Barnaby Part 10

"You didn't know I'd gone in for millinery?" he said. "If you had had your eyes about you you'd have seen my establishment. _There's_ a business that women never will understand! They haven't got bold ideas; they are too fond of twisting. It was an accident, really. I was financing an aunt of mine, Clara Lady Kilgour,--and the thing was going bankrupt. I strolled into the shop one morning and found Clara weeping, and the Frenchy who had lured her into it sniffing like a noxious weed in a bed of artificial roses. Just by way of cheering her up a bit, I s.n.a.t.c.hed up an affair the serpent was working at--a muddle of feathers and sc.r.a.ps of lace.--'You'll ruin that!' they wailed. But hey, presto! I had found my vocation. I kicked out the bailiffs and took it over. And now I am running it as 'The Earl of Kilgour, late Fleur-de-lis.'"

The guard came down the train, shutting doors. Barnaby's friends dropped off, tumbling into the smoker behind. The whistle shrilled.

"Wouldn't you rather get in with them?" said Susan, in sudden shyness.

"What? that would never do," explained Barnaby, pulling up the window.

"The poor dear fellows have left us religiously to ourselves."

He threw a _Westminster_ on her knee and took off his hat.

"What was Kilgour staring at, do you know?" he asked. "He seemed rather disturbed; didn't want us to notice."

"I don't know," she said.

Barnaby laughed out loud.

"We got on famously," he declared. "We'd pa.s.s muster anywhere. But you are tired out, aren't you? Lean back in your corner and go to sleep."

The slip carriage was rocking from side to side, and her head ached from the strain and excitement of the day. The same shyness that had smitten her as his friends left them made her shut her eyes under his regard. She rested her head on the stiff padding, listening to the thrum of the engine, wandering in dreams that could not match the fantastic unlikeliness of what had befallen; and all the while feeling his gaze on her.

She was roused by the jar as the train stopped at Bedford. The carriage door was opened and closed; they were no longer by themselves.

"Barnaby!"

Tears were imminent in the emotional Irish voice.

"How do you do, Julia."--The man's tone was firm and hard.

"I knew you were in the train.... But with these gossiping wretches all round you!--I could not bear to meet you with them...."

"Don't waken my wife. She's tired."

His warning struck abruptly on her impulsive murmur. She sat down, rustling, unfastening the furs at her throat. The train had started again, and was speeding on.

In her far corner Susan stirred. This was the figure she had seen in the distance, the figure that Barnaby's friend had tried to block out from his attention. All Barnaby's friends must guess how hard it would be for him to meet her again, since he had once worshipped her....

Looking straight into the flying darkness, Susan tried not to see his profile reflected in it, tried not to watch his expression, inscrutable as it was.

"What fools we were!" sighed Julia.

"Regular fools," he said.

The girl drew a quick breath. She had thought she was beginning to know him, and still she could not guess if he spoke in irony or despair. She raised her head; fluttered the paper on her knee.--They must not think that she was asleep. And Barnaby looked at her.

"This is an old friend of mine, Susan," he said sedately. Julia presented a pale face and shining eyes.

"Mrs. Hill must be quite accustomed to the enthusiasm of your friends,"

she said. "_I_ have been lingering at St. Pancras since three o'clock,--somebody told me you had been seen in a restaurant--for the sake of travelling back with you."

"How good of you," said Barnaby, in the same constrained way. "We didn't know, did we, Susan, that we had been spotted?"

Julia turned to him again; her speaking eyes hardly left him.--"Not good," she said, "only human."

The train rocked on, filling the inevitable pause with its throbbing.

Then Barnaby's voice cut into the silence.

"We don't mind indulging your human curiosity, Julia," he said, "but why stare at us so hard? We, too, are only human, aren't we, Susan?"

"It is so strange," said Julia, "to think of you with a wife."

Barnaby bit his lip. He reddened. Perhaps the sight of her had shaken him, had hit him deeper than he was willing to betray. Her emotion at meeting the man whom she had mourned as dead was visible; she made no attempt to hide it. Perhaps his own was the greater for being stifled by his determined effort at self-control. He got up, fiddling with the window-sash.

"Would you like this a bit down?" he said. "How is your headache?"

Did he know that her head ached, or had he addressed her at random?

The girl felt an unreasonable anger at his ostentatious solicitude.

Was he playing her off against his old love? Did such bitterness wait behind their compact? For the first time, his kindness hurt her. All a farce, all a blind, and a make-believe....

CHAPTER V

In the morning Barnaby went out hunting. He started gaily, in old clothes, on a borrowed horse.

"Next time I die," he said, "and they put away my relics, I beg you all not to scatter infernal white k.n.o.bs of poison among them to keep away the moths. I call it irreverent. And unless this horrible smell wears off I'll have to keep to leeward. A single whiff of it would kill the scent."

He came in at dusk, stiff and splashed, but contented, calling for tea, and waking up the house. It was extraordinary what a difference his presence made as he limped into the hall and hung up his whip. Life and vigour seemed to blow in with him; the terriers rushed at him dancing, barking, pattering into the library at his heels. Lady Henrietta, propped on her sofa, gave a little sharp sigh.

"Give him his tea, Susan," she said briskly. "How did he carry you, Barnaby? Who was out?"

"Oh, all the world and his wife," he said. "Carry me? He wouldn't have carried a gra.s.shopper. But I changed on to a chestnut that Rivington wants to sell. I've bought him. Not much to look at, but he goes well enough, and I was so pleased to feel a real galloper under me, I'd have given him any price.... It's good to be here again.

Though my boots are as hard as iron. I believe I am lamed for life.

By the by, Susan, I've let you in for one thing. I couldn't help it."

She looked up, startled, from her place by the fire.

"It's only to dine out with some people to-morrow night," he said, noticing her alarm. "I couldn't get out of it, really; they mobbed me so."

"Who is it?" asked Lady Henrietta.

"Only the Drakes," said Barnaby.

His mother nodded. "Yes; show her off to your friends!" she said.

She was in and out of Susan's room next evening all the while she was dressing, and when the girl's toilet was finished she came with her hands full of jewel-cases.

"You can't wear much to-night," she said.

"It would look dressed up. But a few pins,--and a star or two to give you confidence in yourself.... My dear, you don't know what a help it is! And all the women you'll meet have been at one time or another in love with Barnaby. Hold up your head, and don't let them make you wretched. Is that you, Barnaby? I want you."