“I can understand,” I said.
“Of course, when we got back it had to be different. Friends came in,
and she was run after and admired and written about. You know the
publicity of life in modern London.”
“City of public-houses and society spies.”
“I bore it, because it’s supposed to be the thing. And Vere rather
likes it, somehow. So I let her have her fun, as long as it was fun. I
didn’t intend it should ever be anything else.”
He frowned. When he did that, and his thick eyebrows nearly met, he
looked all Italian.
“We did the usual things—Paris, Ascot, Scotland, and so on—till Vere
had to lie up.”
“Your boy?”
“Yes; Hugo came along. I was glad when that was over. I thought she was
going to die. You knew Seymour Glynd?”
“Life Guards? Killed hunting a year ago?”
Inley nodded.
“He was a great deal with us soon after Hugo’s birth. I thought nothing
of it. I’d known the fellow all my life. But then one nearly always
has.”
He laughed bitterly.
“To cut that part short, two years ago in autumn we had Glynd staying
with us down here for shooting. There were some others, of course—Mrs.
Jack, Bobbie Elphinton, and Lady Bobbie—but you know the lot.”
“I did.”
“Ah,” he said, “you’ve been well out of it these years. Well, the shoot
was to break up on a Friday, and I’d arranged to go to town that day
with the rest. Vere didn’t intend to come. She said she was feeling
tired, and was going to have a Friday to Monday rest cure. That’s the
thing, you know, nowadays. You get a Swedish _masseuse_ down to stay,
and go to bed and drink milk. Vere had engaged a _masseuse_ to come on
the Friday night. On the Thursday, the day before we were all going to
town, Glynd hurt his foot getting over a fence into a turnip field—at
least I thought so.”
He stopped.
“Everyone thought so, I believe—except, of course, Vere. I wonder if
they did, though?” he added moodily. “Or whether I was the only—But
what does it matter now? Glynd said he only wanted a couple of days’
rest to be all right again, and asked me if he might stay on at the
Abbey till the Monday. Of course I said ‘Yes; if he wouldn’t want a
hostess.’ Because Vere said to me, when she heard of it, that she must
have her rest cure all the same. Glynd swore he’d be quite happy alone.
So he stayed, and the rest of us came up to town on the Friday. Well,
on the Saturday morning I was walking across the park when I met the
Swedish _masseuse_ who was to have gone down to Vere on the Friday
night. I knew her, because Vere had often had her before in London.
‘Hullo!’ I said. ‘You ought to be down at Inley Abbey with my wife.’
‘No, my lord,’ she said. ‘Why not?’ ‘I’ve had a wire from Lady Inley
not to go.’ ‘A wire!’ I said. ‘When did you get it?’ ‘On Thursday
night, my lord.’ ‘You mean last night?’ I said, thinking Vere must have
changed her mind after we had left. ‘No,’ said the woman; ‘on Thursday
night, late.’ Then I remembered that, after Glynd had hurt his foot
and asked to stay, Vere had gone out alone for a drive in her cart, to
get a last breath of air before the rest cure. She must have sent the
telegram herself then. All of a sudden I seemed to understand a lot of
things.”
He had let his cigar out, and now he noticed that he had. He tossed it
into the fire.
“I said ‘Good-morning’ to the woman quite quietly, went back to the
house, and told my man I shouldn’t be at home that night.”
He put his hand on my arm.
“I felt perfectly calm. Wasn’t that strange?”