I In the Garden of Dreams
II A Marriage Has Been Arranged
III A Desirable Family Mansion
IV How Allan Came to the Garden
V In Which Allan Buys the Manor House
VI "I Hate Him--Hate Him I Du!"
VII "How Wonderful--the Way of Things"
VIII "Kathleen--Do You Remember?"
IX How Sir Josiah Opened His Purse
X Confidences
XI In Which Sir Josiah Proves Himself a Gentleman
XII The Hands of Abram Lestwick
XIII The Homecoming
XIV "His Son's Wife"
XV "Will You Take This Man?"
XVI "My Lady Merciful"
XVII Harold Scarsdale Returns
XVIII In the Dawn
XIX The Dream Maiden
XX The Road to Homewood
XXI After Ten Years
XXII Mr. Coombe Wears a White Tie
XXIII "I Belong to Thee"
XXIV In Which Lord Gowerhurst Rises Early
XXV Beside the Lake
XXVI On Other Shoulders
XXVII The Conqueror
XXVIII The Watcher
XXIX Why Abram Lestwick Stayed from Church
XXX The Religion of Sir Josiah
XXXI "A Very Worthy Man"
XXXII The Awakening
XXXIII By the Lake
XXXIV The Going of Betty
XXXV "I Shall Return"
*THE GARDEN OF
MEMORIES*
*PROLOGUE*
From the house a broad white stone path runs to the very heart of the
garden and there opens out into a wide circle in the middle of which is
set a sundial, and here too are placed some great benches of the same
white stone; where, when the heat of the sun is not too great, it is
pleasant enough to sit and watch the glory of the flowers.
They are wealthy folk, the Elmacotts, and they love their garden and
pride themselves on it and hold that in all Sussex no soil can produce
finer flowers and sweeter fruit, and though in this year of grace
seventeen hundred and three the house, which is the Manor House of the
Parish of Homewood, has no great antiquity, being scarce more than sixty
years old, it has about it that completeness, those niceties of detail,
the neatness and the order and the well being that are found only in the
home which is ruled by a house-proud mistress.
And Madame Elmacott is proud of her house, proud of her garden, proud of
the flowers that grow in it and above all proud of her stalwart sons,
Master Nat and Master Dick, who are at this time with his Grace of
Marlborough in Flanders, fighting their country's battles.
To-day the sun shines on the garden and the flowers stir gently, swaying
in the light breeze that also lifts the white dimity at the open windows
of the house, whence comes the sweet tinkling of a spinet, the keys of
which are touched by the skilled white fingers of Mistress Phyllis
Elmacott.
The tall hollyhocks that cast wavering blue shadows on the white stone
pathway nod to one another in the breeze, nod, it seems, knowingly, for
from the pathway one may see into the pleasant room where the spinet and
its fair player are and seeing these may also see the handsome figure of
the Captain, who leans upon the spinet, the better to see into those
bright eyes that have brought him home to England and Sussex from across
the seas, though at this time in the service of his Grace the Captain
General there is much to be done and much to be won.
He has but waited to see and share in the victory of Donauwort and then
has come hastening home on the wings of love and with the merry peal of
marriage bells a-ringing in his ears.
But it is not of these, not of the dashing Captain in his red coat and
fair-haired Mistress Elmacott, who thinks him the most perfect and
wonderful, as well as the bravest and handsomest of all created beings.
It is of the garden and of a lad who sits on the grassy bank at the edge
of the lake and watches with eyes, that yet seem scarcely to see, the
slim white figure of a maiden wrought of stone. She stands up from the
green waters, in the center of the lake and on her sun-kissed shoulder
she holds a pitcher, from which the glittering water is flung aloft
into, the air to fall with a pleasant tinkling, back into the green pool
beneath.
And so silent, so motionless does he sit here, that the swallows that
now and again skim the water, the dragon flies in all the glory of their
green and crimson, and blue sheen that dart hither and thither take no
heed of him, no more heed than if he too were of senseless stone.
In all the colour, in all the glory of the garden, he is the sombre, the
one sombre note. His clothes are drab, his shoes are stout and thick
and ungainly and clasped with great brass buckles. His hands are the
hands of a man who toils for his living, rough and hardened by spade and
hoe and rake and scythe, and stained by the good earth of the garden.
His eyes that stare so unceasingly on that white stone figure are blue,
his face is lean and tanned, his neck too is tanned deeply to the very
shoulders where the coarse shirt falls open.
