Barnaby Part 9

An hour later Susan looked at herself in the long mirrors that were all round her, and did not know herself any longer, she was so changed.

She had grown used to the deep black garments that seemed a part of her life. Far off and dimly she remembered the old family lawyer in shocked consultation with her nurses, his old-fashioned anxiety that when she was strong enough to travel she should be fittingly attired, and do honour to her sad estate....

A door opened at the other end of the room, and she saw Barnaby in the mirror, saw him standing petrified on the threshold till Melisande's laugh called him to his senses.

"Do you like her?" said she. Susan did not hear what he said. But in the mirror he came towards her, and she turned round to meet him shyly.

"Take her away, then," said Melisande. "Buy a shilling's-worth of violets and stick them in her coat; it's all that's lacking. I'll send down a trunk full of oddments with you to-night.--And give my compliments to Julia when you see her. 'To account rendered,' you can murmur in her ear."

Her malicious laugh pursued them a little way down the stairs. They came out into the street and walked along side by side.

"I went to see Dawson," said Barnaby suddenly. "Burst into his office, meaning to scare the old jacka.s.s out of his wits. He--he turned the tables on me. Made me feel a brute."

"How?" asked Susan.

He did not explain at once, engaged in making a way for her on the pavement. Then he answered briefly.

"He told me how he had found you."

His tone, angry as it was, warmed her soul.

"But,--it was not your business," she said, in a low voice. "It had nothing to do with you."

"I couldn't tell him that," said Barnaby. "Lord, how he went for me, poor old chap--! Spared me nothing. Said I could never make it up to you.... It's ridiculous, isn't it? But if you'd heard him attacking me!--I had to promise him I would try."

He was walking on beside her, so close that his arm brushed hers, his long strides falling in with her little steps. And he was looking down on her with a sort of raging kindness.

"You poor little girl!" he said.

They went on for awhile in silence, and then Barnaby stopped in his absent-minded progress. His good-humour was back, and the joke of this expedition was again uppermost in his head. He pointed with his stick at a strange and wonderful work of art in a milliner's window.

"Let's go in here and buy some of these hats," he said.

All her life Susan remembered that day with him. It was all so absurd, so simple. That strange town, London, was always to her the place where he and she made acquaintance, playing to ignorant audiences their game of Let's Pretend. She began to know him;--the way he walked, swinging his shoulders, stopping short when a sight amused him; his whimsical earnestness over little things, and the lines that came round his mouth when he smiled....

There were horses being put into the train when they arrived at St.

Pancras. The grooms in charge of them were leading them gingerly through the people, past the lighted bookstall, persuading them up the gangways into their boxes. There was a small commotion as one of them, snorting, refused to step on the slanting boards. Tugging and shouting at him made him worse; he began to plunge, scattering the onlookers and the porters smiting his flanks.

"Hi! you infernal idiots..." said Barnaby. "Back him in."

He went over to the horse himself, and took hold of his bridle, turned him round, and walked him in like a lamb. Then, as the porters clapped shut the side of the horse-box, he waited to ask whose hunters were going down. Susan, lingering a little way apart, saw a big man with a cigar in his mouth spin round and seize him. Two or three more shot out of the throng and hurled themselves upon him, wringing his hand.

"It's Barnaby himself," they shouted. "Barnaby himself!"

They crowded him up the platform, a noisy escort, hiding their feelings under boisterous chaff; Meltonians, old acquaintances.... They pa.s.sed by Susan, gossiping hard.

All at once Barnaby broke loose from them, turning back. "Great Joseph!" he said. "I've lost my wife!"

What if he had? What if she had cut the tangle, had slipped when his back was turned into one of these moving trains, and pa.s.sed out of his life, out of the bustle into the throbbing darkness, like a match that had been lit and extinguished, leaving no trace?

She watched him hurrying back, looking for her; saw his quick glance along a glimmering line of carriages pa.s.sing him on his left, and guessed his apprehension. Soon he was bearing down on her, charging through the press, and had pulled her hand through his arm.

"It was too bad, wasn't it?" he said. "I'm awfully sorry,--Susan."

There was a real relief in his voice. She felt it, wondering. Was he so glad to find her still his prisoner, his accomplice?

"Did you think," she said, and in her own voice laughter struggled with a strange inclination to tears,--"that I had run away?"

"Come on," he said cheerfully, not replying. "Hold on to me. Those chaps are looking at us."

He marched her to his friends, who had halted in a body when he dashed back, and waited, grinning sympathetically, for his return.

"Here is my wife," he said. "I brought her up to town to get rid of her widow's weeds."

They shook hands with her solemnly, a kind gravity in their manner to her subduing them for a minute; and then, as Barnaby settled her in the Melton slip, they hung round the carriage door, and their tongues were loosened.

"Where did you pick up these horses? Are they part of your baggage from another world?"

Barnaby laughed.

"They aren't mine," he said. "I brought nothing back with me, not even a collar-stud. Why, I p.a.w.ned my watch in the States!"

"Wouldn't the ferryman let you return on tick? But you were mixed up with them, Barnaby, when I saw you. I'd know your voice anywhere, shouting Woa!"

"He's bound to get mixed up with horses, alive or dead," said the big man. "I tried to find out myself whose cattle they are, but the name is unintelligible. They can't p.r.o.nounce it down there; not all the sneezing and snarling in the station can do it. I'll bet its another of these wild Austrians."

"D'you remember the three counts who set out on a slippery day to ride to the meet at Scalford;--and were fetched back to the Harboro', the three of them, half an hour afterwards, in a cart?"

"Broken ribs, wasn't it?" said Barnaby.

"Cracked heads, I fancy. I'll never forget the sight it was; all you could see of 'em was the three shiny top hats, stove in."

The lights were flickering in the station only the great yellow clock-face shone unchangeable, with its minute hand creeping up. Down below on the platforms scurrying pa.s.sengers went their ways, gathering in thickening groups and eddying here and there round a pile of luggage. Everywhere there was restlessness.

Susan leant back in her corner. Their end of the platform was a little dim, and it was less frequented. She noticed a woman's figure pa.s.sing along the train.

Barnaby was loitering, half in, half out of the door, absorbed in chatter. They were asking him if he were coming out with the Quorn, offering to lend him a crock to-morrow; relating the current news about men and horses. Once the big man turned his head casually as the figure that Susan had noticed pa.s.sed. His mouth shaped itself in a whistle, but he made no remark. Only his broad back seemed to block out a little more of the view.

"It's about time we started," he said.

"What's the matter down there?" asked Barnaby.

"Oh, I fancied I saw a customer," he said promptly. "Did you take your wife to the grasping Melisande? You might have patronized another old friend in me. There's a hat in the window I trimmed myself."

"What?" said Barnaby.

The big man chuckled heavily.