And it seemed evident too in what direction the current of her life was setting. With a smile for this and a sigh for that, and a wrinkle of the brow over this-and-that, she went back to the drawing-room and gave old Sarradet his gin-and-water.
"So here you are—at Hilsey at last!" said Bernadette.
"Yes, and, I say, what a jolly old place it is!" He paused for a moment. "I very nearly didn't come at all, though."
She looked at him in amused surprise. "What was the counter-attraction?"
"I had a job. Consequently it became wildly possible that I might get another."
"Oh, is that all? I hoped it was something interesting and romantic."
"It is interesting—though I suppose it's not romantic." In fact it had possessed for him some of the qualities implied by that hard-worked word. "But my clerk can wire me if anything turns up." He laughed at himself. "Nothing will, you know, but it flatters my pride to think it might."
"It won't flatter my pride if you run away from us again." She rose. "Get your hat and I'll show you round a bit. The others are all out, doing something."
"Who's here?"
"Only the Norton Wards and Sir Christopher. Sir Oliver's been here, but he had to go up on some business. He's coming back in a few days. The others are here just for the week-end."
"But I'm here for a month! Isn't that glorious?"
"Well, you know, something may happen——"
"Oh, no, I shan't be sent for. I'm sure I shan't. Anyhow I could come back, couldn't I?"
"Yes, if you wanted to. The house would always be at your disposal, Cousin Arthur." Her smile was mocking, but she laid her hand on his arm with the old suggestion of a caress, adding, "Let's get out and enjoy it, while we can, anyhow."
Bernadette looked a little pale and seemed rather tired—"run down after the season," she had explained to Esther Norton Ward when that lady commented on her appearance—but Arthur was too joyfully excited, by meeting her again and by his first view of Hilsey, to notice fine shades. It was true that he had suffered a momentary hesitation about coming—a passing spasm of conscience or ambition induced by the great case ofTiddes v. the Universal Omnibus Company, Ltd.—but that was all over with the sight of Bernadette and of his stock's ancestral home. To see her there was to see the jewel in its proper setting, or (to adopt Joe Halliday's hyperbole) the angel in her own paradise. As they stepped out on the lawn in front of the old house, he exclaimed, "It's beautiful, and it fits you just perfectly! You were made for one another!"
She pursed up her lips for a minute, and then laughed. "Drink it in!" she said, jeering at his enthusiasm, and perhaps at something else; the idea of an innate harmony between herself and her husband's house seemed, to say the least, far-fetched.
Whatever might be the case as to its mistress, Hilsey deserved his praises. An old manor house, not very large, but perfect in design and unimpaired by time or change, it stood surrounded by broad lawns, bordered on the south side (towards which the principal rooms faced) by a quick-running river. The pride of the garden lay in the roses and the cedar trees; amongst all the wealth of beauty these first caught the eye. Within the house, the old oak was rich in carving; the arms of the Lisles and of their brides, escutcheons and mottoes, linked past and present in an unbroken continuity. Grave gentlemen, and beauties, prim or provocative, looked down from the panels. As he saw the staid and time-laden perfection, the enshrined history, the form and presentment of his ancestors, a novel feeling came to birth in Arthur Lisle, a sense of family, of his own inalienable share in all this though he owned none of it, of its claim on him. Henceforth, wherever he dwelt, he would know this, in some way, for his true home. He confessed to his feelings laughingly: "Now I understand what it is to be a Lisle of Hilsey!"
"Imperishable glory!" But she was rather touched. "I know. I think I felt it too when Godfrey brought me here first. It is—awfully charming."
"I don't care for show-places as a rule. They expect too much of you. But this doesn't. It's just—well, appealing and insinuating, isn't it?"
"It's very genteel."
"Oh yes, it's unquestionably very genteel too!" he laughed.
The incomparable home and the incomparable cousin—his mind wedded them at once.
"It was a stroke of genius that made Godfrey choose you to—to reign here!"
Her smile was the least trifle wry now. What imp of perversity made the boy say all the things which were not, at this moment, very appropriate?
"Reigns are short—and rhapsodies seem likely to be rather long, Arthur. I think I'll go and write a letter, and leave you to simmer down a bit."
"Oh, I'm an ass, I know, but——"
"Yes, and not only about the house!" She turned to leave him, with a wave of her hand. "You'll get over all of it some day."
He watched her slender white-frocked figure as she walked across the lawn and into the porch. From there she looked back, waving her hand again; he pictured, though he could not at the distance see, the affectionate mocking little smile with which she was wont to meet his accesses of extravagant admiration, disclaiming what she accepted, ridiculing what she let him see was welcome. His memory took an enduring portrait of her there in the doorway of her home.
His heart was gay as he wandered about, "drinking it in," as Bernadette had bidden him. The sojourn before him seemed an eternity full of delight. The future beyond that month was indeed charged with interest; was there not the great farce, was there not now the strange fact of Messrs. Wills and Mayne, with whose aid imagination could play almost any trick it pleased? Still these things admitted of postponement. Arthur postponed them thoroughly, to fling himself into the flood of present happiness.
His roving steps soon brought him to the banks of the stream; he had been promised fishing there and was eager to make an inspection. But he was to make an acquaintance instead. On a bench by the water a little girl sat all by herself, nursing a doll without a head, and looking across the river with solemn steady eyes. Directly Arthur saw her face he knew her for Margaret, sole daughter of the house.
Hearing his step, the child turned towards him with a rather apprehensive look, and hastily hid the headless doll behind her back. She reminded him of her father so strongly that he smiled; there was the same shy embarrassment; the profile too was a whimsical miniature of Godfrey's, and her hair was the colour of his—it hung very straight, without curls, without life or riot in it.
"You're Margaret, aren't you?" he asked, sitting down by her. She nodded. "I'm Cousin Arthur."
"Oh yes, I knew you were coming."
"Why have you put dolly behind your back?"
"I thought you mightn't like her. Mummy says she's so ugly."
"Oh, bring her out. Let's have a look at her! How did she lose her head?"
"Patsy bit it off and ate it—at least she ate the face. It made her sick."
"Who's Patsy?" He was glad that Margaret had now put the doll back in her lap; he took that for a mark of confidence. "Is she your dog?"
"No, she's Judith's; but she lives here always and Judith doesn't. I wish Judith did."
"What's dolly's name?"
"Judith."
"I see you like Judith very much, don't you? The real Judith—as well as dolly?"
"Yes, very much. Don't you?"
"Yes, very much." And then the conversation languished. Arthur was only moderately apt with children, and Margaret's words had come slowly and with an appearance of consideration; she did not at all suggest a chatterbox. But presently she gave him a look of timid enquiry, and remarked in a deprecating way "I expect you don't like guinea-pigs. Most people don't. But if you did, I could show you mine. Only if you're sure you like guinea-pigs!"
Arthur laughed outright. For all the world, it was like the way Godfrey had invited him down to Hilsey! The same depreciation of what was offered, the same anxiety not to force an unwilling acceptance!
"Guinea-pigs! I just love them!" he exclaimed with all possible emphasis.
"Oh, well then!" said Margaret, almost resignedly, with a sort of "Your blood be on your own head" manner, as she jumped down and put her free hand into his; the other held tight hold of the headless doll. "In the kitchen-garden!"