Straight and strong and courageous he is. Has he not listened with
bated breath and with quick beating heart to the brave stories told in
the bar parlour of the "Fighting Cocks" in Stretton. Cross? Has he not
watched the Serjeant who has told these thrilling tales, of every one of
which, who should be the hero but the Serjeant himself, in his fine red
coat and his crossed belts and his tall hat, that makes him, fine man
that he is, seem almost a giant?
He has done well here in Stretton and Homewood and at Bush Corner and in
all those other quiet places, has the Serjeant. There are at least a
score of fine young Sussex lads, even at this very moment on their way
to Harwich, en route for Flanders and glory, who have been wheedled from
field and wood and garden and alehouse and stable by the Serjeant's
persuasive tongue, his jolly laugh and his generous hand.
And Allan Pringle, sitting here by the green pool, clasping his strong
brown chin with his hands, knows that he too would have been of that
score, but for one reason--one reason that now, alas, is no more!
It is the first grief he has ever known and it is a bitter one, for what
more bitter sorrow can youth feel than for wasted hopes, for broken
faith, for misplaced love?
Only Betty and his love for her, only the happiness that she had
promised should one day be his, had deafened him to the persuasive
eloquence of the Serjeant.
But it is not too late now, others will hearken to the Serjeant and set
off for Harwich and he will be among the next. Yes, he will be among
the next to go, and pray God that he may never return!
He does not hear a light step on the long stone pathway, for it is
scarce heavier than a bird might make. From the house a little maid
comes hurrying. Now she stands hesitatingly and looks about her, her
finger on her lips, as one a little fearful, a little anxious. Again
and yet again, she pauses, as she looks about her, then comes to where
beyond the great hedge of clipped yew trees the green waters of the pool
reflect the golden, sunshine.
And now she sees him and stands watching, a tender smile on her lips. A
dainty slip of a maiden is she, with hair that gleams gold under her
cap, the soft rounded arms are bare to the dimpled elbows, save for the
thin black lace mittens, through which her white skin shines.
Though he, the silent, solitary figure sitting beside the pool is but
ten paces from her, yet she hesitates, half a score of times, making a
timorous step and then pausing before the next, her blue eyes filled,
now with mischief and love and now clouded by some fear. And then
suddenly she makes a brave little run to him and drops lightly on her
knees behind him and lifts her hands and clasps them over his eyes.
"And you--you would leave your Betty? Oh, Allan, you would leave your
Betty who loves you and go away to the cruel wars?" she sobs.
He has taken her hands, has taken them strongly in his hold and holding
them yet, he turns to her. "Why did you come, why did you come to me,
Betty?"
"Because," and the blue eyes are lifted to his filled with an innocence
and candour that even he, jealous and despairing though he is, cannot
but recognise, "because I do love thee so and cannot let thee go!"
"And why, loving me, Betty, do you suffer the kisses of such a man as
Timothy Burnand, a rascally tinker and a thieving poacher, a man whose
hand I would not have touch thee, Betty?"
Into her face there flames a great flush, a look of anger, then it dies
out and the laughter comes rippling to her lips and into her eyes come
back the mischief and the love and a little pride too, for she realises
that he is jealous of her, this man she loves and though jealousy be a
sin, yet it is not without its sweetness, too, for say what the
wiseacres may, jealously is oftentimes a proof of love.
"And you saw--" she cries, "Allan, you--saw--ugh!" She makes a little
gesture, a little grimace. "Did you think that I invited, that I
welcomed him? Did you think that I bore his kiss with patience? Go and
seek him now and look for the red mark upon his face! He came on me
unawares and then all suddenly--" she pauses. "Allan," she says
pleadingly, "Allan, you will not go, you will not go, my dear, you will
not go and leave me?" And sobbing she is in his arms. And so for Allan
Pringle the sun shines out again and the flowers are blooming brightly
and the little slim maiden of stone from the centre of the pool seems to
throw the glittering water higher and yet higher into the air as though
in joy that all is well between these two, who hold one another so
tightly, who are mingling their tears and their laughter and their
kisses, now that the cloud has passed.
* * * * *
There are no flowers in the garden now, for the garden of Homewood Manor
and all the world beside lies under a pall of white, for the winter is
here, the winter of seventeen hundred and five, which is remembered by
all men as a winter of bitter cold, of great frosts and heavy snows.
In a tiny cottage that stands a bare quarter of a mile on the Stretton
Road from the Homewood gates, a man is on his knees beside a bed.
