LORD LUMLEY AND MARGHARITA
"Geoffrey, come here for a moment!"
The Earl of St. Maurice, who was a most obedient husband, folded up his
paper and joined his wife at the window.
"Well, dear."
"Look there."
He followed her finger. It pointed to three figures; a man in shooting
clothes, with a gun under his arm, a girl and a child between them,
strolling along the cliffs outside the grounds. He glanced at them
carelessly, and back into his wife's face as though for an explanation.
"Well?"
"This is the third morning that Lumley has joined Margharita and Gracie
in their walk."
"Very good natured of him," the Earl replied carelessly. "He always was
fond of Gracie though, wasn't he?"
"I wish I could feel sure that it was entirely for Gracie's sake," she
answered anxiously.
Her husband whistled, and his brows contracted a little.
"You mean to suggest, I suppose, that Miss Briscoe is the attraction,"
he remarked thoughtfully.
"How can I help thinking so? Both yesterday and this morning he was in
the schoolroom until I heard her tell him quite severely that he must
go, as he was interrupting their work. Both mornings I have asked him to
drive with me, and each time he made an excuse. If Margharita's name is
mentioned before him, he is either unusually silent and reserved, or
very talkative. As a rule, you know, Lumley does not care for girls.
That makes me all the more anxious."
"Miss Briscoe is certainly wonderfully beautiful," he said. "Yet I think
that Lumley has common sense."
"He has peculiar ideas," his wife answered. "I have always been afraid
of his doing something _bizarre_, and as you say, Margharita is
wonderfully beautiful--far more so than her mother, I think. What would
you advise me to do, Geoffrey?"
He stroked his long gray mustache, and looked thoughtful.
"It's a delicate matter," he said. "To even hint at the girl going away
because Lumley admires her would be unjust, and, at the same time, if
Lumley got an inkling of the reason it would certainly make him think
more of her than he does now. You have no fault to find with her in any
way?"
"None! absolutely none! Her behavior is perfect. She is proud, but I do
not consider that a fault. Her manners are the manners of a
perfectly-bred lady."
"And Gracie likes her?"
"Gracie adores her!"
"She certainly doesn't attempt to encourage Lumley in any way," the Earl
continued thoughtfully.
"Her manners and behavior, in fact, her whole conduct, is perfectly
irreproachable," Lady St. Maurice acknowledged. "In certain ways she has
been a great disappointment to me, but I wish to be just to her, and I
feel bound to say so. It makes the situation all the more difficult."
"In that case we can do nothing," her husband said decidedly. "Things
must take their course. If they develop, as we will hope they may not, I
will speak to Lumley privately."
"You see she is coming back because Lumley has joined them," Lady St.
Maurice said. "Geoffrey, look at her now at the top of that hill. Does
she not remind you of him?"
He took up a pair of field glasses from the table and looked at her
steadily.
"Yes, she does," he admitted. "She is just like that poor fellow Marioni
sometimes. I never noticed it so clearly."
"She is horribly like him, and, Geoffrey, it is foolish of me, but
sometimes she looks at me with his eyes. It makes me shiver."
"Foolish little woman! Why, you are actually nursing your fears."
"They are scarcely fears; only a stupid sort of foreboding that comes on
sometimes, and which, afterward, I look upon as morbid. It is foolish of
me, I know, to connect them with Margharita, and yet I can't help it
sometimes. She is so like him."
"Why don't you ask her if she knows anything about him, or where he is?
Surely you might do that."
"I have made up my mind to more than once, but really, Geoffrey, absurd
though it may sound, I have never felt quite at ease in asking
Margharita personal questions. She so obviously insists upon our
relations remaining exactly those of employer and employed. It was not
at all what I intended; but what can I do? I wish to be a friend to her,
but her manner quite forbids it. She is far prouder than I am."
Lord St. Maurice shrugged his shoulders and kissed his wife's forehead.
"I shouldn't trouble about it, dear. They are a headstrong, intractable
race, those Marionis, and this girl takes after her mother. Treat her
kindly and she'll come round some day. Come and sit in the library if
you have nothing better to do for half an hour. I have some stupid
letters to write."
"I will come in one moment, Geoffrey," she answered. "I may as well
clear off some of my correspondence debts. There are some invitations to
answer, too."
Lord St. Maurice left the room and Adrienne remained by the window, her
eyes fixed upon the little group which had come to a standstill now on
the summit of the low line of cliffs. The field glasses were still on
the table by her side, and raising them to her eyes, she watched them
steadfastly for several minutes. When she put them down she was a shade
paler, and there were tears in her eyes.
"If I thought that it would wipe out the past," she murmured, "after all
it might be well. But how can it? He will never forgive! Never! never!"
She turned away, brushing the tears from her eyes, and went into her
husband's room smiling and comely. Such sorrows as she had were not for
him to share--not even for him to know of. The burden of them was for
her alone.
* * * * *
And, meanwhile, Lord Lumley, her only son, was leaning against the trunk
of a pine tree on the brow of the cliff, with something very much like a
frown upon his forehead; and a little distance away, Margharita was
calmly reading to Gracie out of a French picture book, brought, as Lord
Lumley had been quick to surmise, chiefly with a view of excluding him
from their company. It was quite true, as his father had remarked, that
he had received very little encouragement from Margharita; in fact, he
had been told somewhat plainly, a few minutes ago, that his presence was
interfering with the lesson. "As if there was any necessity to bring
lesson books out of doors," he had muttered _sotto voce_, withdrawing
himself a few yards, however, and relapsing into an irritated silence.
