“I was determined to give him the life he wanted. Not to let him set up as a G.P. when he was through with his exams., but to pay for him to specialise if I could. But we had such heart-breaking disappointments. You see, when he’d got his diploma he got quite a good post at Goddard and Cabells’ research laboratories at Dorking. But he threw it up because he wanted to get on to tropical diseases. So he went as medical officer to a plantation in Siam, thinking he’d have more opportunities for experience. But it wasn’t what we’d expected, nothing but poulticing coolies and dosing them with castor oil. So after a few months he came back, and then of course his job at Goddard and Cabells’ wasn’t open any longer. But we thought he might have a chance for one of the Sandemann travelling scholarships, and that would just have suited him, because then he could have got to Yeshenku. But as luck would have it, the scholarship was given to the man who’d taken his job at Goddard and Cabells’: so if he’d stuck on there and not gone to Siam he’d have had a better chance. So then he got into the Guthrie Institute as a sort of bottle-washer, and I slaved and scraped for three years, and we got the money together to send him to Yeshenku ourselves. You say I can’t live his life for him, but I say that I have.”
Still Hugo said nothing. He was floating away on the tides of sleep and the word Yeshenku boomed emptily about in his head. But he knew that this was rude, and struggled back to consciousness with an effort. She was saying:
“They’ve gone back in the car. But I can take the bus from Ullmer Cross into Basingstoke.”
He opened eyes that were glazed with sleep and stared at her. For she was getting up. She was going. He jumped to his feet.
“But how very noble of you,” he exclaimed.
She laughed and brushed the crumbs off her skirt.
“Let’s hope it’s all chalked up somewhere. We don’t get our rewards in this world, that’s certain. But perhaps it’ll all turn out better than I fear. Where’s my gloves? Oh, there! Well, good-bye, Hugo. And thank you for that excellent lunch. I don’t think we ought to have let you pay.”
“Oh, not at all. I enjoyed it.”
“No, you didn’t. You’re looking very seedy. If you’ll take my advice, as an old friend, you’ll take a long sea voyage or something. You’re overdoing it. Good-bye.”
She moved towards the door and then drew back, for there was a sound of talking and bustle in the hall.
“Can’t I get out by those French windows?” she asked. “I’d rather get away without seeing any of them.”
Hugo looked out on to the terrace and saw that the garden was empty. He knew that a path went from a small gate just below the yew parlour and that she could get to Ullmer Cross that way by crossing a couple of hayfields. So he conveyed her out on to the terrace and hustled her through the garden into the pleached alley.
“They’ll never know how much they owe me,” he thought. “They’ll never guess what a scene I’ve spared them.”
The alley was delightfully cool, and as they were by now out of sight of the house they both began to walk more slowly. The green arch at the far end of it framed a picture of fields and downs too vivid, in the strong light, to be quite real. But when they had got halfway towards it the picture was blotted out. Somebody had come in from the yew parlour. She walked quickly towards them, bending a burnished golden head under the roof of leaves. Hugo pulled up with a jerk of dismay and looked behind him. But there was no escape.
“Here is Laura,” he said in a low voice.
“No,” said Mrs. Usher, clutching his arm. “No …”
Laura came on towards them. They met in the middle of the leafy tunnel.
21. Our Laura.
It was Waterloo. He saw that at once, in the long silence while the two women surveyed one another. That pause was an admission of crisis. There were to be no preliminary skirmishes either, no explanations or feigned misunderstandings. And it was Laura who bore the appearance of an attacking force. Her very tread, as she came towards them, had been quick and vengeful, and in her face there was a white and flaming anger. She spoke first, in a high, rapid voice:
“I’ve been expecting you, Mrs. Usher. I’ve been thinking about you so much this afternoon. I felt sure you must be near. What do you want?”
She had to stoop a little in the green gloom to look into the eyes of her enemy. She bent downwards with such a gesture of fierce pouncing that Hugo was not surprised to see Mrs. Usher draw back quickly. And, though it would have been discreeter to leave them, he lingered, feeling that it would be almost inhuman to leave the poor battered woman in the claws of this angry white seagull.
“I’m going,” said Mrs. Usher hurriedly. “I’ve got a bus to catch. You needn’t worry. I shan’t trouble you any more, Laura. You’ve won.”
“What d’you mean? I’ve won? I’ve won?”
“I shan’t try to interfere. I’m going. No harm’s done …”
“No harm? But don’t you know … haven’t you seen Ford?”
“No,” said Hugo. “We couldn’t find Ford.”
Laura looked suspiciously from one to the other, as if trying to gauge the truth of what they said.
“But what have you come for then?” she asked.
“I came to see him, but he couldn’t be found.”
“Then it’s not your doing after all?”
“What?”
“Ford’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“You mean to say you didn’t know? I thought it was you who … when I saw you there, I thought: now I understand it all. But you tell me you didn’t know?”
“I swear we didn’t know,” said Hugo. “We’ve been sitting in the drawing-room ever since we came, waiting for somebody to find him. When did he go?”
“I don’t know. After lunch some time. I went over to Brassing with my mother. And when I got back I found they’d gone.”
