Mrs. Norbury Confides in Dear Mr. Gillingham
They left the road, and took the path across the fields which sloped
gently downwards towards Jallands. Antony was silent, and since it is
difficult to keep up a conversation with a silent man for any length of
time, Bill had dropped into silence too. Or rather, he hummed to
himself, hit at thistles in the grass with his stick and made
uncomfortable noises with his pipe. But he noticed that his companion
kept looking back over his shoulder, almost as if he wanted to remember
for a future occasion the way by which they were coming. Yet there was
no difficulty about it, for they remained all the time in view of the
road, and the belt of trees above the long park wall which bordered its
further side stood out clearly against the sky.
Antony, who had just looked round again, turned back with a smile.
“What’s the joke?” said Bill, glad of the more social atmosphere.
“Cayley. Didn’t you see?”
“See what?”
“The car. Going past on the road there.”
“So _that’s_ what you were looking for. You’ve got jolly good eyes, my
boy, if you recognize the car at this distance after only seeing it
twice.”
“Well, I _have_ got jolly good eyes.”
“I thought he was going to Stanton.”
“He hoped you’d think so—obviously.”
“Then where is he going?”
“The library, probably. To consult our friend Ussher. After making
quite sure that his friends Beverley and Gillingham really _were_ going
to Jallands, as they said.”
Bill stopped suddenly in the middle of the path.
“I say, do you think so?”
Antony shrugged his shoulders.
“I shouldn’t be surprised. We must be devilishly inconvenient for him,
hanging about the house. Any moment he can get, when we’re definitely
somewhere else, must be very useful to him.”
“Useful for what?”
“Well, useful for his nerves, if for nothing else. We know he’s mixed
up in this business; we know he’s hiding a secret or two. Even if he
doesn’t suspect that we’re on his tracks, he must feel that at any
moment we might stumble on something.”
Bill gave a grunt of assent, and they went slowly on again.
“What about to-night?” he said, after a lengthy blow at his pipe.
“Try a piece of grass,” said Antony, offering it to him. Bill pushed it
through the mouthpiece, blew again, said, “That’s better,” and returned
the pipe to his pocket.
“How are we going to get out without Cayley knowing?”
“Well, that wants thinking over. It’s going to be difficult. I wish we
were sleeping at the inn.... Is this Miss Norbury, by any chance?”
Bill looked up quickly. They were close to Jallands now, an old
thatched farmhouse which, after centuries of sleep, had woken up to a
new world, and had forthwith sprouted wings; wings, however, of so
discreet a growth that they had not brought with them any obvious
change of character, and Jallands even with a bathroom was still
Jallands. To the outward view, at any rate. Inside, it was more clearly
Mrs. Norbury’s.
“Yes—Angela Norbury,” murmured Bill. “Not bad-looking, is she?”
The girl who stood by the little white gate of Jallands was something
more than “not bad-looking,” but in this matter Bill was keeping his
superlatives for another. In Bill’s eyes she must be judged, and
condemned, by all that distinguished her from Betty Calladine. To
Antony, unhampered by these standards of comparison, she seemed, quite
simply, beautiful.
“Cayley asked us to bring a letter along,” explained Bill, when the
necessary handshakings and introductions were over. “Here you are.”
“You will tell him, won’t you, how dreadfully sorry I am about—about
what has happened? It seems so hopeless to say anything; so hopeless
even to believe it. If it is true what we’ve heard.”
Bill repeated the outline of events of yesterday.
“Yes.... And Mr. Ablett hasn’t been found yet?” She shook her head in
distress. “It still seems to have happened to somebody else; somebody
we didn’t know at all.” Then, with a sudden grave smile which included
both of them, “But you must come and have some tea.”
“It’s awfully decent of you,” said Bill awkwardly, “but we—er—”
“You will, won’t you?” she said to Antony.
“Thank you very much.”
Mrs. Norbury was delighted to see them, as she always was to see any
man in her house who came up to the necessary standard of eligibility.
When her life-work was completed, and summed up in those beautiful
words: “A marriage has been arranged, and will shortly take place,
between Angela, daughter of the late John Norbury....” then she would
utter a grateful _Nunc dimittis_ and depart in peace—to a better world,
if Heaven insisted, but preferably to her new son-in-law’s more
dignified establishment. For there was no doubt that eligibility meant
not only eligibility as a husband.
But it was not as “eligibles” that the visitors from the Red House were
received with such eagerness to-day, and even if her special smile for
“possibles” was there, it was instinctive rather than reasoned. All
that she wanted at this moment was news—news of Mark. For she was
bringing it off at last; and, if the engagement columns of the “Morning
Post” were preceded, as in the case of its obituary columns, by a
premonitory bulletin, the announcement of yesterday would have cried
triumphantly to the world, or to such part of the world as mattered: “A
marriage has very nearly been arranged (by Mrs. Norbury), and will
certainly take place, between Angela, only daughter of the late John
Norbury, and Mark Ablett of the Red House.” And, coming across it on
his way to the sporting page, Bill would have been surprised. For he
had thought that, if anybody, it was Cayley.
