Her grandmother never changed her mind, never relented, never altered.
Betty knew this of long, long experience, besides in any event she would
go, she would not stay--no, not even if her grandmother begged her to on
her bended knees, and that was not in the least likely. They had their
breakfast together in stony silence. After breakfast Mrs. Hanson spoke.
"Wash they things and put them back on the dresser--for the last time!"
she added.
Betty had washed the things, she had replaced them on the dresser, on to
the snowy white board of the dresser top she had permitted one large hot
tear to splash.
Her grandmother sat stiffly upright in her chair by the window with the
huge family Bible open on the little rickety round table before her.
Mrs. Hanson always turned to the Bible for comfort and for advice in
times of stress and doubt. She was reading stolidly through the story
of Naboth's Vineyard and was deriving much spiritual comfort from it.
Very stern and unrelenting she looked sitting primly bolt upright, her
hands resting on the book and her spectacles adjusted on the end of her
long and pointed nose.
Now and again out of the corner of her eye she glanced at the girl who
was slowly putting the finishing touches to her work. In a little while
the girl must be gone, Mrs. Hanson was a stern and unrelenting woman.
Where the girl would go to, Mrs. Hanson did not know, she never gave it
a thought.
"She did say, she did hate me!" the old woman thought. "Hate--a perilous
wicked thing for a young gell to say--and to abide in a house of hatred,
I will not! There's the Bible for it--'Better a dinner of yarbs and
contentment therewith than a stalled ox in the house----'" Mrs. Hanson
looked up, a shadow had fallen across the window, there came a light
tapping on the door.
"Bless me and bless my dear soul!" said Mrs. Hanson aloud, "if here
b'ain't my Lady Homewood, Betty quick--quickly open the door to Her
Ladyship, quick now! Do 'ee hear me speak?"
The door was opened by Betty. Coming from the hot bright sunlight of
the outer world into the twilight of the little room, Kathleen could
only see a slight, slender figure in an old cotton gown, which figure
bobbed a deferential, yet it almost seemed a defiant little curtsey to
her.
"This is Mrs. Hanson's cottage?" Kathleen asked.
"Yes, my lady!"
Mrs. Hanson had risen, she bobbed, it was no half hearted curtsey this
of hers, she seemed to sink into the floor to her middle and then rose
again, tall and lean and agitated.
"Mrs. Hanson I be, my Lady, and proud I be to see your Ladyship
here--Betty, a chair for her Ladyship, my maid!"
Betty brought a chair, she flicked it with a duster and placed it that
Kathleen might be seated.
And now Kathleen, whose sight had grown accustomed to the dimmer light
of the room, could see the child plainly, and seeing her, wondered a
little at the loveliness of the little piteous face, the drawn mouth,
the big saddened eyes that had so evidently recently shed tears.
Poor pretty little maid! Kathleen remembered what Debly had told her of
the child lying out in the grass, sobbing her heart out in the darkness
of the night. She looked at the stern puritanical looking old woman and
Kathleen, who was hot blooded and generous, felt instinctive dislike of
her, which dislike was unjust and ill placed.
So, having come expressly about this girl with the golden hair and the
sweet oval face, Kathleen, being a very diplomatic young woman, spoke of
everything and anything else under the sun. She told Mrs. Hanson how
often she had admired the neatness and prettiness of the little front
garden.
"It is so nice to see gardens so well kept, I am sure yours is a great
credit to you, and oh Mrs. Hanson, do please sit down, we can't talk
comfortably, can we, if you stand?"
"Oh, my Lady, to sit in your presence!"
"Then you will force me to stand too!" said Kathleen.
So Mrs. Hanson sat down on the very edge of her hard chair and they
talked of the garden, that neat little garden with its flower beds,
surrounded by nice large flint stones which Betty whitened regularly
every Saturday, to make all prim and clean and spotless for the Sunday.
"You have lived here many years?" Kathleen asked.
"A Hanson hev always lived in this cottage, my Lady, from time out o'
mind. A Bifley were I born, my mother being a Pringle, and me married
to Amos Hanson when I were just turned seventeen."
"Ah yes!" Kathleen said. "And this is your granddaughter?"
"My granddarter her be," said Mrs. Hanson sternly.
"And of course you need her here to help you in this little cottage?"
Kathleen hazarded.
"I du not need she, my Lady, and her be going to leave me, her be, this
very day!"
"To--to leave--you--you mean the child is going away? Where is she going
to?"
Mrs. Hanson did not answer. The girl was still in the room, seemingly
busy at the dresser, but Kathleen looking could see the slender
shoulders shake and knew what a big fight the little maid was putting up
to keep herself from bursting into tears.
What little village tragedy was here? she wondered.
"Is she going to London?" Kathleen asked.
"I du not know, my Lady!"
"But----" Kathleen said.
Mrs. Hanson rose, she was trembling.
"My Lady, that I should hev to tell 'ee a stranger, yet with a face so
kind, that emboldened I be--my Lady--this maid, this perilous wicked
maid----" the old dame stopped for a moment, quivering and shaking,
"this perilous bad, wicked onnatchral maid did say to me--I hate 'ee, I
du! Said it my lady wi' her own lips and tongue, she did! And I said tu
her 'Betty Hanson, granddarter o' mine, 'ee may be, but never, never
will I abide in a house where hatred du exist, so out of this house du
'ee go for a bad perilous maid on the morrow!' And this be the morrow,
my Lady----"
"But she is so young, only a child and surely you would not let her go
without, knowing she is going into safety and into the house of friends?
She is your granddaughter and you are responsible for her! Do you think
that you are acting rightly? Do you think--oh please don't think that I
am preaching to you--but she is so young and so pretty and to think of
her going--and never even knowing where the poor child is going to!"
"I hev chose for she a good husband, a man wi' thirty-five shillings a
week coming in, a cottage too and of quiet ways!"
"But if she does not love him?" Kathleen asked, and, remembering her own
marriage, blushed red as a rose.
"Love him indeed, my lady, hev I not chose he for she? A good
upstanding, upright man as ever was, to Church reg'lar twice a Sundays,
walking in the fear of God, he du, and very respectable wi' never a word
to be heard against he--and--and----" Mrs. Hanson paused nervously and
exhausted for the moment.
"But she is only a child! Betty, come here, Betty!"
"Betty, du 'ee hear her Ladyship a-speaking to 'ee?" cried the
grandmother.
But Betty at the dresser, her back obstinately turned, did not move.
"There, there!" said Mrs. Hanson triumphantly, "'ee can see for
yourself, my Lady, how bad and de-fiant and obstinant her du be--Oh
Betty, shame on thee!" the old woman added, for Kathleen herself had
risen and had gone across the room to the lonely little figure and all
suddenly had put a kind arm about those heaving shoulders.
"Betty, Betty child, come and tell me all about it!" she said in that
sweet gentle voice of hers that could break down any barrier of anger
and defiance. And then Betty, knowing, feeling that here was a friend,
broke down suddenly and giving way to the long threatening tears, laid
her head against Kathleen's breast and sobbed.
"I hate him, I hate him I du and fear him I du, My--my lady and
grandmother be so bent on my marrying he and I, I can't! Oh, I can't
bear it, I can't and 'tis breaking my heart, it be, my--my Lady!"
"Hush, little one, don't cry!" Kathleen said.
"Betty, I be mortal ashamed of 'ee, I be!" said Mrs. Hanson. "Mortal
ashamed and all put about I be!"
"Please, Mrs. Hanson, let me speak to her!" said Kathleen. She drew
Betty towards her chair, she sat down and held the girl's hot little
hand and looked into the pretty flushed tear stained face. Poor pretty
child!
"How old are you, Betty?" she asked.
"I be--be eighteen, my Lady!"
"And behaving she be like she were but seven!" said Mrs. Hanson. "A
perilous bad----" she paused.
"Your grandmother says you must go, Betty!"
"Aye, I du, I du, and when I du say a thing, by that thing I du abide!"
said Mrs. Hanson. "Go, I said, and go she shall! A very unrelenting
woman I be!"
And then at last came a flash of anger into Kathleen's eyes.
"Yes, a very hard and unrelenting woman, I fear, Mrs. Hanson! Has this
child no other friends, no other relations, than you?"
"Never a soul hev she got, and I hev brought she up!"
"And now would turn her out of the house, knowing that she had no one to
go to, no one to keep and protect her, for shame, Mrs. Hanson!" cried
Kathleen in just indignation. Mrs. Hanson said nothing, she quivered and
shook. Perhaps in her heart of hearts she wanted to give way, but she
had said it, a stern and unrelenting woman was she, and prided herself
on it.
"And where will you go to, Betty, when you leave your grandmother's
cottage?"
"Oh my lady, I du not know, indeed I du not! For I hev not thought of
it, but I wouldn't mind where I did go, so be it was not to Abram
Lestwick, who I du hate and of whom I be in most mortal terror, my--my
lady!"
"Then you shall not go to him, you shall come to me, Betty, and you
shall be my little maid!" Kathleen said.
"To--to the Manor House, my--my lady?" Betty stammered, "Oh my Lady,
to--to the Manor House?"
"Why, of course, child, for I live there!"
"Oh my Lady, I--I couldn't, don't ask me--I couldn't bear to--to go
there and see it all--all as it be now--I couldn't my Lady, 'twould
break my heart!"
Kathleen looked at her in amazement. "But why, Betty?" she said. "I
don't understand!"
"My Lady," interposed Mrs. Hanson, "if so be as I may be allowed to
speak----" she paused, quivering with indignation, "'tis but right I
should tell 'ee this, that this wayward, obstinate, perilous gel was
forever in they old gardens before Mr. Homewood bought the old place,
forever she was, spite of all I did say to she. Sometimes of nights I
du verily believe she would rise and go stealing off to they gardens, a
terribul state they was in too, and coming back wi' her frock all
covered wi' green like and sometimes tored by the wall over which she
did climb most shameful----"
Kathleen heard, she looked at the girl who stood with bowed head before
her.
"Why did you go to the garden, Betty?" she asked softly.
"Because--oh I--I don't know, because--I can't--can't tell 'ee, my Lady,
I can't tell 'ee, but it be all changed and altered now wi' great fences
put up and--and my stone maid gone and 'twould break my heart, my Lady
to go there and not see she, my stone maid, any more!"
"The stone maid is not gone, Betty, and the gardens have not been
altered, but only made beautiful and they tell me that they must be just
as they were in the old days!"
"I wonder, my Lady, as 'ee have the patience to talk wi' she!" said Mrs.
Hanson.
But Kathleen took no notice. "So, Betty, will you come to me and be my
little maid?"
"And glad and grateful!" said Mrs. Hanson. "Say it!" she commanded.
"Elizabeth Hanson, say it, yes--and glad and grateful I du be, my Lady,
to 'ee for your great kindness, and drop my Lady a curtsey, 'ee
unmannerly maid, as I be sore ashamed of!"
"If only----" Kathleen thought, "if only the old woman would leave the
child alone, poor Betty, I can see why that little spirit of hers was
goaded into rebellion at last!"
"I need no thanks!" Kathleen said, "I only want Betty to say that she
will come; you will come, child?"
How kind were those eyes that looked into hers, how sweet a smile there
was on her Ladyship's beautiful face! It must have melted a heart of
stone and Betty's warm passionate little heart was not of stone. So she
broke down, sobbing and crying, she would come and glad and grateful she
was, and come she would that very day if her Ladyship would but have
her.
