Never could Lydia forget the nightmare horror of the hours that
followed. The only comfort to be found--but it was a very substantial
one--was in Mr. Damerel’s kindness--almost tenderness.
It was he who took her away from Lexham Gardens in a cab, and drove
with her to the boarding-house, where he saw Miss Nettleship himself,
and explained that Miss Raymond had had a great shock, and ought to
stay quietly in her own room for a day or two, if it could be managed
without too much trouble, and not be worried to talk to anyone.
“That’ll be quite all right, I quite understand how it is,” Miss
Nettleship repeated, certainly without any grounds for the last
assertion, but evidently with the kindest intentions, and her hand
clasping Lydia’s, while her round brown eyes were fixed anxiously upon
Mr. Damerel’s face.
She was very kind to Lydia, and came and sat with her that evening, and
Lydia, completely unnerved, told her the whole story.
Miss Nettleship confined all her comments to pitying ejaculations on
Lydia’s behalf. Poor dear! how dreadful for her to be mixed up in such
a thing--and how _abominable_ of that Sir Rupert Honoret to pretend
that he thought she knew anything about it! She had been most dignified
and brave, Miss Nettleship was sure, while that horrible man was
insulting her--and how right to trust that kind, gentleman-like young
clergyman and tell him all about it!
Miss Nettleship’s championship and her praise of Lydia’s discretion
made Lydia feel much more composed, if only by presenting to her a new
aspect of the case. At first she had only been conscious that she might
yet find herself held partly responsible for wicked Lady Honoret’s
minor peccadilloes at least, and inclined to reproach herself bitterly
for not having listened to old Mr. Palmer’s advice.
Now she saw that it was possible for her adventure to be viewed as that
of an innocent victim, placed in a most difficult and dramatic position
through no fault of her own.
In the eyes of Mr. Clement Damerel and Miss Nettleship, she was the
heroine of the situation.
Lydia had adjusted herself to this rôle without difficulty when, two
days later, Aunt Beryl made an unexpected appearance.
“Maria Nettleship wrote to me, dearie. You mustn’t be vexed with her,
but she really felt the responsibility too much for her, and that Mr.
Damerel the clergyman advised it. You’ll come home and have a good
rest, now, won’t you?”
Lydia could really see no alternative.
Without a salary, it would be Aunt Beryl and Uncle George who would be
paying her expenses at the boarding-house, and she realized for the
first time that neither from the Honoret establishment, nor from Madame
Elena--infuriated at the manner of Lydia’s departure from the shop--was
she likely to receive a reference that would enable her easily to
obtain another post. Moreover, she still felt that it would be almost
intolerable to hear the affair at Lexham Gardens discussed, as it must
be, by all the boarders.
Lydia agreed to go back with Aunt Beryl to Regency Terrace.
It was understood that Miss Nettleship would convey to the boarders
that recent events had caused Lydia to leave the service of Sir Rupert
Honoret with every credit to herself, and that her aunt had taken her
home for a much-needed rest.
Clement Damerel came to say good-bye to her at a time when Aunt Beryl,
to Lydia’s secret relief, was out.
Lydia, much less self-confident than usual, asked nervously whether any
further developments had taken place at Lexham Gardens.
“I have seen Mr. Codd again, and he assures me that there is nothing
for you to be afraid of. I practically got a definite assurance from
him that there would be no question of your name appearing in the
case. Of course, he was cautious, as those people must be, I suppose,
but I think you can set your mind at rest. In any case, if there
_is_ any idea of calling you as a witness, he has promised to let me
know in good time. And I will do everything--anything--to shield you
from anything so painful,” said Mr. Damerel with agitation. “I think
influence could be brought to bear----”
“Thank you very, very much,” said Lydia.
She felt shaken and tired, and almost childishly grateful for his
championship.
“Will you let me know how you are, and--and--your plans later on?”
asked the young man gently.
“When I know myself, I will write to you,” said Lydia rather
mournfully. “I feel as though I’d failed--and I did want to do some
work, and do credit to my aunt and uncle and perhaps be of a little
help to them.”
Clement Damerel would not let her despond.
