MR. BRADFIELD’S “SMART” RELATIONS.
To have a personal attack made upon her by a lunatic is enough to
alarm the most intrepid girl. And Chris, although not a coward, not
even given to hysterical attacks over black-beetles, was a good deal
frightened by her first experience of Mr. Richard’s violence.
By the time she was safely out of the enclosure, however, she had
recovered from her first alarm; and, dropping from a run into a walk,
she paused before carrying out her first idea of running indoors to
tell her mother what had happened.
Why should she say anything about it to Mrs. Abercarne? Her mother
had hardly yet got over her repugnance to staying under the same
roof with a lunatic. If her terrors were to be revived by hearing of
the adventure that had befallen her daughter, she would make fresh
difficulties about staying, and perhaps exhaust Mr. Bradfield’s
patience. And Chris, though she could not be blind to the difficulties
which Mr. Bradfield’s admiration began to put in the way of their
remaining in his house, did not wish to hasten the moment when they
must leave it. So she turned away from the house, and sauntered between
the bare borders and empty flower-beds, to calm herself a little before
returning to her mother’s presence.
“Well, what did I tell you?” said Mr. Bradfield, in an exultant tone.
“Are you still as anxious as ever for an interview with our young
friend?”
Chris, annoyed with herself, vented her annoyance on him. So she turned
to say, snappishly:
“Yes, quite as anxious; and more anxious still that he should be seen
by a doctor.”
Mr. Bradfield’s face changed. The sullen frown which, whenever it
appeared, made his dark face so very unprepossessing, came over it as
he said shortly:
“You presume too much.”
And he turned on his heel abruptly, and went indoors.
Chris felt quite glad she had offended him. From one point of view, as
the master of the house where she and her mother lived so comfortably,
she liked him very much. From any other she began to feel that she
did not like him at all. She felt again the aversion with which he
had inspired her on the day of her arrival, an aversion which his
kindness had been gradually dispelling. Perhaps it was that he showed
too decided an acquiescence in the fact that his ward’s mental malady
was incurable. Or it may have been vexation at his exposing her to
the danger of the madman’s anger, and at the daring familiarity with
which he had put his arm round her shoulder in an alleged attempt to
protect her. Or, possibly, her renewed dislike was only the result of
that instinct by which women leap to conclusions without reasoning out
the facts. It is at any rate certain that the girl felt at that moment
considerably more fear of Mr. Bradfield than she did of the madman in
the east wing. To be sure, the latter was shut up, and the former was
not.
She did not go indoors until she had quite recovered from the effects
of the scene she had gone through; so that Mrs. Abercarne noted
nothing unusual in her countenance or manner.
It was after luncheon on the same day, that Chris, sitting with her
embroidery in the corridor, which was warmed with hot-water pipes, and
was her favourite retreat, was surprised to be addressed by Stelfox,
who was carrying a couple of large books from one of the upstairs
bookcases in the direction of the east wing.
“You were not much frightened, I hope, this morning, miss, by Mr.
Richard’s antics?” he asked, in his quiet, stolid manner. Chris had
a liking for this man as unreasonable as her dislike of his master.
She had seldom spoken to him; when he met her he had usually stood
out of her way like an automaton, so that it was not upon discerning
acquaintance that her predilection was founded. Still, it was a fact
and she smiled as she assured him that if she was frightened she soon
got over it.
“But where were you?” she went on in some surprise. “Were you upstairs
with Mr. Richard? No,” she continued, answering herself, as she
remembered to have seen Stelfox coming in by the front gates as she
ran out of the enclosure, “you had gone out into the town. How did you
know, then, that I was frightened? Did Mr. Bradfield tell you?”
Stelfox allowed his straight mouth to widen a little in what passed
with him for a smile.
“No, miss. Master never talks about Mr. Richard to anyone. I heard it
from the young gentleman himself when I took him in his luncheon.”
Chris looked at him in astonishment.
“He told you! He’s sane enough to know what he does, then, and to talk
about it afterwards? Do _you_ believe that he is really incurable?”
“Well, he’s pretty bad sometimes,” answered he, not giving a direct
answer. “Perhaps you haven’t heard the way he cries out, and the odd
noises he makes, miss?”
Chris gave a little shudder.
“Yes; and it’s very dreadful to hear him. But----”
She paused, and looked at the sky, which, now darkening a little
towards evening, could be seen between the bare branches of the trees.
Stelfox was silent too, but it suddenly flashed through the mind of
Chris that his was a discreet silence which had meaning in it. Before
either spoke again, Stelfox lifted the lid of the box-ottoman near
which he was standing, and rapidly but very quietly slipped inside
the two books he had been carrying, and was immediately in the same
attitude of respectful attention as before. Then for the first time
she heard the creaking of a stair, and, turning her head, she saw Mr.
Bradfield approaching.
To her great delight, for she had begun on the instant to dread a
_tête-à-tête_ with him, Mr. Bradfield scowled as he caught sight of
her, and disappeared into a sort of workshop he had on the first floor,
where he often spent the afternoon busy with a turning-lathe.
As soon as his master was out of sight, Stelfox took the two books out
of the ottoman. Chris watched him in evident surprise. Then a thought
struck her.
“You were going to take those books to Mr. Richard?” she asked, in a
low voice.
“Yes, miss.”
“And you were afraid he wouldn’t like you to?”