"Pack your little box, Betty," Kathleen said, "and I will send one of
the men presently to fetch it for you and I think and hope you will be
happy and--and maybe Betty, you will not find the old garden so changed
after all. I will answer for it there are no ugly fences and the stone
maid stands where she did in the middle of the lake, Betty, so--go come
and see your little friend again!" She held out her kind hand, but
Betty did not take it, instead she dropped suddenly onto her knees and
kissed that white hand as if it had been the hand of a Queen, and so
like a queen was Kathleen to the country maid, a Queen all beautiful,
all generous, all kind. Queen! No, an angel from Heaven rather! And
when she had gone Betty stood there, all unmindful that her grandmother
was here and she spoke her thoughts aloud.
"Very willing and glad I would be," she said slowly, "very willing and
glad to die for she, I would!"
Mrs. Hanson sniffed, she had no patience with such outrageous and
exaggerated statements.
"Get 'ee off and pack your box," she said sharply, "and think yourself
lucky, Betty Hanson, as 'ee hev found another home, and a kind mistress,
too kind I be afeared! Too kind and lenient like wi' 'ee and your
folly, my maid!"
*CHAPTER XVII*
*HAROLD SCARSDALE RETURNS*
Kathleen's face was very thoughtful, a little sad even, as she walked
back along the white dusty road. She hardly saw the village folk, who
bobbed and curtseyed to her as she passed. She saw only a sweet oval
face, a glorious head of glittering hair, a pair of sad, wistful blue
eyes.
"So these people do, as their betters!" she thought. "They drive and
goad their children into unhappy marriages! My Lord's daughter must be
made to marry thirty thousand a year, as little Betty, Mrs. Hanson's
granddaughter, is to be forced into marriage with thirty shillings a
week! How wrong and what a shame it all is! Money, rank, position and
interest! Is there no such thing as love left in the world at all? May
not a man choose his mate, a woman choose for herself from among all
men, the one she loves? It seems not, in village or in city, in cottage
or in palace, and I----" she paused. "I did as I was bidden and I am
happier perhaps than I deserve to be!"
Kathleen, unlike other well born young ladies of Society, had had no
maid, in the old days she could not afford one. Amy, the parlour maid,
had assisted her into the dresses that were so very seldom paid for, and
Kathleen had long since adopted the unladylike practice of doing her own
hair. So when she came to Homewood she had decided to continue without
a maid, though the funds were not lacking now and the dresses were
certainly paid for.
Of course little Betty Hanson would not know a tithe of those things
that a good and practiced lady's maid should know. She would not be
able to do her ladyship's hair in the latest and most becoming style.
She would not be able to select gowns suitable for special occasions.
She would not be able to massage my lady's white hands and perhaps her
face. She would not be able to flatter and fawn and sponge and perhaps
rob and lie. No, Betty Hanson was not likely to have any of these
desirable accomplishments.
Kathleen had an honest admiration for beauty. She was one of those rare
women who can see and appreciate beauty in another woman. She would
have everything about her beautiful if she could. She feared that
perhaps to those who were unbeautiful, she was a little unjust. To Ann,
the very plain housemaid who came from the Fulham Road, for instance,
Kathleen was more than unusually kind and generous, because in her heart
of hearts she did not like Ann. And she believed that she did not like
Ann because Ann had a sallow, greasy skin, a misshapen nose and small
mean eyes, set too closely together and a loose, nondescript kind of
mouth.
Ann, as a matter of fact, was a stupid, blundering creature, who forgot
to do one half of what she was told and deliberately neglected to do the
other half, who generally did everything badly, and had a habit of
breaking the most expensive things she could put her clumsy hands on.
Once Kathleen, goaded and irritated by Ann's hopeless imbecility had
spoken sharply--sharply for her--to the girl and had promptly repented
of it and had given Ann five shillings and begged a half day off for her
from Mrs. Crozier, the housekeeper.
But that was like Kathleen and that was why the servants adored her.
But Kathleen was a little disturbed in her mind. She found herself
wondering, remembering and wondering--what was this about this child
haunting the old garden at the Manor House, climbing the high brick wall
and entering into that place of desolation and solitude, called thither,
who knows by what strange voices? What was this about her going there
of nights to wander about the black solitudes of tangle and weed?
Surely it was not right, it was not canny. She smiled at the word, the
word that she had heard her old Scottish nurse use years and years ago.
Yet it was the right word, it was not canny that a young and pretty girl
should have so strange a love for solitudes and weed grown gardens.
"Could it--could it have been she?" What mad nonsense, what folly was
this? Kathleen wondered at her own thoughts. How could it have been
this girl whom Allan had seen there that day? He had said it was a
dream, it must have been a dream--this girl was no dream, but living
reality. And then Allan had told her that the girl of his dream had been
dressed all in some strange, old world costume, how the garden about her
had been in bloom and all so trim and neat and tidy, how the old house,
a place of desolation, had been bright and gay with its open windows and
blowing curtains, and how the girl herself had gone to him and had
kissed him and had put her little mittened hands--mittened hands--had
little Betty Hanson ever owned a pair of mittens in her life? No, no
those things had gone out in Betty's great-grandmother's time, what mad
nonsense it all was! So Kathleen laughed merrily and laughed the ideas
and the notions all away.
She went to find Mrs. Crozier--Mrs. Crozier, the elderly, kindly
autocrat of the house, Mrs. Crozier who had been housekeeper in a far
finer and more magnificent mansion than this, no less a place than
Dwennington Hall, the seat of the Duke of Grandon.
"Mrs. Crozier, I have engaged a young village girl, Betty Hanson,
granddaughter of Mrs. Hanson, who lives in the cottage up the road
towards Little Stretton, she is to be my lady's maid. She is only a
child and she will feel strange here at first so----"
"I quite understand, my lady, I'll look after the little thing and make
her feel quite at home!"
"Thank you, you do so readily understand me, Mrs. Crozier."
"It's easy enough to understand your Ladyship," Mrs. Crozier said.
"There is always some kindly thought in your head, my lady, for
others--I know Mrs. Hanson slightly, a good and very respectable woman!"
"Will you send one of the men for Betty Hanson's box presently? And oh
Mrs. Crozier, about the fourteenth----"
"I'm making all preparations, my lady, Sir Josiah will be coming of
course!" Mrs. Crozier smiled, she held Sir Josiah in very high esteem.
"Not a highly educated gentleman, perhaps," Mrs. Crozier had said over a
cup of tea to Mrs. Parsmon, the doctor's wife, "but one of the kind,
Mrs. Parsmon that I call Nature's gentlemen! That is my opinion of Sir
Josiah Homewood!" So when Mrs. Crozier mentioned his name to Sir
Josiah's daughter-in-law, she smiled in a very kindly way.
"Sir Josiah will bring a friend, perhaps two, and my father will come of
course," Kathleen's voice changed a little, as it always did in some
subtle manner when she spoke of her father. Her face seemed to grow a
shade colder, then the cloud passed and she was smiling and thanking
Mrs. Crozier again, for her intended kindness to Betty Hanson.
"I'll see her in the morning," she said, "let her come up to me after
breakfast and I'll have a long talk with her, and O Mrs. Crozier, as she
is leaving her grandmother so suddenly, she may need some things,
clothes I mean--I know it is not always easy for a young girl to get all
the clothes she needs"--there was a sad reminiscent smile on Kathleen's
face, "so will you get anything for her she may require and let me
know?"
"I will do everything, my lady."
The fourteenth was the date fixed for the house warming, that event that
had a little puzzled Sir Josiah. But he quite understood what it meant
now, and he was looking forward to it with much the same feeling as a
schoolboy has regarding the coming summer holidays.
At the old fashioned chop house in the City, a table was regularly
reserved for Sir Josiah, which he sometimes shared with Cutler and
sometimes with Jobson or Cuttlewell, or Priestly (of Priestly,
Nicholson, and Coombe, those famous contractors). At that same table
now, Sir Josiah bragged and boasted of the glories of Homewood, of his
daughter-in-law, Lord Gowerhurst's only child. How he told them of his
work at Homewood and of the wonders of the place. "Historical, it is!"
he said. "And that feller Davenham, I put him in charge. I know my
limitations, Cuttlewell, no man better, when it comes to furnishing in
the Period style I'll own I'm beat, but Davenham knows, an expensive man
I'll admit, but what's money, what's money?"
What was money indeed! Had not Sir Josiah been in pursuit of it all his
life, had he not seemed to worship it? Had not those plump knees of his
been for ever bent to the Golden Calf?
"What's money, hey?" he cried. "Ho! William, William! Mr. Cuttlewell
will take a glass of that old port with me!"
And William, the antique waiter, of the white side whiskers and the
ancient evening dress suit and the large sized, untidy feet, shuffled
away to fill the order, for their best and most respected customer.
"I'd like you to see the place, I should, Priestly, my boy! My
daughter-in-law, Lady Kathleen, is giving a house warming on the
fourteenth. Cutler's running down with me--going to take him down in
the car. Hang it, Priestly, you shall come! My daughter-in-law, Lady
Kathleen, says all my friends are her friends, and she means it, she's
that sort. God bless her! There isn't a truer, sweeter woman on earth
and so--so I say God bless her!" The tears came into his eyes, they
trickled down his cheek.
Here was honest pride, honest and unfeigned! He lifted his glass of
port, he beamed on them and gave them the toast from his heart. "My
daughter-in-law, Lady Kathleen Homewood, God bless her!"
They smiled at him, they took it good naturedly, they knew his worth, a
sound man Sir Josiah, good for at least a couple or three hundred
thousand and very likely for a good deal more. When a man has a credit
good for anything from two to four hundred thousand, who will not put up
with his little ways, even though it might be a trifle boring for those
who had not the pleasure of Lady Kathleen's acquaintance? So Priestly
was asked and Cutler and Cuttlewell too, only unfortunately Cuttlewell
could not come, but Jobson could and would!
When the expansive moment was past, Sir Josiah felt a little nervous.
Had he overstepped the limits? Had he gone too far; would it not be
encroaching on Kathleen's goodness? Conscience smote him. That he had
bought and paid for the house, that he was sending down cases of wines
regardless of cost, that he was ordering at the big London Stores with
the most lavish hand and purse in the world, all that mattered nothing
at all! But would Kathleen be annoyed? He wrote to her and received a
letter that made his cheeks flush like those of a school miss of
sixteen.
"Your friends are mine, bring them all, you cannot bring too many,
especially if they are like you. Only let me know how many rooms you
want, dear, and believe me to be your affectionate and grateful
Kathleen."
"God bless her!" he said. "God bless her!" And that day he added
Coombe to the list. What a time they would all have on the fourteenth!
How he talked and bragged and boasted, yet strangely enough a change had
come over his boasting, it was not of his Lordship the Earl, and her
"Ladyship, the Earl's daughter, it was not of the "historical" mansion,
and the period rooms and Davenham's whole hearted expenditure in the
matter of furnishing the place, it was of "My daughter-in-law,
Kathleen."
"Beautiful, ha, ha!" he laughed. "I'll shew you real beauty! You think
Lesbia Carter and Sybil Montgomery, those actress girls, are beautiful
and so they are, sweetly pretty girls they are, and I don't say one word
against 'em, not me! But when you see my daughter Kathleen--Lady
Kathleen, then you'll see beauty, then you'll see goodness and sweet
gracious womanliness, my boy!"
Cutler and Jobson laughed, they had their little jokes together. "The
old boy ought to have married her himself! I'll bet you he's more in
love with her than Allan, his son, is!"
