Such is love (26 page)

It was here at last—^the horror which she had dreaded. This evening, of all evenings, it had come—and she had a perfect opportunity of destroying it—^unread.

It was so simple that there must be a flaw in it somewhere. And yet she could see none.

She had only to put the letter in the fire, watch it bum —and then the whole business was over.

Or nearly so.

She glanced at the postmark on the letter. Southampton! Then it was, at least, likely that he was leaving the country —shaving made it a little too hot to hold him. This was his last shot, fired when he was already almost out of reach. He would hardly risk waiting for Van to find him out.

Gwyneth didn't know why she was hesitating like this. The chance of saving herself was even more complete than anything she had imagined.

She wished she didn't remember so painfully her bitter protest to Paula—"To think that the happiness of my marriage depends on my tampering with my husband's lettersl"

Small, mean, dishonourable makeshifts—those were the things by which she lived. Stolen letters, specious lies, daily prevarication.

"What have I really come to?" Gwyneth spoke aloud.

Then she lay back ahnost exhaustedly in her chair, holding the letter more slackly now, her eyes closed.

The man who loved her and lived with her believed every word she said. He had told Paula that she was *as perfect as it was possible for a woman to be without becoming uninteresting'. And to Toby he had said that when she was there the sun shone and when she went away it rained.

That was how he thought of her. That was how he believed in her. And she was sitting here now, deciding to bum a letter addressed to him because she was afraid of his knowing the truth about her.

After that, she would go on from day to day again, hoping that nothing would betray her—^lying here, pretending there, watching his post still in case Terry wrote again and she had to do a little more letter-stealing.

Oh, it was so contemptible—so mean! And she had been thinking just now how wonderful it must be to be an example to one's children.

Van himself would never have stooped to any sort of lie, she knew. He would have been much to proud.

But then nothing frightened him—it was partly that, she supposed. But only partly. To Van it was just impossible to work things out on a mean scale.

Van was the kind of a parent she wished Toby could have had. In a way, Toby was more like Van's child than hera. A good, earnest little thing—^unafraid and completely straightforward.

"How horrible! Tm just not worthy of them. Not worthy of either my husband or my child," Gwyneth thought.

She opened her eyes again and looked once more at the letter.

The choice was hers. Quite clearly and ruthlessly she saw that now. She could bum the letter and go on living her lie with a fair measure of contemptible safety. Or she could tell the truth from the beginning.

It would lay her life in ruins, of course. "But oh, they would be clean mins," thought Gwyneth with a sob. And, at that moment, there was the sound of Van's key in the door.

She was standing when he came into the room, pale and quiet, but with the air of strained desperation gone.

•Tm sorry Tm so late, Gwyn." He came over and kissed her. "Have you been very lonely?**

"Oh no. Ifs all right. I had Toby and then—^then I was reading.**

He dropped into the chair she had just vacated, and she sat down then on the rug at his feet

"The babe all right?'* He reached for his letters, a little wearily, she thought, and he frowned impatiently as he flicked them over.

"Oh yes, Toby*s quite all right. I let him stay up an extra ten minutes because he said I needed someone to keep me company.**

Van laughed and pushed his letters away again.

"Nothing important there,'* he said carelessly and, leaning back in his chair, he looked at her with very great pleasure, as though the sight of her rested him.

Gwyneth somehow stilled her nervous trembling. She must be calm, she told herself—^not at all hysterical.

Slowly she took out the letter from the front of her dress where she had thrust it

**Van, there was another letter for you. Here it is.**

He took it from her with a puzzled frown and looked at it

"It*s frcMn Terry,'* she said baldly.

He didn't open it at once.

"Why had you got it there?" he asked.

**I didn't—^really—^want you—^to read it**

"Didn't you?" Van looked at her again. "Well then, I don't think," he said slowly, "that I will*'

And, leaning forward, he put the letter in the fire.

With fascinated eyes she watched the flames curl round the letter. It was burning—as she had wanted it to bum.

