Such is love (8 page)

But of course it was quite impossible to say such things. She had to pat his head and let him go. She couldn't even kiss him because she was not sure if visitors did kiss the children, or whether it was considered unhygienic or something of the sort. She mustn't do anything the least bit noticeable—not even anything that might strike Van as emotional and unlike her.

The only thing she could do was to call after the little figure trotting out of the dormitory:

"I'll see you again before I go, Toby."

And Toby replied: "Yes, I'll see you too."

"He's quaint, isn't he?" Mrs. Kellaby said with a laugh when he had gone. "He practically never says just "yes" or "no", but always a whole sentence."

"He's sweet," Gwyneth agreed as casually as she could. "How old is he?"

"Going on for six. I think he has a birthday in Septem-

ber." Gwyneth had known it would be so, of course, but she listened fascinatedly to this further confirmation. Mrs. Kellaby turned to her husband. "Toby is one of the Septembers, isn't he?"

Dr. Kellaby smiled.

"Yes. He seems to have taken a fancy to you, Mrs. Onslie."

"I was very flattered. He's a dear child. The kind—the kind of child one could get very fond of. Don't you think so, Van?"

Her husband looked rather surprised, smiled slightly and said:

"Yes, I dare say. Funny little beggar." And then he began to talk to Dr. Kellaby again about Annual Meetings and other uninteresting things.

Gwyneth didn't enjoy the rest of her visit very much. It was hard to show a practical and intelligent interest in the things which didn't concern her own child very personally.

It was hard to have to make casual conversation over lunch, too. She wanted to say:

"When can I see Toby again? Can I have an hour with him all by myself before I go? Could I have him stay with me? Do people ever adopt the children from here?"

But she couldn't ask these questions—^not one of them. They would all sound extraordinary—and whatever she did, she must not arouse suspicion.

The afternoon dragged away. She had seen everything by the end—the schoolrooms, the play-rooms, the kitchens, the grounds—and she had expressed a proper interest in them all. Only at the very end, when they were within ten minutes of going, did she pluck up courage to say:

"I haven't seen Toby to say good-bye."

"Toby?" Her husband looked surprised. "Do you want to see the child again?"

"I promised him I would. I couldn't think of letting him down," Gwyneth said almost sharply.

"A very good rule, Mrs. Onslie," Dr. Kellaby agreed with a smile. "Children notice promises at least as much as grown-ups."

"Of course, if you promised him." Van smiled slightly, too. "I didn't realize that a promise was involved."

So Toby was summoned, and Gwyneth had to say good-

bye to him in front of them all. It didn't count as seeing him at all, of course. She couldn't kiss him and hug him, as she wanted. She could only take his little hand and smile upon him very sweetly and say:

"Good-bye, Toby. I won't forget to send you your jug."

But he was better at this sort of thing than she was. He held up his face to be kissed and said:

"Thank you. Good-bye. Please don't forget my jug."

Everyone smiled then, and so it was quite easy to bend down and kiss him. His mouth felt very soft and damp, and she thought: "He's only a baby—my baby."

"When shall I see you again?" he asked firmly.

"I—don't know." It made her want to cry, having to say that.

"I dare say Mrs. Onslie will be down here on Founders* Day," Mrs. Kellaby suggested pleasantly. And at that, Gwyneth could have fallen on her neck and kissed her.

"Yes—yes, of course. When is it?" She had not dared to think of some possibility like that.

"In about six weeks' time."

"Near my birthday," supplemented Toby innocently.

"I'll come. It's a promise," Gwyneth assured him, trying not to notice that Van's eyes were on her in rather amused surprise.

And, after that, they said their goodbyes to the Kellabys and went, away.

At first they drove in silence. Then presently Van said:

"It's a fine place, isn't it?"

"Yes. Wonderful. I can quite understand your interest in it."

"I wondered once or twice if you had had more than enough."

"Oh no. Really, Van, no I" She was desperately anxious to show any amount of interest that might mean their going back again.

Her vehemence seemed to amuse him slightly.

