Such is love

by Burchell, Mary

  Very common sense, of course. But it didn't alter the fact that, now she had seen him, everything was changed —just as everything had been changed that day long ago when she had first heard him crying.

  The next few weeks were not altogether easy ones for Gwyneth. When Van was with her and they were doing the things which they had always loved to do together, it was all right. She was happy and she knew she made him happy.

  But there were long hours when Van was away at the office. In the ordinary way, this would not have worried her. There was plenty for her to do—in her home and in the social circle to which Van Onslie's wife naturally had to belong. Only now, when Van was not there, her thoughts fled at once to the little boy at Greystones who was hers and yet not hers, and then they would go round and round the same weary circle again.

  When could she tactfully mention the subject to Van once more? How would he take iiT What could she say that would make him, too, want to have Toby, at any rate for a visit? If Toby then made his own appeal, what would Van think if she suggested adopting him? How could she best put it? How would he take it?

  It was not possible to find the answers to these questions, nor was it possible to escape asking herself the same questions all over again.

  Carefully packing up the little jug, she sent it to Toby

  just a few days after the visit, and in reply she received a cordial letter from the matron, explaining that the jug had arrived safely and that Toby was extremely delighted with it. She read the letter many times and tried to imagine his pleasure when the parcel arrived. But it was all so remote when his baby enthusiasm had to be expressed in typewriting before she could hear about it.

  Somehow she had supposed something might come of this incident, but, of course, it didn't. And silence closed down on Greystones again.

  During the first week in September Mrs. Vilner stayed in London for a day or two on her way to Paris. Gwyneth spent some time shopping with her, and listened with her cool, remote smile to her mother's open congratulations on the excellent match she had made.

  "I had a few doubts at one time, Gwyneth. Those successful, unsmiling business men sometimes make very hard husbands."

  "Van has a very charming smile when he likes," protested Gwyneth mildly.

  "Yes, yes. I know. But it is when he likes—not to please other people. However, it's easy to see he is thoroughly indulgent where you are concerned."

  Gwyneth didn't think 'indulgent' was quite the word, but she let that pass.

  "We're very happy," she said conventionally, and her mother laughed softly.

  "All of which goes to show that I was right in what I did," she observed lightly.

  Something in the complacency of that, infuriated Gwyneth. She shattered her mother's cool self-satisfaction with the one brutal remark:

  "I went with Van to see Greystones a few weeks ago."

  "You ' Mrs. Vilner stopped dead in the middle of

  Regent Street, and then went on again more slowly. It was very seldom indeed that she lost her composure, but this time there was no doubt of it.

  "Did anything—unfortunate happen?" There was that hard thread in her beautiful voice which was only there when she was either very angry or very much disturbed.

  "I saw my little boy, if you call that unfortunate."

  Gwyneth extracted a sort of fierce pleasure from re-

  administering some of the shocks which she herself had received.

  "You mean you—^knew him? But you couldn't!" "He knew me," Gwyneth said slowly. And then suddenly she very much wanted to cry.

  "He knew you? He couldn't know you. How do you mean? That he recognized you as his mother?"

  "No, not that. He—^he picked me out at once and wanted to stay near me. He insisted on coming with me and—and showing me things."

  "Oh— that." Her mother gave an annoyed, relieved laugh. "Lots of children take a fancy to one person and follow them round."

  "It wasn't that." Gwyneth's tone was cold yet fierce.

  "How did you know it was—the child? What proof was there?"

  Gwyneth began to wish now that she had never mentioned Toby to her mother. She was the last person, really, with whom she wanted to discuss things, and only the urge to speak to someone about him had moved her to say anything.

  "It doesn't matter. We won't talk about it any more," she told her mother curtly.

  The subject was only obliquely referred to again before Mrs. Vilner left, and that was hardly an occasion of her own making. She asked quite innocently:

  "Gwyneth, where is your miniature Toby jug? I thought you meant to have it here, on this table."