And that bed holds all his world, all that the world can give him, all
that makes life sweet, and his heart is black and bitter with suffering
and despair and cries out against God that he, who was rich only in her
and in her love, must lose her now, must spend the rest of his days
solitary, and heartbroken.
His eyes are on the sweet white face, on those lips once so red and now
so pale, but which even yet have a smile for him, a smile of wonderful
tenderness and undying love. He takes no heed of the fretful cry that
comes from the cradle, for there is no other in all his world now, but
her, she who is so soon to leave him.
"Betty, my Betty, I cannot let thee go! Oh, remember, Betty, once when
I would have left thee, you called me back and I came. I am calling,
calling to you now, my life, my sweet, I cannot let you go! Stay with
me, stay with me, for you are all my life and the world is black without
you; stay with me!"
She would lift her thin little hand to caress, to touch his face, but
the strength is not hers to do it.
"Allan, take me, hold me in your arms, hold me tightly, my dear, hold me
tightly," she says.
And he puts his strong arms about her. God pity him, how light she is,
how small, how fragile a thing this, that death is taking from him!
His very soul is in rebellion against fate, he is mad with the
suffering, mad with his impotence. He can do nothing save watch her
die, watch her fade out of his life; and it must be soon "A matter of
hours," the doctor from Stretton had said and that was long ago and now,
now it is but a matter of minutes.
"Allan, I wanted, always, to die like this, with your arms about me,
your dear eyes the last of earth that I shall see--ah! Allan, it is
now----"
"Betty, Betty, I am calling, calling to you, come back, beloved, come
back!"
And then he knows that it is useless, she is leaving him, slipping away,
no matter how tightly he may hold her. It is good-bye, their last
good-bye and the sad word comes perhaps unconsciously to his lips.
And then, is it fancy? Is it some trick of his tortured brain? For as
he watches, the dear lips move and it seems to him that the message they
whisper to him with her dying breath is this: "It is not good-bye!"
He is holding her against his breast, he is kissing those lips that for
the first time give not back kiss for kiss. He is calling to her from
his aching, breaking heart, but she has passed beyond the sound of his
voice, though the smile on her dead lips is still for him.
And those last words, were they real? Did they pass her lips with her
dying breath, were they meant for him in pity and compassion and love?
"It is not good-bye!"
*CHAPTER I*
*IN THE GARDEN OF DREAMS*
A girl, a slip of a maid with sunny hair and wonderful blue eyes, stood
beside a crumbling old rose-red brick wall. She looked up the long
country road and she looked down it, there was no one, not a soul in
sight. So she thrust the too of one small and broken boot into a
crevice of the wall, made a little spring and caught at the top, then
dragged herself up till she sat, flushed and triumphant, on the coping.
She was a village girl and her dress was of print, well washed, well
mended, skimpy, too, for her slight figure, slender though it was, for
it had been hers for three years, and a dress that is originally made
for a maiden of fourteen is apt to be small when worn by a maid of
seventeen.
It was a demure and a very sweet face, the eyes big and strangely
dreamy, the white skin of her face and neck powdered lightly with tiny
golden freckles, her hair a deep red gold.
And wonderful hair it was, wonderfully untidy, too, so rebellious that
it spurned all hairpins and fretted and struggled agains ribbons and
tapes.
So now, she sat on top of the old rose red wall and looked down on the
other side and saw a green tangle of brambles and grass and other things
that grew rankly and luxuriously in that deserted place.
It was easier to descend the wall than to climb it, for here was a
friendly tree that held out an inviting branch. Sho seized it, with
small brown hands and lightly swung herself to the ground and then drew
a sigh of relief and pleasure.
It was forbidden ground! Were there not many notices that announced the
fact that "Trespassers Would Be Prosecuted"? But she cared nothing for
these, the notice that she dreaded most of all was "This Desirable
Historical Family Mansion, with Seven Hundred and Fifty Acres of Land,
to be Sold."
How she dreaded lest one day someone should come and see and covet this
place and buy it and so shut her out forever from its delights and its
pleasures. But that someone had not come yet.
So she made her way through the tangle of the growth, and came presently
to a great garden, a wonderful garden once, but now a weed-grown place
of desolation.
Always this garden attracted her; to-day it brought a soft, tender light
into her eyes as she stood with clasped hands and looked at it! She
could see the old broken stone-paved pathway that led through the heart
of the garden. She knew where that stone pathway opened out into a great
circle in the midst of which was set a sundial, a sundial of stone
chipped and green and the gnomon of the dial rusted away so that never
again should its shadow fall upon the dial and mark the passing of the
brighter hours. And about this circle, she knew, were old stone seats,
green now like the pedestal of the dial and through the crevices of the
paving grew and flourished and blossomed foxglove and dandelion,
hollyhock and groundsell.
