It was some time before the ring at the bell was answered. Then,
after a second summons, the door was opened by a very dignified butler
who wore the old-fashioned side-whiskers, eschewing the more modern
method of clean-shaving.
Aylmer decided from his experience, that this pleasant-looking person
was a choice thing in butlers. He was respectful without being in the
least servile. He took from the young man his hat and coat and showed
him into the drawing-room, where, somewhat to his surprise, he found
Eileen alone.
She rose, with just a faint suspicion of color in her cheek; no doubt
she was thinking of their last meeting in the Soho restaurant and had
not quite got over a certain guilty feeling.
“Welcome to The Laurels,” she said in her pretty, cheerful voice.
“Richard will be back presently to echo my welcome. But he has been
called away for a few moments to attend to some rather tiresome
business. You must put up with me till he appears.”
How charming she was, he thought. What a knack she had of saying
little depreciating things of herself which rather provoked a
compliment. He answered her in a similar vein. “I shall be delighted
to see Mr. Quentin when he comes but he has left a more than efficient
substitute.”
The dignified butler presently appeared with tea and a decanter of
whisky. The hostess put a question to him: “Is Mr. Quentin likely to
be long, Dicks?”
Dicks answered her in a deep, mellow voice. “I am not quite sure,
ma’am. Perhaps it would be better not to wait. And besides, he never
takes tea.”
Naturally, this capable man was well acquainted with the habits of the
household, and could give sound advice. Eileen turned to her guest.
“Tea, Mr. Aylmer, or would you prefer a whisky-and-soda?”
Aylmer declared for the more harmless beverage. Eileen seemed pleased
at his choice.
“I noticed, when we were at Ostend, you were what I should call an
abstemious sort of man,” she said, speaking rather more seriously than
was her usual custom. “I am very glad of it, for your own sake and
that of others who are connected with you. In this house things are a
bit the other way, too much so for my liking. Richard, in spite of
that quaint manner of his, is a very temperamental person. He is
always in a state of nerves, and they require soothing, with
_that_”--she pointed with a contemptuous gesture to the decanter. “You
heard Dicks say he never takes tea. When he does put in an appearance,
he will pour himself out a very liberal dose of whisky.”
Another small revelation about the master of the house. And yet, was
it quite a revelation? During their sojourn abroad, together, Aylmer
had remarked that Quentin was a heavy drinker, not only at meals with
the stimulus of food, but during the day.
“And the few people who find their way here,” went on Eileen in the
same serious voice, “seem to be troubled with a similar weakness. And
it runs through the house; the servants drink. Dicks is a most
excellent servant, and never forgets himself, but that flush on his
cheek is more than a symptom of good health. And his master puts
temptation in his way.”
She was letting him into the inner secrets of the establishment with a
rather embarrassing frankness, he thought. But later on at dinner he
had an opportunity of understanding what she meant.
The drawing-room, a long, low-ceilinged apartment of considerable
size, looked out upon the front garden. Aylmer could look right down
to the gate. He kept his eyes open, expecting to see shortly the
shabbily-dressed figure of the man with the refined face emerging on
his way out, from the kitchen quarters. But many minutes passed and
there was no sign of the man who earlier had arrested his attention.
Probably some out-at-elbows relation of one of the servants, who had
dropped in for refreshment of some sort. It was evidently a very
hospitable house. From what Eileen had let fall, the servants could do
much as they pleased under the rule of a too indulgent master.
Half an hour passed. Nobody came down the garden, and the host had not
put in an appearance. Aylmer by no means resented his absence, as he
much preferred to be alone with the charming young woman; but he could
not help thinking it was somewhat strange behavior on a first visit.
He had been asked especially to come early, and Quentin, surely,
should have been there to receive him.
The suspicion of what her guest must be thinking seemed to arouse in
Eileen a growing embarrassment. At length, unable to contain herself,
she rose, and rang the bell sharply.
She spoke in an irritated tone to the butler when he answered the
summons. “Please ask Mr. Quentin if he will be very much longer. We
have finished tea. Mr. Aylmer has been here for over half an hour.”
In a few minutes Dicks returned. Mr. Quentin sent his most sincere
apologies to his guest. He would be with them directly.
But, it was a good ten minutes after that message before he put in
appearance; and, during that period, the man with the limp had not
shown himself. Somehow, Aylmer could not help associating his host’s
absence with that rather sinister-looking person.
When he arrived, he was full of contrition and cordiality. As soon as
the greetings were over, he stretched out his hand to the decanter,
and poured out a very liberal allowance of spirit, to which he added a
quite small measure of soda-water. This he drained at one long gulp,
and as he held the glass to his mouth, Aylmer noticed that his hand
trembled. The young man fancied that his whole demeanor, since he had
entered the room, evinced traces of some unusual inward agitation.