"I know Gowerhurst," said Coombe. Coombe was a large man who smoked
expensive cigars, with the bands on them, for effect.
"Know him, I should think I do. He owes me a bit now! I'll bet you if
he hears I'm going to--what's the name of the place--Homewood--he won't
turn up--catch him!"
Lord Gowerhurst had received his invitation. He had not been down to
Homewood, he had no love for the country, ancient historical houses and
early English gardens did not appeal to him. The house that found the
most favour in his sight was his favourite and particular Club, and he
preferred the card room there or the billiard room to any garden that
ever bloomed. But he must go, he must offer himself up as a sacrifice.
Old Homewood would be there of course and his Lordship was not quite
easy in his mind about certain speculations into which he had been led.
Lumeyer had induced him to put five of the twelve thousand he had
obtained from Homewood into the Stelling Reef Gold Mine and his Lordship
had heard bad accounts of that same concern. He had tried to sell out
and had tried vainly.
Lumeyer, a densely black bearded man, with cherry lips, had told him all
would be well, but his Lordship did not believe it. It might
conceivably be possible that presently he would need old Homewood's help
again.
"Doosid bore and beastly nuisance!" he said. "But I'll have to go, I
hate family parties and that kind of thing and Kathleen hasn't mentioned
if there's a billiard room. Let me see--the fourteenth will be Friday.
I'll leave a telegram with Parsons, the hall porter here, to send on to
me the first thing Monday morning, demanding my presence in Town.
Kathleen's done well, doosid well, thanks to me! I don't like the tone
of her letter, though, no, hang me, I don't like the tone of her letter!
Cold and formal, but that's Kathleen, takes after her mother! Doosid
cold and doosid formal, well, well!" He paused. "Whatever happens I'll
be able to say I did the best possible for my daughter. A man's got to
consider his family, I've considered mine, no one can say to the
contrary!"
It was in the dining room during luncheon time at his Club that his
Lordship was holding communion with his own thoughts. He started now at
the sight of a tall elderly, white haired, soldierly man who came in,
followed by a somewhat younger man--it was the younger man who claimed
his Lordship's attention.
"Who's that?" he asked himself. "Seen that face before--who the doose
is it now? Not a member----"
"Here Paul!"
"Yes, my Lord?"
"Paul, did you see that gentleman come in? Who is he?"
"Sir Andrew Moly----"
"Yes, yes, I don't mean the old one, I mean the younger one with him!"
"Don't know, my Lord, can't say! I haven't seen the gentleman before!"
"Then find out!" The man scuttled off.
"I--I know that face, hang me if I don't--wonder who he is?" His
Lordship frowned, he adjusted his eyeglass and gazed across to the
little table where Sir Andrew Molyneux and his companion were seated.
"Confoundedly annoying to see a fellow's face and not know who the doose
he is!" His Lordship thought. "Hello, Paul, well? Have you found out?"
"Yes, my Lord, I did, I took the liberty of asking Mr. Marsmith. I
noticed Mr. Marsmith bow to the gentleman as he came in and I took the
liberty----"
"Yes, yes, but who is the fellow?"
"A very important gentleman, Governor of some place as I didn't catch
the name of, my Lord, somewhere in America, I should think or the
Indies--I don't know my Lord, anyhow he is Sir Harold Scarsdale, a very
rich----"
"Bless--my--soul!" his Lordship said. "Thanks, that will do, Paul, that
will do!"
Paul went away.
"Harold Scarsdale--bless my soul!" He sat and looked at the younger
man.
"Altered, confoundedly altered, looks twenty years older, and it is only
ten! Let me see, he can't be a day over thirty-five and the fellow
looks forty-five. By George, there was that love affair between him and
Kathleen. I remember it well, Old Scarsdale, our Rector at Benningley's
son. I remember, by George I do, had a few words with the young fellow,
called him a presumptuous puppy if I remember right, so he was, by
George! But byegones--eh--byegones can be byegones--Kathleen was too
sensible and too cold, yes by George, too cold to make a fool of
herself, turned him down, very rightly and properly, I remember it all,
remember catching him in the garden at Bishopsholme, I remember a letter
I got hold of, of his, asking Kathleen to run away with him, the young
fool. By George if I remember right, I made it warm for him! And he
cleared out, left the country, he seems to have done well for himself,
knighted, eh? Well, well, things change, the wheel goes round, one man
gets carried up, t'others get taken down. I'm t'other," he smiled
grimly. "I'm down! I think--I think----" he paused. "I shall
recall--why not? A rich man, Paul said so, sensible fellow Paul. He
knows I always like to understand the financial position of other
folk--I shall certainly, yes certainly, recall our earlier
acquaintance!"
His Lordship bided his time. He waited, he had finished his own
luncheon some time since, but he timed his retirement from the dining
room to synchronise with that of the other two.
"Why, bless my soul, surely I am not mistaken?"
Sir Andrew turned to look at his Lordship, but this expression of
astonishment was not for him.
The other man had halted, seemed to draw back, his face stern and grave,
a handsome face, seemed to harden a shade as the Earl thrust himself
forward.
"I surely am not mistaking my old friend's son, Harold Scarsdale. If I
am, then believe me I offer my sincere apologies, but I can hardly make
a mistake!"
"My name is Scarsdale, and----"
"Then you don't remember me, bless my soul, you don't remember me, my
name is Gowerhurst!"
"I remember your Lordship perfectly!"
"My dear fellow, I am delighted to see you, it quite takes me back.
Come, come, we must have a long talk, a long talk together, eh? How's
the world been treating you? Well, I hope, if I can be of service to
you, command me! By George, Harold, I always had a sneaking affection
for you!"
"You managed to hide it very cleverly, my Lord, ten years ago!
"Ha, ha! Had to, you know, had to! Doting father, that sort of thing,
couldn't let my little girl make a bad match! Hang it, if I'd been a
rich man, ha, ha, I wouldn't have stood in your way, but I wasn't; I
was, and am, come to that, doosid poor, and a father's feelings, Harold,
my boy, as you'll know when you are a father yourself, unless----"
"I am not married!" said Scarsdale quietly.
"No, no, quite right. Well as I was saying, a father must consider his
child. I may have seemed hard, a little hard perhaps, to you that day,
I remember it perfectly well, but I liked you, my dear fellow, all the
time my heart was bleeding for you, bleeding, sir! I said to myself,
can I, dare I? No, by George, I can't and daren't! I can't see my girl
scrubbing her own doorstep and--and turning her dresses and making her
own bonnets--I can't think of it! So I nerved myself to be stern,
nerved myself, Harold, and all the time my heart bled for you, my dear
lad!"
"I remember very well," Scarsdale said quietly, "that you on that
occasion called me a cunning, scheming, blackguardly young adventurer,
who had dared to presume to look far too high, and you were right, as to
the last, my lord, but not as to the first. For I was not cunning or
scheming, I--I loved her, worshipped her and forgot everything else----"
"By George! and so you did, so you did! But I was her father, I had to
consider ways and means, eh? You'd do the same yourself, you'd have to!
But we can't talk here!"
"I am with Sir Andrew Molyneux, an old friend of my father."
"Ah! And your father, dear old fellow, how is he now, eh?"
"He has been dead four years, my Lord, and if you will excuse me----"
"Positively I must see you and have a chat with you over things, Harold.
You'll dine with me to-night? Say yes!" Lord Gowerhurst wrung the
young man's hand. "Come, come, I can't take no--I positively refuse to
take no! Hang it, after all these years old friends and that sort of
thing, we can't pass like ships in the confounded night, can we, eh?"
Sir Harold Scarsdale smiled. He had a stern, grave face, but the smile
lighted it up.
"To-night then, my Lord, since you wish it, here--at what time?"
"Eight o'clock," his Lordship said briskly, "and I shall look for you,
it's been a delight, a sheer delight to see you again!"
*CHAPTER XVIII*
*IN THE DAWN*
My dear Kathleen, I am looking forward with keen enjoyment to my coming
visit to your charming home. That I have not come before you will easily
understand, my love. I am an old fellow and my ways are not your ways.
I am sensitive, very sensitive, as I think you know. To have felt
myself de trop would have been a cause of pain to me. I felt I could
not do it and though my heart was yearning for you and though I have
often, a thousand times, pictured your beautiful home, its master and
mistress, though I, in my solitary and none too comfortable rooms, have
often visioned to myself your delightful life at Homewood, yet I have
never intruded. I have been tempted many times. I have said to myself,
I will run down just for the day, then I hesitated. Should I be
welcome? I know, I know, my love, that my dear daughter's heart is
always affectionately inclined to her doting father, yet in your new
life, with your new interests, with your young husband, I have wondered,
is there a place, some nook, some corner for the old fellow to stow
himself away in?
"But bless me, how I ramble on? I live a very quiet and uneventful
life, my appetite is not what it was. I sometimes walk round to the
Club and try and peck a morsel for lunch, but I am not my own man. I
think I feel my loneliness. Well, well, my dear, I look forward, as I
say, to the fourteenth of this month, with great expectation and
happiness. Now I shall behold you in your own home. I shall behold my
dear daughter, mistress of a good house, dispensing her and her
husband's hospitality with the gracious courtesy that is the birthright
only of a woman of breeding. Give my kindly remembrance to your husband
and believe me, my dear Kathleen, ever your fond and devoted Father,
Gowerhurst.
"P.S. I am taking the liberty of bringing an old friend down with me. I
know in such a mansion as Homewood, there are many rooms, may I hope
that I am not encroaching in asking that one may be reserved for one for
whom you once had a kindly feeling."
Kathleen smiled a little and frowned a little over this letter. It was
like her father, he wrote as he spoke. But who was the friend? She
hardly gave it a thought, there were so many old friends, was there one
for whom she had once had a kindly feeling? She doubted it. Her
father, in the old days, had commanded her ready affection at all times
for any opulent acquaintance from whom he was hopeful of extracting
money. This was in all probability another victim. So Kathleen put the
letter aside and forgot all about it, except that she asked Mrs. Crozier
to have another room prepared.
She told Mrs. Crozier now, lest she might forget it.
"Oh, my lady," said the housekeeper, "there's that little Betty Hanson
who came yesterday, she is waiting your ladyship's pleasure."
"I had not forgotten," Kathleen said. "Will you send her up to my
room?"
She smiled at Allan. "My new maid," she said, "the one I told you
about, the little girl from the cottage down the road, such a pretty
little thing, I am sure you will admire her!"
Allan smiled when she had gone out, he wondered if other wives bespoke
their husband's admiration for new maids in this way? Then his smile
drifted away and he frowned a little, had Kathleen loved him--she would
have been more jealous of his admiration--loved him! How good she was,
what a sweet, lovely nature hers was, and how utterly unworthy of her
was he!
Had she loved him? Yet, why should he wish for her love when he had
given her none of his own? None? No, he did not love her, not as a man
should love the wife he has married. He liked her, admired her,
respected her, above all living women. She shared with his father the
whole of his heart, but it was not "the love," not the passion of young
manhood, the worshipping, devouring, all selfish and yet all unselfish
love that surely she was worthy to awaken in his breast.
"Betty!" Who had said "Betty"? Who had uttered that name? Mrs.
Crozier of course, she had told Kathleen that Betty Hanson was here, but
the name awakened memories, memories of that dream. "Her" name had been
Betty, had she not told him with her red lips, "Thy Betty," she had
said, and he had been "her Allan."
