Mr. Waddington of Wyck | Page 7

or implied," said Horatio, "that he was not to come and dine."
With that he left them.
"The beautiful thing about Horatio," said Fanny, "is that he never bears a grudge against people, no matter what he's done to them. I've no doubt that Ralph was excessively provoking and put him in the wrong, and yet, though he was in the wrong, and knows he was in it, he doesn't resent it. He doesn't resent it the least little bit."
2
Barbara wondered how and where she would be expected to spend her evenings now that Fanny's husband had come home. Being secretary to Mr. Waddington and companion to Fanny wouldn't mean being companion to both of them at once. So when Horatio appeared in the drawing-room after coffee, she asked if she might sit in the morning-room and write letters.
"Do you want to sit in the morning-room?" said Fanny.
"Well, I ought to write those letters."
"There's a fire in the library. You can write there. Can't she, Horatio?"
Mr. Waddington looked up with the benign expression he had had when he came on Barbara alone in the drawing-room before dinner, a look so directed to her neck and shoulders that it told her how well her low-cut evening frock became her.
"She shall sit anywhere she likes. The library is hers whenever she wants to use it."
Barbara thought she would rather like the library. As she went she couldn't help seeing a look on Fanny's face that pleaded, that would have kept her with her. She thought: She doesn't want to be alone with him.
She judged it better to ignore that look.
She had been about an hour in the library; she had written her letters and chosen a book and curled herself up in the big leather chair and was reading when Mr. Waddington came in. He took no notice of her at first, but established himself at the writing-table with his back to her. He would, of course, want her to go. She uncurled herself and went quietly to the door.
Mr. Waddington looked up.
"You needn't go," he said.
Something in his face made her wonder whether she ought to stay. She remembered that she was Mrs. Waddington's companion.
"Mrs. Waddington may want me."
"Mrs. Waddington has gone to bed.... Don't go--unless you're tired. I'm getting my thoughts on paper and I may want you."
She remembered that she was Mr. Waddington's secretary.
She went back to her chair. It was only his face that had made her wonder. His great back, bent to his task, was like another person there; absorbed and unmoved, it chaperoned them. From time to time she heard brief scratches of his pen as he got a thought down. It was ten o'clock.
When the half-hour struck Mr. Waddington gave a thick "Ha!" of irritation and got up.
"It's no use," he said. "I'm not in form to-night. I suppose it's the journey."
He came to the fireplace and sat down heavily in the opposite chair. Barbara was aware of his eyes, considering, appraising her.
"My wife tells me she has had a delightful time with you."
"I've had a delightful time with her."
"I'm glad. My wife is a very delightful woman; but, you know, you mustn't take everything she says too seriously."
"I won't. I'm not a very serious person myself."
"Don't say that. Don't say that."
"Very well. I think, if you don't want me, I'll say good night."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously."
He had risen as she rose and went to open the door for her. He escorted her through the smoke-room and stood there at the further door, holding out his hand, benignant and superbly solemn.
"Good night, then," he said.
She told herself that she was wrong, quite wrong about his poor old face. There was nothing in it, nothing but that grave and unadventurous benignity. His mood had been, she judged, purely paternal. Paternal and childlike, too; pathetic, if you came to think of it, in his clinging to her presence, her companionship. "It must have been my little evil mind," she thought.
3
As she went along the corridor she remembered she had left her knitting in the drawing-room. She turned to fetch it and found Fanny still there, wide awake with her feet on the fender, and reading "Tono-Bungay."
"Oh, Mrs. Waddington, I thought you'd gone to bed."
"So did I, dear. But I changed my mind when I found myself alone with Wells. He's too heavenly for words."
Barbara saw it in a flash, then. She knew what she, the companion and secretary, was there for. She was there to keep him off her, so that Fanny might have more time to find herself alone in.
She saw it all.
"'Tono-Bungay,'" she said. "Was that what you sent me out with Mr. Bevan for?"
"It was. How clever of you, Barbara."

IV
1
Mr. Waddington closed the door on Miss Madden slowly and gently so that the action should not strike her as