Sir Rupert Honoret gave his secretary a great deal of work to do, but
he left her free to do it in her own way, and at her own time. He was
very seldom in the study himself, except during the first hour of the
morning’s work. After that, he went off to the City. The time of his
return was always uncertain and varied daily. Sometimes Lydia wondered
whether his unheralded entries were occasionally made in the hopes of
taking her by surprise.
It was something not unconnected with this suspicion, perhaps, that
made her, as soon as her work was over, generally by four o’clock in
the afternoon, try to teach herself typewriting.
A big machine stood on a table in a corner of the room, and presently
Lydia learnt to manipulate it successfully.
Sir Rupert never made any inquiries as to her progress, but the first
time that she handed him a typewritten letter for signature, he
scrutinized it very carefully, suggested one or two alterations in the
spacing and placing of the lines, and gave her a look which she felt to
be one of approval.
It was a surprise to Lydia to find what a number of charitable
organizations figured on the list of Sir Rupert’s activities. He was
on the committees of several hospitals, homes, and asylums, and a
most regular visitor at one of the largest branches of the Borstal
Institute.
The money that he expended upon charity seemed to Lydia to be almost
unlimited, and the appeals that poured in daily formed the major part
of the correspondence that she was required to sort. No application
was to be left unanswered, and all were to be filed, indexed, and
elaborately referenced and cross-referenced.
Lydia thought that she was beginning to understand why Lady Honoret
had so glibly metamorphosed her dress-expenditure into her charitable
donations, for Sir Rupert’s inspection.
Lady Honoret never penetrated to the study. She frequently sent
messages by a servant to ask if Lydia would lunch with her, and these
invitations Lydia always accepted. On other days, the footman brought a
well-furnished tray to the study.
At first, Lydia was a prey to that curious terror of servants that
appears to be inherent in those unused to their presence. She would
arrange herself in industrious attitudes for the footman’s benefit, her
back carefully turned to the door by which she expected him to enter,
and would scrupulously avoid looking at him while he arranged the tray
on a side table or put more coal on the fire.
Imperceptibly, however, Lydia’s powers of adaptability made themselves
felt. She said “Thank you” to William in quite an audible voice, and
one day asked for a fresh supply of ink. When William replied, in a
very matter-of-fact way, merely “Yes, miss,” and the ink duly appeared,
Lydia felt that she was really at one with her surroundings.
The two pounds a week that she was earning gave her a sense of wealth,
and her book went into a second edition and continued to receive
excellent Press-notices.
She wondered whether Sir Rupert knew that he was employing as private
secretary a novelist of undoubted distinction.
It was only Lady Honoret and her friends who ever talked about Lydia’s
literary achievement.
Sir Rupert, a silent man enough, only spoke to her, in his dry little
nasal voice, about her secretarial work.
Lydia, half-suspicious of men after her adventure with Margoliouth,
half-rendered so by the vague vulgarity of a hint received from Miss
Forster, could not for an instant have deluded herself, even had she
wished to do so, that her employer gave even the most passing thought
to her possible attractions.
But the men who came to see him in his study sometimes looked at her
with less unseeing eyes.
They were mostly old men, in Lydia’s estimation at least, and the
leering smile turned on her from time to time, or the occasional
familiarity of a hand laid on her arm, afforded her but little
gratification.
There was a young and very good-looking clergyman, however, who once
came to see Sir Rupert and, in the midst of their long, low-voiced
discussion of an East End family of Polish Jews, found time to glance
at the slim figure of the private secretary, quietly writing in the far
corner of the room.
She was called presently to enter another appointment for him to see
Sir Rupert the following week.
“Four o’clock on Wednesday next, then. I have no other engagement, I
think, Miss Raymond?”
“No, Sir Rupert.”
“Put down Mr. Damerel--the Reverend C. Damerel--for four o’clock.”
Lydia made the entry, and the young clergyman, looking at her, said,
almost timidly:
“Thank you, Miss Raymond.”
His instant use of her name flattered her, and he had a singularly
attractive speaking-voice, low and musical.
On Wednesday Lydia, with a half-smile at her own secretly acknowledged
vanity, put on her most becoming blouse and a ribbon in her hair.
At half-past three o’clock, Sir Rupert walked into the study and told
her that she was free for the rest of the day, and might go at once. It
was the first holiday he had ever offered her.
Lydia took advantage of the concession, since she could not very well
do otherwise, and was in reality glad of it, but she wondered whether
the good-looking young man would notice her absence.
That he had done so was made evident in his third visit, when his eager
gaze instantly sought the corner where she sat, and as their eyes met,
he smiled frankly.
