Chapter 11

"I was thinking of myself."

"My dear, you surely don't imagine that Barbara's thinking of you?"

"Not--not in the way you imply. The fact is, I was let in for a--a rather unpleasant scene the other day with Mrs. Levitt."

"I always thought," said Fanny, "that woman would let you in for something. Well?"

"Well, I hardly know how to tell you about it, my dear."

"Why, was it as bad as all that? Perhaps I'd better not know."

"I want you to know. I'm trying to tell you--because of Barbara."

"I can't see where Barbara comes in."

"She came into the library while it was happening--"

Fanny laughed and it disconcerted him.

"While what was happening?" she said. "You'd better tell me straight out. I don't suppose it was anything like as bad as you think it was."

"I'm only afraid of what Barbara might think."

"Oh, you can trust Barbara not to think things. She never does."

Dear Fanny. He would have found his job of explaining atrociously difficult with any other woman. Any other woman would have entangled him tighter and tighter; but he could see that Fanny was trying to get it straight, to help him out with all his honour and self-respect and dignity intact. Every turn she gave to the conversation favoured him.

"My dear, I'm afraid she saw something that I must say was open to misinterpretation. It wasn't my fault, but--"

No. The better he remembered it the more clearly he saw it was Elise's fault, not his. And he could see that Fanny thought it was Elise's fault. This suggested the next step in the course that was only not perjury because it was so purely instinctive, the subterfuge of terrified vanity. It seemed to him that he had no plan; that he followed Fanny.

"Upon my word I'd tell you straight out, Fanny, only I don't like to give the poor woman away."

"Mrs. Levitt?" said Fanny. "You needn't mind. You may be quite sure that she'll give _you_ away if you don't."

She was giving him a clear lead.

When he began he had really had some thoughts of owning, somewhere about this point, that he had lost his head; but when it came to the point he saw that this admission was unnecessarily quixotic, and that he would be far safer if he suggested that Elise had lost hers. In fact, it was Fanny who had suggested it in the first place. It might not be altogether a fair imputation, but, hang it all, it was the only one that would really appease Fanny, and he had Fanny to think of and not Elise. He owed it her. For her sake he must give up the personal luxury of truthtelling. The thing would go no further with Fanny, and it was only what Fanny had believed herself in any case and always would believe. Elise would be no worse off as far as Fanny was concerned. So he fairly let himself go.

"There's no knowing what she may do," he said. "She was in a thoroughly hysterical state. She'd come to me with her usual troubles--not able to pay her rent, and so on--and in talking she became very much upset and er--er--lost her head and took me completely by surprise."

"That," he thought, "she certainly did."

"You mean you lost yours too?" said Fanny mildly.

"I did nothing of the sort. But I was rather alarmed. Before you could say 'knife' she'd gone off into a violent fit of hysterics, and I was just trying to bring her round when Barbara came in." His explanation was so much more plausible than the reality that he almost believed it himself. "I think," he said, pensively, "she _must_ have seen me bending over her."

"And she didn't offer to help?"

"No; she rushed in and she rushed out again. She may not have seen anything; but in case she did, I wish, my dear, you'd explain."

"I think I'd better not," said Fanny, "in case she didn't."

"No. But it worries me every time I think of it. She came right into the room. Besides," he said, "we've got to think of Mrs. Levitt."

"Mrs. Levitt?"

"Yes. Put yourself in her place. She wouldn't like it supposed that I was making love to her. She might consider the whole thing made her look as ridiculous as it made me."

"I'd forgotten Mrs. Levitt's point of view. You rather gave me to understand that was what she wanted."

"I never said anything of the sort." Seeing that the explanation was going so well he could afford to be magnanimous.

"I must have imagined it," said Fanny. "She recovered, I suppose, and you got rid of her?"

"Yes, I got rid of her all right."

"Well," said Fanny, gathering herself up to go to bed, "I shouldn't worry any more about it. I'll make it straight with Barbara."

She went up to Barbara's bedroom, where Barbara, still dressed, sat reading over the fire.

"Come in, you darling," Barbara said. She got up and crouched on the hearthrug, leaving her chair for Fanny.

Fanny came in and sat down.

"Barbara," she said, "what's all this about Horatio and Mrs. Levitt?"

