There is in the collection of the Earl of Ellesmere a picture of the head
of a girl which the connoisseurs of the nineteenth century ascribed to
Leonardo da Vinci. The connoisseurs of the twentieth century ascribe it
to Luini. But for the colour of the hair it might have been a portrait of
Lady Loudwater, a faded portrait. It might also very well be a portrait
of one of her actual ancestresses, for her grandmother was a lady of an
old Tuscan family.
Be that as it may, Lady Loudwater had the soft, dark, dreamy eyes, set
rather wide apart, the straight, delicate nose, the alluring lips,
promising all the kisses, the broad, well-moulded forehead, and the
faint, exactly curving eyebrows of the girl in the picture. Above all,
when Lord Loudwater was not present, the mysterious, enchanting,
lingering smile, which is perhaps the chief charm of Luini's women,
rested nearly always on her face. But while the hair of the girl in the
picture is a deep, dull red, the hair of Olivia was dark brown with
glimmers of gold in it. Also, her colouring was warmer than that of the
girl in the picture, and her alluring charm stronger.
At a quarter to three that afternoon she came out on to the East lawn in
a silk frock and hat of a green rather sombre for the summer day. She had
been bidden by a fashionable fortune-teller never to wear green, for it
was her unlucky colour. But that tint had so given her colouring its full
values and her dark, liquid eyes so deep a depth, that she had paid no
heed to the warning. There was a bright light of expectation in her eyes,
and the alluring smile lingered on her face.
She walked quickly across the lawn with the easy, graceful gait proper to
the accomplished golfer she was, into the shrubbery on the other side of
it. A few feet along the path through it she looked sharply back over her
shoulder. She saw no one at those windows of the East wing which looked
on to the lawn and shrubbery, but a movement on the lawn itself caught
her eye. The cat Melchisidec was following her. She did not slacken her
pace, but for a moment the smile faded from her face at the remembrance
of her husband's outburst at breakfast. Then the smile returned, subtile
and expectant.
She did not wait for Melchisidec. She knew his way of pretending to
follow her like a dog; she knew that if she displayed any interest in
him, even showed that she was aware of his presence, he would probably
come no further. She went on at the same brisk pace till she came to the
gate in the East wood. She went through it, shut it gently, paused, and
again looked back. All of the path through the shrubbery that she could
see was empty. She turned and walked briskly along the narrow path
through the wood, and came into the long, turf-paved aisle which ran at
right angles to it.
The middle of the aisle was deeply rutted by the wheels of the carts
which had carried away the timber from the spring thinning of the wood.
She turned to the left and sauntered slowly up the smooth turf along the
side of the aisle, a brighter light of expectation in her eyes, her smile
even more mysterious and alluring.
She had not gone fifty yards up the aisle when Colonel Grey came limping
out of the entrance of a path on the other side of it, and quickened his
pace as he crossed it.
She stood still, flushing faintly, gazing at him with her lips parted a
little. He looked, as he was, very young to be a Lieutenant-Colonel, and
uncommonly fragile for a V. C. At any time he would look delicate, and
he was the paler for the fact that at times he still suffered
considerable pain from his wound. But there was force in his delicate,
distinguished face. His sensitive lips could set very firm; his chin was
square; his nose had a rather heavy bridge, and usually his grey eyes
were cold and very keen. He gave the impression of being wrought of
finely-tempered steel.
His eyes were shining so brightly at the moment that they had lost their
keenness with their coldness. He marked joyfully the flush on her face,
and did not know that he was flushing himself.
About five feet away he stopped, gazing, or rather staring, at her, and
said in a tone of fervent conviction: "Heavens, Olivia! What a beautiful
and entrancing creature you are!"
She smiled, flushing more deeply. He stepped forward, took her hand, and
held it very tightly.
"Goodness! But I have been impatient for you to come!" he cried.
"I'm not late," she said in her low, sweet, rather drawling voice.
He let go of her hand and said: "I don't know how it is, but I've been as
restless as a cat all the morning. I'm never sure that you will be able
to come; and the uncertainty worries me."
"But you saw me for three hours yesterday," she said, moving forward.
"Yesterday?" he said, falling into step with her. "Yesterday is a
thousand years away. I wasn't sure that you'd come today."
"Why shouldn't I come?" she said.
"Loudwater might have got to know of it and stopped you coming."
"Fortunately he doesn't take enough interest in my doings. Of course, if
I didn't turn up at a meal, he'd make a fuss, though why he should make
such a point of our having all our meals together I can't conceive. I
should certainly enjoy mine much more if I had them in my sitting-room,"
she said in a dispassionate tone, for all the world as if she were
discussing the case of some one else.