After that, Lydia and he met frequently, although they seldom exchanged
many words, except one afternoon when Sir Rupert was late, and Lydia
had daringly offered the visitor a cup of tea.
Over the intimacy of the small tea-table, they had talked quite freely,
and although Lydia had been a little bit disappointed at the very
impersonal note maintained by one who so obviously admired her, she had
attributed it to his profession. The impression chiefly left upon her
mind had been of an extreme simplicity that was somehow mysteriously
suggestive of good breeding.
It puzzled her the more from the contrast with Lady Honoret and her
expansive friends. London clergymen surely weren’t “anybody” as a
rule, Lydia reflected sweepingly. Lady Honoret, whom no one, least of
all the observant Lydia, could ever have accused of simplicity, was
“somebody.” So was each one of her talkative, elaborate familiars.
They all of them, in various guise, proclaimed it of themselves. Their
conversation advertised themselves and their importance incessantly.
“... Can’t stay one _second_, dearest. The Duchess is _screaming_ for
me to come and finish our stall for the Fancy Fair....”
“Don’t _talk_ about Calmar’s New Symphony! Wretched creature! He had
the audacity to ask me what I thought of it, and I was _perfectly_
frank. I said there’s only one way in which it strikes me, and that
is--rococo!”
“Of course, I designed the dress. The dear lady put herself entirely in
my hands, and the result was that it was the only costume in the room
that was really of the period ... people _raved_ about it.”
“No, my dear lady, I haven’t a moment. My time is not my own; it
belongs to the public--the wretched, reading, writing, advertising
public.”
This last was Cassela, the publisher.
He came to Lexham Gardens more and more frequently, and the rivalry
between himself and his hostess as to “new discov’ies” appeared to have
fallen into abeyance.
He had complimented Lydia very effusively on her book when it first
came out, but after she had taken her place in the household as Sir
Rupert’s private secretary, he took very little notice of her, although
he was almost always at lunch or in the drawing-room whenever Lydia was
invited to either by Lady Honoret.
She seldom went to Lexham Gardens on Sundays, although Sir Rupert had
once or twice claimed an hour or two’s work from her in the morning.
“Will that interfere with your hour of worship?” he once inquired
solemnly.
“I can go to church in the evening,” Lydia replied, “thank you, Sir
Rupert.”
As a matter of fact, Sunday, spent at the boarding-house, now
seemed to her the dullest day of the week. There were no interviews
with strangers demanding Sir Rupert--and who might turn out to be
good-looking and impressionable like Mr. Damerel--nor brief, friendly
greetings from habitués who came often to the study and knew Lydia well
by sight, and there was no possibly exciting interlude in the middle
of the day, when the people in the dining-room accepted her almost as
a daughter of the house, Lydia sometimes thought, and very often made
most flattering allusions to her novel.
The guests at the boarding-house seemed to her now incredibly dull. How
could she ever have supposed them to be of any importance in the scheme
of existence?
When Hector Bulteel, after numerous failures, at length passed his
Matriculation, and the event was celebrated, with perhaps tactless
insistence, by the Bulteels’ fellow-boarders, Lydia joined civilly
and even with a show of cordiality in their demonstrations, but at
the back of her mind she was aware that the people with whom she now
chiefly associated would look upon the achievement with a total absence
of enthusiasm. Many of them, very probably, would not even know what
Matriculation meant.
The boarders all read Lydia’s novel, and Miss Nettleship actually
bought a copy of it, for what she called “the drawing-room library,”
which consisted of half a dozen torn novels in sixpenny editions, a
copy of “Molly Bawn” with the last pages missing, and several unbound,
and very old, numbers of _The Lady’s Realm_.
All of them liked Lydia’s book, and Mrs. Clarence remarked with
melancholy pleasure that she had cried over it to the extent of having
to fetch a clean pocket-handkerchief before she could finish the last
chapter. But although Lydia was not less popular, the boarders were
now a little bit more reserved with her, showing all that curious
nervousness that assails the semi-educated mind coming into contact
with accredited “cleverness.”
Lydia’s “cleverness” was an established fact now that she had published
a book and secured the position of Sir Rupert Honoret’s secretary for
herself.
Sometimes they asked her about her work.
“Mostly accounts, but I answer a good many business letters, and file
and index them.”
“And you meet interesting people, don’t you, dear?” said Mrs. Bulteel
hungrily.
“Oh, yes.”
But Lydia did not vouchsafe many details to these eager listeners,
partly because she did not want to rouse Miss Forster’s jealousy, and
partly because she could never quite forget Grandpapa’s old advice:
“Always let the other people talk about themselves.”
