TO Clavering Park--to meet her father!
George had been pretty sure from the first that she was playing a part.
But what was the part she was playing? Who was her father if he was not
a deceased solicitor? He did not forget her other picturesque statement
that she was the offspring of a butler and a lady’s maid. George was
inclined to think that so far as he himself was concerned it might
simplify matters considerably if this proved to be the case. Still, it
would not be wise to build hopes upon it.
The young man began to view a developing situation with a deepening
anxiety. Instinct told him that there might be rocks ahead. “By the
way, who is your father? What is his name?”
“You must come and meet him.” With a laugh defiant rather than gay she
got up abruptly from the station bench.
Perforce it had to be left at that, for the time being at all events.
George was prepared to go with her to the world’s end if she commanded
him, so why not to Clavering Park? He rose, too, from the bench and
went with her across the bridge to the Up platform just as the belated
2.10 was in the act of moving off.
In the station yard was a decrepit taxi which they were able to hire
and in about half an hour the lodge gates of Clavering Park confronted
them. By now the bewilderment and curiosity of George were almost
unbearable. He was in the seventh heaven, it was true, but native
commonsense grimly warned him that his heaven was strangely insecure.
The romance of the circumstances was weaving a spell of its own; the
sense of enchantment increased as the mystery grew; he was beginning
slowly to realize what a truly delightful thing she was to possess and
on that very account, as became one who had learned much in a hard
school, he understood how necessary it was to take care. There must
be no counting of chickens. Somehow the nearer they drew to their
destination the less favorable grew the portents. By the time the lodge
gates had opened and their taxi had rattled through, the sense of
“Ethel’s” innate Top-Doggishness had developed quite remarkably.
“Those trees and the deer remind me of my home.” She might have been
speaking for the sake of conversation; on the other hand her intention
may have been to prepare his mind for certain revelations to follow.
“Tell me, Ethel, where is your home?” In his own apprehensive ear his
voice sounded odd, strained, nervous.
“I live in Ireland.”
“I used to live there too,” he said. “Ireland was where I was brought
up.”
“Really. Now that’s very interesting.” The tones of her voice were so
soft and warm and rich that they made him think of velvet. “Do tell me
exactly where.”
“I was brought up at a place called Bally Euchra in County Kildare.”
She gave a faint cry of suppressed astonishment. “What a small world!
Bally Euchra of all places! Why, my grandfather lives there.”
Barely had he time to echo her surprise with a faint cry of his own
when the taxi drew up beneath the portico in front of the house,
thereby denying him the opportunity of asking who her grandfather could
possibly be.
It was just as well, no doubt, that such was the case, for had that
particular question been answered, there is little doubt that George
Norris would have bolted for his life!