"Yes, it's Wyse all right. The car's open. I saw him." So saying, Arthur left the window and sauntered back towards the bed, his face adorned with a well-meaning smile of common sense and consolation. But Godfrey lay down on the pillow again, and with an inarticulate grunt turned his face to the wall. Arthur stood looking at him in amazement. His smile grew grim—what a ridiculous old chap it was!
But there was no more to be got out of him just now; that was clear enough. No more welcome, no more friendly talk! The sulks were back again in full force; Godfrey was entrenched in his last citadel. On Arthur himself devolved the function of acting as Sir Oliver's host. Feeling no great desire to discharge his duties, he lounged slowly down the stairs into the hall; he was conscious of a distinct touch of Oliveritis.
The door which led from the hall to Bernadette's own room stood open. They were standing together by the window, Bernadette with her back towards Arthur. Wyse faced her, and her hand rested lightly on his arm—just as it had so often rested on Arthur's own, in the little trick of friendly caress that she had. He ought to have known just what—just how much—could properly be inferred from it; none the less he frowned to see it now. Then he noticed Oliver Wyse's face, rising over her head—for Oliver was tall—and turned downwards towards her. Arthur was in flannels and wore rubber shoes; his feet had made no sound on the carpeted stairs. His approach was unnoticed.
The next minute he was crossing the hall with determined, emphatic, highly audible steps. Slowly, as it seemed, Oliver Wyse raised his head, and slowly a smile came to his lips as he looked over Bernadette's head at the young man. Then she turned round—very quickly. She was smiling, and her eyes were bright. But something in Arthur's face attracted her attention. She flushed a little. Her voice was louder than usual, and seemed as it were hurried, when she said:
"Here's Sir Oliver safe and sound, Arthur! He's done it in two hours and twenty minutes."
"Not bad going, was it?" asked Oliver, still looking at Arthur with that cool, self-confident, urbane smile. He was not embarrassed; rather it seemed as though he were defying the intruder to embarrass him, whatever he might have seen, whatever he might be pleased to think.
But Bernadette, his adored, his hopelessly idealised Bernadette—ah, the vulgar, the contaminating suspicion!—Bernadette was looking as if she had been caught! A sudden swift current of feeling ran through him—a new feeling which made his blood hot with resentment of that confident smile.
Bernadette's confusion was but momentary. She was quite herself again, serene and at ease, as she said, "Will you show him his room? He'd like a wash before tea. He's in the Red Room—over the porch, you know."
Arthur entered on his duties as deputy-host to the urbane and smiling guest.
Arthur escaped from the house as soon as he could, leaving Bernadette and Sir Oliver at tea together. He could not bear to be with them; he had need to be alone with his anger and bewilderment. Perhaps if he were alone for a bit he could see things better, get them in a true perspective, and make up his mind whether he was being a fool now or had been a fool—a sore fool—up to now. Which was the truth? Bernadette's confusion, if real at all, had been momentary; Sir Oliver's cool confidence had never wavered. He did not know what to think.
All its old peace and charm enveloped Hilsey that summer evening, but they could not calm the ferment of his spirit. There was war within him; the new idea clashed so terribly with all the old ones. The image of Bernadette which he had fashioned and set up rocked on its pedestal. A substitute began to form itself in his consciousness, not less fascinating—alas, no!—but very different. He could not turn his eyes from it now; it filled him with fear and anger.
He crossed the bridge and the meadows beyond it, making for the wood which crowned the hill above, walking quickly, under an impulse of restlessness, a desire to get away—though, again, the next instant he would be seized with a mad idea of going straight back and "having it out" with her, with Oliver—with somebody! Shaking it off, he would stride forward again, his whole mind enmeshed in pained perplexity. Oh, to know the truth! And yet the truth might be fearful, shattering.
The bark of a dog, short and sharp, struck on his ears. Then, "Patsy, Patsy, come here!" and a laugh. Judith was sitting on the trunk of a tree newly cut down, by the side of the path. She had a book in her lap; Patsy had been on guard beside her.
"Where are you rushing to at six miles an hour?" she asked. "You frightened Patsy."
He stopped in front of her. "Was I walking quickly? I—I'm not going anywhere in particular—just for a stroll before dinner."
"A stroll!" She laughed again, raising her brows. "Sit down for a bit, and then we'll walk back together. You look quite hot."
He sat down by her and lit a cigarette. But he did not meet her eyes. He sat staring straight before him with a frowning face, as he smoked. She made her inspection of him, unperceived herself, but she let him know the result of it. "You look rather gloomy, Arthur. Has anything happened?"
"No—Well, except that Oliver Wyse has got here—about an hour ago, before tea."
"Sir Oliver is much as usual, I suppose?"
"I suppose so. I don't know him very well, you see."
"Meeting him doesn't seem to have had a very cheering effect upon you. You look about as jolly as Hamlet."
He shook his head impatiently, but made no answer. He did look very forlorn. She patted his shoulder. "Oh, come, cheer up! Whatever it is, grouching won't help. We mustn't have you going to bed too, like Godfrey." She gave him this lead, hoping that he would take it. It seemed better to her now that he should realise the truth, or some of it.
He turned his face towards her slowly. She looked at him with grave eyes, but with a little smile—of protest, as it were, against any overdoing of the tragedy.
"What does the fellow want here?" he asked in a very low voice.
"All he can get," she answered brusquely. "That's my opinion anyhow, though I couldn't prove it."
He did not move; he looked at her still; his eyes were heavy with another question. But he dared not put it—at least not yet. "Why is he allowed to come here then?" he grumbled.
"Who's to stop him? Godfrey? From bed?"
The remembrance of Godfrey turning his face to the wall answered her question. But she went on with a repressed vehemence, "Do you suppose Godfrey needs telling? Well, then, what could I do? And I'm not sure I'd do anything if I could. I've done my best with this family, but it's pretty hopeless. Things must happen as they must, Arthur. And you've no right to hold me responsible."
"I can't understand it," he muttered slowly.
"I thought you would by now—staying in the house."
"But she'd never—let him?" His voice sank to a whisper.
"I don't know. Women do, you know. Why not Bernadette?"
"But she's not like that, not that sort," he broke out, suddenly angry again.
She turned rather hard and contemptuous. "Not that sort? She's a woman, isn't she? She's never been like that with you—that's what you really mean."
"It isn't," he declared passionately. "I've never—never had so much as a thought of anything like that."
"I know. You've made something superhuman of her. Well, Sir Oliver hasn't."
"I won't believe it of her!"
The burden of grief and desolation in his voice made Judith gentle and tender again. "Oh, I know you won't, my dear," she said, "unless you absolutely have to, absolutely must." She got up and whistled to recall her dog, which had strayed into the wood. "I must go back, or I shall be late for dinner. Are you coming, Arthur?"
"Oh, there's plenty of time. I must think what to do."
She turned away with a shrug of her shoulders. What could he do? What could anybody? Things must happen as they would—for good or evil as they would.
Things were likely to happen now, and that quickly. At the very moment when Arthur came upon them in Bernadette's room, Oliver had been telling her of his completed plan. The yacht would be round to Southampton by the following Tuesday. They would motor over—it was within a drive of moderate length from Hilsey—go on board, and set sail over summer seas. She had turned from that vision to meet Arthur's startled eyes; hence her momentary confusion. But she was over it now. While they drank their tea, Oliver well-nigh persuaded her that it had never existed—never, at least, been visible. And besides, "What does it matter what he thinks?" Oliver urged.
