Such is love (16 page)

"I want to know just what he said.*'

"But that can't do any good—I mean, it's rather embarrassing, Gwyn—for me as well as you."

"I want to know what Terry said," Gwyneth repeated inexorably. "I must know."

"Well, he explained about your meeting each other in the wood that time, in the beginning, and how you used to come after that and watch him sketching. He said you were rather a lonely girl, Gwyn, and—and very young for your age. He seems to have looked on you as a dear child more than anything else."

"Does he? Did he say so?"

"Yes. Yes, he did. He said you were awfully pretty and sweet, and he did get awfully fond of you. You mustn't think he feels it was all on your side. He does blame himself very much."

"For what?"

"For letting you get so fond of him without his realizing just where things were drifting."

"He used those words, too?" Her contempt and anger made the blood sing in her ears, and she knew she was flushing and paling by turns.

"Gvi^neth, please don't distress yourself about it now. I know your pride must have had an awful jar at the time, but, really, lots of girls of seventeen are just as silly over men—write them letters and tell them they're in love with them, and that sort of thing—" Paula broke off, looking really unhappy, but Gwyneth said:

"Please go on."

"Oh well, then, if you insist. He told me how you— made some sort of declaration of love, and he found you were expecting you would marry him—considered you were more or less engaged to each other. I know you find it difficult to believe anything but the worst of him—or perhaps you understand better now you're older—but he

was genuinely horrified, Gwyneth. He had no idea you were taking things so seriously. I suppose he forgot how girls of that age take everything seriously."

"Did he say that, too?" Gwyneth asked wearily.

"No. Oh no. That was just an observation of my own. You see, I do want you to know that I understand your side, too. I know myself what romantic and idiotic ideas I had only a year or two ago. I daresay I should have made just the same sort of ass of myself in the circumstances," she added generously. "Everything seems so big and important then and—"

"Seduction is not a small thing, at any age or by any standards," Gwyneth said with cold brutality.

"Gwyneth!" Paula's eyes went wide with horrified reproach. "How can you say such a wicked thing?"

Gwyneth gave a short, bitter laugh.

"Oh, he forgot that part, did he? He only told you the pretty little bits about meeting in the wood and wandering by the river—the parts you would recognize as the same sort of foolery that you had practised. He didn't speak about "

"Gwyneth! Will you stop it!" Paula caught hold of her. "You're just getting hysterical with anger and jealousy. He said you would, but I didn't beheve it. He said you'd make up almost any tale to poison me against him, but I didn't think you were so crazy."

Gwyneth was perfectly still now, contemplating with growing horror the completeness and simplicity of Terry's Strategy. Paula scarcely noticed the quality of her silence. She ran on eagerly:

"Listen—I know he made you fond of him, and I know you don't want to forgive him and would like to spoil things for him, even now. But it isn't any good. Please, please—for your own dignity and pride—don't try to tell me these fantastic stories. You'll be so sorry afterwards. Don't you remember—it was really because you wouldn't control your jealous anger that everything took on such proportions before. For your own sake "

"For the sake of my dignity and pride," repeated Gwyneth slowly. "Oh God, how funny!" And with a wretched little laugh she hid her face in her hands.

Paula sat there silent, gazing at her in dismay. At last she said unhappily: i

"Gwyneth, I wish you wouldn't. You make me miserable ' and afraid."

"Afraid of what?" Gwyneth looked up quickly, with a faint hope that even now she might make Paula believe what she said. But the hope was short-lived.

"You make me afraid that you haven't really got over i Terry. That you only married Van as a second best, and J that now Terry has turned up again " i

"You needn't be afraid of anything like that," Gwyneth i said quietly. "I am not a woman to hate easily, but I hate ' and despise Terry from the bottom of my heart. I know him for what he is—a heartless, mean, insolent scoundrel, | and it is because of that that I have tried to save you. I j don't know what he has said to you to make you feel that | every word he utters must be true, while everything I say | must be jealous invention. But he is lying, lying, lying all the time."

