Such is love (12 page)

He was frightened of the jump and frightened of the flames, but she held up her arms to him and smiled.

As he jumped, her thin frock burst into flame.

With a gasp of horror, she flung the child clear and tore at the blazing dress. Someone seized her—Van, she knew, from the strength of the hands which tried to crush out the : flames—but the thin dress blazed like a torch.

A coat was flung round her, and then another. Scarcely knowing what she was doing, she struggled frantically.

"Don't, darling—^you're all right. I have you," she heard Van say. And then she fainted.

Afterwards they told her that the whole thing, from start to finish, took only two or three minutes, but it had seemed to her like hours. And the blank unconsciousness which succeeded it seemed to have continued for days, when at last she struggled to the surface again.

She was lying in a room she didn't know at all, but she knew the taU figure standing at the window, with his back to her.

"Van," she said rather weakly, and he turned at once and came over to her, his face so pale and strained that he looked much older than she had ever seen him look before.

She smiled—more faintly than she knew—and whispered:

"Fm all right. Where is Toby?"

Van put his hand very lightly on her hair.

"The baby's all right, too. You have nothing to worry about."

She thought how delightful it was to have Van speak of I Toby like that.

"Can I see him?"

"Not just now, dear. It's quite late at night. He's in bed."

She saw then that the light was on, and that Van had really been gazing out into the darkness. There were a lot of things she wanted to ask, but they were all too much trouble. So she just smiled at him again and closed her eyes instead.

When she opened them once more it was morning, and everything was much clearer and sharper in her mind. She guessed that the little white room where she was lying was part of the orphanage, and she supposed from the throbbing in her left arm and shoulder that this was where she had suffered most from burns yesterday.

Van was not there any longer, and she wondered unhappily if he had gone back to London. Business was so very much part of Van's life. Then she remembered that it was Sunday, and there would be nothing to take him away from her. Even as she thought that, the door opened and he came into the room.

"Hello, Van." She saw a profoundly relieved expression come over his face as she greeted him. *'I was afraid for a moment that you'd gone back to London."

"Gone back to London? You couldn't have thought that." He bent down and kissed first her cheek and then her lips.

"Well, I'd forgotten it was Sunday and that you didn't have to go to the office."

"You don't really think the office or anything else would have taken me away from you just now, do you?"

"N-no, I suppose not." She considered that and then asked curiously: "I'm not very iU, am I?"

He didn't answer directly.

"You had a very nasty shock," was what he said. "That was more serious than the burns."

"I think you had a bad shock too, Van." Sh*e put up her uninjured hand to touch his cheek.

"Yes," he said briefly, and she saw him press his lips together hard.

"You mustn't worry any more now," she told him and, pulling him down feebly, she kissed him.

He sat down on the side of the bed, then, and presently she said: "Put your arm round me, Van."

He did so at once, drawing her into the circle of his arm, so that she could lean against him.

"AH right like that?"

"Um-hm."

They were both silent, and then, after a minute or two, they both became aware of a certain amount of scrambling and panting outside the door of the room. The handle turned jerkily at last, the door opened slowly, and into the room came Toby.

On seeing Van he looked so taken aback that it was pretty obvious he was not really supposed to be paymg this unofficial call.

"Did you want me, darling?" Gwyneth asked gently, and he transferred his sole^nn gaze to her.

"Yes, I want you," he said^ but he didn't move.

It was Van who held out his hand.

"Come along, then."

Toby trotted across the room then and stood by the bed staring at her afresh.

"Van, he can't reach me there."

Van lifted the child on to the bed beside her.

"Careful, now."

But the warning was jiot really necessary. Toby was very careful not to touch her bandaged arm as he put his arms round her neck and hugged her.

Van looked down at them both with a very odd expression. He still had one arm round Gwyneth, so that, in a way, he was holding them both now.

"Are you all right, Toby?" She patted his cheek and looked at him with anxious, loving eyes.

"Yes, thank you, I'm all right," Toby said in his gruff little voice. "Are you all right?"