It somehow seemed better to turn the conversation into the direction
of that winter when the Bulteels had gone to Switzerland, and made
the acquaintance of an Irish viscount and his wife, staying at the
same hotel as themselves, or to let Miss Forster tell the story of
the wonderful luck she had had playing Bridge at her club with the
Honourable Mrs. Harry Maudesley as her partner.
Lydia did not spend very much time at the boarding-house now, although
she had again begun to write a book in the evenings.
She was often kept overtime at Lexham Gardens, and, coming in late,
would find that Miss Nettleship had kept a plateful of meat and
vegetables for her in the oven, which was put before her baked very
dry and almost too hot to eat. But she was rather glad of the excuse
for having the dining-room all to herself, and going straight upstairs
to her bedroom afterwards, without joining the dull group in the
drawing-room.
When the summer was half over, Sir Rupert told Lydia that she could
have a month’s holiday.
“We shall spend all August in Scotland, and perhaps longer,” he said
gloomily.
“You’ll want me again when you get back to London, won’t you?” asked
Lydia quickly.
“Certainly. I’ll let you know. Leave me your address.”
The question of her address during that month of freedom, was the very
one that Lydia was beginning to turn over in her own mind. Of course
there was Regency Terrace, but then she had spent several days there
only a very little while ago, and August was really an intolerable
month for the residents at the little seaside town. Also, the society
of Aunt Beryl and Uncle George, with the Jacksons and Mr. Monteagle
Almond for sole variety, was not very exhilarating. Grandpapa was
growing very old, and had long since ceased to honour Lydia with any
of his entertaining soliloquies; indeed his cynical pronouncements
now had lost their originality and point, and become like the dim,
old-fashioned platitudes of the bygone age to which Grandpapa belonged.
Perhaps a few days at the end of the month for Regency Terrace, but
Lydia thought that her holiday as a whole could very well be spent in
Devonshire, paying that long deferred visit to Nathalie Palmer.
Her letters to Nathalie during the past year had certainly been much
less expansive than those written when first they had parted at the end
of their school days together, but she had sent Nathalie a copy of her
book and had received a rapturous appreciation in reply.
Lydia that evening wrote to Nathalie--a letter no longer than those
that she was in the habit of sending, but explaining that her work
lately had taken up all her time, and that she had also begun to try
and write another book. Sir Rupert and Lady Honoret were going away for
August and Lydia was to have a holiday, and was longing to get away
from London and have a complete change and rest. Her plans weren’t
quite settled, however, because though Aunt Beryl would always love to
have Lydia at home, at the same time Grandpapa was getting very old,
and must be considered, and people coming and going always disturbed
him. But of course it would be nice to help Aunt Beryl, who certainly
had more to do than she could manage.
Lydia was rather ashamed of the conscious insincerity with which she
wrote that last sentence, but she let the letter go.
Nathalie’s eager invitation came by return of post.
It was pleasant to tell the boarders, when they discussed plans for the
summer, with a certain harassed enjoyment in the much-debated topic,
that one had an invitation to spend a month with a school friend in
Devonshire.
“Oh, how glorious! Is it moor, or seaside?”
“Not far from Dartmoor, I think. It’s just on the borders of Cornwall
and Devon.”
“How lovely! I thought of the Cornish coast myself,” said Mrs. Clarence
casually, “but on the whole I think I shall stick to Cromer. It’s not
so much of a journey.”
Old Miss Lillicrap cackled disagreeably at this undeniable truth, and
Mrs. Clarence grew very red.
“Shellness for us, I suppose,” said Mr. Bulteel cheerfully. “We’ve been
to the same rooms for three years now--this’ll make the fourth--and I
don’t know that we can do better.”
“I’ve written a very plain letter to Mrs. Bett, though,” said his
wife sharply. “She ought to know what we expect by this time, but you
remember we had a fuss last year because she wouldn’t give us a hot
sweet on Sundays. I’m not going to have any more nonsense of that sort.
If she can’t do the little we require, then we must go elsewhere,
that’s all. I’m sure there’s plenty of choice.”
Everybody looked rather admiringly at Mrs. Bulteel, who could afford to
speak thus.
Only Miss Forster made a spirited show of having a choice of her own,
too.
“Of course, Scotland is jolly at this time of the year, but I’ve got
a dear friend who’s taken a wee cottage in the Fen country, and I may
join forces with her. Though, of course, I _could_ spend August and
September in paying visits, but that means such a lot of travelling.”
“Too expensive,” indelicately said the outspoken Miss Lillicrap. “Look
at what tips for the servants alone comes to.”
The allusion naturally closed the conversation.
Lydia, however, had derived from it inspiration.
