For a good three minutes after the departure of William Roper the Lord
Loudwater walked up and down the smoking-room. His redly-glinting eyes
still rolled in a terrifying fashion, and still every few seconds he
snapped his fingers in the throes of an effort to make up his raging mind
whether to begin by an attack on his wife or on Colonel Grey. He could
not remember ever having been so angry in his life; now and again his red
eyes saw red.
Then of a sudden he made up his mind that he was at the moment
angrier with Colonel Grey. He would deal with him first. Olivia could
wait. He hurried out to the stables and bellowed for a horse with
such violence that two startled grooms saddled one for him in little
more than a minute.
He made no attempt to think what he would say to Colonel Grey. He was
too angry. He galloped the two miles to the "Cart and Horses" at
Bellingham, where Colonel Grey was staying, in order to restore his
health and to fish.
At the door of the inn he bellowed: "Ostler! Ostler!" Then without
waiting to see whether an ostler came, he threw the reins on his horse's
neck, left it to its own devices, strode into the tap-room, and bellowed
to the affrighted landlady, Mrs. Turnbull, to take him straight to
Colonel Grey. Trembling, she led him upstairs to Grey's sitting-room on
the first floor. Before she could knock, he opened the door, bounced
through it, and slammed it.
Grey was sitting at the other side of the table, looking through a book
of flies. He appeared to be quite unmoved by the sudden entry of the
infuriated nobleman, or by his raucous bellow:
"So here you are, you infernal scoundrel!"
He looked at him with a cold, distasteful eye, and said in a clear, very
unpleasant voice: "Another time knock before you come into my room."
Lord Loudwater had not expected to be received in this fashion; dimly he
had seen Grey cowering.
He paused, then said less loudly: "Knock? Hey? Knock? Knock at the door
of an infernal scoundrel like you?" His voice began to gather volume
again. "Likely I should take the trouble! I know all about your
scoundrelly game."
Colonel Grey remembered that Olivia had said that she proposed to deny
the kiss, and his course was quite clear to him.
"I don't know whether you're drunk, or mad," he said in a quiet,
contemptuous voice.
This again was not what Lord Loudwater had expected. But Grey was a
strong believer in the theory that the attacker has the advantage, and
he had an even stronger belief that an enemy in a fury is far less
dangerous than an enemy calm.
"You're lying! You know I'm neither!" bellowed Lord Loudwater. "You
kissed Olivia--Lady Loudwater--in the East wood. You know you did. You
were seen doing it."
"You're raving, man," said Colonel Grey quietly, in a yet more
unpleasant tone.
The interview was not going as Lord Loudwater had seen it. He had to
swallow violently before he could say: "You were seen doing it! Seen! By
one of my gamekeepers!"
"You must have paid him to say so," said Colonel Grey with quiet
conviction.
Lord Loudwater was a little staggered by the accusation. He gasped and
stuttered: "D-D-Damn your impudence! P-P-Paid to say it!"
"Yes, paid," said Colonel Grey, without raising his voice. "You happened
to hear that we had tea in the pavilion in the wood--probably from Lady
Loudwater herself--and you made up this stupid lie and paid your
gamekeeper to tell it in order to score off her. It's exactly the dog's
trick a bullying ruffian like you would play a woman."
"D-D-Dog's trick? Me?" stammered Lord Loudwater, gasping.
He was used to saying things of this kind to other people; not to have
them said to him.
"Yes, you. You know that you're a wretched bully and cad," said Colonel
Grey, with just a little more warmth in his tone.
Had Lord Loudwater's belief that William Roper had told him the truth
about the kiss been weaker, it might have been shaken by the
whole-hearted thoroughness of Grey's attack. But William Roper had
impressed that belief on him deeply. He was sure that Grey had kissed
Lady Loudwater.
The certainty spurred him to a fresh effort, and he cried: "It's no good
your trying to humbug me--none at all. I've got evidence--plenty of
evidence! And I'm going to act on it, too. I'm going to hound you out of
the Army and that jade of a wife of mine out of decent society. Do you
think, because I don't spend four or five months every year in that
rotten hole, London, I haven't got any influence? Hey? If you do, you're
damn well wrong. I've got more than enough twice over to clear a
scoundrel like you out of the Army."
"Don't talk absurd nonsense!" said Grey calmly.
"Nonsense? Hey? Absurd nonsense?" howled Lord Loudwater on a new note of
exasperation.
"Yes, nonsense. A disreputable cad like you can't hurt me in any way, and
well you know it," said Grey with painstaking distinctness.
"Not hurt you? Hey? I can't hurt the corespondent in a divorce case?
Hey?" said Lord Loudwater rather breathlessly.
"As if a man who has abused and bullied his wife as you have could get a
divorce!" said Grey, and he laughed a gentle, contemptuous laugh, galling
beyond words.
