as well as Sir Lionel, who is forty; and he saw that I thought so.
Presently he asked if I'd rather sit out the rest, and I answered, yes;
so he said he would tell me the things he had to say. He found a quiet
place, which must have looked as if deliberately selected for a
desperate flirtation; and then he didn't do much beating about the bush.
He just told me that he _knew everything_. He'd partly "detected" it,
and partly found out by chance; but of course he made the most of the
detecting bit.
Don't be frightened and get a palpitation at the news, dearest; it isn't
worth it. There's going to be no flare-up. Of course, if I were the
heroine of a really nice melodrama, in such a scene as Dick and I went
through, I should have been accompanied by slow music, with lime-light
every time I turned my head, which would have heartened me up very much;
while Dick would have had villain music--plink, plink, plunk! But I did
as well as I could without an accompaniment, and I think, on the whole,
managed the business very well.
You see, I had to think of Ellaline. I dared not let her out of my mind
for a single instant, for if I should fail her now, at the crucial time,
it would be my fault if her love story burst and went up the spout. If
I'd stopped thinking of her, and saying in my mind while Dick talked, "I
must save Ellaline, no matter what happens to me!" I should certainly
have boxed his ears and told him to go to limbo.
He began by telling me that he'd met a friend of mine, a Miss
Bennett--Kathy Bennett. Oh, mother, just for a minute my heart beat
under my pretty frock like a bird caught in a child's hand! You remember
my writing you what a friendship Ellaline and Kathy struck up, before
Kathy left school to go back to England, and how she sent Ellaline
cuttings from the London Radical papers about Sir Lionel Pendragon in
Bengal? I do think it's almost ungentlemanly of so many coincidences to
happen in connection with what I'm trying to do for Ellaline. But
Kathy's such a lump, it's too great a compliment to call her a
coincidence. Anyhow, Dick met her in town, at a tea party (a "bun
worry," he called it) where he went with his dear Aunt Gwen; and when
Kathy mentioned being at school at Madame de Maluet's, he asked if she
knew Miss Lethbridge. She said of course she did, and she thought
Ellaline was a "very naughty little thing" not to write or come and see
her. She had read in the papers about the arrival of Sir Lionel with his
sister and ward, you see.
Dick remarked that he'd hardly call Miss Lethbridge a "little thing,"
whereupon Kathy defended her adjective by saying Ellaline was only about
up to her ear.
Of course that set Mr. Dick's detective bump to throbbing furiously. He
reassured me by announcing that he hadn't said any more to Kathy, but
that he'd thought a lot. In fact, he thought so much that he asked if
she'd give him a line of introduction to Madame, as he had a cousin who
wanted to go to a French school, and next time he "ran across to Paris,"
he might have a look at Versailles. Kathy gave the note, and that same
night, if you'll believe it, the horrid little boy did "run across." At
the earliest hour possible in the morning he called at the school, only
to find Madame already away for her holidays. But you know she always
leaves her sister, Mademoiselle Prado, to look after things, and when
Mademoiselle heard what Dick wanted, she showed him all over the place.
He said he would like to see photographs of the young ladies in groups,
if any such existed, because he could write his Australian cousin what
nice, happy-looking girls they were. Promptly that poor, unsuspecting
female produced the big picture Madame had done of the tea-party on the
lawn, a year ago in June, and there was I in it. But Dick was too foxy
to begin by asking questions about me. Kathy adorned the photograph
also, with Ellaline on her right and me in the perspective of her left
ear, which must have seemed to point at me accusingly. Dick could claim
Kathy quite naturally, as he'd come with her letter, and presently he
led up to me, saying he seemed to have seen me somewhere. Was I a great
friend of Miss Bennett's, and was it probable that she had my portrait?
Mademoiselle innocently said no, Miss Bennett was much more likely to
have Mees Lethbridge's portrait than Mees Brendon's, as Mees Brendon was
not a pupil of the school, only a teacher of singing, and Mees Kathy was
not musical. But Mees Lethbridge, _la petite jeune fille_ on the right,
was a friend of Mees Bennett.
Now you'll admit that Dick was rather smart to have chopped all these
branches off the tree of knowledge with his little hatchet. I think his
cleverness worthy of a better cause.
The next thing he did was to ask, naïvely, if _that_ Miss Lethbridge was
_the_ Miss Lethbridge--the ward of Sir Lionel Pendragon, so much talked
of in the papers just now? Proud that her sister's school had moulded a
celebrity, Mademoiselle chatted away about Ellaline, saying what a dear
child she was, how sorry Madame was to part from her, and how Madame de
Blanchemain, Ellaline's _chère marraine_, at St. Cloud, must be missing
her _mignonne_ at this very moment.
