by Jane Arbor
She stood up. “I’ll do nothing without telling you,” she promised. “But you will have to leave the decision to me. After all, in the event of any scandal or—or even criminal proceedings against you, you wouldn’t be alone. I should always be here.”
It was as if for the first time that Mrs. Tempest realized that the girl was with her rather than against her. “You are good, Lysbet,” she said brokenly. “And more loyal than I deserve.”
“Well, I love you, you see, Aunt Alicia,” said Lysbet simply. “It—it makes for loyalty.”
Mrs. Tempest looked at her gratefully. Then, as if she were trying to make a gesture towards courage, she said slowly: “I think I shouldn’t mind too much if you wanted to tell Richard about all this—to ask his advice, I mean—”
“Richard!” Lysbet’s every fibre was on the defensive at the sound of his name. “Richard?—no!”
“But when you first knew of it you wanted to tell him! And I wouldn’t let you!”
“But Richard and I!” Lysbet stopped, her lip trembling.
“I know, child. Something has happened between you. You haven’t been wearing his ring. I haven’t asked you about it, but I’ve tortured myself with wondering, reproaching myself, telling myself that it was a dreadful thing which you had to do for me before you could give Eliot his promise—”
“My break with Richard had nothing to do with you. Nothing at all. You must remember that,” put in the girl gently. “But I can’t go to him for help now. You must realize that too.”
There was that in her face which told the older woman there was no further argument, and a minute or two later Lysbet left her. That, the girl was thinking, would be the supreme betrayal of Richard—to have parted from him in pride and distrust, only to call him back in fear of a danger which she had brought upon herself when she gave that promise to Eliot Bradd. It was something which she could not do.
Nevertheless, for some days after Eliot’s announcement of their engagement she hoped against hope that Richard himself might act. But day followed day and he made no sign that he had seen the notices or, having seen them, had been affected by them in the slightest. Gradually hope faded. With more and more regret she looked back upon that last time of seeing him—that stupid quarrel dictated by pride which they had allowed to part them! If only she hadn’t accused him! If only he hadn’t refused to explain! And if only they had been granted a little longer to come to their senses before Eliot had taken matters into his own hands by sending that announcement to the papers.
Even jealousy and bitterness against Caroline seemed to be lessened by the greater tragedy of her bondage to Eliot. She began to feel sure that she had been wrong to accuse Richard of having had a long-standing “affair” with Caroline; she remembered how, on the night of her party when Richard had asked her to marry him, she had looked at Caroline with new eyes, believing that she need never be jealous of her again. Why, why hadn’t she gone on believing it? Then she would know that the scene in the surgery must have some innocent explanation: she would have been infinitely patient in hearing Richard’s side of the story; they would never have quarrelled and she would have had his protection against Eliot now.
But it was already too late. By allowing her engagement to Eliot to stand, for Aunt Alicia’s sake she had put herself beyond the pale of Richard’s forgiveness for that lesser wrong which she had done him.
She began to shrink from meeting people. She felt that her acquaintances were looking askance at her in her presence and gossiping about her sudden new engagement behind her back. And all the time she was seeking a way out—wondering where she could turn, whom she could consult in the absolute secrecy upon which her Aunt Alicia insisted.
She thought often about little Ian and how she had promised him that he should ride Jeremy the pony again. Knowing too well what ‘hope deferred’ could mean to a child as to a grown-up she was sorry she had not asked him out to Falcons a second time. But she could not quite bring herself to the point of phoning Caroline and of inviting him completely naturally.
It was Ian himself who brought that particular matter to a head.
Lysbet had gone down into Fallsbridge one morning early enough, so she hoped, to avoid the numbers of her own and her aunt’s friends who would later throng the main streets and foregather at the Club or in the cafe of the moment. It was as she came out from one shop that Caroline and Ian emerged from the shop next door.
“Auntie Lysbet! Auntie Lysbet!” chanted Ian as he broke away from his mother and galloped towards her.