The book had been brought on his account altogether. There was no doubt
whatever about that, and, manlike, he felt aggrieved. Of course he ought
to have gone away at once, and he had started with that intention, but
the sound of Margharita's voice arrested him before he had gone half a
dozen yards. After all, it would be pleasanter to stay and listen.
So he stood there, crumpling up a sprig of heather in his hand, and
ostensibly waiting for a shot at a sea gull. He was quite aware that no
sea gull was likely to rise anywhere near, and that his gun was
unloaded, but the excuse was the only one that had occurred to him at a
minute's notice. His real object in remaining was that he might walk
home with Margharita when the lesson was over.
The Earl of St. Maurice had been a handsome man in his youth, but his
son was handsomer. To the fine Saxon physique of the St. Maurices, in
Lord Lumley had been added something of the more delicate beauty of his
mother. He had the long limbs and broad shoulders of which a gallery
full of St. Maurices boasted, but his features were more delicately
formed, and his forehead was higher and more intellectual than any of
them.
Yet it had not in any way spoiled him. He had not an atom of conceit or
pride of any sort. At college, where he had graduated early, he
presented the rare combination of a nobleman's son, a moderate athlete,
and a hard reading man. His had been the intellectual set of the whole
university, and having the rare gift of attaining an unsought influence
over most of those with whom he was brought into contact, he had
imparted a distinctly scholarly tone to the little circle which he had
formed. Men of all grades spoke well of him. He was reserved, and he was
not a prig; he was consistent to his own ideals, and yet not censorious.
He was possessed of an agreeable and even winning manner, and yet he had
rather avoided the society of women than otherwise. The consequence was
that, at twenty-four, he had the thoughtful intellectual air of a much
older man.
The lesson came to an end at last, and the three strolled down toward
the house together. Lord Lumley had joined them because there was
something which he was determined to say.
"Miss Briscoe," he began, during a momentary halt while they watched a
yacht tacking in the bay below, "may I ask you a question?"
"I suppose so," she answered carelessly, without looking at him.
"You are beginning to avoid me."
"Indeed!"
"You brought that wretched book out this morning as an excuse to get rid
of me."
"Well, if I did, you should certainly relieve me of the necessity,
should you not?"
"You know that you did. And, yesterday morning, if Gracie had not
pleaded to stay out a little longer, you would have cut your work short
because of my presence."
"Then, if you think so, Lord Lumley, it is clearly your duty to go away,
as I reminded you just now."
"Thanks. I wonder why the path of duty is always so disagreeable."
She did not answer him; but, taking Gracie by the hand, turned homeward.
He kept his place by her side, heedless of the angry glance which she
flashed upon him.
"I want to know why you object to my society so much, Miss Briscoe?" he
said presently.
"There are a great many things we want to know in this world which we
don't know," she answered. "Where we go to after we die, for instance.
We have to be patient, and wait till we find out."
"Then you won't tell me?"
"Why should I? But if you really want to know, the reason is simple
enough. I have been used to solitude. I prefer it. If I cannot have it
absolutely I can have it comparatively, at any rate."
"With Gracie?"
"Exactly."
"You are complimentary," he laughed.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Why should I not tell the truth when there is nothing to be gained by
telling a falsehood?"
He looked at her gravely.
"That sounds cynical, Miss Briscoe."
"I am indifferent as to its sound," she answered. "Hadn't you better go
and shoot something?"
He did not notice her suggestion.
"Miss Briscoe, I do not like the way in which we are talking. I----"
"The remedy is obvious," she interrupted haughtily.
"Probably the fault is mine," he continued, calmly ignoring her speech.
"I have not been used to talking to girls much. My friends have all been
men, and I daresay that I have got into the habit, therefore, of
expressing myself clumsily. But what I want to say to you, if you will
give me the opportunity, is this: The first few evenings after your
arrival here were very pleasant ones indeed--for me. You talked to me,
and I found more pleasure in our conversation than I have ever done in
anything else in my life. There, that is being frank, is it not? I hoped
that we might be friends; indeed, it seemed to me that we were certainly
going to be so. I do not wish to offend you by any apparent
exaggeration, but I must say that it made a considerable difference to
my interest in life. That is putting it mildly. Where you have found the
time to read and think so much, of course, I cannot tell. It is not my
business. Only, I know that it makes your companionship very pleasant
for me. You see I am trying to be as matter-of-fact as possible--do
please give me credit for that. I just want to know why you have altered
your manner to me; why we cannot be friends? Will you tell me, please,
Miss Briscoe?"
His pleading tone had a manly musical ring in it which was very pleasant
to listen to, and in his anxiety for her answer he had stooped down
until his dark handsome head nearly touched hers. She drew away
impatiently.
"That is impossible," she said coldly.
"And why?"
"If for no other reason, surely the Countess of St. Maurice's governess
is no suitable friend for Lord Lumley."
He colored under the intense hauteur of her words.
"You will forgive my saying that that is the first remark which I have
heard from you, Miss Briscoe, which has not been in good taste.
Good-morning. Good-bye, Gracie."
He turned abruptly along a private path through the pine wood.
Margharita and her charge went on up to the house alone.