It goes without saying that Mr. Dick's next step took him at a single
stride to St. Cloud. He didn't call on Madame de Blanchemain, not
wishing to stir up a tempest in a teapot, but simply pryed and peered,
and did all sorts of sneaky things, only excusable in a professional
detective, who must (or thinks he must) live.
He found out about Madame de Blanchemain's nephew, Ellaline's Honoré,
and put this and that together, until he'd patched up the theory of a
love affair. But further he dared not go, on that track, so he pranced
back to Versailles, and found out things about Audrie Brendon.
The way he did that was through noticing the name of the Versailles
photographer who took the group in the garden. Dick called on him, and
said he wanted a copy of the picture, because his "cousin" was in it.
The man had several on hand, as parents occasionally wrote for them, and
when Dick got his he inquired who I was. The obliging photographer,
perhaps scenting a romance, told him I lived in the Rue Chapeau de Marie
Antoinette with my mother. Then the wretch actually had the impudence to
describe to me a visit he paid our apartment, ringing at the door, and
asking dear Philomene for Madame Brendon!
In five minutes, he had heard all our family affairs, as far as that
dear, simple, talkative soul could tell him. That you were in
Switzerland, and I had gone to England to visit a friend.
I sat and listened to the end of the story, saying never a word, though
I was in one of the moods which make me a person that nobody but myself
could stand for a moment. I should simply have smiled if wild horses had
come along to tear him in two.
"So you see," said he, at last, when I didn't speak, "I'm in the game
with you."
"It isn't my game," said I.
"You're playing it," said he.
"Because I have to," said I.
"Is it Sir Lionel who's making you play it?" he asked.
"Oh, dear, no," I broke out, before I stopped to think.
"Then, he isn't in it?"
I thought it looked more respectable to admit that, whatever the "game"
was, Sir Lionel and I were not playing it together.
"You're doing it for your friend," deduced our young detective.
I gently intimated that that was _my_ business. But Mr. Burden advised
me that I would be wise to accept him as my partner if I didn't want the
business to fail.
"What have I done to you, that you should interfere?" I wanted to know,
only I didn't dare--actually didn't _dare_, for Ellaline's sake, to
speak angrily. Oh, I did feel like a worm's paper doll!
"You've made me like you, awfully," he said.
"Then you shouldn't want to do me any harm," I suggested.
"I don't want to do you harm," he defended himself. "What I want is to
see as much of you as possible, and also I'd like to give Aunt Gwen a
little pleasure, thrown in with mine. I want you to ask Sir Lionel to
invite us to join your party. There's plenty of room for us in that big
motor-car of his. I went to see it in the garage to-day."
"You _would_!" I couldn't resist sputtering. But he took no notice.
"You needn't be afraid that Aunt Gwen's in this," he went on to assure
me. "I've kept mum as an oyster. All she knows is that I saw you--Miss
Lethbridge--in Paris, and haven't been the same man since. She helped me
get to know you, of course. She's a great chum of mine, and her being an
old pal of Sir Lionel's too, meant a lot for me in the beginning. She's
a ripper, and stanch as they make 'em--but they _don't_ make 'em
perfectly stanch where other women are concerned. And as long as you and
I hunt in couples she shan't have a suspicion."
"You'd tell her, if I refused to hunt in that way?" I asked.
"I might think it my duty to let Sir Lionel know how he's being
humbugged. At present I'm shuttin' my eyes to duty, and lookin' at you.
What?"
"Why does Mrs. Senter want to come with us?" I ventured to inquire.
"Because," explained her loyal nephew, "she's fed up with visiting, and
she loves motoring. So do I, with the right people. I'm sure it's not
much to ask. We won't sponge on Sir Lionel. We'll pay our own hotel
bills; and I'm sure, even though you are in a wax with me just now, you
must admit Aunt Gwen and I would wake things up a bit--what? All's fair
in love and war, so you oughtn't to blame me for anything I've done.
You'd think it jolly well romantic if you read it in a book."
I denied this, but said I would consider. He must give me till to-morrow
morning to make up my mind; which he flatly refused to do. To-morrow
would be too late. He saw in my eye that I hoped to slip off, but it was
"no good my being foxy." Things must be fixed up, or _blown_ up, on
board this ship to-night.
