after two attendances, Eric retired to Lashmar for uninterrupted
work on his American lectures. Jack might reach London any day, and he
could not face a meeting nor wait to be told of an encounter between
Jack and Barbara. His own rash magnanimity had set her free and kept him
in chains; he had always been so indulgent that he more than half
suspected a strain of kindly contempt in her; she had once told him that
they would be miserable together because he would always be too gentle
to keep her in order. . . . Any day now might see him dismissed like an
outworn servant.
With native caution he did not pledge himself to stay at Lashmar for a
specified time; that would depend on Jack, on Barbara, on his own work
and a dozen other things. It was essential that he should keep himself
posted regularly in Jack's movements, and he walked over to Red Roofs on
the morrow of his arrival. Agnes gave him all the information that she
possessed, but gave it with reservation, as though she were conferring a
favour; and, when he left, she walked with him to the gate of the woods
and blurted out that she was engaged to Dick Benyon. As he
congratulated her, Eric remembered their last parting by the sun-dial,
when she had told him not to worry even if gossiping papers coupled his
name with Barbara's, when she had pointed out, too, that they could end
the gossip in a day by ceasing to meet. She did not seem extravagantly
happy; each had lost the other without finding the perfect substitute;
but Agnes, with greater wisdom than he had ever shewn towards Barbara,
had resolved that a secondary place was not enough.
After that he avoided the Warings, but Sybil returned one night from Red
Roofs with a report that Jack was expected there within three days. He
had seen a specialist in London and was forbidden to attempt any
brain-work for three months; even the easy experiment in Paris had been
a mistake. Eric's mind was busy with excuses to get back to London, for
with Jack as his neighbour, invalided and bored, it would be necessary
to see him daily. The Lanes were, fortunately, too much absorbed in
their own life to be suspicious of sudden changes in Eric's plans;
affectionate regret greeted his announcement that he was returning to
London after the week-end, and his sense of the dramatic was grimly
amused by the thought that his train would pass Jack's somewhere between
Basingstoke and Brooklands. . . . He might almost be a criminal fleeing
from justice.
A note from Jack lay on his hall table, regretting that they had not
met, but promising to walk over to the Mill-House the moment that he
arrived. It was followed by another, full of mock-indignation.
_"If you don't want to see me, you needn't_," he wrote. "_But for
Heaven's sake don't bolt to the country the minute you hear I'm coming
to London and then bolt back to London the minute you hear I'm going to
the country_."
Of course it was all badinage; and yet, if Jack knew everything, the
badinage might cover an atrocious hint of his knowledge. . . .
"I'm losing my sense of reality!" Eric muttered.
The same post brought him a long letter from his mother. Jack had come
to tea on the day of his arrival looking very well, on the whole, though
the wound on his head was still visible.
"_He wants to see you_," wrote Lady Lane, "_and he particularly asked
when you would be down here again. I'm afraid poor Jack is in for rather
a dull time. He was hoping so much to be well enough to work, and the
sentence of three months' complete rest is a great disappointment; but,
if he'll feed up and rest, there's no reason why he shouldn't be as well
as he ever was; I'm glad to say that his uncle has behaved quite well.
After doing NOTHING all these years for him or Agnes or his own brother,
he has at last shewn some decent feeling. If Jack has to be a partial
invalid all his life, Lord Waring will give him whatever money's
necessary to let him live anywhere he likes and take up any hobby he
likes; if he wants to marry (I can't imagine that of Jack), there'll be
a proper settlement_. . . ."
If Jack, who was certainly not going to be a pauper, probably not even
an invalid, had passed through London without coming to see Barbara,
that meant that he did not want to see Barbara. Perhaps he _had_ seen
her. . . .
Eric telephoned to Berkeley Square and found his voice greeted with
surprise and apprehensive pleasure.
"I thought you were in the country! You _are_ getting restless, Eric!
When did you come up?"
"Only two days ago. Babs . . . Jack's in England; he called here during
the week-end, but of course I was away. I . . . I thought you'd like to
know."
"Thank you, Eric," she answered quietly.
