IN LEVALLION’S HOUSE.
“What shall I do?” said Lady Levallion to herself. “What shall I do?”
She stood on the grass and watched them carry Adrian into her house,
making not the slightest attempt to follow. The sun dropped below the
ledge of the rose-garden, and as its rim disappeared a chill crept to
her bones. In a minute the servants would be back to take in the tea
things, the wicker chair that fate had stuck in Adrian’s way. They must
not find her here standing motionless. And she had nowhere to go that
she might be alone. There was no room in all Levallion Castle where she
could lock her door without question and fight down the bewildered pain
that was making her sick. Her maid would be in her bedroom, Levallion
would come, as usual, to her dressing-room when his toilet was finished
and hers all but done. Truly Ravenel Annesley had been freer than
Ravenel Levallion, for she had dared to lock her door and cry.
She had not been as brave, though! Lady Levallion set her teeth and
walked slowly into the house and up-stairs to her goggle-eyed maid. The
romantic return of his lordship’s cousin had set every servant in the
house agog, but her ladyship looked so listless that her maid dared not
speak till she was spoken to, which was some time, for Lady Levallion
went straight to her dressing-table and stood staring at herself in the
glass.
Her face looked strange, vacant. It was not so she had dreamed she
should look when Adrian rose from the dead; not so she would dare look
when Levallion came in. She turned with despairing courage to make a
toilet that should cover her changed looks, and saw a pale-lilac gown
laid out on her bed.
“Oh, not that!” she said--and naturally, to her eternal credit, for
she could have screamed so like was the thing to that long-gone Sunday
frock--“I’m too tired and pale. Get me something else--pink! There’s a
pink thing somewhere.”
As she bathed her face in scented water she hid her drawn mouth in the
sponge, for one blessed instant let it work as it would. Oh, lucky,
lucky Nel Annesley, who had only cold water to wash in, and could
let her eyes swell if she liked! But when Lady Levallion laid down
her damask towel and stood to be dressed in a loose dinner-gown of
pale-rose crêpe de chine she was far more lowly than even that far-away
girl had been. If her eyes were somber it was only natural when she had
seen a man drop like death at her feet. At Levallion’s knock her cheeks
blazed suddenly.
“Well?” she said, as he entered and her maid discreetly vanished. She
wondered if Adrian were going to die, or if--and she almost laughed out
hysterically--he were coming down to dine with her and Levallion. What
a cheerful dinner-party he and she and Levallion!
“I put him to bed. He’s only just come to.” He sank down into a chair
as if he were tired and lit a cigarette.
“Poor devil. I feel sorry for him! He wasn’t fit to travel in the first
place, and it must have been a shock to him--coming here!”
“Why?” She was almost inarticulate. Did he know? Had Adrian told? Oh,
of course, not. No man is likely to tell another that he has behaved
like a villain to that other’s wife. “How do you mean?” and she sat
down opposite Levallion in the full light of a rose-colored lamp. She
was not afraid, no one should ever say she had been afraid. If it would
serve any purpose she would tell Levallion everything now! And with a
sudden tightening at her heart-strings knew she could not betray Adrian
Gordon in Levallion’s house.
“Well,” observed his lordship dryly, “it would have been a shock to
most men to come home thinking themselves sure heir to eighty thousand
pounds a year and find out--it seems he didn’t know I was married!”
hastily, and leaving his sentence unfinished at the scarlet on his
wife’s face.
“You very absurd person,” he said, with the impassive manner she knew
meant tenderness, “don’t look so appalled. He may come in for it yet.”
But it was not a girl’s shyness that had flamed out in her face, but
hot shame for Adrian, who had said he was too poor to make her an
offer openly. She moved restlessly. How long was he to stay under her
roof?--that should have been his.
“He looked very ill,” she said.
“Men do with a splintered bone in their arm, and fever,” Levallion
returned, rather dryly.
“He can’t be moved for some time, I fancy. You will have to do the Good
Samaritan, Ravenel, and cheer him back to life.”
“I hate sick people!” cried Ravenel hastily, and grew red again at her
lie. “Yes I do, Levallion. Don’t ever dare to get ill.”
“Well, there’ll be ‘dearth of women’s nursing and lack of women’s
tears’ then!” dryly. “I can’t say I ever saw any great restorative in
the latter, except, perhaps to the woman,” throwing his cigarette into
the grate. He had always known she was hard. Why did it come on him now
like a dash of cold water?
“God knows I’m hard enough myself!” he thought, as he made his way to
his own dressing-room. “But she did not seem to have any pity for the
poor devil.”
It was odd sorrow he felt himself for Adrian, who had been so
incoherently anxious to get back to town and not be a nuisance. Lord
Levallion was rather ashamed of his own weakness; it would have pleased
him to have had his wife fuss pityingly over his ousted heir and let
him take refuge in cynical comments.
