Mr. Waddington of Wyck | Page 4

she thought, be endlessly amusing, endlessly
interesting, because he was so interested, so amused. There was
something that pleased her in the way he walked, hatless, his head
thrown back, his shoulders squared, his hands thrust into his coat
pockets, safe from gesture; something in the way he spun round in his
path to face her with his laughter. He had Fanny's terrier nose with the
ghost of a kink in it; his dark hair grew back in a sickle on each temple;
it wouldn't lie level and smooth like other people's, but sprang up,
curled from the clipping. His eyes were his own, dappled eyes, green
and grey, black and brown, sparkling; so was his mouth, which was
neither too thin nor too thick--determination in the thrusting curve of
that lower lip--and his chin, which was just a shade too big for it, a
shade too big for his face. His cheeks were sunburnt, and a little shower
of ochreish freckles spread from the sunburn and peppered the slopes of
his nose. She wanted to sketch him.
"Doesn't Mrs. Waddington ever go for walks?" she said.
"Fanny? No. She's too lazy."
"Lazy?"
"Too active, if you like, in other ways.... How long have you known
her?"
"Just five days."

"Five _days_?"
"Yes; but, you see, years ago she was my mother's dearest friend. That's
how I came to be their secretary. When she saw my name in the
advertisement she thought it must be me. And it was me. They hadn't
seen each other for years and years. My father and Mr. Waddington
didn't hit it off together, I believe."
"You haven't seen him yet?"
"No. There seems to be some mystery about him."
"Mystery?"
"Yes. What is it? Or mayn't you tell?"
"I _won't_ tell. It wouldn't be kind."
"Then don't--don't. I didn't know it was that sort of thing."
Ralph laughed. "It isn't. I meant it wouldn't be kind to you. I don't want
to spoil him for you."
"Then there _is_--tell me one thing: Shall I get on with him all right?"
"Don't ask me that."
"I mean, will he be awfully difficult to work with?"
"Because he sacked me? No. Only you mustn't let on that you know
better than he does. And if you want to keep your job, you mustn't
contradict him."
"Now you've made me want to contradict him. Whatever he says I shall
have to say the other thing whether I agree with him or not."
"Don't you think you could temporize a bit? For her sake."
"Did you temporize?"

"Rather. I was as meek and servile as I knew how."
"As you knew how. Do you think I shall know better?"
"Yes, you're a woman. You can get on the right side of him. Will you
try to, because of Fanny? I'm most awfully glad she's got you, and I
want you to stay. Between you and me she has a very thin time with
Waddington."
"There it is. I know--I know--I know I'm going to hate him."
"Oh, no, you're not. You can't hate Waddington."
"You don't?"
"Oh, Lord, no. I wouldn't mind him a bit, poor old thing, if he wasn't
Fanny's husband."
He had almost as good as owned it, almost put her in possession of
their secret. She conceived it--his secret, Fanny's secret--as all
innocence on her part, all chivalry on his; tender and hopeless and pure.
2
They had come to the white gate that led between the shrubberies and
the grass-plot with the yellow-grey stone house behind it.
It was nice, she thought, of Fanny to make Mr. Bevan take her for these
long walks when she couldn't go with them; but Barbara felt all the
time that she ought to apologize to the young man for not being Fanny,
especially when Mr. Waddington was coming back to-day by the
three-forty train and this afternoon would be their last for goodness
knew how long. And as they talked--about Ralph's life before the war
and the jobs he had lost because of it (he had been a journalist), and
about Barbara's job at the War Office, and air raids and the games they
both went in for, and their favourite authors and the room he had in the
White Hart Inn at Wyck--as they talked, fluently, with the ease of old
acquaintances, almost of old friends, Barbara admired the beauty of Mr.

Bevan's manners; you would have supposed that instead of suffering, as
he must be suffering, agonies of impatience and irritation, he had never
enjoyed anything in his life so much as this adventure that was just
coming to an end.
He had opened the gate for her and now stood with his back to it,
holding out his hand, saying "Good-bye."
"Aren't you coming in?" she