"I don't know," said Barbara flatly, with sudden presence of mind.

"I said you didn't. But the poor old thing goes on and on about it. He thinks you saw something the other day. Something you didn't understand. Did you?"

Barbara said nothing. She stared away from Fanny.

"Did you?"

"Of course I didn't."

"Of course you did. He says you must have seen. And it's worrying him no end."

"I saw something. But he needn't worry. I understood all right"

"What did you see?"

"Nothing. Nothing that mattered."

"It matters most awfully to me."

"I don't think it need," said Barbara.

"But it _does_. In a sense I don't mind what he does, and in a sense I do. I still care enough for that."

"I don't think there was anything you need mind so awfully."

"Yes, but there _was_ something. He said there was. He was afraid you'd misunderstand it. He said he was bending over her when you came in."

"Well, he _was_ bending a bit."

"What was _she_ doing?"

"She was laughing."

"In hysterics?"

She saw it all.

"I suppose you might call it hysterics. They weren't nice hysterics, though. She isn't a nice woman."

"No. But he was making love to her, and she was laughing at him. She was nice enough for that."

"If that's nice."

"Why, what else could the poor woman do if she's honest?"

"Oh, she's honest enough in _that_ way," said Barbara.

"And he couldn't see it. He's so intent on his own beautiful Postlethwaite nose, he can't see anything that goes on under it.... Still, honest or not honest, she's a beast, Barbara. When they'd been such pals and he'd helped her, to have gone and rounded on the poor thing like that. She might just as well have pulled his Postlethwaite nose. It couldn't have hurt more."

"Oh, I think he'll get over it."

"I mean it couldn't have hurt _me_ more."

"She _is_ a beast," said Barbara. "I bet you anything you like it's her fault. She drove him to it."

"No, Barbara, it was _my_ fault. _I_ drove him. I'm always laughing at him, and he can't bear being laughed at. It makes him feel all stuffy and middle-aged. He only goes in for passion because it makes him feel young."

"It isn't really passion," said Barbara.

"No, you wise thing, it isn't. If it was I could forgive him. I could forgive it if he really felt young. It's this ghastly affectation I can't stand.... But it's my fault, Barbara, my fault. I should have kept him young...."

They sat silent, Barbara at Fanny's feet. Presently Fanny drew the girl's head down into her lap.

"You'll never be old, Barbara," she said. "And Ralph won't."

"What made you think of Ralph, Fanny?"

"Horatio, of course."

XII

1

If any rumour circulated round Wyck-on-the-Hill, sooner or later it was bound to reach the old lady at the Dower House. The Dower House was the redistributing centre for the news of the district.

Thus Mr. Waddington heard that Mrs. Levitt was talking about letting the White House furnished; that she was in debt to all the tradesmen in the place; that her rent at Mrs. Trinder's was still owing; that her losses at bridge were never paid for. He heard that if Major Markham had been thinking of Mrs. Levitt, he had changed his mind; there was even a definite rumour about a broken engagement. Anyhow, Major Markham was now paying unmistakable attentions to the youngest Miss Hawtrey of Medlicott. But as, engagement or no engagement, his attentions to Mrs. Levitt had been unmistakable too, their rupture required some explanation. It was supposed that the letter which the Major's mother, old Mrs. Markham of Medlicott, received from her daughter, Mrs. Dick Benham of Tunbridge Wells, did very thoroughly explain it. There had been "things" in that letter which Mrs. Markham had not been able to repeat, but you gathered from her singular reticence that they had something to do with Dick Benham and Mrs. Levitt, and that they showed conclusively that Elise was not what old Mrs. Waddington called "a nice woman."

"They say she led Frank Levitt an awful life. The Benhams, my dear, won't have her in the house."

But all this was trivial compared with the correspondence that now passed between Mr. Waddington and Elise. He admitted now that old Corbett had known what he was talking about when he had warned him that he would be landed--landed, if he didn't take care, to the tune of five hundred and fifty-five pounds. His letters to Mrs. Levitt, dictated to Barbara Madden, revealed the care he had to take. From motives which appeared to him chivalrous he had refrained from showing Barbara Mrs. Levitt's letters to him. He left her to gather their crude substance from his admirable replies.

