Will O’ the Wisp (9 page)

Folly pulled the door to within half an inch of closing and ran after him.

He heard “David!” in a breathless voice and turned.

“Folly, go in!”

“I'm going. I wasn't going to say good-night. But you did walk about for hours and wait for me. Eleanor didn't tell you to do that, did she?”

“Look here,” said David, “if you think I'm going to flirt with you on Julie's doorstep at three o'clock in the morning, I'm not. Go in at once!”

“I'm going,” said Folly, in a sort of mournful whisper. “You're a b-beast, and I'm going.”

She went up two steps, and then came down them with a little jump. Before David had the slightest idea of what was going to happen, she was putting up her face to be kissed, and he was kissing her. She stood in front of him like a child and put up her face, and he kissed her. Her mouth was very soft and cold.

She gave him just the one half-careless kiss and ran up the steps and into the house. The door shut.

CHAPTER XI

At breakfast next morning Frank Alderey encountered a white-faced child whose lashes moistened when he looked at her and whose mouth quivered painfully. He administered a very bowdlerized edition of the lecture previously rehearsed to a protesting Julie, and departed to the office feeling that he had been a brute.

As the day advanced, Folly revived, made friends with Julie, and confided the whole adventure from start to finish. The finish, however, came when David lighted the fire at the flat.

“I'm a little bit afraid of David,” said Julie.

“'M—I'm not.”

“Was he very angry?”

Folly made a face.

“Did he scold you? I should hate to be scolded by David. But then, I'm very bad about being scolded at all—I cry. Frank says it's awfully silly of me.”

“'M—I shouldn't cry if David scolded me.”

“What would you do?”

“I don't know,” said Folly, looking down. “He hasn't done it yet.”

David called for her at three o'clock. He had made an effort to detach Tommy Wingate from his engagement to eat nuts with the valetudinarian great-uncle, but in vain. He arrived armed with a frown of the first magnitude. His manner was one of detached politeness.

Folly sat beside him with downcast eyes and folded hands. She said that it was cold; she said that it was kind of him to drive her down to Ford; and she said that she liked Julie. As David did not answer any of these remarks, the conversation languished.

They drove along wet, thawing roads. There were brown hedgerows and brown fields. Here and there the alders were flushing into purple. A thin bluish mist crept in from the horizon upon every side; the full grey clouds hung low; there was a dampness in the air that presently blurred the wind-screen with tiny drops.

They reached Ford in time for tea. Folly stood on the step for a moment. She was reluctant to go in. Tea was nice—but was everyone going to make an awful fuss? She watched David drive round to the garage, and then went in with a lagging step.

Eleanor ran into the hall to find her slipping out of her fur coat and gloves. As the coat dropped, Folly shivered ostentatiously. She looked at Eleanor with a wary eye.

“Is there a row on?” she inquired.

“Ssh—no—Betty doesn't know anything.”

“As if I cared for Betty!” Folly pranced across the hall with her chin in the air. “Are you
frightfully
angry?”

“I wasn't angry; I was frightened. Folly, what happened?”

Folly stood on tiptoe and put soft arms round Eleanor's neck.

“Silly Mrs. Grundy!”

“Little wretch! What happened?”

Folly warmed a very cold nose against Eleanor's cheek.

“You're pussy-warm,” she murmured. “Ooh! There's David! Didn't he tell you what happened?”

“No—only that he'd collected you.”

“Pouf!” said Folly. “I collected myself. I b-bit Stingo.”

“Folly!”

“I b-bit him. And David's going to push his face in.” She sprang back as David came into the hall. “Ooh! I do want my tea!” she cried, and ran into the drawing-room.

In the middle of tea she remarked suddenly: “I nearly brought Timmy down.”

Betty's eyebrows went up. They were pale and thin like Betty herself. They made rather fretful marks of interrogation.

“Timothy Catkins,” said Folly. “He's Eleanor's kitten—and he's an absolutely dinky lamb. Only the cook takes him home to sleep with her, and she said she wouldn't stay there all day if she didn't have him for company; so I didn't bring him. I thought Eleanor'd be peeved if the cook ran away.”