To this Bernadette would not quite agree. "I don't want him to—to have any idea of it till—till the time comes," she said fretfully. "I don't want anybody to have any idea till then—least of all Arthur."
"Well, it's not for long, and we'll be very careful," he said with a laugh.
"Yes, you promised me that when I let you come back here," she reminded him eagerly.
"I know. I'll keep my word." He looked into her eyes as he repeated, "It's not for long."
If Oliver Wyse had not inspired her with a great passion—a thing that no man perhaps could create from what there was to work on in her soul—he had achieved an almost complete domination over her. He had made his standards hers, his judgments the rule and measure of her actions and thoughts. She saw through his eyes, and gave to things and people much the dimensions that he did, the importance or the unimportance. At his bidding she turned her back on her old life and looked forward—forward only. But to one thing she clung tenaciously. She had made up her mind to the crash and upheaval at Hilsey, but she had no idea of its happening while she was there; she meant to give—to risk giving—no occasion for that. Her ears should not hear nor her eyes see the fall of the structure. No sight of it, scarcely a rumbling echo, need reach her as she sailed the summer seas. Oliver himself had insisted on the great plunge, the great break; so much benefit she was entitled to get out of it.
"And be specially careful about Arthur," she urged. "Not even the slightest risk another time!"
"Confound Arthur!" he laughed good-humouredly. "Why does that boy matter so much?"
"Oh, he thinks such a lot of me, you know. And I am very fond of him. We've been awfully good friends, Oliver. At all events he does appreciate me." This was why she felt tender about Arthur, and was more sorry for him than for the others who were to suffer by what she did. She had not been enough to the others—neither to her husband nor to Margaret—but to Arthur she knew that she had been and was a great deal. Besides she could not possibly get up any case against Arthur, whatever plausible complaints she might have about the others, on the score of coldness, or indifference, or incompatibility, or sulks.
"In Arthur's presence I'll be as prim as a monk," Oliver promised her, laughing again, as she left him before dinner.
He strolled out on to the lawn, to smoke a cigarette before going to dress, and there met Judith Arden on her return from the wood.
"So you're back again, Sir Oliver!" she said, shaking hands.
"As you see. I hope you're not tired of me? It's only to be a short stay, anyhow."
The two were on a well-established footing, chosen by Judith, acquiesced in by Sir Oliver. He was pretty sure that she knew what he was about, but thought she could cause him no hindrance, even if she wished. She treated him with a cool irony that practically endorsed his opinion on both points.
"If you're anxious to be told that we're all glad to see you, I'll give you the formal assurance. I'm sorry my uncle is not well enough to welcome you himself."
"Oh, I hope he'll be up and about to-morrow. Bernadette tells me it's nothing serious."
"She ought to know, Sir Oliver, being his wife."
"The party has received an addition since I was here, I see."
"Yes. Some company for us when you and Bernadette go out motoring!"
"Do you think that the addition will be willing to fall in with that—well, that grouping?"
"Now I come to think of it, perhaps not. But there—you always get your own way, don't you?"
"If that flattery were only sincere, it would be sweet to my ears, Miss Judith."
"It's sincere enough. I didn't mean it as flattery. I spoke rather in a spirit of resignation."
"The same spirit will animate our friend perhaps—the addition, I mean."
"It may; it's rather in the air at Hilsey. But he mayn't have been here long enough to catch it. I rather think he hasn't."
"You invest the position with exciting possibilities! Unless I fight hard, I may be done out of my motor rides!"
"That would leave me calm," she flung at him over her shoulder as she went into the house.
He walked up and down a little longer, smiling to himself, well content. The prospect of the summer seas was before his eyes too. He had counted the cost of the voyage, and set it down at six months' decorous retirement—enough to let people who felt that they must be shocked be shocked at sufficient leisure. After that, he had no fear of not being able to take his place in the world again. Nor need Bernadette fear any extreme cold-shouldering from her friends. It was a case in which everybody would be ready to make excuses, to find the thing more or less pardonable. Why, one had only to tell the story of how, on the eve of the crisis, the threatened husband took to his bed!
As Arthur watched Bernadette at dinner, serene, gracious, and affectionate—wary too by reason of that tiny slip—his suspicions seemed to his reason again incredible. Judith must be wrong, and he himself wrong also. And her friend Sir Oliver—so composed, so urbane, so full of interesting talk about odd parts of the world that he had seen and the strange things which had befallen him! Surely people who were doing or contemplating what they were suspected of could not behave like that? That must be beyond human nature? He and Judith must be wrong! But there was something within him which refused the comforting conclusion. Not the old adoration which could see no flaw in her and endure no slur on her perfection. His adoration was eager for the conclusion, and pressed him towards it with all the force of habit and preconception. It was that other, that new, current of feeling which had rushed through him when he stood in the hall and saw them framed, as it were, by the doorway of her room—a picture of lovers, whispered the new feeling, sparing his recollection no detail of pose or air or look. And lovers are very cunning, urged the new feeling, that compound of anger and fear—the fear of another's taking what a man's desire claims for himself. He had honestly protested to Judith that his adoration had been honest, pure, and without self-regard. So it had, while no one shared or threatened it. But now—how much of his anger, how much of his fear, came from loyalty to Godfrey, sorrow for Margaret, sorrow for Bernadette herself, grief for his own broken idol if this thing were true? These were good reasons and motives for fear and anger; orthodox and sound enough. But they had not the quality of what he felt—the heat, the glow, the intense sense of rivalry which now possessed him, the piercing vigilance with which he watched their every word and look and gesture. These other reasons and motives but served to aid—really was it more than to mask?—the change, the transmutation, that had set in at such a pace. Under the threat of rivalry, the generous impulse to protect became hatred of another's mastery, devotion took on the heat of passion, and jealousy lent the vision of its hundred eyes.
But Bernadette too was watchful and wary; her position gave her an added quickness of perception. Oliver's contemptuous self-confidence might notice nothing, but, as she watched the other two, the effect of his persuasions wore off; she became vaguely sensible of an atmosphere of suspicion around her. She felt herself under observation, curious and intense from Arthur, from Judith half-scornful, half-amused. And Judith seemed to keep an eye on Arthur too—rather as if she were expecting, or fearing, or waiting for something from him. Bernadette grew impatient and weary under this sense of scrutiny. Surely it was something new in Arthur? And was not Judith in some way privy to it?
"What are the plans for to-morrow?" asked Sir Oliver, as he sipped his glass of port. "Can we go motoring? I've brought my car, you know, in case yours is wanted."
"Well, we might take them both, and all go somewhere—Margaret too!" A family party seemed now an excellently prudent and unsuspicious thing. "Oh, but I forgot, there's a great cricket-match—Hilsey against Marling! I ought to put in an appearance sometime, and I expect you're wanted to play, aren't you, Arthur?"
"I believe I did tell Beard I'd play if I was wanted. I'd forgotten about it."
"Have you made up your mind about going to London to-morrow?" asked Judith.