"'MY DEAR MRS. LEVITT:

"'I am afraid I must advise you to give up the scheme if it depends on my co-operation. I thought I had defined my position--'

"Defined my position is good, I think."

"It sounds good," said Barbara.

"'That position remains what it was. And as your exceptionally fine intelligence cannot fail to understand it, no more need be said.

"'At least I hope it is so. I should be sorry if our very pleasant relations terminated in disappointment--'"

For one instant she could see him smile, feeling voluptuously the sharp, bright edge of his word before it cut him. He drew back, scowling above a sudden sombre flush of memory.

"Disappointment--" said Barbara, giving him his cue.

"Disappointment is not quite the word. I want something--something more chivalrous."

His eyes turned away from her, pretending to look for it.

"Ah--now I have it. 'Very pleasant relations terminated on a note--on a note of--on an unexpected note.

"'With kind regards, very sincerely yours,

"'HORATIO BYSSHE WADDINGTON.'

"You will see, Barbara, that I am saying precisely the same thing, but saying it inoffensively, as a gentleman should."

Forty-eight hours later he dictated:

"'DEAR MRS. LEVITT:

"'No: I have no suggestion to make except that you curtail your very considerable expenditure. For the rest, believe me it is as disagreeable for me to be obliged to refuse your request as I am sure it must be for you to make it--'

"H'm. Rest--request. That won't do. 'As disagreeable for me to have to refuse as it must be for you to ask.'

"Simpler, that. Never use an elaborate phrase where a simple one will do.

"'You are good enough to say I have done so much for you in the past. I have done what I could; but you will pardon me if I say there is a limit beyond which I cannot go.

"'Sincerely yours,

"'HORATIO B. WADDINGTON.'

"I've sent her a cheque for fifty-five pounds already. That ought to have settled her."

"Settled her? You don't mean to say you sent her a _cheque?_"

"I did."

"You oughtn't to have sent her anything at all."

"But I'd promised it, Barbara--"

"I don't care. You ought to have waited."

"I wanted to close the account and have done with her."

"That isn't the way to close it, sending cheques. That cheque will have to go through Parson's Bank. Supposing Toby sees it?"

"What if he does?"

"He might object. He might even make a row about it."

"What could I do? I had to pay her."

"You could have made the cheque payable to me. It would have passed as my quarter's salary. I could have cashed it and you could have given her notes."

"And if Toby remembered their numbers?"

"You could have changed them for ten shilling notes in Cheltenham."

"All these elaborate precautions!"

"You can't be too precautions when you're dealing with a woman like that.... Is this all you've given her?"

"All?"

"Yes. Did you ever give her anything any other time?"

"Well--possibly--from time to time--"

"Have you any idea of the total amount?"

"I can't say off-hand. And I can't see what it has to do with it."

"It has everything to do with it. Can you find out?"

"Certainly, if I look up my old cheque books."

"You'd better do that now."

He turned, gloomily, to his writing-table. The cheque books for the current year and the year before it betrayed various small loans to Mrs. Levitt, amounting in all to a hundred and fifty pounds odd.

"Oh, dear," said Barbara, "all that's down against you. Still--it's all ante-Wednesday. What a pity you didn't pay her that fifty-five before your interview."

"How do you mean?"

"It's pretty certain she's misinterpreted your paying it now so soon."

"After the interview? Do you really think she misunderstood me, Barbara?"

"I think she wants you to think she did."

"You think she's trying--trying--to--"

"To sell you her silence? Yes, I do."

"Good God! I never thought of that. Blackmail."

"I don't suppose for a minute she thinks she's blackmailing you. She's just trying it on.... And she may raise her price, too. She won't rest till she's got that five hundred out of you."

Mrs. Levitt's next communication would appear to have supported Barbara's suspicion, for Mr. Waddington was compelled to answer it thus:

"DEAR MRS. LEVITT:

"You say you were 'right then' and that my 'promises' were 'conditional'"--

(You could tell where the inverted commas came by the biting clip of his tone.)

--"I fail to appreciate the point of this allusion. I cannot imagine what conditions you refer to. I made none. As for promises, I am not responsible for the somewhat restricted interpretation you see fit to put on a friend's general expressions of goodwill.

"Yours truly,

"HORATIO BYSSHE WADDINGTON."

