“Good-bye, Spring,” said Willoughby.
My lady flung him a bewitching smile.
“Good-bye, Captain Bagot. D’you think you’ll know me next time?”
“Yes,” said Willoughby. “Even if you have your hair down.”
He watched her rejoin her companions, triumphantly waving her bag.
“The Stacks had a daughter,” he murmured. “But she used to wear blue
glasses because of her sight. Besides, you don’t find paid companions
worth seven million pounds.”
This was quite true. Moreover, his memory was at fault. Mr. and Mrs.
Stack had died childless. The whole of their fortune had been left to a
beloved niece.
It was natural enough that for the next ten days the Groom of the
Chambers at Chancery should reconstruct Spring’s visit with a grateful
heart. Her precious figure preceded him up the stairs, set a slight knee
on this settle, stooped to observe those volumes: her laughter rang in
the gallery, her voice fluted in the hall, her smile flashed in that
doorway: her sympathy, grace, charm were lighting his memory with a glow
which he found very valuable. In a word, the lady had wrought havoc. She
had shown Willoughby Bagot something from which, for the last lean
years, he had rigidly averted his gaze—the loneliness of his existence.
With her little, firm hands she had rammed the truth down his throat.
Had her mouth been less scarlet, had her throat been less white, her
form less beautiful, the light in her eyes less tender, had the maid
been less startlingly attractive in word and look and deed, it might
have gone less hard with the Groom of the Chambers. Bagot could steel
his heart with most men. His job was to cherish Chancery, at any cost.
It had not been pleasant to play the servant in his own home; at the
best, it had been a bitter-sweet business. Still, keeping his eyes upon
the ground, he had become used to his monkhood—perceiving many things
for which he had come to thank God. And now . . .
They had walked in Chancery together, he and she, walked and talked
familiarly in his own home. It was no more his home, in point of fact,
than it was hers. And yet—it might have been his and hers, if she
pleased, too, but for ill fortune. That way lay madness, of course.
Yet—the place suited her. Chancery was so immemorial that it had become
natural: its furniture, tapestries, casements seemed to have grown where
they hung: labelling age had stolen upon it, as lichen steals upon old
tiles, till the spirit of the artifice that garnished had disappeared,
and the house ranked with the oaks Gray Bagot had planted ere Richard
was king. And Spring was natural. For all her badges of modernity—bead
bag, silk stockings, nail polish, she was as refreshingly natural as
Pomona herself. She fitted into Chancery as had no maid or man—except
his father—whom Willoughby had ever seen treading those stairs.
When, therefore, some ten days later, the Groom of the Chambers
approached his lodge at a quarter to five o’clock of a July afternoon,
to see Spring seated upon the turf beneath his window, hatless, smoking
a cigarette and talking earnestly with the old groom, he could have
burst into song.
Spring picked up her hat and waved, and, when he came up, stretched out
her little hands to be helped to her feet.
“I said I should come,” she said simply. “You shouldn’t have asked me.”
“If I remember,” said Willoughby, “I didn’t so far presume.”
Spring raised her brown eyes to heaven.
“Which means I’ve come uninvited?”
Willoughby bowed.
“Queens are not asked for favours,” he said. “Yet they bestow them.”
“Of course, you’re wasted,” said Spring, turning to the miniature porch.
“You ought to be in some Embassy, flattering secretive dowagers. You
know. Duels of polished wit and sleight of tongue. Never mind. I’ve got
a great idea. I’ll tell it you over the tea I’ve let you in for.”
Bagot put his head on one side.
“Yet she looks generous,” he said. “Of course, it’s a proud mouth.”
“It’s a thirsty one,” said Spring, passing inside.
Old William served them devotedly, hissing a little with excitement from
time to time. He had not waited on a lady for many a year. Besides, that
his master should have company at the lodge delighted his heart.
Willoughby’s monkhood went against the groom’s grain.
“And so,” said Bagot, frowning at the weather-beaten cup, which the
proud mouth was using, “you managed to get to Holy Brush.”
Spring nodded.
“Tact,” she said. “I ought to be at an Embassy, too. I was most skilful.
What I was really up against was that there’s only one bathroom at _The
Jade_: but I said that that was a custom which was rapidly dying out and
that one day we should be proud to say that we’d used a common bath,
just as some people boast of remembering inns where everybody sat around
the same big dish, spoon in hand.”
“Do they? I mean, shall you?”
“I hope so. Any way, it did the trick, and now she’s perfectly
delighted. She’s bought two ‘gate’ tables already, and I left her on the
bowling-green, telling the landlord the history of his church.”
“I congratulate myself. If only a certain custom wasn’t already
dead—that of living and letting live—I’ld put myself at your service.”
“Which,” said Spring thoughtfully, “brings us to my idea. If you want
Chancery back, I think you may have it.”
“How?”
“Go to America,” said Spring. “You had a good time there before.”
“I should think I did,” said Bagot. “Your people are wonderfully kind.”
“Well, go. Don’t call yourself Worcester, you know. And use your—your
sleight of tongue. With ordinary care you ought to marry an heiress
within six months.” She paused to take another piece of toast. “It’s
been done before,” she added carelessly.
There was a long silence.