It had been a very, very beautiful garden long years ago, when ladies
had tapped up and down the stone pathway in their little red-heeled
shoes. Ladies who wore wide flounced skirts and powdered hair and
cunning little patches on their fair cheeks. The garden with its roses,
with its stately hollyhocks, its cloves and sweet-williams, its rosemary
and lavender and all the sweet things that grow in English gardens, must
have been a very lovely and perfect place then. But to this little maid
with the dreamy eyes, it was a very wonderful place now. There was no
other place like it in all the world; she had come here by sunshine and
by moonlight, for sometimes in the night the garden had seemed to call
to her and she had risen from her bed under the thatched roof of her old
grandmother's cottage and had come stealing here to watch it, all bathed
in the silver light of the moon. Perhaps she loved it best by
moonlight, for then strange dreams seemed to come to her, dreams that
never came when the sun was shining.
It seemed as if some kindly gentle hand touched lightly on the chords of
memory, and then--the weeds and the tall rank grass, the decay of the
present, the rioting growth, all were gone and she saw the old garden as
it had once been, and she saw folk, strangely dressed folk, whom never
in her life could she have met. These came and went, men with strange
affected antics and gestures, gestures she might have smiled at, yet
never did, and sweet, gracious ladies who moved with stately dignity
through the old garden.
But always there was one, a young man whose clothes were plain and
lacking all the finery that made the others seem so grand. She knew him
for a servant, for one who worked in the garden, for often she would see
him stooping over some trim bed, or with keen scythe sweeping the short
grass.
They were dreams, only dreams that the old garden seemed to bring to
her, when she came when the world was sleeping. Dreams, and yet she
seemed to be so curiously awake.
But she never spoke of the old garden to the others, or told of the
things that she saw here. Yet they knew she came, her grandmother rated
her, "One day, my maid, caught ee'll be," she said, "and then summoned
very likely for trespassing!"
But the Law had no terrors for her, so she came whenever the garden
seemed to be calling to her and the high rank grass brushed her thin
cotton skirt and wetted the coarse stocking that clad her slim ankle.
For an hour she wandered about the garden, she stood by the sundial and
watched the line of the path-way, sadly encroached on now by the weeds
and the self-seeded flowers. A tall yew hedge, once clipped into
fantastic shapes, but now reclaimed by Nature, shut out what had once
been the rose garden, all weed grown now and the roses gone. And beyond
the rose garden, the lake in which the great carp swam lazily and over
which the birds skimmed! From the lake's centre rose a figure in stone,
sadly battered and marred, the figure of a slim girl, a girl that might
have been, herself, changed into stone.
She often came to look at this figure rising from the centre of the
lake. It held a vase poised on its shoulder, once a fountain had been
flung high into the air from this vase, but the fountain had been dead
long ago. To-day a rook sat perched on one stone shoulder, but flew
away when the living girl came down to the brink.
She had a feeling for this stone maiden, all so lonely in the midst of
the desolation. She never came into the garden without coming to the
edge of the lake and nodding her little head to the figure who never
nodded back.
And so, for an hour she wandered about the garden. She picked none of
the flowers that grew so freely here, for she would not dare take them
back, mute tale tellers that they would be. So, empty handed as she
came, she presently made her way back to the old wall and seeing that no
one was in sight, gained the road and went on to the cottage in the
village.
Her grandmother was leaning over the gate, an old woman with the face of
a russet apple that has been kept till it has wrinkled and mellowed.
"So there you be, Betty Hanson, and seeing the way you hev come it be
useless and idle it be, for me to ask you where hev you been tu!"
The girl did not answer.
"You've been in that garden again, spite o' all I du say. Betty Hanson,
it hev got to cease, my maid, and cease it will now!"
"Why?" the girl said and there was a frightened look in her eyes.
"Why? for I hev been talking to Mr. Dalabey and he du tell me that there
be several parties after the old house, and one rich American he very
likely to buy it and if he du, then there be an end to all your
philanderings in that there disgraceful old garden, my maid!"
"Buy it! Buy it!" She looked at her grandmother and in the blue eyes
there was a look of actual fear. "'Ee don't mean as--as anyone be going
to buy--buy it?" She whispered, "'ee be only saying it!"
"A rich American!" The old woman nodded her head, "and going to buy it,
he be, and a dratted good job, too!" she added. "Look at your frock
now, what a sight it be!"
