Paddy The Next Best Thing Part 53

"Liar," he murmured humorously--looking hard into her face--and her mobile mouth twitched irresistibly as she crossed the road to her 'bus.

She climbed on the top to get the air, in spite of the moist November atmosphere, and though she had been spirited to the last with Lawrence, her heart grew heavy as they trundled down Notting Hill toward the enveloping greyness of Shepherd's Bush, and she wondered if she had been wise to go. It was not the first time that Paddy had had misgivings about the wisdom of seeing much of Gwen. She always hated the commonplace, middle-cla.s.s streets so afterward, the stuffy little dispensary, with its rows of foolish, inane-looking jars, and monotonous medicine bottles; the hopeless mediocrity of her whole surroundings. At moments she longed pa.s.sionately to be with Jack galloping over the gra.s.s plains of the Argentine; and her heart was sore at the fate which had condemned her of all people to mixing medicines in a dingy suburb. She even ruminated a little wistfully, if only Lawrence had not been Lawrence. If some other man had lived at Mourne Lodge, and wanted her to make her home there, what a heaven on earth she might have had! Or if even Lawrence had been different--and there had been no dividing memory. How strange it seemed that he should combine such charm with such heartlessness. She understood better now, how it was Eileen had become a victim. It was natural enough, since it had pleased him to please her. But she knew more of the other side, had known it all along, through her greater friendship with his sisters. Only that morning, in a letter from home, Doreen had written: "Lawrence has been shooting pheasants in Suffolk. Long may he stay there. Before he went, and just after you left the Parsonage he was in one of his most bearish moods. If he wasn't sullen he was cutting. He either sulked or sneered till we were sick of him in the house. Of course Kathleen quarrelled with him about the way he spoke to mother, which is so silly of her, as mother understands him, and doesn't really take any notice; whereas Kathleen ends in making us all miserable. However, he had the goodness to take himself off after the 12th, and it's been peaceful ever since."

Paddy stared into the greyness. Of course Eileen had been spared; such a nature must surely have broken her heart--but that was no excuse whatever--merely a reflection.

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE.

A CHRISTMAS SURPRISE.

The few weeks to Christmas pa.s.sed uneventfully. The Blakes came to London and Lawrence joined them, and they all seemed to slip back into their old groove for the time being. Paddy came and went much the same as before, and Lawrence strove to possess his soul in patience. Once more he resorted to subterfuge to find out when she was likely to be coming, and in general she succeeded in outwitting him. If she was half expected he would sit in his smoke-room with the door ajar, and listen to hear if the stately James opened the door to a familiar voice. If she came he would casually join them all at tea. If she did not he went to his club. Once he inveigled her into the sanctum itself. That was a red-letter day. He went downstairs to see her out, and in the hall told her in a voice of most disarming naturalness, that he had a beautiful little setter pup in his room--wouldn't she like to see it?

Paddy hesitated, and was lost.

She could never resist dogs. The little creature was in a basket near the fireplace, and she took it up in undisguised delight, going eagerly over its points with him. Then she put it back and turned to the door.

"Don't hurry," in that same disarming voice. "There are a good many things that will interest you here, if you will only look at them."

Paddy murmured something about the dispensary, with one eye on the door, and the other on a model yacht. With great diplomacy Lawrence turned his head away, and said simply, "Oh, well, another time perhaps."

Paddy said: "Is that a model of the _Shamrock_? What a little beauty it is!"

They went over the points of the yacht, and she became engrossed in it.

Then she suddenly made an unaccountable movement for the door. It had dawned on her that she was parleying with the enemy. That the enemy was dangerously alluring. Feeling a little mad with herself, she made her exit ungracefully. A jerky good-by--a feeble explanation of her sudden haste--and she was gone.

Then Lawrence smiled. His extremely wide and varied experience with the opposite s.e.x had made him correspondingly wise. In that moment he saw victory in sight. Far enough away still, perhaps, but yet there. It was becoming a duel of wills. To him it was his strength of will and personality, against her fanaticism. He had chosen a strong word, but fallen short in grasping all it involved. How many a strong will has been worsted even by a weak fanatic! How many a weak will, under the influence of fanaticism has achieved the deeds of the strong!

He knew that day that in some way she was not wholly indifferent to him.

He believed she was just a little bit afraid, and that, to him, was the sweetest thought of all.

Paddy hurried home, and wondered why she had been so stupidly weak as to go and see the puppy. She was genuinely vexed, and the incident had the present result of making her absent herself longer than usual, and be more difficult, when at last she came.

Lawrence went to his store of understanding, and said: "She has discovered that she is afraid."