"I _am_ so worried about you," he said with a harassed air. "Ever since
that evening I heard him bullying you I've been simply worried to death
about it."
"It was nice of you to interfere, but it was a pity," she said gently.
"It didn't do any good as far as his behaviour is concerned, and we saw
so much more of one another when you could come to the Castle."
"Then you do want to see more of me?" he said eagerly.
Lady Loudwater lost her smiling air; she became demureness itself, and
she said: "Well, you see--thanks to Egbert's vile temper--we have so
few friends."
Grey frowned; she was always quick to elude him. Then he growled: "What a
name! Egbert!"
"He can't help that. It was given him. Besides, it's a family name," she
said in a tone of fine impartiality.
"It would be. Hogbert!" said Grey contemptuously.
Mrs. Truslove and Mr. Manley were not the only people to ignore the
essential bullness of Lord Loudwater.
They went on a few steps in silence; then she said: "Besides, I don't
mind his outbursts. I'm used to them."
"I don't believe it! You're much too delicate and sensitive!" he cried.
"But I _am_ getting used to them," she protested.
"You never will. Has he been bullying you again?" he said, looking
anxiously into her eyes.
"Not more than usual," she said in a wholly indifferent tone.
"Then it is usual! I was afraid it was," he said in a miserable voice.
"What on earth is to be done about it?"
"Why, there's nothing to be done, except just grin and bear it," she said
bravely enough, and with the conviction of one who has thought a matter
out thoroughly.
"Then it's monstrous! Just monstrous, that the most charming and
loveliest creature in the world should be bullied by that infernal
brute!" he cried, and put his arm around her.
The Countess was on the very point of slipping out of it when the cat
Melchisidec came out of the bushes a dozen yards ahead of them, and
with Melchisidec came a very distinct vision of Lord Loudwater's
flushed, distorted, and revolting face as he swore at her at breakfast
that morning.
She did not slip out of the encircling arm, and Grey bent his head and
kissed her lightly on the lips.
It was the gentlest, lightest kiss, the kiss he might have given a
pretty child, just a natural tribute to beauty and charm.
But the harm was done. The population of Great Britain cannot really be
more than one and a half persons to the acre, and the great majority of
them live, thousands to the acre, in towns; yet it is indeed difficult
to kiss a girl during the daytime in any given acre, however thickly
wooded, without being seen by some superfluous sojourner on that acre;
and whether, or no, it was that the green frock and hat brought the
Countess the bad luck the fortuneteller had foretold, there was a
witness to that kiss.
Undoubtedly, too, it was not the right kind of witness. If it had been an
indulgent elder not given to gossip, or a chivalrous young man not averse
himself from kisses, all might have been well. But William Roper,
under-gamekeeper, was a young man without a spark of chivalry in him, and
he had been soured in the matter of kisses by the steadfast resolve of
the young women of the village to suffer none from him. He was an
unattractive young man, not unlike the ferrets he kept at his cottage. He
was the last young man in the world, or at any rate in the neighbourhood,
to keep silent about what he had seen.
Even so, no great harm might have been done. He might have blabbed about
the matter in the village, and the whole village and the servants of the
Castle might have talked about it for weeks and months, or even years,
without it reaching the ears of Lord Loudwater. But William Roper saw in
that kiss his royal road to Fortune. Ambitious in the grain, he was not
content with his post of under-gamekeeper; he desired to oust William
Hutchings from the post of head-gamekeeper, and though there were two
under-gamekeepers senior to him with a greater claim on that post, occupy
it himself. Here was the way to it; his lordship could not but be
grateful to the man who informed him of such goings-on; he could not but
promote him to the post of his desire.
He wholly misjudged his lordship. Ordinary gratitude was not one of his
attributes.
Olivia slipped out of Grey's arm, and they walked on up the aisle. But
they walked on, changed creatures--trembling, a little bemused.
William Roper, the ill-favoured minister of Nemesis, followed them.
At the top of the aisle they came to the pavilion, a small white marble
building in the Classic style, standing in the middle of a broad glade.
As they went into it, Olivia said wistfully: "It's a pity I couldn't have
tea sent here."
"I did. At least I brought it," said Grey, waving his hand towards a
basket which stood on the table. "I knew you'd be happier for tea."
"No one has ever been so thoughtful of me as you are," she said, gazing
at him with grateful, troubled eyes.
"Let's hope that your luck is changing," he said gravely, gazing at her
with eyes no less troubled.
Then Melchisidec scratched at the door and mewed. Olivia let him in.
Purring in the friendliest way, he rubbed his head against Grey's leg. He
never treated Lord Loudwater with such friendliness.