It galled Lord Loudwater surely enough; he snapped his fingers four times
and gibbered.
"I tell you what it is: I've had enough of your manners," said Grey.
"What you want is a lesson. And if I hear that you've been bullying Lady
Loudwater about this simple matter of my having had tea with her, I'll
give it you--with a horsewhip."
"You'll give me a lesson? You?" whispered Lord Loudwater, and he danced a
little frantically.
"Yes. I'll give you the soundest thrashing any man hereabouts has had for
the last twenty years, if I have to begin by knocking your ugly head off
your shoulders," said Grey, raising his clear voice, so that for the
first time Mrs. Turnbull, trembling, but thrilled, on the landing, heard
what was being said.
The enunciation of Lord Loudwater had been thick, his words had
been slurred.
"You? You thrash me?" he howled.
"Yes, me. Now get out!"
Lord Loudwater gnashed his teeth at him and again snapped his fingers. He
burned to rush round the table and hammer the life out of Grey, but he
could not do it; violent words, not violent deeds, were his
accomplishment. Moreover, there was something daunting in Grey's cold
and steady eye. He snapped his fingers again, and, pouring out a stream
of furious abuse, turned to the door and flung out of it. Mrs. Turnbull
scuttled aside into Grey's bedroom.
Half-way down the stairs Lord Loudwater paused to bellow: "I'll ruin you
yet, you scoundrel! Mark my word! I _will_ hound you out of the Army!"
He flung out of the house and found that the ostler had taken his horse
round to the stable, removed its bridle, and given it a feed of corn. He
cursed him heartily.
Grey rose, shut the door, and laughed gently. Then he frowned. Of a
sudden he perceived that, natural as had been his manner of dealing with
Lord Loudwater, he had handled him badly. At least, it was possible that
he had handled him badly. It would have been wiser, perhaps, to have been
suave and firm rather than firm and provoking. But it was not likely that
suavity would have been of much use; the brute would probably have
regarded it as weakness. But for Olivia's sake he ought probably to have
tried to soothe him. As it was, the brute had gone raging off and would
vent his fury on her.
What had he better do?
He was not long perceiving that there was nothing that he could do. The
natural thing was to go to the Castle and prevent her husband--by force,
if need be--from abusing and bullying Olivia. That was what his
strongest instincts bade him do. It was quite impossible. It would
compromise her beyond repair. He had done her harm enough by his
impulsive indiscretion in the wood. His face slowly settled into a set
scowl as he cudgelled his brains to find a way of coming effectually to
her help. It seemed a vain effort, but a way had to be found.
Lord Loudwater galloped half-way to the Castle in a furious haste to
punish Olivia for allowing Grey to make love to her, and even more for
the contemptuous way in which Grey had treated him. He had hopes also
of bullying her into a confession of the truth of William Roper's
story. But Grey had excited him to a height of fury at which not even
he could remain without exhaustion. In a reaction he reined in his
horse to a canter, then to a trot, and then to a walk. He found that he
was feeling tired.
He continued, however, to chafe at his injuries, but with less vehemence,
and he was still resolved to make a strong effort to draw the confession
from Olivia. On reaching the Castle, he did not go to her at once. He sat
down in an easy chair in his smoking-room and drank two
whiskies-and-sodas.
In the background of Olivia's mind, meditating pleasantly on her pleasant
afternoon, there had been a patient and resigned expectation that
presently her conscience would begin to reproach her for allowing Grey to
make love to her. But the minutes slipped by, and she did not begin to
feel that she had been wicked. The meditation remained pleasant. At last
she realized suddenly that she was not going to feel wicked. She was
surprised and even a trifle horror-stricken by her insensibility. Then,
fairly faced by it, she came to the conclusion that, in a woman cursed
with such a brute of a husband, such insensibility was not only natural,
it was even proper.
Her woman's craving to be loved and to love was the strongest of her
emotions, and it had gone unsatisfied for so long. Her husband had
killed, or rather extirpated, her fondness for him before they had been
married a month. She was inclined to believe that she had never really
loved him at all. He had certainly ceased to love her before they had
been married a fortnight, if, indeed, he had ever loved her at all. She
had no child; she was an orphan without sisters or brothers. Her husband
let her see but little of the friends who were fond of her. She began to
suspect that her conscience did not reproach her because she had merely
acted on her natural right to love and be loved. This conclusion brought
her mind again to the consideration of Antony Grey, and again she let her
thoughts dwell on him.
The gong, informing her that it was time to dress for dinner, interrupted
this pleasant occupation. She had her bath, put herself into the hands of
her maid, Elizabeth Twitcher, and resumed her meditation. She was at
once so deeply absorbed in it that she did not observe her maid's sullen
and depressed air.