She had been splendidly brave, and proved herself to be a most
efficient worker, and other opportunities would come to her hand. The
sense of failure was only a natural reaction after the shock she had
undergone. There might--Clement Damerel hesitated--he felt sure there
_would_ be--opportunities undreamed-of for the exercise of her splendid
gifts. Might he write to her from time to time? Perhaps he could put
work in her way----
Lydia thanked him again, and gave him the Regency Terrace address.
“Good-bye, and let me know if there is anything--_anything_----” said
Clement Damerel, and went away after wringing her hand.
As Lydia recovered her poise of mind, she was not unaware of a private
wish that he had told her rather more as to what had happened at Lexham
Gardens after her summary departure, and taken it less for granted that
her only preoccupation was that she should be spared the possibility of
an appearance in Court.
After all, it was an exciting affair, and likely to prove notorious to
a high degree.
If one _had_ to be so closely connected with the scene of action, it
seemed foolish not to know more than other people of the steps that had
led to the cataclysm.
Lydia came to this point of view by degrees, partly ashamed of herself
for so coming, and yet urged on to it by Aunt Evelyn’s perfectly
shameless absorption in every detail that she could extract from her
niece bearing upon the forthcoming scandal.
“The case won’t come on for another six months, I daresay,” exclaimed
Aunt Evelyn, suddenly become an authority by virtue of her protracted
perusal of all that “A Little Bird” had to say in the Society columns
of her favourite journals.
“Of course, I quite understand about your not wanting to talk of it,
dear--but I’m afraid it’ll be one of those regular Society _caws
celeb._ that the illustrated papers and all will take hold of....”
Aunt Evelyn proved a perfectly true prophet.
In rather less than six months the Honoret divorce case was figuring in
flaunting headlines throughout the Press.
Aunt Evelyn and Olive were again staying at “The Osborne,” and the
former, at any rate, seemed never to be without a printed sheet
fluttering in her hand.
“Fancy, they’ve got a photograph of the house! I suppose they think
it’ll interest people, but it seems morbid, too, in a way--doesn’t it?
Which is the window of the room you worked in, Lydia?”
“It was at the back of the house,” said Lydia briefly.
Nevertheless, a sort of fascination brought her to Aunt Evelyn’s side,
to gaze at the smudged outline of the steps and area railings, which
was really all that could be distinguished on the page.
“Just fancy if they got at _you_, Lyd, and wanted your photograph,
or something. They might, you know,” said Olive. “Wouldn’t it be
frightful? What would you do?”
“She’d enjoy it very much, my dear--nearly as much as you and your
mother,” said an unexpected voice in acid falsetto.
They had forgotten that Grandpapa was in the room.
Lydia would have liked to protest indignantly, but for one thing it
would have been without any effect upon Grandpapa, and for another,
she had a lurking and most unpleasing conviction that he was speaking
the truth.
Quite insensibly, during the monotony of the last five months at
Regency Terrace, she had come to depend for her only excitement upon
the local importance attaching to her as a first-hand authority upon
the prevalent topic of gossip--the big divorce case of the moment.
There were even times when she could have wished for that very
contingency that at first had struck such terror to her mind--her own
summons as a witness in the case--she hardly cared on which side. In
any event, she would make a good witness, she knew--clear-headed, with
an excellent memory, and untroubled by nervousness.
But Mr. Damerel had written a great many times to assure her that she
need not be afraid of being called, and in his last letter had said how
very thankful he was to be able to reassure her once and for all on the
point. As things were going, he had been told on good authority that
Miss Raymond’s testimony would not be required.
Mr. Damerel’s congratulations--which he applied to himself almost as
freely as to Lydia, so much did he seem to have taken the question to
heart--were very pleasant. Lydia liked receiving his letters, written
in a small, rather meticulous handwriting, and she even liked the
careful inditing of her own replies.
But life seemed to have come to a standstill, and the return to the
monotonous Regency Terrace routine, hardly varying from that which had
prevailed there in her twelfth year, was depressing to Lydia.
Grandpapa took hardly any notice of her, and had grown much older. He
now sat in silence for hours at a time, only brightening into momentary
gleams of his old, elfish humour when Aunt Beryl or Uncle George
reported some fresh eccentricity of the irrepressible Shamrock.
He seemed to have forgotten his old predilection for Lydia’s society,
and though she tried to talk to him and amuse him, it had become much
more difficult.
