Part 56 (2/2)

”You don't know what caring is,” he said. ”I can't stand any more of this. Do you see that motto on the sun-dial: 'I bide my time'--I've read it and read it, and I've said it over to myself and waited and hoped to move you. Now I can't wait any more.”

He kissed her, dropped her hand, and turning from her went out through the iron gate and down the drive. For a moment Jan stood by the sun-dial as though she, too, were stone.

Then blindly she went up the steps into the empty nursery and sat down on an old sofa far back in the room. She leaned face-downward against the cus.h.i.+ons, and great, tearing sobs broke from her.

Peter was gone. He would never come back. She had driven him from her.

And having done so she realised that he was the one person in the world she could not possibly do without.

Tony's own hen had laid an egg. Carrying it very carefully in a cabbage-leaf, he went, accompanied by the faithful William, to show it to Auntie Jan, and was just in time to see Peter going down the drive.

He went through the wrens' garden and in by the window. For a moment he didn't see his aunt; and was turning to go again when a strange sound arrested him, and he saw her all huddled up at the head of the sofa, with hidden face and heaving shoulders.

He laid his egg on the table and went and pulled at her arm.

”What is the matter?” he asked anxiously. ”And why has Peter gone?”

Jan raised her head; pride and shame and self-consciousness were dead in her: ”He's gone,” she sobbed. ”He won't come back, and I shall never be happy any more,” and down went her head again on her locked arms.

Tony did not attempt to console her. He ran from the room, and Jan felt that this was only an added pang of abandonment.

Down the drive ran Tony, with William galumphing beside him. But William was not happy, and squealed softly from time to time. He felt it unkind to leave a poor lady crying like that, and yet was constrained to go with Tony because Meg had left him in William's charge.

Tony turned out of the gate and into the road.

Far away in the distance was a man's figure striding along with incredible swiftness. Tony started to run all he knew. Now, seldom as William barked, he barked when people ran, and William's bark was so deep and sonorous and distinctive that it caused the swiftly striding man to turn his head. He turned his body, too, and came back to meet Tony and William.

Tony was puffed and almost breathless, but he managed to jerk out: ”You must go back; she's ... crying dreadful. You _must_ go back. Go quick; don't wait for us.”

Peter went.

Jan very rarely cried. When she did it hurt fiercely and absorbed all her attention. She was crying now as if she would never stop. If people seldom cry it has a devastating effect on their appearance when they do.

Jan's eyelids were swollen, her nose scarlet and s.h.i.+ny, her features all bleared and blurred and almost scarred by tears.

Someone touched her gently on the shoulder, and she looked up.

”My dear,” said Peter, ”you must not cry like this. I was losing my temper--that's why I went off.”

Jan sprang to her feet and flung her arms round his neck. She pressed her ravaged face against his: ”I'll do anything you like,” she whispered, ”if you'll only like it. I can't stand by myself any more.”

This was true, for as she spoke her knees gave under her.

Peter held her close. Never had Jan looked less attractive and never had Peter loved her more, or realised so clearly how dear and foolish and wise and womanly she was.

”You see,” she sobbed, ”you said yourself everyone _must_ do his job, and I thought----”

”But surely,” said Peter, ”I _am_ your job--part of it, anyway.”

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