  "I did, but " Gwyneth hesitated a second, and Van

  supplied the explanation.

  "Gwyneth took a great fancy to one of the children down at Greystones. His name was Toby and she thought he would like the jug. I suppose he was interested in it when he heard about it."

  "I—see."

  Gwyneth refused to look in her mother's direction. She knew quite well that those rather cat-like eyes were thoughtfully on her, but not by so much as a glance would she add to her mother's knowledge.

  Van spoke casually of something else, the moment

  passed And the next morning Mrs. Vilner left for

  Paris, still without having touched on the subject again.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  After her mother's departure Gwyneth was conscious of an immediate lightening of her spirits. Breakfast alone with Van was twice as delightful as usual, and when he looked up from his post, he found her smiling slightly from sheer pleasure.

  "Well?" He smiled, too, as he took his coffee from her hand.

  "Nothing—except it's nice just to be by ourselves again."

  He laughed then, and she knew he was pleased. And then she wondered if that would make him feel less inclined than ever to have Toby. She wished she could think of something clever and tactful to turn that around a little. But before she could think of anything, he addressed her instead.

  "Could you find time to meet my young cousin Paula, one afternoon?"

  "Of course, Paula? I don't seem to remember hex at our wedding."

  "No. She was away in Brussels at a finishing school at the time. She has only just come home."

  "Oh—^she's a lot younger than you?"

  "Good heavens, yes! Much more like a niece than a cousin. In fact, most of my recollections of her centre round feeding her up with too much ice-cream on half-term holidays."

  "But she is rather a favourite of yours?"

  Again that slight smile showed.

  "I have no favourites—except you." For a moment his dark eyes rested on her with extreme pleasure. "But she is a nice child. Gay and a little impertinent, but well-meaning and full of good spirits. Oddly enough, her parents are quite elderly people. They live in a large, gloomy house at Norbury."

  "Oh, that isn't much fun for her, I should think," Gwyneth sgid with sympathy.

  "No, that's how I feel about it. And while I deplore the phrasing of this appeal, I suppose I ought to do something about it." And rather amusedly he tossed over a sheet of thick cream notepaper, covered with large, round handwriting.

  Van darling [Gwyneth read, with a certain amount of amused admiration for anyone who could address her forbidding husband in this extravagant style], do be an angel and come to my rescue! I'm awfully glad to be home from school and all that, but honestly, it's just about as lively as a morgue here. Daddy fixes chess and bowls as the very limit of riotous excitement, while Mother thinks an annual visit to a Shakespearean tragedy quite enough light entertainment for anyone.

  I was thinking of taking to secret drinking or something of the sort to drown my sorrow and boredom— and then I thought of you. I know you've acquired a wife since I last saw you, but you must be getting a bit sick of each other by now. Wouldn't you like a nice, entertaining girl like myself to come along and amuse one or both of you?

  Van, do take me out to something. You see
, I'm quite shameless cadging, but what can a poor girl do? Anyway, the parents consider you old enough to be safe (forgive me if that adjective stings) and of course, as a married man you're doubly safe. Ask your wife if I may borrow you for once, will you? Thanks a lot. Paula.

  Gwyneth put down the letter and laughed.

  "But, my dear Van, it isn't me she wants to see. It's you." '

  "Oh, I dare say." Her husband brushed that aside with careless determination. "Schoolgirl crushes are not in my line."

  "But it's so much more fun when you're nineteen to be taken out by a distinguished-looking man than by a mere female cousin by marriage," objected Gwyneth, with 'some sympathy for the outrageous Paula.

  Van, however, was not to be drawn.

  "No, no. I'll take you both to the theatre in the evening, if you like."

  "Very well. Though she'll probably put me down as a poor possessive creature who dare not lend her husband to an innocent young relation."

  But Van didn't think that sort of thing funny. He just frowned and said: "If she's such a damned fool as to say

  so, she can go back to Norbury and play chess with her father."