Lysbet looked down at his eager, welcoming face with real pleasure. It did her sore heart good to know that here was someone whose regard for her was unquestioning and uncritical.
“Hullo, Ian,” she said. “When are you coming to ride Jeremy again?”
The invitation was issued without regard to Caroline who came up at that moment and Ian answered it before the two girls could speak to each other.
“Soon. You said soon. When can I?” he demanded.
Lysbet looked at Caroline, both of them knowing that something guarded lay between them. “I don’t know. When Mother says you may, I expect,” she said.
Ian brushed the suggestion aside with contempt. “No. When you say I can, ’cos Jeremy’s your pony an’ you know when he wants to be ridden. When does he? Today?”
“Well—” began Lysbet at the same time as Caroline chided: “Now, Ian, you’re not to invite yourself like that!” They were both thankful for Ian’s presence, as they found it easier to address each other through the child.
Lysbet looked up at Caroline and asked: “What about today? This afternoon? May he?”
Caroline calculated quickly. Only a very short while ago she had been flattered by Lysbet having taken notice of Ian, of having invited him out to Falcons. For one thing, she had hoped that a friendship begun with the child might have developed into a very useful one between herself and Mrs. Tempest’s young heiress But it wasn’t quite what it was in the matter of popularity and of being the centre of the younger society in the place...
People, Caroline told herself virtuously, didn’t like the sort of thing Lysbet had done—throwing Richard over as she had, and getting engaged post-haste to Eliot Bradd, just because she wanted to marry into more money than Richard Guyse was ever likely to earn! Everybody was talking about it. And if there was one thing which moved Caroline more than another it was a firm determination to keep on the right side of ‘everybody’. Besides, she herself had lately, in the vulgar but expressive phrase, found other, more exciting fish to fry, and she did not want the process spoilt by an association with someone of whom ‘everybody’ was currently disapproving.
So she answered Lysbet by saying shortly: “Oh, today? No, I’m afraid he can’t today. Another time, perhaps?”
“I can! I can!” bawled Ian, his sturdy shoes beating a furious fandango on the pavement. “Mother, I can! You’ve got to say I can!”
Caroline jerked at his arm, her temper flaring. “You can’t. I won’t have you making such a scene, Ian. You know you can’t. We’re going over to Major Silver’s. He’s got horses and dogs and everything you can possibly want—”
“I don’t want them. They’re big old horses that I can’t ride, an’ the dogs bark at me. I want Auntie Lysbet’s Jeremy—” wailed Ian, while Lysbet asked Caroline in surprise: “Major Silver? Oh, you mean Long John! I didn’t know you knew him.”
“We met at a tennis party at your house,” Caroline reminded her. “I think he is quite charming and he is very fond of Ian. We have been over to see him a lot lately. He is always asking me to dine with him, but of course I’m hardly ever free of that wretched surgery!”
She did not add that, since meeting Major Silver again at a bridge party, all the lamps of her own charm had been turned upon that unwary bachelor.
Lysbet looked down at Ian and shook her head. “Then it’ll have to be another day, old chap. Jeremy will wait, you know!”
“No—to
day! Today! I don’t want to go to Major Silver’s. There’s nothing to do, an’ you only talk. I won’t go. I’ll go to Auntie Lysbet’s instead.” Ian’s bottom lip drooped ominously and Caroline, helpless before the cataract of tears he could produce upon such occasions, began a rather hopeless pleading.
“Now Ian—do be a good boy! To please your Mother—won’t you?”
But Ian was already working up to a good crescendo of sobs and it was Lysbet who crisply intervened.
“Look here, old chap,” she urged. “We shall have to try to fix up another day. What about coming to Jarolds’ with me—we’ll have an ice and talk it over?”
Ian put a hand gropingly into hers and Caroline looked grateful when Lysbet glanced at her for permission.
“Thanks awfully,” she purred. “I’m having my hair done at Grace’s and I’m late for my appointment now. You will be good won’t you, Ian?”