He seated himself in an easy chair, and began to talk in a rapid,
jerky fashion. “I suppose one cannot escape small annoyances in this
world. One shuts oneself up like a recluse, excludes commonplace
persons from one’s life, only opens one’s doors to people with whom
one feels a certain measure of affinity. And yet, careful as one may
be, one can never wholly escape from disturbing things.”
While giving utterance to these cryptic words, he poured himself out
another dose of ardent spirit, which this time he consumed in a more
leisurely fashion. Aylmer stole a glance at Eileen, on whose brow was
a distinct frown. She evidently did not approve of his recourse to
stimulants as a remedy for his frayed nerves.
Aylmer found himself wondering if this tendency to drink was more than
an infirmity; if it had grown into a vice. During the time they had
been alone, he had asked Eileen if she felt more contented now that
she was in England. Her answer had been of rather a hesitating
character.
“In some ways, yes,” she had told him. “But I believe the other life
suits Richard better. I don’t think the loneliness is very good for
him; he is thrown too much on his own resources.”
He fancied he was able to read between the lines of that vague
statement. In the crowded life of an hotel, Quentin was open to
observation, he had to keep a control over his unfortunate impulses.
Here, in this big house, with only one weak woman, hardly more than a
girl, and a set of obsequious servants, he was responsible to nobody
but himself. And the young man felt almost certain that, fond as the
man must be of Eileen in his placid, paternal way, he did not allow
her to exercise much influence over him. Quiet as he was, he conveyed
the idea of obstinacy.
It was rather an embarrassing moment. Quentin had admitted that he had
been upset, but he would not say frankly what had upset him. To create
a diversion, Aylmer inquired after Martyn.
The commonplace question seemed to rouse Quentin from his disturbing
reflections. He spoke in a brisker tone.
“Oh, very well, very well, indeed. I had a letter from him a couple of
days before we left for England. He is making a leisurely journey
through Italy. He never stops in one place for long, a bird of passage
something like ourselves, but without any anchorage in his own
country, such as Eileen and I have here.”
“Are you likely to make a long stay at Hampstead?”
Quentin seemed to hesitate. Eileen, from whose fair brow the frown had
not wholly disappeared, answered for him.
“It is no use asking Richard that question; he couldn’t give you a
reliable reply. He is a man of moods and impulses. To-day he might
tell you we would stay a month, and next week he is as likely as not
to give me twenty-four hours’ notice to pack up and be off to the end
of the world.”
Quentin laughed good-humoredly at the petulance in her tone.
“Not quite so bad as that, my dear, surely. If the climate behaves
itself, I think I could put in a good few weeks here. But of course,
if we have an abominable spell of weather, I am afraid I shall want to
set out for sunnier lands. I hate gloom and rain,” he concluded with a
little shiver of disgust.
There were no more embarrassing moments, and presently the
conversation flowed easily between them. The slight cloud disappeared
from Eileen’s face, and she was again the sunny, charming young woman
he had known at Ostend.
Aylmer thought how little one knows of people till one sees them in
their own home. At the hotel they always had seemed an easy-going
couple, not particularly devoted, perhaps, but always very pleasant to
each other. On this, his first visit to them, in their strictly
domestic surroundings, there had been a certain sub-acid note in
Eileen’s demeanor to her supposed husband. Did he, in this more
intimate environment, display, unchecked, certain qualities that
aroused her resentment and caused her to show herself in a less
attractive light? He could not, of course, bring himself to admit that
she was at fault.
In due course they went in to dinner, Quentin apologizing for there
being no other guest. “We are quite _en famille_, as you see, Mr.
Aylmer, but I shall hope that you will not be too bored with us.”
The young man made some polite rejoinder, and the dinner proceeded,
the dignified Dicks and the neat-looking parlormaid attending on the
small party. The Laurels was not nearly so big a house as the Peytons’
mansion at Wimbledon, but it was a much more elegant one. The
furniture at Wimbledon was solid and expensive, that of The Laurels
evidently had been chosen by a person of very considerable taste and
artistic leanings. The same applied to the dinner. There was more
profusion at Mr. Peyton’s table: here there was a smaller menu, but
the dishes harmonized better with each other. And the wines were
especially choice. But in this respect Quentin, of course, had a
serious rival, for the stockbroker dealt with a first-class
wine-merchant, and was greatly assisted by him in his choice of
vintages.
At a certain point in the repast, Eileen half rose with the intention
of leaving the two men to themselves. But Quentin intervened. “My dear
child, in a small party like this, let us dispense with that barbarous
custom of separating the sexes just when we are really beginning to
get convivial. Stay with us. I am sure Aylmer is too great an admirer
of the ladies to object.”
Quentin had been by no means sparing in his enjoyment of the excellent
wines to which his butler had helped him, and he was certainly by now
in a most convivial mood. He set down his half-finished glass of port
with genuine satisfaction.