Then Christmas approached. It had been arranged for Mrs Adair, and Eileen, and Paddy to cross to Omeath for a week, somewhat to the latter's surprise, for it seemed to her extremely rash for Eileen and her mother to take such a journey at that time of the year. However, her remonstrances were quickly swept aside, and the plans made. Then came a letter from Aunt Jane begging Mrs Adair and Eileen to start a week before Christmas, and if Paddy could not come with them, for her to follow on Christmas eve. To Paddy's amazement Mrs Adair immediately showed signs of consenting. For one moment it was almost a shock to her--it seemed so strange that they should go off like that without her, when they knew she could not possibly go before Christmas eve. Seeing her mute surprise, her mother hastened to explain that the aunties had a very special reason for wishing it, and then Paddy decided there was something in the air of which she was entirely ignorant. A year ago she would have promptly asked innumerable questions, but somehow a secret in her own life had raised a dim barrier between her and her mother and sister, and she felt, with a vague sense of loneliness, that, perhaps, they likewise had a secret they kept from her. She made no demur about their hurried departure, but kissed them good-by with a bright face, though something in her eyes made Eileen remark as the train steamed out of Euston:

"It's rather too bad, mother, isn't it?"

"She will understand all right on Christmas Day," Mrs Adair answered, and a beautiful colour stole over Eileen's face.

Beyond doubt, as Paddy had conjectured, there was something in the wind.

There were two others, however, who were much pleased by the arrangement, namely, Gwendoline and Lawrence.

"It's just capital, isn't it?" Gwen exclaimed. "Now you'll have to take Paddy over on Christmas eve."

Lawrence said little, but Gwen saw a light come into his eyes that he could not altogether hide. Paddy at first was vexed, and showed it.

"Don't be an idiot," quoth Gwen. "Why, it stands to reason it's pleasanter to have an escort for a long, cold, dark journey like that, and Lawrence is splendid to travel with. He just looks after you all the time and doesn't bother to talk. I shall come and fetch you in the brougham in the afternoon and go to Euston, and see you both off myself."

She did so, and Paddy's good aunt was immensely impressed by the magnificence of the livery and horses of the equipage, that drew up in the dingy Shepherd's Bush street that December afternoon, outside the doctor's highly coloured front door. Gwen herself she only saw dimly through the drawing-room curtains, inside the brougham, but even that glimpse so impressed her that for several days the church guilds and things had a rest, in favour of this vision from the far-off fashionable world.

Paddy took it all very coolly. She did not even wear her best hat, which greatly scandalised her aunt, but as Paddy explained, it was too heavy on her forehead to travel in and the other would do quite as well.

When they reached Euston, Lawrence was waiting, having artfully reached the station first in order to procure not only their tickets, but, by a substantial tip, the first-cla.s.s compartment for themselves.

"What! here already!" cried Gwen. "Ye G.o.ds and fishes, is the world coming to an end! Mark it down on your cuff, Lawrence, that you once caught a train with five minutes to spare, instead of leisurely strolling up after it was already on the move, and having to scramble into the guard's van."

Lawrence took no notice.

"Do you prefer the dining-car or dinner baskets?" he asked Paddy.

"I don't need either, thanks. I never feel hungry on a journey."

"Have the baskets, Lawrie," said Gwen. "Then you are not tied to any time, and you don't have the bother of going to the restaurant car."

Paddy turned away. "I must get my ticket," said she.

Gwen looked highly amused. Indeed the whole performance was tickling her so, she could hardly refrain from bursting out laughing at the two of them.

"I took the liberty of getting your ticket when I got my own," said Lawrence. "I thought it would save you the trouble."

Paddy murmured a word of thanks, and opened her purse.

"How much do I owe you!" she asked.

Lawrence caught the gleam in Gwen's eyes, and could not help an answering gleam.

"I'm not quite sure," he said. "May we leave it for the present?"

A little demon possessed Gwen. "Don't forget the tips for the porters when you're settling-up," she said.

Paddy looked rather black, and Lawrence had to turn away to buy some papers.

"You are a wretch, Gwen," said Paddy. "You know perfectly well you wouldn't let anyone pay for you."

"Oh! wouldn't I!" with emphasis. "I'd just think how jolly lucky I was to be all that much to the good."

Lawrence came back with his arm full of ill.u.s.trated magazines.

"Nothing like plenty of literature to keep one from getting dull," said Gwen wickedly. "But my! won't it complicate the settling-up!"

A guard came along and told Lawrence they would be starting in two minutes, and so obsequious and marked was his deference that Gwen was again taken with an unaccountable spasm of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"You scoundrel, Lawrence," she murmured, in an aside, "that cost you nothing short of a sovereign."

Lawrence pretended not to hear, but led the way to their compartment and placed the magazines on the seat. Paddy was thoughtful a moment, and again a little black.

"I don't want to travel first," she said. "I can't afford it. Let us meet at Holyhead and cross on the steamer together."

"It's a pity to waste the ticket," said Lawrence, "and the thirds are so crowded. Besides there is no time now."