  "Poor kid," laughed Gwyneth. "Phone her and ask her if she would like to come shopping with me one afternoon. I'll bring her back here for dimier and we can go on to a show later."

  "I will." Van pushed back his chair and got up. "I must go. It's later than I thought." He bent down to give her that apparently careless kiss for which she waited each morning with an ever-fresh thrill of pleasure. "There's our official invitation to Founders' Day at Grey stones, by the way. I don't know if you stUl want to go."

  "Van, of courser

  She somehow managed not to snatch at the handsomely printed invitation card, but to take it instead with a moderate show of pleasure and interest. And then he went off, leaving her with the card in her hand.

  She read the printed words again and again. So formal— but they were her pass to a stolen paradise.

  She was determined there should be no risk of their not accepting that invitation, and by the time Van came in that evening, she had already replied to it. He was a little amused and said rather teasingly:

  "Is your gruff-voiced admirer responsible for this eagerness?"

  "Toby?" She contrived to sound mildly amused. "I like to see all the children—but he is the special favourite."

  Van nodded, but did not pursue the subject. Instead, he said:

  "I rang up Paula, and she will be very delighted to go with you on Wednesday if that suits you. I'll get tickets for the new revue at the Corinthian. I suppose that's the sort of thing she will like."

  "I should think so. Everyone says it's splendid. Is she coming here to meet me?"

  "Yes. I'll come in to lunch that day if I can, but if not, I don't think she will find much difficulty in introducing herself."

  Nor, judging from the letter, did Gwyneth. And when Wednesday came and Van had to go to a business lunch after all, Gwyneth awaited, with a certain amount of curiosity, the advent of Paula.

  Her gay, fresb voice in the hall was quite a fitting announcement of her arrival, and when Gwyneth came forward to welcome her, she saw that the newly-acquired young cousin was an extremely pretty girl.

  She was dressed in a vivid simshine-yellow suit, which Gwyneth felt sure hailed from the Brussels rather than the Norbury part of Paula's existence, and on her curly dark head was perched a big yellow hat She had great dark eyes —not unlike Van's, except that hers sparkled impudently while his were cahn and usually a little stem—and her smile displayed the most perfect teeth Gwyneth had ever seen.

  "How d'you do? You're Gwyneth, aren't you?"

  Gwyneth's hand was grasped firmly, while she was subjected to the most frankly interested scrutiny.

  *'Yes. And you're Paula."

  "The enfant terrible of our family," Paula agreed, not without a touch of youthful pride.

  "Rather more 'enfant' than 'terrible'T Gwyneth suggested with a smile. "Or do you regard that as an insult?"

  Paula gave a surprised-little laugh as she dropped down comfortably into a comer of the settee.

  "Maybe it's tme." She smiled at Gwyneth again with that undisguised interest. "I didn't expect you to be quite the sort to say that," she added candidly.

  "No? What sort did you expect me to be?"

  "Oh—aloof and correct and dignified."

  "How horrid. What gave you that idea?"

  "I thought that was the kind of wife Van would choose."

  "Oh, come," Gwyneth laughed protestingly. "Do you think Van himself is so—^what was it?—aloof and correct and dignified?"

  "No-o. But one feels his slogan is "Only the best will

  do". I always expected that, having built up his big posi-

  , tion, he'd suddenly think: "Dear me, what I want is a wife

  to crown this edifice"—and then he'd look round and

  select a Caesar's wife sort of person to pop on top."

  "And, from your tone, I don't fill the bill?" Gwyneth suggested regretfully.

  "You're much nicer," Paula said with such a frank smile of approval that Gwyneth's heart warmed to the absurd child in her stunning hat.

  "She's terribly young," Gwyneth thought, "in spite of her confident air.**

  Apparently Paula was thinking the same of her because, pulling off the hat and ruffling up her hair, she remarked;

  "I know it's not the thing to ask such questions, but you're lots younger than Van, aren't you?'*

  "I am younger," Gwyneth admitted.