"I'm sorry, Gwyneth, but I simply don't believe you. Perhaps you half believe what you're saying yourself—^I don't know. It's easy enough to imagine things when one is full of a sense of furious grievance. But you see, I know Terry and—^yes, I love him. So, of course, I trust him, too."

Gwyneth looked back at Paula with a sort of cold despair.

"I suppose I should have spoken just like that if someone had tried to stop me," she said, half to herself. "What can I say to you, Paula? What can I say?"

Paula looked intensely uncomfortable.

"I wish you wouldn't say anything, Gvi^n. It will only drive a wedge between us and spoil our friendship—and I should simply hate that. I don't know how you feel, but V don't in the least want to give up our friendship."

Gwyneth pushed back her hair wearily.

"I don't want to give it up, either," she said earnestly. She clung desperately to the one idea that she must not break off connection with Paula, or, indeed, the girl was lost. "Only—I suppose you hardly expect me to receive him here now?"

Paula didn't answer. She looked down at the hands that

were tightly clasped in her lap. And at the look of perplexity on her face, Gwyneth thought:

"But is even that rather wrong and stupid of me? If 1 don't Teceive him here, the child will see him in secret, then perhaps I shall be merely driving her further into his clutches." ~ Suddenly she decided to make one more effort.

"Paula, when I offered to help you—said I would try to make things easier so that you could introduce Terry to your mother—did I really strike you as the kind of woman who would make up lies about an—old flame, simply because I saw he liked another girl now? It surely isn't logical. It isn't even common sense."

Paula flushed again with genuine embarrassment, but Gwyneth saw she had not shakea her.

"Love and—and jealousy haven't anything to do with logic or common sense," she pointed out with dogged

determination. "Besides, Terry said Oh, I don't know

what good it is repeating these things! It only makes you judge poor Terry more and more hardly."

"I'd like to know, all the same, what poor Terry said about me."

Paula hesitated again, then, with a shrug, she gave in.

"He said that you are a very passionate girl, Gwyn, under all your surface coolness, and I can quite imagine that's true. He said you're very proud, too, and that you were terribly wounded in both your most sensitive feelings. And—and a proud and passionate woman never feels that things have been put right again until she's had some sort of revenge. It's true, you know. I can see what he means. And—and I don't blame you at all, Gwyneth. One can't help one's nature. He said that, too."

Gwyneth sprang to her feet.

"I give it up," she exclaimed bitterly. "I give it up. He has thought of everything and prepared every inch of the ground. There isn't anything else I can say. I only add picturesque touches to what he has told you to expect."

She walked restlessly across the room and back again, as though it were impossible to stay still any longer. As she did so Paula watched her—not in perplexity, but with a certain hopefulness. Gwyneth supposed grimly that Paula imagined she was making a great effort to overcome her k 115

personal feelings, and that her last outburst was merely a way of saving her pride.

Presumably she thought,Gwyneth's generosity had conquered, because she said, rather timidly:

"Gwyneth, do you think—a little later—when you don't feel so badly—^Terry might come? If you won't let him, I don't know what "

"I don't know No, of course not. It's impossible."

Gwyneth spoke almost harshly. Then, seeing the expression that came over Paula's face, she made as though to speak again. At that moment, she heard the front door open and the chattering voice of Toby sounded in the hall.

How soon the child's walk was over! Or perhaps their conversation had taken longer than she had supposed.

And what had she accomplished?

Nothing. She might as well have addressed herself to the wind.

For a brief, hysterical moment she wondered what effect it would have had if she had taken Toby by the hand and led him up to Paula with the words: "This is Terry's son. Terry's and mine."

But it was impossible!

As the door opened and Toby came expectantly into the 5 room, she told herself fiercely: "There is nothing else that I can do." To Paula, she simply said in an undertone: "Don't say anything in front of the child. I'll speak about ■ it later."

Toby ran to her, full of information about what he had seen on his walk. Pulling herself together, she introduced him to Paula, who also made an attempt to resume some appearance of calm.