To the girl it was neither. She was often amused by her mother’s ways;
sometimes ashamed of them; sometimes distressed by them. The Mark
Ablett affair had seemed to her particularly distressing, for Mark was
so obviously in league with her mother against her. Other suitors, upon
whom her mother had smiled, had been embarrassed by that championship;
Mark appeared to depend on it as much as on his own attractions; great
though he thought these to be. They went a-wooing together. It was a
pleasure to turn to Cayley, that hopeless ineligible.
But alas! Cayley had misunderstood her. She could not imagine Cayley in
love—until she saw it, and tried, too late, to stop it. That was four
days ago. She had not seen him since, and now here was this letter. She
dreaded opening it. It was a relief to feel that at least she had an
excuse for not doing so while her guests were in the house.
Mrs. Norbury recognized at once that Antony was likely to be the more
sympathetic listener; and when tea was over, and Bill and Angela had
been dispatched to the garden with the promptness and efficiency of the
expert, dear Mr. Gillingham found himself on the sofa beside her,
listening to many things which were of even greater interest to him
than she could possibly have hoped.
“It is terrible, terrible,” she said. “And to suggest that dear Mr.
Ablett—”
Antony made suitable noises.
“You’ve seen Mr. Ablett for yourself. A kinder, more warmhearted man—”
Antony explained that he had not seen Mr. Ablett.
“Of course, yes, I was forgetting. But, believe me, Mr. Gillingham, you
can trust a woman’s intuition in these matters.”
Antony said that he was sure of this.
“Think of my feelings as a mother.”
Antony was thinking of Miss Norbury’s feelings as a daughter, and
wondering if she guessed that her affairs were now being discussed with
a stranger. Yet what could he do? What, indeed, did he want to do
except listen, in the hope of learning? Mark engaged, or about to be
engaged! Had that any bearing on the events of yesterday? What, for
instance, would Mrs. Norbury have thought of brother Robert, that
family skeleton? Was this another reason for wanting brother Robert out
of the way?
“I never liked him, never!”
“Never liked——?” said Antony, bewildered.
“That cousin of his—Mr. Cayley.”
“Oh!”
“I ask you, Mr. Gillingham, am I the sort of woman to trust my little
girl to a man who would go about shooting his only brother?”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t, Mrs. Norbury.”
“If there has been any shooting done, it has been done by somebody
else.”
Antony looked at her inquiringly.
“I never liked him,” said Mrs. Norbury firmly. “Never.” However,
thought Antony to himself, that didn’t quite prove that Cayley was a
murderer.
“How did Miss Norbury get on with him?” he asked cautiously.
“There was _nothing_ in that at all,” said Miss Norbury’s mother
emphatically. “_Nothing_. I would say so to anybody.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon. I never meant—”
“Nothing. I can say that for dear Angela with perfect confidence.
Whether _he_ made advances—” She broke off with a shrug of her plump
shoulders.
Antony waited eagerly.
“Naturally they met. Possibly he might have—I don’t know. But my duty
as a mother was clear, Mr. Gillingham.”
Mr. Gillingham made an encouraging noise.
“I told him quite frankly that—how shall I put it?—that he was
trespassing. Tactfully, of _course_. But frankly.”
“You mean,” said Antony, trying to speak calmly, “that you told him
that—er—Mr. Ablett and your daughter—?”
Mrs. Norbury nodded several times.
“Exactly, Mr. Gillingham. I had my duty as a mother.”
“I am sure, Mrs. Norbury, that nothing would keep you from doing your
duty. But it must have been disagreeable. Particularly if you weren’t
quite sure—”
“He was attracted, Mr. Gillingham. Obviously attracted.”
“Who would not be?” said Antony, with a charming smile. “It must have
been something of a shock to him to—”
“It was just that which made me so glad that I had spoken. I saw at
once that I had not spoken a moment too soon.”
“There must have been a certain awkwardness about the next meeting,”
suggested Antony.
“Naturally, he has not been here since. No doubt they would have been
bound to meet up at the Red House sooner or later.”
“Oh,—this was only quite lately?”
“Last week, Mr. Gillingham. I spoke just in time.”
“Ah!” said Antony, under his breath. He had been waiting for it.