She nodded with a smile. And Toby looked up then at Van and repeated benevolently: "Are you all right, too?"

"Oh yes, thank you."

"Don't your hands hurt any more?"

"Van!" Gwyneth caught hold of one of his hands in a startled way. "Were your hands hurt?" -

"It was nothing. Only a little scorching. See, it's almost all right, even now."

"Oh, my dear, that was when you caught hold of me and tried to put the flames out?"

"Yes."

She turned over the hand she was holding and lightly kissed the palm. Toby watched with great interest.

"Why do you do that?" he wanted to know.

"To make it all right again," Van said.

"Because I love him," Gwyneth said at the same moment, and she felt Van's arm tighten almost convulsively.

Toby examined the hand in his turn.

"And did that make it all right again?"

"Perfectly, thank you," Van assured him gravely.

"I'm glad," Toby said kindly, and lying back on the bed he began to sing, with an air of elaborate unconcern.

When he sang, the deep pitch of his voice was even funnier than when he spoke, and both Gwyneth and Van smilfed irresistibly.

"That's a very nice song, Toby," Gwyneth observed when he had finished.

"Yes," Toby sat up again and with great eagerness. "It's my 'gician's song. There wasn't time to sing it yesterday," he added in a slightly aggrieved tone, and Gwyneth saw, to her relief, that the child had no very deep impression of his terrible experience. His chief rcgret was that he not been able to sing his carefully prejHred song.

"I'm so sorry about that," Gwyneth told him.

"Shall I sing it again now?" Toby offered, with thinly veiled determination, and Van said: "If you must," while she said: "Yes, please do."

So he sang it again, to his own complete satisfaction. ' Just at that moment there was a knock at the door and the matron looked in.

"Mrs. Onslie, have you seen Oh, there he is. Toby,

you must come along with me now. And you mustn't bother Mrs. Onslie like this, you-know. You must ask first if you may come.

"He doesn't bother me," Gwyneth said with a faint smile. "Can't he stay a little longer?"

But it was Van who said:

"I think the matron is right, Gwyneth." And reluctantly she realized that perhaps she was too tired to want to talk any more.

When Toby had gone she and Van were silent agam.

She glanced up at him, and again was struck by the stem pallor of his face and the slight lines round his eyes which made him look very much his age. Poor Van! He must have thought for those dreadful minutes yesterday that he had lost her. As she had said, he looked now like a man who had received a very bad shock.

He was not looking at her just then. He was gazing away out of the window, and the way his dark eyes narrowed and his nostrils distended slightly gave the impression that he was living over again a veiy unpleasant experience.

"Van dear " She pressed against him in that way he

loved, and his eyes came back to her face, unsmiling at first, even when they lighted on her. "You mustn't worry '^^^ny more. You have me here safe in your arms. Nothing else matters."

She was half startled at the effect that had. He bit his lips so hard that there was a thin line of scarlet where his teeth had clamped down on it. And he held her close and said in a queerly roughened voice: "I know, I know. You're quite right. Nothing else really matters. Nothing, nothing, nothing!"

^. During the next few days Gwyneth began to regain her strength again. The doctor repeated what Van had said— that the shock had been more serious than the bums, and she was kept very quiet. For a great part of the time Van was with her, and there wfere fairly frequent visits from Toby, which made her very happy.

After the first two days Van went up to town for a few hours each day, but he would not leave her altogether, and every evening he came back again to her—though, as Mrs. Kellaby said with a smile: "Not many husbands would come all the way down to Hampshire each evening, just to say good night."

It was Mrs. Kellaby who gave Gwyneth some details of what had happened on the day of the disastrous entertainment.

"We can only think that someone must have been careless with cigarette ash when they were strolling about beforehand," she said. "A lot of people did go to examine the stage and the decorations, you know."

"Yes, I remember. We did ourselves."

"No doubt. It must have been that a spark dropped on some of the muslin which was trailing on the grass. It would smoulder slowly most likely because, if you remember, there had been some rain.overnight and the grass was damp. Then, of course, as soon as the fire reached the dry part of the muslin, the whole thing blazed up."