“Well, miss,” said Stelfox, again with the contortion he meant for a
smile, “Mr. Bradfield don’t understand his ways as well as I do, and he
thinks books wouldn’t be safe with him. But I know when to trust him
with ’em, and he’s as quiet as a lamb this afternoon.”
He was going on towards Mr. Richard’s room, when the young lady
detained him, saying, in a low voice:
“Did he say, Stelfox, that he really meant to hurt me, this morning?”
Stelfox looked down at the carpet, and, for a moment, made no answer.
Then he looked up, and caught a look of suspense and impatience on her
face. Looking down again at once, he said, drily:
“No, miss; I don’t recollect as he told me that.”
Then he withdrew, leaving the young lady in a state of curiosity and
strange excitement.
Why should she care whether this poor lunatic wanted to hurt her or
not? Surely the only thing that concerned her was that it should be
out of his power to do so. This was what Chris told herself. But
her girlish sense of romance was tickled by the whole story--by the
knowledge of the solitary and sad life this man was leading, close to
his fellow-creatures, and yet shut out from them; by a remembrance
of the incident of the miniature, which would have passed for his
portrait, and yet which surely could not be his; above all by the man
himself, with his handsome face and weary eyes.
For the next few days, neither Chris nor her mother saw much of Mr.
Bradfield. But he soon forgot or forgave her indiscreet interference
on Mr. Richard’s behalf, for when he did see her, he bantered her,
good-humouredly, about the approaching ball, for which the invitations
were being sent out. With this work, however, the ladies had little to
do, except to help Mr. Bradfield’s secretary--a pale, fair, weak-eyed
young man named Manners--in directing the envelopes.
While this work of sending out the invitations was still in progress,
Mrs. Abercarne received a note from Mr. Bradfield, requesting that she
and her daughter would do him the pleasure of breakfasting, lunching
and dining with him every day, and that they would begin that very
evening.
No sooner had they taken their seats at the table for the first time,
than Mr. Bradfield took an open letter from his pocket, and gave it to
the elder lady to read.
“I have asked you to keep me company,” said he, grimly, “to save me
from _that_!”
Mrs. Abercarne read the letter, which was in a large and modern lady’s
hand. The paper was perfumed, and in colour a very pale rose-pink--the
latest Bayswater fashion in notepaper.
“CAMBRIDGE TERRACE,
“KENSINGTON, W.
“MY DEAR COUSIN JOHN--Need I say how utterly delighted we were
with your most kind invitation? Lilith and Rose are perfectly
charmed, and so is Donald, whom you will not recognise! He has
grown into a splendid fellow. What is this I hear, that you have
been so dull that you have had to get a housekeeper? Surely you
know that you had only to mention it, and we would have done long
ago what we propose to do now, namely--migrate from town to the
wilds of Wyngham to be near you. Yes, this is absolutely and truly
what we are going to do. Retrenchment is the order of the day, now
that we have a family growing up around us, and I think we cannot
do better than settle ourselves where we shall get the benefit of
the shadow of your wing. I suppose there is some society in or
about the place, and the fact of our being related to you, besides
the value of our own name, would of course give us the _entrée_.
Would it be asking too much of you to look out for a modest house
such as you would care for your relations to live in; not too far
away from you, I need not say.
“William wishes to be remembered to you most kindly. As for Rose
and Lilith, and the boys, they send so many messages that I cannot
remember them all.
“Believe me, dear cousin John, you shall not long be left to the
hired society of strangers, when your own family are only too
anxious to do all they can to cheer you, and to serve you in any
way in their power.
“Ever your sincerely affectionate cousin,
“MAUDE GRAHAM-SHUTE.”
Mrs. Abercarne read the letter slowly through with the help of her
eyeglasses, and then gave it back in a dignified manner.
“A very affectionate letter,” she remarked, having read between
the lines of the effusive epistle and conceived for its writer an
antagonism quite as violent as that which the writer evidently felt
towards her.
“Very affectionate,” he answered, drily. “It will cost me say two
hundred pounds. And cheap at the price, perhaps, you’ll say.”
Mrs. Abercarne coughed: comment was dangerous, and, indeed,
unnecessary. Chris, who, without having seen the letter, made a
judicious guess at the tenor of it, glanced from the one to the other.
“You will think I have brought it on myself,” he went on, as he glanced
once more at the letter before putting it in his pocket. “However, the
woman is so amusing with her airs and her pretensions that I am doing
the neighbourhood a good turn by providing it with a laughing-stock. A
good-natured soul, too! I was in love with her once. There was less of
her then.”
Every word he uttered concerning the effusive cousin increased the
aversion with which Mrs. Abercarne already regarded her.
“I’ve asked them to come for the week,” he went on. “From Monday to
Monday. You will give them what rooms you please, Mrs. Abercarne.
There’ll be five of ’em--old couple, two grown-up daughters and a
grown-up son. And you and Miss Christina will do your best to amuse
them, I’m sure.”
Mrs. Abercarne had grave doubts whether the visitors would allow
themselves to be amused, but she did not say so. Mr. Bradfield did
not like difficulties to be mentioned in the way of his whims, and it
was one of his whims to fill his house at Christmas time, and another
to play the patron to his poorer relations. She began to fear that
the pleasant and independent time she and her daughter had enjoyed at
Wyngham House was over.
For Mrs. Graham-Shute--she knew by a fine woman’s instinct--would
“interfere.”