There was a pause which neither liked to break. At last Eric said:
"He didn't come to see you? Why don't you recognize that it's all over,
Babs? You say that your soul isn't yours and that you owe it to Jack;
well, he's had the chance to come and claim it."
There was a second pause followed by a sigh.
"It's hard to explain, Eric. You see, only he and I know how much he was
in love with me before. I was the only person he'd ever cared for. . . .
Even I didn't understand how much he loved me until that night." She
sighed again. "I don't believe that, after loving me, he could suddenly
cease to love me."
"You gave him pretty good provocation," Eric suggested.
"But you don't cease loving people because they behave badly to you.
I've behaved abominably to _you_. You've given me everything, and all
I've done in return is to make you ill and miserable. I've ruined your
work, your life--you've told me so, Eric. I've been utterly selfish and
heartless. You know I'm vain, you know I'm spoiled, you admit I've
behaved atrociously. But you want to marry me in spite of it all."
"I love you in spite of it all."
Barbara said nothing, and her silence was a confession and answer. There
were a hundred reasons why Jack had not come to see her yet; his future
was uncertain, he must wait for a final verdict from his doctor, he was
perhaps still chewing the cud of his resentment. And, when the first
reasons were exhausted, her vanity wove a hundred more in stout,
impenetrable protection against the fantastic thought that any man could
tire of her.
"Oh, I wish you _didn't_!" Barbara cried at last. "Why don't you go away
and forget all about me?"
She had trapped him neatly, as he had no doubt she well knew.
"I can't forget you," he answered, savagely conscious that he was
presenting her with new weapons. "Whatever you did, you'd be the biggest
thing in my life; I should always need you."
This time she put her triumph into words.
"Don't you think that Jack may need me as badly?"
"He's had his chance. . . ."
Eric discovered suddenly that the wire had ceased to throb. Evidently
she had quietly hung up the receiver. In another moment she could only
have offered to say good-bye; and that she would not do. He was
beginning to know her moods and her nature very well. . . .
Lighting a cigarette, he was trying to think what he had been doing
before their conversation started, when the telephone-bell rang.
"Eric? It's me, darling. We were cut off. Eric, don't be bitter with me.
I've never done anything to deserve your love, but it's been so
wonderful that I won't allow you to say anything which will spoil it.
Some day I think you'll look back on it as the biggest thing in your
life."
2
As soon as Manders announced the opening night of "Mother's Son," Eric
booked his passage to New York for the following week. For the first
time he informed his parents that he was leaving England and gave them
to understand that he was very fully occupied. There were a hundred and
one arrangements to conclude, fare-wells to take; and, when he applied
to Gaisford for a medical certificate, he found himself packed off to
bed with orders to stay there till the day of sailing.
"If you'll do what I tell you, I'll do my best for you," said the doctor
sternly. "If you won't, Eric, on my honour I'll wash my hands of you.
Now, which is it to be?"
"I shall get up for my own first night," said Eric.
"You'll do what I tell you. If you're fit to go, you shall go. But I
don't think you'll be in a condition to stand the excitement of it."
Two days later Eric sent a message to Barbara, reminding her that she
had promised to come with him to the first night and warning her that in
all probability he would not be able to go. The doctor, he explained,
insisted on absolute quiet and absence of excitement. It would have been
more honest to add that the doctor had forbidden him to see any
visitors; but Eric hoped that Barbara would hurry round as soon as she
heard that he was ill and before he could tell her that he was not
allowed to have her there. It was a bitter disappointment when his
secretary brought back a message of sympathy. Later in the day he
received a present of carnations and grapes. It was only when Gaisford
commented on them next morning that his disappointment was mitigated.
"I saw her the other day," explained the doctor. "She was sorry to hear
you were ill. I told her that I wasn't letting you see any one."
"Where did you see her?" Eric asked, trying to keep his voice
unconcerned.
"At her house. The moment I'd left you. I've attended her since she was
a baby, so I felt I knew her well enough to tell her once again to leave
you alone."
Not until the afternoon of the production did Gaisford relax discipline;
then he admitted rather grudgingly that Eric might go to the theatre if
he refused all invitations to supper and came straight back to bed. He
was to dine at home and he would be wise to leave the house before any
one could call on him for a speech.
