Though Gaymer had sat without speaking the whole way from Euston, a feeling of tension, first experienced in advance by Amy Loring, gradually spread to Eric and Ivy. In spite of Barbara’s high spirits, uneasiness developed slowly into an antagonism which was made apparent to the sensitive hearing of O’Rane less by the words spoken than by the significant silences. The arrival at Croxton Hall created a temporary diversion. As Gaymer quickly disappeared into the smoking-room on learning that he would find whisky and soda there, Eric was spared all danger of conflict with him. Ivy went at once to her room and only reappeared under the protection of Amy Loring; Barbara was caught and retained at the bridge-table until the dressing-gong sounded. Despite the sombre forebodings of Deganway and Carstairs, Eric began to feel that the week-end might pass without mishap, though he wished fervently, as he bathed and dressed, that it was the last night of his visit instead of the first.
When they went in to dinner, he was so much preoccupied with looking to see who was on either side of Ivy that he did not notice at first that he had himself been placed next to Barbara. The discovery that she was within a foot of him steadied his nerves like the first bomb in an air-raid. For half of the meal he talked with composure to Lady Pentyre; then turned and tossed Barbara the shuttlecock of their conversation, leaving her to shew whether she was content with safe impersonalities or whether she was still bound to improvize a romantic drama out of their meeting.
“Lady Pentyre’s just been telling me that my bedroom’s supposed to be haunted,” he began. “She’s offered me another, without a bathroom, but I told her that all the ghost-proof rooms in the world aren’t compensation for the exclusive possession of a bath.”
“I suppose you’ve got my old room,” said Barbara reflectively. “I came here, the winter before the war, for the Croxton Ball... Lady Pentyre offered it to me again, but... I thought I’d leave it to some one who didn’t take quite so many ghosts with him wherever he went...” She shivered almost imperceptibly as she looked round the room, pretending an interest in ill-executed portraits of mediocre Pentyres, none of whom achieved higher rank than that of colonel, commander or dean. “It was here... I told you the story... the first time you ever dined with me... as soon as I knew that you were a friend of Jack’s. I had to get it off my conscience.”
“I don’t think I’ve been here since Bobbie’s coming-of-age,” Eric answered. “Several of us motored over from Oxford: Deganway, Sinclair, Raney, Summertown... That loving-cup on the side-table; I believe you’ll find all our names on it—a joint present from all the other members of the old Phoenix Club. There are none too many of them left now,” he added with a sigh. “It doesn’t do to let yourself see ghosts....”
Barbara was paying as little attention to the history of the loving-cup as he had paid to her reflections on the haunted room. It was evident now that she was preparing some kind of dramatic scene; and, though her talent was hampered by the presence of others, he would not give her a chance of playing a part that she might continue later in less publicity. Eric was not likely to forget the first time that he dined with her: with evenly balanced triumph and consternation she had described her long and still unended duel with his best friend. Jack Waring, it seemed, had snubbed her, and she took her revenge by making him fall in love with her; when he proposed, she refused him because he was not a Catholic; when he became a Catholic, she refused him again and then, in superstitious terror that she was imperilling a man’s soul, swore that she would marry him whenever he asked her again. Eric was unlikely to forget that dinner because it was almost the first skirmish in the long campaign by which Barbara set herself to make him too fall in love with her; and, when she had succeeded only too well, they discovered that her oath to Jack Waring still kept them apart.
“It doesn’t do...!” Barbara echoed. “You can’t always help it... I think of the last time I was here... and now! When I believed in God, I often used to think what fun He must be having with me!”
“I can’t think God spends much time making people unhappy,” said Eric. “They do it so well for themselves. He has only to create a little egotism....”
Barbara crumbled her bread in silence, waiting to assure herself that they were not being overheard.
“You still think it was egotism that kept me from marrying you, Eric? It wasn’t. Fear, if you like; superstition... I had promised Jack, I was ready to stand all my life barefoot in the snow, waiting for him to forgive me... I loved you, as I’ve never loved any one before or since; you know that. But you wouldn’t wait. It would have been a terribly easy way out... when I wanted to... The night after you said good-bye I telephoned to Jack, I asked him to come and see me... D’you remember abusing me because I was vain? I hadn’t much vanity then, Eric. As soon as Jack recognized my voice—it was the first time we’d spoken alone since his release from Germany, since the war, since that ghastly night when I swore on the Cross that, if he wanted me, I’d marry him—he hung up the receiver. And then I knew at last... It may interest you to hear that my famous pride was still flourishing so vigorously next morning that I drove round to your flat as soon as I was dressed. They told me you’d started for Liverpool. I didn’t know your ship, or I’d have come on board.”