Over the guinea-pigs he made a little progress in her good graces. She did not come out to meet a stranger with the fascinating trustfulness of some children; she had none of that confidence that she would be liked which makes liking almost inevitable. She was not pretty, though she was refined. But somehow she made an appeal to Arthur, to his chivalry—just as her father did to his generosity. Perhaps she too had not many friends, and did not hope for new ones.
When the guinea-pigs gave out, she made him no more offers and risked no more invitations. In a grave silence she led him back from the kitchen-garden to the lawn. He was silent too, and grave, except for twitching lips. He saw that she could not be "rushed" into intimacy—it would never do to toss her up in the air and catch her, for instance—but he felt that their first meeting had been a success.
A voice called from within a door adjacent to him: "Margaret, your tea's ready." The child slipped her hand out of his and ran in without a word. A minute passed, Arthur standing where he was, looking at the old house. Judith came out and greeted him.
"You've made an impression on Margaret," she told him, smiling. "She said to me, 'I've shown Cousin Arthur my guinea-pigs, and Ithinkhe's going to be nice.'"
"Guarded! At any rate, in the way you emphasise it."
"It's a lot from her, though, on so short an acquaintance."
He liked the look of Judith in country kit; she was dressed for exercise and conveyed an agreeable suggestion of fresh air and energy. "I'm all by myself; take me for a bit of a walk or something."
"All right. We've time for a stroll before tea—it's always late." She set off towards a little bridge which crossed the river and led to a path through the meadows towards a fir wood on rising ground beyond.
"How like the child is to Godfrey! I suppose they're very devoted to one another?"
"Well, I think they are, really. But they rather need an intermediary, all the same—somebody to tell Margaret that her father wants her, andvice versa. My function, Arthur—among others which you may have observed that I fulfil in the course of your study of the household."
He laughed. "I don't think I have studied it. What is there to study?"
"There's a good deal to study in every household, I expect." They had scaled the hill and stood on the edge of the wood. "There's a pretty view of the house from here," she said, turning round.
"By Jove, how jolly and—and peaceful, don't you know?—it all looks!"
Her eyes turned from the view to the young man's face. She smiled, a little in scorn, more in pity. Because he really seemed to identify the features of the landscape with the household at Hilsey Manor—a most pathetic fallacy! But he had always been blind, strangely blind, dazzled by the blaze of his adoration. Yet she liked him for his blindness, and conceived it no business of hers to open his eyes. Though they were opened to a full glare of knowledge and sorrow, how would that help?
To her own eyes there rested now a dark shadow over the house, a cloud that might burst in storm. She felt a whimsical despair about her companion. How he soared in a heaven of his own making, with an angel of his own manufacture! With what a thud he would come to earth, and how the angel would moult her wings, if a certain thing happened! Oh, what a fool he was—yet attractive in his folly! For the sake of woman, she could almost love him for the love he bore his Bernadette—who was not, by a long way, the real one.
"I'm rather glad Wyse isn't going to be here for a bit yet," said Arthur thoughtfully. "We shall be jollier by ourselves."
Queer that he should put a name so pat to the shadow which he could not see!
"I like him all right, but he'd be rather in the way, wouldn't he?"
Of a surety he was in the way—right plump in the middle of it! There was sore doubt whether the family coach could get by without a spill.
"Well, when he comes back, you mustn't expect to monopolise Bernadette."
"I don't think I ever try to do that, do I?" he asked quickly, flushing a little. "I mean, I don't set up to—well, I don't make a bore of myself, do I?"
"Goodness, no! I suppose I meant that you mustn't mind if Sir Oliver monopolises her rather."
"Oh, but I shall mind that!" cried Arthur in dismay. Then he laughed. "But I'm hanged if he shall do it! I'll put up a fight. What happened when he was here before?"
"Well, he's her friend, you see, not mine or Godfrey's. So, naturally, I suppose——"
"What did they do together?"
"Motored mostly."
"That'd mean she'd be out half the day!"
"Yes. All day sometimes."
By now they were strolling back. Arthur's spirits had fallen somewhat; this man Wyse might be a considerable bore! But then, when he was there before, there had been nobody else—no other man except Godfrey, and no other guest except Judith, who was almost one of the family. He would not find things quite the same when he came back, thought Arthur in his heart, sublimely sure that Bernadette would not ill-use him. On this reflection his spirits rose again, now spiced with combativeness. He would hold his own.
"How did he and Godfrey hit it off?"
"Oh, Godfrey just retired—you know his way."
"Into his shell? Doesn't he like Sir Oliver?"
"Does he like anybody—except me and you?" she asked, smiling ruefully. "And I think that perhaps he likes Sir Oliver rather less than most people. But it's not easy to tell what he feels."
As a fact she had been much puzzled to know what Godfrey had been thinking of late. He had said nothing to her; she would readily swear that he had said nothing to Bernadette. He had been just a little more silent, more invisible, more solitary than usual. Of what was in his mind she knew really nothing. The pall of his passivity hid it all from her sight.
It seemed to her that his passivity did more than hide him—that it must also to a great extent put him out of action, render him negligible, neutralise him, if and when it came to a fight. As an institution, as a condition, as a necessary part of a certain state of things—in fine, as being Mr. Lisle of Hilsey—he would no doubt, of necessity, receive attention. In that aspect he meant and represented much—a whole position, a whole environment, a whole life. Church and state, home and society—Godfrey the Institution touched them all. But Godfrey the man, the individual man—what consideration, what recognition could he expect if he thus effaced himself? If he put forward no claim, none would be admitted. If he made a nonentity of himself, he would be counted for naught. It might be urged that such had been the position for years, and that, with all its drawbacks, it had worked. The argument was futile now. A new and positive weight in the other scale upset the balance.
"Well, do you like Sir Oliver yourself?" asked Arthur, after some moments of silence.
She paused before answering. "Yes, I do," she said in the end. "At any rate I rather admire him. There's a sort of force about him. And—yes—I do like him too. You could trust him, I think." Then it seemed to herself that this was an odd thing which had come to her lips—under existing circumstances. It was in explanation to herself, rather than for Arthur's information, that she added, "I mean that, if he undertook anything towards you, he'd carry it out; you might rely on him."
"I don't want him to undertake anything towards me," said Arthur loftily.
"Oh, the people outside those limits must shift for themselves—I think that would be entirely Sir Oliver's view. But I'm not sure it's a wrong one, are you?" It was still with her own thoughts that she was busy. She could not quite understand why she was not more angry with Oliver Wyse. She had no doubt by now of what he wanted. Surely it ought to make her angry? She was pre-eminently Godfrey's friend—his kinswoman, not Bernadette's. She ought to be terribly angry. Even apart from moral considerations, family solidarity and friendly sympathy united to condemn the trespasser. She was loth to confess it to herself, but at the bottom of her heart she doubted if she were angry at all with Oliver Wyse. It was all so natural in him; you might almost say that he was invited. Bernadette and Godfrey between them had set up a situation that invited the intervention of a strong man who knew what he wanted. Could the one complain with justice of being tempted, or the other of being wronged? To the friend and kinswoman her own impartial mind put these searching questions.