Bernadette pricked up her ears—in pure metaphor, though; she was too alert to let any outward sign of interest appear. Yet it now seemed to her very desirable that Arthur should go to London—for a few days anyhow. The quick look of surprise with which he met Judith's question did nothing to lessen this feeling.
He had forgotten all about going to London next day! The plight of the farce, the possible briefs—Joe Halliday's appeal, and the renewed enquiry from Wills and Mayne, so flattering to professional hopes—where were they? Where are the snows of yester year? They had gone clean out of his head, out of his life again. They had become unimportant, irrelevant. Again, for the moment, Hilsey closed around him on every side.
He did not answer Judith for a moment. "You know you told me you thought you might have to," she said, "for a little while anyhow, on some business."
"Oh yes, I know. But——"
"What business, Arthur?" Bernadette asked. "Briefs? How exciting!"
"Oh, nothing in particular!"
"Nonsense! I want to hear. I'm interested. I want to know all about it."
He could not tell her with his old pleasure, his old delight at any interest she might be gracious enough to shew in his affairs; but neither could he refuse to tell. That would be a bit of useless sulking—after Godfrey's fashion. Besides, perhaps they were wrong—he and Judith. So he told her about Wills and Mayne's flattering if abortive enquiry, and how Mr. Claud Beverley and Mr. Langley Etheringham were at loggerheads over the farce. Sir Oliver, now at his cigar, listened benevolently. Bernadette fastened on the latter topic; it interested her more—she thought it probably interested Arthur more also. "That really is rather important, now! It's sort of referred to you, to your decision, isn't it? And it's awfully important, isn't it, Sir Oliver? Perhaps you don't know, though—Arthur's put a lot of money in the piece."
"Then I certainly think he'd better run up and look after it," smiled Sir Oliver. "I should."
"I don't think I shall go. I expect the thing can wait; things generally can."
"I don't think you're being very wise, Cousin Arthur," Bernadette said gently. "We shall be sorry to lose you, but if it's only for a little while, and Mr. Halliday makes such a point of it——!"
"Joe always exaggerates things."
"I like having you here—well, I needn't tell you that—but not if I have to feel that we're interfering with your work or your prospects."
Here Jealousy had a private word for Arthur's ear. "That sounds well, very nice and proper! But rather a new solicitude, isn't it? Much she used to care about your work!"
"After all, what do I know about the third acts of farces?"
"I expect that's just why they want you—in a way. You'll be like one of the public. They want to know how it strikes one of the public. Don't you think that's it, Sir Oliver?"
Sir Oliver thought so—but Jealousy was mean enough to suggest that the lady was more ingenious than convincing.
"Don't you think he ought to go, Judith?"
The ironic comedy of this conversation (started too by herself, in all innocence, purelyà proposof the village cricket-match!) between the prudent counsellor and the idle apprentice was entirely to Judith's humour. They argued their false point so plausibly. The farce had been a great thing to him, and would be again, it was to be hoped. And to Bernadette, for his sake, it had been "exciting" and possibly—just possibly—would be again. But it was not the fate of the farce that concerned either of them now. They could not humbug her in that fashion! Her smile was mocking as she answered: "Yes, I think he'd better go, Bernadette. I'm sure you're advising him for his own good."
Bernadette gave her a quick glance, bit her lip, and rose from the table. "We'll have coffee in the drawing-room. Bring your cigar, Sir Oliver."
Sir Oliver was smiling too; that girl Judith amused him; he appreciated the dexterous little stabs of her two-edged dagger.
But Arthur was listening to another whisper in his ear: "Very anxious to get you away, isn't she? Curiously anxious!"
When Bernadette gave him his cup of coffee she said in a low voice, "Don't be foolish, Arthur. I really think you ought to go."
He looked her full in the eyes and answered, "I see you want me to, at all events."
Those whispers in his ear had done their work. He turned abruptly away from her, not seeing the sudden fear in her eyes. His voice had been full of passionate resentment.
After drinking his coffee quickly—with no word to anyone the while—Arthur had gone out of the room. Judith took up her book, Oliver Wyse was glancing at the City article in a weekly paper, Bernadette sat quiet in her high-backed arm-chair, looking very slight and young in her white evening frock, but wearing a tired and fretful expression. Just what she had planned to avoid, just what she hated, was happening or threatening to happen. She felt herself in an atmosphere of suspicion; she was confronted by accusers; she was made to witness her handiwork; the sight and the sound of the shattered edifice menaced her eyes and ears.
Glancing at her over his paper, Oliver saw that she was moody. He came and tried to draw her into talk. She received him coldly, almost peevishly. He had the tact not to press his company on her. "I think, if you'll excuse me, I'll go and polish off some letters. Then I shall be quite free for to-morrow," he said.
"Oh, yes, do, of course," she answered with what seemed relief. She was angry now with him for having come back to Hilsey, and with herself for having let him. "Will you go to the library?"
"You've given me such a delightfully comfortable room that I'll write there, I think."
"As you like, and—I'm very tired—perhaps we'd better say good-night."
He smiled and pressed her hand gently. "Very well, good-night." She gave him a glance half-penitent for her crossness, but let him go without more. Judith accorded him a curt 'Good-night,' without raising her head from her book. She was reading with wonderful industry; absorbed in the book! Bernadette interpreted this as a sign of disapproval—it was more probably a demonstration of non-responsibility for the ways of fate—but it was not Judith's disapproval that particularly engaged her thoughts. They were obstinately set on Arthur. How and what—how much—had he found out? Enough to make him resolved not to go to London, anyhow, it seemed! Enough to make him spring with swift suspicion to the conclusion that she wanted him to go for her own purposes! And yet she had been wary—and quite plausibly sage and prudent in her counsel.
"Where's Arthur?" she asked. "He's disappeared!"
"I don't know where he is," answered Judith from behind her book.
But he was more than suspicious. He was very angry. His last brusque speech showed that, and still more the note in his voice, a note which she had never heard before. It was of more than indignation; it was of outrage. She could manage the others. Margaret presented no difficulty, the sulky helpless husband hardly more; from Judith there was to be feared nothing worse than satiric stabs. But if Arthur were going to be like this, the next three days would be very difficult—and horribly distasteful. He had touched her as well as alarmed her. Such an end to her affectionate intimacy with him was a worse wound than she had reckoned on its being. To see him angry with her hurt her; she had never meant to see it, and she was not prepared for the intensity of feeling which had found vent in his voice. It had been as bad as a blow, that speech of his; while showing him sore stricken, it had meant to strike her also. She had never thought that he would want to do that. Tender regrets, propitiating memories, an excusing and attenuating fondness—these were what she desired to be able to attribute to Arthur when she was sailing on the summer seas.
"I wonder what's become of him! Do you think he's gone out, Judith?"
At last Judith closed her book and raised her head. "Why do you want Arthur now?"
"I only wondered what could have become of him."
"Perhaps he's gone to pack—ready for to-morrow, you know."
"Oh, nonsense! Barber would pack for him, of course—if he's going."
Judith, book in hand, rose from her chair. "I think I shall go to bed." She came across the room to where Bernadette sat. "You'd better too. You look tired."
"No, I'm not sleepy. I'm sure I couldn't sleep."
Judith bent down and kissed her lightly on the cheek. "Never mind Arthur. You'd better let him alone to-night."