When she gave him an ironical account of Miss Forster’s perpetual
boasting of her friendship with Sir Rupert and Lady Honoret, Grandpapa
remarked crudely:
“She may thank her stars at any rate that she didn’t foist herself into
the house as their paid dependent.”
And when she tried to interest him with an account of all the new
activities in which she had taken part during her visit to Devonshire,
he replied coldly:
“I can quite believe that you helped your friends in their parish, my
dear, until they hadn’t a leg to stand upon between them.”
Lydia was so much annoyed that she most unwisely inquired, with great
indignation in her voice, what Grandpapa meant.
“You’re a _situation-snatcher_, Lyddie,” said her grandparent solemnly.
“That’s what you are. You always were, even as a little child. Whatever
the situation may be, or whom it may belong to, you’ll always manage to
snatch the best of it for yourself.”
After that, Lydia gave up attempting to revive her old alliance with
Grandpapa altogether.
She spent that spring and early summer rather drearily, missing the
regular work to which she had become accustomed, and, above all, the
many new people she had been meeting.
Her second book proved more difficult to write than had her first, and
she worked at it indifferently and without much satisfaction.
Most of her days passed in making clothes that she saw no opportunity
of wearing, and in listening to Olive Senthoven’s grumbling talk and
her short, incessant cough.
Towards the middle of the summer Aunt Evelyn went home, and Olive came
to live altogether at Regency Terrace, because the sea air was supposed
to be good for her chest.
Otherwise the monotony of the days remained unbroken.
* * * * *
The greatest surprise of Lydia’s whole life was the proposal of
marriage that she received at the end of that uneventful summer from
Clement Damerel.
She had not seen him since the _débâcle_ at Lexham Gardens, and
although his letters were frequent, she had come to look upon them as
mere impersonal expressions of the interest taken by a clergyman in
someone whom he had befriended at a trying crisis. Otherwise, Lydia had
argued, he would have suggested coming to see her, or even that she
should go up to London for the day and meet him for lunch or tea.
But when the Honoret case was over, and Sir Rupert had been granted his
decree, Mr. Clement Damerel really had nothing further to write about,
and Lydia was not surprised to receive from him a very brief note
saying that he was going to Devonshire for a week to see his mother.
Lydia wished languidly that Nathalie Palmer would invite her to the
Rectory, and felt a momentary gleam of hope when she received a letter
with the Ashlew postmark.
Her eyes widened as she read:
“Mr. Damerel is at Quintmere, and the other day I went up for tennis.
We talked a lot about you, and he seemed so frightfully sorry for you
about that dreadful Lady Honoret, and said you had behaved splendidly.
I think he likes you awfully, Lydia, and I’m sure he’s been talking
about you to Lady Lucy, because she asked me a whole lot about you
afterwards, and seemed so interested. Of course I told her heaps of
nice things, and she said Mrs. Damerel had read your book, and liked
it, but she never reads novels herself.
“Father went up to Quintmere yesterday and was there ages, but he
didn’t tell me what it was about, only he was frightfully absent-minded
all the evening, and after supper (though we hadn’t _mentioned_ your
name) he suddenly said: ‘How old did you say little Lydia was, my
dear?’ So I can’t help guessing that he and Lady Lucy had been talking
about you too! I hope father wouldn’t call this letter ‘school-girls’
gossip’--but I expect he would! so I’ll stop.”
Lydia had hardly had time to attach all the various implications
possible to Nathalie’s surprising statements when she received another
note from Mr. Damerel. He was coming back to London the next day,
and hoped that he might be allowed to see Miss Raymond. Could he run
down for the afternoon from town and call upon her? Finally, and
significantly, instead of being hers very sincerely, as hitherto, he
asked Lydia to believe him, hers ever, Clement Damerel.
Lydia’s spirit woke from the lethargy that had crept upon it during
that long, dull spell of months at Regency Terrace.
She felt excited, but also perfectly calm and alert.
She decided instantly that she did not want Mr. Damerel at Regency
Terrace. Aunt Beryl might be all very well, and Uncle George--but
who knew what Grandpapa might elect to say or to do? And Olive was
impossible. _No._
She had no desire to exploit her home-life before Mr. Damerel, who had
only seen her as the Palmers’ guest at Ashlew Rectory, or else as the
quiet, reliable, and self-reliant young secretary at Lexham Gardens.