"It's a view that I quite cheerfully accept as between Oliver Wyse and myself," said Arthur. There was a note of hostility in his voice, of readiness to accept a challenge. Then he realised that he was being absurd; he had the grace often to recognise that. He smiled as he added, "But, after all, he's done me no harm yet, has he?"
The shadow hung over the house—aye, over his own head—but he did not see it.
Norton Ward on a country visit gave the impression of a locomotive engine in a siding. His repose was so obviously temporary and at the mercy of any signal. He was not moving, but his thoughts were all of movement—of his own moves, of other people's, of his counter-moves; or of his party's moves, and the other party's counter-moves. He could not at the moment be moulding and shaping his life; but, like a sculptor, he was contemplating the clay in the intervals of actual work, and planning all that he would do, so soon as he could get at it again. Even in hours of idleness he was brimful of a restless energy which, denied action for the moment, found its outlet in discussing, planning, speculating, making maps of lives, careers, and policies.
"You bring London down with you in your portmanteau, Frank!" Sir Christopher expostulated. "We might be in the Lobby instead of under the trees here on a fine Sunday morning."
The old Judge lay back in a long chair. He was looking tired, delicate, and frail, his skin pale and waxy; his hands were very thin. He had arrived cheerful but complaining of fatigue. The work of the Term had been hard; he was turned seventy, and must think of retiring—so he told his hostess.
"It's so different," he went on, "when it comes to looking back on it all, when it's all behind you. But, of course, men differ too. I never meant business to the extent you do. I've done pretty well; I won't cry down what is, after all, a fine position. It was thought rather a job, by the way, making me a judge, but I was popular and what's called a good fellow, and people swallowed the job without making a fuss. But work and what it brings have never been all the world to me. I've loved too many other things, and loved them too much."
"Oh, I know I'm a climber," laughed Norton Ward. "I can't help it. I try sometimes to get up an interest in some dilettante business or other, but I just can't! I'm an infernal Philistine; all that sort of thing seems just waste of time to me."
"Well then, to you it is waste of time," said his wife.
"We must follow our natures, no help for it. And that's what one seems to have done when one looks back. One gets a little doubtful about Free Will, looking back."
"Yes, sir, but it's awfully hard to know what your nature is," Arthur interposed. He was lying on the grass, pulling up blades of it and tying them in knots for an amusement.
"It works of itself, I think, without your knowing much about it—till, as I say, you can look back."
"But then it's too late to do anything about it!"
"Well, so it is, unless eternity is an eternity of education, as some people say—a prospect which one's lower nature is inclined to regard with some alarm."
"No amount of it will quite spoil you, Sir Christopher," Esther assured him with an affectionate smile.
"If this life can't educate a man, what can?" asked Norton Ward.
"The view traditionally ascribed to Providence—with a most distressing corollary!"
"I think, if a fellow's come a mucker, he ought to have another chance," said Arthur.
"That's what my criminals always tell me from the dock, Mr. Lisle."
"And what women say when they run away from their husbands," added Norton Ward with a laugh. "By the way, I was talking to Elphinstone the other day about the effect this Divorce Reform movement might have if either party really took it up in earnest, and he was inclined to——"
"Shall we hear Sir John Elphinstone's views on this beautiful morning?" asked the Judge.
Norton Ward laughed again—at himself. "Oh, I beg your pardon! But after all it is some time since we touched on anything of practical interest."
"If death and judgment aren't of practical interest, I'll be hanged if I know what is!"
"But neither of them exactly of immediate interest, Judge, we'll hope!"
"Well, what are you all talking about?" asked a voice from behind the group. Bernadette stood there, with parasol and prayer-book. She had been to church with Godfrey, Margaret, and Judith.
"Death and judgment, Bernadette," said Esther.
"Not very cheerful! You might as well have come to church, and dressed the family pew for us."
"Oh, but we were cheerful; we had just concluded that neither threatened any of us at present."
Bernadette took a seat among them, facing Arthur as he lay on the grass. She gave him a little nod of recognition; she was especially glad to find him there, it seemed to say. He smiled back at her, lazily happy, indolently enjoying the fair picture she presented.
"It's very artistic of you to go to church in the country, Bernadette," said the Judge. "It's so much the right thing. But you always do the right thing. In fact I rather expected you to go so far as to bring the parson back to lunch. That was the ritual in my early days."
"I don't overdo things, not even my duties," smiled Bernadette. She was looking very pretty, very serene, rather mischievous. None the less, the parasol and the prayer-book gave her an orthodox air; she was quite pronouncedly Mrs. Lisle of Hilsey, sitting on her own lawn. After attending to her religious duties and setting a good example, she was now entertaining her house-party.
"The others have gone for a walk before lunch, but it's much too hot for walking," she went on.
"Oh, but you promised to go for a walk with me this afternoon, you know," cried Arthur.
"We'll go and sit together somewhere instead, Arthur."
"We're warned off! That's pretty evident," laughed Norton Ward. "You shouldn't give her away before all of us, Arthur. If she does make assignations with you——"
"If she does make assignations, she keeps them—no matter who knows," said Bernadette. A little mocking smile hung persistently about her lips as she sat there, regarded by them all, the ornament of the group, the recipient of the flattery of their eyes.
"If she made one with me," said Sir Christopher, "I don't think I should be able to keep it to myself either. I should be carried away by pride, as no doubt Mr. Lisle is."
"Would you kiss and tell, Sir Christopher?" smiled Bernadette.
"Poets do—and such a kiss might make even me a poet."
"Evidently you'd better not risk it, Bernadette," laughed Arthur.
"Well, it hasn't been the usual effect of my kisses," Bernadette observed demurely.
The mischievous reference to her husband seemed obvious. It forced a smile from all of them; Esther added a reproving shake of her head.
"Perhaps it's as well, because I don't think I should like poets, not about the house, you know."
"Now tell us your ideal man, Bernadette," said the Judge.
"Oh, I'll tell each of you that in private!"
To Esther Norton Ward, who knew her well, there seemed something changed in her. She was as serene, as gay, as gracious as ever. But her manner had lost something of the absolute naturalness which had possessed so great a charm. She seemed more conscious that she exercised attraction, and more consciously to take pleasure—perhaps even a little pride—in doing it. She had never been a flirt, but now her speeches and glances were not so free from what makes flirtation, not so careless of the effect they might produce or the response which might be evoked by them. To some degree the airs of a beauty had infected her simplicity; graceful and dainty as they were, to her old friend's thinking they marred the rarer charm. She was not so childlike, not so free from guile. But Esther did not suppose that the men would notice any change; if they did, they would probably like it. For being neither willing nor able to flirt herself, she was convinced that men liked flirts. Flirts both flattered their pride and saved them trouble. Perhaps there was some truth in her theory.
For Esther's own eyes the change in Bernadette was there, whether the men saw it or not. It was not obvious or obtrusive; it was subtle. But it was also pervasive. It tinged her words and looks with a provocativeness, a challenge, a consciousness of feminine power formerly foreign to them. She had meanings where she used to have none. She took aim at her mark. She knew what she wanted to effect and used means towards it. She no longer pleased herself and left her pleasure itself to make her charming. This was not the old Bernadette, Esther thought, as she watched her dexterously, triumphantly, keeping the three men in play.