"You're my Auntie Paula, aren't you?" Toby smiled at her in a friendly manner, quite unaware that he had interrupted a dramatic scene.

"Weil, yes, I suppose I am, more or less." Paula grinned at him. Not quite the self-possessed and flashing smile she usually gave, but it seemed to satisfy Toby. And she spoke much more naturally as she added teasingly—"Where does that deep voice come from?"

"Here." Toby pressed his hand to his jersey.

"Well, I never heard such a deep voice."

"It's because I'm a man," Toby explained, with kindly indulgence for her ignorance, and Paula laughed.

Over tea, the presence of the little boy helped to ease the tension. He was very willing to be friendly to Paula, and he looked at her over the rim of his cup with a great deal of interest.

"Does Van usually come in to tea?" Paula asked.

Gwyneth shook her head.

"Not very often, but he may manage it today. I told him you were coming, and he said he would try not to be late."

"Van's very busy," observed Toby suddenly. "But he'll ' be in before I go to bed."

"Do you let him say that, Gwyn?"

Gwyneth looked rather nonplussed. Until now they had not really gone very carefully into the question of what Toby should call them. It was all very closely connected with whether or not Toby was to go back at the end of this holiday of his. In her heart she had hoped that if he came to live there permanently he would grow to look upon them as his parents. And, for the moment, he had not been told any definite way to address them.

"We haven't really settled anything yet."

"I suppose you're really waiting to see if the arrangement is going to be temporary or permanent?"

"Yes. One can't decide these things in a hurry," said Gwyneth, who could have decided that very moment, so far as she herself was concerned.

"No, no. The idea of a permanency."

"We haven't talked about it much yet, but I am hoping he will want it."

"You would like it very much yourself, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, very much."

"What?" asked Toby interestedly. "Will I like it, too?"

"I expect so." Gwyneth patted his head.

"Is it a secret?"

But Gwyneth said: "No, no," for she knew Toby's partiality for secrets, and she didn't want him to get the idea that there was something mysterious about his everyday life.

"There is Van," Paula said at that moment. "I heard his key in the door."

To her surprise, Gwyneth realized at once that Van was

not alone. He was speaking to someone as he came into the hall. It was unlike him to bring anyone home unexpectedly, especially when he knew Paula was coming, but

And then she recognized the answering voice. She had heard it too recently to be mistaken, and in any case, it was stamped on her memory. There could not be any doubt about it—— For some horrible, inexplicable reason Van had brought Terry Muirkirk home with him.

Paula, too, had recognized the voice, but from her startled expression and the way she lost some of her colour, Gwyneth could see that this had not been any arrangement of hers.

The two men came into the room, Terry perfectly at ease. Van unaware that he was creating any sort of contretemps.

Gwyneth could not imagine how she faced the ensuing introductions, and somehow gave a fairly convincing impression of meeting Terry for the first time. His composure was really remarkable. His greeting implied just the right J amount of courteous interest in meeting a connection of Paula's, and moreover, a connection whom he understood '^ to be thoroughly sympathetic.

"Muirkirk happened to ring me up at the office this-afternoon," Van was explaining. "As I knew Paula was i coming, it seemed a very good opportunity for him to ^ come along, too, and for us all to make each other's acquaintance."

Gwyneth could see that he believed, with some reason, that he had brought off a very neat little bit of strategy.

And Terry no doubt considered, for his part, that he had, too! He must have known about Paula's visit from something she had said the day before, and he had cer--' tainly chosen the time for his telephone call tactfully and j well.

Toby, it seemed, was anxious not to be overlooked in the round of introductions.

"Hello, Van." He beamed up at Van engagmgly.

"Hello, young man." Something like pleasurable amusement gleamed in Van's eyes, and he picked the little boy right up off his chair. "Who said you could call me that?"

"It's your name, just as my name's Toby," Toby asserted finnly.

"One of my names. Can you say "Mr. Onslie?" **

But Toby shook his head and. said: "It's too hard."

Van laughed and kissed him with so much real tenderness and such a complete absence of embarrassment that Paula looked quite astonished.