Francis, in that pleasant half-hour before dinner which he spent in
Margaret's sitting-room, told her of the dogs' home near Wardour Street.
She listened sympathetically to his description of the place.
“I had never heard of it,” she acknowledged, “but I am not in anyway
surprised. My father spends at least an hour of every day, when he is
down at Hatch End, amongst the horses, and every time a fresh crock is
brought down, he is as interested as though it were a new toy.”
“It is a remarkable trait in a very remarkable character,” Francis
commented.
“I could tell you many things that would surprise you,” Margaret
continued. “One night, for instance, when we were staying at The
Sanctuary, he and I were going out to dine with some neighbours and he
heard a cat mewing in the hedge somewhere. He stopped the car, got out
himself, found that the cat had been caught in a trap, released it, and
sent me on to the dinner alone whilst he took the animal back to the
veterinary surgeon at The Walled House. He was simply white with fury
whilst he was tying up the poor thing's leg. I couldn't help asking him
what he would have done if he could have found the farmer who set the
trap. He looked up at me and I was almost frightened. 'I should have
killed him,' he said,--and I believe he meant it. And, Francis, the very
next day we were motoring to London and saw a terrible accident. A
motor bicyclist came down a side road at full speed and ran into a
motor-lorry. My father got out of the car, helped them lift the body
from under the wheels of the lorry, and came back absolutely unmoved.
'Serve the silly young fool right!' was his only remark. He was so
horribly callous that I could scarcely bear to sit by his side. Do you
understand that?”
“It isn't easy,” he admitted.
There was a knock at the door. Margaret glanced at the clock.
“Surely dinner can't be served already!” she exclaimed. “Come in.”
Very much to their surprise, it was Sir Timothy himself who entered. He
was in evening dress and wearing several orders, one of which Francis
noted with surprise.
“My apologies,” he said. “Hedges told me that there were cocktails
here, and as I am on my way to a rather weary dinner, I thought I might
inflict myself upon you for a moment.”
Margaret rose at once to her feet.
“I am a shocking hostess,” she declared. “Hedges brought the things in
twenty minutes ago.”
She took up the silver receptacle, shook it vigorously and filled three
glasses. Sir Timothy accepted his and bowed to them both.
“My best wishes,” he said. “Really, when one comes to think of it,
however much it may be against my inclinations I scarcely see how I
shall be able to withhold my consent. I believe that you both have at
heart the flair for domesticity. This little picture, and the thought of
your tete-a-tete dinner, almost touches me.”
“Don't make fun of us, father,” Margaret begged. “Tell us where you are
going in all that splendour?”
Sir Timothy shrugged his shoulders.
“A month or so ago,” he explained, “I was chosen to induct a scion of
Royalty into the understanding of fighting as it is indulged in at the
National Sporting Club. This, I suppose, is my reward--an invitation to
something in the nature of a State dinner, which, to tell you the truth,
I had forgotten until my secretary pointed it out to me this afternoon.
I have grave fears of being bored or of misbehaving myself. I have, as
Ledsam here knows, a distressing habit of truthfulness, especially
to new acquaintances. However, we must hope for the best. By-the-bye,
Ledsam, in case you should have forgotten, I have spoken to Hedges about
the '99 Cliquot.”
“Shall we see you here later?” Margaret asked, after Francis had
murmured his thanks.
“I shall probably return direct to Hatch End,” Sir Timothy replied.
“There are various little matters down there which are interesting me
just now preparations for my party. Au revoir! A delicious cocktail, but
I am inclined to resent the Angostura.”
He sauntered out, after a glance at the clock. They heard his footsteps
as he descended the stairs.
“Tell me, what manner of a man is your father?” Francis asked
impulsively.
“I am his daughter and I do not know,” Margaret answered. “Before he
came, I was going to speak to you of a strange misunderstanding which
has existed between us and which has just been removed. Now I have a
fancy to leave it until later. You will not mind?”
“When you choose,” Francis assented. “Nothing will make any difference.
We are past the days when fathers or even mothers count seriously in
the things that exist between two people like you and me, who have felt
life. Whatever your father may be, whatever he may turn out to be, you
are the woman I love--you are the woman who is going to be my wife.”
She leaned towards him for a moment.
“You have an amazing gift,” she whispered, “of saying just the thing one
loves to hear in the way that convinces.”
Dinner was served to them in the smaller of the two dining-rooms, an
exquisite meal, made more wonderful still by the wine, which Hedges
himself dispensed with jealous care. The presence of servants, with its
restraining influence upon conversation, was not altogether unwelcome
to Francis. He and Margaret had had so little opportunity for general
conversation that to discuss other than personal subjects in this
pleasant, leisurely way had its charm. They spoke of music, of which
she knew far more than he; of foreign travel, where they met on common
ground, for each had only the tourist's knowledge of Europe, and each
was anxious for a more individual acquaintance with it. She had tastes
in books which delighted him, a knowledge of games which promised a
common resource. It was only whilst they were talking that he realised
with a shock how young she was, how few the years that lay between her
serene school-days and the tempestuous years of her married life. Her
school-days in Naples were most redolent of delightful memories. She
broke off once or twice into the language, and he listened with delight
to her soft accent. Finally the time came when dessert was set upon the
table.