The men did notice, in varying degrees, though none with so clear a perception as the woman. Norton Ward, not quick to note subtleties in people and not curious about women, was content with thinking that Bernadette Lisle seemed in remarkably good form and spirits that Sunday—he observed on the fact at a later date. The Judge, a shrewder and more experienced observer in this line, smiled tolerantly at the way she was keeping her hand in by a flirtation with her handsome young kinsman by marriage; she was not a fool, and it would do the boy good. Arthur too saw the change, or rather felt it, as he would feel a variation in the atmosphere. He could have given no such clear account of wherein it lay as Esther had arrived at, nor any such simple explanation as served for Norton Ward or Sir Christopher. Had he been pressed, he might have said—doubtfully—that she seemed to have become more his equal, and more like other women in a way, though still infinitely more delightful. But, no man asking him to analyse his feeling, he did not attempt the vain task. The effect on him was there, whatever its explanation might be; in some vague fashion it was as though she put out a hand to raise him from the ground where he lay at her feet, his face hidden, and graciously intimated that he might kneel before her and dare to raise his eyes to hers. She treated him more as a man and less as a pet—was that it? This was the idea which came nearest to explicitness in his mind; the proud pleasure with which he looked and listened had its source in some such inkling as that. He had grown in the last few months; both actually and in his own esteem he had developed; a recognition of his progress from her would crown the delight she gave him.
She saw not only the men's admiration, amused or dazzled; she perceived also Esther's covert curiosity. She knew herself that she felt different and was being different. Esther Norton Ward knew it too! Very well, let her know. She did not know the reason yet. That she would learn hereafter. She caught Esther's pondering glance and met it with a smile of mutinous merriment; Esther might have pondered with more chance of enlightenment, had she been at Hilsey during the week that Oliver Wyse had spent there!
"Why don't you use your influence with that young man there and make him work?" asked Norton Ward of her.
"The wise woman uses her influence to make men do what they want to do, but think they oughtn't. Then they worship her, Frank."
"Oh, bosh! Henry's in despair about you, Arthur—he's pathetic!"
"I like that!" cried Arthur indignantly. "Didn't he tell you about my case? It was only in the County Court, of course, but——"
"That's it! Henry said you were very promising, if you'd only——"
"Did you win a case, Arthur? Tell us about it."
Arthur told the story of his battle with Mr. Tiddes, and how Miss Silcock betrayed the fortress.
"Splendid!" cried Bernadette, clapping her hands, her eyes all sparkling. "Arthur, you shall defend me, the first time I'm in trouble. Only I think I shall plead guilty, and throw myself on the mercy of his lordship."
"You'd get none from me, you baggage!" said Sir Christopher, who was wondering how the deuce any young fellow could resist her.
"Call witnesses to character, anyhow. We'd all come," laughed Norton Ward.
"You'd all come as witnesses to my character?" Her laugh came low but rich, hearty, charged with malicious enjoyment. "I wonder if you would!"
"Witnesses to character don't help the prisoner very much, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred convict themselves—of stupidity, which they invite the Judge to share. What they really come to say is 'We've made a mistake about this fellow all these years. He's been too clever for us!' Why should that help him? I'm very careful about letting that sort of thing interfere with my sentences."
"But oughtn't the prisoner to get a reward for past good character, Sir Christopher? Because it may not have been a case of deceiving his friends. He may have changed himself."
"Well, it's the changed man I'm sentencing. Why shouldn't he get it hot?"
"I shall not throw myself on the mercy of this particular lordship," said Bernadette. "He hasn't got any, that's obvious."
"No, you'd better get out of my jurisdiction."
"That would be the best thing to do, I think—get out of the jurisdiction." She rose with a laugh. "Also I'm going to get out of this church-going frock and into something cool and comfortable for lunch." Before she went, she had a last word for Sir Christopher. "The prisoner may have deceived himself as well as his friends, mayn't he? And he may surprise himself in the end just as much as he surprises them. Come along, Arthur, and help me to make some hock-cup before I change—Barber's no good at it."
The Judge looked after her as she walked away, attended by Arthur. "That was rather an acute remark of hers," he said.
"Yes, I wonder what made her say it!" Esther was looking puzzled and thoughtful again.
"Oh, come, we all of us make intelligent general observations at times, Esther."
"I don't think Bernadette's much given to general observations, though."
"Anyhow it's good to see her in such spirits," said Norton Ward. "Rather surprising too, since you're talking of surprises. Because between ourselves—and now that the family's out of hearing—I may say that our host is even unusually poor company just now."
"As Bernadette's very little in his company, that doesn't so much matter."
"Esther, my dear, you sound rather tart," said Sir Christopher. "Come and drink the hock-cup; it'll make you more mellow."
Bernadette's gay and malicious humour persisted through lunch, but when, according to her promise, she sat with Arthur on the seat by the river, sheltered by a tree, her mood had changed; she was very friendly, but pensive and thoughtful beyond her wont. She looked at him once or twice as if she meant to speak, but ended by saying nothing. At last she asked him whether he has seen anything of the Sarradets lately.
"Not since my lunch—when you met Marie," he answered. He was smoking his pipe and now and then throwing pebbles into the river—placidly happy.
"I liked her awfully. You musn't drop her, Arthur. She's been a good friend to you, hasn't she?"
"Oh, she's a rare good sort, Marie! I don't want to drop her, but somehow I've got out of the way of seeing so much of her. You know what I mean? I don't go where she does, and she doesn't go much where I do."
"But you could make efforts—more lunches, for instance," she suggested.
"Oh, yes, I could—sometimes I do. But—well, it's just that the course of my life has become different."
"I'm afraid the course of your life means me to a certain extent."
He laughed. "You began it, of course, when you came to Bloomsbury Street. Do you remember?"
"Yes, I remember all right. But I don't want you to lose your friends through me." Again she glanced at him in hesitation, but this time she spoke. "You may find me a broken reed, after all, Cousin Arthur."
He smoked for a moment, then laid down his pipe. "I'm fond of you all," he said. "You know how well Godfrey and I get on. I've made friends with Judith, and I'm making friends with Margaret. And—we're too good pals to say much—but you know what you are to me, Bernadette."
"Yes, I know, Cousin Arthur."
"So I don't know what you mean by talking about broken reeds."
She gave a little sigh, but said no more for the moment. She seemed to be on another tack when she spoke again. "It's a wonderful thing to be alive, isn't it? I don't mean just to breathe and eat and sleep, but to be alive really—to—to tingle!"
"It's a wonderful thing to see in you sometimes," he laughed. "Why, this morning, for instance, you—you seemed to be on fire with it. And for no particular reason—except, I suppose, that it was a fine day."
She smiled again as she listened, but now rather ruefully. "For no particular reason!" She could not help smiling at that. "Well, I hope I didn't scorch anybody with my fire," she said.
"You made us all madly in love with you, of course."
She gave him a little touch on the arm. "Never mind the others. You mustn't be that, Cousin Arthur."
