Such is love (17 page)

"Who is this?" Terry asked agreeably, and in spite of all her efforts to keep calm, Gwyneth found that she was trembling so much that she had to sit down again. Other-vr'isQ she would have fallen.

"This is Toby." To Gwyneth's excited fancy it seemed that there was something very much like pride in Van's tone as he said that: "He is a great friend of ours, and he is staying with us just now."

"How do you do, Toby?" Terry looked at the child curiously, and held out his hand with a smile.

Toby solemnly placed his hand in Terry's, but for some unknown reason his ready smile was missing. He looked at Terry very seriously indeed.

There was something very painful to Gwyneth in the drama of this meeting between Toby and his father. No one in the room had any idea of the significance of it except herself, and for her, the significance was almost too heavy to bear.

As it was, a spasm of acute fear shot through her as Terry jerked her to the surface of things again with the apparently casual:

"Isn't this the little boy whom your wife rescued from the fire?"

"Yes." Toby was eager to explain the distinction which was his. "I was nearly burnt up."

"Well, you don't seem much the worse for it," Terry said with a laugh.

"No," Toby said, and he exchanged an extraordinarily sweet smile with Gwyneth, as though he had known all along that she would not let any real harm happen to him.

"Wasn't it down at Greystones Orphanage?" Terry asked pleasantly.

"Yes." Van's reply was just a trifle curt. Perhaps he saw no necessity to emphasize the fact that Toby came from an orphanage. Terry immediately left the subject—only

allowing his eyes to rest on Gwyneth with an interested smile that sent cold waves of fear over her.

The conversation became general after that. Toby remained close beside Van. In fact, after a few minutes, he was lifted on to Van's knee, and there he remained for the rest of the meal.

Still mider the impression that he was improving a very satisfactory situation. Van politely pressed Terry and Paula | to remain with them for the evening, and—helpless to alter things—Gwyneth had to listen with a fixed smile of approval while both of them accepted with heartfelt satisfaction.

"You haven't seen much of each other since you left Belgium, have you?" Van said, with real consideration. -"I've no doubt you have plenty to say to each other."

"Oh " Terry seemed slightly amused. "You know

all about the beginning of our friendship, then?"

"Yes, I explained," Paula interrupted quickly, "Van and—and Gwyneth are the kind to whom you can explain."

Terry turned to Van with a laugh.

"I'm afraid Paula worries rather unduly over the fact that her people and my people didn't know each other— and all that sort of thing. Suitable connections weren't much to the fore when we struck up an acquaintance."

"Oh, / don't worry," Paula said with a little toss of her head. "It's only that I happen to have rather stuffy parents."

"Which is sometimes a rather fortunate thing," Gwyneth put in curtly. It was said so abruptly that it sounded almost rude, and there was a moment of disconcerted silence.

Ironically enough, it was Terry—she knew he was enjoying himself—who smoothed over the awkward moment, i

"As a matter of fact, Mrs. OnsUe is perfectly right in I theory," he remarked. "But all the same"—he smiled i straight at her—"I'm glad she has agreed that a little relaxation is permissable in my case."

At that moment Gwyneth could willingly have killed him, and she welcomed the diversion which covered her feehngs when Betty came to take Toby off to bed.

Toby was reluctant to withdraw from the party, but Gwyneth, almost superstitiously anxious to see him removed from Terry's notice, was absolutely firm.

"Fm not tired. I shan't be able to go to sleep for ages," Toby repeated convincingly several times. But the age-old arguments met with no success.

"You'll feel quite different when you're in bed, darling,'* Gwyneth assured him gravely. "And I'll come and kiss you good night."

He bade a rather lingering farewell to both guests— Paula very much amused and intrigued by his simple strategy, Terry watching him with a closeness of attention which his affable smile did nothing to hide. It brought a tight feeling round Gwyneth's throat, and made her wonder if she had gone absurdly pale.

When Toby had gone at last, Terry turned to his hostess with an air of amused interest.

"What a charming child. You certainly chose a very attractive little fellow to rescue."