She thought her heart would burst—^with relief, with her love for Van, and then with the certain knowledge that she could not accept rescue this way.

With a terrible little sob, she leant her head against his knee and began to cry despairingly.

"It won't do," she sobbed forlornly. "It won't do that way, at all."

"What won't do, my darlingr*

He was bending forward now, stroking her hair very lightly but not attemptiag to stop her tears.

'There's something—^I've got—to tell you."

He didn't say anything. He just waited.

"It's about—Toby."

She felt him stiffen.

"Oh, Van, Van—I thought I knew every way of telling you and now I can't remember anything but the crude fact. He's mine—^my own child. Toby is my son."

There was a long silence. Then Van said quietly:

"Don't cry, my dearest. I know. I've known almost from the beginning."

CHAPTER TWELVE

GwYNETH was absolutely still.

The silence was so profound that it seemed to be in her very soul. It was like standing on the edge of the world and looking into eternity.

Then she felt Van gather her up in his arms, and she was lifted on to his knee and held very close against him.

Even then nothing was said between them for a long while. At last she said in a very small whisper:

"How did you know?"

He didn't answer at once. When he did, he spoke very thoughtfully, as though he were recalling each step care-fuUy.

"I think I had some sort of instinctive suspicion even before the idea became coherent," he said slowly. "I knew Toby had some significance for you, or that he would become something very important. I didn't very much like the idea. That was why I was very curt with you that first day when you spoke of wanting to have him home. I was a beast to you, wasn't I?" He put his cheek against the top of her head.

"Oh no, you were never a beast to me—^never anything but kind and dear and wonderful."

He laughed softly.

"The description doesn't seem to fit exactly, but never mind."

"Tell me how you found out for certain."

"It was at the time of the fire. When you fainted and were unconscious all that long time, I think the last idea

in your mind must have been that you had called to Toby to jump '*

"Yes, it was. I did call him, you know. I told him I would catch him.**

"Yes. But when you went over and over it again, you didn*t use the same words, darling. You kept on saying: "Jump, Toby, jump! Mother will catch you.** **

^Oh, Van ** The slow tears came into her eyes. "Did

I really say that?"

"I don't know how, but I knew, from the first moment, that you were not expressing some fancy or even a wish. It was the literal truth. You were his mother. I tried to tell myself that people in delirium say ihe queerest things. It wasn't any good. I knew Toby was your child—and that that was why he tugged at my heart every time I looked at him.'*

She turned and kissed him, wonderingly and rather timidly.

"I don't know how—^you can say—^these things."

"Because they are true, Gwyn. What's the good of my pretending? I couldn't love you as I do and not love your child, too.**

She pressed against him in silent gratitude. It was how she herself had argued—^hopefully, hopelessly. Pretending it might happen, because she wanted it so terribly—^yet knowing in her heart that nothing so wonderful ever could really happen.

"Van"^-she couldn't look at him even now—^**didn't you feel absolutely terrible at first?"

"Yes," he said slowly. "I think, in any other circumstances, I should have told myself that I wanted to kill you. But I couldn't indulge in such dramatics then, Gwyn, because, you see, you were really very near death—^so near that I had a foretaste of what it would be like if I did lose you. You were much more ill than we ever told you. I sat beside you all that evening, while, very forlornly, you condemned yourself over and over again, out of your own mouth. At first I only thought how terrible it was. Then I began to see how pitiful it was, too. I had to listen. I had no choice. And gradually I began to understand a little of your secret longing for your baby and your certainty that you could never have hin."

He was silent for a minute, as though he were recalling his own feelings at the time. Then he went on:

"I don't know how or why, Gwyn—because I'm not at all a forgiving man—^but there came over me then the absolute longing to give you what you wanted so piteously. I wanted you to have your little boy, so that you could never grieve in that terrible way again.'"

She was crying once more, but much more softly and quietly this time.

He stroked her hair again.

