A PAPER-CHASE
Long afterwards it seemed to Ted Urquhart as if for many summer days
he lived at Urquhart's Court two distinct and separate lives.
The Ted Urquhart of one life made himself interestedly busy about his
estate. He listened patiently enough to the conversation of his
Uncle on cyphers, ancient parish registers, and the Impossibility of
War between civilised nations then of that present date (of June,
Nineteen Fourteen). He took his _fiancée_ out in the car, to pay a
round of calls, as an engaged couple should, upon people in the
neighbourhood who "had always known the Urquharts" (and a deadly bar
to conversation he found it). He suggested to Eleanor that, as an
antidote, he and she might do another round, of London theatres,
music-halls, Opera.
"Oh, that's very kind of you, Ted," he was told, "but I'm afraid I
couldn't possibly spare the time."
"Not even for a few evenings and afternoons?"
"Oh, I'm afraid not."
(What a _fiancée_! What an engagement! All this _must_ be altered!)
"I think, then," he said, "that I shall go up alone for a couple of
days."
He did so. He looked up and haled forth to dinners and lunches such
old schoolfellows of his as he could find. He beheld a youth who had
been his fag make a century at Lord's. He took pilgrimages into the
dullest suburbs to visit the faded, patient women-folk of some of his
mates whom he had left, bronzed and keen and jolly and disreputable,
at the South American Camp. He gave "the latest news" (publishable)
of these young men, and received worshipping hospitality in return.
He asked other men down to The Court for lazy days. He persuaded
himself, quite often, that he was having a very good time at home.
This was the first of his two lives.
But in his second life he was far more occupied. Those other surface
things were trifling compared to what he was really doing. He was
for ever keeping a look-out for that girl of his; not Miss Fayre, who
was engaged to that other fellow, nor the Eleanor he saw, up to her
eyes in good works he could not follow; but that new Eleanor of the
letters.
It exasperated him to find how skilfully she managed to keep herself
hidden away!
His _fiancée_ was always the same to him; matter-of-fact, dutifully
pleasant.
He ransacked his brains for some opportunity to bring up the subject
of those letters. Stupid--her own letters! How could he say to
Eleanor, "I say, do you know what you wrote--?"
It couldn't be supposed that the girl didn't know what she'd written
herself, could it? Yet it looked very like it!
In fact, young Urquhart was beginning to wonder whether he hadn't
imagined the whole thing, when something happened to set him off on
the trail again, keener and more curious than ever.
He received another of those belated letters from his _fiancée_.
The post arrived while they were at breakfast, which Miss Urquhart
"liked early." Her father breakfasted an hour later in his room. So
the young owner of The Court sat at the oval table, bright with the
glitter of morning sunshine on Mr. Beeton's wonderful silver and Mr.
Marrow's freshest sweet-peas, opposite to his _fiancée_ and to the
right of his _fiancée's_ secretary. As usual, Eleanor's plate was
snowed under with correspondence; begging letters, circulars,
estimates. As it happened, he and Miss Fayre had only one letter
apiece that morning. (He didn't allow himself to wonder who hers was
from.) He tore open his travelled-looking envelope and began to read.
The crisp bacon on his plate was allowed to grow cold as he read.
For it was a long letter. More, it was an interesting letter. That
is, it possessed the factor which renders any letter, any
conversation interesting to a young man.
Namely, _it was all about himself_.
Yes! For the first time, his _fiancée's_ weekly letter held direct
questions about _his_ work, _his_ life out there, _his_ thoughts.
These were interspersed, certainly, with more familiar phrases about
the weather for the time of year and the people who had been to call.
But this was the smooth surface; underneath was the unmistakable
bubbling of curiosity. Those questions kept cropping up. They made
him feel that a girl in Kent was saying to an unknown young man in
South America, "I _will_ know you! I _will_ find out what sort of a
creature you are!" It was just as he himself was grimly determined
to find out "what sort of a creature" this Eleanor of his really was
under all her reserves and preoccupations and fussinesses.
One paragraph at the end mentioned a name now familiar to Ted. But
it mentioned it in such an unfamiliar spirit!
"A very clever Collegy sort of woman was here to lunch; a Miss
Fabian, who had a tremendous argument with father. She said she was
sure that the Antagonism of Sex was far stronger to-day--though
perhaps more hidden--than its usual attraction. She said that the
'hideous handicap' of being a woman was removed. I _wondered_."
The girl who wrote that had surely never found that being a woman was
any handicap? It sounded as if she had been demurely revelling in
its glorious advantage, thought the young man.
He lifted his head to give a long and very direct look above the
table at Eleanor. Absently she put out the hand that wore his ring.
The other held a sheaf of papers. She said, vaguely in his
direction, "Some more coffee?"
"Thanks, I've still got some," he said resignedly.
He re-read the end of the letter that was so uncharacteristic.
"Wishing that I could see exactly where you would be and what you
would be doing and looking like when you get this
from
ELEANOR."
Well! Here he was, and she could see for herself, exactly, if she
took the trouble to look across the table at him!
