Mr. Waddington of Wyck Part 29

"I have come to you, haven't I?" She thought of the five hundred pounds.

He thought of them too. "Ah, that's different. Now, about these debts to Markham and Hawtrey. How much do they come to--about?"

"Oh, a five-pound note would cover all of it. But I shall only be in debt to you."

"We'll say nothing about that. If I pay it, Elise, will you promise me you'll never play higher than penny points again?"

"It's too angelic of you, really."

He smiled. He liked paying her gambling debts. He liked the power it gave him over her. He liked to think that he could make her promise. He liked to be told he was angelic. It was all very cheap at five pounds, and it would enable him to refuse the five hundred with a better grace.

"Come, on your word of honour, only penny points."

"On my word of honour.... But, oh, I don't think I can take it."

She thought of the five hundred. When you wanted five hundred it was pretty rotten to be put off with a fiver.

"If you can take it from Hawtrey and Markham--"

"That's it. I _can't_ take it from Markham. I haven't done that. I can't do it."

"Well, Hawtrey then."

"Hawtrey's different"

"Why is he different?"

A faint suspicion, relating to Markham, troubled him, and not for the first time.

"Well, you see, he's a middle-aged married man. He might be my uncle."

He thought: "And Markham--_he_ might be--"

But Elise was not in love with the fellow. No, no. He was sure of Elise; he knew the symptoms; you couldn't mistake them. But she might marry Markham, all the same. Out of boredom, out of uncertainty, out of desperation. He was not going to let that happen; he would make it impossible; he would give Elise the certainty she wanted now.

"You said _I_ was different."

Playful reproach. But she would understand.

"So you are. You're a married man, too, aren't you?"

"I thought we'd agreed to forget it."

"Forget it? Forget Mrs. Waddington?"

"Yes, forget her. You knew me long before you knew f.a.n.n.y. What has she got to do with you and me?"

"Just this, that she's the only woman in the county who'll know _me_."

"Because you're my friend, Elise."

"You needn't remind me. I'm not likely to forget that any good thing that's come to me here has come through you."

"I don't want anything but good to come to you through me"

He leaned forward.

"You're not very happy in Wyck, are you?"

"Happy? Oh, yes. But it's not what you'd call wildly exciting. And Toby's worrying me. He says he can't stand it, and he wants to emigrate."

"Well, why not?"

Mr. Waddington's heart gave a great thump of hope. He saw it all clearly. Toby was the great obstruction. Elise might have held out for ever as long as Toby lived with her. But if Toby went--She saw it too; that was why she consented to his going.

"It isn't much of a job for him, Bostock's Bank."

"N-no," she a.s.sented, "n-no. I've told him he can go if he can get anything."

He played, stroking the long tails of her fur. It lay between them like a soft, supine animal.

"Would you like to live in Cheltenham, Elise?"

"Cheltenham?"

"If I took a little house for you?"

(He had calculated that he might just as well lose his rent in Cheltenham as in Wyck. Better. Besides, he needn't lose it. He could let the White House. It would partly pay for Cheltenham.)

"One of those little houses in Montpelier Place?"

"It's too sweet of you to think of it." She began playing too, stroking the fur animal; their hands played together over the sleek softness, consciously, shyly, without touching.

"But--why Cheltenham?"

"Cheltenham isn't Wyck."

"No. But it's just as dull and stuffy. Stuffier."

"Beautiful little town, Elise."

"What's the good of that when it's crammed full of school children and school teachers, and decayed army people and old maids? I don't _know_ anybody in Cheltenham."

"Can't you see that that would be the advantage?"

"No. I can't see it. There's only one place I _want_ to live in."

"And that is--?"