5
We received our answer before the invitation could be sent. At the end of breakfast, Lady John Carstairs telephoned to say that she had herself placed her house at Eric’s disposal, but that he preferred to remain in Ryder Street till the girl was out of danger. On my way to Fetter Lane, I left some flowers and a card bidding Eric to let us know if we could be of any service; but we heard nothing till a week later, when O’Rane telephoned to catch me for five minutes before I went to bed.
“I couldn’t get round before,” he apologized, “and I thought you ought to know. Poor old Eric! He’s getting all his troubles in a lump. Where’s Babs? I’m afraid she ought to hear this, too.”
I was under the impression that she had gone to bed half an hour before; but I heard sounds in the drawing-room, almost as though she had expected news of Eric and was staying up because it was bad news.
“What’s happened to him now?,” I asked, as we went upstairs.
“He’s been ordered abroad immediately,” O’Rane answered. “California. Lungs.”
I do not know whether Barbara heard more than the last word; but she seemed to rise from her chair and cross the room in a single movement. O’Rane’s expression changed to wonder and then softened to pity as she caught and gripped his hand. No name had been mentioned in her hearing; but I think we both realized that he and I and all the world—with one exception—might be ordered to California for our lungs without striking an equal terror into her heart. In that moment I knew how far I had always been from winning her love.
O’Rane, I feel, atoned for want of sight by keenness of hearing. I fancied that a little of the pity in his expression might be intended for me.
“Is he . . . dying?,” Barbara whispered.
“Not yet awhile.” O’Rane withdrew his hand to feel for a chair. I thought I saw his expression changing again, this time hardening slightly as though to keep the flash-point of her emotions low or, perhaps, to douse them with a single chilling jet. “He can get all right if he wants to. You may imagine, he’s rather bowled over at present.” As he turned to me, I felt that he wanted Barbara to hear his next announcement without being watched. “It came quite suddenly,” he told me; “and, but for this, you’d have seen him happily married to Ivy Maitland.” If Barbara gave any sign of interest, I saw and heard nothing. O’Rane took time to let his announcement sink in; and I fancied again that he was tacitly advising her to close her side of an account which Eric had already closed against her. If she chose to think that he was still in love with her and that his engagement to Ivy was an act of despair, no argument would cure her; at least there was now no reason why this shadow should force its way between us any longer. “It’s rather a facer,” O’Rane continued, “when you lose your wife and your health on the same day. I’ve been telling him all evening that no woman in the world is big enough to spoil a man’s life, but at the moment he’s in the mood to creep into a corner and die. He’s too good for that. I want you to see him before he starts, George; and write to him while he’s away.”
Naturally, I promised without hesitation. If Barbara sent a letter of farewell, she said nothing to me about it; when I told her next day that I was going to Ryder Street on my way to the office, she nodded abstractedly but made no suggestion of accompanying me; and, on my return, she sat like a spirit of tragedy, refusing to ask me the result of my mission, till I volunteered to tell her.
“By the way, I missed Eric this morning,” I said.
“Oh? Had he gone already?,” she asked.
“The maid said he was not at home,” I answered; and, mercifully for me, Barbara did not enquire further.
A less diplomatic version would have recounted that, as I hurried round to Ryder Street, I saw Eric getting out of the taxi in front of me. His front-door slammed as I was halfway up the stairs; and, when I said something to the maid about being one of his older friends, I was informed that Miss Maitland was still seriously ill. Divining that Miss Maitland could not be occupying all the rooms in the flat, I scribbled a note in which I begged Eric to see me for two minutes. A verbal message apprised me that Mr. Lane was engaged; and I went away, more hurt, I believe, than ever in my life before. Since his interrupted romance with Ivy, the fellow could bear me no grudge for marrying the woman he had tried so long to win; our friendship went back, sixteen years, to Oxford and the dinners of the Phœnix. There were not too many survivors from those days; and, coming to sympathize, I had seen my sympathy flung back in my face. I made every allowance for his illness and misery; but I could not write to him, at least for the present and, when a letter from him, several months later, hurtled like a flask of vitriol from California to England, I was too nearly blinded to attempt an answer.
“Will you call again?,” asked Barbara perfunctorily.
“I don’t suppose he wants to be bothered,” I said.
There was a long silence; and Barbara’s shoulders moved in a slight shrug:
“I don’t suppose he wants to be friends. I tried, when we met at Croxton; but, when there’s been love, I don’t think you can go back to friendship.” She looked at me almost guiltily; and for an embarrassed moment I feared that I was to be drawn into yet one more unwanted confidence. Then, changing her mind, she walked slowly to the fire and stood with the dancing flames reflected in her sombre eyes. “I’m . . . glad he’s going,” she murmured at last. “I’ve not really been myself since I met him again, whatever I told you about feeling free. When you wanted me to come with you to Ireland . . . I was mad. I’ll go with you now, if you like . . . anywhere. We’ve talked so often about a fresh start: I can make it now. I do want our life to be a success. If there’s anything I can do . . .”
“You can’t do more than you’re doing at present,” I said.
With a sudden turn, Barbara flung her arms about my neck and hid her face against my chest.
“Is there nothing more that you want?,” she asked. “Don’t say ‘your happiness’! I know you want that, darling. Don’t you want anything for yourself? Don’t you want me to be like other women? Don’t you want me to have children?”
“Most men want children,” I said, “but women have to bear them.”
“Yes . . . I’ve always wanted children and I’ve always been afraid of them. I’m still afraid, . . . but I’m going to have one now, George, . . . for your sake. You’re pleased? Hold me tight, darling, and promise me one thing. If anything goes wrong . . .”
“But, good God . . .!,” I began.
“It may. If anything does go wrong and one of us has to die, promise you’ll let it be me!”
I was dispensed from answering by Barbara’s sudden surrender to hysterics. When she was recovered, I put her to bed and sent for Gaisford; as soon as he allowed her up, I took her to Crawleigh Abbey and left her to recuperate from something which the doctor described enigmatically as “a nervous breakdown that didn’t come off”.
“I’ve been expecting this for years,” he told me. “And for years I’ve felt that she’d be a healthier, happier woman when she had some brats to look after. This business about Eric Lane must have been a shock to her.”
“Well, thank Heaven, that’s all over,” I said.
“At last,” Gaisford grunted. “If you’re going down to Crawleigh . . .”
“I shall stay here, except for week-ends, unless I’m sent for,” I interrupted. “This is going to be a busy time. The peace terms are to be signed within the next few days.”
“I wonder what kind of mess they’ve been making out there,” Gaisford mused.
“You’re convinced it will be a mess?”
“My dear George, when two human beings get together, they always make a big mess,” he answered with more than his usual misanthropy; “and I’ve known human beings who could make a fair-sized mess with their four unaided paws.”