He turned to her in honest seriousness. "As long as you'll be to me just what you are now, there's nothing to worry about. I'm perfectly content."
"But suppose I should—change?"
"I shan't suppose anything of the sort," he interrupted half-angrily. "Why should you say that?"
Her heart failed her; she could not give him further warning. Words would not come to her significant enough without being blunt and plain; that again she neither could nor would be. Something of her malice revived in her; if he could not see, he must remain blind—till the flash of the tempest smote light even into his eyes. It must be so. She gave a little shrug of her shoulders.
"A mood, I suppose! Just as I had a mood this morning—and, as you say, for no particular reason!"
The departure of the Norton Wards and Sir Christopher on Monday morning left Arthur alone with the family party at Hilsey Manor. To live alone with a family is a different thing from being one of a party of visitors. The masks are off; the family life is seen more intimately, the household politics reveal themselves to the intelligent outsider. During the days which intervened between his own arrival and that of Oliver Wyse, Arthur's eyes were opened to several things; and first of all to the immense importance of Judith Arden in the household. He soon found himself wondering how it got on at all in the winter, when she was not there; he had not yet known his cousins through a winter. She was in touch with all three of them; her love for animals and outdoor things made her in sympathy with the little girl; her cheerfulness and zest for enjoyment united her with Bernadette; her dry and satiric humour, as well as her interest in books, appealed to Godfrey's temper. Thus she served, as she herself had hinted to Arthur, as an intermediary, an essential go-between; she was always building bridges and filling up chasms, trying to persuade them that they had more in common than they thought, trying to make them open their hearts to one another, and distributing herself, so to say, among them in the way best calculated to serve these ends. Arthur soon observed with amusement that she aimed at distributing him also fairly among the family—now assigning him to Margaret, now contriving for him a walk with Godfrey, then relinquishing him to Bernadette for a while, and thus employing him, as she employed herself, as a link; their common liking for him was to serve as a bond of union. It was the task of a managing woman, and he would have said that he hated managing women. But it was impossible to hate Judith; she set about her task with so much humour, and took him into her confidence about it not so much in words as by quick amused glances which forbade him to resent the way she was making use of him. Very soon he was sympathising with her and endeavouring to help in her laudable endeavour after family unity.
She still persevered in it, though she had little or no hope left, and was often tempted to abandon the struggle to preserve what, save for the child's sake perhaps, seemed hardly worth preserving. Though she actually knew nothing of how matters stood between Bernadette and Oliver—nothing either of what they had done or of what they meant to do—though she had intercepted no private communication, and surprised no secret meetings, she was sure of what Oliver wanted and of what Bernadette felt. The meaning of the change that puzzled Esther Norton Ward was no riddle to her; the touch of love had awakened the instinct to coquetry and fascination; feelings long latent and idle were once more in activity, swaying the woman's soul and ruling her thoughts. Judith had little doubt of what the end would be, whether it came clandestinely, or openly, or passed from the one to the other, as such things often did. Still, so long as there was a chance, so long as she had a card to play——! She played Cousin Arthur now—for what he was worth. After all, it was for his own good too; he was a deeply interested party. When she saw that he understood her efforts, though not how urgent was the need of them, and was glad to help, her heart went out to him, and she found a new motive for the labours she had been tempted to abandon.
She got no help from Godfrey Lisle. He was sulking; no other word is so apt to describe his attitude towards the thing which threatened him. Though he did not know how far matters had or had not gone, he too had seen a change in his wife; he had watched her covertly and cautiously; he had watched Oliver Wyse. Slowly he had been driven from indifference into resentment and jealousy, as he recognised Bernadette's feelings. He tried to shut his eyes to the possibility of a crisis that would call for all the qualities which he did not possess—courage, resolution, determination, and perhaps also for an affection which he had lost, and an understanding which he had never braced himself to attain. Since he could not or dared not act, he declared that there lay on him no obligation. He hated the idea, but it was not his. It was Bernadette's—and hers the responsibility. He "declined to believe it," as people say so often of a situation with which they cannot or are afraid to grapple. He did believe it, but declining to believe it seemed at once to justify his inaction and to aggravate his wife's guilt. Thus it came about that he was fighting the impending catastrophe with no better weapon than the sulks.
At first the sulks had been passive; he had merely withdrawn himself, gone into his shell, after his old fashion. But under the influence of his grudge and his unhappiness he went further now, not of set purpose, but with an instinctive striving after the sympathy and support for which he longed, and an instinctive desire to make the object of his resentment uncomfortable. He tried to gather a party for himself, to win the members of the household to his side, to isolate Bernadette. This effort affected his manner towards her. It lost some of its former courtesy, or at least his politeness was purely formal; he became sarcastic, disagreeable, difficult over the small questions of life which from time to time cropped up; he would call the others to witness how unreasonable Bernadette was, or to join him in ridiculing or depreciating her pursuits, her tastes, or her likings. Sometimes there was an indirect thrust at Oliver Wyse himself.
Being in the wrong on the main issue generally makes people anxious to be in the right in subsidiary matters. Bernadette, conscious of the cause of her husband's surliness, met it with perfect good-nature—behaved really like an angel under it, thought Judith with one of her bitterly humorous smiles. Arthur, a stranger to the cause of the surliness—for though he had given Oliver Wyse a thought or two on his own account, he had given him none on Godfrey's score—was troubled at it, and proportionately admired the angelic character of the response. His chivalry took fire.
"What's the matter with the old chap?" he asked Judith. "He's downright rude to her sometimes. He never used to be that."
"Something's upset him, I suppose—some little grievance. I don't think she minds, you know."
"I mind, though, especially when he seems to expect me to back him up. I'll soon show him I won't do it!"
"You'd much better not mix yourself up in it—whatever it is. It won't last long, perhaps."
"I can't stand it if it does. I shall have it out with him. The way Bernadette stands it is perfectly wonderful."
Another halo for the fair and saintly head! Judith jerked her own head impatiently. The natural woman longed to cry out: "Don't you see how clever the minx is?" Sometimes the natural woman was tempted to wish that Oliver Wyse would swoop down, carry off his prey, and end the whole situation.
But there was to be a little more of it yet, a little more time for the fascination of the new manner and the halo of imputed saintliness to work. Oliver Wyse had interrupted his visit by reason of the illness of an old uncle, to whom he had owed his start in life and whom he could not neglect. It had proved rather a long business—Bernadette read a passage from Sir Oliver's letter to the company at breakfast—but the old man was convalescent at last, and Sir Oliver would be able to leave him in three or four days more, if all went well.
"So, if I may, I'll settle provisionally to be with you next Friday," said the letter. It went on—and Bernadette also went on composedly—"So there ought to be nothing in the way of our making the motor excursion I suggested one day in the following week, if you've a mind for it then." She folded up the letter, laid it beside her, took a sip of coffee, and caught Judith's eyes regarding her with what seemed like an amused admiration. Her own glance in return was candid and simple. "I'm afraid I forget what his excursion was to be, but it doesn't matter."
"I haven't had my excursion yet," Arthur complained. "The fact is we've done hardly anything since I came."
"Well, you shall have yours to-morrow, if it's fine," Bernadette promised.
