The telephone-bell rang, and a woman’s voice enquired for him:
“It’s Lady John Carstairs speaking. I’m so sorry to hear about poor Miss Maitland. Amy Loring told me at dinner. How is she? I was wondering if there was anything I could do. You’ve got all the doctors and nurses you want, of course, but it must be such an upset for a bachelor establishment. My husband wanted to know if you’d care for a bed here; we can give you a little room where you’ll be able to work undisturbed....”
As he thanked her, Eric smiled wearily to himself at the speed and thoroughness of Gaisford’s workings. In twenty-four hours it would be known from one end of his little London to the other that “Connie Maitland’s niece, who was helping Eric Lane in the absence of his secretary,” had collapsed unexpectedly with appendicitis. He assisted the report on its way by cancelling two dinner invitations and an engagement for the week-end; growing bold in mendacity, he stereotyped the story, as he had told it to the judge, and despatched it with a late bulletin to his mother. By this time there was no harm in telling Lady Maitland that she might come any day, provided that she did not try to stay more than a moment.
The swift-flying rumour of London dinner-tables was sometimes an occasion for blessing. In three weeks’ time Ivy could be moved; the news of their engagement would flash from house to house; ‘romance,’ hard-worked and ill-used, would be pressed into service as thought-saving description until he might hope to be spared, even in the echo of a whisper, hearing the name of Barbara Neave or of John Gaymer. He was too tired to cope with the tumult which their names conjured up; he tried to forget them....
Yet even now Gaymer could not be left where he was.
“There is one thing which I must add to our conversation of this evening,” Eric wrote. “Ivy and I are definitely engaged to be married. I write this in confidence, as the engagement cannot be announced until I have been through the formality of seeing her father. This I hope to do immediately. You will probably agree that this is the most definite answer to the question which you were proposing to raise.”
He signed the letter and returned to the unexplored pile in front of him. The invitations stretched far into the summer, but for the future he must take Ivy into partnership in dealing with them; there were the customary appeals for money, opinions and advice, the usual requests for interviews, articles and lectures; a long envelope contained the draft of the will which he had instructed his solicitors to make for safeguarding Ivy in the event of his dying suddenly. The necessity had almost passed; but, as he read through the provisions, he filled in her name and rang for his two maids to come and witness his signature. From investments alone they would have rather more than a thousand a year, which was tolerable even in days of swollen prices; in addition he could reasonably hope that his plays would not all cease suddenly and at the same moment to yield him any fees. His income, taken on an average, was probably far bigger than Mr. Justice Maitland enjoyed from salary and securities.
Eric became absorbed in his calculations and worked at them until he was too tired to see any more. Ivy and he would have enough for a flat in London and a cottage in the country; they could winter abroad and travel to their hearts’ content; when children came, they could be given the best upbringing and education, as befitted the beautiful, dark-haired, grey-eyed children that Ivy would bear. Hitherto he had never thought of himself as a father; and he fell asleep with a new, delightful picture of Ivy holding their first child in her arms, herself but a child still....
Next day a budget of sympathetic enquiries awaited him, and he was kept busy with pen and telephone. There were presents of flowers and fruit, offers of personal assistance, general invitations and an embarrassing procession of callers. Eric debated with himself whether to issue orders that Captain Gaymer was not to be admitted; he decided that, if his letter were not enough of a deterrent, there would at least be no attempt at a forced entry for some days.
Though he kept reassuring himself, it was a shock to receive a letter in the evening and to trace the straggling, unfamiliar writing down to the signature “Yours sincerely John Gaymer.” Eric felt his heart beating more quickly as he turned to the opening words: