It was twelve o’clock the next morning, and the sun was streaming into
the pleasant downstairs rooms of the Thatched House. The only sign of
last night’s alarums and excursions was the broken window in the drawing
room, and of that no one but the three closely concerned were aware, for
early in the morning Miss Cheale had crept downstairs, put out the
electric light, and locked both the doors.
But Mrs. Garlett had been thoroughly upset by what had happened in the
night, and Miss Cheale had thought it well to telephone for the doctor.
“No good to herself—and no good to anybody else, poor soul!”
Dr. Maclean was uttering his thoughts aloud, as even the most discreet
of physicians will sometimes do when with an intimate acquaintance. He
was speaking of his patient, Mrs. Garlett, and addressing Agatha Cheale.
There were people in Grendon who envied Agatha Cheale her position as
practical mistress of the charming old house. She was known to be
distantly related to its master, Harry Garlett, and that made her
position there less that of a dependent than it might have been. No one
else used the pretty little sitting room where she and the doctor were
now standing. But Dr. Maclean—shrewd Scot that he was—knew that Agatha
Cheale was not to be envied, and that her job was both a difficult and a
thankless one.
As he uttered his thoughts aloud, his kindly eyes became focussed on the
woman before him. She was slight and dark, her abundant, wavy hair cut
almost as short as a boy’s. This morning the intensely bright eyes which
were the most arresting feature of her face, and the only one she had in
common with her fair-haired brother, had dark pouches under them.
Dr. Maclean told himself that she had made a mistake in giving up the
busy, useful, interesting life of secretary to the boss of a London
trading company.
He asked suddenly: “When are you going to have your holiday?”
“I don’t know that I shall take a holiday.” She looked at him with a
touch of tragic intensity. “I’m all right, really—though I don’t sleep
as well as I might.”
“Don’t be angry with me for asking you a straight question.”
A wave of colour flooded her pale face. “I won’t promise to answer it!”
“Why do you go on with this thankless job?” he said earnestly. “Within a
week or two at most I could find a competent nurse who could manage Mrs.
Garlett. Why should _you_ waste your life over that cantankerous,
disagreeable woman?”
And then Agatha Cheale said something which very much surprised Dr.
Maclean.
“I am thinking of giving up the job in September. That’s the real reason
why I’m not going to take a holiday now. You see,” she hesitated
perceptibly, “I’m afraid it will terribly upset Cousin Harry—my leaving
here, I mean.”
“Of course it will upset him. Thanks to you, he can go off on his
cricketing jaunts with a light heart. Master Harry’s a man to be
envied——”
She turned and faced him. “With a wife like that?”
“He married her, after all!”
“Why did he marry her?”
Dr. Maclean hesitated a moment. Then he answered frankly: “Harry Garlett
married Emily Jones because he was a simple, good-looking lad aged
twenty-two, and she a clever, determined woman aged twenty-seven who was
in love with him. Old Jones was a queer, suspicious creature—the Etna
China Company was a one-man concern in his day. A business friend asked
old Jones to give a young man in whom he was interested a job; and there
came along that cheery young chap.”
“They’ve been married thirteen years to-day.”
“God bless my soul—so they have!” exclaimed Dr. Maclean. “But the war
took a great chunk out of that, for Garlett joined up at once. I
remember how surprised we all were. Somehow it didn’t seem necessary
then—not for a man with a stake in the world. But he was mad to go, and
he was in France early in ’fifteen.”
“She says it was then that she fell ill.”
“She was always ailing—she’s a thoroughly unhealthy woman,” Dr. Maclean
spoke with abrupt decision. “I was looking at Dr. Prince’s casebook the
other day, and I came across her entry. She was an unhealthy child and
an unhealthy girl—far too fussy about herself always. Well I remember
her bringing me the War Office telegram with the news of that awful
wound of Garlett’s. But she wouldn’t go to France, not she! Yet—” he
hesitated—“in her own queer way she’s absolutely devoted to him.”
Agatha Cheale said in a low voice, “None of us thought he could get over
that wound.”
“Why, of course!” the doctor exclaimed. “You were there, Miss Cheale, in
that French war hospital. But I suppose you’d known Harry Garlett long
before then—as you’re his cousin?”
He looked at her rather hard.
“I’d never met Cousin Harry till we met in that strange way in France,”
she answered composedly.
“He told me once that he owed his life to you.”
“That, of course, is nonsense,” she said in a hard tone.
“He has plenty to be grateful to you for _now_.”
Agatha Cheale’s usually pale face became suffused with dusky red. It was
an overwhelming, an unbecoming blush, and, with a quickening of the
pulse, Dr. Maclean told himself that this involuntary betrayal of deep
feeling answered a question which he had half ashamedly often asked
himself in the last year—was Agatha Cheale secretly attached to Harry
Garlett? Was that the real reason she was spending her life, her
intelligence, her undoubted cleverness, in looking after his sickly,
tiresome wife?
Doctors know of many hidden tragedies, of many secret dramas in being,
and this particular doctor knew more than most, for he had a very kindly
heart. He felt glad that Mrs. Garlett’s companion was leaving the
Thatched House, though her doing so would throw a good deal of trouble
on him.
After he had gone, Agatha Cheale went over to the window. There she
pressed her forehead against the glass, and her eyes filled with bitter
tears. For perhaps the thousandth time in the last few months she told
herself that she would leave the Thatched House, forget Mrs. Garlett and
her tiresome exactions, and, above all, forget Harry Garlett.
Harry Garlett? She did not require to shut her eyes to visualize the
tall, still young-looking man whom the sick woman upstairs called
husband. Every feature, every distinctive line about his good-looking,
oftener merry than sad, alert expression of face, was printed on the
tablets of Agatha’s tormented, unhappy heart.
Why was it that she, a proud woman, and, until she had met Harry
Garlett, a cold woman, cared as she had come to care for this man?
Garlett was not nearly as clever as many of the men with whom her work
had brought her in contact during the war and since. The great surgeon
whose favourite nurse she had become in the oddly managed, private war
hospital, where all the square pegs had been forced into round holes,
had shown her unmistakably that he was violently attracted by her dark,
aloof beauty, but, far from being pleased, she had been bitterly
distressed at what she had regarded as an insult.
Memories crowded thick upon her. She remembered cutting the bloodstained
uniform off an unconscious form, and her thrill of surprise when she had
read on his disc the most unusual name of Garlett—the second name by
which she, herself, had been christened—she had never been able to
discover why.
It was true, she had saved, not his life, but his bowling arm. And oh,
how grateful he had been—then! At once they had fallen into the way, at
first in joke, of calling each other “Cousin Harry” and “Cousin Agatha.”
But there had been no love passages between them. He had at once told
her that he was a married man, and very soon, also, she had come to
understand that he was not “that sort.”
The war had been over some months when one day, by one of those chances
which often deflect the whole of a human existence, they had run up
against one another in a London street. She had asked him to come back
to the modest rooms she occupied in Bloomsbury, and it was there that he
had told her his wife was now a complete invalid, that she refused to
have a nurse, and that it was difficult to get even a lady housekeeper
who would satisfy her.
“Would you like me to try and find you some one?” she had asked. Eagerly
he had caught at the suggestion, and that same night she had written and
offered to come herself.
There had then taken place another interview between herself and the man
who held for her so strong an attraction and appeal. It had been a
rather emotional interview. Harry Garlett, filled with gratitude, had
insisted that she should have a really large, some would have said an
extravagant, salary, and she had revealed the existence of the clever,
idle, sickly brother who was the ever-present burden and anxiety of her
life.
It had been her suggestion that the people in the neighbourhood should
be told that she and her employer were related. Her name was Agatha
Garlett Cheale, after all. Surprised, he had yielded, reddening as he
did so under his tan.
“I daresay you’re right! They’re a gossiping set of women in my part of
the world.”
“Not more so than in other places,” and something had made her add:
“They gossiped about us in the hospital, you know.”