But she did not look at her frock, her face had gone very pitifully
white. She lifted her little brown hands and laid them against her
breast and went into the cottage with tragedy and misery in her blue
eyes.
"And a dratted good job, too," the old woman said again.
*CHAPTER II*
*A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED*
"My dear child, if I were to say that we had arrived at our last
shilling, such a statement would not be quite true, for we had reached
that unpleasant position some months ago, and I fear that it is on other
people's shillings that we are existing at the present moment. Not only
is our financial position unsatisfactory, to say the least of it, but,
and forgive me for speaking of it, Kathleen, the years are passing and
five years ago--well, dear one, you were five years younger than you are
to-day!"
"Father, if you think that you can goad me----"
"I never goad, it would be too fatiguing! Besides, Kathleen, as my
daughter and a Stanwys, you are not a fool--the Stanwys----"
"Oh, please do not tell me about the Stanwys, father," she said
bitterly.
"Would you rather that I spoke about the Homewoods? There is the father,
Sir Josiah----"
"Common and vulgar!" the girl said with a note of contempt in her voice.
"But the son--he at least is presentable, have we not agreed that the
son is not so bad, and the position----"
"I know of the position; do you think I can forget it for even a
moment?"
She rose and went to the window and stared out into the dull London
Square.
She was twenty-eight. It is not a great age, yet at twenty-eight the
first sweet freshness of youth is on the wane--a woman of twenty-eight
realises that she is no longer a girl, her girlhood is behind her.
Sometimes she is terribly conscious of it. It is a little tragedy to be
eight and twenty, unmarried and unsought. Kathleen Stanwys at
twenty-eight was unmarried, nor was she engaged. Society was a little
puzzled by the fact, for she was unusually and exceedingly handsome.
She had been a very lovely girl and she was now a radiantly beautiful
woman.
Seven years ago she had outshone all rival beauties in the great world
of Fashion, but she had made no bid for popularity. She shrank from
anything of the nature of publicity and cheap advertisement; rarely if
ever had her photograph appeared in the press. She wrapped herself in a
mantle of reserve. Ever conscious of the poverty which she was never
permitted to forget she had earned the reputation of being cold and
haughty and proud. Admirers she had never lacked, but suitors had been
few and shy! Young men, well provided with money, had a wholesome fear
of Lord Gowerhurst, her father, for he was a very finished specimen of
his type.
Smooth tongued, with a charming and plausible manner, cynical, handsome
as all the Stanwys are and have been, an accomplished gambler, too
accomplished, perhaps his enemies, and he had many, whispered. He was
utterly selfish, utterly pitiless. He had never been known to spare a
man or a woman either. Woe to him or to her who fell into his toils.
With what fine courtesy, with what charm of manner would he relieve some
luckless victim, of his last shilling! How sweetly and sympathetically
he would speak of his victims' ill fortune, would suggest some future
"revenge," and then pocket his winnings with a grace that could have
brought but little comfort to the poor wretch whose possessions had
passed out of his own into the keeping of this courtly, delightful,
aristocratic gentleman.
So, young men well endowed with money, having a wholesome fear of His
Lordship, avoided his Lordship's beautiful daughter, and young men
without money were of course not to be considered for a moment.
Therefore, at twenty-eight, Kathleen, unappropriated, and a very
beautiful woman, stood staring out of the window this fine May morning,
into the dull London Square.
My Lord, slender, dressed with exquisite care, was of a tallness and
slimness that permitted his tailor to do justice and honour to his
craft. Few men could wear their clothes with such perfect grace as his
Lordship. His tailor, long suffering man, groaned at the length of the
unpaid bill, but realised that as a walking advertisement Lord
Gowerhurst was an asset to his business not to be despised. So the
lengthy bill grew longer and more formidable, but youngsters, fresh to
town, admiring his Lordship's appearance prodigiously, made it their
business to discover who was his Lordship's tailor and Mr. Darbey, of
Dover Street, saw to it that Lord Gowerhurst never went shabby and
possibly, cunning man, made those who could and would pay, contribute
unconsciously to the upkeep of Lord Gowerhurst's external appearance.
He came of a handsome family, the women of which had been toasts in many
reigns and through many generations. His forehead was broad and high,
crowned by silver hair that curled crisply, his nose was of the type of
the eagle's beak, his hands white, well kept, reminiscent of the eagle's
claws, a moustache of jetty blackness in admirable contrast to his
silvered hair, shaded and beneficently concealed a thin-lipped, hard and
somewhat cruel mouth.