“Doesn't the cook sleep at the flat?” said Betty in a puzzled voice. Then sharply: “Folly, you didn't stay there alone?”

Folly's eyes opened wide.

“Of
course
I didn't—it wouldn't have been
proper
. I stayed with Julie.”

Eleanor bit her lip.

A little later David put down his cup and got up. On his way to the door he stopped for a moment by Eleanor's chair and said in a low voice:

“Can you spare me half an hour in the study?”

She said, “Of course”; and they went out together.

Folly finished her tea and escaped. She came down an hour later in a little blue frock with long sleeves, and the most discreet neck in the world.

In the drawing-room Betty sat over the fire with a book. Folly fetched a stool with a needle-work top, set it down in the middle of the hearthrug, and planted herself upon it, two neat feet on the fender and a fluff of blue skirts spread out all around her. She gazed first at the fire and then at Betty.

Betty had a book, but she wasn't reading. She went on looking at the same place on the same page; sometimes her eyebrows went up, and sometimes the corners of her mouth went down. She had on an ugly petunia dress and a string of large pearl beads that fitted her thin neck closely.

Folly cocked her head a little on one side and said, “Are they
still
talking?”

“Who? What d'you mean?” Betty's voice was very cross.

“Eleanor and David. She hasn't come upstairs. They must have a lot to say to each other.”

“Nonsense!” Betty flicked over two pages at once and held the book a little higher.

“I expect they have. They were engaged, weren't they?”

Betty stared.

“What are you talking about?”

“About Eleanor and David. They were engaged, weren't they, before Eleanor was married?”

“Who told you that?”

“Pouf! Everyone knows! I've known for years. I think it's frightfully interesting. Don't you?”

Betty turned another page.

“I think they'd both be very much annoyed if they thought you were discussing them like this.”

“Yes—
wouldn't
they?” Folly locked her hands about her knees and gazed in a rapt manner at Betty. “They'd be simply frightfully angry, I expect. That's what makes it so thrilling.”

“I do wish you wouldn't talk such nonsense!”

Folly transferred her gaze to the fire. A fascinating procession of blazing sparks was flying up from the end of a half-burnt log. She watched the sparks for about a minute, and then she said:

“Perhaps they'll get engaged all over again now Eleanor's a widow.”

Betty dropped her book. There was a dry, angry colour in her face.

“Folly, you're too old to say things like that.”

Folly stared.

“Wouldn't you be pleased? I'm only saying it to you. I should think you'd love to have Eleanor for a sister. I think it's
too
exciting. Perhaps he's asking her this very minute. I think it's simply dinkily romantic.”

Betty lost her temper. She stood up with a jerk, letting her book fall on the floor.

“Considering the absolutely shameless way you've been trying to get David to flirt with you—”

“Oh, your poor book!” said Folly. She made a dive for it without getting up, and offered it with a meek upward gaze.

“I suppose you imagine that men like that sort of thing.”

“'M—” said Folly, “they
do!
”

Betty stared hard at her, swallowed angrily once or twice, and walked to the door. Just before she reached it she stopped.

“Men flirt with girls like you, but they don't marry them,” she said. Then she went out of the room and banged the door.

CHAPTER XII

In the study David switched on his reading-lamp and turned out the other lights. He put Eleanor in the big armchair and sat down at his writing-table. The lamp with its green shade threw a steady light over the books and papers on the table; it left Eleanor in the shadow.

“I wanted to talk to you,” said David.

“About Folly? David, what happened?”

“Nothing. She'll tell you herself. It's not that at all—it's about myself. It's—well, it's something I want to talk to you about. You don't mind?”

Eleanor wasn't sure. She knew David well enough to discern an unaccustomed emotion, and she shrank very much from any suggestion of an emotional contact between them. Two nights ago her guard had been pierced for a moment; she still shrank a little at remembering how much it had hurt. She said, “What is it, David?” and her voice was slow and rather frightened.

