Ever After (50 page)

For the first time since he had come in, Dinah smiled. He stood up carefully, and waited where he was while she came to him across the room, and then caught her close, for he could not have borne it another moment if she had not come.

“Bracken, your coat is
sopping
!
You’ll catch cold!”

“What? Oh—coat. Yes, I walked home. It is a bit damp, isn’t it. You stay right here—don’t move—I’ll change it.”

He was gone only a minute. When he returned shrugging into a coat from another suit which did not quite match his trousers, she was sitting in the corner of the divan again and the look she gave him was full of confidence and expectation. He sat down beside her, found the pin and took off her hat as though he had done the same thing a good many times before. With his arm around her shoulders she settled back against him with the utmost simplicity, saying, “How long will it have to be, Bracken? What does
decree
nisi
mean?”

“Means I daren’t move hand or foot for six months for fear of the Queen’s Proctor.”

“Who is he?”

“His job is to snoop round and see if he can catch me making love to somebody else before the divorce becomes final. If he can, he has the power to call the whole thing off. It’s all very complicated, but the whole idea is to discourage everyone from even attempting to get a divorce.”

Dinah counted on her fingers.

“But if you get the decree thingummy tomorrow it would last till Christmas!” she cried in dismay.

“And I shan’t get it tomorrow. Not for weeks yet. It’s probably just as well, because you’re much too young to decide like this.
Suppose in five years’ time when you’ve seen something of the world some fellow should turn up that you like better than me?”

“There isn’t any such fellow.”

“I sincerely hope there isn’t.” His arm tightened. “But it is a risk, you know.”

“I wasn’t going to marry at all, no matter what they said. But with you it will be all right,” she said contentedly, her cheek pressed against the rough tweed of his coat.

“I shouldn’t wonder if all girls feel sometimes that they’d rather not marry,” he said thoughtfully. “I certainly wouldn’t blame them if they did. But most of them seem to outgrow it without my help.”

“You’re quite wrong, Bracken, all the girls I know are dying to know what it’s like. I get very embarrassed sometimes, at the things they say. Only this afternoon Evelyn Norton-Leigh was talking about you and she said—” Dinah stopped suddenly on the brink of the abyss. But now, instead of blushing, she only wanted to laugh.

“About me. Do I know her?”

“Rosalind’s sister. She’s only fifteen.”

“Mm-hm. What did she say about me?”

Dinah shifted against his shoulder so that she could look up at him. She still wanted to laugh, now that she was here with him, so safe and so
usual,
and the events of the afternoon had already begun to seem like sheer nightmare from which he had wakened her with his voice and his reassuring presence.

“Evelyn said she thought it would be very exciting to be kissed by you,” she reported solemnly.

“Oh, Dinah, have mercy—” He bent his head. Her lips were cool and closed and very ready. “I think I had better take you home now,” he said, and then lingered to kiss her eyes and her hair. “Shall I come in and punch Edward’s nose for him?”

But Dinah sat still, leaning against him, full of new sensations she was unwilling to part with. Her eyelids were drowsy from his lips, and she smiled. He smelled of tobacco and shaving soap and fresh air. His arms were hard and comforting, and she had a strange, floating feeling of being carried by unlimited strength, with nothing to worry about ever again.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he whispered, awed by her
acceptance
of his love-making, her sublime lack of shyness or surprise.

“You
feel
so heavenly,” said Dinah, and she put an arm around his neck pulling herself closer to him, burying her face against his chest as naturally as a kitten makes itself comfortable in familiar hands. “I was just wishing I never had to move from here again,” she said.

He was silent, taking this in.

“Bracken.”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“I—oh, say that again!”

He said it again.

“I just want to see Edward’s face now, that’s all!” Dinah
continued
. “He’s never even thought of your wanting to marry
me
.”

“Yes, he has, and that’s what’s the matter with him! I told him I was going to, the night of the fancy-dress ball.”

“You
did
?” In her astonishment Dinah sat straight up to gaze at him. “I remember—I was on the stairs. He looked so funny, I knew you’d said something, but I never dreamed— Oh, Bracken, way back then, did you—?”

