Part 25 (1/2)
Amy twisted her gloved hands round one another. She was calmer now, but her face was drawn with pain. ”Yes, that's true,” she said. Then she came out abruptly with what had been behind her spoken words for the last ten minutes, with what she had to say before she could bring herself to leave Winnie. ”At any rate, you've pluck. G.o.dfrey's a coward.”
Winnie's lips bent in a queer smile. ”Don't! Where does it leave me? Oh yes, it's true about him, I suppose. That's my blunder.”
Amy walked back to the mantelpiece; she had left her m.u.f.f on it. She took it up and moved towards the door. ”I'll go. You must have had enough of the lot of us!”
Winnie had an honest desire to be just, nay, to be kind, to reciprocate a friendliness obviously extended towards her, and extended in spite of a rooted disapproval. But those limits of endurance had been reached again. She had, indeed, had enough of the Ledstones; not even her husband could have suffered more strongly from the feeling. She made an effort.
”Oh, you and I part friends,” she called after her visitor's retreating figure. Without turning round, Amy shook her head dolefully, and so pa.s.sed out. Her mission was accomplished.
Almost directly after Amy left, the servant, Dennehy's old Irish woman, came in with tea and b.u.t.tered toast. She drew a chair up to the gas stove, and a little table.
”Make yerself comfortable, me dear,” she said.
”Did he say anything to you, Mrs. O'Leary?”
”Said he was going to visit his relations in the North for a bit.” Then, after a pause, ”Cheer up, mum. There's as good fish----!” And out the old woman shuffled.
Now that was a funny thing to say! 'There's as good fish----!' But Winnie's numb brain was on another tack; she did not pursue the implications of Mrs. O'Leary's remark. Nor did the tender mood, on whose advent she had speculated when she said, 'I wonder if I shall cry, when you've gone,' arrive. Nor was she girding against the Ledstones and Woburn Square any more. Her thoughts went back to her own parting from her husband. ”Anyhow, I faced Cyril--we had it out,” was the refrain of her thoughts, curiously persistent, as she sat before the stove, drinking her tea and munching her toast, enjoying the warmth, really (though it seemed strange) not so much miserable as intensely combative, with no leisure to indulge in misery, with her back to the wall, and the world--the Giant--advancing against her threateningly. Because her particular little rampart had collapsed entirely, the roof was blown off her shelter, her scheme of life in ruins--a situation cheerfully countered by Mrs. O'Leary's proverbial saying, but not in reality easy to deal with. Her boat was not out fis.h.i.+ng; it was stranded, high and dry, on a barren beach. ”I did face Cyril!” Again and again it came in pride and bitter resentment. Here she was faced with a _denoment_ typical of a weak mind--at once sudden, violent, and cowardly.
She smoked two or three cigarettes--Ledstone had taught her the habit, undreamed of in her Maxon days--and the hands of the clock moved round.
Half-past six struck. It acted as a practical reminder of immediate results. She had no dinner ordered; if she had, there was n.o.body to eat it with. There was n.o.body to spend the evening with. She would have to sleep alone in the house; Mrs. O'Leary had family cares, and got home to supper and bed at nine o'clock. She need not dine, but she must spend the evening and must sleep, with no company, no protective presence, in all the house. That seemed really rather dreadful.
Her luggage lay on the floor of the studio, still unpacked. She had not given another thought to it; she did now. ”Shall I go back to Shaylor's Patch to-night?” It was a very tempting idea. She got up, almost determined; she would find sympathy there; even the tears might come.
She was on the point of making for her bedroom, to put on her hat and jacket again, when another ring came at the bell. A moment later she heard a cheery voice asking, ”Mrs. Ledstone at home?”
”But I'm not Mrs. Ledstone any more. Nor Mrs. Maxon! I don't see that I'm anybody.”
The thought had just time to flash through her mind before Bob Purnett was ushered in by Mrs. O'Leary.
”Mr. Purnett, mum. Ye'll find the whisky in the usual place, sor, and the soda.” It was known that Bob did not affect afternoon tea.
”I thought you'd be back, Mrs. Ledstone. Where's G.o.dfrey? I've a free night, and I want you and him to come and dine and go to a Hall. Don't say no, now! I'm so lonely! Don't mind this cigar, do you, Mrs.
Ledstone?”
There seemed a lot of 'Mrs. Ledstone' about it; but she knew that was Bob's good manners. Besides, it was a minor point. How much candour was at the moment requisite? Even that was not the main point. The main point was--'Here's a friendly human being; in what way am I required by the situation to treat him?'
It was a point admitting of difficult consideration in theory; in practice it needed none whatever. Winnie clutched at the plank in her sea of desolation.
”G.o.dfrey's staying over the night with his people; he's got a chill. I didn't know it, so I came back all the same from the Aikenheads'.”--How glib!--”And I'm rather lonely too, Mr. Purnett.”
He sat down near her by the stove. ”Well--er--old G.o.dfrey wouldn't object, would he?”
”You mean--that I should come alone? With you?”
”Hang it, if he will get chills and stay at Woburn Square! This doesn't strike one as very festive!” He looked round the studio and gave a burlesque shudder.
”It isn't!” said Winnie. ”Shall I surprise you, Mr. Purnett, if I tell you that I have never in my life dined out or gone to the theatre alone with any man except Mr. Maxon and G.o.dfrey?”