The Education of Eric Lane Part 28

"Barbara!"

She was still shaken with sobs.

"Barbara, are you listening? You said you'd put your hand in the fire for me. Well, did you mean that?"

He snapped the question at her, and she was galvanized to drag herself upright on the sofa.

"Yes, I said that."

"You'll do anything I ask?"

"Yes." From the slow-drawn answer he knew that more was coming. "I've told you everything. I don't belong to myself. . . . There's one thing that--that I don't think you're going to ask me."

"Why not?"

"Because you know I trust you. I always have. I always shall. Oh, G.o.d forgive me for the way I've treated you! But it's your fault. Whatever I did, I should know that I could always trust you and that in time you'd understand!" A single sob escaped her, and she steadied herself like a man stopping short at the edge of a precipice. "You've quite made up your mind? . . . I must go now. Will you do something for me?"

"What is it?"

"Won't _you_ trust _me_? I don't want you to see me home, that's all.

It'll remind me of too much. Good-bye, Eric. I used to think I didn't believe in G.o.d, but somebody's got to reward you, and I can't. Kiss me--quickly, or I shall start crying again. Good-bye, Eric! Oh, oh--my G.o.d!"

She stumbled to the door and twisted blindly at the handle. It was open before he could help her. A grey wedge of fog thrust itself past her as she hurried out of the hall.

"You're not going home alone!" he cried.

Half-way down the first flight of stairs she turned with arms outstretched like a figure nailed to a cross.

"My darling; it's the last thing I shall ever ask you!"

4

Eric slept little that night. From eleven till two he walked up and down his smoking-room, occasionally throwing himself into a chair for very exhaustion, only to jump up restlessly and resume his aimless pacing.

The fingers of his right hand were yellow from the cigarettes that he was always lighting and throwing away; the rest of him became stiff and chilled as the fire died down. "_As if I'd murdered her._ . . ." The phrase, self-coined, repeated itself in his brain even when he was not thinking of the shaken, nerveless body which he had tried to revive.

His eyes turned again and again to the telephone. It would take Barbara ten minutes to walk home, perhaps twenty in the fog; (he was frightened by the thought of her being alone). By then she might have found something to suggest. . . . The telephone could not be more silent if she were in very truth dead. He sat down at his writing-table and addressed an envelope to her, but he had nothing to put inside it.

"_As if I'd murdered her._" It made it no easier that Barbara had begged him not to cast her off; wives sometimes begged men to run away with them. Until she drove the burning cigarette-end into her hand, crying out that she was fighting for her life, he had not understood her pa.s.sionate need of him; yet, when her need was most pa.s.sionate, there was something in her life to which she would subordinate him. . . . The proposal had been checked on his lips.

The telephone was poignantly silent. She would never ring him up again to tell him her plans for the day, never ramble again through shops and exhibitions, never again ring him up to bid him good-night. The Thursday dinner, the Friday luncheon, their notes at the week-end, the sweet pride of possession, her glorious companions.h.i.+p in his cloistered life were over. For no one else had he ever taken trouble; now he was thrown back on an insufficient self. To-morrow or the next day she might have a headache; never again would she give him a tired smile and say, "Won't you charm the pain away?"

"_As if I'd murdered her._" Eric crossed the hall to his bedroom. The front door was still open, and on the mat lay Barbara's scarf. He was glad of an excuse to postpone undressing and spent five minutes lovingly packing it in tissue paper for his secretary to carry round. It would be savagery not to write a note. . . .

"_Dearest, you left this behind. I hope you didn't take cold without it. It seems ironical for me to say I'll do anything I can for you.

But it's true. Eric._"

He rose after four hours' sleepless tossing and distracted himself by drawing cheques until the post was delivered. There were many letters, but none from Barbara. He read the _Times_, dictated to his secretary, handed her the parcel for Berkeley Square and climbed uneasily out of bed. Though he dawdled over his dressing, there was no telephone call to reward him; and, as the Crawleighs were spending Christmas in London, he would not meet her in the train.

Half-way to Winchester he grew drowsy and fancied himself in his dreams once more kneeling on the floor beside the sofa, with his arms round Barbara's shoulders. "_As if I'd murdered her._" His lips were moving, as he awoke, and he wondered whether the haunting refrain had escaped him.

