Second String Part 64

"I only said you were an admirable driver, Seymour."

"Naturally I drive carefully when you're in the car, Miss Flower."

"There!" said the Nun triumphantly. "I told you so, Sally!"

Chapter XXVII.

NOT OF HIS SEEKING.

Andy Hayes' _debut_ in the House of Commons was not, of course, sensational; very few members witnessed it, and n.o.body outside took the smallest heed of it. Moreover, like other beginnings of his, it was unpremeditated, in a manner forced upon him. He had not intended to speak that afternoon, or indeed at all in his first session, but in Committee one day an honourable gentleman opposite went so glaringly astray as to the prices ruling for bacon in Wilts.h.i.+re in the year nineteen hundred and something--which Andy considered a salient epoch in the chequered history of his pet commodity--that he was on his feet before he knew what he was doing, and set the matter right, adding ill.u.s.trative figures for the year before and the year after, with a modestly worded forecast of the run of prices for the current year.

Engrossed in the subject, he remembered that the House was a formidable place only after he had sat down; then he hurried home to his books, found that his figures were correct, and heaved a sigh of satisfaction.

It was no small thing to get his maiden speech made without meaning to make it--and to find the figures correct! He attempted nothing more that session. He only listened. But how he listened! A man might talk the greatest nonsense, yet Andy's steady eyes would be on him, and Andy's big head untiringly poised at attention. What was the use of listening to so much nonsense? Well, first you had to be sure it was nonsense; then to see why it was nonsense; thirdly, to see how, being nonsense, it was received; fourthly, to revolve how it should be exposed. There were even other things that Andy found to ponder over in all the nonsense to which he listened--and many more, of course, in the sense.

But even Andy took a holiday from public affairs sometimes, nay more, sometimes from the fortunes of Gilbert Foot and Co. He was in the office this morning--the Sat.u.r.day before Whitsunday--finis.h.i.+ng up some odd jobs which his partner had left to him (Gilly had still a trick of doing that), but his thoughts were on Meriton, whither he was to repair in the afternoon. As he mused on Meriton, he slowly shook the big head, thereby indicating not despair or even despondency, but a recognition that he was engaged on rather a difficult job, perhaps on a game that he was not very good at, but which had to be won all the same. This particular game certainly had to be won; his whole heart was in it. Yet now he was accusing himself of a mistake; he had been impatient--impatient that Vivien should still be less than happy, that she should still dwell in gloom with gloomy Wellgood, that she would not yet come into the suns.h.i.+ne. Well, he would put the mistake right that very day, for Vivien was to lunch with him, attended by the Nun, with whom she had been spending a night or two in town; and then the three of them were to go to Meriton in the motor-car together. The Nun was not singing at this time.

"I must go slow," concluded Andy, whose friends were already smiling at the deliberate gait with which he trod the path of love. "Hullo, there's an hour before lunch! I may as well finish some of these accounts for Gilly."

This satisfaction he was not destined to enjoy. He was interrupted by a visitor.

Harry Belfield came in, really a vision to gladden an artist's eyes, in a summer suit of palest homespun--he affected that material--with his usual blue tie unusually bright--s.h.i.+rt and socks to match; a dazzlingly white panama hat crowned his wavy dark locks. He looked immensely handsome, and he was gay, happy, and affectionate.

"Thought I might just find you, old chap, because you're always mugging when everybody else is having a holiday. Look here, I want you to do something for me, or rather for Isobel. I'm off yachting for three or four months--rather a jolly party--and Isobel's going to take a house in the country for herself and the boy. She doesn't know much about that sort of business, and I wanted to ask you to let her consult you about the terms, and so on, to see she's not done, you know. That'll be all right, won't it? Because I really haven't time to look after it."

"Of course. Anything I can do--please tell her. She's not going with you?"

"No," said Harry, putting his foot on the table and regarding it fondly, as he had at a previous interview in Andy's office. "No, not this trip, Andy. She doesn't care much for the sea." The slightest smile flickered on his lips. "Besides, it's 'Men only' on board." The smile broadened a little. "At least we're going to start that way, and they're taking me--a respectable married man--along with them to help them to keep their good resolutions. Well, old boy, how do you like it in the House?

I haven't observed many orations put down to you!"

"I've only spoken once--hardly a speech. But I'm working pretty well at it."