"Yes." Gwyneth shivered. "It all seemed to happen so terribly quickly."

what was the matter. I can't tell you how much we are indebted to you ourselves, Mrs. Onslie, apart from any other consideration."

"It did happen quickly. You realised, before anyone else,

"Oh, that's all right," Gwyneth smiled faintly. It was rather funny, being thanked for having saved her own little boy.

"You are quite a heroine among the younger children, I can assure you. And as for Toby, of course—he really talks of very Httle else."

"He's such a dear little boy," Gwyneth said softly. "I— I could quite wish he belonged to me. I suppose it wouldn't be possible for—for me to have him home for a while— a sort of holiday for him?"

"It's odd you should ask that." Mrs. Kellaby looked thoughtful. "Your husband had the same idea."

''Did he?"

"Yes. I suppose it was because he saw how taken you were with Toby, and he thought, while you were ill, it might be nice to think of something you would like very much. He spoke to my husband about it."

Oh, dear, dear Van! How good and unselfish he was, for all his autocratic ways. He wanted her to have something that would give her great pleasure, because he was so sorry and worried that she was ill.

"What—did Dr. Kellaby think about it? In her eagerness Gwyneth could not quite keep her voice from trembling.

"Well, of coure, you know, it would be quite outside any of our rules. To be quite candid, we don't think it's at all a good idea to let the children see much of ordinary private home life. It is calculated to make them fret rather when they have to come back to institutional life."

"Yes, I—do see—that." She thought of Toby, fretting

because he had been in the home which should be his and then had to come back here. It made her throat ^che.

"Of course," Mrs. Kellaby went on reflectively, "there have been cases of adoption from Greystones "

"Yes?"

"Naturally you wouldn't want to do anything in a hurry, but perhaps it is in your mind that the visit might develop into something permanent?"

"Mrs. Kellaby"—Gwyneth sat up eagerly—"I'll be quite frank with you. That is the idea at the back of my mind. But of course, my husband hasn't got as far as that yet. He—^well, he's less impulsive than I am, and I suppose a man doesn't get so carried away by an idea. Only I did hope that if Toby were with us in our own home, it wouldn't take Van long to get so fond of him that he wouldn't want the child to go back either. That's—^that's why it's so important that we should be allowed to have him for a visit."

"I see. I thought perhaps there was something like that behind it."

Gwyneth gazed at the Superintendent's wife with painful eagerness.

"Do you think Dr. Kellaby would consider it? I mean, if my husband does really entertain the idea."

"He probably would in those circumstances."

"But of course, it wouldn't do to suggest ultimate adoption just yet."

"No, I see that. Shall I speak to him about it?"

"Oh, I wish you would." Gwyneth clasped Mrs. Kella-by's hand with nervous gratitude. "So that when—// Van does ask him some more about it, he will be in a favourable mood."

Mrs. Kellaby smiled rather at this idea of practising strategy on her husband. Then her expression changed again and she looked at Gwyneth with kindly seriousness.

"There is one other thing, you know, my dear. You're very young and very near the beginning of your marriage to think of adopting a child. An adopted child can be quite a serious problem if you have children of your own later."

"I should love Toby just as though—just as though he were my own," Gwyneth protested quickly.

"No, it isn't quite the same thing. Much better realize

that from the beginning. And your husband certainly wouldn't feel it was the same thing."

Gwyneth was silent. She didn't want to hear the reasons against Toby's coming to her. She wanted reassuring, if anything. She wanted to be told that it was a wonderful, safe, splendid idea.

Perhaps her wistful expression touched Mrs. Kellaby. At any rate, she patted Gwyneth's hand and said:

"Don't think I am trying to dissuade you, but anything as serious as the possibility of adopting a child must be looked at from every angle. Anyway, talk it over with your husband and see how he feels about it."

"I will," Gwyneth said, and she managed to smile quite calmly in reply.

When Van came in that evening it was already getting late. He had been delayed in town and had had dinner on the way down, when he found he could not arrive at a reasonable hour.