Betty, nonsense! This Betty would be a big bouncing, red cheeked, bold
eyed, healthy country girl! As for Betty of his dreams, there was no
place for her now in his busy life. There was much to be done. He had
taken up farming wholeheartedly, not for ever would he live on his
father's bounty. He would improve the place, make it almost
self-supporting. He would prove to his father and Kathleen that there
was something in him and that he was not merely an idler and a dreamer.
So he filled his pipe and lighted it and went out to have a long talk
with old Custance at One Tree Hill Farm. For Custance, though old,
seemed to be the most progressive man in the place and already he and
Allan had laid their heads together and had discussed ways and means to
wring money from the fertile soil.
Mrs. Crozier had been very kind to the timid and shy girl. She had had
Betty to tea with her in her own private room, she had introduced her to
the other servants, and had kept a motherly eye on Betty till the time
came for Betty to retire to her own small room in the servant's
quarters.
And she was here! actually here, sleeping in this old house, which she
had seen so often, watched so often by sunlight and moonlight. She
remembered it as it had been then, with its broken windows, with the ivy
and the creepers growing over it in one great tangle.
But the garden, she had not seen the garden yet! How would it look when
she saw it? What terrible changes would there be there? Her dear
garden, what harm had they done to it? How strange and altered would it
be?
She could not sleep that night, she lay awake on the strange unfamiliar
bed, tossing restlessly.
Her ladyship had said, and how sweet and good was her ladyship, she had
said that the stone maiden was still there in the old lake, so she would
find one familiar friend.
After a long, sleepless, troubled night for Betty, the daylight dawned
at last, and then she rose and dressed very quietly and before the other
servants were waking, she crept down the steep stairs to the kitchen.
She did not hesitate for a moment, she seemed to know her way perfectly,
yet she had never been inside the house before. The House had always
repelled her, its gloom and its silence and its dust had forbidden any
desire on her part to explore it. Yet now she made her way unerringly
through the great kitchen through the vast and cold scullery, down a
long passage till she came to a little door, a door that she knew must
be there. And it was there and then she drew a ponderous bolt that had
been fashioned by a hand that had been dust for two centuries. She
unfastened a huge lock, by a key that required all her strength to turn,
and so she opened the door and stepped out into the garden as the rising
sun flung its first ray of primrose and gold across the heavens.
Only two steps Betty took, then stood still. The light was dim yet, yet
through the grey mists she could see it--not as she had seen it
last--yet as she had seen it perhaps in her dreams. It was all so
familiar, not as she had dreaded, strange and cold, but it, was as the
face of an old friend suddenly grown young again, young and beautiful
and sweet.
Her garden--yes it was hers! Changed and yet not changed, even more
hers, it seemed to her, now, than had been the weed grown, tangled
desert she remembered. Yet she remembered that she had seen it thus in
dreams and now, as the sun rose, as the sky was flooded with the glory
of the dawn, she saw her garden in all its beauty, in all its reality,
as sometimes she had seen it in those strange dreams that had come to
her.
Had she not seen it like this when those figures, those strange,
beautiful, unreal figures of her imagination had promenaded these old
walks, those gracious ladies with their strange old world costumes,
their hair dressed so high on their heads, their tiny slim waists, their
great bell-like skirts and their little red heeled shoes. Those men in
their rich deep skirted coats, their stockinged legs, their swords,
their wigs--all those visions that had come to her in dreams, had they
not moved and lived in a garden like this, this same garden as it was
now, all trim and sweet and gay with flowers?
She felt her heart pounding, throbbing, beating as it had never beat
before. She hurried on and on, down the broad stone pathway to the lake
and there she saw her little friend, just the same as always, the broken
pitcher on her shoulder.
So while the sun rose higher and higher, Betty stood there and nodded
solemnly to the little stone figure, who never nodded back. And then,
turning to go back to the house before the others should know that she
had come here unpermitted, she stopped suddenly and uttered a little
choking cry of wonder and amazement. For from here she could see the
house, a place of the living, no longer a place of the dead. She could
see the curtains fluttering in the breeze at the many open windows, she
could see the signs of life there, the primness and neatness of it all!
And it was all familiar, there was no strangeness to her here, she was
looking at that which her eyes had seen before and yet how could it be,
since she had not entered this place, since those days before the
workmen had come to alter it all? How could it be? and yet it was! And
then suddenly she turned and did not know why, and looked at an old
stone seat that stood on the edge of the great ring about the sundial.
Why had she looked at it? What had she expected to see there? What she
saw was an old, old stone seat, grey and brown and green in the shadows,
golden white where the sun's rays touched it.
And then, filled with wonder, filled with a strange sense of fear, she
ran to the house and so back through the door which she bolted and
barred after her, and up the steep stairs to her own little room and to
sit on the bed with her hands clasped and her eyes staring into vacancy,
a vacancy which yet seemed to hold many things, and one thing she saw
very plainly, a man who was young, a man whom she knew instantly as he
whom she had seen so often at his work in the old garden. But now she
saw his face, and he smiled at her, a lean, strong, sunburned face, with
eyes as blue as her own! How often in those strange dreams had she seen
him, quaintly dressed in a suit of snuff coloured brown, toiling at his
work with spade and hoe. "Allan!" she said suddenly. "Allan!" And
then she uttered a cry, she hid her face in her hands and shivered
suddenly, for she was conscious of a strange feeling of fear, for here
was something she could not understand. "Allan!" Why had she said that
name? What had put it into her mind and brought it to her lips?
*CHAPTER XIX*
*THE DREAM MAIDEN*
If Allan Homewood, Esquire, should by chance meet his wife's maid or any
other servant on the stairs, or in one of the innumerable passages of
the old fashioned house, it was scarcely likely that he would give more
than a passing glance and more than a passing thought to the domestic.
If little Betty Hanson should happen suddenly on the master of the house
at a turn in the passageway, what more becoming than she should drop her
eyes demurely and go on her way?
So while Allan and Betty Hanson had met perhaps a dozen times or more,
neither had really seen the other.
Allan was vaguely conscious of a small trim figure, and a wealth of
golden hair, which figure when he came tapping at the door of his wife's
room usually flitted out by another door.
Betty took kindly to her new duties, she was intelligent, she was quick
and she was very eager to be of service to her mistress. Because she
was eager to learn she learned rapidly. Kathleen was a gentle mistress,
who never lost her temper and saw something rather pitiful in the young
girl's evident desire to please.
"Poor little thing!" she said, "she is grateful!" So she was more than
usually kind to Betty and the girl whose heart was bursting with love
and gratitude, would very willingly have lain down and allowed Kathleen
to trample on her.
"What do you think of my little maid, Allan? Don't you think the child
is pretty?"
"Eh, your maid? Oh yes!" Allan said. "Quite a pretty little thing!"
He was thinking of something else, the fourteenth of the month was
weighing rather heavily on him and his spirits.
If it had only been his father who was coming, or only Kathleen's, but
that both should come, that both should bring friends of their own
troubled Allan. He knew that his father's friends were not likely to
find much favour with his Lordship. Allan had met most of them, he knew
Cutler, a prosy, self sufficient, middle aged bore. Jobson was another
of the same type. Coombe was a big man with a loud voice and vulgar
aggressive manner. He told interminable stories without wit or point.
They were sound men in the City, very likely, but he dreaded their
advent here. For his father he felt nothing but pride and affection.
He knew the old man's goodness of heart, his generous nature, his
simplicity, for these he loved him and honoured him above all men. Let
my Lord Gowerhurst sneer at that good honest man if he dared--if he
dared--in his, Allan's presence. It was not of his father, but of
Cutler, Jobson, Coombe and Company that Allan felt nervous and whom he
worried about.
Kathleen had told him that her father was bringing a friend.
"Who?" Allan asked.
"I don't know, Allan, he writes, an old friend of mine--but I doubt it,
very few of my father's friends were mine--I am sorry," she said
frankly, "that he is coming. I know that you do not like him, Allan, I
cannot wonder that you do not!" She sighed and her head drooped a
little.
And Allan, looking at her, felt his heart swell with pity, for he knew
what that proud spirit of hers had been called on to suffer because of
her father, the Earl.
But was it pity only that made his heart swell, that made him take a
step towards her, then stand hesitating?
He turned abruptly and went out into the garden. He was puzzled,
uneasy, uncertain--Life had seemed so placid, the future as well as the
present had seemed so certain, as certain as anything human could be.
He and Kathleen understood one another so perfectly, were such firm
friends, such tried companions; yet did they understand one another
after all? Did he even understand himself?
He flung himself down onto the stone seat facing the sundial. He had
never been in love in his life, and therefore told himself that he knew
all about it. Love, he believed, came like a tempest, it swept a man
off his feet, it robbed him of his appetite. It caused him sleepless
nights, it drove him to a thousand and one follies. Such mad,
passionate, foolish love had never assailed him. He had a good appetite
and he slept well of nights, he did not write poetry, though he was
rather fond of reading it, if it were good. So emphatically he could
not be in love and certainly not in love with his own wife!
He laughed at the thought, but the laughter was a little uncertain, a
little shaky.
"I am," he said aloud, "no more in love with her than she with me. We
are the best of friends, our lives together are practically ideal, we
have not had one quarrel in all these weeks, we are not likely to have;
how could one quarrel with a woman so gracious, so sweet, so good as
Kathleen?"
He thrust his hands into his pockets and stretched out his long legs and
stared hard at his boots.
In love? certainly not! and most assuredly not with Kathleen, yet
supposing she were to leave him, supposing he must suddenly face life
without her? He shuddered at the thought.
Then he refused to consider the matter, to-morrow was the fourteenth,
to-morrow would come his father, God bless him, with his beaming face,
his car probably packed full of little delicacies and little presents,
as well as of City friends, whose coming Allan distinctly dreaded, yet
his father should not be made aware of that. There would be a royal
welcome for Coombe and Cutler and Jobson, for the sake of the dear old
man who brought them.
A telegram had been delivered by the red cheeked messenger from the
Little Stretton Telegraph office.
It was carried up to My Lady's room, as Mr. Homewood himself was not
visible.
Kathleen tore open the envelope, it was from her father.
Womanlike she glanced at the signature "Gowerhurst" first and a faint
hope came that it was to say his Lordship would not be able to come, but
he was coming.
"Find trains serve badly, can you send a car to meet us three fifteen
Longworthy Station. Gowerhurst."
Of course they could and must. Kathleen sighed a little, she glanced
through the window and saw Allan sprawling on the old stone seat by the
sundial.
"Betty," she said, "take this telegram down to Mr. Homewood and ask him
if he will kindly arrange about it."
Nothing was farther from Allan's thoughts, at this moment, than dreams,
or memories of dreams. He had put all that nonsense behind him, long
since; he had laughed frankly and whole heartedly when the merest memory
of that strangely lifelike dream had come into his mind. If it had
affected him--and it had--it affected him no longer.
He was thinking particularly of Coombe, if only his father had contented
himself with Cutler and Jobson! They were at least quiet and
unobtrusive, while Coombe--Allan looked up.
Down the wide flagged pathway a girl was coming to him. About her was
the old world garden, all bright and gay with its flowers, and the trim
emerald green lawn, all dappled with sunlight and shadows. Behind her
was the old house, the casement curtains fluttering in the gentle breeze
and the girl herself dainty and light footed.
Why did he start? Why did he catch his breath suddenly? Why did his
eyes dilate? She wore no quaint old-world cap on her gleaming little
head of golden hair, she wore no flowered gown, high waisted and cut low
to show the white neck. No, she wore a very simple, plain black frock
with a dainty white apron. But he knew her! He knew her and his heart
seemed to stand still as he watched her, wide eyed with amazement. His
outflung hand gripped the back of the stone seat.