"For how long does Oliver Wyse propose to honour us?" asked Godfrey, glowering and glum at the other end of the table.
"I really don't exactly know. A week or so, I should think."
Godfrey grunted surlily. "A week too much!" the grunt plainly said. He turned to Arthur. "Yes, you'd better get your excursion while you can. When Wyse is here, we none of us get much chance at the car."
Saintliness ignored the grumble. Arthur fidgeted under it. "If you want the car, I'm sure I don't want to take it from you, Godfrey," he said rather hotly.
"Oh, I spoke in your interest. I'm not likely to be asked to go on a motor excursion!"
"You wouldn't go for the world, if you were asked," said Judith.
"It'll hold us all. Anybody can come who likes," remarked Bernadette meekly.
"That's a very pressing invitation, isn't it?" Godfrey growled to Arthur, asking his sympathy.
Little scenes like this were frequent now, though Oliver Wyse's name was not often dragged into them; Godfrey shrank from doing that often, for fear of defiance and open war. More commonly it was just a sneer at Bernadette, a "damper" administered to her merriment. But Arthur resented it all, and came to fear it, so that he no longer sought his cousin's company on walks or in his study, but left him to his own melancholy devices. The unhappy man, sensitive as he was, saw the change in a moment and hailed a new grievance; his own kinsman now his wife was setting against him!
In fact Bernadette's influence was all thrown in the other scale. It was she who prevented Arthur from open remonstrance, forbade him to be her champion, insisted that he should still, to as great a degree as his feelings would allow, be his cousin's friend and companion. She was really and honestly sorry for Godfrey, and felt a genuine compunction about him—though not an overwhelming one. Godfrey had not loved her for a long while; Oliver Wyse was not responsible for that. But she had led him to suppose that she was content with the state of affairs between them; in fact she had been pretty well content with it. Now she had changed—and proposed to act accordingly. Acting accordingly would mean not breaking his heart, but dealing a sore blow at his pride, shattering his home, upsetting his life utterly. She really wanted to soften the blow as much as possible; if she left him, she wanted to leave him with friends—people he liked—about him; with Margaret, with Judith, and with Arthur. Then she could picture him as presently settling down comfortably enough. Perhaps there was an alloy of self-regard in this feeling—a salve to a conscience easily salved—but in the main it came of the claim of habit and old partnership, and of her natural kindliness. These carried her now beyond her first delight in the drama of the situation; that persisted and recurred, but she was also honestly trying to make the catastrophe as little of a catastrophe as was possible, consistently with the effecting of its main object. So it came about that, in these last days before Oliver Wyse arrived, she thought more about her husband than she had done for years before, and treated his surliness with a most commendable patience.
Although Arthur's relations with Godfrey had thus suffered a check, his friendship with little Margaret throve; the shy child gradually allowed him an approach to intimacy. They had rambles together, and consultations over guinea-pigs and gardening. Here Arthur saw a chance of seconding Judith's efforts after family unity. Here there was room, even in his eyes—for Bernadette, though kind and affectionate in her bearing towards the child, did not make a companion of her. Inspired by this idea, he offered a considerable sacrifice of his own inclination. When the day came for his motor excursion, he proposed to Bernadette that Margaret should be of the party. "It'll be such a tremendous treat for her to be taken with you," he said.
Bernadette was surprised, amused, just a little chagrined. In her own mind she had invested this excursion with a certain garb of romance or of sentiment. It was to be, as she reckoned, in all likelihood her last longtête-à-tête(the driver on the front seat did not count) with Cousin Arthur; it was to be in some sort a farewell—not to a lover indeed, but yet to a devotee. True, the devotee was not aware of that fact, but he must know that Oliver Wyse's arrival would entail a considerable interruption of his opportunities for devotion. Arthur's proposal was reassuring, of course, in regard to his feelings, for it did not seem to her that it could come from one who was in any danger of succumbing to a passion, and once or twice in these later days a suspicion that the situation might develop in that awkward fashion had made its way into her mind. Arthur must be safe enough as to that if he were ready to abandon his longtête-à-tête! She was really glad to think that she could dismiss the suspicion. But she was also a little disappointed over her sentimental excursion—at having it turned into what was in effect a family party. Even talk about sentiment would be at a discount with Margaret there.
"It'll be rather a long day for her, won't it?" she asked.
"It'll be such a great thing to her, and we can cut it a bit shorter," he urged.
With a slight lift of her brows and a smile Bernadette yielded. "Oh, all right, then!"
"How awfully good of you!" he cried. "How awfully good of me!" would have seemed to her an exclamation more appropriate in his mouth at the moment.
The child was sent for, to hear the great news. She came and stood dutifully by her mother's knee, and Bernadette put her arm round her waist.
"Cousin Arthur and I are going for a long drive in the car. We shall take our lunch, and eat it by the road-side, and have great fun. And you're to come with us, Margaret!"
The delighted smile which was expected (by Arthur, at least, most confidently) to illuminate the child's solemn little face did not make its appearance. After a momentary hesitation, Margaret said "Yes, mummy."
"You like to come, don't you, Margaret?"
"Yes, mummy." She looked down and fidgeted her toe on the carpet. "If you wish me to."
"No, dear, I want to know what you wish. Were you going to do something else?"
"Well, Judith had promised to take me with her to Mrs. Beard's this morning, and show me Mrs. Beard's rabbits."
The tone was undeniably wistful, whether the main attraction lay in Judith, in Mrs. Beard, or in the rabbits. The combination was a powerful one in Margaret's eyes.
"And would you rather do that than come with us?" Bernadette went on, very kindly, very gently.
The toe worked hard at the carpet.
"Do just what you like, dear. I only want you to please yourself."
"If you really don't mind, mummy, I think I would rather——"
"Very well then!" Bernadette kissed her. "Run away to Judith!"
The delighted smile came at last, as Margaret looked up in gratitude at her kind mother.
"Oh, thank you so much, mummy!" And she darted off with an unusual gleefulness.
Bernadette, her part of kind mother admirably played, looked across at Arthur. He was so crestfallen that she could not forbear from laughing. His scheme a failure, his sacrifice thwarted! The father sulked; the child, with an innocent but fatal sincerity, repelled advances. Things looked bad for the unifiers! Indeed one of them had put her foot neatly through the plan devised by the other. Judith knew about the proposed excursion; clearly she had not thought it possible that Margaret would be asked to join, or she would never have arranged the visit to Mrs. Beard.
"We're unfortunate in meeting a strong counter-attraction, Arthur. We've overrated the charms of our society, I'm afraid." Though Bernadette laughed, she spoke in dry tones, and her look was malicious.
Arthur felt foolish. When once the scheme was a failure, it came to look futile, hopeless—and terribly obvious. Bernadette saw through it, of course; her look told him that.
"Oh, well, I suppose rabbits are——!" he murmured feebly.
"Rabbits—and Judith!" She rose and went to the window. "I rather think it's going to rain." Then after a pause she went on, "I think you're rather a conventionally minded person, Arthur."
He attempted no defence. She had seen through the scheme—oh, quite clearly! She was vexed too; she was frowning now, as she stood by the window.
