Mr. Waddington of Wyck | Page 3

had to go."
Fanny turned again to her flowers and Barbara to her Stores list.
"Are you sure," Fanny said suddenly, "you put 'striped'?"
"Striped? The pyjamas? No, I haven't."
"Then, for goodness' sake, put it. Supposing they sent those awful
Futurist things; why, he'd frighten me into fits. Can't you see Horatio
stalking in out of his dressing-room, all magenta blobs and forked
lightning?"
"I haven't seen him at all yet," said Barbara.
"Well, you wait.... Does my humming annoy you?"
"Not a bit. I like it. It's such a happy sound."
"I always do it," said Fanny, "when I'm happy."
You could hear feet, feet in heavy soled boots, clanking on the drive
that ringed the grass-plot and the sundial; the eager feet of a young man.
Fanny turned her head, listening.
"There is Ralph," she said. "Come in, Ralph!"
The young man stood in the low, narrow doorway, filling it with his
slender height and breadth. He looked past Fanny, warily, into the far
corner of the room, and when his eyes found Barbara at her bureau they
smiled.
"Oh, come in," Fanny said. "He isn't here. He won't be till Friday. This
is Ralph Bevan, Barbara; and this is Barbara Madden, Ralph."
He bowed, still smiling, as if he saw something irrepressibly amusing
in her presence there.
"Yes," said Fanny to the smile. "Your successor."

"I congratulate you, Miss Madden."
"Don't be an ironical beast. She's just said she couldn't bear to think
she'd done you out of your job."
"Well, I couldn't," said Barbara.
"That's very nice of you. But you didn't do me out of anything. It was
the act of God."
"It was Horatio's act. Not that Miss Madden meant any reflection on his
justice and his mercy."
"I don't know about his justice," Ralph said. "But he was absolutely
merciful when he fired me out."
"Is it so awfully hard then?" said Barbara.
"You may not find it so."
"Oh, but I'm going to be Mrs. Waddington's companion, too."
"You'll be all right then. They wouldn't let me be that."
"He means you'll be safe, dear. You won't be fired out whatever
happens."
"Whatever sort of secretary I am?"
"Yes. She can be any sort she likes, in reason, can't she?"
"She can't be a worse one than I was, anyhow."
Barbara was aware that he had looked at her, a long look, half
thoughtful, half amused, as if he were going to say something different,
something that would give her a curious light on herself, and had
thought better of it.
Fanny Waddington was protesting. "My dear boy, it wasn't for

incompetence. She's simply dying to know what you did do."
"You can tell her."
"He wanted to write Horatio's book for him, and Horatio wouldn't let
him. That was all."
"Oh, well, I shan't want to write it," Barbara said.
"We thought perhaps you wouldn't," said Fanny.
But Barbara had turned to her bureau, affecting a discreet absorption in
her list. And presently Ralph Bevan went out into the garden with
Fanny to gather more tulips.

II
1
She had been dying to know what he had done, but now, after Ralph
had stayed to lunch and tea and dinner that first day, after he had spent
all yesterday at the Manor, and after he had turned up to-day at ten
o'clock in the morning, Barbara thought she had made out the history,
though they had been very discreet and Fanny had insisted on reading
"Tono-Bungay" out loud half the time.
Ralph, of course, was in love with his cousin Fanny. To be sure, she
must be at least ten years older than he was, but that wouldn't matter.
And, of course, it was rather naughty of him, but then again, very likely
he couldn't help it. It had just come on him when he wasn't thinking;
and who could help being in love with Fanny? You could be in love
with people quite innocently and hopelessly. There was no sin where
there wasn't any hope.
And perhaps Fanny was innocently, ever so innocently, in love with
him; or, if she wasn't, Horatio thought she was, which came to much
the same thing; so that anyhow poor Ralph had to go. The explanation

they had given, Barbara thought, was rather thin, not quite worthy of
their admirable intelligence.
It was Friday, Barbara's fifth day. She was walking home with Ralph
Bevan through the Waddingtons' park, down the main drive that led
from Wyck-on-the-Hill to Lower Wyck Manor.
It wouldn't be surprising, she thought, if Fanny were in love with her
cousin; he was, as she put it to herself, so distinctly
"fallable-in-love-with." She could see Fanny surrendering, first to his
sudden laughter, his quick, delighted mind, his innocent, engaging
frankness. He would,