So she came towards him, then as suddenly stopped, she stood there
looking, looking at him with the bluest eyes he had ever seen. He saw a
little hand go to her breast as into her childlike face there came a
look of wonder and of fear.
"Betty!" he said. "Betty!" And scarcely knew that he had said it.
"Allan, oh Allan, I----" and then flashed into her face a crimson tide
of shame, she dropped her eyes, she stood before him, trembling and
abashed.
What had possessed her? What madness was this? Allan--she had dared so
to call him, him the master of the house--my lady's husband!
So the man sat, gripping the old seat, and the girl stood there, covered
with shame and confusion, not daring to lift her eyes, and silence fell
on them both.
What strange mad fantasy was this? Should he waken in a moment to hear
Dalabey's voice, as once before? But no, she was real at least, this
little maid in her black dress and her head crowned with its shining
glory.
But she had called him Allan, the name had seemed to come spontaneously
from her lips, as he had called her Betty! He felt shaken, life had
suddenly become fantastic to him, nothing seemed very real. It was
after all a world of dreams; this too, was a dream. He could almost
have welcomed the voice of Dalabey, but it did not come. So she stood
there, with bent head and he saw something fluttering in her little
hand.
"You--you have brought me a message?" he said, and his voice sounded
strangely hoarse and discordant.
"Yes, sir, from--from my Lady!" She dropped him a little curtsey, he
could see the flush still in her cheeks, could see that it even stained
her white neck and her little ears. He rose and went to her and
stretched out his hand. He hoped that she would look up but she did
not, never once were the blue eyes lifted to his own. Why had she come,
why had she come? He had not wanted her to come, yet she had come into
his life after all. She was here, standing before him, not in the
picturesque trappings of a byegone century, but in her modern dress,
still he knew her well enough.
"Betty, Betty!" Betty who had kissed him, who had told him that she
loved him.
He had hoped once that he might meet her in real life. He had pictured
her, tried to dream that dream again, yet had never succeeded. And now
that at last he saw her, could stretch out his hand and touch her, he
knew that it were better that she had not come.
He put out his hand and took the telegram from her, yet did not look at
her.
"You are--Betty Hanson, my wife's maid?"
The little head seemed to droop lower, he could see the childish breast
heaving under the pretty white apron. She dropped him a curtsey humbly.
"You are Betty!" he said. "And you called me----"
He paused.
"Oh sir, oh sir forgive me. Indeed--indeed I du not know what made me,
sir!" Now the blue eyes were lifted to him in pitiful appeal.
"Indeed--oh indeed, sir, I didn't know what I were saying! 'Twasn't as
if I myself spoke, 'twas as if--if summut in me made me say it--oh
sir--indeed, I couldn't help it! I--I don't know what made me du it!"
How blue her eyes were, how they shone and glittered now with the tears
that clung to the sweeping, upturned lashes, how pitiful in its appeal
for pardon was the little face! He looked at her with a feeling of
pity, and yet not of pity only. It was she! the girl of his dreams, the
girl who had come to him and called him "Allan, her Allan," this girl a
servant in the house, who had come to him this day in real life and had
called him by his name.
What meaning, what strange, unknown, force was behind it all? How could
he tell, still less, poor maid, how could she?
"I am not angry, Betty," he said, "indeed, why should I be angry--with
you--for I called you Betty, knowing it to be your name, though I did
not recognise you as Betty Hanson, my wife's maid. Don't think of it
again, child, and do not let it trouble you! Perhaps you are right, it
was not you yourself who spoke----"
"And you bain't angry wi' me, sir?" she asked.
He shook his head and smiled. Angry--angry with her--yet had she not
once before asked him that selfsame question? Strangely he remembered
clearly and distinctly the very words "Allan, Allan, be you still angry
wi' your Betty now?"
Perhaps unconsciously he had muttered them aloud, for he was startled to
see the look in her face, the wonder, the and excitement.
"What--what made 'ee say those words?" she gasped. "Oh, what made 'ee
say 'em?"
"I don't know, I don't know," he said. "Betty, Betty, child, go back,
forget all this, it is nonsense--some foolish dream that you and I seem
to have shared. Go back, little maid, to your mistress and your work
and forget---" he paused, "forget that you knew my name to be Allan and
that I knew you for Betty! Believe me it is better, far, far better
so!" He smiled at her kindly. "Don't think that I am angry, why should
I be angry? It seems to me, child, that fate is playing some strange
trick with us, that is far, far beyond understanding. We must not try
to understand it. Betty, better put it out of your mind and forget
it----"
"If--if I could!" she whispered. "Oh if I could!"
"We must, both of us," he said sternly. "We must forget what we should
never know!"
How pretty she was--and now that the colour was in her cheeks, how
lovely she looked in the sunlight with the old garden all about her!
Kathleen was right--a rarely lovely little maid was Mrs. Hanson's
granddaughter! And as she was, so had been that other maid, the maid of
his dream, the same gleaming, golden hair, the same delicate arched
brows--the deep blue eyes--with their wealth of uplifted lashes, the
fair oval of her cheeks, and the red lipped dainty little mouth that
once had smiled on him so kindly and not smiled only, but had come so
willingly to meet his own lips.
"Betty, there are some things that it is not given to us to understand,
perhaps now and again in the lives of some mortals the curtain is for a
moment lifted. It may have been so with us, lifted and then, allowed to
fall again--and when it has been lifted only for a moment, Betty, it is
better that we who have been granted a sight beyond it, should forget
what we have seen and never let it influence our thoughts or our lives.
Can you understand me, Betty?"
She nodded silently, she looked at him with her glorious eyes and in
them he saw to his dismay, his terror almost, the same light, the light
of the love he had seen shining in the eyes of his dream maiden.
But now she broke the spell, she dropped him a curtsey, she was turning
away.
"Be there any answer to my lady's message, sir?" she asked.
"No!" he said. "No, there is no answer!"
He went back to the stone seat and sat there, conscious that life and
the world had changed suddenly for him. He dropped his chin onto his
hand and sat staring, staring and seeing nothing.
He knew that once he had hoped that she might come and she had come and
now he knew he was sorry and yet glad, with a strange gladness.
"Betty!" he said and said it aloud. "Betty----!" And saw her, not as
he had seen her but a moment ago, but as he had seen her that first time
in her picturesque flowered gown, so quaintly high waisted, the neck cut
low to shew her slender white throat, the little mittened hands and the
mob cap on her shining head.
But the face, the eyes, the lips, ah! they were the same!
He rose suddenly and seemed to shake himself mentally and physically.
This was real life, this was the world all about him. There was no time
for folly and for dreams--to-morrow the old house would be filled with
visitors. He remembered the telegram suddenly and found it crushed into
a ball in his hand. He opened it and smoothed it out and read it.
"It is from my wife's father," he said aloud, and then repeated the
words as of some set meaning and for some known purpose, "my wife's
father!"
*CHAPTER XX*
*THE ROAD TO HOMEWOOD*
Long ago before their marriage, Allan had promised to tell Kathleen if
his dream maiden should ever come to him in real life. And she had
come, yet he had not told his wife. To-morrow the old house would be
filled with guests. Kathleen had much to do and much to think about,
why trouble her now with this foolish story? After all the visitors
were gone--why then--perhaps--but not now!
Then they would have the old house to themselves, then would be the time
for confidences, and such foolish confidences after all, why tax her
patience with them now?
As for Betty, it was likely that he would see the child again, yet when
he saw her, what then? He would not speak to her. Yet at the very
thought of that fair, flowerlike face, those deep blue eyes, something
seemed to stir within him, the blood seemed to run more quickly in his
veins, he was conscious of a heart throb, of a subdued excitement.
And now that she was not here before his eyes, he pictured her, not as
he had seen her last, but as he had seen her for the first time, in
quaint gown and mob cap, with mittened hands.
No! when the visitors were all gone, when her father and his had taken
their departure, when they had the house to themselves once again--then
he would tell her and ask her opinion and advice. Perhaps she would
send the child away, women did such things he knew, he hoped that
Kathleen would not. On the whole he did not think she would. Kathleen
could not be guilty of anything that was small and mean.
She looked up at him now as he came in with the same frank kindly smile
as always.
"You had my father's telegram, Allan?" she said. "Did you arrange about
a car?"
"Yes!"
"Allan, it's very, very wrong of me, yet when I saw the message was from
my father I almost hoped that it was to say he could not come!"
He did not answer and she went on.
"He has taken so little interest in us and the house, he has not thought
it worth his while to run down, even for an hour to see us, all these
weeks, while your father----" she paused.
"I wish," he said, "that my father was not bringing so many of his City
friends, I am afraid that his Lordship will not approve of them!"
"Your father surely has a right to bring whom he pleases to this house?"
"Yes, dear, but----"
"I wrote to him. I did not tell you at the time, I told him that all
his friends were welcome here, Allan, if we can give him any little
pleasure; could we deny it to him, after all that he has given to us and
done for us? And, oh! I feel so humble when I think of him and his
goodness. I remember what I used to think of him, what I used to permit
myself to say of him, before I knew him as I know him now. I feel that
I can never sufficiently make amends for that!"
All that evening she talked to him of the visitors who were coming. She
herself had seen to Sir Josiah's room, she had arranged vases for the
flowers that she would not cut until the morning, so that they should be
fresh. It was a sense of duty rather than a feeling of love that caused
her to put flowers in her own father's room too, for one thing she knew
that he would not appreciate them. That night Allan lay wakeful. He
thought of Betty and thought of her with a sense of shame, yet with a
strange joy.
Why should it have been as it had? What meaning was behind it all? Was
there a meaning that he would ever understand? He remembered what his
father had told him of a Pringle--an Allan Pringle who had married a
Betty, maid to the then mistress of the house. It had been a sad story,
his father had said, the girl had died, poor Betty! He listened to
Kathleen's sweet regular breathing, he lifted himself on his arm and
watched her sleeping face in the moonlight that came in through the
widely opened window.
How good she was, how white and pure she looked lying here in her sleep!
He was strangely moved, his mind was filled with a great reverence for
her, he bent to her, he touched her cheeks with his lips, so lightly as
not to waken her, then he lay down again and slept.
No holiday maker ever set out for a day's pleasuring with keener
anticipation than did Sir Josiah this bright September morning. He was
to call for Cutler on the way. Coombe was driving his own car and would
pick up Jobson, they were to meet at the Chequers at Horley, should they
not happen on one another on the road.
There were a thousand and one things to remember, a dozen packages to
stow away.
"Mind that there one, Bletsoe, my man, go lightly now!"
"Very good, Sir Josiah!"
"And see Mr. Cutler don't go and put his foot on it," said Sir Josiah,
"and let me see, one, two, three, four, that's all right! One moment!"
Back into the house he dashed, to reappear with more parcels.
"Reg'lar old Santy Claus," muttered Bletsoe, with a kindly smile, "like
a blooming great kid he is, going to 'ave a day's outing!"
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven--seven's right, and eight,
that's in my pocket; what's the time, Bletsoe?"
"Gone ten, sir!"
"Bless my soul and I promised to be at Cutler's at ten--all right now,
Bletsoe, let her go!"