Bernadette longed to ask "What have you said to him?" But she would not; she shrank from bringing the matter into the open like that. It would mean a scene, she thought, and scenes she was steadfastly purposed to avoid—if possible.
"Well, he's behaving rather queerly, going on like this," she murmured peevishly.
For an instant Judith stood looking at her with a smile in which pity and derision seemed oddly mingled; then she turned on her heel and went out.
Bernadette sat on alone in the big drawing-room; it was very silent and solitary. The chill fancies of night and loneliness assailed her. Surely nobody would do anything foolish because of—well, because of what she did? She rejected the idea as absurd. But she felt uncomfortable and desolate. She might send for Sir Oliver; no doubt he was at his letters still, and it was not really late. Yet somehow she did not want him; she was not in the mood. Her mind was obstinate still, and still asked obstinately of Arthur.
At last she got up, went through the hall, and out on to the terrace. She looked up and down the length of it. The night was fine and the moon shone, but she saw no sign of him. She called his name softly; there was no reply. Either he had gone further afield, or he was in the house. She paused a moment, and then took her way along the corridor which led past the dining-room to the smoking-room—an apartment seldom used in these lax days (when every room is a smoking-room) and rather remote. Perhaps he had retreated there. She stood for a moment outside the door, hesitating at the last whether to seek him out. But some impulse in her—friendliness, remorse, fear, curiosity, all had their share in it—drove her on. Very softly she turned the handle and opened the door.
Yes, he was there. He was sitting in a chair by the table. His arms were spread on the table, the hands meeting one another, and his head rested on his hands. He did not hear the door she opened so gently. He looked as if he were asleep. Then, softly still, she closed the door, standing close by it. This time he heard the noise, slight as it was, and lifted his face from his hands. When he saw her, he slowly raised himself till he sat straight in his chair. She advanced towards him timidly, with a deprecatory smile.
In disuse the room had grown dreary, as rooms do; the furniture showed a housemaid's stiff ideas of arrangement; there was no human untidiness; even the air was rather musty.
"Oh, you don't look very cheerful in here! Have you been asleep, Arthur?" She sat herself sideways on the heavy mahogany writing-table.
He shook his head; his eyes looked very tired.
"I couldn't think what had become of you. And I wanted to say good-night. We're—we're friends, aren't we, Cousin Arthur?"
"Where's Oliver Wyse?" he asked brusquely.
"Upstairs in his room—writing letters. He went almost as soon as you did—but more politely!" Her smile made the reproof an overture to friendship.
"I hate to see the fellow with you," he broke out fiercely, but in a low voice.
"Oh, you mustn't say things like that! What nonsense have you got into your head? Sir Oliver's just a friend—as you are. Not the same quite, because you're a relation too. But still just a very good friend, as you are. Is this all because I told you you ought not to neglect your work?"
"Why are you so anxious for me to clear out?"
"If you take it like that, I can't—well, we can't talk. I must just leave you alone." She got down from the table and stood by it, ready, as it seemed, to carry out her threat of going.
"I'll go to London—if you'll tell Oliver Wyse to come with me."
"He's only just come, poor man—and only for a few days, anyhow! I think you've gone mad. Who's been putting such things in your head? Is it—Godfrey?"
"You wouldn't be surprised if it was, would you?" he asked quickly.
"Yes, I should, though Godfrey is sometimes very absurd with his fancies. I don't want to quarrel, but you really mustn't grudge my having another friend. It's not reasonable. And if Sir Oliver does admire me a little—well, is that so surprising?" She smiled coaxingly, very anxious to make friends to-night, to part friends on the morrow. "After all, aren't you a little guilty in that way yourself, Cousin Arthur?"
"Not in the same——" he began, but broke off, frowning and fretful.
"I've spoilt you, but I never promised you a monopoly. Now be good and sensible, do! Forget all this nonsense; go and do your work, and come back next week."
He made no reply to her appeal; he sat looking at her with a hostile scrutiny.
"Anyhow, you can't stay if you're going on behaving like this. It's intolerable."
"I came here on Godfrey's invitation. If Godfrey asks me to go——"
"If you appeal to Godfrey, you're not a friend of mine!" she cried hotly.
"Impossible to be a friend both of yours and of Godfrey's, is it?" he sneered.
Her face flushed; now she was very angry. "Go or stay—anyhow I've done with you!" She half-turned away, yet waited a moment still, hoping that his mood would soften.
He leant forward towards her in entreaty. "Don't do it, Bernadette, for God's sake! For your own sake, for the sake of all of us who love you!"
"Who loves me in this house?" she asked sharply and scornfully. "Am I so much to any of them? What am I to Godfrey, for instance? Does Godfrey love me?" She was glad to give utterance to her great excuse.
But his mind was not on excuses or palliation; they belonged to his old feelings about her, and it was the new feeling which governed him now. He stretched out his arm, caught one of her hands, and drew her towards him almost roughly.
"I love you, Bernadette, I love you body and soul, I worship you!"
"Arthur!" she cried in amazement, shrinking, trying to draw back.
"When I see that man with you, and know what he wants, and suspect—It drives me mad, I can't bear it. Oh, it's all damnable of me, I know! I could have gone on all right as we were, and been happy, but for this. But now, when I think of him, I——" With a shiver he let go her hands and buried his face in his own again. His shoulders shook as though with a sob, though no sound came.
She drew near to him now of her own accord, came and stood just beside him, laying her hand gently on his shoulder. "Cousin Arthur, Cousin Arthur!" she whispered. All her anger was gone; sorrow for him swallowed it up. "You're making a mistake, you know, you are really. You don't love me—not like that. You never did. You never felt——"
He raised his head. "What's the use of talking about what I did do or did feel? I know all that. It's what I do feel that's the question—what I feel now!"
"Oh, but you can't have changed in four or five hours," she pleaded gently, yet with a little smile. "That's absurd. You're mistaken about yourself. It's just that you're angry about Oliver—angry and jealous. And that makes you think you love me. But you never would! To begin with, you're too loyal, too honest, too fond of—Oh, you'd never do it!"
"I had never thought of you as—in that way. But when I saw him, he made me do it. And then—yes, all of a sudden!" He turned his eyes up to her, but imploring mercy rather than favour.
She pressed his shoulder affectionately. "Yes, I suppose it's possible—it might be like that with a man," she said. "I suppose it might. I never thought of it. But only just for a moment, Cousin Arthur! It's not real with you. You'll get over it directly; you'll forget it, and think of me in the old pleasant way you used, as being——" With another little squeeze on his shoulder she laughed low—"Oh, all the wonderful things I know you thought me!" She suddenly recollected how she stood. She drew in her breath sharply, with a sound almost like a sob. "Ah, no, you can never think like that of me again, can you?"
He was silent for a moment, not looking up at her now, but straight in front of him.
"Then—it's true?" he asked.
With a forlorn shake of her head she answered, "Yes, it's true. Since you're like this, I can't keep it up any longer. It's all true. Oliver loves me, and I love him, and all you suspected is—well, is going to be true about us."
