Part 8 (1/2)

'But I do see that you love him very much,' said Miss Entwhistle gently, again very tenderly kissing her.

That afternoon when Wemyss appeared at five o'clock, it being his bi-weekly day for calling, he found Lucy alone.

'Why, where----? How-----?' he asked, peeping round the drawing-room as though Miss Entwhistle must be lurking behind a chair.

'I've told,' said Lucy, who looked tired.

Then he clasped her with a great hug to his heart. 'Everard's own little love,' he said, kissing and kissing her. 'Everard's own good little love.'

'Yes, but----' began Lucy faintly. She was, however, so much m.u.f.fled and engulfed that her voice didn't get through.

'Now wasn't I right?' he said triumphantly, holding her tight. 'Isn't this as it should be? Just you and me, and n.o.body to watch or interfere?'

'Yes, but----' began Lucy again.

'What do you say? ”Yes, but?”' laughed Wemyss, bending his ear. 'Yes without any but, you precious little thing. Buts don't exist for us--only yeses.'

And on these lines the interview continued for quite a long time before Lucy succeeded in telling him that her aunt had been much upset.

Wemyss minded that so little that he didn't even ask why. He was completely incurious about anything her aunt might think. 'Who cares?'

he said, drawing her to his heart again. 'Who cares? We've got each other. What does anything else matter? If you had fifty aunts, all being upset, what would it matter? What can it matter to us?'

And Lucy, who was exhausted by her morning, felt too as she nestled close to him that nothing did matter so long as he was there. But the difficulty was that he wasn't there most of the time, and her aunt was, and she loved her aunt and did very much hate that she should be upset.

She tried to convey this to Wemyss, but he didn't understand. When it came to Miss Entwhistle he was as unable to understand Lucy as Miss Entwhistle was unable to understand her when it came to Wemyss. Only Wemyss didn't in the least mind not understanding. Aunts. What were they? Insects. He laughed, and said his little love couldn't have it both ways; she couldn't eat her cake, which was her Everard, and have it too, which was her aunt; and he kissed her hair and asked who was a complicated little baby, and rocked her gently to and fro in his arms, and Lucy was amused at that and laughed too, and forgot her aunt, and forgot everything except how much she loved him.

Meanwhile Miss Entwhistle was spending a diligent afternoon in the newspaper room of the British Museum. She was reading _The Times_ report of the Wemyss accident and inquest; and if she had been upset by what Lucy told her in the morning she was even more upset by what she read in the afternoon. Lucy hadn't mentioned that suggestion of suicide. Perhaps he hadn't told her. Suicide. Well, there had been no evidence. There was an open verdict. It had been a suggestion made by a servant, perhaps a servant with a grudge. And even if it had been true, probably the poor creature had discovered she had some incurable disease, or she may have had some loss that broke her down temporarily, and--oh, there were many explanations; respectable, ordinary explanations.

Miss Entwhistle walked home slowly, loitering at shop windows, staring at hats and blouses that she never saw, spinning out her walk to its utmost, trying to think. Suicide. How desolate it sounded on that beautiful afternoon. Such a giving up. Such a defeat. Why should she have given up? Why should she have been defeated? But it wasn't true.

The coroner had said there was no evidence to show how she came by her death.

Miss Entwhistle walked slower and slower. The nearer she got to Eaton Terrace the more unwillingly did she advance. When she reached Belgrave Square she went right round it twice, lingering at the garden railings studying the habits of birds. She had been out all the afternoon, and, as those who have walked it know, it is a long way from the British Museum to Eaton Terrace. Also it was a hot day and her feet ached, and she very much would have liked to be in her own chair in her cool drawing-room having her tea. But there in that drawing-room would probably still be Mr. Wemyss, no longer now to be Mr. Wemyss for her--would she really have to call him Everard?--or she might meet him on the stairs--narrow stairs; or in the hall--also narrow, which he would fill up; or on her doorstep she might meet him, filling up her doorstep; or, when she turned the corner into her street, there, coming towards her, might be the triumphant trousers.

No, she felt she couldn't stand seeing him that day. So she lingered forlornly watching the sparrows inside the garden railings of Belgrave Square, balancing first on one and then on the other of those feet that ached.

This was only the beginning, she thought; this was only the first of many days for her of wandering homelessly round. Her house was too small to hold both herself and love-making. If it had been the slender love-making of the young man who was so doggedly devoted to Lucy, she felt it wouldn't have been too small. He would have made love youthfully, shyly. She could have sat quite happily in the dining-room while the suitably paired young people dallied delicately together overhead. But she couldn't bear the thought of being cramped up so near Mr. Wemyss's--no, Everard's; she had better get used to that at once--love-making. His way of courting wouldn't be,--she searched about in her uneasy mind for a word, and found vegetarian. Yes; that word sufficiently indicated what she meant: it wouldn't be vegetarian.

Miss Entwhistle drifted away from the railings, and turning her back on her own direction wandered towards Sloane Street. There she saw an omnibus stopping to let some one out. Wanting very much to sit down she made an effort and caught it, and squeezing herself into its vacant seat gave herself up to wherever it should take her.

It took her to the City; first to the City, and then to strange places beyond. She let it take her. Her clothes became steadily more fas.h.i.+onable the farther the omnibus went. She ended by being conspicuous and stared at. But she was determined to give the widest margin to the love-making and go the whole way, and she did.

For an hour and a half the omnibus went on and on. She had no idea omnibuses did such things. When it finally stopped she sat still; and the conductor, who had gradually come to share the growing surprise of the relays of increasingly poor pa.s.sengers, asked her what address she wanted.

She said she wanted Sloane Street.

He was unable to believe it, and tried to reason with her, but she sat firm in her place and persisted.

At nine o'clock he put her down where he had taken her up. She disappeared into the darkness with the movements of one who is stiff, and he winked at the pa.s.senger nearest the door and touched his forehead.

But as she climbed wearily and hungrily up her steps and let herself in with her latchkey, she felt it had been well worth it; for that one day at least she had escaped Mr. We---- no, Everard.