How he had racked his brain, what shops had he not rummaged, what
shopmen and shop maidens had he not pestered. He had sent down cases
from the wine merchant, stores from Messrs. Whiteley, hundred weights of
pate de foie gras, Strasbourg pies, chocolates and Heaven knew what
besides from Messrs. Fortum and Mason's. That lengthy and evidently
fragile parcel he had been so careful about was a beautiful and costly
vase. Something of the Ming Period or the Chang Dynasty, he was not
very sure what, but it cost a great deal. That soft and pliable looking
parcel was a silken kimono of rare and wonderful workmanship. Those
square parcels were cigars and cigarettes for Allan and Allan's friends.
There he sat, this red faced, jolly old gentleman, with a great cigar in
the corner of his mouth and he beamed on the world as his magnificent
car whirled him up one street and down another.
And here was Cutler actually ready, standing in his open doorway, Cutler
in a new and rather becoming tweed suit, and a soft felt hat, an
unfamiliar Cutler, for Sir Josiah had never seen him in anything but a
silk hat and a correct black coat in the City.
"Hallo Cutler, here we are, a bit late, mind the parcels! Bletsoe, take
Mr. Cutler's suitcase, here we are, my boy, lovely morning, looking
forward to a delightful run, picking up Coombe and Jobson at Horley.
Get in, get in! Have a cigar, no you prefer a pipe. I don't know that
you ain't right!"
And now they were really off and away. How nimbly the big car twisted
in and out the traffic, how it dodged cumbersome, road monopolising
trams, how it slipped round the unwieldy omnibuses! Then away southward
Streatham was passed--here was Croydon with its narrow congested
streets, past Purley and Redhill, down the long hill somewhere near the
foot of which lies the village of Horley and its well known Inn, where
Coombe and Jobson would be waiting.
What a morning, what sunshine, what a breeze!
"Does one good, Cutler. Blows the cobwebs away! Better than all your
Doctor's stuffs, my boy!"
"My daughter," said Cutler, "tells me that in Demauritius, of which her
husband is Governor, they have some extraordinarily beautiful country
and she constantly----"
But Cutler's reminiscences are cut short, here is the Chequers, and here
is Coombe with a tankard of beer in his hand. He waves the tankard to
Sir Josiah unblushingly and drinks his jolly good health.
"And your jolly good health too, Coombe, my boy, what a morning! What's
the time! Eleven--Bless me, we must have dawdled on the way! Beer! the
air's good enough for me--like wine, sir, wine--the finest wine in the
world!"
"Race you to Crawley for a fiver," says Coombe.
"I--I trust--Sir Josiah," says Jobson, "you will not agree, believe me
Coombe needs no inducement at all to be reckless, he nearly ran over an
old lady in Streatham a very respectable looking old lady, in Croydon he
butted into a tram standard, and it is a mercy we were not all killed,
and then at Purley Corner--a butcher's cart----"
But Coombe's beer is finished, Jobson is bundled into the car, Coombe
starts her up, climbs over Jobson and tramples on his feet, seizes the
wheel and away they go.
For all Coombe's boasting and reckless driving, Sir Josiah and Cutler
are in Crawley first. Here they swing away to the right to Horsham and
leave the Brighton road for good. From now on, their road takes them
through the heart of Sussex, Sussex of the quaint wayside cottages, with
gardens all blooming and fragrant, Sussex of the chalky white roads, the
great undulating sweeps of noble hills. Sing of Devon who will, but can
Devon shew such cottage gardens, can she shew anything to compare with
yonder glorious range of downs? Green downs on which the passing clouds
cast moving shadows of purple and blue, and here and there a gleam of
purest white, where the sunlight strikes on to the bare white chalk of
some cliff or cutting. Where in all the world grows turf so dense, so
fine, so short and sweet and perfect as here upon these rolling hills of
chalk. Under the hills the trees are all glowing red and bronze and
orange. The car wheels swish among the fallen leaves, the children come
running out of the cottages and cling to the gates to watch as the cars
go whirling by.
But they are going at a more sober pace now, the country is all too
lovely under the September sunshine to rattle through in a cloud of
chalky dust. Sir Josiah, eager as he is, calls on Bletsoe to go more
quietly, and it is luncheon time when they cross the river and run up
into Arundel Town, so luncheon they have in the old Inn and walk up the
hill to have a look at the castle, the home of the Howards, while the
steak is grilling.
And then the last stage of the journey, along the pleasant road to
Chichester, Chichester of the old market cross, and here the cars swing
to the right towards Midhurst, but the end of the journey is very near
now. The Midhurst Road is left behind, up hill and down dale sweeps the
narrower bye-way.
"Here we are, this is Little Stretton!" said Sir Josiah. "That's the
Fighting Cocks, many a good meal I've had there--hello Dalabey, how are
you? Hello Crabb, hello Monson!" He waves his hand, there are smiles
and bobs and greetings for him. Dalabey could not bow more profoundly
if it had been a Royal Duke, and he could not have felt more honest
respect for so exalted a personage than he did for the red faced old
fellow who waved to him so pleasantly from the splendid car.
"We're getting near, see that wall, that long wall, that's Homewood, see
them--those gates--those are the Homewood gates, they are open, they are
expecting us of course! Drive in Bletsoe, drive right in, blow the horn
Bletsoe, here we are!"
His face is beaming. It has been a jolly journey, a rare holiday in the
September sunshine, but perhaps this is the most pleasant part of it
all. Here is Homewood, the gates stand open, they drive through, the
hall door stands open too!
And here is Kathleen; she has heard the wheels, she comes hurrying out.
No servants shall open the hall door to Sir Josiah and carry Sir
Josiah's card to the lady of the house, that would be but a poor
welcome. So my Lady Kathleen, all smiling and dimpling, runs down the
steps and springs lightly onto the running board of the car and puts her
arms around his neck and kisses him before them all.
"Welcome," she says, "welcome, I've been watching for you for hours!"
Yes, this is the pleasantest part of the whole journey after all!
*CHAPTER XXI*
*AFTER TEN YEARS*
Kathleen had looked forward to conducting Sir Josiah and his friends
around the house and grounds. But though she knew that he was pleased
and happy to have her with them, though he took a delight in her
company, yet her presence embarrassed them all a little, even Sir Josiah
himself. How could he be the showman when she was near? How could he
tell Coombe how much money he had spent on this and that? How crush
Cutler with the magnificence of the rooms and dazzle Jobson with the
extent and the beauty of the gardens?
Kathleen, with her rare tact and intelligence saw it in a moment.
Coombe had allowed his cigar to go out, Jobson looked nervous. Sir
Josiah, while he beamed on her, had scarce a word to say. Only Cutler
seemed to be at his ease and was telling her about his daughter's
establishment in Demauritius, in which island she was the Lady of the
Governor.
Kathleen put her hand through Sir Josiah's arm, she drew him aside a
little.
"I want you to shew them round, shew them everything, you know so much
more about it all than I do! It is all your doing, you knew it as it
was, you can describe it so much better than I can, and besides I'm
terribly busy," she smiled at him. "You know my father is coming and
he's bringing some other guest who I do not know. Allan will be back
soon, he is terribly busy these days," she laughed softly. "He is at
One Tree Hill Farm with old Mr. Custance; they have great schemes; Allan
is going to make his fortune!"
"Bless me!" said Sir Josiah. "Allan is!--well, well!"
"So I must run away," she said. She smiled at him and hurried into the
house.
But from the window she watched them with bright eyes, she saw Sir
Josiah stretch his hand, pointing this way and that.
"You ought to have seen it, you ought, Coombe. Derelict wasn't the word
for it. Weeds that high, my boy; now look, look at it. Jobson, what do
you say to this for a garden, hey? and you, Cutler, you wait till you
see the house. It's something to see I promise you, and six months ago,
six months ago, my boy, you ought to have seen it, then."
The old man was himself again, that tender, kindly, loving greeting had
warmed his heart.
"I'll bet it was her thought, keeping the gates open," he thought to
himself. "It's like her to think of little things like that. Things
that make just all the difference."
"Tidy place," said Coombe, "good taste, too; shouldn't be surprised if
her Ladyship had a good deal to say in the management of this garden."
"Her ladyship has a good deal to say in the management of everything,"
said Sir Josiah, "and quite right she should. A place like this is a
natural environment for her, while for me and my boy Allan, though he's
twice--" he paused, "twice the gentleman I am--" he had been going to
say, but these were Jobson, Cutler and Coombe, men he kept up his
dignity with to a certain extent.
"What's the old boy say to it, hey?" asked Coombe.
"Old boy?"
"The Earl--Gowerhurst--what's he say to it all, hey?"
"Oh he--I don't think he's been down yet, but he's coming, they are
expecting him to-day."
"I'll lay he don't know that I'm here," Coombe said. "If he did he
wouldn't show up, not he."
"And why not?" asked Sir Josiah. "Why not, Coombe? I'd like to know."
"Money, my boy, money! I've had dealings with his Lordship before. His
Lordship knows me well enough; bet you a fiver, Homewood, when the old
boy sees me he'll turn green."
"I hope," said Sir Josiah with great dignity, "that here in my
daughter-in-law's house there is not going to be any discussion about
money matters. No shop, Coombe, no shop. We owe it at least to Lady
Kathleen to behave like gentlemen when we are her guests."
Coombe looked at the old gentleman out of the corner of his eyes.
"Quite right, Homewood, I should be sorry to be guilty of any disrespect
to so charming and kind hearted a young lady I'm sure. The only wonder
to me is that such a father should have such a child." Coombe winked
broadly at Jobson, a very humorous man, Mr. Coombe, and fond of his
little joke.
And now came Allan, who had been delayed by the garrulous but competent
Mr. Custance. He gripped his father by the hand and thrust his hand
through the old gentleman's arm.
He was kindly and courteous to Coombe, whom he did not like, and to
Jobson and Cutler, whom he esteemed because they were his father's
friends.
"You've seen Kathleen, father?"
"Seen her, yes, why bless her she was waiting on the steps to welcome
us, that's what I call a welcome, Allan. None of your Society manners
with Kathleen, no sending in of cards and being ushered in by servants.
There she was, bless her pretty face, watching for us and ran down the
steps, she did, and--and well, where have you been, Allan, hey? I hear
you are going to make your fortune."
"I'm going to have a good try at earning a bit of money, father, and it
can be done; I'll talk to you about it later. Now come in and have a
look at the house, Mr. Coombe, I am sure would like something."
"Ha, ha!" said Coombe. "Guessed it at once, Allan, my boy! I've just
been wondering how long it would be before someone made the suggestion."
"I am sorry," Allan said reddening.
They went in. Kathleen saw them come, but she was watching for the
other visitor, the other guest, whom she told herself, she would not be
half so pleased to see as the guest who had already arrived.
She took herself to task and yet she knew that she could not try and
cheat herself. Her father was her father. It was Fate--respect for him
she had none--that she could not respect him had been one of the
greatest sorrows of her life. Affection for him she had but very little.
She knew him too well, could read him too easily, understood his
thoughts too clearly and she pitied him for his utter selfishness.
She knew, for she had been old enough to know, something of her mother's
sufferings before death came, not unwelcomed. He had never been anything
to his wife in the presence of others except polite and courteous, then
he treated her with his usual charm of manner, on which he prided
himself.
He had neglected her, ignored her when alone; he stung her and wounded
her with his sneers, his poisoned darts of contempt and contumely. He
had never lifted his hand to her, yet he had killed her in the end as
surely as the drunken tinker slays the wife of his bosom with a boot
heel or the kitchen poker.
And Kathleen knew much of this, not quite all perhaps, but she
remembered the suffering of the quiet, pale-faced, cowed woman whom the
young girl had surrounded with a worshipping, adoring love.