"If you'll only drop that, I swear I'll never breathe a word about—about myself! I will forget! I'll go away till I have forgotten. I'll——"
"Oh, poor boy, I know you would. I should absolutely trust you. But how am I to—drop that?" She smiled ruefully. "It's become just my life." She suddenly lifted her hands above her head and cried in a low but passionate voice, "Oh, I can't bear this! It's terrible. Don't be so miserable, dear Arthur! I can't bear to see you!" She bent down and kissed him on the forehead. "You who've been such a dear dear friend and comrade to me—you who could have made me go on enduring it all here if anybody could! But Oliver came—and look what he's done to both of us!"
"You love him?"
"Oh, yes, yes, yes! Or how could all this be happening? You must believe that. I didn't want you to know it—Yes, you were right, I was trying to get you out of the way, I wasn't honest. But since things have turned out like this, you must believe now, indeed you must."
For a full minute he sat silent and motionless. Then he reached up, took her hand, and kissed it three—four—times. "God help me! Well, I'll go to London to-morrow. I can't face him—or Godfrey. I should let it all out in a minute. I can't think how you manage!"
To her too it looked very difficult to manage now. The revelation made to Arthur seemed somehow to extend to the whole household. She felt that everyone would be watching and pointing, even though Arthur himself went away. She had grown fearful of being found out—how quickly Arthur had found her out!—and dreaded her husband's surly questions. More scenes might come—more scenes not to be endured! A sudden resolve formed itself in her mind, born of her fear of more detection, of more scenes, of more falling into disgrace.
"I expect Barber will have gone to bed—it's past eleven," she said. "But you can give him your orders in the morning. And—and I shan't see you. Be happy, dear Cousin Arthur, and, oh, splendidly successful! I'm sure you will! And now go to bed and sleep, poor tired boy!"
"Oh, I can't sleep—not yet. This is good-bye?" His voice choked on the word a little. He turned his chair round, and she gave her hands into his.
"Yes, this must be good-bye—for the present at all events. Perhaps some day, when all this is an old story, if you wish it——"
"Are you going away with him, or——?"
"Oh, going away! I must do that. You do see that, don't you? And Oliver wouldn't have anything else. Try to think kindly and—and pleasantly of me. Remember our good times, dear Arthur, not this—this awful evening!"
"I've been such a fool—and now such a blackguard! Because now if I could, I'd——"
"Hush, hush! Don't say things like that. They're not really true, and they make you feel worse. We're just dear old friends parting for a while, because we must."
"Perhaps I shall never see you again, Bernadette—and you've been pretty nearly everything in my life since we've known one another."
"Dear Arthur, you must let me go now. I can't bear any more of it. Oh, I am so desperately sorry, Arthur!" A tear rolled down her cheek.
"Never mind, Bernadette. It'll be all right about me. And—well, I can't talk about you, but you needn't be afraid of my thinking anything—anything unkind. Good-bye."
She drew her hands away, and he relinquished his hold on them without resistance. There was no more to be said—no more to be done. She stood where she was for a moment; he turned his chair round to the table again, spread out his arms, and laid his face on his hands. Just the same attitude in which she had found him! But she knew that his distress was deeper. Despair and forlornness succeeded to anger and fear; and, on the top of them, the poor boy accused himself of disloyalty to his house, to his cousin, to herself. He saw himself a blackguard as well as a fool.
She could not help speaking to him once again. "God bless you, Cousin Arthur," she said very softly. But he did not move; he gave no sign of hearing her. She turned and went very quietly out of the room, leaving her poor pet in sad plight, her poor toy broken, behind her.
It was more than she had bargained for, more than she could bear! Silently and cautiously, but with swift and resolute steps, she passed along the corridor to the hall, and mounted the stairs. She was bent on shutting out the vision of Arthur from her sight.
Oliver Wyse had finished his letters and was smoking a last cigar before turning in. Barber had brought him whiskey and soda water, and wished him good-night, adding that, in case Sir Oliver should want anything in the night, he had put Wigram, his chauffeur, who acted as valet also when his master was on a visit, in the small room next the bathroom which Sir Oliver was to use. "He said he liked to be within hail of you, Sir Oliver."
"Wigram's been with me in a lot of queer places, Barber. He's got into the habit of expecting midnight alarms. In fact he was a sort of bodyguard to begin with; then a valet; now he's mainly a chauffeur—a very handy fellow! Well, thank you, Barber—Good-night."
The cigar was pleasant; so was the whiskey-and-soda; he felt drowsily content. The situation caused no disturbance either in his nerves or in his conscience. He was accustomed to critical positions and rather liked them; to break or to observe rules and conventions was entirely a question of expediency, to be settled as each case arose—and this case was now abundantly settled. The only real danger had lain in Bernadette herself; and she shewed no sign of wavering. He had enjoyed the comedy of her wise counsel to Arthur, though for his own part he cared little whether the boy went or stayed; if need be, it could not be difficult to put him in his place.
A low light knock came on his door. A little surprised, but fancying it must be the devoted Wigram come to have a last look at him, he called, "Come in!" Bernadette darted in and shut the door noiselessly. She held up a finger, enjoining silence, and walked quickly across the room.
He threw his cigar into the grate, and advanced to meet her, smiling. "I say—is this your 'tremendous caution'?" But then he perceived the excitement under which she laboured. "What's the matter? Anything gone wrong?"
"Yes, Arthur! He's found out! And I—somehow I couldn't deny it to him."
He smiled at her kindly and tolerantly, yet with a gentle reproof. Her courage was failing her again, it seemed. It was a good thing that he had come back to Hilsey—to keep her up to the scratch.
"Well? Did he turn nasty? Never mind, I'll quiet him. Where is he?"
"No, no, please don't go near him. He's not nasty; he's all broken up. Oliver, he says he's in love with me himself."
He smiled at that. "Coming on, the young cousin, isn't he? But I'm not much surprised, Bernadette."
"He—he's upset me dreadfully. I didn't mean it to happen like this. It's too much for me. My nerves——"
She spoke all the time in quick agitated whispers. Oliver walked to the door, turned the key, and came back to her. He took one of her hands in his. She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. "He has been such a friend really. He trusted me so."
"Well, I suppose he'll take your advice now—your wise advice—and pack himself off to-morrow morning. Breakfast in bed, and you needn't see him."
"Judith will guess—I know she will. Oliver, I—I can't keep it up, with you here—not even though Arthur goes. I'm afraid of Judith now—even of Godfrey!"
"I'm certainly not going to leave you here, up against it, all by yourself." She was not to be trusted alone now. She had been shewn too vividly the side of the shield which it was his task to hide from her eyes—a task to which he alone was equal. Left to herself, she might go back on the whole thing, very likely!
"Take me away from it all now, won't you?" she asked.
"What now—to-night?" His eyes lit up humorously. "Sharp work, isn't it? Rather difficult to get out of the house to-night without risking—well, encounters! And you wouldn't like that."
"Can't you think of anything? I can't stand these next few days."
He considered a moment, marshalling plans in his quick-moving mind. "Look here, can you be sure of waking up early in the morning?"
"I wish I could be half as sure of going to sleep at all!"
"Well, get up at half-past five—Your servants won't be about then?—pack what you want in a bag, leave it just inside your room, put on your things, and meet me outside the hall-door just before six. We'll go for a walk!"