“Did they? I didn’t know that!” And he had looked amused—only amused.
Her first sight of Mrs. Garlett—how well she remembered it! “Poor Emily”
had not been very gracious, though in time she had thawed. The sick
woman realized the difference cool, competent Agatha Cheale made to the
Thatched House, and to herself Mrs. Garlett grudgingly admitted that
Miss Cheale’s sense and discretion matched her more useful qualities.
To those ladies who were kind enough to call on her—and practically
every lady in the neighbourhood considered it her duty to make
acquaintance with Harry Garlett’s cousin—Agatha explained that she never
went out in the evening. So the delicate question as to whether she was
or was not to be asked out to dinner with her employer was solved once
for all, in the way every hostess had hoped it would be.
As Dr. Maclean walked quickly down the short avenue which led from the
Thatched House to the carriage gate his mind was full of the woman he
had just left.
He did not like Agatha Cheale, yet he did feel intensely sorry for her.
For one thing she must be so lonely at times, for, with one exception,
she had made no friends in either Terriford or Grendon.
The one person of whom she saw a good deal was clever, malicious Miss
Prince. People had wondered more than once at the link between Miss
Prince and Agatha Cheale, but there was nothing mysterious about it.
Though Miss Prince was acquainted with every man, woman, and child in
Terriford she led a somewhat solitary life in the Thatched Cottage, a
pleasant little house which formed a kind of enclave in the Thatched
House property. Thus propinquity had something to do with the friendship
between the younger and the older woman.
There was one great difference, however, between them. Miss Prince was
what some people call “churchy,” while Agatha Cheale never went to
church at all, and on one occasion she had spoken to Dr. Maclean with a
slightly contemptuous amusement of those who did.
The doctor was close to the wrought-iron gate giving into the road which
led to his own house when, suddenly, he espied this very lady, Miss
Prince, coming toward him. She held a basket in her hand, and he did not
need to be told that it contained some dainty intended for Mrs. Garlett.
Like so many sharp-tongued mortals, Miss Prince often did kind things,
yet her opening remark was characteristic of her censorious attitude to
her fellow creatures.
“It’s a good thing that Harry Garlett’s rather more at his factory just
now. If it weren’t for poor old Dodson, that Etna China business would
have gone to pieces long ago! I never saw a man gad about as he does——”
Without giving the doctor time to answer, she went on: “No change in
poor Emily, I suppose?” She smiled disagreeably. “I expect you’d like to
have ten other patients like her, Dr. Maclean?”
At once he carried the war into the enemy’s country.
“Did Dr. Prince like that type of tiresome, cantankerous,
impossible-to-please patient?”
“I know I was glad of them.”
“Very well for you who had the spending of the fees and none of the
work!”
They generally sparred like this, jokingly in a sense, but with a sort
of unpleasant edge to their banter.
“I don’t suppose Emily will ever get better—till she dies of old age,”
laughed Miss Prince.
“As a matter of fact, she’s markedly less well than she was last year.”
Dr. Maclean didn’t know what provoked him to say that, though it was
true that he had thought Mrs. Garlett rather less well than usual these
last few weeks.
“It’s strange that everything in nature, having performed its work,
dies, and that only we poor human beings linger on long after any
usefulness we ever had in the world has gone,” said Miss Prince
musingly.
“I don’t believe that Mrs. Garlett was ever useful,” he said curtly.
“Oh, yes, she was! In her queer way Emily was a very devoted daughter to
that horrid old father of hers. And she’s made Harry Garlett.”
Again the spirit of contradiction seized him.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he exclaimed. “Harry Garlett’s the sort of
chap who’d have got on far better as a bachelor than as a married man.
His wife’s money has ruined him—that’s my view of it! There’s a lot more
in Garlett than people think. If he hadn’t married that poor, sickly
woman he might have done some real work in the world.”
“Dr. Maclean,” said Miss Prince abruptly, “I’m anxious about Agatha
Cheale.”
“So am I, Miss Prince.”
