The Education of Eric Lane Part 44

"_For the last fortnight I've been doing a turn of French-Without-Tears as an interpreter at the MINISTeRE DE LA GUERRE. There was so little work to do that the job suited me rather well. Alas! it suited equally well certain others who had a better claim to it, and I'm being transferred to England next week with a vague promise of some light duty at the War Office. The best thing about the new arrangement is that I shall be at home and shall have a chance of seeing you. 'Mr. Eric Lane, the well-known dramatist and author, in his charming Ryder Street residence.' As you probably know, the papers have been full of you; the gaping world now knows to the last inch of your benevolent smile exactly how you work and smoke a cigarette and dress and have your pyjamas laid out. If the photographs are at all good, you seem to have got rather a comfortable billet. Talking of which, if you hear of any cheap and handy rooms within a hundred miles of Whitehall, you might keep me in mind.

People out here tell me that London's rather congested._ . . ."

There was a chance, Eric reflected, that Jack might have glanced at the pictures in "_The World and His Wife_" without troubling to read the letter-press. It was so unlikely as not to be worth entertaining. That he had read of the rumoured engagement was as certain as that he made no comment upon it.

Whether he had seen it or not was trivial. All this pernickety a.n.a.lysis was flooded by the overwhelming fact that Jack was coming home. Germany, Switzerland, Paris, London; nearer and nearer. Within seven days he might be taking train for Crawleigh--to shew what was left of him and to ask whether Barbara wished to withdraw her promise. Within six days she might be begging to be set free, appealing to Eric's love and magnanimity. . . .

He determined that, if they were to play battledore-and-shuttlec.o.c.k with their capability for self-sacrifice, he would strike the first blow and stand ready to see what return she would make.

"_Darling Babs, it's essential that I should see you for a moment_," he wrote. "_And that as soon as possible. Are you going to be in London next week? If so, please fix your own time. If not, what about this? I'm going down to Lashmar for the week-end and, if you can meet me for thirty seconds at Crawleigh station, I'll come straight on to you on Sat.u.r.day and then get a train back to Winchester. I can't come to the Abbey, obviously, or every one would want to know what was up. The business in hand won't take a moment to discuss, but it's ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE that we should discuss it at once._"

As he posted the letter, Eric was conscious that he could have said all that was necessary without a meeting, but he knew well that it was far easier for her to be collected and valiant on paper and at a distance.

If Barbara chose to accept his sacrifice, she should do it in his presence, looking into his eyes.

"_Has something awful happened_?" she wrote in reply. "_You do FRIGHTEN me so, when you write like that! I have to come up on Sunday for a charity concert at the Olympic, where I'm a patroness or something. If you really want to see me for only a moment, is it possible for you to meet me at Winchester? The train gets in at 12.29 and leaves at 12.33 (aren't I getting clever with the time-table? As a matter of fact I made father's secretary work it all out for me). If you'd like to wait on the platform, I'll put my head out of the window and we can be together for a moment. Dear Eric, I do hope you're not in any kind of trouble! When you become telegraphic in manner, I always grow nervous.

Barbara._"

There was suppressed excitement at the Mill-House on Sat.u.r.day night, when he put in a claim for the car, announced his intention of driving himself and instructed the maids with unusual particularity to see that he did not oversleep himself.

"We're being very mysterious," murmured Sybil.

Eric smiled and said nothing.

He went to bed early in hope that a long night's rest would steady his nerves for an interview which would not be the less trying for its brevity and which, he now saw, had been made inevitably dramatic. It was a perfect autumn morning, as he climbed into the car, with a scented mist rising before his eyes, under the mild warmth of a November sun; Lashmar Woods flaunted their last dwindling recklessness of colour, from ivy-green through fading red to russet and lemon-yellow. He had a rare feeling of peace, as he surrendered to the voiceless magic of the still countryside and to whimsical memories of his own childhood. Life was so much simpler then! Life would again be so much simpler when he had Babs driving by his side. . . . (If he could only drag her from the train and take her home to astonish and subjugate his parents! It would be worth a little mystery to effect that!)

If she dropped like a stone out of his life, he would raise both hands to Heaven and pray G.o.d to take away his reason and draw a sponge across his memory. . . .

Barbara was leaning out of the window, as the train drew into the station. Eric ran to her compartment; but for a time they were victimized by the nervous antics of an old lady with c.u.mbrous luggage, who stood in the doorway calling with shrill helplessness for a porter.

"I see your play's going to be produced at the end of the month," said Barbara, waving her hand towards a paper on the opposite seat.

"Are you coming with me to the first night?" he asked.

"Of course!" She watched the departure of the old lady with ill-suppressed eagerness. "Thank goodness, she's gone! What is it, Eric?

Why did you want to see me like this?"

"I always want to see you!" he laughed uneasily. Ever since he received her letter, he had been rehearsing an effective little speech; but it was gone from his mind now, and he found himself nervously clearing his throat. "Babs, I'm in rather a hole and I want to do the right thing.

For some reason you always talk about my generosity. I've been thinking it over. . . . You're absolutely free, Babs."

"But--why?" she asked blankly.

