The Tree of Heaven Part 11

"No. I think it is that Uncle Bartie looks--"

Frances rushed in. "It doesn't matter, my dear, what you think."

"It will some day," said Dorothy.

It was perhaps the best thing she could have said, as showing that she was more interested in the effect she would produce some day than in the sensation she had created there and then.

"May I go round to Rosalind's after lessons?"

"You may."

"And may I stay to lunch if they ask me?"

"You may stay as long as they care to have you. Stay to tea, stay to dinner, if you like."

Dorothy knew by the behaviour of her mother's face that she had scored somewhere, somehow. She also knew that she was in disgrace and yet not in disgrace; which, if you came to think of it, was a funny thing.

About this time Frances began to notice a symptom in herself. She was apt to resent it when Vera discussed her children with her. One late afternoon she and Anthony were alone with Vera. Captain Cameron had not come round that day, and Bartie had gone into town to consult either his solicitor or a specialist. He was always consulting one or the other.

"You're wrong, you two," said Vera. "You think Michael's tender and Nicky's hard and unimpressionable. Michael's hard. You won't have to bother about Michael's feelings."

"Michael's feelings," said Frances, "are probably what I shall have to bother about more than anything."

"You needn't. For one thing, they'll be so unlike your feelings that you won't know whether they're feelings at all. You won't even know whether he's having them or not. Nicky's the one you'll have to look out for.

He'll go all the howlers."

"I don't think that Nicky'll be very susceptible. He hasn't shown any great signs so far."

"Hasn't he! Nicky's susceptibility is something awful."

"My dear Vera, you say yourself you don't care about children and that you don't understand them."

"No more I do," said Vera. "But I understand men."

"Do you understand Veronica?"

"Of course I don't. I said men. Veronica's a girl. Besides, I'm Veronica's mother."

"Nicky," said Anthony, "is not much more than nine."

"You keep on thinking of him as a child--a child--nothing but a child.

Wait till Nicky has children of his own. Then you'll know."

"They would be rather darlings, Nicky's children," Frances said.

"So would Veronica's."

"Ver-onica?"

You needn't be frightened. Nicky's affection for Ronny is purely paternal."

"I'm not frightened," said Frances. But she left the room. She did not care for the turn the talk had taken. Besides, she wanted Vera to see that she was not afraid to leave her alone with Anthony.

"I'm glad Frances has gone," said Vera, "because I want to talk to you.

You'd never have known each other if it hadn't been for me. She couldn't have married you. It was I who saw you both through."

He a.s.sented.

"And you said if there was ever anything you could do for me--You haven't by any chance forgotten?"

"I have not."

"Well, if anything should happen to me--"

"But, my dear girl, what _should_ happen to you?"

"Things _do_ happen, Anthony."

"Yes, but how about Bartie?"

"That's it. Supposing we separated."

"Good Heavens, you're not contemplating _that_, are you?"

"I'm not contemplating anything. But Bartie isn't very easy to live with, is he?"

"No, he's not. He never was. All the same--"

Bartie was impossible. Between the diseases he had and thought he hadn't and the diseases he hadn't and thought he had, he made life miserable for himself and other people. He was a jealous egoist; he had the morbid coldness of the neurotic, and Vera was pa.s.sionate. She ought never to have married him. All the same--"

"All the same I shall stick to Bartie as long as it's possible. And as long as it's possible Bartie'll stick to me. But, if anything happens I want you to promise that you'll take Ronny."

"You must get Frances to promise."

"She'll do anything you ask her to, Anthony."

When Frances came into the room again Vera was crying.

And so Frances promised.

"'London Bridge is broken down (_Ride over My Lady Leigh_!)

"'Build it up with stones so strong--

"'Build it up with gold so fine'"--