“Do you know what Miss Nettleship is doing for a holiday?” she inquired
privately of Miss Forster, who always knew everything.
“She wants to get away for a fortnight, if she can get a friend to come
here just for the time. I’m sure she needs a change; she hasn’t been
away for nearly twelve months, and you know what a worry she’s had, one
way and another----”
Miss Forster stopped self-consciously, obviously on the very brink of
an allusion to the Margoliouth episode.
Lydia wrote to Aunt Beryl.
Miss Nettleship really _did_ want a change, and though Lydia hadn’t
said a word to her, she couldn’t help thinking that if Auntie asked
her down to Regency Terrace, it would be a weight off her mind, and do
her all the good in the world. She could have Lydia’s room, and Lydia
really would like to think of her there--she had always been so kind.
And if things were arranged like that, then Aunt Beryl needn’t worry
about Lydia for a moment, because Lydia would simply accept the urgent
invitation that she had so often put off or refused, to pay Nathalie
Palmer a visit at the Devonshire Rectory. Aunt Beryl remembered
Nathalie, of course?
Aunt Beryl remembered Nathalie quite well, and it would be nice for
Lydia to stay with her friend. A disappointment, of course, to all of
them, not to see her at home; but perhaps Devonshire would be more of a
change, and Maria Nettleship had certainly been very kind--it would be
a real pleasure to try and make it up to her a bit.
So Miss Nettleship received, and gratefully accepted, the invitation
to occupy Lydia’s room at Regency Terrace, and Lydia herself, unable
to help feeling that everything had been arranged in the most masterly
manner, was able to take her place in a crowded train in all the heat
and smoke of Paddington station, prepared to enjoy a new experience
with no troublesome _arrière-pensée_ in the background to spoil things.
She could not remember that she had ever been to “the real country”
before, although Uncle George’s Sunday walks had often taken them right
away from shore and tram-line, to charming little woods or picturesque
farmhouses.
But Devonshire, Lydia had learnt from books and from Nathalie’s eager
descriptions when she was a homesick little girl at Miss Glover’s
school--Devonshire was different.
The country that the train was rushing through with so few stops grew
prettier and more wooded, the soil richer, the green more luxuriant.
Presently there was a stop at Exeter, and Lydia knew that she must be
nearing her destination, the little station with the double name, that
Nathalie had warned her would come almost immediately after the glimpse
of Dartmoor.
There was a sudden change in the character of the scenery--a barren and
beautiful expanse, dotted with grey boulders and with a tumbling stream
foaming across it--and Lydia heard an old country-woman observe to her
neighbour:
“There’s ole Dartymoor, same as ever.”
She pulled her hand-bag down from the rack, feeling strangely excited,
and hastily put on her gloves just as the train slowed down and
stopped.
“Clyst Milton and Ashlew!”
Would Nathalie have changed--would they even recognize one another?
Lydia stepped out of the train, for once inclined to nervousness.
But reassurance was at hand. Nathalie had _not_ changed--there she was,
come to meet her friend, with the same trustful welcome shining in her
blue eyes, and her fair hair twisted up under a plain straw hat instead
of hanging in a slender little pigtail, that had never attained to half
the weight and length of Lydia’s own two plaits.
“Oh, Lydia! I _am_ glad you’ve come.”
“So am I! You haven’t changed a bit. Oh, my trunk! Is it out?”
The train had begun to move already.
Nathalie turned composedly to the only porter.
“There’s a trunk from London. Is that it, Lydia, down at the far end?”
“That’s it,” Lydia declared, relieved by the sight of her neat yellow
trunk, standing solitary on the little platform.
“Badcock will bring it along. The trap’s outside,” Nathalie said to the
porter. “Let’s come.”
Lydia followed her, feeling slightly amazed. The old Nathalie
had certainly never possessed a manner of any assurance at all,
and moreover it impressed the town-bred visitor to see that the
railway-porter actually _knew_ Nathalie, and said “Yes, Miss Palmer,”
as he lurched away to fetch the trunk.
She was still more impressed by the sight of the “trap,” a tall
four-wheeled dog-cart with a white horse between the shafts, its head
fastened to the station railings.
Nathalie untied the piece of rope, stowed it away at the back of the
cart and climbed into the driving seat, talking all the while.
Lydia, who had never climbed into a dog-cart before, was not happy, but
she performed the feat as unconcernedly as she could, having carefully
watched Nathalie’s movements.
The trunk was hoisted into the back, Nathalie said “Thank you,
Badcock,” jerked the reins slightly, and drove off.
An unusual, and quite unexpected, sensation of shyness caused Lydia to
talk rapidly about the heat of the journey, and the beauty of the steep
lanes through which they drove--anything that was impersonal.
