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-class 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 passionately to be with Jack galloping over the grass 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 XXXIX
A Christmas Surprise.
The few weeks to Christmas passed 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!”