Somehow Gwyneth smiled.

"He is a dear, isn't he?" she agreed formally.

"I suppose it was the fact that you had rescued him which made you sufficiently interested to have him here?"

"Oh no." It was Van who spoke now, apparently a little displeased at the idea that they would have been stampeded into their decision by nothing more than a sentimental impulse. "Toby and my wife were great friends before that."

"Indeed?" Terry looked surprised and even more interested. "You quite often go to Greystones, then, Mrs. OnsHe?"

"I had been there before," Gwyneth said rather faintly. "My husband is a trustee of the place, you know."

"Toby took a great fancy to her almost at once and insisted on being friends," Van explained. "As you will have noticed," he added with a tolerant little smile, "he is a young gentleman who is very difficult to turn from his purpose."

"I think he's a pet," Paula said. "He's killing when he calls you "Van"."

"I dare say. But we must put a stop to that, I'm afraid."

"Yes, I suppose so. But "Mr. Onslie" sounds ridiculous from that scrap. You could make it "Uncle Van"."

"We could, of course. Van's tone didn't really invite further discussion, but Paula hardly noticed that.

"On the other hand, if he stayed with you always, I suppose you'd want him to regard you more or less as parents.**

There was a moment of startled silence. Van looked across at his wife, to find her watching him with half-scared eagerness.

"I suppose," he said slowly, "we should.** And he saw her lashes come down and her mouth tremble slightly.

"Really?" Terry looked surprised and interested again. "Were you seriously thinking of adopting him?"

Van frowned very slightly. He seemed to find Terry's interest just a little too personal.

"Well, of course, we hadn't come to any real decision about it.'* He got up from his seat and strolled over to light a cigarette. When he sat down again it was on the arm of his wife's chair. "At the same time, I think both of us are going to find it hard to part with him. Don't you agree, Gwyn?**

Gwyneth nodded. She was quite unable to speak. And wh^i she felt Van unobtrusively take her hand in his and clasp her fingers warmly, she knew he was aware of how moved and happy he had made her. It made up a little for the last dreadful hour or two.

"I think it's very courageous of you.** Terry's voice held just the right note of admiring interest. "Adopting a child is always something of a risk—particularly if you know nothing at all of the child's antecedents. And I suppose you don't, in this case?"

"Nothing at all," agreed Van coldly and smoothly.

At the question, Gwyneth had thought that she must faint. But when Van took away all necessity for her tO; answer—and took it away so coolly and positively—^she-^ regained her composure again.

What would she do without him? Even without remotely guessing at her agitation of mind, he seemed by instinct to say the very things that would help her in her predicament.

It was that, and that alone, which sustained her for the rest of that dreadful evening.

When at last they were going, Paula drew Van aside to ' give him some message from her father in connection with his business, and for a few minutes, Terry and Gw>'neth were practically alone together.

"I have to thank you for a very pleasant evening, Mrs. Onslie." His dark blue eyes full of amusement and that suggestion of insolence. "I hope, through Paula, to see a good deal of you and your husband."

"That's very kind of you." No effort could make her voice anything but very cold. "But we don't go out a great deal. My husband is such a very busy man, you know."

"Of course. And no doubt you will be very busy, too, if you take on this little boy permanently."

She met his eyes squarely, but she supposed he saw her swallow nervously.

The next moment he had taken her hand, whether she hked it or not, and kissed it lightly. As he straightened up again his eyes met hers once more and he said very quietly:

"I think we may both feel proud of him. He is a delightful child."

Then he turned away.

"Ready, Paula? Let me give you a lift. I have my car outside."

She had to say good-bye to Paula then, and to try to return her friendly hug with a reassuring one which should convey: "All right. We're still friends, of course."

Van went with them into the hall. There were a few final remarks exchanged, while Gwyneth, alone in the room, tried to rub some colour into her cold cheeks. Then the door closed and Van came back.

She was sitting by the fire by then, holding out her hands to the warmth, so that she could keep her face turned away for a few moments longer.