William Roper chose a tree about forty yards from the pavilion and set
his gun against the trunk. Then he filled and lit his pipe, leaned back
comfortably against the trunk, hidden by the fringe of undergrowth, and,
with his eyes on the door of the pavilion, waited. For Grey and Olivia,
never dreaming of this patient watcher, the minutes flew; they had so
many things to tell one another, so many questions to ask. At least Grey
had; Olivia, for the most part, listened without comment, unless the
flush which waxed and waned should be considered comment, to the things
he told her about herself and the many ways in which she affected him.
For William Roper the minutes dragged; he was eager to start briskly up
the royal road to Fortune. He was a slow smoker and he smoked a strong,
slow-burning twist; but he had nearly emptied the screw of paper which
held it before they came out of the door of the pavilion.
It was a still evening, but some drift of air had carried the rank smoke
from William Roper's pipe into the glade, and it hung there. Colonel Grey
had not taken five steps before his nostrils were assailed by it.
"Damn!" he said softly.
"What's the matter?" said Olivia.
She was too deeply absorbed in Grey for her senses to be alert, and
the reek of William Roper's twist had reached her nostrils, but not
her brain.
"There's some one about," he said. "Can't you smell his vile tobacco?"
"Bother!" said Olivia softly, and she frowned. They walked quietly on.
Grey was careful not to look about him with any show of earnestness, for
there was nothing to be gained by letting the watcher know that they had
perceived his presence. Indeed, he would have seen nothing, for the
undergrowth between him and the glade was too thin to form a good screen,
and William Roper was now behind the tree-trunk.
Thirty yards down the broad aisle Grey said in a low voice: "This is an
infernal nuisance!"
"Why?" said Olivia.
"If it comes to Loudwater's ears, he'll make himself devilishly
unpleasant to you."
"He can't make himself more unpleasant than he does," she said, in a tone
of quiet certitude and utter indifference. "But why shouldn't I have tea
with you in the pavilion? It's what it's there for."
"All the same, Loudwater will make an infernal fuss about it, if it gets
to his ears. He'll bully you worse than ever," he said in an unhappy
tone, frowning heavily.
"What do I care about Loudwater--now?" she said, smiling at him, and she
brushed her fingertips across the back of his hand.
He caught her fingers and held them for a moment, but the frown
did not lift.
"The nuisance is that, whoever it was, he had been there a long time," he
said gravely. "The glade was full of the reek of his vile tobacco.
Suppose he saw me kiss you in the drive here and then followed us?"
"Well, if you will do such wicked things in the open air--" she
said, smiling.
"It isn't a laughing matter, I'm afraid," he said rather heavily,
and frowning.
"Well, I should have to consider your reputation and say that you didn't.
It would be very bad for your career if it became known that you did such
things, and Egbert would never rest till he had done everything he could
do to injure you. I should certainly declare that you didn't, and you'd
have to do the same."
"Oh, leave me out of it! Hogbert can't touch me. It's you I'm thinking
about," he said.
"But there's no need to worry about me. I'm not afraid of Egbert any
longer," she said, and her eyes, full of confidence and courage, met his
steadily. Then, resolved to clear the anxiety away from his mind, she
went on: "It's no use meeting trouble half-way. If some one did see us,
Egbert may not get to hear of it for days, or weeks--perhaps never."
She did not know that they had to reckon with the ambition of
William Roper.
"Lord, how I want to kiss you again!" he cried.
"You'll have to wait till tomorrow," she said.
It was as well that he did not kiss her again, for fifty yards behind
them, stealing through the wood, came William Roper, all eyes. And he had
already quite enough to tell.
Grey walked with her through the rest of the wood and nearly to the end
of the path through the shrubbery. She spared no effort to set his mind
at ease, protesting that she did not care a rap how furiously her husband
abused her. A few yards from the edge of the East lawn they stopped, but
they lingered over their parting. She promised to meet him in the East
wood at three on the morrow.
She walked slowly across the lawn and up to her suite of rooms, thinking
of Grey. She changed into a _peignoir_, lit a cigarette, lay down on a
couch, and went on thinking about him. She gave no thought to the matter
of whether they had been watched. Lord Loudwater had become of less
interest than ever to her; his furies seemed trivial. She had a feeling
that he had become a mere shadow in her life.
As she lay smoking that cigarette William Roper was telling his story to
Lord Loudwater. He had waited in the wood till Colonel Grey had gone
back through it; then he had walked briskly to the back door of the
Castle and asked to see his lordship. Mary Hutchings, the second
housemaid, who had answered his knock, took him to the servants' hall,
and told Holloway what he asked. Both of them regarded him curiously;
they themselves never wanted to see his lordship, though seeing him was
part of their jobs, and one who could go out of his way to see him must
indeed be remarkable. William Roper was hardly remarkable. He was merely
somewhat repulsive. Holloway said that he would inquire whether his
lordship would see him, and went.