He lowered his voice, for he didn’t want some stray gardener’s boy to
overhear what he was about to say.
“You’re her only friend hereabouts,” he went on. “Do you know that she’s
thinking of giving up her job? Mind you keep her up to that!”
She gave him a curious look.
“She’ll never go—as long as Harry Garlett’s here,” she said, almost in a
whisper.
“Do you think Garlett will ask her to stay?”
“No, I don’t. I think he’s longing for her to go.”
He was taken aback. “Why d’you think that?”
“‘He who will not when he may, when he will he shall have nay.’”
Dr. Maclean stared at Miss Prince distrustfully. What exactly did she
mean by that enigmatic quotation?
“You’re not a fool!” she said tartly. “Harry Garlett’s not the first man
who’s made love to a woman—and then been sorry he had, eh?”
“You think there was a time when Garlett made love to Miss Cheale?”
Dr. Maclean’s voice also fell almost to a whisper.
“I’m sure of it! She’s never admitted it, mind you—don’t run away with
that idea.”
“I don’t believe Harry Garlett has ever made love to Agatha Cheale,”
said the doctor, definitely making up his mind. “I think he’s an
out-and-out white man.”
Miss Prince smiled a wry smile.
“I’m positive that something happened lately which changed their
relations to one another. Harry’s afraid of her—he avoids her.”
“I’ve never noticed anything of the kind,” said the other brusquely.
Miss Prince looked vexed; no gossip likes to be contradicted, and she
proceeded to pay the doctor out.
“Your niece seems to be giving great satisfaction at the Etna factory,”
she observed.
“I think she is—I hope she is! Jean’s a good conscientious girl.”
“And so attractive, too! Every one was saying how pretty she looked at
the cricket match. Times are changed since we were young, Dr. Maclean.
What would my father have said if I’d insisted on being boxed up hour
after hour with an old bachelor like Mr. Dodson—or an attractive young
married man like Harry Garlett?”
The doctor felt annoyed. What a spiteful woman Miss Prince was, to be
sure!
“I don’t think she runs any risk with either of them.” He tried to speak
jokingly, but failed.
“How about them?” she asked meaningly.
“Perhaps she’ll become Mrs. Dodson,” he answered dryly. But as Mr.
Dodson was sixty-four and Jean Bower twenty-one, that didn’t seem very
likely.
Lifting his hat, Dr. Maclean walked briskly on his way, telling himself
that Miss Prince, like most clever people, was an extraordinary bundle
of contradictions—kind, spiteful, generous, suspicious, affectionate and
hard-hearted, and a mischief-maker all the time!
The subject of his thoughts hurried on toward the Thatched House. She
was precise in all her ways, and she wanted to leave her little gift for
Mrs. Garlett, enjoy a short talk with Agatha Cheale, and then get back
to her midday meal by one o’clock.
“I’ll see Miss Cheale just for a minute,” she said to the maid—not Lucy
Warren—who opened the door. “I suppose she’s in her sitting room?”
Without waiting for an answer Miss Prince went off, with her quick,
decided step, through into the house she knew so well.
As the door opened, Agatha Cheale turned round quickly, filled with a
sudden, unreasonable hope that it might be Harry Garlett. He had gone to
the china factory this morning, though it was Saturday, and he had
telephoned that he would be back to luncheon.
But she reminded herself bitterly that he never sought her out now. If
he had anything to communicate to her connected with the running of the
house, he always made a point of doing so at one of the rare meals they
took together, in the presence of the parlour-maid, Lucy Warren.
“I’ve brought a few forced strawberries for poor Emily,” began Miss
Prince, and then, lowering her voice perceptibly, she added: “I
understand she’s not so well as usual?”
The other looked at her surprised.
“I see no change,” she said indifferently.
And then Miss Prince became aware that the younger woman had been
crying.
“Look here, Agatha,” she spoke with kindly authority. “It’s time you had
a change! You’re badly in need of a holiday. It’s all very well for
Harry Garlett—his life’s a perpetual holiday.”
“He’s been working much harder than usual lately,” the other said
quickly.