“I have ordered coffee up in the little sitting-room again,” she said, a
little shyly. “Do you mind, or would you rather have it here?”
“I much prefer it there,” he assured her.
They sat before an open window, looking out upon some elm trees in the
boughs of which town sparrows twittered, and with a background of roofs
and chimneys. Margaret's coffee was untasted, even her cigarette lay
unlit by her side. There was a touch of the old horror upon her face.
The fingers which he drew into his were as cold as ice.
“You must have wondered sometimes,” she began, “why I ever married
Oliver Hilditch.”
“You were very young,” he reminded her, with a little shiver, “and very
inexperienced. I suppose he appealed to you in some way or another.”
“It wasn't that,” she replied. “He came to visit, me at Eastbourne,
and he certainly knew all the tricks of making himself attractive and
agreeable. But he never won my heart--he never even seriously took my
fancy. I married him because I believed that by doing so I was obeying
my father's wishes.”
“Where was your father at the time, then?” Francis asked.
“In South America. Oliver Hilditch was nothing more than a discharged
employé of his, discharged for dishonesty. He had to leave South
America; within a week to escape prosecution, and on the way to Europe
he concocted the plot which very nearly ruined my life. He forged a
letter from my father, begging me, if I found it in any way possible, to
listen to Oliver Hilditch's proposals, and hinting guardedly at a very
serious financial crisis which it was in his power to avert. It never
occurred to me or to my chaperon to question his bona fides. He had
lived under the same roof as my father, and knew all the intimate
details of his life. He was very clever and I suppose I was a fool. I
remember thinking I was doing quite a heroic action when I went to the
registrar with him. What it led to you know.”
There was a moment's throbbing silence. Francis, notwithstanding his
deep pity, was conscious of an overwhelming sensation of relief. She had
never cared for Oliver Hilditch! She had never pretended to! He put the
thought into words.
“You never cared for him, then?”
“I tried to,” she replied simply, “but I found it impossible. Within a
week of our marriage I hated him.”
Francis leaned back, his eyes half closed. In his ears was the sonorous
roar of Piccadilly, the hooting of motor-cars, close at hand the
rustling of a faint wind in the elm trees. It was a wonderful moment.
The nightmare with which he had grappled so fiercely, which he had
overthrown, but whose ghost still sometimes walked by his side, had
lost its chief and most poignant terror. She had been tricked into the
marriage. She had never cared or pretended to care. The primal horror
of that tragedy which he had figured so often to himself, seemed to have
departed with the thought. Its shadow must always remain, but in time
his conscience would acquiesce in the pronouncement of his reason. It
was the hand of justice, not any human hand, which had slain Oliver
Hilditch.
“What did your father say when he discovered the truth?” he asked.
“He did not know it until he came to England--on the day that Oliver
Hilditch was acquitted. My husband always pretended that he had a
special mail bag going out to South America, so he took away all the
letters I wrote to my father, and he took care that I received none
except one or two which I know now were forgeries. He had friends
in South America himself who helped him--one a typist in my father's
office, of whom I discovered afterwards--but that really doesn't matter.
He was a wonderful master of deceit.”
Francis suddenly took her hands. He had an overwhelming desire to
escape from the miasma of those ugly days, with their train of attendant
thoughts and speculations.
“Let us talk about ourselves,” he whispered.
After that, the evening glided away incoherently, with no sustained
conversation, but with an increasing sense of well-being, of soothed
nerves and happiness, flaming seconds of passion, sign-posts of the
wonderful world which lay before them. They sat in the cool silence
until the lights of the returning taxicabs and motor-cars became more
frequent, until the stars crept into the sky and the yellow arc of
the moon stole up over the tops of the houses. Presently they saw Sir
Timothy's Rolls-Royce glide up to the front door below and Sir Timothy
himself enter the house, followed by another man whose appearance was
somehow familiar.
“Your father has changed his mind,” Francis observed.
“Perhaps he has called for something,” she suggested, “or he may want to
change his clothes before he goes down to the country.”
Presently, however, there was a knock at the door. Hedges made his
diffident appearance.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he began, addressing Francis. “Sir Timothy has
been asking if you are still here. He would be very glad if you could
spare him a moment in the library.”
Francis rose at once to his feet.
“I was just leaving,” he said. “I will look in at the library and see
Sir Timothy on my way out.”