So she stood watching and listening for the coming of the car. Who the
other guest might be, she did not speculate on. It was someone in whom
she felt not the slightest interest. In a way she was glad that her
father was bringing a friend of his own choice. It would be someone for
him to talk to. Coombe, Jobson and Cutler would hardly prove to be
associates of whom his lordship would approve. She knew his feelings
toward Sir Josiah and she felt a twinge of shame, for in a way she had
shared those feelings in the past.
His lordship was in an ill humour. He disliked the country intensely.
The only occasions when he found the country at all bearable was, when
one of a large house party, there was some shooting to be done in the
daytime and unlimited bridge, billiards or baccarat to while away the
night. That he would not find these amusements waiting him at Homewood
he was fully aware.
During the journey from London Bridge to Longworthy, he was fidgety and
faultfinding. The carriage when the window was up was too hot; when it
was down the carriage was draughty, the seats were dusty, "a disgrace to
the Railway Company." The line, he maintained, was the very worst laid
line in the Kingdom. He was jolted to pieces, carriages worse sprung
than this he had never ridden in.
"We might have come by car," Scarsdale said.
"I hate cars, nasty draughty things, I dislike the smell of the petrol,
the hot oil, the dust, I hate running over children and dogs. I'm
deuced unlucky in a car--never go out in one unless there's an accident;
ran over a child last time when I was with Lysart, shook my nerves up
most confoundedly. By George, Harold, I blame myself, yes, I take blame
to myself, I do by Gad!"
"For running over the child?"
"No, I'm thinking of Kathleen's marriage. I was anxious about her,
deucedly anxious. Kathleen was getting on, I don't tell everyone, but
you know, you the friend of her childhood, that Kathleen isn't so young
as she was. Not that she's gone off, not a bit of it. I consider
Kathleen more handsome to-day than ever in her life. She comes of the
right stock, Harold, the Stanwys wear well, the men and the women. My
grandmother, begad, was a toast when she was fifty-five and they say she
did not look a day over thirty. She was a Stanwys by birth, Arabella
Stanwys, daughter of Francis--but this don't interest you. No, I was
speaking of Kathleen. I say that I take blame to myself that I hurried
on the wedding, hurried it on. I'll admit it frankly. Thoughts of
Kathleen caused me sleepless nights. I'm naturally an affectionate man,
a man on whom responsibility weighs heavily. I realised my position,
Harold. 'When I am dead and gone, Begad!' I said to myself, 'what of
Kathleen? What of my poor, dear child?' You'd have said the same had
you been in my place. Then I fell in with Homewood in connection with a
Company, common old fellow; you'll dislike him intensely as I do, by
gad!"
"And so you married Kathleen to his son?"
"Yes, yes, I felt I had to. The girl's future troubled me, worried me
to death, Harold. How was I to know that you'd come back; how the deuce
was I to know that you hadn't married and settled down; how was I to
know that you----?"
"That I had succeeded in life and was in a position to offer Kathleen a
home?" Scarsdale asked.
"That's it, that's it, begad. The very words I was going to say. How
could I know all that? I did not, I saw the chance. Allan Homewood
isn't a bad fellow, not a gentleman of course; how could he be with such
a father? But quiet and unassuming, decently educated, sensible. I was
torn, Harold, torn, I confess now that I thought of you--" the tears
came into his lordship's fine eyes, he leaned forward and gripped
Scarsdale's hand. "I thought of you, I thought to myself, 'If ever that
fine young fellow comes back, what a blow to him, what a blow!' Yet how
did I know you were coming back?"
"No, you were not to know." Harold Scarsdale stared out of the window.
"I wish, Heaven knows, for many reasons, I had not come back. I might
have known that Kathleen could not have waited, yet I watched the
papers, I saw no engagement, no marriage announced and I clung to hope,
then--" he laughed shortly. "I ought not to be here now, Lord
Gowerhurst, it's the weakest, most foolish thing I have ever done, yet
you say you wrote and told Kathleen."
"I did, I did, 'pon my honour I did, wrote to her and said I was
bringing you down and she wrote and said she'd be delighted to see you."
"Which was very kind and very friendly of her," said Scarsdale with a
bitter sneer, "and proves that she doesn't care a hang for me now, and
in all probability never did." He laughed again and his lordship, not
quite knowing why, laughed too.
Kathleen was waiting, she heard the car wheels, the hoot of the horn as
the car swung in through the open gateway. She could do no less to
welcome her own father than she had done to welcome Allan's. She
hurried out, and descended the steps, there was a smile on her face, her
hand was held out, then suddenly she stopped. The smile seemed to set
on her face, which had grown rigid, and suddenly very white; the
outstretched hand shook and fell to her side.
So for a moment she stood there, wide eyed, conscious of the violent
throbbing of her heart.
After--ten years--and so they faced one another again. And the man knew
that her father had lied to him and that his coming was all unexpected
by her.
But it was only for a moment, just one moment, that was yet enough to
betray her to those keen, eager, watchful eyes. Then she came forward,
calmly, with an artificial smile on her lips. She took her father's
hand, she kissed him, what she said she hardly knew, she touched the
other man's hand. She told him that his coming was an unexpected
pleasure.
Jardine, the chauffeur, holding open the door of the car saw nothing out
of the common. James, the footman, coming down the steps to take the
rugs and handbags, little dreamed that here was a meeting between lovers
who ten years ago had parted in tears and an agony of heartbroken
hopelessness.
For Lady Kathleen was herself again, she was smiling, and if the colour
had not yet returned to her cheeks, who was to notice so insignificant a
fact? Not James and Jardine, not Lord Gowerhurst certainly.
"And so this is Homewood, eh Kathleen? Quite a nice little place;
reminds me a little of--of Clamberwick, Normandyke'a seat in Cumberland,
but smaller of course, a great deal smaller. Had some deuced good
fishing there I remember. Thought you'd like to see Harold again, hey?
By the way he is Sir Harold now, Governor of somewhere or other. The
world's treated him decently, yes decently, eh Harold? And quite right
too, I like to see a man work his way up in the world."
"I am glad to hear it," Kathleen said. "I am sure that any fortune that
has come to Mr. Scar--to Sir Harold Scarsdale, has been fairly and
honestly won--and thoroughly deserved."
"Ha, ha, nicely put, very simply and nicely put, eh Scarsdale?" said his
lordship. "Give me your arm, my dear, I'm confoundedly cramped, getting
to be an old fellow now. One of these days I may ask my daughter to
find some corner, some out of-the-way corner by the fire for the old
man, eh? Some obscure place where the old man may sit and dream away
his last days. It's the fall of the leaf, my dear, the fall of the
leaf. As I rode through your beautiful country a while ago, I saw the
leaves all strewn on the road and I thought--as with the year, so with
me--my leaves are falling, all wrinkled and brown. And yet it seems but
yesterday since I put them on so fresh and green, hey, so fresh and
green and--and----"
He was talking the arrant nonsense he loved, in the self-pitying style
Kathleen knew only too well. She shivered, but not with her usual
impatience of the humbug of it. How had he dared--dared to bring this
man? How had he dared to make friendly overtures to one whom he had
grossly and cruelly insulted ten years ago? And Harold himself? It
shocked her to think that he could come here--that he could bring
himself to accept her and Allan's hospitality. She had not looked at
him since that first quick glance, and short though that had been, it
had shewn her the change in him. The boy she had known--and loved--was
gone--this man, she felt, she hardly knew. She asked herself even now,
had she foolishly made an ideal of that lad, or had she idealised her
love for him? she wondered--but it hurt her that he was here now.
Lord Gowerhurst, leaning far more heavily than he need on her arm,
entered the house. He betrayed no interest in it. The finely panelled
walls, the carefully selected and diligently sought after "Period"
furniture, the vista from the windows of the wonderful old English
garden in its autumnal glory, interested him not at all. He was talking
of himself, which was the most interesting topic he could think of.
"I'm not eating too well, my dear, a bad sign, hey, a bad sign, and my
sleep is broken--terribly broken. I never was one of the "fat kine" my
love, but I'm growing noticeably thinner. I declare to you that
Crombie, my man, is positively shocked at the falling off in my girth
and Darbey, my tailor, poor fellow, is getting quite anxious about me."
Kathleen told herself that she ought to have known, ought to have
anticipated it, yet she felt hurt that he took so little interest in her
home. He never looked at anything; he sat down in a delightful
Hepplewhite chair, a chair that the great Davenham had undertaken a
seventy-five mile journey to secure. He sat down in the chair and
stared at the very pointed toes of his exquisite boots.
"I'm not my own man, no, my love, I don't wish to pain you, I know how
sensitive you are, what a loving heart my child has; I don't wish to
rouse one anxiety in your mind, my love, but I feel age, old age
creeping on."
Kathleen sat facing him, there was a set smile on her white lips. She
heard him and did not realise one word that he was uttering, perhaps she
had heard it all so often before that it was not worth listening to now.
"He is here, he is here. Here under this roof, here in this very room."
The man who had written her those passionate love letters, letters which
she had blistered with her tears, letters which she had destroyed at
last with an aching heart and feelings of reverence and solemnity. How
often, his voice calling to her, had come up out of the past, "Kathleen,
I love you. Kathleen, come with me, risk all, give all, dare all, but
come--come with me because I love you so."
And how nearly, how nearly she had said yes. Sometimes she wondered why
she had not said yes, for it was in her heart to listen and to go--yet
she had not, and now he was here.
Was she glad? No, no, no! Yet was she sorry? How could she answer,
how could she tell?
"Darbey, of Dover Street, you remember, my love, my tailor, though
Heaven knows I don't patronise the poor fellow one half as much as he
deserves. I tell you Darbey was shocked; he said to me, almost with
tears in his eyes and his voice shaking with emotion, 'My lord,' he
said, 'I'm sorry to tell your lordship that your present measurements
shew a falling off of two and a half inches at the waist, it's a serious
thing.' He begged and besought me to consult a physician, but I did
not. No, no, what does it matter after all? When I look about me and
see your charming home--" he had not looked about him in the slightest
degree, "then I realise that I have done what I could. I have seen to
it that my child is--Don't I hear voices, hey, Kathleen?"
He certainly did, from the adjoining room came Coombe's big bass voice:
"Sir Josiah Homewood is here and he has brought some friends----"
"Friends, eh! bless me, friends of Homewood, very interesting." His
lordship laughed a thin, cackling, unpleasant laugh. "My dear Harold, I
think I can promise you some amusement, Sir Josiah Homewood is----"
"Is my husband's father," Kathleen said, and her cheeks suddenly blazed
with generous colour. "He is also my very dear friend."
"And therefore entitled to the respect and esteem of all men," said
Scarsdale quietly.
She turned to him for the first time, looked at him, and saw the many
changes in him. She looked for some sign, something that would recall
the boy lover of long ago, and it seemed to her that she looked in vain.
"My husband's father has been very kind, very generous and good to us,"
she said. "There are few for whom I have a greater esteem and a deeper
affection than I have for him."
Coombe, putting down his empty glass, looked out of the window and saw
the empty car turning towards the Garage. He gripped Jobson's arm.
"The nobility and gentry have now arrived," he whispered. "This is going
to be as good as a play, Jobson. Keep your eye on me and watch old
Gowerhurst, I'll bet it'll be amusing, you watch out, Jobson, he, he.
Watch him turn green. Last time I saw the old boy he tried to borrow a
couple of thousand, but no thanks, not taking any, said I. Securities
too deuced rotten--rotten as his own confounded reputation. Almost wept
to me, the old fellow did, but once bitten--twice shy--he had four
hundred out of me once and I'd like to see the colour of my money; a
shark, a confounded oily slimy old leech, that's what he is. Button
your pockets up, Jobson, my son, when his nobility, the Earl of
Gowerhurst, is about the premises."