Whether or not he really meant to do his worst, if I wouldn't give in, I
can't be sure, but he looked as obstinate as six pigs, and I didn't dare
risk Ellaline's future. My _own_ impression is that there's a _big_
mistake somewhere, and that she would be perfectly safe in Sir Lionel's
hands if she would tell him frankly all about Honoré du Guesclin--I,
meanwhile, vanishing through a stage trap or something. But she may be
right. And I _may_ be wrong. That's why I was forced to promise Dick.
And I kept my promise, as soon as we got home to our hotel--Sir Lionel,
Mrs. Norton, and I.
I knew it would be a most horrid thing to do, but it was even horrider
than I thought.
All the way going back I was planning what to say, and feeling damp on
the forehead, thinking how impudent it would seem in _me_, a young girl
and a guest, to make such a suggestion. But it had to be done, so I
screwed up my courage, swallowed half of it again, with a lump in my
throat, and exclaimed in a gay, spontaneous way, like the sweet,
innocent angel I am: "Oh, Sir Lionel, _wouldn't_ it be fun if Mrs.
Senter and--and her nephew were going with us for a little way? They
both love motoring."
He looked surprised and Emily pursed her lips.
"Do you want them to come?" he asked.
"Well, I just thought of it," I stammered.
"I thought you didn't like Burden," he said. No wonder, as I'd
unfortunately unbosomed myself of my real sentiments not three hours
before!
"I think he's amusing enough," I tried to slide out of the difficulty.
"And Mrs. Senter probably wouldn't go without him."
"I somehow gathered an impression that you didn't admire her
particularly," went on Sir Lionel, looking at me with a very straight
look.
"Oh, I never said so!" I cried. "I admire her immensely."
"In that case, I'll ask them, with pleasure," said Sir Lionel. "The idea
did cross my mind in London, but I didn't think you'd care for it,
somehow. Emily will be pleased, I know. Won't you, Emily? And if Mrs.
Senter will be as reasonable as you two in the matter of luggage we
shall have plenty of room."
"It is your car, and the idea of the tour is yours," said Mrs. Norton,
very feminine and resigned, also feeling that my "cheek" deserved a tiny
scratch. "I am pleased with whatever pleases _you_."
Next morning (or rather the _same_ morning, and _this_ morning) Sir
Lionel got his sister to write a note to Mrs. Senter, and he wrote one
too, or added a P. S. "Aunt Gwen's" reply was a ladylike warwhoop of
joy; and we are now waiting till the latest additions to our party have
broken the news to their hostess at Hayling Island, packed a few things
to take, and sent the rest "home" (wherever that may be) with Mrs.
Senter's maid.
Good-bye, my Parisienne Angel.
Your broken and badly repaired
Audrie-Ellaline.
I long to hear whether you think I ought to have braved Dick.
X
SIR LIONEL PENDRAGON TO COLONEL PATRICK O'HAGAN
_Royal Hotel, Winchester_,
_July 21st. Night_
My dear Pat: I thought of you on the Portsmouth Downs
yesterday, remembering a tramp you and I had together, "exploring wild
England," as we called it. We then had a pose that all England, except
"town," was wild--save only and always when there was any shooting of
poor silly pheasants or hunting of "that pleasant little gentleman," the
fox.
After running out through Portsmouth, I suggested stopping the car and
mounting the downs above, on foot, for a look at the view. There are now
five in our party, instead of three--not counting Young Nick, who has no
stomach for views. At Ellaline's expressed wish, Mrs. Senter and Dick
Burden have come on with us from Hayling Island, where they were
staying. We met them at a dance on the _Thunderer_, which Starlin
captains. They have been invited to be of the party for a fortnight or
so.
I should rather have liked to watch Ellaline's face as she climbed the
hill, her feet light on yielding grass, where the gold of buttercups and
turquoise of harebells lay scattered--as she climbed, and as she reached
the top, to see England spread under her eyes like a great ring. But
that privilege was Burden's. I hope he appreciated it. Mine was to
escort Mrs. Senter. I was glad she didn't chat. I hate women who chat,
or spray adjectives over a view.
You remember it all, don't you? On one side, looking landward, we had a
Constable picture: a sky with tumbled clouds, shadowed downs, and
forests cleft by a golden mosaic of meadows. Seaward, an impressionist
sketch of Whistler's: Southampton Water and historic Portsmouth Harbour;
stretches of glittering sand with the sea lying in ragged patches on it
here and there like great pieces of broken glass. Over all, the English
sunshine pale as an alloy of gold and silver; not too dazzling, yet
discreetly cheerful, like a Puritan maiden's smile; but not like
Ellaline's. Hers can be dazzling when she is surprised and pleased.