My Lord rolled a cigar between his delicate fingers. It was an
excellent cigar; years ago Julius Dix and Company had acquired the habit
of supplying Lord Gowerhurst with cigars on credit and bad habits are
difficult to eradicate. But then his Lordship sent wealthy customers to
the quiet but extremely expensive little shop near the Haymarket.
"Our position, Kathleen, is irksome," he said softly, "deucedly irksome.
Now and again I have little windfalls, but alas--they grow fewer and
farther between as time goes on--at the moment I haven't a bob, you,
dear, have not a bob--" he paused and laughed softly. "It recalls the
French exercise of my youth. I have not a bob, thou hast not a bob, he
has not a bob--" he waved the cigar. "Anyhow, that is the position, and
then some kindly breeze of Heaven wafts that stout, prosperous, opulent
craft the "Sir Josiah Homewood" on to the horizon of our "sea of
troubles," as Shakespeare so aptly puts it!"
He paused, he looked at the slender, upright, girlish back of his
daughter.
"So," he went on, "this large, stout, prosperous and richly freighted
cargo boat, the Sir Josiah Homewood, rises on the horizon of our
eventful lives and----"
"Oh, please," the girl said with a note of impatience in her voice,
"leave out all that; I wish to understand exactly--exactly what you
propose----"
"Not what I propose, but what Homewood proposes. Really, I rather admire
the fellow's presumption. As you know, he has a son, a lad not
altogether displeasing, who fortunately but little resembles his father,
a fact you may have noticed, Kathleen. Indeed, I might almost say the
young fellow is not without his good points; he is prepossessing, a
little shy and silent, in which he does not resemble his father. He is
well educated, he has Eton and Oxford behind him. By the way, what a
time he must have had at Eton, if his parentage ever leaked out, poor
devil--however, there it is, the lad is at least presentable--but the
father is----"
"Terrible!" the girl said with a shudder.
"Too true, yet it is not proposed you should marry the father. We need
money. You, child, need money, and what is more, a prospect, a future.
You have nothing and the outlook is not cheering."
"The outlook is hopeless; I have nothing in the world, our family was
always hopelessly impoverished, still the little we once had----"
Kathleen paused.
"Recriminations, my love, are useless!" his Lordship said.
"There was very little and now that little hath taken unto itself wings
and has flown away----" He stroked his long drooping moustache with his
slender hand. "So it behoves us to make our arrangements for the
future. Sir Josiah and I have discussed everything."
"You mean myself, you have arranged the deeds of sale, I suppose, how
much am I worth?"
"Your value is inestimable. Sir Josiah, worthy Baronet, more daring
than I, puts it down in actual figures--" he paused. "I made a note of
them. He advances me--" He took some papers from his pocket, "the sum
of twelve thousand pounds--advances, mind you, Kathleen, a kindly loan,
which I shall, no doubt, find useful----"
"That is your part of the payment," she said bitterly, "go on!"
"He buys a fine house, an estate, he settles it on his son; by the way
the lad's name is Allan."
"I know," she said, "go on."
"He settles a fine estate on this Allan, with an income of eight
thousand a year, not so bad, eh?"
"And this is all conditional----"
"On your marrying the said Allan Homewood. I think," he said, as he
rose from his breakfast table, "I have on the whole not done so badly
for you!"
"And yourself," she said; "not so badly!" She smiled bitterly, then
shrugged her shapely shoulders. "Very well, I suppose it is only left
for me to say thank you very much indeed!"
"Quite so. The alternative, dear child, is this"--his lordship waved
his hand--"an elderly unmarried lady residing in, say, a Brighton
Boarding House, her face bearing some evidence of a past but long since
faded beauty, her title, if she is foolish enough to make use of it,
subjecting her to some little annoyance, mingled with a certain amount
of servile respect. Not a pretty picture, my love, but a very true
one."
"And the alternative is to marry Mr. Allan Homewood?"
"A pleasant alternative, and its acceptance never for a moment in doubt,
eh?"
"Never for a moment in doubt," she repeated.
"Then it only remains for me to say Heaven bless you, my child, and to
send a wire of acceptance to Sir Josiah. No, on second thought, I'll
telephone him from the Club." He paused for a moment to arrange his
necktie before the glass over the mantel, then went to the door. At the
door. he stood and looked at her for a moment, then went out, a
satisfied smile on his thin aristocratic face.
The girl stood there by the window for a long time. She was thinking.
She had much to think about. She was twenty-eight and a beautiful woman
of twenty-eight has no doubt many memories.