Eric tried to find out whether a box had been reserved for him, but by
the time that he had received a reply from the theatre and telephoned to
Barbara, she was not to be found. Dinner was an agony which he strove
to make as short as possible. Ordinary nervousness was reinforced by
bitter contrasts of this evening with the night when "The Bomb-Shell"
was produced. Then Barbara had dined with him and sat in his box,
comforting him in the torturing first moments before the play had come
into its own; (and he had driven a ring into her poor finger). It had
been a night of triumph for them both. Never, before or since, had they
been nearer. . . .
He arrived at the Regency early enough to find the house almost empty.
Hiding himself behind the curtains of his box, he watched the familiar
audience settling in place, recognizing friends, waving and calling out
whispered greetings. Mrs. O'Rane and Colonel Grayle; Lady Poynter and
Gerry Deganway; Lady Maitland and one of her boys. . . . He started and
drew farther back, though he was already concealed by the curtains.
Barbara had come in with George Oakleigh. They were standing in the
gangway, waiting to be shewn their seats. While George disposed of his
hat and coat, she threw open her cloak and pinned a bunch of carnations
into her dress. They talked for a moment, studied their programmes and
began talking again. After a few minutes George produced a pair of
opera-glasses and took a leisurely survey of the house. Barbara looked
with careless deliberation at the box from which she had watched "The
Bomb-Shell"; seeing no one in it, she looked away as deliberately and
glanced at the watch on her wrist.
Eric began to open a pile of telegrams. "Good wishes." "All possible
success"; such a tribute had meant much to him when his first play was
produced. . . . Two thirds of the stalls were full, though no doubt
there would still be enough constitutional late-comers to spoil the
first five minutes of the play. Why people could not take the trouble
. . . He pulled himself up and went back to the telegrams; he would not
live through the evening if he began to excite himself like this. But
what he wanted was to have Barbara by his side, to feel her lips at his
ear and to catch her whisper of love and encouragement--"It's going to
be a tremendous success! I _will_ it to be!"
He would like to catch her eye. . . . If the first act went even
tolerably, he could allow himself to be seen; perhaps she would come and
sit with him for the other two. . . .
The lights were lowered, there was a moment's silence, and the curtain
rolled noiselessly up. Eric sat forward with his eyes fixed on the
stage. Then, as the first line was spoken, he threw himself back in his
chair with a smothered oath. A trim programme-seller was tripping down
the gangway with mincing daintiness--down and down to the very front row
of the stalls. A party of four stumbled after her, whispering and
groping in the darkness, while she gave them programmes and herded them
into their seats. There were whispered apologies, as they squeezed in
front of their neighbours; whispered thanks as one man stood up,
crushing himself back, and another stepped into the gangway to let them
pass. At last they were in place! And then it was time for the two women
of the party to whisper again, gesticulating for a redistribution of
seats. The men fussed and fidgeted, untying their mufflers and rolling
up their overcoats. And then it was time for all four to rustle their
programmes. Every one was looking at them instead of at the stage; there
was nothing else to look at! For three minutes they had blocked the view
for everybody behind them!
Eric was looking at them himself, first indignant, then startled. . . .
He could guess the identity of the first woman, though he could not see
her face; of the others there was no doubt. The refraction of the
foot-lights shewed him Agnes Waring, with her father in the next seat;
on the other side sat Jack. There was no mistaking him; a white circle,
the size of a florin, revealed the mark of his scalp wound. . . .
After drawing back instinctively behind his curtain, Eric leaned an inch
forward to steal a glance at Barbara. She was in the third row, six feet
behind Jack in a direct line; like every one else she had seen the
late-comers, she could not have failed to identify Jack. . . . But there
was no sign of embarrassment; she did not lower her eyes or affect
absorption in her programme; she was looking at the stage. . . . As in
"The Bomb-Shell," there came a sudden laugh, sharp as a dog's bark; it
was followed by other single laughs, by a boom of throaty, good-tempered
chuckling; and the whole house was warmer. Barbara did not laugh, but
her white-gloved hands clapped like a child's. She stopped suddenly and
touched George Oakleigh's arm, pointing ruefully to a split thumb. Jack
Waring sent up a belated rocket of laughter, which started the general
laughter again; Eric saw him burying his head, shamefaced, in his hands;
Barbara was peeling off the injured glove.