There came a gleam into Miss Prince’s eye.
“I think there may be a reason for that,” she said rather mysteriously.
“Any special reason?” asked Agatha Cheale indifferently.
Miss Prince hesitated. This morning, at early celebration, she had
resolved that she would make a real effort to cure herself of what she
knew in her heart was her one outstanding fault—to herself she called
it, quite rightly, sin—that of retailing malicious tittle-tattle. But
somehow she felt strongly tempted to say just one word, and, as so often
happens with those cursed with her peculiar temperament, she was half
persuaded that in saying what she now determined to say she would be
doing the right thing.
“Of course you know that Jean Bower, Mrs. Maclean’s niece, has become
secretary to the Etna China Company?”
“No, I didn’t know it.” Agatha Cheale was more surprised than she chose
to show.
“How very odd of them not to have told you! I mean, how odd of Harry,
and how odd of Dr. Maclean. Why, she’s been at the Etna factory for
quite a month.”
“I thought the girl was well off.”
“When her father died it was found that he had only left fifteen hundred
pounds. And though the Macleans have practically adopted her, she seems
to have said she would much prefer to do some work than to be just idle;
so Mrs. Maclean, hearing that a secretary was wanted at the Etna
factory, managed to catch Harry Garlett at the office one day and asked
if he would give Jean a trial. Of course he had to say ‘yes.’”
“I suppose he had,” said Agatha Cheale slowly.
Jean Bower’s attractive, youthful personality had been impressed on her
in the cricket pavilion during the great Australian match. She had
envied the girl, not only her bright artless charm of manner, but also
the warm affection the doctor and his wife had shown her.
“I hear old Dodson is quite bewitched by her, and that even Harry
himself is at the factory a great deal more than he used to be,” went on
Miss Prince.
“That isn’t true about Cousin Harry.”
Agatha Cheale forced herself to smile, but in her heart she knew that
Harry Garlett had gone to the factory oftener this last month than he
had ever done since she first came to Terriford. As for old Dodson, he
was just the kind of foolish old bachelor to be bewitched by a young
girl. After being head clerk for a number of years, he had been made a
partner, and now practically ran the prosperous business.
Miss Prince looked sharply at her friend.
“Why, just now you said he had been working hard lately?”
“I didn’t mean at the factory.”
“It’s all very well to be unconventional,” went on Miss Prince, “but
human nature doesn’t alter. For my part I think it’s a mistake to mix up
attractive girls with married men.”
“Mr. Dodson isn’t a married man,” observed Agatha Cheale.
“No, but Harry Garlett is.”
The other made no answer, and Miss Prince suddenly exclaimed
triumphantly, “Why, there they are!”
Agatha Cheale turned quickly round.
Yes, Miss Prince was right. Through the window could be seen two figures
walking slowly across the meadow, to the right of which stretched the
little wood.
“I should have thought that Harry would have had more sense! I don’t
wonder they’re already beginning to be talked about,” observed Miss
Prince.
“What a lot of disgusting people there are in Grendon,” said Agatha
Cheale. There was a note of bitter scorn in her voice. “It’s Saturday
to-day. That’s why they’re walking back together. It’s the first time
they’ve done it.”
Miss Prince would have been not only surprised but deeply shocked had
she been able to see into her friend’s unhappy heart. Agatha Cheale,
gazing out on those two who were just coming through the little gate
which led from the cornfield into the garden of the Thatched House, had
felt a surge of intolerable suspicion and jealousy sweep over her, and
that though her reason told her that the suspicion, at any rate, was
utterly uncalled-for and absurd.
Miss Prince looked at her wrist watch—one of her few concessions to
modern ways.
“I must be going,” she exclaimed; “it’s almost one o’clock.”
She had only just left the room when there came a knock at the door.
“Come in!” called out Miss Cheale, and Lucy Warren appeared.
“You said you wanted to see me before lunch, miss.”
Though the girl was making a great effort to seem calm, her lips were
trembling and her eyes were swollen with crying.