His last letter, a day later, never got as far as its signature.

"DEAR MADAM:

"My decision will not be affected by the contingency you suggest. You are at perfect liberty to say what you like. Nobody will believe you."

"That, I think, is as far as I can go."

"Much too far," said Barbara.

"And that's taking her too seriously."

"Much. You mustn't send that letter."

"Why not?"

"Because it gives you away."

"Gives me away? It seems to me most guarded."

"It isn't. It implies that there _are_ things she might say. Even if you don't mind her saying them you mustn't put it in writing."

"Ah-h. There's something in that. Of course, I could threaten her with a lawyer's letter. But somehow--The fact is, Barbara, if you're a decent man you're handicapped in dealing with a lady. Delicacy. There are things that could be said. Material things--most material to the case. But I can't say them."

"No. You can't say them. But I can. I think I could stop the whole thing in five minutes, if I saw Mrs. Levitt. Will you leave it to me?"

"Come--I don't know--"

"Why not? I assure you it'll be all right."

"Well. Perhaps. It's a matter of business. A pure matter of business."

"It certainly is that. There's no reason why you shouldn't hand it over to your secretary."

He hesitated. He was still afraid of what Elise might say to Barbara.

"You will understand that she is in a very unbalanced state. Excitable. A woman in that state is apt to put interpretations on the most innocent--er--acts."

"She won't be able to put on any after I've done with her. If it comes to that, I can put on interpretations too."

Mr. Waddington then, at Barbara's dictation, wrote a short note to Mrs. Levitt inviting her to call and see him that afternoon at three o'clock.

2

At three o'clock Barbara was ready for her.

She had assumed for the occasion her War Office manner, that firm sweetness with which she used to stand between importunate interviewers and her chief. It had made her the joy of her department.

"Mr. Waddington is extremely sorry he is not able to see you himself. He is engaged with his agent at the moment."

Mr. Waddington had, indeed, created that engagement.

"Engaged? But I have an appointment."

"Yes. He's very sorry. He said if there was anything I could do for you--"

"Thank you, Miss Madden. If it's all the same to you, I'd much rather see Mr. Waddington himself. I can wait."

"I wouldn't advise you to. I'm afraid he may be a long time. He has some very important business on hand just now."

"_My_ business," said Mrs. Levitt, "is very important."

"Oh, if it's only business," Barbara said, "I think we can settle it at once. I've had most of the correspondence in my hands and I think I know all the circumstances."

"You have had the correspondence in your hands?"

"Well, you see, I'm Mr. Waddington's secretary. That's what I'm here for."

"I didn't know he trusted his private business to his secretary."

"He's obliged to. He has so much of it. You surely don't expect him to copy out his own letters?"

"I don't expect him to hand over my letters to other people to read."

"I haven't read your letters, Mrs. Levitt. I've merely taken down his answers to copy out and file for reference."

"Then, my dear Miss Madden, you don't know all the circumstances."

"At any rate, I can tell you what Mr. Waddington intends to do and what he doesn't. You want to see him, I suppose, about the loan for the investment?"

Mrs. Levitt was too profoundly disconcerted to reply.

Barbara went on in her firm sweetness. "I know he's very sorry not to be able to do more, but, as you know, he did not advise the investment and he can't possibly advance anything for it beyond the fifty pounds he has already paid you."

"Since you know so much about it," said Mrs. Levitt with a certain calm, subdued truculence, "you may as well know everything. You are quite mistaken in supposing that Mr. Waddington did not advise the investment. On the contrary, it was on his representations that I decided to invest. And it was on the strength of the security he offered that my solicitors advanced me the money. He is responsible for the whole business; he has made me enter into engagements that I cannot meet without him, and when I ask him to fulfil his pledges he lets me down."

"I don't think Mr. Waddington knows that your solicitors advanced the money. There is no reference to them in the correspondence."

"I think, if you'll look through your _files_, or if Mr. Waddington will look through his, you'll find you are mistaken."

"I can tell Mr. Waddington what you've told me and let you know what he says. If you don't mind waiting a minute I can let you know now."

She sought out Mr. Waddington in his office--luckily it was situated in the kitchen wing, the one farthest from the library. She found him alone in it (the agent had gone), sitting in a hard Windsor chair. He knew that Elise couldn't pursue him into his office; it was even doubtful whether she knew where it was. He had retreated into it as into some impregnable position.