"I'll bet you are! And at it here too, I suppose? Lazy beggar, Gilly Foot!"

"Gilly's woken up wonderfully. You'd hardly know him."

Harry yawned. "Well, I'm wanting a rest," he said. "I've had one or two worries lately. Oh, it's all over now, but I shall be glad to get away for a bit. By Jove, Andy, the great thing in life is to be able to go where you like, and when you like"--his smile flashed out again--"and with whom you like, isn't it? Are you off anywhere for Whitsuntide?"

"Only down to Meriton."

"Quiet!" But Harry had not always found it so; it was the quieter for his absence.

"I like being there better than anywhere else," was Andy's simple explanation of his movements.

A clerk came in and handed him a card. "I told the lady you had somebody with you, and asked her to take a seat in the outer room for a moment."

Andy read the card. "I'll ring," he said absently, and looked across at Harry.

"Lady? Eminent auth.o.r.ess? Or is this not business? Have her in--don't hide her, Andy!"

"It's Vivien Wellgood."

Harry turned his head sharply. "What brings her here?"

"I don't know. I was to meet her and Doris Flower for lunch, and go down with them to Meriton afterwards. Perhaps something's happened to stop it, and she's come to tell me."

A curious smile adorned Harry's handsome features. He looked doubtful, yet decidedly interested.

"I'd better go out and see her," said Andy. "I mustn't keep her waiting."

Harry broke into a laugh, half of amus.e.m.e.nt, half of impatience. "You needn't look so infernally solemn over it! It won't kill her to bow to me--or even to shake hands."

Andy came to a sudden resolution. Since chance willed it this way, this way it should be.

"As you please!" he said, and rang the bell.

Harry rose to his feet, and took off the panama hat, which he had kept on during his talk with Andy. His eyes were bright; the smile flickered again on his lips. He had not seen Vivien since that night--and that night seemed a very long way off to Harry Belfield.

In the brief s.p.a.ce before the door reopened, a vision danced before Andy's eyes--a vision of Curly the retriever, and of a girl standing motionless in fear, and yet, because he was there, not so much afraid.

In his mind was the idea which had suddenly taken shape under the impulsion of chance--that she had better face the present than dream of the past, better see the man who was nothing to her, than pore over the memory of him who had been everything. She might--nay, probably would--resent an encounter thus sprung upon her. Andy knew it; in this moment, with the choice suddenly presented, he chose to act for himself.

Perhaps, for once in his life, he yielded to a sort of superst.i.tion, a feeling that the chance was not for nothing, that they three would not meet together again without result. Mingled with this was anger that Harry should take the encounter with his airy lightness, that his eyes should be bright and his lips bent in a smile. Andy was ready for the last round of the fight--and ready to take his chance. Suddenly under the pressure of his thoughts--perforce, as it were--he spoke out to Harry.

"None of this has been of my seeking," he said.

"None of what? What do you mean, old fellow?"

There was no time for answer. Vivien was in the room, and the clerk closed the door after she had entered.

She stood for a moment on the threshold and then moved quickly to Andy's side.

"I knew," she said. "I heard your voices."

"I'm just going," said Harry. "I won't interrupt you. I had a hope that you wouldn't mind just shaking hands with an old friend. I should like it--awfully!" His smile now was pleading, propitiatory, yet with the lurking hint that there was sentimental interest in the situation; possibly, though he could not be convicted of this idea--it was too elusively suggested--that there was, after all, a dash of the amusing.

She paused long on her answer. At last she spoke quietly, in a friendly voice. "Yes, I'll shake hands with you, Harry. Because it's all over."

She smiled faintly. "I'll shake hands with you if Andy will let me."

"If Andy--?"

"Yes; because my hand belongs to him now. I came here to tell him so this morning." She pa.s.sed her left arm through Andy's and held out her right hand towards Harry. Her lips quivered as she looked up for a moment at Andy's face. He patted her hand gently, but his eyes were set on Harry Belfield.

The hand she offered Harry did not take. He stretched out his for his hat, and picked it up from the table in a shaking grip. The smile had gone from his lips; his eyes were heavy and resentful; he found no more eloquent, appropriate words.

"Oh, so that's it?" he said with a sullen sneer.

"It's none of it been of my seeking," Andy protested again. In this last moment of the fight the old feeling came strong upon him. He pleaded that he had been loyal to Harry, that he was no usurper; it had never been in his mind.