I think I recall your talk with me on a height overlooking the
harbour--perhaps the same height. We painted a lurid picture, to harrow
our young minds, of the wreck of the _Royal George_. And we said, gazing
across the Downs, that England looked almost uninhabited. Well, it
appears no more populous now, luckily for the picture. I heard Ellaline
saying to Dick Burden that the towns and villages might be playing at
hide and seek, they concealed themselves so successfully. Also I heard
her advise him to read "Puck of Pook's Hill," and was somewhat
disappointed that she'd already had it, as I bought it for her in
Southsea yesterday. Probably she won't care to read it again. Perhaps I
had better give the book to Mrs. Senter, who is a more intellectual
woman than you and I supposed when she was playing with us all in India.
But one doesn't talk books with pretty women in the East.
You remember the day you and I walked to Winchester from Portsmouth,
starting early in the morning, with our lunch in our pockets? Well, we
came along the same way, past old William of Wykeham's Wickham, the
queer mill built of the _Chesapeake's_ timbers, and Bishops' Waltham,
where the ruins of the Episcopal palace struck me as being grander than
I had realized. Ellaline was astonished at coming upon such a splendid
monument of the past by the roadside, and was delighted to hear of the
entertainment Coeur de Lion was given in the palace after his return
from the German captivity. Of course the story of the famous "Waltham
Blacks" pleased her too. Women can always forgive thieves, provided
they're young, gay, and well born.
When Mrs. Senter found that Ellaline and my sister were in the habit of
sitting in the tonneau, Young Nick beside me, she asked, after a little
hesitation, if she might take his place, leaving the chauffeur to curl
himself up on the emergency seat at my feet. She said that half the fun
of motoring was to sit by the man at the wheel and share his
impressions, like being in the forefront of battle, or going to the
first performance of a play, or being in at the death with a hunt. So
now you can imagine me with an amusing neighbour, for naturally I
consented to the change. Neither Ellaline nor Emily had suggested
companioning me, and though I must say I had thought of proposing it to
Ellaline, I hadn't found the courage. She would no doubt have been too
polite to refuse, while perhaps disliking the plan heartily. Now, Burden
has been allotted a place with her and my sister, which is probably
agreeable to Ellaline.
Curious! Even the frankest of girls--and I believe Ellaline to be as
frank as her sex allows--can be secretive in an apparently motiveless
way. Why should she tell me one moment that she didn't like Burden, and
the next (practically) ask me to invite him and his aunt to travel with
us, because she "admires Mrs. Senter immensely"? Or perhaps it is that
the child doesn't know her own mind. I am studying her with deepening
interest, but am not likely to have as many opportunities now there are
more of us. She and Burden, being the young girl and the young man of
the party, will, of course, be much together, and Mrs. Senter will fall
to my lot for any excursions which may not interest, or be too tiring
for, Emily. This boy's presence makes me realize, as I didn't until I
had a young man of twenty-one constantly under my eyes, that the
knocking of the "younger generation" has already begun to sound on my
door. I had better hearken, I suppose, or some one else will kindly
direct my attention to the noise. I confess I don't like it, but it's
best to know the worst, and keep the knowledge in the heart, rather than
read it in the mockery of some pretty girl's eyes--a pretty girl to whom
one is an "old boy," perhaps.
Jove, Pat, that sticks in my gorge! It's not a thought to take to bed
and go to sleep with if one wants pleasant dreams. I'm stronger than I
ever was, my health is perfect, I have few gray hairs, my back is
straight. I feel as if the elixir of youth ran hot in my veins. Yet one
sees headlines in the papers, "Too Old at Forty." And--one is forty. It
didn't matter--that is, I didn't think of it, until the coming of this
boy.
His very ideas and manners are different from mine. No doubt they're the
approved ideas and manners of his generation, as we had ours at his age.
I wear my hair short, and think no more of its existence except to wash
and brush it; but this Dick parts his in the middle, and sleeks the long
locks back, keeping them smooth as a surface of yellowish satin, with
bear's grease or lard, or some appalling, perfumed compound. His look is
a mixture of laziness and impudence, and half his sentences he ends up
with "What?" or even "What-what?" His way with women is slightly
condescending, and takes their approval for granted. There's no youthful
shyness about him, and what he wants he expects to get; but with _me_ he
puts on an irritating, though, I fear, conscientious air of deference
that relegates me to the background of an older generation; sets me on a
pedestal there, perhaps; but I have no wish for a pedestal.
