Barnaby Part 17

Barnaby went on stirring his tea and stretching himself to the blaze.

"I told her to have a hot bath and a good long rest," he said, in a grandmotherly tone. "What did you expect? Were you hoping that I should beat her?"

"I was hoping all kinds of things," said Lady Henrietta.

"Such as--?"

She lost all patience. What was the use of plotting if nothing she could devise would rouse him? Anything would be more satisfactory than that maddening smile of his.

"Do you want to break the child's heart?" she cried.

For a moment she fancied that he was startled; she could not see his face so well, but the cup clattered in his hand. Then she discovered that he was laughing at her.

"Has Susan complained?" he said.

"She?" said Lady Henrietta. "Oh, how little you understand her!

She'll never complain of you. All I hear I have to screw out of other people. From what they tell me--! Oh, _she'll_ never complain, though you and your Julia make yourselves a by-word!"

She paused there, confident that there would be an outburst. Her triumphant expectation was dashed; she was nearly struck dumb with astonishment when she heard his voice.

"It's a queer world, mother."

This was indeed serious. He was not even angry;--and she had hoped to make him furious. She scanned him anxiously, stricken with alarm.

"You aren't well?" she said.

"I'm a little bothered," he said. "Look here, mother; supposing--well, supposing a man were horribly, irretrievably, fond of a woman,--and would be a regular cur if he let her know;--would you condemn him for building up a kind of rampart, playing with fire that he knew couldn't burn him, to keep him from losing his head, and hurting the thing he--the thing that was precious to him? Oh, d.a.m.n it all, you can't possibly understand."

It was plain as a pikestaff. Lady Henrietta was justified of her mischief-making. Something must be done. There was law and order in any tactics that might vex the siren who was still robbing her of her boy. Never in this world would there be peace between her and Julia.

"If," she said, "you want me to believe that you married Susan to stick her up like a ninepin between you and a woman who threw you over, who can't bear us to imagine you are consoled----!"

She broke off indignantly, but Barnaby would not quarrel. He got up and laid his hand caressingly on her shoulder.

"Don't excite yourself, mother," he said. "I was talking nonsense. So are you.... If I were you I wouldn't meddle. It's more dangerous than you know."

Then he went away to change out of his hunting clothes, and she watched his departure with a wistful exasperation, lying back on her sofa.

"What a nuisance a heart is!" she said to herself. "He would have had it out with me but for that."

CHAPTER VII

Susan was in the garden.

There had been a frost in the night, and the bushes crackled; the late winter sun was thawing it in the branches. Behind the cloudy gla.s.s in the greenhouses were primulas and hyacinths, and all manner of scented things, a bright blur against the panes; but she walked rather the slippery paths in the lifeless garden.

She tried to picture the blackened tufts tall spikes of blossom, and the long line of rose trees, all m.u.f.fled in dried fern, a bewildering lane of sweetness. Imagination failed her. The blackbird that shot out of the yew tree, screaming his sharp, sweet call; the little wagtail running at a wise distance in the path behind;--they might guess and remember what they would find in spring. She would be gone then; she would have stepped off the stage.

Foolishly she counted up the memories she would carry with her, looked back at the great old house, so warm inside. Strange to think of the time, so impossibly near, when Barnaby would release her, would tell her that he had made his arrangements for her to slip out of this fantastic life without scandal.

Well, she had played up to him; she had never lifted a miserable face, imploring him not to make her suffer so.

Something was choking in her throat. She had not realized how utterly she must pa.s.s out of his life until it struck her that she would never see one of these English flowers. The garden became unbearable, taunting her with its unknown mysteries, its hidden promise; and she hurried down the weather-stained wooden steps into the park.

There were rabbit tracks in the gra.s.s, and live things rustled in the spinney. A mat of beech-leaves kept the primroses warm. She leant wistfully over the rail, gazing down from the slatted bridge at the water. It was rushing past, very deep.

And then she found a snowdrop....

She heard the dogs scampering and looked up.

"There you are," said Barnaby, putting his arm through hers in friendly fashion. "--The servants, you know!" he reminded her in parenthesis, jerking his head towards the distant windows. "Let's gratify 'em, poor souls. They'll like to see us arm in arm."

He threw a stick to the dogs, and they scurried down the bank to retrieve it, but, missing it, found distraction in rummaging for a water rat. Then he turned again to Susan. She had plucked the snowdrop. That at least was given to her....

"You looked like that flower," he said, unexpectedly, "when I saw you first."

She answered him valiantly.

"Was I so pale with fright?"

"I wasn't thinking of that," he said; "but--the thing hasn't been so difficult, has it, after all? I didn't ask too much of you? We have been good comrades and all that, haven't we, Susan? You have never wished----?"

Wished it undone? She could not speak. It was over. He was going to tell her that it was over. She thought of that far-off night of amazement, of her panic-stricken impulse, of his hand on her shoulder that had stopped her flight.... Ah, it had been worth it all.

Pa.s.sionately she was glad of it. She had had so much.

"No," she said, "I have never wished----" and, like him, she left the words unfinished.

And then, with the past close upon her, she forgot everything but him.

How she used to think of him, dream of him, dead, who had come to her rescue!

"Oh!" she cried softly, touching his rough tweed sleeve, "isn't it wonderful that you are alive!"

They stood a minute or two in silence, neither speaking, and then Barnaby broke the spell.

"Why did you wander down here in all that drenching gra.s.s?" he said.

"Your feet are wet."

She began to laugh, helplessly, and almost against her will.

"How like a man!" she said. "You all think it the direst calamity that can happen. You remind me of Vernon Whitford, who, when the poor heroine was despairing, was princ.i.p.ally troubled because her boots were damp."

"I know," said Barnaby. "That's my mother's beloved book. She got me to read it too. Some of it stumped me, but I remember that much. How did it go?" his voice dropped. "'He clasped the visionary little feet, to warm them on his breast.'"

It hurt her to feel her cheek burning scarlet. There was no reason.

She hurried to defend herself from the wild fancies that might fill a dangerous pause.