Mrs. Maxon Protests Part 18

"What about----?"

"Why, Mabel--Mabel Thurseley."

"Oh yes! Well, I suppose she--she knows what everybody knows--she knows what often happens."

"Oh, but while it's absolutely going on here! They might have waited a little at all events."

"You mean that--it's happening?"

Amy's figure rose erect in her chair again.

"Try and see if you can get him to utter Mabel's name to you!"

Winnie was struck with the suggestion. Her interest in her visitor suddenly became less derivative, more personal. She looked at Amy's pa.s.sably well-favoured features and robust physique. There was really nothing about her to suggest eccentric ideas.

"Oh, do please sit down! Don't stand there as if you were turned to stone!" Amy's appeal was almost a wail. The slim figure was so motionless; it seemed arrested in its very life.

"I like you. It's very kind of you. I--I'm trying to think.... I can't take your word for it, you know. I love him--I trust him."

Amy fidgeted again uncomfortably. "Daddy and mother are always at him.

They think it--it will be redemption for him, you see."

"Yes, I suppose they do--redemption!" Suddenly she moved, taking two steps nearer to Amy, so that she stood almost over her. "And you think----?"

Amy looked up at her, with tears in her eyes. "Oh, I don't know! What am I to think? Why did you do it? Why did you make everything impossible either way? Somebody must be miserable now!"

"Somebody was miserable before--I was. And I've been happy for a bit.

That's something. It seems to me only one person need be miserable even now. Why is that worse?"

The clock struck six. Amy started to her feet in alarm.

"He might come back a little sooner than usual--we finish tea about half-past five. By the Tube----" She was nervously b.u.t.toning her jacket.

"If he caught me!" she murmured.

"Caught you here?"

"Oh, how can I go against them? I'm not married--I have to live there."

Winnie stretched out her thin arms. "Would you be with me if you could?

Would you, Amy? I had such a bad time of it! And he was mine first, you know."

Amy drew back ever so little. "Don't!" she gasped. "I really must go, Mrs.--oh, I really must go!"

"Yes, you must go. He might come back soon now. Shall we ever meet again, I wonder?"

"Oh, why did you?"

"It's not what I did. It's what you think about it."

"Because you seem to me wonderful. You're--you're so much above him, you know."

"That doesn't help, even if it's true. I should hate to believe it."

"Good-bye. You won't let anybody know I came? Oh, not G.o.dfrey?"

"You may trust me--and Mr. Purnett too, I think."

"Oh yes; I can trust him. Good-bye!"

Without offering her hand, far less with any suggestion of a more emotional farewell, Amy Ledstone drifted towards the door. This time Winnie did not escort or follow her guest. She stood still, watching her departure. She really did not know what to say to her; Amy's att.i.tude was so balanced--or rather not balanced, but confused. Yet just before the guest disappeared, she found herself calling out: "I am grateful, you know. Because thinking as you do about me----"

Amy turned her head for a moment. "Yes, but I don't know that you'll come worst out of it, after all," she said.

Then Winnie was left alone, to wait for G.o.dfrey--and to see whether he would make mention of Mabel Thurseley's name, that entirely new and formidably significant phenomenon.

CHAPTER XII

CHRISTMAS IN WOBURN SQUARE

When holiday seasons approach, people of ample means ask: "Where shall we go?"; people of narrow: "Can we go anywhere?" The imminence of Christmas made Winnie realize this difference (no question now, as in days gone by, of Palestine and Damascus); but the edge of it was turned by a cordial invitation to spend Friday till Tuesday (Sat.u.r.day was Christmas Day) at Shaylor's Patch. Her eyes brightened; her old refuge again looked peaceful and comforting. She joyfully laid the proposal before G.o.dfrey. He was less delighted; he looked rather vexed, even a little sheepish.

"They do jaw so," he objected. "Arguing about everything night and day!

It bores a chap."

"You weren't bored when you were there in the summer."

"Oh, well, that was different. And I'm afraid mother will be disappointed."

"About the Sunday, you mean? Mightn't you run up for the day?"

He laid his hand on her shoulder. "I say, I leave it to you, Winnie. I leave it absolutely to you--but mother's set her heart on my spending Christmas with them. I've never missed a Christmas all my life, and--well, she's not very well, and has a fancy about it, you see."

"Do it, of course, G.o.dfrey. And come down to me on Sunday." Winnie was now determined that Woburn Square should have no grievances, except the great, inevitable, insuperable one.

"You are a good sort, Winnie." He kissed her cheek.

"But I don't know how you'll shift for yourself here!"

"Oh, I'll put up in Woburn Square for a couple of nights, and do a theatre on Friday perhaps."

So it was settled, with some embarra.s.sment on G.o.dfrey's part, with a faint smile on Winnie's. He would have two nights and a whole day at Woburn Square; and he had never mentioned Mabel Thurseley's name, not even though Winnie had made openings for him, had tried some delicate "pumping." And with whom did he think of "doing a theatre" on Friday night?

G.o.dfrey Ledstone--with whom everything was to have been straightforward, all above-board--found himself burdened with a double secret. He couldn't bring himself to tell Winnie of Mabel Thurseley. In the early days of his renewed intercourse with Mabel, he had half-heartedly proposed to his mother that the girl should be informed of his position; he had been tearfully prayed not to advertise the shame of his family.

He had lost any sort of desire to advertise it now. He could not now imagine himself speaking of the matter to Mabel--telling her, right out, that he was living and meant to live with a woman who was not his wife in law; wives of any other sort were so entirely outside Mabel's purview. That he had been a bit of a rake--she would understand that, and perhaps in her heart not dislike it; but she would not understand and would thoroughly dislike Winnie Maxon. Anyhow, by now it was too late; he had played the bachelor too long--and, as a flattering if remorseful inner voice whispered, too successfully--on those Sundays in Woburn Square, whither Mabel often came, whence it was easy to slip across to Torrington Square. Mr. and Mrs. Ledstone never grudged him an hour's leave of absence if it was spent in calling on Mrs. Thurseley, their esteemed friend and neighbour.