David was too much absorbed to notice anything unusual in her manner. He leaned his right elbow on the table and with his left hand pulled upon one of the drawers on that side.

“I wanted to talk to you about it. I—it was a bit of a shock, and I want to talk to you.”

“David, what is it?” She was puzzled as well as nervous now.

“It's this,” said David.

He took from the drawer a newspaper cutting and held it under the lamp for a moment.

“From yesterday's
Times
,” he said, and laid it on Eleanor's knee.

She took it, and then had to lean forward to get the light on the small print. The arm of the chair was between her and David. She leaned on it with the strip of paper in her hand and read what he had read in the Agony Column of yesterday's
Times
:

“D. A. St. K. F.—Your wife is alive.”

David saw her eyes travel along the line and go back to the beginning again. She read to the end, coloured deeply, and lifted her eyes to his. They were dark and clear, with a trouble in them.

“What does it mean?”

“I don't know.”

He still had his elbow on the table; his face, turned towards her, showed two deep lines between the eyes; his hand hid his mouth.

“Why did you show it to me? What does it mean?”

“I don't know.” He repeated the words slowly and without expression.

Eleanor sat up very straight.

“David, what does it mean? Is it meant for you?” She touched the initials with her finger and read them aloud: “‘D. A. St. K. F.'—is that meant for you?”

“That's what I want to know.” His hand dropped and she saw the hard set of his mouth. “That's just what I want to know.”

“But—you're not married!”

“I was.”

The words seemed to break something. It was like the breaking of a silence; but they had not been silent. Only for both of them something broke.

Eleanor did not speak. She looked at the slip of paper in her hand, and when she had read the words again she leaned back out of the circle of light, waiting.

“That's what I wanted to tell you about,” said David.

“Yes.

“I've never told anyone about it.”

She looked up then, distressed. What was coming? What had he done? The light showed her his face with the frown gone from it and only a sadness left. He half smiled at her, and the smile brought a mist to her eyes.

“It's all right—it's not anything that I mind telling you,” he said simply. “It's only—when you've never spoken about a thing it's hard to begin.”

Eleanor nodded.

After a moment he went on speaking, looking sometimes at her, but more often past her into the shadows.

“You remember I went to America? I suppose we both felt pretty badly just then. I wouldn't have gone if they hadn't packed you off to India. But I couldn't very well follow you—I hadn't a bean except what my father gave me—and I rather jumped at the idea of putting in a year in the States. I'd visions of making a fortune and coming after you—you know the sort of thing:
‘Penniless Architect Wins Million Dollar Competition for New City Hall.'
” He laughed and shifted the papers on his table. “Well, it was nix on that; but I put in a pretty useful year in old O'Gorman's office. And then, when I was getting ready to come home, my father sent me some money and told me to come round by New Zealand and go and see old Bobby St. Kern and his family. Well, that was all right; they were no end good to me, and I stayed there six weeks. And as I'd just enough money to spare, I got a tramp passage to Sydney. I thought I might just as well see as much as I could whilst I was about it.”

He paused, as if for a word; but the pause lengthened and deepened until it seemed a hard thing to break.

Eleanor broke it.

“Did you meet her in Sydney?”

“No.” Another pause. Then quickly: “She was on board. You mustn't think there was anything then. There wasn't—I was thinking about you.”

“Who was she?”

There was gratitude in David's eyes.

“She was only a kid—I never thought of her as anything else. Awfully shy and frightened, and no wonder. She'd been living alone with her father in a God-forsaken spot where they never saw anyone. He emigrated and buried himself there when her mother died three or four years before. And then he died, and there was just enough money to take Erica to Sydney, where there was a widowed aunt.”

“Yes,” said Eleanor, “I see.”

“No you don't. There wasn't anything then; I was just sorry for her like anyone would be. And when we got to Sydney and the aunt didn't come on board to meet her, of course I said I'd get her ashore and all that. I thought it was odd the aunt not turning up; but of course our dates were a bit uncertain. Well, anyhow, when we got to the address, we found that the aunt had died suddenly a week before.”