She preferred that their next meeting should take place upon neutral
territory.
“Aunt Beryl,” said Lydia that evening, “shall you go up to London for
the day before the sales are over?”
“Not this time, dear. There’s nothing I really want, and Aunt Evelyn is
kindly going to see about matching that sewing-silk for me. It was the
only thing I had on my mind--such a difficult shade.”
Aunt Beryl continued to darn her second-best tablecloth, and Lydia, who
was never impetuous, waited quietly.
“If you thought of going up yourself, dear, it would be quite an idea.
It would be a little outing for you and Olive, if she’s not afraid
of the bad air. The Tubes are very stuffy, and the trains are always
so crowded nowadays. I’m sure Bob would be too delighted to meet you
somewhere for lunch.”
Lydia was quite sure of it too, and equally certain that she should not
avail herself of Bob’s escort.
“Mr. Damerel wants to see me, I think. I don’t know what it’s about--he
may have another post in view for me, perhaps. Anyway, I think perhaps,
if it isn’t unkind, I’d rather go up without Olive. You know what she’s
like about things, auntie.”
“Certainly, she’s one for getting ideas into her head is Olive,” Aunt
Beryl admitted thoughtfully, sucking a piece of thread. “But is it all
right, dear, you going up alone like this? He’s quite a young man,
isn’t he?--though I suppose it’s all right as he’s a clergyman.”
“Of course,” said Lydia energetically. “I shall simply go up by the
ten o’clock train, and do a little shopping--better take advantage of
the sales as they _are_ on, after all--and then probably see him after
lunch, and find out what he wants to say, and come back quite early.
It’s just business.”
“Well, that seems all right,” Aunt Beryl doubtfully agreed. “I suppose
as he’s a parson he wouldn’t have asked you to come without it was
necessary.”
Lydia forbore to explain that this was not what Mr. Damerel had asked
her to do, because it was exactly what she had hoped that Aunt Beryl
would think.
She wrote a business-like note to Mr. Damerel, explaining that she
should be in London on the following Monday, and offering to make an
appointment with him at any time and place convenient to himself.
In answer, Damerel telegraphed that he would meet her train.
Lydia considered it fortunate that she encountered the telegraph boy
on the very threshold, and received her missive direct. Otherwise she
would certainly have had to explain the contents to the household, for
telegrams were not common at Regency Terrace.
She told herself that it would be very foolish and a great pity to let
her relatives attach significance to small events which, after all, did
not in any way concern themselves, but she was all the time aware of a
certain excitement growing within her.
When Monday morning came, and she stepped into the train, Lydia felt
that infinite possibilities might lie ahead of her.
When Clement Damerel, after greeting her eagerly at the station,
asked whether he might take her to lunch at the house of an uncle
and aunt--“my mother’s unmarried brother and sister”--who would be
delighted to make her acquaintance, she felt a shock of astonishment.
He could not have much to say to her if he thus deliberately avoided
a _tête-à-tête_, when he could so easily have suggested a Lyons’
restaurant or a quiet tea-shop!
Lydia accepted the invitation, but said that she had shopping to do,
and would find her own way to Eaton Place later on.
She was never afterwards able to recapitulate her impressions of that
visit. She knew that the aunt seemed old and kind, and very like Lady
Lucy, and that a still older uncle sat at the head of the table, and
had to be shouted at before he could hear anything at all, and that the
courses were much plainer and less numerous than those that had figured
at Lady Honoret’s luncheon-parties. She also felt, rather than knew,
that Clement Damerel was nervous, and this perception, together with a
subconscious preoccupation as to the reason for his nervousness, made
her feel more shy than was usual with her.
When the uncle and aunt drifted away after lunch was over, the old lady
saying kindly that she knew Clement would like to show Miss Raymond the
pictures in the library, her head was almost swimming, and she felt
absolutely frightened lest she should be about to faint.
The revulsion of feeling when she actually heard his gentle voice
speaking to her, and knew that she had been right and that he was
asking her to be his wife, came to her as a positive relief from an
almost unendurable physical tension.