"Don't cry, love. I had a lot to learn, too, you know."

"Oh nol" she whispered. "No. You've always been as you are now. Understanding and just and—almost great. Van."

"No, dear. I thought at first, "I'll let her have the child, of course, but nothing will ever be the same again." "

"It was natural to think that."

He shook his head slightly.

"It didn't last. It was like my melodramatic assertion once that I should want to wring the neck of any man I knew had kissed you."

"Oh, Van, I often thought of that. It used to make me so frightened and ashamed. I used to wonder whatever you would do to me if you found out. You don't know how I pretended and deceived and stooped to all sorts of little half truths because I was too much of a coward to tell you the truth."

"I'm sorry, darling. I forced you into aU that."

"No, no, VanI That's absurd. It was only because I was so weak."

He kissed the side of her wet cheek, but she was not crying any more now.

"I know how you felt,'* he said, "because I remember how / felt in the beginning, and you probably thought of that as being the only way I could react. But, Gwyn, that all changed very soon. I found that it wasn't only that I wanted you to have Toby—^I didn't want you humiliated and frightened by having to confess anything. I wanted everything put behind us, and to let you be happy in the way you could be happy."

"My dearl Was that why you wouldn't let Dr. Kellaby look up the few facts they had about Toby?"

"Yes. You were terribly frightened when he suggested it, weren't you?"

She nodded.

"Oh, Van! No wonder it seemed that so often some strange coincidence saved me."

"Um-hm." He smiled as though it gave him great pleasure to remember that. "I was the coincidence."

She even laughed a little then and pressed close against him.

"Did you really feel no bitterness after a while?'*

"I thought, Gwyn, that it would be quite all right, so long as I never had to know who the man was."

She stiffened sharply and he must have felt it, because his arms pressed her reassuringly.

"All right, darling. Even that didn't work out as I expected. I was rather a fool about Terry. I ought to have > guessed long before, but I didn't. Perhaps some vague suspicion was there, but the certainty came quite suddenly—"

"When?"

"That evening at Paula's place when the skunk said that about—^Toby's mother."

"Oh, Van—oh. Van! You're so dear. Was that why you were so angry? I thought how terribly, terribly touching it was that you should be defending me without even knowing that it was I. But it's much more touching that you should have done it intentionally."

"I wanted to get up and hit him then and there, but that wouldn't have been any real service to you, of course. And ' by the time I'd controlled the impulse, I found that it didn't matter a damn whether I knew the man or not. You were my darling and you always would be. You were mine to love and protect. I didn't want you to abase yourself or explain or feel wretched. I only wanted you to be happy and feel that you were safe with me and the baby."

"If I'd know! If I'd known!" And then she smiled slowly. "No—^I'm glad I didn't know. I'm glad I told you, however late it was and however cowardly I have been. To be rescued is one thing, but to work out your own—^your own salvation is another. I'm glad I had to tell you—and I? to tell you at the only moment when it had become un-& necessary. There's something like poetic justice in it" j

He smiled at that and drew her down against him once more.

She lay there for a long while, gazing into the fire, and slowly, slowly allowing the cool, sweet truth to penetrate every comer of her fevered mind. He knew—^Van knew everything—and yet it was all right. She would never have to be afraid again. Never scheme and pretend, while, all the time, the weight of guilt pressed upon her like a physical burden.

Almost as though it were unimportant she said presently:

"I did think he'd married me, you know. I didn't really mean to do anything wicked."

"Oh, darling." He kissed her. "Don't. You break my heart. You're not in the least wicked."

It was so good—it was so good to have Van's word for that.

"I'm so happy," she whispered. "Thank you, Van. It's you who have given me my happiness."

"I could not ask any sweeter reward," he said slowly.

"Don't you really ask anj^hing but that? Just to know my happiness is secure?'*

He smiled.

"Yours and Toby's."

"And what about your own?"

"That is my happiness," he told her, and, bending his head, he kissed her very tenderly.