_ PART IV CHAPTER IX. LARPENT
"Shall we dig a deep, deep hole for you to lie in?" asked Eileen with serious violet eyes upraised.
"And then cover you right up to your head so as you won't catch cold?" chimed in Molly.
"Betty dig too! Betty dig too!" cried the youngest of the party with zest. "Zite up over Auntie Toy's head!"
"What an excellent idea!" said Toby with resignation.
She sat down in the golden afternoon sunshine that flooded the beach, the three children buzzing happily about her, and rested her chin on her hands. The blue eyes that dwelt upon the misty horizon were very tired. They had the heavy look of unshed tears, and all the delicate colour was gone from her face. Her slight figure drooped pathetically. She sat very still. All the elasticity of youth seemed to have gone out of her. Once or twice a sharp sigh caught her that was almost like a sob.
Betty's shrill voice at her side recalled her from her dreams. "Betty tired now, Auntie Toy. Betty tummin' to sit down."
She turned and took the child upon her lap with a fondling touch and tender words. Betty pillowed a downy head against her neck and almost immediately fell asleep. Eileen and Molly laboured on at their self-imposed task in the autumn sunshine, and Toby returned to her dreams.
Perhaps she also had begun to doze, for the day was warm and sound sleep had forsaken her of late; when the falling of a shadow aroused her very swiftly to the consciousness of someone near at hand whose approach she had not heard. She controlled her quick start before it could awaken the sleeping child, but her eyes as they flashed upwards had the strained, panic-stricken look of a hunted animal. She made an almost involuntary movement of shrinking and the blood went out of her lips, but she spoke no word.
A man in a navy-blue yachting-suit stood looking down at her with blue-grey eyes that tried to be impersonal but failed at that slight gesture of hers.
"You needn't be afraid of me, heaven knows," he said.
"I'm not," said Toby promptly, and flung him her old boyish smile. "I wasn't expecting just you at that moment, that's all. Sit down and talk, Captain--if that's what you've come for!"
Apparently it was. He lowered himself to the sand beside her. But at once--as by irresistible habit--his eyes sought the horizon, and he sat and contemplated it in utter silence.
Toby endured the situation for a few difficult seconds, then took brisk command. "Why don't you have a smoke?" she said. "You'd find it a help."
He put his hand mechanically into his pocket and took out his cigarette-case. His eyes came back out of space as he did so, and rested upon the fair-haired child in the girl's arms.
"So you've come back to the old job!" he said.
Toby nodded. "Yes. Jake's doing. I'm waiting to--to--to be divorced."
He made a slight movement of surprise, but his face remained inscrutable. "You'll have to wait some time for that," he said.
Toby tilted her chin with a reckless gesture that was somehow belied by the weariness of her eyes. "That wasn't what you came to talk about then?" she suggested after a pause.
"No." Larpent's voice had a curious, almost deprecating quality. "I came to bring you a message."
"A message!" She started slightly, and in a moment the defiance went out of her attitude. She turned towards him. "Who--who is it from?"
Larpent's far-seeing eyes came gravely to meet her own. "From Rozelle Daubeni," he said.
"Ah!" A quick shiver went through Toby. She averted her look. "I don't want to hear it," she said.
"I've got to deliver it," said Larpent, with a hint of doggedness. "And you've got to listen. But you needn't be afraid. It isn't going to make any difference to you. The time has gone for that."
He paused, but Toby sat in silence, her face bent over Betty's fair head. When he spoke again, his eyes had gone back to the quiet sea and the far horizon. There was a hint of pathos about him, albeit his face was grim.
"It may have surprised you to see me in Paris with her," he said. "I'm not the sort of man that runs after--that type of woman. But I went to Rozelle because she was dying, and because once--long ago--she was my wife."
A faint sound came from Toby, but still she did not speak or lift her face.
Larpent went on steadily, unemotionally. "She went wrong--ran away--while I was at sea. She was too young to be left alone. Afterwards--too late--a child was born. She told me the night before she died that the child was mine."
"Good God!" said Toby under her breath.
He went on, grimly monotonous. "I never knew of the child's existence. If I had known, it might have made a difference. But it's too late now. She wanted me to find and protect the child. I promised to do my best. And when I found her, I was to tell her one thing. Rozelle prayed for her child's forgiveness every day."
He ceased to speak, and there fell a silence, long and painful. The tide was turning, and the soft wash of tiny breakers came up the sand. Sea and sky mingled together, opalescent in the misty sunlight. The man's eyes gazed without seeing. Toby's were full of tears.
He turned at last and looked at her, then, moved by what he saw, laid an awkward hand upon her arm.
"I'm not asking anything from you," he said. "But I'd like you to know I'd have done more--if I'd known."
She threw him a quick look, choking back her tears. "It--it--it's rather funny, isn't it?" she said, with a little crack of humour in her voice. "I'm--I'm very sorry. Captain Larpent."
"Sorry?" he said.
"For you," said Toby, with another piteous choke. "I've been foisted on to you so often. And you--you've hated it so."
"That's the tragic part of it," said Larpent.
She brushed away her tears and tried to smile. "I wonder you bothered to tell me," she said.
His hand closed almost unconsciously upon her arm. "I had to tell you," he said. "It's a thing you ought to know." He hesitated a moment, then concluded with obvious effort. "And I wanted to offer you my help."
"Thank you," whispered Toby. "You--you--that's very--generous of you." She gulped again, and recovered herself. "What do you want to do about it?" she said.