Still, to do him justice, the lad is neither ill-looking nor
ill-mannered. Indeed, women may consider him engaging. His aunt seems
devoted to him, and says he is irresistible to girls. I think if no
"greenery yallery" haze floated before my eyes, I might see that he is
rather a decent boy, extremely well-groomed, alert, with good, short
features and bright eyes. When he walks with Ellaline he has no more
than an inch the advantage of her in height, but he has a well-knit
figure and a "Sandhurst bearing."
"Crabbed age and youth cannot live together."
Am I crabbed age?
Well, this long digression ought to bring me on as far as Winchester,
where we came yesterday afternoon, late. We should have been earlier
(though our start was delayed by our guests' preparations), but Ellaline
was fascinated by the pretty village of Twyford. You remember it? She'd
been reading it up in a guide-book, and would stop for a look at the
place where the Fair Fitzherbert was said to have been married to her
handsome prince, later George IV. I can't recall hearing that story,
though certainly Mrs. Fitzherbert's relations lived near; but I knew
Pope was sent down from school there because of a satire he wrote on the
master, and that Franklin visited and wrote in Twyford.
It was after four when I turned the car round that sharp corner which
swings you into the Market Square of what is to me the grandest and most
historic town of England. Why, it _is_ England! Didn't the Romans get
their Venta Belgarum, which finally developed into Winta-ceaster and
Winchester, from the far older Celtic name for an important citadel?
Wasn't there a Christian church before the days of Arthur, my alleged
ancestor? Wasn't the cathedral begun by the father of Ælfred on the
foundations of that poor church as well as those of a Roman temple?
Wasn't it here that the name of Anglia--England--was bestowed on the
United Kingdoms, and wasn't it from Winchester that Ælfred sent out the
laws that made him and England "Great"?
Ellaline delights in the fact that the said Roman temple was Apollo's,
as well as Concord's, she having named my car Apollo, and the Sun God
being her favourite mythological deity at the moment. Apropos of
mythology, by the way, she was rather amusing this morning on the
subject of Icarus, who, she contends, was the pioneer of sporting
travel. If he didn't have "tire trouble," said she, he had the nearest
equivalent when his wax wings melted.
I should have enjoyed playing cicerone in Winchester, knowing and loving
the place as I do, if it hadn't been for Dick Burden's air of thinking
such knowledge as mine quite the musty-fusty luggage of the old fogy.
There's no use pretending it didn't rub me up the wrong way!
Yesterday after arriving, Emily clamoured for tea, so we attempted no
further sightseeing, but drove straight to this delightful old hotel,
which was once a nunnery, and has still the nunnery garden, loved by the
more enterprising of cathedral rooks. Or are they the nuns come back in
disguise? This, you'll guess, is Ellaline's idea.
On the way here, however, there was the beautiful City Cross in the High
Street. It would have been a disgrace not to stop for a look at it, even
though we could return; and Ellaline was most enthusiastic. She doesn't
know much about these things (how could she)? but she feels by instinct
the beauty of all that is really fine; whereas Mrs. Senter, though maybe
better instructed, is more _blasée_. Indeed, though she admires the
right things, she is essentially the modern woman, whose interest is all
in the present and future. I can't imagine her reading history for the
sheer joy of it, as the child would and evidently has. Mrs. Senter would
prefer a French novel; but it would have to be well written. She would
accept no trash. She has an elastic mind, I must say, and appeared
satisfactorily shocked when I told her how the Cross would have been
chopped up by Paving Commissioners in the eighteenth century if the
people hadn't howled for its salvation.
The same sort of fellows did dump Ælfred and his queen out of their
comfortable stone coffins, you know, to use the stone. Brutes! What was
St. Swithin thinking of to let them do it? A mercy it didn't occur to
some commission to take down Stonehenge. They could have made a lot of
streets with that.
In the Market Place, too, there was the ancient Fair of Winchester to
think of, the fair that had no rival except Beaucaire; and I had been
telling them all, on the way into the town, how the woods round the city
used to swarm with robbers, hoping to plunder the rich merchants from
far countries. Altogether, I fancy even Dick was somewhat impressed by
the ancient as well as modern importance of Winchester by the time we
drove to the hotel.