Nathalie responded happily and naturally, but Lydia thought that she,
too, was feeling a little shy.
“What a pretty house!”
“That’s Quintmere. The Damerels live there.”
Lydia wondered where she had heard of the Damerels before. Then she
suddenly remembered.
“Oh, is one of them a clergyman in London?”
“Mr. Clement is. Why--do you know him, Lydia? How funny!”
“He comes to see Sir Rupert Honoret on business. I’ve seen him
sometimes. Does he live at that house?”
“His mother does--Lady Lucy. She’s nice--awfully old. The eldest son
was killed out hunting last winter--no, the winter before. Don’t you
remember? I wrote to you about it. It was awful. Poor father had to go
and tell Lady Lucy.”
“Lady Lucy!” Then the young clergyman _was_ “somebody.”
Lydia was speechless.
Nathalie went on, speaking very seriously:
“Of course, the Squire being killed like that was dreadful--he was only
thirty-five. Luckily he’s left a son--a dear little boy. He and his
mother, Mrs. Damerel, live with Lady Lucy at Quintmere now.”
“And what does the other son do--the clergyman? Does he live in London?”
“He does now. I suppose he’ll have the living when father retires--it’s
in Lady Lucy Damerel’s gift. You remember father, of course, Lydia?”
Lydia said that she did, quite well, and presently they drove through
Ashlew village, where Nathalie exchanged a number of greetings with the
people they met, and then up a short, steep drive to the Rectory door.
It was not a very pretty house, but completely smothered in ivy, and
with shabby, chintz-furnished rooms--full of flowers and littered with
papers--that seemed to Lydia’s unaccustomed eyes very large and bright.
She felt that somehow she had never expected Nathalie to have a home so
like a Rectory in a book.
The Rector came in for tea, and his long, rather solemn face, crowned
by a high forehead and sparse white hair, struck Lydia as resembling
that of a horse. He spoke to her in the kind, slow way that she
remembered, and asked questions about her book.
Nathalie poured out the tea, and it caused Lydia an unreasonable
surprise to see her doing it. Somehow, she had never imagined Nathalie
any older or more grown-up than when they had parted at school.
Nathalie had just gone home, and lived there ever since--she herself,
in her letters, had often said that nothing ever happened at Ashlew,
and Lydia had been slightly struck with the contrast to her own
varied days--independent livelihood at Elena’s, the boarding-house,
the publishing of a successful novel, the new position as Sir Rupert
Honoret’s secretary. Even her experience with Margoliouth had been a
dramatic affair, although she had never written of it to Nathalie.
And yet here was Nathalie, who had done nothing at all, sitting
indefinably poised and “grown-up” and more at her ease, Lydia felt
certain, than was her visitor.
However, she enjoyed the evening, and the novelty of sitting on the
lawn with the just-arrived London paper after tea, while Nathalie went
down to the school on her bicycle, because Mr. Palmer said that the
school-mistress wanted to speak to her about the infant class in the
Sunday school most particularly.
She also enjoyed supper, which they had on a wooden table in the
garden, just under the dining-room window, from which the pink-faced
maid handed them out the bread sauce and peas and potatoes for their
roast chicken, and the dishes of raspberries and clotted cream that
concluded the meal.
“We must see what our country fare can do towards fattening you up,
while you’re with us,” said the Rector. “You look as though you were in
need of a rest.”
“She works so hard, father,” said Nathalie proudly.
“I know, my dear. We must try and make this a real holiday.”
Lydia was touched and gratified at their kind solicitude.
She acquiesced gratefully when Nathalie suggested that she must be
tired, and would like to go to her room early.
The room was a very pretty one, seeming enormous after Number Seventeen
at the boarding-house, and with a comfortable deep arm-chair near the
bed, and a little vase of red, scented roses on the dressing-table.
“Oh, it’s lovely!” ejaculated Lydia in spontaneous delight at so great
a contrast to any surroundings that she had ever known before.
“I’m next door,” said Nathalie, “and the bathroom is beyond the
landing--only I’m afraid the water’s not very hot in the mornings.
Breakfast at eight, but don’t hurry; Lydia, dear, I won’t stay and talk
to you to-night, but it’s _splendid_ to think I’ve really got you here
at last.”
The enthusiasm of Nathalie’s words, and good-night kiss, assured Lydia
that her adoring junior at Miss Glover’s still survived in the youthful
lady of the house of Ashlew Rectory.
She went to sleep at last in the unaccustomed silence, a little
bewildered and surprised still, but happily confident that here, as
elsewhere, she would very soon regain her usual serenity of outlook and
find her rightful place.