"You can't have the same tastes and—and likings as people have just because you happen to be some relation or other to them. It's no use trying." She gave an impatient little shake of her head. She had not altogether liked the child's being asked; she liked no better the child's being unwilling to come. Little as she had wanted Margaret's company, it was not flattering to be postponed in her regard to rabbits—and Judith. Still, if the child did prefer rabbits and Judith—well, there was the comforting reflection that she could always have rabbits at a very moderate cost, and that there was no reason to apprehend that she would be deprived of Judith. What she valued least was the thing she was most likely to lose, as matters stood at present. Hurt vanity wrested the little girl's innocent sincerity into an argument for Bernadette's secret purpose.
"I don't like the look of that cloud. I'm sure it's going to rain."
Arthur glanced out of the window in a perfunctory way; he felt that he would have to accept Bernadette's view of the weather prospects, however subjective that view might be.
She was out of conceit with the excursion. All this "fuss"—as she expressed it in the primitive phraseology of inward reflection—spoilt it. She was rather out of humour even with Cousin Arthur. She did not mind Judith planning and scheming in the interests of family union; she was used to that and regarded it with an amused toleration. But she did not fancy Arthur's undertaking the samerôle. In her conception his proper attitude was that of a thorough-going partisan and nothing else. As such, he had been about to receive the tribute of that excursion. Now she was no more inclined to it. That sort of thing depended entirely on being in the mood for it. Arthur's—well, yes, Arthur's stupidity—and Margaret's—well, yes, Margaret's ungraciousness—had between them spoilt it. She felt tired of the whole thing—tired and impatient.
"I think we'll wait for a safer day, Arthur."
"All right. Just as you like." He was hurt, but felt himself in fault and attempted no protest; he knew that she was displeased with him—for the first time in all their acquaintance.
So the car was countermanded. But the next day was no safer, nor the day that followed. Then came Friday, which was otherwise dedicated. Neither as a sentimental farewell nor as a family party did that excursion ever happen.
On that Friday morning Arthur's seclusion—for thus his stay at Hilsey might be described, so remote it seemed from the rest of his life, so isolated and self-contained—was invaded by the arrival of two letters concerned with matters foreign to Hilsey and its problems or emotions.
The first he opened was from Joe Halliday and treated of the farce. Joe wrote with his usual optimism; prospects were excellent; the company which had been engaged was beyond praise. But there was a difficulty, a hitch. The producer, Mr. Langley Etheringham, a man of authority in his line, declared that the last act needed strengthening, and that he knew what would strengthen it. The author, Mr. Claud Beverley, denied that it needed strengthening and (still more vigorously) that Mr. Etheringham knew how to do it. There was friction. Joe was undecided between the two. "We three are going to meet on Sunday and have a good go at it," he wrote. "Thrash the thing out, you know, and get at a decision. I've got Claud to agree to so much after a lot of jaw—authors are silly asses, sometimes, you know. Now I want you to come up to-morrow or next day, and go through the piece with me, and then come on Sunday too. You'll bring a fresh mind to it that will, I think, be valuable—I seem to know it so well that I really can't judge it—and you've put in so much of the money that both Claud and Langley (though he's a despotic sort of gent) will be bound to listen to your opinion, whatever it is. Come if you can, old chap. I've no doubt of success anyhow, but this is rather important. Above all, we don't want Claud and Langley at loggerheads even before we begin rehearsals."
Frowning thoughtfully, Arthur proceeded to read the second letter. It came from Henry. "I beg to inform you that Messrs. Wills and Mayne rang up at two o'clock to-day to ask if you were in town. I had to say that you had been called away on business but could be here to-morrow (in accordance with your instructions). They replied that they regretted the matter could not wait. I did not therefore wire you, but I think it proper to inform you of the matter. Yours obediently——"
Appeal from Joe Halliday, plain though tacit reproach from Henry! A chance lost at the Temple! How big a chance there was no telling; there never is in such cases. A cry for help from the Syndicate! His legitimate mistress the Law was revenging herself for his neglect; Drama, the nymph of his errant fancy, whom he had wooed at the risk of a thousand pounds (or indeed, if a true psychology be brought to bear on the transaction, of fifteen hundred), might do the like unless he hastened to her side.
Pangs of self-reproach assailed Arthur as he sat on the lawn, smoking his pipe. Moreover he was not in such perfect good humour with Hilsey as he was wont to be. The miscarriage of his excursion rankled in his mind; the perfection of his harmony with Bernadette was a trifle impaired; there had been a touch of aloofness in her manner the last two days. Godfrey was too grumpy for words. Finally, to-day Oliver Wyse was coming. Was Hilsey really so fascinating that for itsbeaux yeuxa man must risk his interests, neglect his profession, and endanger, even by the difference of a hair, a dramatic success which was to outvie the triumph ofHelp Me Out Quickly? Yet he was annoyed at having to put this question to himself, at having to ask himself how he stood towards Hilsey and how Hilsey stood to him. And, down in his heart, he knew that it would be very difficult to go if Bernadette really wanted him to stay—and a very distressful departure for him if it appeared that she did not!
Judith came out of the house, crossed the lawn, and sat down in a chair opposite him. They had met earlier in the day, and greeting did not seem necessary to Arthur's preoccupied mind. He was smoking rather hard, and still frowning over his problem. Judith, on the other hand, seemed to be engaged with some secret source of amusement, although amusement of a rather sardonic order. Her mouth was twisted in a satirical smile—not at Arthur's expense, but at the expense of some person or persons unknown.
Arthur did not notice her expression, but presently he announced to her the outcome of his thoughts.
"I think I shall have to go back to town to-morrow for a bit; some business has turned up."
Her eyes met his quickly and, somehow, rather suspiciously. "Oh, don't you run away too!" she said.
"Run away too! What do you mean? Who's running away? What are you grinning at, Judith?" The word, though not complimentary, really described the character of her smile.
"Godfrey's gone to bed."
"Gone to bed? Why, he was at breakfast!"
"I know. But he says he got up feeling seedy, and now he feels worse. So he's gone to bed."
Arthur looked hard at her, and gradually smiled himself. "What's the matter with him?"
"He says he's got a bad liver attack. But I—I think he's left out the first letter."
"Left out——? Oh, no, you don't mean——?" He burst out laughing. "Well, I'm jiggered!"
"Oliveritis—that's my diagnosis. He does go to bed sometimes, you know, when—well, when the world gets too hard for him, poor Godfrey!"
"Oh, I never heard of such a thing! It can't be that! Does he hate him as much as that?"
"He doesn't like him."
"Do you think that's why he's been so grumpy lately?"
"I suppose he'd say that was the liver attack coming on, but—well, I've told you!"
"But to go to bed!" Arthur chuckled again. "Well, I am jiggered!"
"You may be jiggered as much as you like—but must you go to London?"
"Does Bernadette know he's gone to bed?" Pursuing his own train of amused wonder, Arthur did not mark Judith's question, with its note of appeal.
"I told Barber to tell her. I didn't think I should look grave enough—or perhaps Bernadette either!"
"Why, would she tumble to its being—Oliveritis?"
"She'd have her suspicions, I think. I asked you just now whether you really must go to London, Arthur."