"But the station? It's nearly three miles off! And there are no trains——"
"Wait, wait! My man will fetch your bag—just a little risk there, not much at that hour—hang my motor-coat over it, so that nobody can see it isn't mine, and take it round to the garage with my traps. I suppose the car'll be locked up, and he'll have to get the key from somebody. He'll say that I'm suddenly called away, that I've walked on ahead, and he's to pick me up at the east lodge. If you're seen, you're just putting me on my way, don't you see? He'll give your fellow at the garage a sovereign, and he won't be too curious!"
"Yes, yes, I see!" she whispered eagerly.
"Starting then, we can be in town in lots of time to catch the afternoon train to Boulogne. I'll wire the yacht to meet us somewhere else, instead of Southampton. Ostend, perhaps—that'd do all right. Now how does that suit you?"
Her eyes sparkled again. "Why, it's splendid!" How difficulties seemed to vanish under his sure decisive touch! It was by this gift, more than any other, that he had won and held her.
"I've managed trickier businesses than this. It's all perfectly easy, and with luck you won't be exposed to meeting any of them again."
"Thank heaven!" she murmured.
"But you'd better not stay here now. One can never be sure somebody won't come nosing about." He kissed her lightly. "Go, be quick, to your room. I'll go and wake up Wigram now, and tell him what I want; you needn't bother about him—he's absolutely reliable. Come along." He drew her across the room with him, unlocked the door and opened it. "Don't make a noise! Just before six, in the porch, remember!"
She nodded in silence and glided quickly along the passage, which was dimly lighted by a single oil lamp; Godfrey would not hear of installing modern illuminants at Hilsey. He gave her time to get to her room, and then himself went in the other direction along the corridor, and knocked on the door of the little room where the faithful and reliable Wigram slept.
He was soon back—it did not take long to make Wigram understand what was wanted of him—and sat down again at his writing-table. Some of the letters had to be re-written, for he had dated them from Hilsey, and that would not do now. He was smiling in a half-impatient amusement over women and their whims. They were so prone to expect to get all they wanted without paying the necessary price, without the little drawbacks which could not be avoided. After all, a woman couldn't reasonably expect to run away without causing a bit of a rumpus, and some little distress to somebody! It was very seldom in this world that either man or woman could get all they wanted without putting somebody else's nose out of joint; if only that were honestly acknowledged, there would be a great deal less cant talked.
He raised his head from his work and paused, with his cigar half-way to his mouth, to listen a moment to a slow heavy tread which came along the passage from the top of the stairs and stopped at a door on the opposite side, nearer to the stairs. Arthur Lisle coming to bed—he had indicated his own room in passing, when he was playing deputy-host and showing Oliver his quarters. A good thing he hadn't come up a little sooner! He might have met Bernadette coming out of a room which it was by no means the proper thing for her to have been in. Another painful encounter that would have been! Again his tolerant smile came; he was really a good-natured man; he liked Arthur and was sorry for him, even while he was amused. To-night the world was probably seeming quite at an end to that young fellow—that young fool of a fellow. Whereas, in fact, he was just at the beginning of all this sort of business!
"I suppose he wants my blood," he reflected. "That'd make him feel a lot better. But he can't have it. I'm afraid he can't, really!"
Well, Arthur's was one of the sound and primitive reasons for wanting a man's blood; nothing to quarrel with there! Only the thing would not last, of course. Quite soon it would all be a memory, a bit of experience. At least that would be so if the boy were—or managed to grow into, to let life shape him into—a sensible fellow. Many men went on being fools about women to the end. "Well, I suppose some people would say that I'm being a fool now," he added candidly. "Perhaps I am. Well, she's worth it." With a smile he finished off his work, got himself to bed briskly, and was soon asleep.
Sick at last of the dreary and musty room, Arthur had slouched miserably to bed—though he was sure that he could not sleep. He could not think either, at least hardly coherently. The ruin which had swooped down on him was too overwhelming. And so quick! All in a few hours! It seemed too great to understand, almost too great to feel. It was, as it were, a devastation, a clean sweep of all the best things in his life—his adoration for Bernadette, his loyalty to Godfrey, the affection which had gathered in his heart for these his kinsfolk, for this the home of his forefathers. A dull numb pain of the soul afflicted him, such as a man might feel in the body as he comes to consciousness after a stunning blow. The future seemed impossible to face; he did not know how to set about the task of reconstructing it. He was past anger, past resentment; he did not want Oliver Wyse's blood now. Was he not now even as Oliver, save that Oliver was successful? And Oliver owed no loyalty to the man he robbed. In the extravagance of his despair he called himself the meanest of men as well as the most miserable. "My God! my God!" he kept muttering to himself, in his hopeless miserable desolation.
But he was young and very weary, exhausted with his suffering. He had sworn to himself that sleep was impossible, but nature soon had her way with him. Yet he struggled against sleep, for on it must follow a bitter awakening.
When he did awake, it was broad daylight. From his bed, which stood between the two windows of the room, he could see the sunlight playing on the opposite wall to his right; to the left the wall was still in shadow. It seemed that he must have pulled up the blind of one window and not of the other, before he got into bed, though he did not remember doing it. Indeed at the first awakening he recollected nothing very distinctly. The memories of the night before took a minute or two to acquire distinctness, to sort themselves out. Presently he gave a low dull groan and turned on his side again, refusing to face the morning—the future that awaited him inexorably. But another memory came to him in a queer quick flash—Judith's smile when she told him that Godfrey had taken to his bed. With a muttered curse he drew his watch from under the pillow. Half-past seven!
He raised himself on his elbow, his back turned to the light. Everything became clear to memory now; and the end of it all was that he had to go, and go quickly, as soon as he could, by the earliest train possible. He did not want to see anybody; above all he must not see Bernadette; he had promised her that, practically; nor could he himself bear another meeting and another parting. Joe Halliday and Wills and Mayne won the day—by the help of an alliance most unlooked-for!
A voice spoke from the window to his right—where the blind was pulled up and the fresh morning air blew in through the opened sash. "So you're awake at last, Arthur!"
He rolled over on to his other elbow in surprise, blinking at the strong light. Judith was sitting on the broad low seat beneath the window. She wore a walking dress and out-of-door boots, but her hair was only carelessly caught together; she wore no hat. She smiled at him, but her eyes looked red and she held her handkerchief tightly squeezed in one hand.
"Why, what are you doing here?" he demanded.
"Well, I've been crying—not that that's any use. I've been here nearly half-an-hour. I meant to wake you, but you looked so awfully tired. Besides, it was too late."
"Too late for what?"
"He's taken her away, Arthur."
He did not move; propped up on his elbow, he looked at her with a morose steadfastness.