As he went out of the door William Roper said, with an air of great
importance: "Tell 'is lordship as it's very partic'ler."
Mary Hutchings' curiosity was aroused, and she tried to discover what it
was. All she gained by doing so was an acute irritation of her curiosity.
William Roper grew mysterious to the very limits of aggravation, but he
told her nothing.
Her irritation was not alleviated when he said darkly: "You'll 'ear all
about these goings-on in time."
She wished to hear all about them then and there.
Holloway came back presently, looking rather sulky, and said that his
lordship would see William Roper.
"Though why 'e should curse me because you want to see 'im very
partic'ler, I can't see," he added, with an aggrieved air.
He led the way, and for the first time in his life William Roper found
himself entering the presence of the head of the House of Loudwater
without any sense of trepidation. He carried himself unusually upright
with an air of conscious rectitude.
Lord Loudwater was in the smoking-room in which he had that morning dealt
with his letters with Mr. Manley. It was his favourite room, his
smoking-room, his reading-room, and his office. He had been for a long
ride, and was now lying back in an easy chair, with a long
whisky-and-soda by his side, reading the _Pall Mall Gazette_. In
literature his taste was blameless.
Holloway, ushering William Roper into the room, said: "William Roper,
m'lord," and withdrew.
Lord Loudwater went on reading the paragraph he had just begun. William
Roper gazed at him without any weakening of his courage, so strong was
his conviction of the nobility of the duty he was discharging, and
cleared his throat.
Lord Loudwater finished the paragraph, scowled at the interrupter, and
said: "Well, what is it? Hey? What do you want?"
"It's about 'er ladyship, your lordship. I thought your lordship oughter
be told about it--its not being at all the sort of thing as your lordship
would be likely to 'old with."
There are noblemen who would, on the instant, have bidden William Roper
go to the devil. Lord Loudwater was not of these. He set the newspaper
down beside the whisky-and-soda, leaned forward, and said in a hushed
voice: "What the devil are you talking about? Hey?"
"I seed Colonel Grey--the gentleman as is staying at the 'Cart and
'Orses'--kiss 'er in the East wood," said William Roper.
The first emotion of Lord Loudwater was incredulous amazement. It was his
very strong conviction that his wife was a cold-blooded, passionless
creature, incapable of inspiring or feeling any warm emotion. He had
forgotten that he had married her for love--violent love.
"You infernal liar!" he said in a rather breathless voice.
"It ain't no lie, your lordship. What for should I go telling lies about
'er?" said William Roper in an injured tone.
Lord Loudwater stared at him. The fellow was telling the truth.
"And what did she do? Hey? Did she smack his face for him?" he cried.
"No. She let 'im do it, your lordship."
"She did?" bellowed his lordship.
"Yes. She didn't seem a bit put out, your lordship," said William
Roper simply.
"And what happened then?" bellowed Lord Loudwater, and he got to his
feet.
"They walked on to the pavilion, your lordship. An' they had their tea
there. Leastways, I seed'er ladyship come to the door an' empty hot water
out of a tea-pot."
"Tea? Tea?" said Lord Loudwater in the tone of one saying: "Arson!
Arson!"
Then, in all his black wrath, he perceived that he must have himself in
hand to deal with the matter. He took a long draught of whisky-and-soda,
rose, walked across the room and back again, grinding his teeth, rolling
his eyes, and snapping the middle finger and thumb of his right hand.
Never had the flush of rage been so deep in his face. It was almost
purple. Never had his eyes protruded so far from his head.
He stopped and said thickly: "How long were they in the pavilion?"
"In the pavilion, your lordship? They were there a longish while--an hour
and a half maybe," said William Roper, with quiet pride in the impression
his information had made on his employer.
His employer looked at him as if it was the dearest wish of his heart to
shake the life out of him then and there. It _was_ the dearest wish of
his heart. But he refrained. It would be a senseless act to slay the
goose which lay these golden eggs of information.
"All right. Get out! And keep your tongue between your teeth, or I'll cut
it out for you! Do you understand? Hey?" he roared, approaching William
Roper with an air so menacing that the conscientious fellow backed
against the door with his arm up to shield his face.
"I ain't a-going to say a word to no one!" he cried.
"You'd better not! Get out!" snarled his employer.
William Roper got out. Trembling and perspiring freely, he walked
straight through the Castle and out of the back door without pausing to
say a word to any one, though he heard the voice of Holloway discussing
his mysterious errand with Mary Hutchings in the servants' hall. He had
walked nearly a mile before he succeeded in convincing himself that his
feet were firmly set on the royal road to Fortune. His conviction was
ill-founded.