“They?” queried Hugo.
“Ford and …” and …” Laura grew even whiter than before, “and Walter Bechstrader. He left a note for me.” She swooped down at Mrs. Usher again. “You can read it if you like. Hugo can read it if he likes.”
Straightening herself she turned away from them and stared fiercely back along the path at the vivid picture under the green arch. Hugo and Mrs. Usher read the note. It was a formal apology for going without bidding Laura and Lady Geraldine farewell. Macdonald had rung up to say that he had found traces of zygotes in the eggs of one of the mosquitoes, and so Ford was obliged to return to the Guthrie Institute at once and he had availed himself of the kind offer of a lift from Walter Bechstrader. They had departed in a hurry by road more than an hour ago.
“Solange was there, it seems,” Laura told them.
Her face was averted and her voice was quivering, but she went on:
“You ought to be delighted, Mrs. Usher. Mr. Bechstrader was rather sceptical about Ford’s work last night; but it appears that they had a friendly conversation after lunch, and Ford seems to have taken the trouble to explain things rather more. Solange said that they went off on the best of terms, and Mr. Bechstrader is going up to the Guthrie to look at Ford’s specimens this evening.”
“Bechstrader?” repeated Mrs. Usher. “Bechstrader?”
“I asked him down here to meet Ford,” explained Laura drearily.
“Yes. I know. Hugo told me. But …”
“But you didn’t believe it? Nobody did. Did they, Hugo? Oh! He’s left us to fight it out. What tact! Well, there’s nothing to fight about, is there, Mrs. Usher? You’ve no need to get worried about Ford. Not the slightest.”
“I had thought …” stammered Mrs. Usher. “I was afraid …”
“So was I. But we were mistaken apparently. He has as good an eye for the main chance as even you could wish. Oh, my dear woman! Don’t cry! I can assure you there’s nothing for you to cry about.”
“I’ve been through so much to-day,” gulped Mrs. Usher. “I c-can’t help it.”
Laura eyed her coldly.
&
nbsp; “Can’t you understand that you’ve won,” she repeated. “Without even having to fight for him? Surely, knowing Ford, you couldn’t have thought he was in any real danger? Surely not? What were you afraid of?”
“I thought he’d come for you.”
“And what were you proposing to do about it?”
Mrs. Usher dried her eyes and blew her nose.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve been so upset all day. When I heard he was here I was so wild, I hardly knew what I was doing. I couldn’t bear to feel that he might have to go through it all again, a second time. After getting over it once …”
“Was there really ever anything to get over?” demanded Laura sharply.
“Of course there was. How can you ask? You must know. He was heartbroken. And I thought, now he’s going to break his heart a second time. I hardly knew what I was doing. I felt I must do something, I didn’t know what. But while I was waiting here, I thought it over … and I felt that I didn’t know … how much you still cared for him … oh my dear! My dear girl! Don’t look like that!”
She put out a timid hand and touched Laura’s arm almost caressingly. But Laura drew back and said:
“You can afford to console me.”
Mrs. Usher dropped her hand.
“I don’t know, my dear. I don’t understand.”
She was groping about for the relief that this news ought to have given her. For of course it was a relief. Ford was not going to break his heart a second time. He had been faithful to his zygotes and all her terrors had been for nothing. Walter Bechstrader had taken him up. This queer sense of disappointment was merely the result of having been so much upset. It seemed that she had screwed herself up to a pitch of generosity which was, after all, excessive. The reward which she had never expected to reap in this world had arrived before she was ready for it.
“I can’t understand Ford,” she said with a sigh. “I’ve never understood him.”
She began to walk down the path towards the yew parlour and Laura pursued her to say hastily, almost as if defending Ford:
“But he did ask me. He did come down here for that. He asked me this morning to go off with him.”
“Oh? He did?”
“Yes, indeed, and I told him that I couldn’t. To him it must have been quite definite. He was under no obligation …”
They had reached the end of the alley and turned, as if by common consent, to pace the length of it again.
“Definite to him,” said Mrs. Usher, when they had walked some yards. “But you’re angry with him. You feel he’s treated you badly?”
“Yes,” said Laura, in a low voice. “But he hasn’t.”
“You feel he oughtn’t to have gone away suddenly, like this, without saying good-bye?”
“It was cruel. It was meant to be cruel.”
“Oh no, dear. I don’t think it was meant to be cruel. He thought, probably, that it was the most sensible thing to do.”
“Oh yes, terribly sensible. If he’d gone immediately after breakfast, that would have been quite sensible enough. I’d have understood that. But I forgot about Walter Bechstrader.”
Her voice tightened on the last word.
“But didn’t you ask them down here to meet one another?”
“I did. And I scolded Ford last night for not taking more pains. He only did what I told him. He couldn’t know …”
But he ought to have known. That was her quarrel with him. He ought to have known that she found it hard to send him away, that her struggles all day had been severe. He ought not to have stayed till after lunch unless he meant to make another appeal to her. All through that long hot drive to Brassing she had wrestled with her conscience knowing in her heart that she could not resist him for ever. The thought of their ultimate happiness kept breaking through, until she found herself regarding it as a certain event. But he had not stayed for her, only for Bechstrader. He couldn’t know. But he ought to have known. Just as he ought to have known ten years ago. It was the second time that he had failed her.