Presently she sighed and turned away from the window. A fine place and
eight thousand a year and more when Josiah Homewood was laid with his
fathers. Well! things might be worse, and the lad himself, she liked
him. He was younger than she was by four years, but what did that
matter?
She had seen him once or twice, had liked him vaguely, there was little
to dislike about him. He was not handsome, she was glad of that, she
hated handsome men, nor was he plain. Again she was glad; she disliked
anything that was ugly. He was also, despite his parentage, a
gentleman. She liked him for that most of all.
"If he had been vulgar like his father, three times the money would not
have been enough," she said to herself.
Still, there were memories, memories that rose up out of the past, the
memory of a face, of eager, ardent, worshipping eyes, of a lame, halting
speech, words disjointed and broken, eager, pleading, yet hopeless
words. "I love you, oh! I love you; don't turn from me. I know I am
not worthy, Kathleen, but I love you so!"
She laughed suddenly, she felt ashamed and annoyed to realise that there
were tears on her lashes and on her cheeks.
"Folly!" she said aloud. "Folly, and it's all dead and gone ten, years
ago, ten years--" she laughed, "a lifetime! He's married to someone
else; if he's sensible, he will have married someone with money, for he
had none, poor fellow!"
Meanwhile at the Club, where the better part of his day and practically
the whole of his night was spent, Lord Gowerhurst had looked up a
telephone number and was putting a call through.
"Homewood--yes, Sir Josiah Homewood, is he in? Yes, I do,
Gowerhurst--Lord Gowerhurst--You'll put him through--then hurry!"
He waited and then came a voice. It was evidently the voice of a stout
man in a state of anxiety.
"Yes, it's me, it's Homewood, my Lord----"
Lord Gowerhurst detected the anxiety, purposely he delayed, he told
himself the man was anxious--naturally--"Let him be anxious, let him
remain on tenter hooks for a time!" It would do him no harm.
"Is that Sir Josiah Homewood?"
"Yes, yes, Homewood, I'm speaking to Lord Gowerhurst, aren't I?"
"Yes--ah, Homewood, is that you? Well, about that little matter we were
discussing yesterday--" his lordship drawled, "the proposition that you
placed before me with such engaging frankness, I should not be surprised
if you remember----"
"Yea, my Lord, I've not forgotten! Not me!" The voice came chokingly,
uncertain, but above all things eager.
"I have discussed it with the person--most concerned!"
"And what does her ladyship----"
"My dear Homewood, no names on the telephone, no names I beg!"
"No, no, of course not, my mistake, my Lord. I wouldn't think of
mentioning any names, not for a moment, my Lord. Still what does
she--the person--the party, I mean, my Lord, what does she--er--her----"
"I quite understand the--as you say--party--is inclined to give very
favourable consideration to the matter. In fact, I may say, my dear
Homewood, that the matter is practically settled on the basis you
suggested."
Sir Josiah Homewood in his luxurious City office, closed his eyes as in
ecstasy! He clung to the telephone receiver and an expression of rapt
and perfect contentment stole over his features.
"Then--then it's all right. I may regard it as all right,
my--my--Lord--she, the party, I mean----"
"Agrees--" said Lord Gowerhurst shortly. "Briefly, yes she agrees--the
matter is settled and now it only remains to complete the contract, you
understand, eh?"
"I understand, ha, ha, very good, just so, the Contract, always dealing
with contracts I am, but not many like this! Ha, ha, splendid--and now
your Lordship and the other party, I mean the other contracting party,
will dine at my house in Grosvenor Square to-night."
Gowerhurst frowned. "Oh, very well!" he said ungraciously.
"Half past seven at Grosvenor Square, your Lordship remembers the
number?"
"At half past seven, then!" His Lordship said and hung up the receiver.
"And that," my Lord said, "is that! When my time comes, and I am in no
hurry for it to come, especially just now, I shall be able to close my
eyes on this world, knowing that I have done my duty to my only child, a
truly comforting reflection--And now for a brandy with the merest
suggestion of soda, and if possible a little game of billiards." And he
went up the Club's handsome staircase.
None of the multitudinous clerks in the large and palatial offices of
Sir Josiah Homewood, Son and Company, Limited, had ever seen the
Managing Director in such a delightful temper, for sometimes his temper
was not delightful. This morning he beamed on all and sundry. Young
Alfred Cope, who supported a widowed Mother on an insignificant salary,
had long been trying to muster up courage to ask for a rise. It seemed
to him that this morning, this bright May morning, the opportunity had
come, and so opportunity sent him, a shivering, trembling wretch,
tapping nervously on the highly polished mahogany door of Sir Josiah's
private office.