Her conventional: "How much colder it has grown," sounded steady, so steady that it helped to bolster up her failing courage. And gradually it was borne in on her that she could not have looked and sounded as awful as she felt, because he evidently didn't know that anything was wrong.

"How did you like him?" Van asked casually as he reached for a cigarette.

"What, Terry—Muirkirk?" She added the second name just in time.

"Yes."

With some half formed idea of doing something even now, she turned to face her husband.

*To be perfectly frank, I didn't like him at all, I think he's detestable."

"Do you really?" Van looked genuinely surprised. "But why, quite? Apart from a certain amount of curiousity about Toby—and I suppose that was natural—he made himself very pleasant, I thought."

"I think he's a rotter—and I wouldn't trust him an inch."

Van leaned his elbow on the mantelpiece and looked down at her.

"But you still don't say why, my dear."

"It's—it's an instinctive dislike and mistrust. I—can't explain it. Women do have these "hunches" more often than men, I think."

Her husband shrugged slightly.

"Perhaps you're a little prejudiced by the way he met Paula."

"No, I'm not. Really, I'm not, Van. But I'm terribly distressed to think of her having anything to do with him. I'm sure he won't be any good to her. She's rather an artless girl, in spite of all her superficial confidence. And she's no judge of people at all. With a clever scoundrel she'd be all at sea."

"I think you're letting your anxiety run away with you, Gwyn." Van spoke quite kindly, but a little as though he thought her unreasonable. "Muirkirk hasn't done anything at all to suggest that he's a scoundrel—clever or stupid, come to that. And I think, when a man's only too eager to meet a girl's relations and make himself agreeable, there isn't much wrong."

"That might just be his cleverness."

Van laughed at that and came and put his arm round her.

"You're nervous because we've more or less condoned this secret friendship and made ourselves responsible for introducing him into Paula's home, aren't you? But I really don't think you need worry. As I told you before, Paula is very well able to look after herself and, speaking objectively, I should say Muirkirk is a nice enough fellow."

He didn't know, of course. He couldn't know. It made her sick to think how helpless she was.

"I don't know that Muirkirk matters very greatly to us,

in any case," Van said after a moment. "There was something else mentioned this evening that is far more interesting to us personally."

"Oh"—she looked up at him—"you mean Toby?"

He nodded, his smiling eyes on her face.

"Van, would you really like us to keep him always?— actually adopt him."

"Yes," her husband said slowly, "I can honestly say I should. In theory, of course, I never thought of our doing such a thing. But he is so dear and affectionate. One couldn't do anything but—love him." He brought the word out with the faintest embarrassed hesitation. "Besides, it would make you so happy, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, so happy, Van— so happy!"

"Would it take away that sad, anxious look from your eyes?"

"Van! Do I really look sad and anxious?"

"Sometimes."

"I'm ashamed of myself," she exclaimed. "When I have the best husband in the world and—and everything to make me happy, how awful that I still contrive to look a misery!"

He laughed and kissed her.

"You're not a misery, darling. But when you want a thing very much, it is difficult not io give the fact away to someone who loves you."

She didn't know whether that comforted or frightened her. It was sweet of him to anticipate her every want—but what more might one perhaps 'give away' to someone who loved one?

"You're so good to me, Van. Much too good, I think sometimes."

"Then that's very silly of you," he said gently. "Don't you know what pleasure it is for me to be able to give you anything you want?"

She thought how indescribably different he was from Terry. But then, of course, he thought her perfect. Whereas Terry—base creature that he was himself—knew also the depths to which she had sunk. No wonder he secretly despised her and thought her of not very much worth.

"Then it's settled?" Van's voice said quietly.

"Oh, Van, just as simply as that?"

"Well, do you want to give more thought to it?"

"Not—really." But that was not entirely true, because she knew she ought to give more thought to it—ought tc try to work out the tangle of how this would affect Terr;^ —how Terry, with his latest dangerous discovery, Woulc decide to act—^whether it simplified or complicated things

But she couldn't work it out. And she couldn't hesitate any more, either.

"It's wonderful, Van dear. You think of everything ant you do it in the nicest possible way."