But no; there _she_ was, deep in her blessed circulars! Absorbed in
anything that had nothing to do with the man she had arranged to
marry! Or was she merely pretending to be absorbed? Which?
Ted Urquhart determined to spring a mine upon her there and then. Up
to then he hadn't said a word to his _fiancée_ about these letters
forwarded on. He was keeping that for a convenient and useful
occasion. This, he thought, was the occasion.
He made a little rustling with the thin sheet in his bronzed hand,
then sat back and looked straight at her again. Then he said,
perhaps a trifle more loudly and emphatically than he usually spoke,
"Well, Eleanor!--I have to thank you for a rather specially nice
letter."
Eleanor looked up from her circulars behind the French, glass-globed
coffee-machine.
"Letter?"' she echoed, puzzled. "I haven't written you any letter,
Ted."
"Not lately, I know," said Ted Urquhart blandly. "This one"--he
folded it into its envelope and laid it on the table beside him
almost with the movement of a man who is playing a card in some
game--"this one must have reached the Camp after I'd left. One of
those fellows forwarded it on here from South America. It's weeks
old now. I'm glad I got it back safely, though."
He was watching Eleanor, hard, as he spoke.
It never occurred to him to watch the tall, golden-haired
secretary-girl who made the third at this bright breakfast-party of
young people.
But if at this moment he had happened to look at her, he would have
seen quite a startling change come over the attractive face of Miss
Rosamond Fayre.
It was gone as quickly as it came. The next moment she was
apparently deep in the one letter that had come for her. But in
reality she was keenly on the alert. A sudden fright had taken her.
For what the secretary-girl was thinking was----
"Now! I see what's happened! Eleanor's dear Ted has just got _one
of the letters that I wrote to him, for her!_ And he suspects
something! He knows that Eleanor never wrote it! He knows! She's
caught--that is, _we're_ caught! Oh----"
She would have given her month's salary to know even which one of
those proxy-letters it was. If only Eleanor's dear Ted would (but of
course he wouldn't) give some hint now about which phrase it was that
he found so "specially nice!"
With perfect outward composure Miss Fayre helped herself to a piece
of toast and began to butter it.
Anyhow, he had said he was "glad he'd got it," That ought to apply to
any letter from one's _fiancée_, though.
The question was, did Eleanor realise what had just happened? No!
She didn't seem to, thought Eleanor's secretary, with her eyes fixed
on her own share of the morning's post. It was nothing much (a mere
note about some alterations to be made in Miss Fayre's costume by
that obscure but clever little dressmaker who had created that still
unworn pink frock), but Miss Fayre studied the sheet as if it came
from a declared lover, whilst her ears were pricked up to catch what
Eleanor was going to say next.
Eleanor said casually, "Ah, one of my letters come back again? How
quick that seems!"
The next moment Rosamond's trepidation over this proxy-letter affair
had become absolute panic. For she'd heard Mr. Ted Urquhart's quiet
reply:
"Oh, I've had more than one."
He'd had more than one? thought the quailing Rosamond. Then it
didn't matter which of them he'd got this morning. He'd guessed
something. He'd received letters here, from Eleanor, and this
apparently was the first time that he mentioned them. Of course that
meant that he suspected something about them!
Rosamond Fayre's blue eyes stole up, from her dressmaker's note, to
the every-coloured bank of sweet-peas and above it, for one quick
covert glance at the brown face of the young man.
Absolutely exasperatingly calm; inscrutable. A sort of irritatingly
good-looking male Sphinx.
"Looking just as he did that afternoon at the Hostel when nothing on
earth would induce him to give away his name," thought Rosamond
resentfully. "He's not the sort of young man who will give anything
away, ever, until he chooses!"
And the thought of the Hostel brought another; a thought of terror.
Yes; to complete her own rout there broke over her the overwhelming
recollection of the last letter that she had written to the address
of "E. Urquhart, Esqr." That letter she'd handed through the Hostel
window for E. Urquhart, Esqre., to post to himself, just after she'd
refused to come out to tea with him. H'm! He thought this morning's
letter was "rather specially nice," did he? _What would he think of
that Hostel one?_ Heavens! That letter would be enough to blow the
three of them, breakfast-table and all, through the ceiling as a bomb
would have blown them!
_That_ letter was on its way to Urquhart's Court, to complicate
matters, even worse....
And matters were quite complicated enough as they stood. That
probably suspecting young man was the master of the situation,
thought Rosamond ruefully. She and Eleanor were something like
fellow-conspirators.
It wasn't her--Rosamond's--fault! She'd jibbed; she'd said what she
could! She'd done it under protest, to save her post. Still, she
had helped his _fiancée_ to play what now suddenly seemed like a very
shabby trick on the young man!
And when that trick all came out, as it might?
Well, it might conceivably mean that Miss Urquhart's highly
convenient engagement would be broken off, and that Miss Fayre's
quite desirable post would be lost after all!
But this state of affairs didn't seem to dawn upon the other girl.
Obviously, Rosamond must have a talk over the whole thing, now, as
soon as possible, with Eleanor.