"Well?" Sir Josiah said. "Well, and what do you want?"
Alfred stumbled lamely into his pitiful story.
Sir Josiah frowned. "How much are you getting paid now?" he demanded.
"Forty-two. Forty-two shillings a week! Bless my heart and soul,
princely, princely! Why, when I was a lad such a wage would have been
considered handsome, sir, and here you come asking me for more--Why;
bless me, let me tell you this, Cope--the City is bristling with clerks,
bristling with 'em, you can't move for clerks, sir, and most of 'em out
of work! I've only got to hold up my finger, sir, like this--" He
thrust a broad, stumpy finger into the air, "and say 'Clerk!' and a
hundred would rush at me. I'd be suffocated! Do you understand me,
Cope? Simply crushed to death by the rush! If I put an advertisement
in the papers, I'd have to hire a policeman to keep the Quee--the
Queek--what d'ye call the thing from obstructing the traffic--Forty-two
shillings, you ought to go down on your knees, sir, on your knees and
thank Heaven that you are earning such a salary! Princely! That's what
it is, princely!"
And so on, for ten long, fear laden, wretched minutes, at the end of
which the hapless wretch slunk away, thanking God that he had not been
dismissed or that his wretched two and forty shillings had not been
reduced to thirty or less.
"Forty-two shillings--and wants more," Sir Josiah said to himself,
"bless me, what are things coming to?" Then he banished the frown, he
beamed all over his round red face.
"Lady Kathleen Homewood," he said to himself, "Lady Kathleen Homewood,
my daughter-in-law! Lady Kathleen--ah ha!" He rubbed his hands.
"That'll make Cutler sit up! The fellow gives himself airs because his
daughter married a fellow who is Governor of some place no one in their
senses ever heard of--His Excellency the Governor--Bless my heart! I'm
sick to death of His Excellency! Now Cutler will turn green, eh?
There's nothing like the real thing, the real old true blue-blooded
British aristocracy--can't get over that, eh? No, no fear!"
Usually it takes but two to make a bargain; in this case it required
four. Three of the four were agreed, himself first of all, now His
Lordship, the Earl of Gowerhurst, and Lady Kathleen Stanwys, his
daughter. There was but one other, but that one other was a good boy, a
dutiful son; he would do exactly what his father wished.
"Thank God I don't look for opposition from him!" Sir Josiah thought.
"Never trod a better lad than mine, bless him! He knows my heart's set
on this, knows it he does, and he'll do it to please me! He's not like
other young fellows with their fancy tricks. Besides that, the girl's a
beauty, apart from her blood and breeding! If she is a little older
than he, well, what of that? It's the blood, the birth that is, what
tells every time and by George--by George, when I have grandchildren
I'll be able to look at 'em and say to myself--'These grandchildren of
mine are also the grandchildren of an Earl!' And that's something these
days, eh? That's something!" So he fell to muttering and chuckling to
himself, this highly pleased old gentleman, and presently he picked up a
pen and all unconsciously scribbled many times on the blotting paper:
"Lady Kathleen Homewood, Lady Kathleen Homewood, my daughter-in-law,
Lady Kath----"
"Eh, what's that?"
"I thought I'd remind you that it is past one, Sir Josiah, and you were
to lunch with Mr. Cutler and Mr.----"
"Oh, bless my soul, yes, I'd clean forgotten--many thanks--Jarvis--quite
right, sensible of you!"
Mr. Jarvis, the head clerk, bowed and would have retired.
"Oh, Jarvis, one moment, here, help me into my coat, there's a good
feller! That young feller, young what's his name--Cope--Crope--eh?"
"Cope, sir, yes, sir!"
"What sort of a chap is he, good worker and all that?"
"A very attentive worker and a respectable young man!"
"Supports a widowed mother, I understand?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Bless me, well, well. I've been having a chat with him--where's my
umbrella?--having a chat with him--a man can't support a widowed mother
cheaply these days, eh, Jarvis?"
"Very expensive days, sir!"
"Quite so, expensive hobby, too, supporting widowed mothers. Raise his
salary to--say Three pound ten, Jarvis, and report to me how he goes on!
My hat, do you see my hat? Oh, thanks, I'll be back at two-thirty,
Jarvis----"
And Sir Josiah went out.
*CHAPTER III*
*A DESIRABLE FAMILY MANSION*