Over ices Ian cheered up rapidly and seemed quite disposed to look forward to an appointment with Jeremy a few days later. As he launched himself upon a second coffee-creme Lysbet decided that the time was ripe for a little homily.
She said gently: “You see, you had promised Major Silver and that means you must go. Because you must never break a promise of that sort, unless you are ill or can’t possibly keep it. You mustn’t break it just to do something else which you would rather do.”
“But I didn’t promise,” objected Ian.
“Well, Mother promised for you. It comes to the same thing. Even grown -ups sometimes have to keep promises which other people have made for them, or as good as made for them.”
“Even if they don’t want to?”
“Even if it’s the very last thing in the world that they do want,” declared Lysbet.
“Why?” It was his most disconcerting monosyllable. “Well, I can think of lots of reasons. One reason could be that you love the person who made the promise for you too much to want to hurt them or to let them down. Mother made the promise for you, so you mustn’t let her down by saying you won’t go. That’s called being ‘loyal’ and it’s quite a good thing to try to be, if you can.”
“Loyal—loyal—rhymes with royal,” chanted Ian.
“So it does,” agreed Lysbet. “Let’s see if we can find another rhyme for them both.” The companionship of the child had briefly taken her thoughts from her own troubles and she found herself anxious to keep him with her for a little while longer.
It was as they were leaving the restaurant that Barry Cooke entered it.
Lysbet flushed. Barry, with whom she had done the stunt diving which had introduced her to Richard, was one of the last people she wanted to see. She liked him, but he liked Richard, too, and he had been genuinely glad when she and Richard had become engaged. That made him one of the people who would be judging her now...
He came across to them to smile at Lysbet and to spread a huge, enveloping hand upon Ian’s head.
“Hello,” he said cordially. “I saw you come in, but I had some things I had to do first.”
“We’re just going. I’ve got to deliver Ian at the hairdressers’,” Lysbet told him.
“Well, what about coming over to the Club after that?”
“No—no I can’t,” replied Lysbet hurriedly. She shrank from the thought of the Club. “Then I’m going home,” she added.
“May I come along with you to the car, then?” persisted Barry. And when Ian had been left with Caroline he said as Lysbet prepared to turn her car, “Will you take me up to, say, the top of Enshaw and I’ll walk back? I—rather want to talk to you, Lysbet.”
At first he left her to the preoccupation of the difficult ascent out of the town, but as they neared the summit of Enshaw Hill he said quietly: “Are you in a terrible hurry? Or will you pull the car on to the edge of the common and let me say my piece?”
Without answering Lysbet did as he asked and then sat staring in front of her, her hands idle in her lap, until Barry offered cigarettes.
His eyes challenged hers as he gave her a light and he said quietly: “Can’t you tell me, Lysbet?”
Lysbet said nothing and again he prompted gently: “Something is very wrong, isn’t it?”
To that she said irrelevantly in a voice that was harsh with her effort to control it: “What—what are they saying, Barry?”
He shrugged. “A lot that doesn’t concern them. Does it matter?”
“Yes. Tell me.”
“Well, everybody is judging you pretty harshly for the way in which you allowed the new announcement to be made. Caroline Ware is busily putting about the story that even Guyse himself didn’t know that you were going to link up with Eliot Bradd within what must have been only days after your break-up with him. That may or may not be true. But I imagine that everybody else is feeling cheated out of their bit of gossip over your break with Guyse and about Eliot taking his place. People—” he smiled crookedly at her in an effort to share whatever humor there might be in the situation, “people always do hate being cheated of that sort of thing, you know!”
“Are they—are they suggesting why I did it?”
“Of course.” Barry’s lips were set rather grimly. “They have nothing to go upon, but they’re still suggesting it.”
“Suggesting what?”
“Briefly that Eliot—South African diamond magnate—is a better proposition than Guyse.”
Lysbet winced involuntarily and Barry looked at her in sudden sympathy. “Sorry, old girl, but you did ask me!”