"I'm generally out before breakfast, you know, with Patsy. I didn't sleep well last night, and I was earlier than usual. I was out by half-past six, and went for a walk in the meadows. Coming back, I passed the garage; Stokes was cleaning the car and I stopped to speak to him about the new puppy—he's not very well. I noticed Sir Oliver's car wasn't there, and he told me that Sir Oliver's man had knocked him up and made him unlock the garage an hour before. The man brought Sir Oliver's luggage from the house, Stokes said, and told him that Sir Oliver had walked on ahead, and he was to pick him up. Stokes asked where they were going, and the man said home, he supposed, but Sir Oliver hadn't told him. The man was rather short with him, Stokes said, and seemed in a hurry. I thought it all sounded rather funny, especially Sir Oliver walking on ahead—at six in the morning!—but I said nothing to Stokes, though I think he thought it a bit queer too. So when I got back I went to Bernadette's room. I didn't exactly suspect that she'd gone too, but I had a sort of uneasy—well, I wanted to be quite sure, don't you know? I opened the door quietly—a little way—and I saw that the room was quite light. That told me directly; she can't bear a chink of light in her room. So I went in. She wasn't there; she hadn't been to bed, she'd only lain down on the outside. Most of the things on her dressing-table were gone, and I couldn't see the dressing-bag that always stood by her big hanging-cupboard. I thought I'd better come and tell you. On the way I met Barber, just up, I suppose, in his apron and shirt-sleeves. He told me that Sir Oliver had gone and Wigram—his man, you know—too."
"But Stokes didn't see either of them?"
"No. They must have walked on together, and got into the car when it came up. Only just then I remembered that I'd found the front door unlocked and had meant to scold Barber for being so careless. It had gone out of my head till then." She paused a moment. "Did you see her last night? She wanted to see you—asked where you'd gone, you know."
"Yes; she came to me in the smoking-room."
"Did she say anything that sounded like—like——?"
He waited a while before he answered the unfinished question. "She said nothing about this morning."
"But did she say——?"
Arthur nodded his head.
"Oh then, it's quite clear!" said Judith.
"I didn't think she meant to go this morning. I was to go. We said good-bye."
"She has gone, though. I'm sure of it. Well, I've thought she would for some time past, so I don't quite see why I've been crying. How could we help it? Could we give her what she wanted? Could Godfrey? Could I? Could you? Margaret was the only chance, but poor little Margaret's—well, Margaret! She wasn't enough to keep her." She rose from her seat. "Well, I'll go, because you must get up."
Arthur paid no heed. "I think it's because of me that she's gone this morning," he said slowly.
"Why? Did you quarrel? Did you talk about—about Sir Oliver?"
"Yes, at first. Then I told her I was in love with her."
She raised her hands and let them fall in a gesture of despairing irritation. "In love, in love! Oh, I've had enough of it for the present! Get up, Arthur!"
"Yes, I'll get up—get up and clear out," he said in sullen bitterness. "I'll go back to work; that's the best thing I can do. I meant to go this morning, anyhow."
She had moved towards the door, but she stopped now, facing him, between bed and door. "You mean that you're going away—now—this morning?" He nodded his head. She waited a moment and then smiled. "Oh, well, I think I'll come too. After all, it won't be very lively here, will it?"
He started in surprise. "You go? You couldn't think of that, Judith? Why, what's little Margaret to do? And Godfrey? Oh, you can't go!"
"Why can't I? I'm a Lisle, aren't I? I'm a Lisle, just as much as you and Godfrey! Why aren't I to behave as a Lisle then—go to bed or run away when things get difficult and uncomfortable? I rather wish I had a real man to run away with—like Bernadette!"
"God help him if you had!" growled Arthur, to whom the insinuation was not grateful.
"That's better! You have got a bit of a fight somewhere in you," she mocked. "And anyhow—get up!"
"Well, I'm going to—if you'll clear out, and be——"
"And be damned to me? Yes, I know! You can say that as often as you like, but you've got to help me to face this business. You've got to be the Man of the Family!" She smiled rather scornfully. "It's the least you can do, if you really did try to make love to Bernadette."
He flushed a little, but answered calmly: "As I don't suppose you'll be able to think of anything to say more disagreeable than that, you may as well go, and let me dress."
"Yes, I will." She turned to the door, smiling in a grim triumph. Just as she went out, she looked over her shoulder and added, "You'll have to tell Godfrey."
That gave him a chance. He cried after her, "You're in a funk too, really!"
She smiled at him. "Didn't I say I was a Lisle—or half a one—like you, Arthur?" She pulled the door to, with a bang, and he heard her quick decisive steps retreating along the corridor.
The next moment Barber entered the room, bringing hot water. He had seen Judith as she came out. Only another of the queer things happening this morning! He wore an air of tremendously discreet gravity. But Arthur guessed from his face that wonder and surmise, speculation and gossip, were afloat in the house already.
He dressed quickly and went down to breakfast. Judith was there alone; Margaret was having breakfast upstairs with the nurse, she told him—out of the way of chattering tongues, her look added—as she poured out coffee.
Barber came in with a telegram, and laid it by her. "The boy's waiting, miss."
She read it. "No answer, Barber."
"Oh, I want to send a wire. Bring me a form, will you?" said Arthur.
When he had written his message, Judith rose and came round to him, carrying his coffee in one hand and the telegram in the other; she gave him the latter to read—"Don't expect me back. Shall write you." There was no signature.
"What does she want to write about?"
"Oh, her things, I suppose. What did you say in your wire?"
"I said 'Awfully sorry can't come. Pressing family business.'"
"It is—very. I'm afraid I was rather disagreeable, Arthur."
He looked up at her with a rueful smile as he stirred his coffee. "You're like a cold bath on a freezing morning—stinging but hygienic."
There was a sudden choke in her voice as she answered: "I'd have said and done anything rather than let you go. And if I've ruined your play and your prospects, I can't help it." She walked quickly away to the window and stood there a moment with her back towards him. Then she returned to her place and ate a business-like breakfast.
The gods were laughing at him; so it seemed to Arthur Lisle. They chose to chastise his folly and his sin by ridicule. He whom the catastrophe—the intrigue and the flight—had broken was chosen to break the news of it. He must put on a composed consolatory face, preach fortitude, recommend patience under the inevitable. He was plumped back into his old position of useful cousin, the friend of both husband and wife. Judith was that too. Why should not she carry the tidings? "No, you'll be more sympathetic," she insisted, with the old touch of mockery governing her manner again. "I should tell him too much of the truth most likely." So he must do it. But this useful cousin seemed a very different sort of man from the stricken sufferer, the jealous lover, of overnight. Indeed it was pitiable for the forsaken jealous lover—denied even a departure from the scene of his woes, condemned to dwell in the house so full of her and yet so empty, the butt (so his sensitive fancy imagined) of half the gossip and half the giggles of which to his ears Hilsey Manor was already full. But the forsaken lover must sink himself in the sympathetic kinsman—if he could; must wear his face and speak in his tones. A monstrous hypocrisy! "Bernadette's run away, but, I'm sorry to say, not with me, Godfrey." No, no, that was all wrong—that was the truth. "Bernadette's left you for Oliver Wyse—unprincipled woman and artful villain!" Was that right? Well, 'artful villain' was right enough, surely? Perhaps 'deluded woman' would do for Bernadette. "Brave woman and happy man!" the rude laughter of the gods suggested. "If we'd either of us had half his grit, Godfrey!" All sorts of things impossible to say the gods invented in their high but disconcerting irony.
"Well, I'm in for it—here goes!" thought Arthur, as he requested Barber to find out from Mrs. Gates—who had been acting as nurse to her master as well as to his little girl—when Mr. Lisle could see him.
Gossip and giggles there may have been somewhere, probably there were, but not on the faces or in the demeanour of Barber and Mrs. Gates. Pomp, funereal pomp! They seemed sure that Bernadette was dead, and that her death was a suicide.