“I have been in love with you, nobody else, ever since
Thunderbolt
dumped you at that gate. Remarkable, isn’t it! When you were fifteen, it was even slightly improper. Don’t you think I’ve behaved very well, on the whole?”

“Edward will never believe that, now,” Dinah said.

“Do we care?”

Dinah came the nearest to a giggle he had ever seen her.

“Isn’t it odd, Edward doesn’t matter any more! When I came here I thought you’d be furious with him! I told him if he said any of those things to you I hoped you’d knock him down! But it doesn’t really matter, does it!”

“Well, I don’t say it wouldn’t be a pleasure. Dinah, darling—I’ve got to know this. Shall you mind coming to America to live—some day?”

“I’d live in a tent in a desert if you were there.”

After a moment’s silent struggle he said, “It isn’t quite as bad as that in New York. And now I must take you home, you know, this really won’t do. Put your hat on, and I’ll find mine.” He loosed his arms and rose reluctantly and stood watching while she pinned on her hat in front of the mantelpiece mirror.

She followed him into the little foyer and as he set his hand on the doorknob he felt a tug at his sleeve.

“Bracken. Please kiss me like that again before we go.”

Bracken obliged. And then, because his heart was choking him—

“What
would
Edward say?” he asked lightly, caught up his hat, and swept a bemused and radiant Dinah through the open door into the passage.

It was quite dusky in the street, and the rain had stopped. Bracken wanted to go home with her and tell Edward where to head in, but she insisted that she could slip upstairs without being seen, and
anyway
, she didn’t mind anything now. But when they reached the corner of the Square she hung back. A carriage had stopped in
front of the house and people in evening dress were getting out.

“Oh, bother!” said Dinah. “People coming to early dinner. It’s a theatre party tonight. Couldn’t I stay with you till about
eight-thirty
and then they’d all be gone and I could get in without meeting anybody.”

“Won’t you be missed?” he asked doubtfully.

“I left a note for Miss French. She won’t worry, so long as I’m with you.”

“You’ll get awfully hungry,” he suggested.

“I’m hungry now. I couldn’t eat any tea. Isn’t there some place we could dine, like a tea-shop, where we wouldn’t know anybody?”

“I suppose there are such places,” he said, running his mind over Soho, where friends of Clare’s would never be.

“Oh, please, Bracken, it would be such fun, and we may never have another chance like this!”

“We’ll have lots of chances,” he reminded her with amusement. “All the rest of our lives!”

“But not for
weeks,
Bracken, and it will be so long before I even see you again! After Miss French goes I shall probably have some gorgon that will even read my letters!”

“The woman tempted me,” he murmured resignedly, and hailed a passing hansom and gave the name of a little French restaurant where he hoped he would not see anybody he knew. “We really ought to collect Miss French and take her along,” he said with a last twinge of conscience as the cab turned the corner away from the Square.

“We can’t get at her,” Dinah said with some satisfaction. “I can’t get in and she can’t get out—not without being questioned. Not till after they’ve all gone to the theatre. Anyway, she’ll think we are having dinner there in your rooms, and that would be proper, wouldn’t it, with your man serving it?”

“It would have been simpler, at least. But I let him go as soon as I came in.” Bracken recalled suddenly that Partridge would be waiting at the club to dine with him, and decided that it was too late now, and gave himself up to the enjoyment of this unexpected windfall of Dinah’s company, as she said gravely:

“Is there any way to save Miss French?”

“From getting the sack? Not if Edward’s got the bit between his teeth!”

“It’s our fault,” said Dinah only.

“You’re very fond of her, aren’t you,” he observed, and Dinah nodded without speaking and he saw that her eyes were full. “Then we’ll save her,” he said. “
After
he fires her.”

“How?” She looked at him with a faint hopefulness. “She’ll have to get another job as soon as she can. She had a sister who was
ill for years and so Miss French wasn’t able to put any of her money in the bank. She had to use it all. And she isn’t—young, any more. I really don’t know what will happen to her if she has to go, it’s something I just—can’t bear to think about.”

“What do you think I’m here for?” said Bracken. “I’ll buy her for you.”