“Yes. I know. Do you believe it yourself, Barry?”
“If you won’t tell me any differently I could say Yes,” answered Barry slowly, looking at the tip of his cigarette. “But it wouldn’t be true. I’ve been pretty fond of you myself for a long time now and I just know it wouldn’t be ‘in character’ for you for you to do a thing like that. But I haven’t been able to defend you without collecting—‘Oh it’s, only Barry—He thinks Lysbet is perfect’!”
The girl turned grateful eyes upon him. “You’re good, Barry,” she said. “And that isn’t the reason I give you my word.” She braced herself for a supreme effort. “Does—does Richard believe it?”
Barry shook his head. “I don’t know that. How should I? He doesn’t confide in me. Sorry, Lysbet, but I just don’t know.”
“No. Of course I oughtn’t to have asked you.”
He challenged that. “Yes, you ought Because it told me the only thing I have learnt this morning—that I was right about you and that whatever your reason for doing this, it isn’t because you are mercenary or even because you’ve stopped loving Richard. But why, in Heaven’s name!”
Lysbet pulled on her gloves and stared fixedly in front in order to keep back the tears which pricked mercilessly at her eyeballs. “I can’t explain, Barry. You must accept that. But you are right—I’m not doing it for myself—”
“But no one could ask of you the sort of sacrifice that involves the misery you are obviously in!” he protested. “Lysbet, do think what you are doing before it’s too late! You can’t expect to stay on a kind of peak of high-mindedness, and you’ll be ruining your whole life!” He made a gesture of hopelessness. “I can’t hope to persuade you because I don’t even know what I’m arguing about. But if you love Richard Guyse and you are thinking of marrying another man, I do know that you’ll be heading straight for disaster!”
Without daring to speak again Lysbet switched on the engine, edged the car gently over the grass towards the road. Upon the verge she stopped, and Barry got out. She looked up at him as he stood beside the door watching her.
“Thank you, Barry,” she said simply. “Thank you—from the bottom of my heart. I won’t do anything unless I must. But whether I ‘must’ or not—I’m afraid you’ll have to leave that to me!”
After dinner that night Lysbet left Mrs. Tempest and Eliot in the library together and wandered listlessly into the big drawing room of Falcons which ran the whole length of the south side of the house.
; She went over to the grand piano in the window and passed her hand lovingly. Over the shining surface of the rosewood before she opened the lid and sat down at the keyboard.
She was no brilliant pianist but she had a delicate touch and played simple things lovingly for her own pleasure. Before Eliot came Aunt Alicia had liked her to play in the evenings, and she would let her fingers and her fancy wander from Chopin and Mendelssohn to the Scottish Students’ Song Book and the scores of the musical comedies of the nineteen-thirties which were her aunt’s favorites. But Eliot’s tastes were very different and very soon after he came to Falcons Lysbet’s informal ‘recitals’ had stopped.
But her fingers sought the old familiar melodies now and she became so engrossed that she did not hear Eliot come into the room and close the door behind him. He stood with his back to it, waiting for her to sense that she was no longer alone.
She turned about at last and at sight of him was instantly on the defensive. She stood up, her full-skirted black frock swirling with the sudden movement as she faced him, her hands holding on to the keyboard behind her.
“Why did you run away after dinner like that? You’ll be cold in here,” said Eliot.
“I’m not cold.”
“No? Well, you still left without saying where you were going or what you were going to do.”
“Do I have to?”
“In your own house, possibly not. But when this place is mine I shall expect the courtesy of your mentioning where you are going when you leave as abruptly as you did this evening.”
She stared at him. “‘When this place is yours?” she echoed. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking. I’ve decided that I shall ask you to make over the deeds of Falcons to me as part of the marriage-settlement that will have to be drawn up—”
“But—but you don’t want Falcons! You can’t want it! When—if—we marry, you’ll go back to South Africa!”
Eliot laughed and shook his head. “Oh no! About that—how wrong you are, Lysbet dear!”