"I will ascertain immediately, sir," said Barber. He was really very human over it all—a mixture of shockedness and curiosity, condemnation and comprehension, outrage and excuse—for she certainly had a way with her, Mrs. Lisle had. But his sense of appropriateness overpowered them all—a result, no doubt, of the ceremonial nature of his vocation.
Mrs. Gates's humanity was more on the ample surface of her ample personality. She made no pretence of not understanding what had happened, and even went a little further than that.
"Lor, sir, well there!" she whispered to Arthur. "I've 'ad my fears. Yes, he can see you, poor gentleman! I've not said a word to 'im. And poor Miss Margaret!" She was bent on getting every ounce out of the situation. Arthur did not want to kill her—she was a good woman—but it would have relieved his feelings to jab a penknife into one of the wide margins around her vital parts. "Why is she so fat?" he groaned inwardly and with no superficial relevance. But his instinct was true; her corpulence did, in the most correct sense, aggravate the present qualities of her emotions and demeanour.
And so, in varying forms, the thing was running all through the house—and soon would run all through the village. Mrs. Lisle—Mrs. Lisle of Hilsey! Portentous, horrible—and most exciting! It would run to London soon. Mrs. Lisle of Hilsey was not such a personage there—but still pretty well known. A good many people had been at that party where the Potentates had met. One of them had abdicated now and gone—well, perhaps only as far as Elba!
All the air was full of her, all the voices speaking her name in unison. The sympathetic cousin had great difficulty in getting on the top of the defeated lover when Arthur entered Godfrey's room. And even anyhow—if one left out all the irony and all the complication—the errand was not an easy or a grateful one. If Godfrey had gone to bed sooner than witness a flirtation, what mightn't he do in face of an elopement?
The invalid was sitting up in bed, supported by several pillows, smoking a cigarette and reading yesterday's "Times." The improvement in his temper, manifest from the moment when he took to his bed, seemed to have been progressive. He made Arthur welcome.
"And I hope you've not come to say good-bye?" he added. Arthur had mentioned to him too the call to London and to work.
"No, I'm going to stay on a few days more, if you can put me up. I say, Godfrey——"
"Delighted to keep you—especially when I'm on my back. I hope to be up soon, though, very soon. Er—Wyse is staying on too, I suppose?"
"He left this morning, early, by motor."
"Did he? Really?" He smothered his relief, but it was unmistakable. "Rather sudden, wasn't it?"
"Yes, it was sudden. The fact is——"
"Why did he go? Is he coming back?"
"I don't know—well, I mean, he didn't say anything to me. No, he won't be back."
"Oh, I suppose he told Bernadette about it. I thought I heard somebody moving about the house. I'm a light sleeper, you know, especially when I'm ill. About six o'clock, I think it was. I—I suppose Bernadette's disappointed at his not staying longer?" The assumed indifference of his question was contradicted by the eagerness of his furtive glance. Arthur felt it on him; he flushed as he sat down by the bedside, seeking so hard for a form of words, for an opening—something enlightening without being brutal. Godfrey's eyes, sharpened by his ill-will and suspicion, marked the flush and the hesitation; he guessed there was something to tell. "Well?" he added, peevish at getting no immediate answer.
"She—she's gone away too this morning, Godfrey—early—before we were up."
A lean hand shot out from the bed and grasped his wrist. "Arthur?"
"Yes, old chap, I'm sorry to say—it's a bad business."
"You do mean——? Arthur, you do mean——?"
"Yes, she's gone with him." He could not look at Godfrey; his speech was no more than a mutter. He felt the grasp on his wrist tighten, till it hurt him.
"The damned villain! I knew it! The infernal villain, Arthur!" Godfrey cried querulously.
Clearly an assent was required. Arthur's was inadequate. "Awfully bad business! Try to—to be calm, old fellow, while I tell you about it."
"Yes, yes, tell me!"
There was really nothing material left to tell, but Godfrey was greedy for details; such as there were to tell or conjecture he extracted by rapid questioning, even to the telegram which had come for Judith. Not till the end did he relax his hold on Arthur's wrist and lean back again on his pillows.
He lay silent like that for a long time, with Arthur silent beside him. His rage against Oliver seemed spent almost in the moment of its outburst; to his companion's relief he said nothing about Bernadette's conduct. He lay pathetically quiet, looking tired now, rather than angry or distressed. At last he gave a long sigh. "Well, we know where we are now!" he said.
That piece of knowledge had come to more than one inmate of the house in the last twelve hours.
"We must face the situation, Arthur. It's come to a crisis! I think I'm equal to getting up and—and facing the situation."
"Well, you know, there's no particular use in your——"
"My feelings are—well, you can imagine them." ("More or less!" threw in the gods, grimly chuckling.) "But I mustn't think of myself only. There's Margaret and—and all of it. Yes, I shall get up. I shall get up and sit in my chair, Arthur." He was silent again for a minute. "It makes a great difference. I—I shall have to consider my course—what's best in the interests of all of us. A terrible blow! It must be a blow even to you, Arthur? You and she were such good friends, weren't you? And she does this—she lets herself be seduced into doing this!"
"Yes, of course, it's—it's a blow; but it's you and Margaret we've got to think about."
"No, I don't forget you, I don't forget you!" ("If only he would!" groaned Arthur.) "Well, I must consider my course. Where did you say the telegram was sent from?"
"Winchester."
"I expect they stopped to breakfast there."
"Very likely." Arthur rose to his feet; he did not enjoy a "reconstruction" of the flight. The afflicted husband made no protest against his movement.
"Yes, leave me alone for a little while. I have to think—I must review the position. Tell Judith I should like to see her in about an hour's time, and—and go into matters."
Happy to escape, Arthur left him facing the situation, reviewing the position, considering his course, and determining to get up—to get, at any rate, into his arm-chair—the better to perform these important operations. The messenger of catastrophe came away with a strange impression of the effect of his tidings. After the first outburst—itself rather peevish than passionate—came that idle, almost morbid curiosity about details from which he himself instinctively averted his eyes; then this ineffectual fussiness, this vain self-assertion, which turned to facing the situation only when there was no longer anything or anybody to face, and to reviewing the position only when it was past mending. Of smitten love, even of pride wounded to the heart, there seemed little sign. All Arthur's feelings fought against the sacrilegious idea, but it would not be denied an entry into his mind—after the querulous anger, after the curiosity, mingling with the futile fussiness, there had been an undercurrent of relief—relief that nothing and nobody had to be faced really, that really nothing could be done, nothing expected from him, no call made now on courage or on energy—no, nor on a love or a sympathy already dead before Oliver Wyse struck them the final blow.
That morning's flight, then, was not the tragedy, but the end of it, not the culminating scene of terror and pity, but the fall of the curtain on a play played-out. Whatever of good or evil in life it might bring for Bernadette, for Godfrey it brought relief in its train. It was grievous, no doubt, in its external incidents—a society scandal, a family shame—but in itself, in its true significance to his mind, as it really and closely touched his heart, it came as an end—an end to the strain which he could not support, to the challenge which he dared not face, on which he had turned his back in sulks and malingering—an end to his long fruitless effort to be a satisfactory husband.