“He couldn’t know, could he?” she said, turning to Mrs. Usher.
“That you care for him? I should have thought it was as plain as the nose on my face, and always had been.”
“Oh, Mrs. Usher? You do believe it?”
“I do.”
“Then he ought to have believed it.”
“He’s stupid,” said Mrs. Usher crossly. “He always was. Can’t think of more than one thing at once. But he didn’t mean to be cruel. He hasn’t enough imagination. And, mind you, I’m not saying that it isn’t all for the best, now. Of course I think more of his happiness than I do of yours, and I do think he’d be better to go off now and forget all about you. It’s too late. Things might have been different … what I mean to say is … I’m sorry. I’ve never been comfortable in my mind about the way I came between you that time, and now I’ve seen you I feel worse than ever about it. I … I … could have loved you so much. Laura. You and he … I might have seen him happy … his life might have been different.”
She was not thinking of the man who had hurried off with Bechstrader, but of a rebellious boy asleep in an attic. She sighed.
“Well, there’s no use crying over spilt milk, is there?”
“None at all.”
They came out into the garden where Hugo was sitting on a derelict roller. Everybody else was drinking tea in the dining room but he still felt glad of an excuse to hide himself. He had not faced them collectively since the fiasco of the morning, and though he had Marianne’s word for it that nobody had noticed this long disappearance he could not help feeling that he ought to stage his come-back very carefully. He would wait until Laura had put Mrs. Usher to flight and then he would go into tea with her, which would look so much better than strolling in alone.
But he had not expected to see them come out of the pleached alley arm in arm. The spectacle surprised him so much that for a moment his own dilemma went out of his head. He got up from his roller and stood at attention, but they did not come his way. Turning out into the garden they took a slow promenade round the paths, sometimes hidden behind the box hedges and sometimes passing into view. As far as he could see and hear they said very little, but they seemed strangely loath to part, as if some common emotion held them in a wordless bond.
Solange came bounding from the house, a tennis racket in her hand, and stopped to ask him if he would make up a four.
“No,” said Hugo. “I haven’t had tea yet. I’m waiting for Laura.”
He nodded at the two women standing beside the fountain in the middle of the garden.
“Who’s that with her?” asked Solange.
“Mrs. Usher. Ford Usher’s mother.”
“Ford’s mother?”
Her eyes sparkled with excitement and interest. She sat down on the roller beside Hugo.
“Does she know about Ford?” she asked. “Isn’t she excited?”
“What?” asked Hugo cautiously.
“I was there when the telephone message came through. It was one of the most thrilling things that have ever happened to me. I mean, next to actually discovering Pseudopictus, I suppose it’s the most important thing he’s done. I mean, they never thought it could be transmitted to another generation, though of course he says it’s only a possibility even now and you mustn’t rush to conclusions. But it does break entirely new ground. And he’s going to let me come up to the Guthrie and see for myself, one day. Does his mother know?”
“Yes. Laura told us.”
“Isn’t she very excited?”
Laura and Mrs. Usher seemed to have finished their silent contemplation of the goldfish in the fountain. They came towards Hugo’s roller discussing the time table of buses from Ullmer Cross to Basingstoke.
“You must be sure to go through the gate and not over the stile,” Laura was saying. “The other path takes you out on to the downs. It’s a little difficult to find. Hugo! Perhaps you …”
“Let me go,�
� put in Solange eagerly. “I know the way. I could take Mrs. Usher right to Ullmer Cross.”
She jumped off the roller with a pretty, smiling readiness to oblige, and waited impatiently while Mrs. Usher made her farewells. She was longing to talk about the elusive zygotes. To her eyes there was nothing strange in the kiss which Ford’s mother gave to Laura, for she was sure that they must all be very pleased. Ford was wonderful. One day he would win the Nobel Prize and found an Institute of his own and become a perfectly happy man, so that it was no wonder if his mother did want to go about kissing people.
22. Waning Star.
From the dining-room came sounds of laughter, and Hugo stood outside the door, listening nervously. He wondered if a sudden silence would fall on them if he went into the room. He could not, as he had hoped, slip in behind Laura, for she had gone straight upstairs. And after a little while he reminded himself that he had had tea. He would put it off a little longer. He would go into the library and be very busy writing something.
But before he had time to escape the dining-room door opened and Alec came out, peering short-sightedly and almost bumping into Hugo as he hovered on the mat. The two of them set to partners, for Alec thought that Hugo was trying to go through the door. At last he realised that it was not so, and something of the uncertain misery in Hugo’s soul must have reached him, for he closed the door and suggested that they should go for a walk.
Hugo accepted eagerly, though he hated going for walks. It was another respite, nor did it occur to him, until they were well away from the house, that even Alec might regard him as an unsuccessful guest. Taunting memories came back to him. Alec had a reputation for kindness to people in misfortune. Laura had said that she always put the bores next to him at dinner.
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