Mr. Waddington of Wyck Part 50

"It isn't only Mrs. Levitt. There's Ralph Bevan. You've forgotten Ralph Bevan."

"What has Ralph Bevan got to do with it?"

"Simply this, that I'm engaged to be married to him."

"To be married? To be married to Ralph Bevan? Oh, Barbara, why didn't you tell me?"

"Ralph didn't want me to, till nearer the time."

"The time.... Did it come to that?"

"It did," said Barbara.

He moved from the doorway and began walking up and down the room. She might now have gone out, but she didn't go. She _had_ to see what he would make of it.

At his last turn he faced her and stood still.

"Poor child," he said, "so that's what I've driven you to?"

Amazement kept her silent.

"Sit down," he said, "we must go through this together."

Amazement made her sit down. Certainly they must go through it, to see what he would look like at the end. He was unsurpa.s.sable. She mustn't miss him.

"Look here, Barbara." He spoke in a tone of forced, unnatural calm. "I don't think you quite understand the situation. I'm sure you don't realize for one moment how serious it is."

"I don't. You mustn't expect me to take it seriously."

"That's because you don't take yourself seriously enough, dear. In some ways you're singularly humble. I don't believe you really know how deep this thing has gone with me, or you wouldn't have talked about Mrs.

Levitt....

"... It's life and death, Barbara. Life and death.... I'll make a confession. It wasn't serious at first. It wasn't love at first sight.

But it's gone all the deeper for that. I didn't know how deep it was till the other day. And I had so much to think of. So many claims.

f.a.n.n.y--"

"Yes. Don't forget f.a.n.n.y."

"I am not forgetting her. f.a.n.n.y isn't going to mind as you think she minds. As you would mind yourself if you were in her place. Things don't go so deep with f.a.n.n.y as all that.... And she isn't going to hold me against my will. She's not that sort.... Listen, now. Please listen."

Barbara sat still, listening. She would let him go to the end of his tether.

"I'll confess. In the beginning I hadn't thought of a divorce. I couldn't bear the idea of going through all that unpleasantness. But I'd go through it ten times over rather than that you should marry Ralph Bevan.... Wait now.... Before I spoke to you to-day I'd made up my mind to ask f.a.n.n.y to divorce me. I know she'll do it. Your name shan't be allowed to appear. The moment I get her consent we'll go off together somewhere. Italy or the Riviera. I've got everything planned, everything ready. I saw to that when I was in London. I've bought everything--"

She saw forked lightnings on a magenta Waddington.

"What are you laughing at, Barbara?"

He stood over her, distressed. Was _Barbara_ going to treat him to a fit of hysterics?

"Don't laugh. Don't be silly, child."

But Barbara went on laughing, with her face in the cushions, abandoned to her vision. From far up the park they heard the sound of Kimber's hooter, then the grinding of the car, with f.a.n.n.y in it, on the gravel outside. Barbara sat up suddenly and dried her eyes.

They stared at each other, the stare of accomplices.

"Come, child," he said, "pull yourself together."

Barbara got up and looked in the gla.s.s and saw the green jade necklace hanging on her still. She took it off and laid it on the table beside the forgotten sketch-book.

"I think," she said, "you must have meant this for Mrs. Levitt. But you may thank your stars it's only me, this time."

He pretended not to hear her, not to see the necklace, not to know that she was going from him. She stood a moment with her back to the door, facing him. It was her turn to stand there and be listened to.

"Mr. Waddington," she said, "some people might think you wicked. I only think you funny."

He drew himself up and looked n.o.ble.

"Funny? If that's your idea of me, you had better marry Ralph Bevan."

"I almost think I had."

And she laughed again. Not Mrs. Levitt's laughter, gross with experience. He had borne that without much pain. Girl's laughter it was, young and innocent and pure, and ten times more cruel.

"You don't know," she said, "you don't know how funny you are," and left him.

Mr. Waddington took up the necklace and kissed it. He rubbed it against his cheek and kissed it. A slip of paper had fallen from the table to the floor. He knew what was written on it: "From Horatio Bysshe Waddington to his Little April Girl." He took it up and put it in his pocket. He took up the sketch-book.

"The little thing," he thought. "Now, if it hadn't been for her ridiculous jealousy of Elise--if it hadn't been for f.a.n.n.y--if it hadn't been for the little thing's sweetness and goodness--" Her goodness. She was a saint. A saint. It was Barbara's virtue, not Barbara, that had repulsed him.

This was the only credible explanation of her behaviour, the only one he could bear to live with.

He opened the sketch-book.

It was f.a.n.n.y, coming in that instant, who saved him from the worst.

When she had restored the sketch-book to its refuge in the bureau and locked it in, she turned to him.

"Horatio," she said, "as Ralph's coming to dinner to-night I'd better tell you that he and Barbara are engaged to be married."

"She has told me herself.... That child, f.a.n.n.y, is a saint. A little saint."

"How did you find that out? Do you think it takes a saint to marry Ralph?"

"I think it takes a saint to--to marry Ralph, since you put it that way."

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