  "I'm so glad. It makes you so much easier to talk to.'* That was suddenly wistful rather than confident, and Gwyneth wondered curiously if Paula had the same doubts and problems which she had had at her age. Not quite such grim problems, of course, but the same feeling of insecurity.

  She glanced at the pretty, rather clouded face opposite.

  "What is it, Paula? Are you in need of someone to talk to, then?"

  "Sometimes—frightfully."

  "It isn't a bad thing to confide in one's parents." Gwyneth felt something of a hypocrite as she remembered the relationship between herself and her own parents, but she didn't want to encourage this charming, tiresome young creature to beUeve she was misunderstood at home.

  "But there are some things you can't discuss with parents," Paula objected.

  "Are there?"

  "Oh dear—did you discuss everything with yours?"

  There was a slight pause.

  "No. To be quite truthful, I didn't. But then my mother and I were never very close together."

  "I've not much in common with mine, either."

  Gwyneth rose to her feet with some decision.

  "Look here, my chUd, we're getting on rather doubtful ground. I may be very sympathetic and all that, but I'm not going to play the role of listener While you grumble about your parents. If we're going shopping, we had better go now."

  "I wasn't grumbling," Paula assured her, as she got to her feet more slowly. "They're rather dears, as a matter of fact, my parents. Only they're very remote from anything I feeir

  Something in that struck an answering chord in Gwyneth's heart. It was difficult when you couldn't find

  people who shared your feelings. On a most unusual impulse, she put her arm round the girl.

  "Well, my dear, if you want to regard me as a suitable confidante, I'm very flattered. Perhaps I am near enough to your age to share your feelings better than an older person. Any time you want to use me as a safety valve, you're welcome to. Is that what you want me to say?"

  "Yes. You're a darling, Gwyneth. No wonder Van adores you.'*

  "How do you know he does?" Gwyneth laughed, but she flushed slightly, too.

  "He said so."

  "When?"

  "In the letter he wrote in answer to my congratulations. At least, he said you were as near perfect as a woman could be without becoming uninteresting."

  "He said— thatV There was pain as well as pleasur
e in Gwyneth's exclamation. She wondered with what imaginary virtues he endowed her when he ranked her so near perfection. It made one a little afraid.

  She found Paula an excellent companion that afternoon —gay, sweet-tempered and amusing, and by common consent, they cut short the shopping and motored out down the river to have tea at some quiet spot where they could talk without interruption and get to know each other better.

  "Do you always drive your own car?" Paula wanted to know.

  "Usually. I drove a good deal before my marriage. We lived in the country, you know, and I had to. I got used to it."

  Paula seemed to consider the general scheme of Gwyneth's life before she was married, and suddenly she came out with:

  "You were a Canon's daughter, weren't you?"

  "I was."

  "Did you have to be awfully circumspect and well-behaved?"

  A faintly bitter smile just touched Gwyneth's lips at that, but she suppressed it at once. The child couldn't know how ironical that was. *

  "I had to have some regard for appearances, if that's what you mean. But that isn't a bad thing, you know, Paula. Sometimes it keeps one from doing rather silly things."

  (And sometimes it didn't, of course.)

  Paula frowned slightly.

  "I suppose you met Van in a very correct and conventional manner?"

  Gwyneth raised her eyebrows slightly, and even Paula seemed to become aware that curiosity was outrunning good manners.

  "I'm sorry, Gwyneth. Mustn't I say things like that? Only I really had a reason for asking."

  "Had you? Well, I met Van at a perfectly conventional New Year party, if you must know. Why? Do you think it's more romantic to meet unconventionally?"

  "Don't you?" , "No, I don't," Gwyneth said, with a painfully sharp remembrance of a sunlit glade and a romantic little fool listening to pleasant stuff about enchanted princesses.

  "Oh dear! Are you very sticky about that sort of thing?"

  "Meaning?" Gwyneth smiled a little at the disconsolate tone.

  "Gwyneth, do you think it's—cheap, to get to know anyone without all the usual introductions and that sort of thing?"