“Now, Bracken—!” She was half vexed that he should joke about it.

“It might look better if we called her a housekeeper after you’re married, though.”

“You mean I could have her
then
?”

“Why not?”

“Bracken, honestly, if I suddenly said Please give me the earth, would you say Why not?”

“Why not?” said Bracken, and took her hands. “Sweetheart, with me you are going to have the earth—as much of it as you can use. It’s not considered good form to talk about money—is it. But mine was honestly made. I’m not ashamed of it. And they say money can’t buy happiness. It’s usually the people who haven’t got it who say that. Sour grapes, Dinah. People can be happy without it, I don’t say they can’t. But with it, they can be happier.”

Dinah sat looking down at her own hands held fast in his. Quite deliberately she raised them, and his, and he felt her lips and her tears on his fingers.

“Nobody ever loved anybody the way I’m going to love you,” she said.

“Oh, God above, Dinah, it’s such a
little
thing! Wait till I really get started!”

“It’s not a little thing. It’s Miss French’s whole life. And to think I was almost afraid to mention it for fear—”

“For fear of what?” The words came almost sharply in his anxiety.

“The most I—thought of—was that you might be willing to give her a few pounds to—to sort of tide her over till she found something. And I was afraid—”

“Afraid of what?” he insisted.

“Well, it was because of something Mortimer Flood said once—about Clare.” She paused unhappily, and Bracken said:

“What was that?”

“He said—he meant to be funny, of course, when he said it—and he said, ‘Good God, the woman has begun to spend my money before there is anything in it for me!’ And Clare blushed, and Edward sort of snorted, and Father laughed, but I don’t think he liked it. Mr. Flood didn’t seem to realize that he’d said anything.”

Bracken was silent so long that she looked at him uncertainly.

“Have I made some kind of—mistake?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said slowly, and saw the bewilderment in her face. “You were afraid.”

“I don’t—know what you mean.”

“And you are still afraid,” he said, for her eyes were wide and dark, and her lips were not quite steady. “Of me,” he added without emphasis. “I’m trying to think how I deserved that.”

Swiftly under his grave regard she rallied, and began to smile. Her fingers curled closer inside his.

“You don’t deserve it,” she said, “and I apologize. I should have known I could ask you straight out. I should have said—Bracken, we must look after Miss French. Would that do?”

“Perfectly. Just kindly remember hereafter that you aren’t marrying anybody named Flood.”

She leaned back luxuriously in the cab, her shoulder against his.

“I never thought I’d look forward to marriage!” she sighed contentedly.

“And yet you find you do?” he queried, smiling.

“Now that I find it’s going to be you, I can’t wait!”

“Of course you realize your father and Edward are going to raise Cain,” he remarked.

“They can’t stop us, can they?”

“Until you’re of age, they can. Even then, the clergy will snub us because of the divorce. Shall you mind being married in a register office?”

“So long as it means I can live with you for ever after I don’t care
where
I’m married.”

“Thank you. Everyone is going to say that you’re too young, and make a perfect ogre of me. We’re going to be a scandal, Dinah, shall you mind that?”

“Bracken—would
you
rather not?”

“Not marry you? When it’s all I’ve thought of for years? I want you to know what you’re getting into, that’s all.”

“Do
you
want to know something, Bracken? Every girl in
London
, beginning with the Norton-Leighs, is going to wish she was in my shoes! Only this afternoon, Evelyn said that if you ever so much as looked at her she’d be wildly in love with you!”

“I’m glad you warned me,” he remarked. “I’ll be very careful where I look. What did
you
say?”

“I wanted to kill her then, but now I’m sorry for her—because she isn’t in a hansom cab on her way to have dinner with you. And I am. This is me, Dinah, driving down Shaftesbury Avenue with the man I’m going to marry! I’m all full of fireworks and rockets! Does it show?”

“Yes, it does. Most becoming.”

“And that’s another thing. Do you think I’ll look all right, when I’m fixed up a little? I’ll never have Clare’s looks, you know. I have to wear ruffles pinned across my front inside my bridesmaid’s dress because I haven’t got a figure. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you that.”

“I might have guessed.”