He would have liked now to have gone away, so that he might have
thought over the new situation by himself; or, perhaps preferably, to
have changed partners for a little while with Bill. Miss Norbury would
hardly be ready to confide in a stranger with the readiness of a
mother, but he might have learnt something by listening to her. For
which of them had she the greater feeling—Cayley or Mark? Was she
really prepared to marry Mark? Did she love him—or the other—or
neither? Mrs. Norbury was only a trustworthy witness in regard to her
own actions and thoughts; he had learnt all that was necessary of
those, and only the daughter now had anything left to tell him. But
Mrs. Norbury was still talking.
“Girls are so foolish, Mr. Gillingham,” she was saying. “It is
fortunate that they have mothers to guide them. It was so obvious to me
from the beginning that dear Mr. Ablett was just the husband for my
little girl. You never knew him?”
Antony said again that he had not seen Mr. Ablett.
“Such a gentleman. So nice-looking, in his artistic way. A regular
Velasquez—I should say Van Dyck. Angela would have it that she could
never marry a man with a beard. As if _that_ mattered, when—” She broke
off, and Antony finished her sentence for her.
“The Red House is certainly charming,” he said.
“Charming. Quite charming. And it is not as if Mr. Ablett’s appearance
were in any way undistinguished. Quite the contrary. I’m sure you agree
with me?”
Antony said that he had never had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Ablett.
“Yes. And quite the centre of the literary and artistic world. So
desirable in every way.”
She gave a deep sigh, and communed with herself for a little. Antony
was about to snatch the opportunity of leaving, when Mrs. Norbury began
again.
“And then there’s this scapegrace brother of his. He was perfectly
frank with me, Mr. Gillingham. He would be. He told me of this brother,
and I told him that I was quite certain it would make no difference to
my daughter’s feelings for him.... After all, the brother was in
Australia.”
“When was this? Yesterday?” Antony felt that, if Mark had only
mentioned it after his brother’s announcement of a personal call at the
Red House, this perfect frankness had a good deal of wisdom behind it.
“It couldn’t have been yesterday, Mr. Gillingham. Yesterday—” she
shuddered, and shook her head.
“I thought perhaps he had been down here in the morning.”
“Oh, no! There is such a thing, Mr. Gillingham, as being too devoted a
lover. Not in the morning, no. We both agreed that dear Angela—Oh, no.
No; the day before yesterday, when he happened to drop in about
tea-time.”
It occurred to Antony that Mrs. Norbury had come a long way from her
opening statement that Mark and Miss Norbury were practically engaged.
She was now admitting that dear Angela was not to be rushed, that dear
Angela had, indeed, no heart for the match at all.
“The day before yesterday. As it happened, dear Angela was out. Not
that it mattered. He was driving to Middleston. He hardly had time for
a cup of tea, so that even if she had been in—”
Antony nodded absently. This was something new. Why did Mark go to
Middleston the day before yesterday? But, after all, why shouldn’t he?
A hundred reasons unconnected with the death of Robert might have taken
him there.
He got up to go. He wanted to be alone—alone, at least, with Bill. Mrs.
Norbury had given him many things to think over, but the great
outstanding fact which had emerged was this: that Cayley had reason to
hate Mark,—Mrs. Norbury had given him that reason. To hate? Well, to be
jealous, anyhow. But that was enough.
“You see,” he said to Bill, as they walked back, “we know that Cayley
is perjuring himself and risking himself over this business, and that
must be for one of two reasons. Either to save Mark or to endanger him.
That is to say, he is either whole-heartedly for him or whole-heartedly
against him. Well, now we know that he is against him, definitely
against him.”
“But, I say, you know,” protested Bill, “one doesn’t necessarily try to
ruin one’s rival in love.”
“Doesn’t one?” said Antony, turning to him with a smile.
Bill blushed.
“Well, of course, one never knows, but I mean—”
“You mightn’t try to ruin him, Bill, but you wouldn’t perjure yourself
in order to get him out of a trouble of his own making.”
“Lord! no.”
“So that of the two alternatives the other is the more likely.”
They had come to the gate into the last field which divided them from
the road, and having gone through it, they turned round and leant
against it, resting for a moment, and looking down at the house which
they had left.
“Jolly little place, isn’t it?” said Bill.
“Very. But rather mysterious.”
“In what way?”
“Well, where’s the front door?”
“The front door? Why, you’ve just come out of it.”
“But isn’t there a drive, or a road or anything?”
Bill laughed.
“No; that’s the beauty of it to some people. And that’s why it’s so
cheap, and why the Norburys can afford it, I expect. They’re not too
well off.”
“But what about luggage and tradesmen and that kind of thing?”
“Oh, there’s a cart-track, but motor-cars can’t come any nearer than
the road”—he turned round and pointed—“up there. So the week-end
millionaire people don’t take it. At least, they’d have to build a road
and a garage and all the rest of it, if they did.”
“I see,” said Antony carelessly, and they turned round and continued
their walk up to the road. But later on he remembered this casual
conversation at the gate, and saw the importance of it.