His sister was waiting for him at Winchester, and he greeted her with a confused affection that struggled to compensate for the pain which he had brought to Barbara.

"We were afraid you might be too much in request to come down here,"

said Sybil. "Eric, I've been invited to go to a dance in London next week; I suppose you wouldn't like to chaperon me? Mother does so hate leaving the country even for one night."

"Will it be very late? I can't do any work next day, if I don't get a little sleep. As a matter of fact, haven't chaperons ceased to exist?"

"I don't know. I was invited by a man I met at the Warings. He's quite a nice creature, but I can't dine and go even to a charity ball and dance with him all night absolutely on my own. Mother wouldn't let me, even if I wanted to."

Eric shrank from the prospect of sleepless hours in an overheated room.

"It's surprising what things _are_ done nowadays," he said without committing himself.

"Surprising, yes. But we're rather behind the times in Lashmar. _You_ wouldn't like me to go alone, would you?"

"Certainly not!" If people began gossiping about Sybil and her nameless admirer as they gossiped about Barbara and himself, he would very soon drop the young man a plain hint. And he could never make Barbara see that she wanted him to behave as he would allow no one to behave to his own sister. . . . "I'll come if I'm not already booked up."

As he entered the Mill-House, Eric tried to lose himself in the atmosphere of a place where he had spent Christmas for a quarter of a century. His last night in London haunted him, and it was only by trying to console his mother for the absence of her two younger boys that he could avoid thinking of Barbara. There was a busy exchange of presents after dinner, and next day he accompanied his parents to church, as he had done for five and twenty years, finding peace and a welcome in the worm-eaten pew, the cobwebbed window, the top-heavy decorations and the familiar musty books. The state prayers were invoked therein on behalf of "Victoria, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, the Princess of Wales and all the Royal Family." And there was an old hymnal with a loose binding; for years Eric had slipped one of the Waverley Novels into its cover to read during the sermon. . . . To-day he listened no more to the sermon than in other years; he wondered what Barbara was doing. . . .

After the carols they lingered in the churchyard to greet their friends.

If only she would make up her mind that Jack was dead, there would be no need for this anguished parting; then, though he had never contemplated it until a week before, he could ask Barbara to marry him. As yet, though he wanted her, he had still to find whether he could be content without her; before marrying, she must subordinate obligation, memory and conscience to her need of him. . . . The Warings were waiting at the lych-gate, and he asked Agnes whether she had any news of Jack.

"I'll let you know when we have," she answered, shaking her head. "It's nearly six months now. . . . I'm just keeping my mind a blank."

They turned out of the churchyard and walked in silence towards Lashmar village. For ten years they had always hurried ahead of their parents for a moment together; and, before anything else, Agnes always thanked him for her present. This year Eric had given her nothing; it was unfair to pretend that there was no change of feeling. . . .

"I suppose you're as busy as ever?" she asked abruptly. "The new play seems to be a great success."

"I think it's doing quite well," he a.s.sented. "I wish I'd seen more of you that night, Agnes."

"There was such a crowd of people; we only put our heads into the box to congratulate you. Eric, I'd never seen your friend Lady Barbara at close quarters before; she's--bewitching."

Without daring to look at her face, Eric tried to discover from Agnes'

tone whether she had chosen or blundered on such a word.

"She varies," he said judicially. "That night--yes, she was looking her best then. Sometimes . . . she's not very strong, you know. . . ."

He broke off, thinking of their last night together. They walked as far as Lashmar Common without speaking, though he knew that his silence betrayed him.

At luncheon Sir Francis proposed the health of his absent sons, and the afternoon pa.s.sed in lazy talk round the library fire. The smell of the pine logs filled Eric with old memories; he slipped on to a foot-stool and sat with his head resting against his mother's knees, drowsy and a little wistful. He wished that he could go back to a time when life was less complicated and he could still confide in her.

"Tired, old boy?" asked Lady Lane, as she stroked his head.

"No. Only thinking. I can just remember our first Christmas here; there was a party and a Christmas tree, and I retired to the terrace and had a stand-up fight with some young friend, and our nurses came and separated us. A long time ago, mother! Before Sybil was born."

The girl roused at sound of her name.