It was conceivable that she had not seen Jack, for she gave no sign of
emotion; and, if she had seen him for the first time in more than two
years, this would be the strongest emotion of her life. Yet she was
watching eagerly, applauding eagerly, wholly engrossed in the play.
Once, when the house was silent and concentrated on the stage, she
looked round with her earlier deliberation and let her eyes rest on
Eric's box. He started guiltily before remembering that she could not
see him. Next she borrowed George's glasses and, after a single glance
at the stage, raked the four boxes on either side.
"_I propose to give the thing a trial. Every one must admit that the
present position is intolerable._"
The line told Eric that in twenty seconds the curtain would fall. He had
hardly any idea how the play was being received, but, obviously, he must
not allow any one to see him; he could not stand mouthing inanities to
a box full of people when Jack and Barbara were meeting downstairs or
when they met--unexpectedly--in his presence. They were within six feet
of each other. . . .
And they would meet within six seconds. . . .
There was a burst of sustained applause as the curtain fell. It rose
again on the full company, fell and rose again on McGrath and Helen
Graye, Constable and Lillian Hartley, Joan Castle and Manders; fell and
rose again on Joan Castle and Manders alone. Evidently this play, too,
was a success. The lights remained lowered, and the company came forward
to take the calls--with the usual pause before Manders made his
appearance, the usual extra half-minute's smiling and bowing. With
practised unconcern he looked for a moment toward Eric's box and then
looked away again, as though he had never expected to see any one there.
With a final low bow he backed up-stage, and the heavy blue curtains
tumbled into place at a half-seen movement of his hand.
As the lights went up, Eric watched the customary recrudescence of
restlessness. Eager and lazy discussions began; surprised, shrill
recognitions volleyed across the stalls; the men looked at their
programmes to see how many acts remained and tentatively felt for their
cigarette-cases. He saw George Oakleigh lean towards Barbara, glance at
his watch and draw himself slowly to his feet. The movement was a signal
and spur for a dozen others. Barbara moved into his place and called a
greeting to Deganway who was on the opposite side; he stood up and bent
over her, swinging his eye-glass.
Suddenly Eric found himself trembling. After the usual uncertainty,
which he had been watching with one eye, he saw Colonel Waring and Jack
squeezing past their neighbours. As they turned into the gangway, Jack
stared slowly round him and raised his eye-brows in faint surprise when
he caught sight of Barbara. They exchanged bows, she held out her hand;
Colonel Waring was introduced, and Deganway excused himself. A moment
later the colonel bowed a second time and withdrew. Barbara pointed to
the empty seat by her side, and Jack stepped across her into it.
The whole meeting was incredibly suave and unemotional. They were
talking--as any other two people in the theatre were talking--without
any great interest. After a few minutes Oakleigh returned and shook
hands with noticeable warmth; there was a short triangular conversation
before the lights were lowered; then Jack hurried back to his place.
When the curtain went up on the second act, Eric scribbled a note of
congratulation and apology and sent it to Manders by the hand of a
programme seller. Then he put on his hat and coat and stole out of the
theatre.
3
The next morning Eric summoned his solicitor and divested himself of all
domestic ties and obligations as completely as if he were leaving for
the Front. A power of attorney was to be prepared; the books were to be
stored, the wine sold and the flat let if he had not returned from
America within a stated period. . . .
"You see, I've more money than I can spend," Eric explained. "It's well
invested, so that, if I never do another stroke of work, I shall have
_something_ to live on. Well, my health's gone to pieces, and I want a
long rest and change. This is my opportunity. I'm thirty-three; and I've
seen nothing of the world outside Europe. If I start by touring from end
to end of America . . .."
He was almost carried away by his own enthusiasm in sketching out the
years of wandering which lay ahead. Central America, South America, the
Pacific Islands, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, China, the Dutch East
Indies, Burmah, India. . . .