The Little Nugget Part 21

She relapsed into silence. It occurred to me that, having posted her thoroughly in my affairs, I was ent.i.tled to ask about hers.

'How in the world did you come to be here?' I said.

'It's rather a long story. After my husband died--'

'Oh!' I exclaimed, startled.

'Yes; he died three years ago.'

She spoke in a level voice, with a ring of hardness in it, for which I was to learn the true reason later. At the time it seemed to me due to resentment at having to speak of the man she had loved to me, whom she disliked, and my bitterness increased.

'I have been looking after myself for a long time.'

'In England?'

'In America. We went to New York directly we--directly I had written to you. I have been in America ever since. I only returned to England a few weeks ago.'

'But what brought you to Sanstead?'

'Some years ago I got to know Mr Ford, the father of the little boy who is at the school. He recommended me to Mr Abney, who wanted somebody to help with the school.'

'And you are dependent on your work? I mean--forgive me if I am personal--Mr Sheridan did not--'

'He left no money at all.'

'Who was he?' I burst out. I felt that the subject of the dead man was one which it was painful for her to talk about, at any rate to me; but the Sheridan mystery had vexed me for five years, and I thirsted to know something of this man who had dynamited my life without ever appearing in it.

'He was an artist, a friend of my father.'

I wanted to hear more. I wanted to know what he looked like, how he spoke, how he compared with me in a thousand ways; but it was plain that she would not willingly be communicative about him; and, with a feeling of resentment, I gave her her way and suppressed my curiosity.

'So your work here is all you have?' I said.

'Absolutely all. And, if it's the same with you, well, here we are!'

'Here we are!' I echoed. 'Exactly.'

'We must try and make it as easy for each other as we can,' she said.

'Of course.'

She looked at me in that curious, wide-eyed way of hers.

'You have got thinner, Peter,' she said.

'Have I?' I said. 'Suffering, I suppose, or exercise.'

Her eyes left my face. I saw her bite her lip.

'You hate me,' she said abruptly. 'You've been hating me all these years. Well, I don't wonder.'

She turned and began to walk slowly away, and as she did so a sense of the littleness of the part I was playing came over me.

Ever since our talk had begun I had been trying to hurt her, trying to take a petty revenge on her--for what? All that had happened five years ago had been my fault. I could not let her go like this. I felt unutterably mean.

'Audrey!' I called.

She stopped. I went to her.

'Audrey!' I said, 'you're wrong. If there's anybody I hate, it's myself. I just want to tell you I understand.'

Her lips parted, but she did not speak.

'I understand just what made you do it,' I went on. 'I can see now the sort of man I was in those days.'

'You're saying that to--to help me,' she said in a low voice.

'No. I have felt like that about it for years.'

'I treated you shamefully.'

'Nothing of the kind. There's a certain sort of man who badly needs a--jolt, and he has to get it sooner or later. It happened that you gave me mine, but that wasn't your fault. I was bound to get it--somehow.' I laughed. 'Fate was waiting for me round the corner. Fate wanted something to hit me with. You happened to be the nearest thing handy.'

'I'm sorry, Peter.'

'Nonsense. You knocked some sense into me. That's all you did.

Every man needs education. Most men get theirs in small doses, so that they hardly know they are getting it at all. My money kept me from getting mine that way. By the time I met you there was a great heap of back education due to me, and I got it in a lump.

That's all.'

'You're generous.'

'Nothing of the kind. It's only that I see things clearer than I did. I was a pig in those days.'

'You weren't!'

'I was. Well, we won't quarrel about it.'

Inside the house the bell rang for breakfast. We turned. As I drew back to let her go in, she stopped.

'Peter,' she said.

She began to speak quickly.

'Peter, let's be sensible. Why should we let this embarra.s.s us, this being together here? Can't we just pretend that we're two old friends who parted through a misunderstanding, and have come together again, with all the misunderstanding cleared away--friends again? Shall we?'

She held out her hand. She was smiling, but her eyes were grave.

'Old friends, Peter?'

I took her hand.