LADY CAROLINE.
She walked back to the verandah.
"I understand," she said, "that Lady Caroline wishes a word with me."
With a slight bow she led the way through a low window that opened upon
the Corderys' best parlour, through that apartment, and across a passage
to the door of a smaller room lined with shelves--formerly a stillroom
or store-chamber for home-made wines, cordials, preserves, but now
converted into a boudoir for her use. Its one window looked out upon
the farmyard, now in shadow, and a farther doorway led to the dairy.
It stood open, and beyond it the eye travelled down a vista of cool
slate flags and polished cream-pans.
On the threshold Ruth stood aside to let Lady Caroline enter; followed,
and closed the door; stepped across and closed the door of the dairy.
Lady Caroline meanwhile found a seat, and, lifting her eyeglass, studied
at long range the library disposed upon the store shelves.
"We had best be quite frank," said she, as Ruth came back and stood
before her.
"If you please."
"Of course it is all very scandalous and--er--nauseating, though I dare
say you are unable to see it in that light. I merely mention it in
justice to myself, lest you should mistake me as underrating or even
condoning Sir Oliver's conduct. You will guess, at any rate, how it
must shock my daughter."
"Yes," said Ruth; and added, "Why did you bring her?"
The girl's attitude--erect before her, patient, but unflinching--had
already gone some way to discompose Lady Caroline. This straight
question fairly disconcerted her; the worse because she could not
quarrel with the tone of it.
"I wish," she answered, "my Diana to face the facts of life, ugly though
they may be." As if aware that this hardly carried conviction--for,
despite herself, something in Ruth began to impress her--she shifted
ground and went on, "But we will not discuss my daughter, please.
The point is, this state of things cannot continue. It may be hard for
you--I am trying to take your view of it--but what may pass in a young
man of blood cannot be permitted when he succeeds to a title and the--
er--headship of his family. It becomes then his duty to give that
family clean heirs. I put it plainly?"
Ruth bent her head for assent.
"Oliver Vyell, as no doubt you know, has already been mixed up in one
entanglement, and has a child for reminder."
"Oh, but Dicky is the dearest child! The sweetest-natured, the
cleanest-minded! Have you not seen him yet?"
Lady Caroline stared. As little as royalty did she understand being
cross-questioned. It gave her a quite unexpected sense of helplessness.
"I fear you do not at all grasp the position," she said severely.
"After all, I had done better to disregard your feelings, whatever they
may be, and come to terms at once."
"No," answered Ruth, musing; "I do not understand the position; but I
want to, more than I can say--and your ladyship must help me, please."
She paused a moment. "In New England we prize good birth, good
breeding, and what we too call 'family'; but I think the word must mean
something different to you who live at home in England."
"I should hope so!" breathed Lady Caroline.
"It must be mixed up somehow with the great estates you have held for
generations and the old houses you have lived in. No," she went on, as
Lady Caroline would have interrupted; "please let me work it out in my
own way, and then you shall correct me where I am wrong. . . . I have
often thought how beautiful it must be to live in such an old house, one
that has all its corners full of memories--the nurseries most of all--
of children and grandchildren, that have grown up in gentleness and
courtesy and honour--"
"Good Lord!" Lady Caroline interjected. "You mean"--Ruth smiled--
"that I am talking like a book? That is partly my fault and partly our
New England way; because, you see, we have to get at these things from
books. Does it, after all, matter how--if only we get it right? . . .
There's a tradition--what, I believe, you call an 'atmosphere'--and you
are proud of it and very jealous."
"If you see all this," said Lady Caroline, mollified, "our business
should be easier, with a little common sense on your part."
"And it knits you," pursued Ruth, "into a sort of family conspiracy--
the womenkind especially--like bees in a hive. The head of the family
is the queen bee, and you respect him amazingly; but all the same you
keep your own judgment, and know when to thwart and when to disobey him,
for his own and the family's good. I think you disobeyed Sir Oliver in
coming here; or, at least, deceived him and came here without his
knowledge."
"I am not accustomed," said Lady Caroline, rising, "to direct my conduct
upon my nephew's advice."
"That, more or less, is what I was trying to say. Dear madam, let me
warn you to do so, if you would manage his private affairs."
They faced each other now, upon declared war. Lady Caroline's neck was
suffused to a purplish red behind the ears. She gasped for speech.
Before she found it there came a tapping on the door, and Diana Vyell
entered.