"Do? Well, what can I do?" He seemed momentarily disconcerted by the question.
Toby became brisk and business-like. "Well, you don't want to retire and live in a cottage with me, do you? We shouldn't either of us like that, should we?"
"There's no question of that now," said Larpent quietly. "Your home is with your husband, not with me."
Toby flinched a little. "My home isn't anywhere then," she said. "When I left him, it was--for good."
"Why did you leave him?" said Larpent.
Toby's lips set in a firm line, and she made no answer.
Larpent waited a few moments; then: "It's no matter for my interference," he said. "But it seems to me you've made a mistake in one particular. You don't realize why he married you."
Toby made a small passionate movement of protest. "He ought not to have done it," she said, in a low voice. "I ought not to have let him. I thought I could play the part. I know now I can't. And--he knows it too."
"I think you'll have to play the part," Larpent said.
"No!" She spoke with vehemence. "It's quite impossible. He has been far too good--far too generous. But it shan't go on. He's got to set me free. If he doesn't--" she stopped abruptly.
"Well? If he doesn't?" Larpent's voice was unwontedly gentle, and there was compassion in his look.
Toby's eyes avoided his. "I'll find--a way for myself," she said almost inarticulately.
Larpent's fingers tightened again upon the thin young arm. "It's no good fighting Fate," he said. "Why has it become impossible? Just because he knows all about you? Do you suppose that--or anything else--is going to make any difference at this stage? Do you imagine he would let you go--for that?"
Toby's arm strained against him. "He'll have to," she declared stubbornly. "He doesn't know all about me either---any more than you do. And--and--and--he's never going to know."
Her voice shook stormily. She glanced about her desperately as if in search of refuge. The child in her arms stirred and woke.
Larpent got up as if the conversation were ended. He stood for a moment irresolute, then walked across to the two little girls digging busily a few yards away.
Eileen greeted him with her usual shy courtesy. "Won't you wait a little longer?" she said. "We've very nearly finished."
"Nearly finished," echoed Molly. "Isn't it a booful big hole?"
"What's it for?" asked Larpent.
Toby's voice answered him. She had risen and followed him. It had an odd break in it--the sound of laughter that is mingled with tears. "They're digging a hole to bury me in. Isn't it a great idea?"
He wheeled and looked at her. There was no sign of tears in the wide blue eyes that met his own. Yet he put his hand on her shoulder with the gesture of one who comforts a child.
"Before I go," he said, "I want to tell you something--something no one has told me, but that I've found out for myself. There is only one thing on this earth worth having--only one thing that counts. It isn't rank or wealth or even happiness. It swamps the lot, just because it's the only thing in God's creation that lasts. And you've got it. In heaven's name, don't throw it away!"
He spoke with the simplicity and strength of a man who never wastes his words, and having spoken, he released her without farewell and turned away.
Toby stood quite motionless for several seconds, watching him; then, as he did not look round, hurriedly she addressed the eldest child.
"Take care of Betty a moment, Eileen darling! I shall be back directly." And with the words she was gone, like an arrow, in pursuit.
He must have heard her feet upon the sand, but he did not turn. Perhaps his thoughts were elsewhere, for when at the quick pressure of her hand on his arm he paused to look at her, she saw that his eyes were very sad.
"Well?" he said, with the glimmer of a smile. "Well,--Toinette?"
She clasped her two hands upon his arm, holding it very tightly, her face uplifted. "Please--I want to thank you," she said breathlessly. "You have been--so very good."
He shook his head. "I have done--nothing," he said. "Don't thank me!"
She went on with nervous haste. "And it does make a difference to me. I--I--I'm glad I know, though it must have been--a great shock to you."
"It would have been a much worse shock if it had been anyone else," he said.
"Would it? How nice of you!" Her lip trembled. "Well then, I'm glad it wasn't." She began to walk on with him. "Do you mind telling me--did you--did you--forgive her?"
"Yes," he said very quietly.
A quick shiver went through her. "Then I must too," she said. "At least--I must try. She--she--I loved her once, you know, before I began to understand."
"Everyone loved her," he said.
"But life is very difficult, isn't it?" she urged rather tremulously.
"Your life has been," he said.
She nodded. "One can't help--can't help--making mistakes--even bad ones--sometimes."
"You've just made one," he said.
She faced him valiantly. "Ah, but you don't understand. You--you can't throw away--what you've never had, can you--can you?"
"What you've got," he corrected gravely. "Yes, you can."
She flung out her hands with a wide gesture. "But I haven't got it! I never had it! He took me out of pity. He never--pretended to love me."
"No," said Larpent, with grim certitude. "He isn't pretending this time."
She stared at him, wide-eyed, motionless. "Not pretending? What do you mean? Please--what do you mean?"
He held out his hand. "Good-bye!" he said abruptly. "I mean--just that."
Her lips were parted to say more, but something in his face or action checked her. She put her hand into his. "Good-bye!" she said.
He held her hand for a moment, then, moved by some hint of forlornness in the clear eyes, he bent, as he had bent at the Castle on that summer evening weeks before, and lightly touched her forehead with his lips.
"Oh, that's nice of you," said Toby quickly. "Thank you for that."
"Don't thank me for anything!" said Larpent. "Play a straight game, that's all!"
And with the words he left her finally, striding away over the sand with that careless sailor's gait of his, gazing always far ahead of him out to the dim horizon. Perhaps as long as he lived his look would never again dwell upon anything nearer. _