"Before writing to you, I'd heard from Jack. He'll probably be in England within a week. I--don't want you to feel . . ." He had to leave the sentence unfinished.

Barbara had become very pale and for a moment she said nothing.

"This--doesn't mean that you're--saying good-bye?" she faltered.

"It's a present, not an ultimatum," Eric answered sharply.

So she could still try to make the best of both worlds.

"You've always been wonderfully generous!" she whispered. "I can never repay you."

From her tone and phrasing Eric knew that he had failed. His own sacrifice neither stirred nor shamed her into equal generosity; the volley was over, and the shuttlec.o.c.k had dropped to the ground.

"Have you tried?" he asked sharply.

There was a whistle and a jolt, as the train began to move. Eric stepped off the foot-board, raised his hat slightly and turned on his heel.

Mechanically he set his watch by the station clock. The train had come in late, but it was leaving on time.

"Rather less than two minutes, if anything," he murmured, as he started the engine. "Five weeks since we became engaged. . . ."

Half-way home he steered for a government lorry which was standing unattended by the side of the road. Something older and stronger than himself paralyzed the malevolent muscles of his arm, and the car swerved into safety. . . .

"_The slavery of centuries and her own short-lived blooming have robbed woman of open initiative in s.e.x-warfare: she forces man to make the attack, pretending indifference or ignorance. Instead of striking a bargain, she then insists on nominal surrender, which never deceives her. But she is deceived by her own false valuation; she can only see herself in the image that she makes for the beguilement of man. Vanity is the strongest thing of all._"--From the Diary of Eric Lane.

CHAPTER NINE

THE EDUCATION OF BARBARA NEAVE

"The mob decrees such feat no crown, perchance, But--why call crowning the reward of quest?"

ROBERT BROWNING: "_Aristophanes' Apology._"

1

In the second week of November Manders began to rehea.r.s.e "Mother's Son,"

and, after two attendances, Eric retired to Lashmar for uninterrupted work on his American lectures. Jack might reach London any day, and he could not face a meeting nor wait to be told of an encounter between Jack and Barbara. His own rash magnanimity had set her free and kept him in chains; he had always been so indulgent that he more than half suspected a strain of kindly contempt in her; she had once told him that they would be miserable together because he would always be too gentle to keep her in order. . . . Any day now might see him dismissed like an outworn servant.

With native caution he did not pledge himself to stay at Lashmar for a specified time; that would depend on Jack, on Barbara, on his own work and a dozen other things. It was essential that he should keep himself posted regularly in Jack's movements, and he walked over to Red Roofs on the morrow of his arrival. Agnes gave him all the information that she possessed, but gave it with reservation, as though she were conferring a favour; and, when he left, she walked with him to the gate of the woods and blurted out that she was engaged to d.i.c.k Benyon. As he congratulated her, Eric remembered their last parting by the sun-dial, when she had told him not to worry even if gossiping papers coupled his name with Barbara's, when she had pointed out, too, that they could end the gossip in a day by ceasing to meet. She did not seem extravagantly happy; each had lost the other without finding the perfect subst.i.tute; but Agnes, with greater wisdom than he had ever shewn towards Barbara, had resolved that a secondary place was not enough.

After that he avoided the Warings, but Sybil returned one night from Red Roofs with a report that Jack was expected there within three days. He had seen a specialist in London and was forbidden to attempt any brain-work for three months; even the easy experiment in Paris had been a mistake. Eric's mind was busy with excuses to get back to London, for with Jack as his neighbour, invalided and bored, it would be necessary to see him daily. The Lanes were, fortunately, too much absorbed in their own life to be suspicious of sudden changes in Eric's plans; affectionate regret greeted his announcement that he was returning to London after the week-end, and his sense of the dramatic was grimly amused by the thought that his train would pa.s.s Jack's somewhere between Basingstoke and Brooklands. . . . He might almost be a criminal fleeing from justice.

A note from Jack lay on his hall table, regretting that they had not met, but promising to walk over to the Mill-House the moment that he arrived. It was followed by another, full of mock-indignation.

_"If you don't want to see me, you needn't_," he wrote. "_But for Heaven's sake don't bolt to the country the minute you hear I'm coming to London and then bolt back to London the minute you hear I'm going to the country_."

Of course it was all badinage; and yet, if Jack knew everything, the badinage might cover an atrocious hint of his knowledge. . . .

"I'm losing my sense of reality!" Eric muttered.

The same post brought him a long letter from his mother. Jack had come to tea on the day of his arrival looking very well, on the whole, though the wound on his head was still visible.

"_He wants to see you_," wrote Lady Lane, "_and he particularly asked when you would be down here again. I'm afraid poor Jack is in for rather a dull time. He was hoping so much to be well enough to work, and the sentence of three months' complete rest is a great disappointment; but, if he'll feed up and rest, there's no reason why he shouldn't be as well as he ever was; I'm glad to say that his uncle has behaved quite well.

After doing NOTHING all these years for him or Agnes or his own brother, he has at last shewn some decent feeling. If Jack has to be a partial invalid all his life, Lord Waring will give him whatever money's necessary to let him live anywhere he likes and take up any hobby he likes; if he wants to marry (I can't imagine that of Jack), there'll be a proper settlement_. . . ."