VIII
Edith hardly turned her head to say “Come in!” to the timid knock at her door. She was sitting at her desk, doing accounts, and puzzled as usual by her immaculate predecessor’s example--an example which, “as the most sensible of women,” she tried hard to follow, but she was frequently overcome by the invincible malice of pounds, shillings, and pence.
The pause, however, that followed arrested her attention, and she turned to meet the eyes of her step-son with a thrill of astonishment. He had never before voluntarily entered her private boudoir, and there was an air about his whole person which betokened the unusual, though he suppressed what he could only consider a weakness as well as he could.
Edith saw in a moment that she must suppress it too. “I’m so glad you have come,” she said; “now you can do this horrid sum for me. I am trying to balance my accounts, and though I can see quite plainly what I’ve spent and what I had to spend, they obstinately refuse to have anything to do with each other.”
Leslie looked over her shoulder; he was pleased to point out her mistake--it was a very obvious one--and it at once put him at his ease. He felt there could be nothing very formidable in a woman who could make such a silly mistake in quite a simple sum.
He sat down beside her, smiling and looking so utterly unlike the glum, discontented youth she was accustomed to see that Edith could barely conceal her astonishment.
“I’ve got an awful lot to say to you,” he volunteered at last. “What a jolly little room you have here--just the kind of things I like!”
“Well, you must come and like them a little oftener,” said his step-mother with a friendly smile.
He glanced at her uneasily.
“I expect I must seem an awful ass to you,” he remarked with sudden candor.
Edith shook her head.
“Dear no,” she said, “nor am I a very terrible person either, when you come to know me!”
“Oh, you,” said the boy, flushing scarlet--“you’re ripping! I can’t think why I’ve never noticed it before.”
Edith concealed a smile at this belated tribute; she wondered what he was going to notice next.
“Would you mind,” he began anxiously--“are you quite sure you wouldn’t mind, if I came here regularly--in between terms at Oxford, I mean--instead of going to Mallows?”
Edith gasped. Then she said very gently and gravely:
“My dear Leslie, this is your home.”
He got up and walked about; she hadn’t used her advantage over him; she hadn’t even made him look a fool. He was almost willing to acknowledge that he was one.
“I think I’d like to tell you all about it,” he began, “if you’re sure I sha’n’t bore you?”
“No, you won’t bore me,” said his companion.
“I daresay you know--I daresay you may have heard some talk about--about Anastasia Falaise? Of course, you don’t know what she’s like; people talk such confounded rot about her, especially women. You should hear Aunt Etta. They say she’s old; of course, it’s all jealousy. She may be twenty-five--that’s older than me, of course--I’m not quite twenty,” (his nineteenth birthday had taken place a week previously), “but then what’s five years?”
His step-mother was not prepared to say off-hand what five years were; they might be such different things; so she looked at the boy sympathetically and shook her head.
“People talk such beastly stuff about age,” the youth continued fiercely, “and not knowing your own mind; why, of course, I know she’s perfect. Why, Edith--Cleopatra, and Mary Queen of Scots, and Helen of Troy--they couldn’t have been anything to Anastasia--she’s--she’s--well, the poets are all really idiots; none of them describe her decently!”
Edith looked as if she quite believed this; in her heart of hearts she thought that the poets had under-estimated Horace, but that was very probably because they were, generally speaking, men.
“Do you know, I can’t believe in my luck, Edith--I can’t really; she might have married princes, and she’s fond of me,” cried the boy.
Edith’s eyes filled with sudden tears. The boy was very beautiful, young, exquisitely shaped, with light curls and bright brown eyes, and for the first time she was seeing his face alive and eager with the joy of life!
“I can quite believe it, Leslie,” she said gently.
“And she’s promised to marry me,” he exclaimed exultantly, “in three years’ time.”
His step-mother jumped. This was not what she had been prepared to hear. It came with a sudden shock. Horace had said the woman was old enough to be the boy’s mother, and Horace was certain to be right.
“Oh, Leslie!” she murmured, holding out her hands, vaguely troubled and distressed. “Oh, Leslie!”
“Oh, it’s all right,” said the boy, rising, “you’ll like her, I know; and, fancy, Aunt Etta--well--I can hardly believe it; she tried to come between us, and actually went and asked Anastasia to give me up. All my life she’s tried to keep me away from dad and you--and now--now Anastasia! I can’t forgive her,” said Leslie, “and I shouldn’t think you would.”
He took one of Edith’s hands and kissed it.
“Oh, my dear boy,” she whispered, “you don’t know, you don’t understand how she loved you! You see you did make a mistake, didn’t you? Just a little one that didn’t matter really about me; don’t make another which may matter terribly about your Aunt Etta. Ah, Leslie, she’s given up her life for you--she meant it all for the best. You see she--she loves you. Try to forgive her!”
“I’d have forgiven her if she’d told me,” said the boy, “but she did it on the sly. Father did it, too--he wrote some stupid letter; but then he told me he was going to--he didn’t deceive me.”
The boy choked suddenly.
“Do you know,” he said, “I sometimes think you and dad have been most awfully kind to me.”
Edith’s quivering lips smiled, and her eyes shone as they had done ten years ago through happy tears as she stood to welcome Horace’s little son.
“Oh, Leslie, Leslie!” she murmured.
He was not a demonstrative young man, so he kicked at a footstool, and gave rather a foolish laugh.
“Well, it’ll all be different now,” he said. “Anastasia is most awfully keen on my being nice to you and dad. She slanged me fearfully for not living at home--pitched into me right and left.”
“Did she?” said Edith thoughtfully. “I wonder why?”
“Oh, she’s so awfully clever and generous, you know.” The boy went on: “She said she was sure I’d been misunderstanding you all along, and that the least I could do was to make it up to you now.”
Edith suddenly rose to her feet, then she sat down again, but her hands trembled, and there was a look of surprise in her eyes.
“Have you,” she asked, “a picture of her to show me, Leslie?”
The boy laughed shamefacedly.
“I have her miniature,” he said; he drew out a little velvet case and tossed it with a pretence of indifference into Edith’s lap. She held it for a moment as if she dreaded what might meet her eye, and then, opening it quickly, she gazed at the exquisite familiar face.
“Oh, Leslie,” she cried, “it is Helen of Troy!”
The boy was delighted.
“Well, she’s the most beautiful woman in the world to me,” he said. “I’m glad you like it!”
His step-mother sat staring as if spellbound at the little velvet case; the boy took it from her unresisting hands.
“If you feel like this about her, Edith,” he said, “will you say something to my father for me--something, I mean, about her being everything she ought to be, you know, and it not mattering her being a little older than me--and really twenty-five is not very old, is it?”
“I am forty,” said Edith irrelevantly.
Leslie looked up compassionately.
“Well,” he said reassuringly, “you aren’t really old yet, you know, Edith.”
“No, I’m not really old yet,” agreed his step-mother.
Helen of Troy was forty-two.
A long silence followed. The boy began to fidget: he thought he would go and choose some flowers for Anastasia. He looked hesitatingly at Edith.
“Promise you’ll do your best for me?” he asked, leaning over her.
Edith raised her eves to his; they were strangely sad and tender.
“Yes, Leslie,” she said. “I promise you that I will do my best for you.”
He kissed her and went out of the room.