Much as she would afterwards have liked to recall every word of their
conversation in the library, where they spent almost the whole of that
afternoon uninterrupted, Lydia could never do so.
The utmost that she was able to recapture was her own sense of
bewilderment, that was not yet merged in triumphant realization, and
the sense of Clement Damerel’s extreme gentleness and consideration for
her. He would not even ask her for an immediate answer.
“I know it can’t be with you as it is with me, dearest--the first
moment I saw you, I knew I’d found my ideal.”
That at least Lydia could remember.
And again:
“You must think it over--not only whether you can care for me a
little bit, but whether you can face the life of a dull country
parson’s wife--that’s what it’ll end in, Lydia. When dear old Palmer
retires, my mother wants me to come home, and there’s work enough
even there--besides, I must think of her--she’s growing old, and my
brother’s death was a fearful blow....
“Lydia, I should never have had the courage to think of this, I don’t
suppose, if I hadn’t seen you first at work--not afraid to take up
employment for the sake of your own independence, and the people who’d
taken care of your childhood----”
Lydia listened to him almost as though she were in a dream.
“I don’t think I’m good enough,” she once faltered, and the ardour of
his protestations startled her afresh.
“But I never knew--never guessed for a minute that you felt like that.”
She found herself voicing the amazement that possessed her.
“Didn’t you?” said Damerel wistfully. “Sometimes I thought you couldn’t
help guessing--but it wouldn’t have been fair to say anything while
you were so much upset about that horrible affair of the Honorets--and
then--well, Lydia--you’ll let me call you that, won’t you?--it’s such a
dear little name--I’ll be honest with you, and tell you that I couldn’t
have helped coming to see you, at least--if my dear old mother hadn’t
implored me to keep right away for a time, and make perfectly certain
of my own feelings. She guessed, of course--that time last summer when
you were with the Palmers--but she’s old-fashioned, and though _of
course_ she couldn’t help seeing how--how wonderful you are in every
way--one has to make allowances for the novelty--to people of her
generation--of one’s wanting to marry anybody who isn’t either a more
or less distant connection, or else Devonshire born and bred! You do
understand...?”
Lydia understood very little. She gathered a vague impression that Lady
Lucy was surprised, perhaps even distressed, at her son’s choice, but
that she would make no opposition to it, and Clement Damerel repeated
again and again that his mother had only to know Lydia rather better in
order to love her.
“Dear old Palmer went up and talked to her last week--I asked him
to--and he couldn’t say enough of your cleverness, and the wonderful
way in which you’d helped them in the parish down there, just as though
you’d been born to it. It did make me hope, Lydia, that perhaps, after
all, you wouldn’t mind a lifetime of that sort of work....”
Clement Damerel said a very great deal more, but he would not press
Lydia for a definite promise, and she was slightly relieved not to find
herself bound, although the conviction was growing within her that she
meant all the time, as soon as the first shock of surprise had left
her, to accept his devotion proudly and joyfully.
It was like nothing that she had ever experienced or imagined, and
though the response invoked in her by his ardour was more in the nature
of mental appreciation for his methods than anything else, she felt an
increasing satisfaction glowing within her.
Still as though she were in a dream, she rose when the old aunt--with a
great deal of preliminary rattling at the door--came in, and obeyed her
gentle bidding to come upstairs for a cup of tea before going to the
station.
It was only afterwards that she became aware of having noted, with
surprised approval, her hostess’s total lack of any apparent curiosity
as to the result of the long conference in the library.
Certainly, Aunt Evelyn’s eyes, to say nothing of Olive’s, would almost
have been starting from their heads with sheer eagerness to hear what
had happened!
Even Aunt Beryl was not above the extremely transparent device of
having come to meet Lydia at the station on her return, and they had
hardly passed the ticket-collector’s little barrier before she said:
“Well?”
Lydia found it simplest to explain that she was really rather tired,
and could she talk it all over with auntie to-morrow?
“It?”
Well, yes--Mr. Damerel had really had something special to say to her,
but she didn’t feel able to talk about it yet--she must have time to
think things over.