She was presently interrupted again, and in a manner far more violent and
startling than the summons of the gong. The door was jerked open, and her
refreshed husband strode into the room.
"I know all about your little game, madam!" he cried. "You've been
letting that blackguard Grey make love to you! You kissed him in the East
wood this afternoon!"
The mysterious smile faded from the face of Olivia, and an expression of
the most natural astonishment took its place.
"I sometimes think that you are quite mad, Egbert," she said in her slow,
musical voice.
Elizabeth Twitcher continued her deft manipulation of a thick strand of
hair without any change in her sullen and depressed air. To all seeming,
she was uninterested, or deaf.
Lord Loudwater had expected, in the face of Olivia's gentleness, to have
to work himself up to a proper height of indignant fury by degrees. The
echo of Grey's accusation from the mouth of his wife raised him to it on
the instant and without an effort.
"Don't lie to me!" he bellowed. "It's no good whatever! I tell
you, I know!"
Olivia was surprised to find herself wholly free from her old fear of
him. The fact that she was in love with Grey and he with her had already
worked a change in her. These were the only things in the world of any
real importance. That clear knowledge gave her a new confidence and a new
strength. Her husband had been able to frighten her nearly out of her
wits. Now he could not; and she could use them.
"I'm not lying at all. I really do believe you're mad--often," she said
very distinctly.
Once more Lord Loudwater was compelled to grind his teeth. Then he
laughed a harsh, barking laugh, and cried: "It's no good! I've just had
a short interview with that scoundrel Grey. And I put the fear of God
into him, I can tell you. I made him admit that you'd kissed him in the
East wood."
For a breath Olivia was taken aback. Then she perceived clearly that it
was a lie. He could not put the fear of God into Grey. Besides, Grey had
kissed her, not she him.
"It's you who are lying," she said quickly and with spirit. "How could
Colonel Grey admit a thing that never happened?"
Lord Loudwater perceived that it was going to be harder to wring the
confession from her than he had expected. Checked, he paused. Then
Elizabeth Twitcher caught his attention.
"Here: you--clear out!" he said.
Elizabeth Twitcher caught her mistress's eye in the glass. Olivia
made no sign.
"I can't leave her ladyship's hair in this state, your lordship," said
Elizabeth Twitcher with sullen firmness.
"You do as you're told and clear out!" bellowed his lordship.
"I don't want to be half an hour late for dinner," said Olivia, accepting
the diversion and ready to make the most of it.
Elizabeth Twitcher looked at Lord Loudwater, saw more clearly than
ever his likeness to the loathed James Hutchings, and made up her mind
to do nothing that he bade her do. She went on dressing her mistress's
hair sullenly.
"Are you going? Or am I to throw you out of the room?" cried Lord
Loudwater in a blustering voice.
"Don't be silly, Egbert!" said Olivia sharply.
From the height of her new emotional experience she felt that her husband
was merely a noisy and obnoxious boy. This was, indeed, quite plain to
her. She felt years older than he and very much wiser.
Lord Loudwater, with a quite unusual glimmer of intelligence, perceived
that bringing Elizabeth Twitcher into the matter had been a mistake. It
had weakened his main action. In a less violent but more malevolent
voice he said:
"Silly? Hey? I'll show you all about that, you little jade! You clear
out of this first thing to-morrow morning. My lawyers will settle your
hash for you. I'll deal with that blackguard Grey myself. I'll hound him
out of the Army inside of a month. Perhaps it'll be a consolation to you
to know that you've done him in as well as yourself."
He turned on his heel, left the room with a positively melodramatic
stride, and slammed the door behind him.
Olivia was stricken by a sudden panic. She had lost all fear of her
husband as far as she herself was concerned. He had become a mere
offensive windbag. She did not care whether he did, or did not, try to
divorce her. Even on the terms of so great a scandal it would be a cheap
deliverance. But Antony was another matter.... She could not bear that he
should be ruined on her account.... It was intolerable ... not to be
thought of.... She must find some way of preventing it.
She began to cudgel her brains for that way of preventing it, but in
vain. She could devise no plan. The more she considered the matter, the
worse it grew. She could not bear to be associated in Antony's mind with
disaster; she desired most keenly to stand for everything that was
pleasant and delightful in his life. She would not let her brute of a
husband spoil both their lives. He had already spoiled enough of hers.
After his injunction to her to leave the Castle first thing next
morning, she took it that they would hardly dine together, and told
Elizabeth Twitcher to tell Wilkins to serve her dinner in her boudoir.
Also, she refused to put on an evening gown, saying that the _peignoir_
she was wearing was more comfortable on such a hot night. Last of all,
she told her to pack some of her clothes that night.