“Though he mayn’t be so ousted after all.” He did a little cynical
remark on his own account. “I may be rejoiced with squalling brats.”
But something dark came into his face as if a past folly had suddenly
crept from its grave and faced him.
“It is better to strike into a new life and go to dinner,” said Lord
Levallion aloud, to the bewilderment of his servant.
He made an excellent dinner certainly, for he had a new French cook,
who had disdained to stay with royalty on account of being limited in
butlers. Lord Levallion was tired, as well as worried about his guest
up-stairs, and the Frenchman’s cooking appealed to him; which was more
than it did to his wife.
For at the fish the doctor was ushered into the dining-room. She had
not known Levallion thought Adrian bad enough to need a doctor. She
shook hands mechanically with the good-looking, clear-eyed man whom
Levallion introduced as Doctor Houghton, and mechanically motioned the
butler to set a chair for him.
“I’m afraid you will have a hospital on your hands, Lady Levallion.”
Doctor Houghton was looking at her with real pleasure in her wonderful
beauty that was anything but girlish to-night. “There is trouble in
that arm.”
“And likely to be,” interrupted Levallion, “and you are going to send
over a nurse, two nurses if you like, for he’ll stay here till he is
well. Eh, Ravenel?”
Lady Levallion crushed her hands together under the table.
“Oh, of course!” she said. And she felt as if fate must be standing
behind her laughing at Adrian Gordon’s unavailing efforts to get rid of
her.
“Have some of this, Houghton?” said Levallion, as she refused a dish.
“My wife is delightfully honest--and hard-hearted. She does not like
made dishes, or people when they’re ill.”
“One will lead to the other with you,” Ravenel returned calmly, and
laughed, for she had seen Houghton’s quick glance at her averted face,
and she felt as if he could read there all that Levallion could not of
her horror at this guest, who might be dying under her roof.
But Doctor Houghton was looking now at his plate, just as if he had not
seen her dilated pupils, her hard, set mouth.
“It’s very good, but it tastes almost too much of almonds!” he observed
frankly. “What is it?”
“Only chicken, done with almonds and chestnuts. I’ve a new cook, who
can manage almonds. I shall have something made of them every day.”
“Which will probably send you to your grave!” laughing. “But I
congratulate you on the artist. By the way, Lord Levallion, if you
could keep me to-night, I should like to stay with Captain Gordon.”
“We would be infinitely relieved if you would.” (How Sylvia would have
marveled at the kindly voice, the glance without mockery!)
Both made Ravenel feel an unutterable sneak.
Why had she never told Levallion all about Adrian?
It would have been better than this. To sleep, to live, to eat with him
in her house, and to be a stranger to him; hating him in one breath,
loving in the next, false either way to the bread she ate.
“What was that?” she said feverishly, longing for the time when she
could leave the room. “I heard the bell ring.”
The dining-room was close to the hall door, its own door open; and a
dull murmur of voices came from outside. Levallion half-rose--and sat
down again. The thing in his thoughts was idiotic, impossible.
“It’s late for a visitor, but you can do anything in the country!” he
remarked cheerfully. “What was that, Masters?” for the hall door had
shut and no one had come in.
“A lady, my lord. Come to inquire for Captain Gordon.”
“A lady!” he looked utterly taken aback--for Lord Levallion. “Who was
it?”
“I couldn’t say, my lord.” (Every servant in the house but Levallion’s
valet was new, perhaps with reason.) “She was walking.”
“Well, we live and learn!” said Levallion piously, as the servants for
the moment disappeared. “And I, who thought my young friend had nearly
killed himself to come and see me!” he had had time to go over the list
of his country neighbors, and knew Adrian had come to see none of them,
even as he spoke. She must have come down with him.
Doctor Houghton glanced quite purposely at his hostess and looked away
with haste, for the Lady Levallion sat white and speechless. It was not
enough for Adrian to come and confront her brazenly, but he must needs
bring a woman down with him--the woman probably of the gold-wire ring.
“She knows who it was!” Houghton reflected swiftly, and then felt sorry
for her.
“Most romantic!” Levallion broke the silence with a lazy laugh. “They
say ‘he travels the fastest who travels alone,’ but in my experience,
company adds to the pace. I hope the lady’s anxiety will not keep her
awake.”
And, clever as he undeniably was, it never occurred to Houghton that
where Lady Levallion was angry by guesswork, Lord Levallion was in a
black rage, born of certain knowledge.
“Though I can’t understand what she has to do with that young fool
upstairs!” he reflected grimly, as Houghton returned to the invalid.
“Nor why she came. But I may find out!”