"Well, I don't want to—though I've a slight touch of that disease of Godfrey's myself—but I suppose I ought. It's like this." He told her of the lost chance at chambers, and of Joe Halliday's summons. "It's no use going to-day," he ended, "but I expect I ought to go to-morrow."
"Yes, I expect you ought," she agreed gravely. "You mustn't miss chances because of—because of us down here."
"It isn't obvious that I'm any particular sort of use down here, is it?"
"You're of use to me anyhow, Arthur."
"To you?" He was evidently surprised at this aspect of the case.
"Yes, but you weren't thinking of me, were you? However, you are. Things aren't always easy here, as you may have observed, and it's a great comfort to have someone to help—someone to grumble to or—or to share a smile with, you know."
"That's very nice of you. You know I've always supposed you thought me rather an ass."
"Oh, in some ways, yes, of course you are!" She laughed, but not at all unpleasantly. "I should have liked to have you here through—well, through Sir Oliver."
"The chap's a bit of a nuisance, isn't he? Well, I needn't make up my mind till to-morrow. It's no use going to-day, and to-morrow's Saturday. So Sunday for the piece, and chambers on Monday! That'd be all right—especially as I've probably lost my only chance. I'll wait till to-morrow, and see how Sir Oliver shapes!" He ended with a laugh as his mind went back to Godfrey. "Gone to bed, poor old chap!"
Judith joined again in his laugh. Godfrey's course of action struck on their humour as the culmination, the supreme expression, of his attitude towards the world and its troubles. He could not fight them in the open; he took refuge from them within his fortifications. If they laid siege and the attack pressed hotly, he retreated from the outer to the inner defences. What the philosopher found in a mind free from passions—a citadel than which a man has nothing more secure whereto he can fly for refuge and there be inexpugnable—Godfrey Lisle found in a more material form. He found it in Bed!
But when Arthur went up to see his cousin, his amusement gave place, in some measure, to sympathy. Pity for his forlornness asserted itself. Godfrey insisted that he was ill; he detailed physical symptoms; he assumed a bravado about "sticking it out" till to-morrow, and not having the doctor till then, about "making an effort" to get up to-morrow. Through it all ran a suspicion that he was himself suspected. Bernadette was in the room part of the time. She too was sympathetic, very kind, and apparently without any suspicion. True that she did not look at Arthur much, but that might have been accidental, or the result of her care for her husband. If it were a sign that she could not trust herself in confidential glances, it was the only indication she gave of scepticism as to the liver attack.
At lunch-time too her admirable bearing and the presence of Margaret enforced gravity and a sympathetic attitude, though out of the patient's hearing it was possible to treat his condition with less seriousness.
"He's fanciful about himself sometimes," said Bernadette. "It's nerves partly, I expect. We must cheer him up all we can. Margaret can go and sit with him presently, and you might go up again later, Arthur. He likes to talk to you, you know. And"—She smiled—"if Godfrey's laid up, you'll have to help me with Sir Oliver. You must be host, if he can't."
Bernadette had not practised any of her new graces on Arthur since the miscarriage of the excursion; either the check to her sentiment, the little wound to her vanity, prevented her, or else she had grown too engrossed in the near prospect of Oliver Wyse's arrival. At all events the new manner had been in abeyance. She had been her old self, with her old unmeditated charm; it had lost nothing by being just a little pensive—not low-spirited, but thoughtful and gentle. She had borne herself thus towards all of them. She showed no uneasiness, no fear of being watched. She was quite simple and natural. Nor did she pretend any exaggerated indifference about Oliver. She accepted the fact that he came as her particular friend and that she was glad of his coming in that capacity. They all knew about that, of course, just as they knew that Cousin Arthur was her devotee. All simple and natural—when Oliver Wyse was not there. Arthur, who had not been at Hilsey during Sir Oliver's first visit, was still in the dark. Judith Arden had her certainty, gained from the observation of the two in the course of it—and Godfrey his gnawing suspicion.
For Bernadette, absorbed, fascinated, excited, had been a little off her guard then—and Oliver Wyse had not taken enough pains to be on his. He was not clever at the concealment and trickery which he so much disliked. His contempt for Godfrey Lisle made him refuse to credit him with either the feelings or the vigilance of a husband. He had not troubled his head much about Judith, not caring greatly whether she suspected what he felt or not; what could she do or say about it? As his power over Bernadette increased, as his assurance of victory had grown, so had the signs of them—those signs which had given Judith certainty, and the remembrance of which now drove Godfrey to that last citadel of his. But to Bernadette herself they had seemed small, perceptible indeed and welcome to her private eye, but so subtle, so minute—as mere signs are apt to seem to people who have beheld the fulness of the thing signified. She did not know herself betrayed, either by her own doing or by his.
Oliver Wyse was expected to arrive about tea-time; he was bringing his own car, as Bernadette had announced that morning at breakfast, not without a meaning glance at Godfrey—nobody need grudgingly give up the car to him this time! It was about four when Arthur again visited the invalid. He found Margaret with her father; they were both reading books, for Margaret could spell her way through a fairy-story by now, and they seemed happy and peaceful. When Arthur came in, Godfrey laid down his book readily, and received him with something more like his old welcome. In reply to enquiries he admitted that he felt rather better, but added that he meant to take no risks. "Tricky things, these liver attacks!" Arthur received the impression that he would think twice and thrice before he emerged from his refuge. He looked yellowish—very likely he had fretted himself into some little ailment—but there was about him an air of relief, almost of resignation. "At all events I needn't see the man when he comes"—so Arthur imagined Godfrey's inner feelings and smiled within himself at such weakness, at the mixture of timidity and bearishness which turned an unwelcome arrival into a real calamity, a thing to be feared and dodged. But there it was—old Godfrey's way, his idiosyncrasy; he was a good old fellow really, and one must make the best of it.
So for this hour the three were harmonious and content together. Timid yet eager questions from Margaret about fairies and giants and their varying ways, about rabbits and guinea-pigs and sundry diversities in their habits; from Godfrey a pride and interest in his little daughter which Arthur's easy friendship with her made him less shy of displaying; Arthur's own ready and generous pleasure in encountering no more grumpiness—all these things combined to make the hour pleasant. It was almost possible to forget Oliver Wyse.
But presently Margaret's attendant came to fetch her; she was to have her tea rather early and then change her frock—in order to go downstairs and see Sir Oliver; such were mother's orders. Godfrey's face relapsed into peevishness even while the little girl was kissing him good-bye.
"Why should she be dragged down to see Wyse?" he demanded when she was gone.
"Oh, I suppose it's the usual thing. Their mothers like showing them off."
"All damned nonsense!" grumbled Godfrey, and took up his book again. But he did not read it. He looked at his watch on the table by him. "Half-past four! He'll be here directly."
"Oh, well, old chap, does it matter so much——?" Arthur had begun, when Godfrey raised himself in his bed and held up his hand.
"There's a motor-horn!" he said. "Listen, don't you hear?"
"Yes, I suppose it's him." He strolled to the window, which looked on the drive. "There is a car coming; I suppose it's his."
Godfrey let his hand drop, but sat upright for a few moments longer, listening. The car passed the window and stopped at the door.