Elizabeth Twitcher, stirred somewhat out of her brooding on her own
troubles by this trouble of her mistress, looked at her thoughtfully and
said: "I shouldn't go, m'lady. It'll look as if you agreed with what his
lordship said. And it's only William Roper as has been telling these
lies. He asked to see his lordship about something very partic'ler before
his lordship went out. And who's going to pay any heed to William Roper?"
"William Roper? Who is William Roper? What kind of a man is he?" said
Olivia quickly.
"He's an under-gamekeeper, m'lady, and the biggest little beast on the
estate. Everybody hates William Roper," said Elizabeth with conviction.
This was satisfactory as far as it went. The worse her husband's evidence
was the freer it left her to take her own course of action. But it was no
great comfort, for she was but little concerned about the harm he could
do her. Indeed, she was only concerned about the harm he could do Antony.
She returned to her search for a method of preventing that harm during
her dinner, and after her dinner she continued that search without any
success. This injury to Antony, for her the central fact of the
situation, weighed on her spirit more and more heavily.
The longer she pondered it the more harassed she grew. The most fantastic
schemes for baulking her husband and saving Antony came thronging into
her mind. She rose and walked restlessly up and down the room, working
herself up into a veritable fever.
Mr. Manley, having dealt with the letters which had come by the
five-o'clock post, read half a dozen chapters of the last published novel
of Artzybachev with the pleasure he never failed to draw from the works
of that author. Then he dressed and set forth, in a very cheerful spirit,
to dine with Helena Truslove. His cheerful expectations were wholly
fulfilled. She had divined that he was endowed, not only with a romantic
spirit, but with a hearty and discriminating appetite, and was careful to
give him good food and wine and plenty of both. With his coffee he smoked
one of Lord Loudwater's favourite cigars. Expanding naturally, he talked
with spirit and intelligence during dinner, and made love to her after
dinner with even more spirit and intelligence. As a rule, he stayed on
the nights he dined with her till a quarter to eleven. But that night she
dismissed him at ten o'clock, saying that she was feeling tired and
wished to go to bed early. Smoking another of Lord Loudwater's favourite
cigars, he walked briskly back to the Castle, more firmly convinced than
ever that every possible step must be taken to prevent any diminution of
the income of a woman of such excellent taste in food and wine. It would
be little short of a crime to discourage the exercise of her fine natural
gift for stimulating the genius of a promising dramatist.
He was not in the habit of going to bed early, and having put on slippers
and an old and comfortable coat, he once more turned to the novel by
Artzybachev. He read two more chapters, smoking a pipe, and then he
became aware that he was thirsty.
He could have mixed himself a whisky and soda then and there, for he had
both in the cupboard, in his sitting-room. But he was a stickler for the
proprieties: he had drunk red wine, Burgundy with his dinner and port
after it, and after red wine brandy is the proper spirit. There would be
brandy in the tantalus in the small dining-room.
He went quietly down the stairs. The big hall, lighted by a single
electric bulb, was very dim, and he took it that, as was their habit, the
servants had already gone to bed. As he came to the bottom of the stairs
the door at the back of the hall opened; James Hutchings came through the
doorway and shut the door quietly behind him.
Mr. Manley stood still. James Hutchings came very quietly down the hall,
saw him, and started.
"Good evening, Hutchings. I thought you'd left us," said Mr. Manley, in a
rather unpleasant tone.
"You may take your oath to it!" said James Hutchings truculently, in a
much more unpleasant tone than Mr. Manley had used. "I just came back to
get a box of cigarettes I left in the cupboard of my pantry. I don't want
any help in smoking them from any one here."
He opened the library door gently, went quietly through it, and drew it
to behind him, leaving Mr. Manley frowning at it. It was a fact that
Hutchings carried a packet, which might very well have been cigarettes;
but Mr. Manley did not believe his story of his errand. He took it that
he was leaving the Castle by one of the library windows. Well, it was no
business of his.
At a few minutes past eight the next morning he was roused from the
deep dreamless sleep which follows good food and good wine well
digested, by a loud knocking on his door. It was not the loud, steady
and prolonged knocking which the third housemaid found necessary to
wake him. It was more vigorous and more staccato and jerkier. Also, a
voice was calling loudly:
"Mr. Manley, sir! Mr. Manley! Mr. Manley!"
For all the noise and insistence of the calling Mr. Manley did not awake
quickly. It took him a good minute to realize that he was Herbert Manley
and in bed, and half a minute longer to gather that the knocking and
calling were unusual and uncommonly urgent. He sat up in bed and yawned
terrifically.
Then he slipped out of bed--the knocking and calling still
continued--unlocked the door, and found Holloway, the second footman, on
the threshold looking scared and horror-stricken.
"Please, sir, his lordship's dead!" he cried. "He's bin murdered! Stabbed
through the 'eart!"