"You don't have to be interested just because I am," he told her reassuringly. "But I expect you were more interested in the personal side—the children themselves rather than in the first-class organization."

"Yes, I was. That—that little boy who was so friendly— I thought he was sweet."

"Yes. A nice child. I'm afraid I'm not much good at patting their little heads and making conversation. The business side of the place is more in my line than personal contacts."

"I didn't imagine / knew much about what to say to children, but he was quite easy."

Her husband nodded carelessly.

"Van, I like him so much." She tried to make that sound like any woman who just happened to be intrigued by the child. "I wonder if I could have him home?"

Van looked simply astounded.

"For the day, do you mean? I shouldn't think so, my dear. I imagine that sort of thing would be very unsettling for an institution child. I am sure the Kellabys wouldn't encourage it."

She knew he didn't mean it at all unkindly, but to hear her little boy described as 'an institution child' set her teeth on edge.

"You—^you could use a certain amount of influence, I suppose?"

"I could, Gwyneth," he said a trifle dryly, "but I don't think I should. The child is probably very well where he is, and in our particular position, we are scarcely the people who ought to start agitating for rules to be broken."

She was silent, not because she thought—as he evidently did—that the discussion was ended, but because she was thinking how to approach it in a different way.

"Van, we shall go down there again on Founders' Day, shan't we?"

"Certainly, if you would like to. I almost always go. And I'm sure they would take it as a pleasant compliment if you came, too."

"I should like to."

There was silence again for a while and, glancing at him, she felt sure that his thoughts were now on something else —^probably business affairs, since their drawing near London would bring those to his mind. She must speak to him again, before he was quite detached from his profound, if impersonal, interests in Greystones.

"Van."

"Um-hm?"

"If I spoke very tactfully to Mrs. Kellaby on Founders'

Day, and found out whether we could have—have Toby for a visit, would you have any personal objection? I mean, if they don't object?"

Van slowed the car and looked at her in surprise.

"My dear girl, are you seriously suggesting the child should stay with us?"

"Yes." She hoped he wouldn't hear that she spoke with the obstinacy of despair.

"Why, Gwyneth, I think that's a little too impulsive a decision, don't you?"

"It isn't a decision exactly. I—I just wanted to discuss it and see how you liked the idea."

There was a pause, then he said dryly and flatly:

"I don't Hke it at all?"

"Oh, Van, why?"

"My dear, we've only been married a few weeks—only had our home to ourselves for about ten days. Decidedly, I don't want a child running about the place."

She didn't answer, and perhaps he got the impression that she resented his saying that. He flushed rather deeply, an extremely unusual thing with him.

"Well," he said slowly, "I'll amplify that to what I really mean. I don't specially want a child about the place unless it's my chUd."

He couldn't possibly know, of course, how terribly significant his way of putting it seemed to her. He had said 'my child'—not 'your child' or even 'our child'. Somehow his choice of words seemed to shut a door against Toby.

There didn't seem anything else to say, but evidently her silence troubled him, because he stopped the car altogether, turning to face her with his arm along the back of the seat.

"Gwyneth, did you resent my saying that?"

"About not wanting Toby, you mean?"

"No." He dismissed Toby again with very slight impatience. There was a short pause. Then he said with something of an effort: "Did you mind the implication that we might have a child of our own some time?"

"Van!—of course not." She realized then that, in her preoccupation with Toby, she had scarcely noticed Van's change of tone. She caught his hand eagerly, in an unusual access of emotion. "I hope we do have a child, my dear— every bit as much as you do."

That was true—she did hope it. Only that must not shut out Toby. It must not.

"Thank you, darling," Van said in that curt, almost formal way of his, and leaning forward, he kissed her on her lips.

It wasn't possible to start the subject of Toby again after that, however much she might long to. Besides, what Van had said about their having had their home to themselves for only ten days was true. It was unreasonable and unkind to expect him to contemplate an intruder, yet—even such a small intruder as Toby.

She tried to point out very reasonably to herself that she had managed very well without her child for five years. Why must she feel now that she could scarcely bear to pass a day without knowing what was happening to him?

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."