All this was in an undertone to Jobson, who looked and felt very
uncomfortable.
Allan and his father had been talking in a low voice, and now Allan
turned.
"I think my wife is with her father in the drawing room; shall we go
in?" he asked.
"Yes, yes, let's go in," Sir Josiah said. "It's a long time since I saw
his lordship; I trust his lordship is quite well."
"His lordship won't be so jolly well presently," whispered Coombe to
Jobson, "it's going to be as good as a play, watch the fun." And Coombe
winked at Jobson knowingly.
And now the door of the drawing room opened and Allan, holding his
father's arm, came in, followed by Jobson, Cutler and Coombe.
"The old fat common fellow;" thought his lordship, then suddenly
remembering that in the very near future he would in all probability
require the assistance of the "old fat common fellow," he rose and held
out a friendly generous hand.
"Delighted to see you, Homewood. Looking well, positively well, you
are, ha, ha, you busy men with interests in life, you're much to be
envied."
"Allan," Kathleen touched his arm. "Allan, I want to present you to
a--a friend, an old friend whom my father has brought down with him."
Her voice shook, yet so little that Allan, unobservant as he was,
noticed nothing.
"Sir Harold Scarsdale. My husband!"
Allan's hand was thrust out, his face lighted with pleasure and frank
and friendly welcome.
"I'm delighted to see you, Sir Harold," he said, "it's kind of you to
come to such an out-of-the-world place as this."
"I've been out of England for many years, and it's a great pleasure to
me to see my own country again and--and my old friends." Scarsdale's
voice shook a little. Why had he come, why had he come? Gowerhurst had
lied to him vilely, when he had told him that Kathleen was expecting him
and had expressed pleasure at the thought of seeing him; what a liar the
man was.
And Kathleen, how little she had altered. The years had robbed her of
nothing, he remembered her as a sweet faced, lovely girl; he saw her now
a radiantly beautiful woman. Yes, the years had been kind to her. How
often had he thought of her, pictured her to himself. How had he, many
a time, lain awake in the sweltering heat of the tropical nights and
tried to picture her, and yet the reality, how immeasurably superior it
was to the vision his dreams had conjured up. And while he was thinking
these things, he was talking to her husband.
His lordship's calm superiority always made Sir Josiah feel a little
nervous, made him realise his own inferior station in life. He was
feeling it now, he was conscious of a sensation of undue heat. He had
been cool enough five minutes ago in the dining room, now he was visibly
perspiring.
"Yes, her Ladyship, Lady Kathleen, was so kind as to ask us to run down,
me and a few friends, ha, ha. As your lordship says we busy City men
are much to be envied in one way, but when it comes to a holiday--ha,
ha." He paused nervously. "We're always glad to get a week-end off,
ain't we, Cutler? Let me introduce you, my lord."
His lordship frowned. He was not accustomed to be introduced to common
persons like Cutler; Cutler, the common person, should have been
presented to him.
"Mr. Cutler, Senior Partner of Cutler, Cutler and Wakethorpe, his
daughter is Governor of--of--I forget the name. Jobson, let me introduce
Lord Gowerhurst--" Sir Josiah went on, persisting in doing the honours
the wrong way about.
Monied men no doubt, rich, opulent men, Lord Gowerhurst thought; just as
well to keep in with them, one never knows.
"How de do Mr.--er--Johnson." He held out a finger and Jobson took it
and shook it solemnly.
"Coombe," said Sir Josiah, "my friend, Mr. Coombe, my lord."
"Ah! ha!" said Coombe, "I've had the pleasure of meeting his lordship
before; how de do, my lord? Hope I see you well?" He held out a large,
red and moist hand.
Now was the moment, the moment for Jobson to hold his sides, the moment
to witness the discomfiture of this Peer of the Realm. Did his lordship
start? Did he turn pale? Did he tremble and turn green, as Coombe had
prophesied?
No, he did not; he looked at Coombe, he put his monocle very slowly and
deliberately in his eye and took another look.
"'Pon my soul, Mr.--er--Groom, did you say Groom, Sir Josiah?"
"Coombe," said Sir Josiah.
"I beg your pardon, Mr.--er--Coombe, 'pon my soul, I don't recall the
pleasure." Very insolently his lordship looked Mr. Coombe up and down
and Mr. Coombe turned red; the joke was not so good as he had thought it
would be.
"Langworthy," he said, "you remember Langworthy's business, my Lord?"
"Langworthy, really did I meet you at Hansbar, my friend, Sir George
Langworthy's house? I haven't been there, let me see, for three years,
and the last time----"
"No, it wasn't there neither," said Coombe angrily. "It was in my City
Office I met your lordship and it wasn't Sir George Langworthy, it was
quite a different Langworthy."
"Indeed?" said his lordship politely, "indeed?"
Mr. Coombe's hot hand dropped to his side.
"I don't recall your face, 'pon my soul I am afraid I don't. But one
sees so many faces, hey? And now--my dear Homewood, tell me all about
the wonderful things you have been doing here." And his lordship turned
his back on Mr. Coombe with marked deliberation.
Coombe clenched his fists.
"Supercilious beast!" he muttered. "I'll teach him, I ain't done with
him yet, not by a long sight, I haven't. You wait, Jobson----"
But Jobson turned and stared out into the garden through the window. He
was losing faith in the ability of Coombe to make Peers of the Realm
feel unhappy.
*CHAPTER XXII*
*MR. COOMBE WEARS A WHITE TIE*
Kathleen had given them tea, she had chatted and laughed, she had
concealed every feeling and every thought with that skill that is
acquired by every intelligent, well educated woman.
How daintily she presided over the tea tray. Her white hand never
trembled--was it three lumps or only two that Sir Josiah took? What a
kind, friendly glance she flashed at Allan as he took his father's cup
from her hand. How should Allan know, how should anyone in that room,
save perhaps one, know that every nerve in her delicate body was
quivering, that in her heart there was a mingled fear and joy, gladness
and sorrow, anxiety for the future, and regret for the past.
"No tea for me, child, the doctor positively forbids it, positively,"
his lordship said; he sighed. "No one appreciates a cup of tea more
than I, but I am obliged to forego it. One has to give up many things,
eh Sir Josiah, the falling leaf must not be too roughly dealt with, else
perhaps it will fall even before its time. No, no tea for me, my love,
but if I might beg a glass of soda water--just a glass of plain soda
water--with perhaps the merest, the very merest touch of brandy, hey
Allan, just to take the bite off the soda water, so to speak?"
Coombe, sipping tea which he had no love for, eyed his enemy the peer,
malevolently. His lordship, he noticed, reversed the programme, it was
the merest touch of the soda water to take the bite off the brandy.
"Owes me four hundred and treats me like dirt, hanged if I don't bung a
writ into him!" thought Coombe.
He happened to be sitting near to Lord Gowerhurst and presently his
lordship adjusted his monocle and stared at Coombe.
"Ah, ha, Mr. Groom, I think that you were telling me just now that we
had met at Hansbar, Langworthy's place in Somerset? Have you known the
Langworthys long, eh?"
"I didn't say anything of the kind," Coombe growled sullenly. "I
said----"
"Oh, yes, I remember, some other Langworthy, quite so."
"I'll bet a shilling," Coombe whispered under his breath, "I'll bet a
shilling, my lord, as you remember me a sight better than you pretend
you do."
Gowerhurst regarded Coombe's hot red face coldly and critically.
"I never, I never remember anyone I prefer to forget, my dear Mr.
Groom," he said. "It's an excellent plan--eh? An excellent plan, saves
a great deal of trouble and annoyance, eh?"
And now Kathleen was alone, she had come to her room, she had locked the
door on herself. She sat down by the window and put her elbows on the
sill and rested her chin on her hands.
He had come back.
It had almost stunned her, its unexpectedness and suddenness. She had
not had time to realise what it all meant, all that she could realise
was, that he was here.
She saw herself now, as she had been, a girl of eighteen, a girl deeply,
desperately in love; she remembered how she had lain through long,
sleepless nights, tossing on her pillow. How willingly in those days she
would have gone with him into direst poverty, the deeper the poverty how
much more would she have gloried in it. To tramp the roads by his side,
to sing in the streets with him, to crouch beside him under some
friendly hedge for the night--yes, she would have done that very
willingly and yet--yet perhaps common sense, perhaps the hereditary
instinct of her kind had kept her from such folly.
But she had loved him. Now, sitting here, she was realising that
perhaps she had loved him more--more after he had gone and left her as
she believed forever, than she had actually loved him while he was yet
with her.
It is often the way, when the beloved object ceases to be real and
tangible, when he becomes a memory--with what virtues can we clothe him?
In memory we only recall all the good, the best that was in him--memory
charitably forgets the numerous little faults, the tiny acts of
selfishness, the little outbursts of foolish temper. No, they are all
gone. So, because he was the beloved object, memory is eager to idealise
him.
Perhaps it had been so with her--yet she had loved him--she had thrilled
to the passion in his boyish voice, to the love in his boyish, ardent
eyes. A child's love, a school girl's love, her father had said. "My
dear child, I'm a man of the world and you are a young Miss who has only
just learned to do her back hair up; accept it from me, the person who
marries his or her first love lives to regret it. First love is merely
a kind of preliminary canter, it's good exercise, provided you don't
take it too seriously, but if you do take it seriously why then it is
the deuce and all."
She smiled to herself, recalling her father's words. It had been her
first love and her only love, it had lived with her for ten years and
during those ten years it had seemed to her to have grown stronger,
better, purer. It had perhaps made her a little cold to the world about
her, yet in reality it had made her heart more tender, had made her more
prone to sympathy and tenderness and kindness.
Why had he come, why had he come back? She clenched her hands tightly.
The few short months of her married life with Allan had been quiet and
peaceful, uneventful, happy, yes happy! she had always liked him, she
liked him better now than she had before he had given his name to her.
She liked him better and yet better every day, she liked him because he
confided in her, because he was honest and open with her, because while
he lavished no caresses on her, for would not caresses have been humbug
and hypocrisy, he gave her a quiet affection and respect that won her
heart to him. He had told her of his plans with old Custance, how he
would make money and help repay his father a little of the much that his
father had done for them both.
And then he had promised once that if ever--ever love came to him, the
love that nearly always comes knocking at a man's heart at some time in
his life, he would tell her candidly and truthfully and they would face
the fact together. And she for her part had promised that she would
tell him if--the lover of long ago should come back into her life.
And he had come, and so she must tell him, as she had promised to do;
she must be honest and truthful with Allan, surely he deserved that of
her.
There was a tap on the door and Kathleen rose and opened it.
"My lady, 'ee'll be wanting me? I've been waiting for the bell, my
lady, but 'ee didn't ring it."
"No, Betty, I didn't ring, but--but come in. Betty, what is the
matter?"
"Matter? Oh, my lady, nothing du be the matter wi' I."
"But your face is white, child, and your eyes look red from crying. Is
there anything wrong, Betty? Have you seen your grandmother and is she
still angry with you?"
"I bain't seen her, my--my lady, and I du not care whether her be still
angry wi' me or not--for it be all the same to I."
"You shouldn't say that, child."
"For never, never will I marry Abram, my--my lady, never will I. Sooner
would I drownd myself in the river, which I would du gaily, aye gaily,
my lady, than--than marry Abram who I never could abide."