Not that he looked safe. His face sagged more than ever, as though the Postlethwaite nose had withdrawn its support from that pale flesh of funk. If it had any clear meaning at all it expressed a terrified expectation of blackmail. His very moustache and hair drooped lamentably.

"Are you disengaged?" she said.

"Yes. But for God's sake don't tell her that."

"It's all right. She knows she isn't going to see you."

"Well?"

She felt the queer, pathetic clinging of his mind to her as if it realized that she held his honour and Fanny's happiness in her hands.

"She's not going to give up that five hundred without a struggle."

"The deuce she isn't. On what grounds does she claim it?"

"She says you advised her to make a certain investment, and that you promised to lend her half the sum she wanted."

"I made no promise. I said, 'Perhaps that sum might be forthcoming.' I made it very clear that it would depend on circumstances."

"On circumstances that she understood--knew about?"

"Er--on circumstances that--No. She didn't know about them."

"Still, you made conditions?"

"No. I made--a mental reservation."

"She seems to be aware of the circumstances that influenced you. She thinks you've gone back on your word."

"I have gone back on nothing. My word's sacred. The woman lies."

"She sticks to it that the promise was made, that on the strength of it she invested a certain sum of money through her solicitors, that they advanced the money on that security and you advised the investment."

"I did not advise it. I advised her to give it up. I wrote to her. You took down the letter.... No, you didn't. I copied that one myself."

"Have you got it? I'd better show it her."

"Yes. It's--it's--confound it, it's in my private drawer."

"Can't I find it?"

He hesitated. He didn't like the idea of anybody, even little Barbara, rummaging in his private drawer, but he had to choose the lesser of two evils, and that letter would put the matter beyond a doubt.

"Here's the key," he said, and gave it her. "It's dated October the thirtieth or thirty-first. But it's all humbug. I've reason to believe that money was never invested at all. It's all debts. She hasn't a leg to stand on. Not a leg."

"Not a stump," said Barbara. "Leave her to me."

She went back to the library. Mrs. Levitt's face lifted itself in excited questioning.

"One moment, Mrs. Levitt."

After a slightly prolonged search in Mr. Waddington's private drawer she found the letter of October tie thirty-first, and returned with it to the office. It was very short and clear:

"MY DEAR ELISE:

"I cannot promise anything--it depends on circumstances. But if you sent me the name and address of your solicitors it might help."

"Take it," he said, "and show it her."

3

Barbara went back again to the library and her final battle with Elise.

This time she had armed herself with the cheque books.

Mrs. Levitt began, "Well--?"

"Mr. Waddington says he is very sorry if there's any misunderstanding. I don't know whether you remember getting this letter from him?"

Mrs. Levitt blinked hard as she read the letter.

"Of course I remember."

"You see that he could hardly have stated his position more clearly."

"But--this letter is dated October the thirty-first. The promise I refer to was made long after that."

"It doesn't appear so from his letters--all that I've taken down. If you can show me anything in writing--"

"Writing? Mr. Waddington is a gentleman and he was my friend. I never dreamed of pinning him down to promises in writing. I thought his word was enough. I never dreamed of his going back on it. And after compromising me the way he's done."

Barbara's eyebrows lifted delicately, innocently. "_Has_ he compromised you?"

"He has."

"How?"

"Never mind how. Quite enough to start all sorts of unpleasant stories."

"You shouldn't listen to them. People will tell stories without anything to start them."

"That doesn't make them any less unpleasant. I should have thought the very least Mr. Waddington could do--"

"Would be to pay you compensation?"

"There can be no compensation in a case of this sort, Miss Madden. I'm not talking about compensation. Mr. Waddington must realize that he cannot compromise me without compromising himself."

"I should think he would realize it, you know."

"Then he ought to realize that he is not exactly in a position to repudiate his engagements."

"Do you consider that _you_ are in a position--exactly--to hold him to engagements he never entered into?"

"I've told you already that he has let me in for engagements that I cannot meet if he goes back on his word."

"I see. And you want to make it unpleasant for him. As unpleasant as you possibly can?"

"I can make it even more unpleasant for him, Miss Madden, than it is for me."