By a final inspiration, Lydia suggested that Aunt Beryl should be
really kind, and prevent Olive from bombarding her with questions as to
the way in which her day had been spent, thus successfully precluding
the very obvious possibility of Aunt Beryl’s joining in the bombardment
herself, as well as propitiating her by the suggestion of an alliance
between them.
Whatever else Aunt Beryl might be, she was loyal.
Lydia was able to register a fleeting mental acknowledgment of the fact
in the days that followed.
And in the end she actually found herself almost asking counsel of this
faithful relative, although she knew inwardly that her mind was already
made up, and had been so from the first word of Clement Damerel’s
proposal.
But it was reassuring to hear Aunt Beryl’s outburst of unhesitating
satisfaction.
“_Nothing_ could be nicer than a clergyman,” declared Aunt Beryl,
almost as though she supposed her niece to be in need of reassurance
as to her suitor’s social standing. “And people you knew at the
Palmers and all! I must say, Lydia, I always thought you’d settle
down early, though Aunt Evelyn didn’t agree with me, saying you’d get
no opportunities, working, and rubbish of that sort. And, after all,
you’ll be engaged and married before poor Olive, let alone Beatrice and
that scallywag of a young Swaine--I’m afraid he’s nothing else. Well, I
_am_ pleased, dearie!”
“Then you think it will be all right?” Lydia asked eagerly, wondering
whether Aunt Beryl had altogether realized the difference between Mr.
Damerel and anybody to whom Beatrice or Olive Senthoven might have
aspired.
“Why shouldn’t it be all right? You’re the very girl for a parson’s
wife--so energetic and all, and look at the way you enjoyed helping
Nathalie Palmer last summer. And if he goes to a country living, as you
say, it’s just what you’ll like--very different to a London curate.
Nice for the old lady, too, to have you both settled down next door to
her,” said Aunt Beryl calmly.
“You mean Lady Lucy? You know she has her daughter-in-law and the
little grandson living with her at Quintmere?”
“That’s the widow is it, poor thing! It’s very nice him being so well
connected. Your mother would have been pleased at that, Lydia. Her own
people were County, she always said--though I never knew any of them.”
That was the way Aunt Beryl looked at it.
The simplicity of her point of view did but little, however, towards
counteracting Lydia’s annoyance at the way in which the others of her
little circle expressed themselves when she was able to announce to
them that she was really and definitely engaged to be married quite
shortly to Mr. Clement Damerel.
Uncle George, indeed, merely said: “Well, it’s a great stroke of luck,
my dear, but you deserve it if ever a girl did, and I consider him a
lucky young man--even though you _haven’t_ got a handle to your name!”
Mr. Monteagle Almond was more decorous, though Lydia, self-trained to
other standards, hoped that Clement would never hear his grandiloquent
references to the Sacred Calling that was all too seldom dignified by
the members of our ancient aristocracy.
Aunt Evelyn wrote an excited letter that might almost have been a page
from “Burke’s Landed Gentry,” so many details did it contain as to
the family into which her niece was marrying, and Olive, in Lydia’s
opinion, was quite as “impossible” as she always had been.
“Fancy, you sly thing, going and getting engaged like that before
either of us! Whatever _will_ Bob say? We always used to chaff him
about having a soft corner for you in his heart, you know, Lyd. As for
poor old Bee, sticking to her Stanley without a dog’s chance of ever
being able to marry him--you’ve put _her_ nose out of joint all right!
I’m only rotting, you know, ole girl--we’re all awfully pleased, I’m
sure, that you’ve done so well for yourself. What’s the old lady like,
Lyd? Shall you get on with her? Fancy you with a ladyship for your
mama-in-law!”
But of all the congratulations that Lydia received--with feelings that
were, to say the least of it, mixed--those which disconcerted her most
thoroughly came from her grandfather.
“Going to be married to the Reverend Damerel, are you?” said Grandpapa.
“And hob-nob with all sorts of fine folk, your aunt tells me. I’m not
at all surprised to hear it of you, Lyddie. I quite expected you’d do
something of the sort.”
Then Grandpapa began to chuckle, and something almost sinister crept
into his tone, although he had turned away from Lydia and pretended to
be addressing himself to Shamrock.
“What was it we always used to say, little dog--eh? There’s no such
thing as _can’t_; that’s it, no such thing as can’t.”