“Help yourself, while it is here, Aylmer,” he cried, dropping the
formal “Mister” in his jovial mood. “And persuade that little
teetotaller to have a drop more. I have only a half-dozen bottles of
it left, and I don’t know where to replace it. There’s nothing like it
on the market at the present moment.”
But Eileen refused on the ground that, as she was no judge of wine, it
would be wasted on her. Quentin turned round to the butler, who, so it
seemed to Aylmer, had been lingering unnecessarily in the room.
“Dicks, you must take away a glass of this to drink downstairs, you
know it of old.”
The dignified butler brought not one but two glasses. For a moment his
genial master looked uncertainly at the second glass, as if wondering
why it was brought. Then he seemed to recollect himself. “And, of
course, one for Mrs. Masters, the cook. She deserves it, for she
surpassed herself in that _vol-au-vent_.”
Dicks, with a muttered word of thanks, left the room. Aylmer stole a
glance at Eileen, and saw that the cloud had slightly returned to her
face. She evidently did not approve of these free and easy relations
between the servants and their master. Mr. Quentin might have
restrained his good-heartedness on this particular evening.
When they crossed the hall, into the drawing-room, sounds of enjoyment
were heard issuing from the regions of the kitchen. Even Quentin, with
his lax notions of domestic discipline, frowned a little at the sound.
“What an infernal row,” he said.
Eileen spoke very sharply. “It is perfectly disgraceful. Mr. Aylmer
must be surprised at the way in which the house is run. And it is all
your fault. You let them turn the place into a bear garden; you never
exert your authority in the slightest degree.”
A rather obstinate look came over Quentin’s face; although he was in
too jovial a mood to resent such plain speaking by any show of temper.
“My dear, are you not more than a bit uncharitable? These poor devils
are enjoying themselves downstairs, as we are enjoying ourselves
upstairs, only our veneer of refinement enables us to disguise our
feelings better.”
To these philosophical remarks, Eileen did not condescend to reply.
But Aylmer surmised that there might be several things at The Laurels
which did not meet with her approval. He rather wondered that she did
not introduce greater order into the establishment herself. Was
Quentin, in spite of his quiet, amiable manner, one of those obstinate
men who will not be interfered with?
In the drawing-room she played and sang a little. But, neither her
vocal nor instrumental performance was of a high order. Presently
Quentin began to talk, and Aylmer was surprised to find what a very
well-read and cultivated fellow he was when he fairly got himself
launched forth. He wandered from politics to art, from art to
literature and music, and was perfectly at home in every subject on
which he touched.
It was rather a revelation to his guest, for at Ostend he never had
let himself go, never poured forth the treasures of information with
which he seemed so fully endowed. Even Eileen, in spite of her chagrin
at the imperfect running of the establishment, seemed to forget her
annoyance, and listened to him with evident pleasure. And, Aylmer was
quite convinced that his host was a many-sided man.
The time passed quickly; and then, at a pause in the conversation,
Quentin glanced at the clock. “I’m afraid I’ve been a sad monopolist
this evening,” he remarked. “I see it is past eleven, and I have been
talking most of the time. Are you a late bird, Aylmer? Living so much
alone when in England, we get into the habit of going to bed early. Is
it too soon for you?”
Aylmer replied politely in the negative. Quentin rang the bell for the
butler to lock up the house, and “good-nights” were exchanged. As a
matter of fact, eleven o’clock was rather an early hour for the young
man, and when he got into bed, he felt very wakeful.
Naturally, he was more than a little excited by his first visit to the
house which sheltered the object of his affections. He wondered much
at the peculiar relations which existed between Eileen and this
middle-aged man who passed as her husband. Now that real love had come
to her, she was naturally dissatisfied; but before this period, had
she enjoyed any measure of real happiness in such an unreal existence?
Perhaps for this reason--for Quentin was too intelligent not to have
surmised what she was feeling--she had been rushed about from place to
place in the hope of providing her with amusement and distraction.
He fell into a doze presently, and then woke up with a sudden start.
He lay wide awake, listening. Yes, surely, there was the sound of
stealthy footfalls along the corridor outside his room and down the
big staircase that led into the hall. Presently, straining his ears,
he heard the front door opened very softly, and apparently it was not
closed. He struck a match, and looked at his watch; it was a few
minutes past two o’clock.
He peeped into the corridor, and made out that the door of one of the
bedrooms was ajar. He knew it was the one in which Quentin slept,
Eileen’s room being next to it. Quickly, he stepped across to the
window and drew the blind a very little aside, so that he could see
through to the garden.
It was a very bright night, the moon shining brilliantly, and he could
see as plainly as if it were day.
Three men were clustered under the shade of a big tree close to the
gate which opened on to the carriage-drive.
There was no mistaking those figures, dressed in the same clothes in
which he had last seen them. They were Quentin, Dicks the butler, and
the man with the limp. The three were engaged in animated
conversation.