CHAPTER XXXIIISITUATION THE FOURTH
Itwas evident that some kind of armistice orpourparlershad been arranged between Mrs. Ramsay and her misguided young companion, for, when the General, the Rector, and Mrs. Morven returned to England, home, and duty, these ladies still remained abroad, and went together to a small and picturesque village in the very heart of the Alpes-Maritimes. Aurea longed for some such quiet retreat, where she could hide herself, and recover from a blow which had still left its quivering traces. Love and happiness were possibly within her reach, and she had, in all ignorance, cast them aside; her widowed chaperone understood and sympathised, and, though it was she who had inflicted the wound, she was absolved.
In the inn of a little mountain village the friends spent three weeks far from the giddy crowds, aloof from luxury, and the world. Here were thick cups, thin candles, good coffee, and sour bread. What long walks and talks they enjoyed, and how fully the girl opened her innocent heart to the experienced, world-worn matron! Letters were rare, and newspapers ignored; in Aurea’s mental condition, what were to her the fate of plays, of Cabinets, yea, of nations? She was never likely to hear tidings ofhimthrough the Press; but here Aurea was wrong. The unexpected—as is so frequently the case—declared itself. One afternoon the two ladies walked to a town at some distance, and asthey waited for a well-deservedcafé complét, Mrs. Ramsay idly glanced over an old and fly-blown copy of the continentalDaily Mail, and the following paragraph caught her eye and seemed to stab her in the face:—
“The neighbourhood of Villo, near Turin, has been shocked by a terrible accident, which took place yesterday. Mr. H. Masham, the well-known racing motorist, returning victorious from a competition, in order to avoid a wagon, dashed into a hillside at full speed. The motor turned over completely; he and the chauffeur were pinned underneath. Mr. Masham was dead when extricated, and there are no hopes of the recovery of his companion.”
“The neighbourhood of Villo, near Turin, has been shocked by a terrible accident, which took place yesterday. Mr. H. Masham, the well-known racing motorist, returning victorious from a competition, in order to avoid a wagon, dashed into a hillside at full speed. The motor turned over completely; he and the chauffeur were pinned underneath. Mr. Masham was dead when extricated, and there are no hopes of the recovery of his companion.”
Mrs. Ramsay made a desperate attempt to hide the paper, but it was impossible to hide her own white face, and Aurea insisted on reading the paragraph. When she had grasped its contents, she turned to her friend for a moment with great, agonised, unseeing eyes, and for the first time in her life of twenty-one years Aurea Morven fainted.
That same hour Mrs. Ramsay despatched a reply-paid telegram to the Italian Hospital, asking for immediate tidings of Mr. Owen, and the answer received was—
“Owen left yesterday—address unknown.”
Well, at any rate, he was still in the land of the living, and from this important fact Miss Morven must extract such comfort as she deserved.
The truth was, that the chauffeur’s injuries were not so severe as had been supposed—a few cuts and bruises, a slight concussion, and a broken collar-bone. His fine constitution had speedily carried him out of the doctor’s hands, and when Wynyard returned to London, it was to find that his sister and her husband had arrived as a part of the great tide that flows annually from the West. Lady Kesters had heard of her brother’s accident in New York, and spent a small fortune incables, and now they met again, after a separation of six months, with mutual satisfaction; but, in spite of her insistence, Wynyard firmly resisted his sister’s invitation to take up his quarters in Mount Street.
“No, no,” he answered, “that is not in the bond; I’ll get through on my own. I’ve only four months to work off. I can run in and out till I find another place.”
“What about money, my dear boy? Your stay in that Italian hospital must have been expensive.”
“I was heavily insured against accidents; after my first week with Masham—when I realised his style of driving, I took out a policy for fifteen hundred pounds!”
“I wonder you dare get into a motor,” she said. “I don’t see how you can possibly have any nerve left.”
“Oh, I’m not such a wreck as all that; and, considering everything, I got off uncommonly well. I’m sure poor Masham was insane. He certainly looked it at times. It’s my experience that there are quite a good-sized crowd of lunatics about at large; I’ve knocked up against one or two lately. Masham always prophesied he would be killed in a motor accident—and seemed rather to glory in the prospect.”
“You do tumble into the queerest situations—old maids, dancers, madman! I must confess I cannot understand why you remained with him, carrying your life in your hands?”
“In Masham’s hands, you mean!” corrected her brother; “he seldom allowed me to drive.”
“And if you had been killed, where, pray, did I come in—or Aurea Morven?”
Owen Wynyard’s next situation as chauffeur was with a certain Mrs. Buckingham Brune, a wealthy matron who had a fine place in the north of England. Miss Weedon, her daughter by a first marriage, was anotable heiress, and her mother was determined that she should make an alliance befitting her great fortune and fame. Her father, Sir Jacob Weedon, the son of a peasant, had risen to wealth and honour solely through his own active brain and dogged industry. He had not the smallest desire to conceal his origin, and often alluded to the days when he was “a poor, half-fed body”; and his coal-pick actually hung as a glorious trophy over the chimneypiece in his smoking-room. But his wife was of a different type; she smothered (when possible) his reminiscences, and desired, since his death, to soar to other worlds—on the wings of Ermentrude’s fortune; but Betsy Ermentrude, a simple maiden in her prime, inherited her father’s character and ideas, and had no craving for super-society or to wear the coronet of a peeress. Her mother had married a second time, a good-looking young man, many years her junior; he was a lazy member of an impoverished family, who had no objection to a luxurious home, hunters, motors, pocket-money, and the best of shooting. It was considered (among his intimates) that Toby Brune had dropped into a “nice soft thing.” They were not, however, thinking of Mrs. Brune, who was notoriously as hard as nails, but of Toby’s enviable surroundings.
Miss Weedon made no rash assertions, never took exception to her mother’s gay guests, but quietly made up her mind that, as her parent had pleased herself, she would do likewise, and shape her own life. Betsy was a slight, sandy-haired girl with appealing blue eyes, a determined mouth, and a radiant smile. Her figure was willowy and graceful; in short, she was unnecessarily pretty for an heiress.
This was the entourage in which the chauffeur now found himself, his sole stipulation being to “live out.” He had no desire to mix with the great staff of servants,and found comfortable quarters at one of the gate lodges. The family owned no less than three fine cars; the one Wynyard drove was a Panhard—the exclusive possession of Miss Weedon and her friends. Mrs. Brune toured the country in a magnificent Mercédès. She was a stout, black-haired lady, with a short neck and a full meridian. To make her look young and slender was the hopeless task of milliner and maid. Their employer had, however, contrived to squeeze herself into the best society, was a clever, pushing woman, who had early acquired the art of “Who to know, and who not to know.” Her cook was a notable French chef, and smart guests, who stayed at the Court, invariably carried away with them the happy tidings that “they had been done remarkably well, and indirect everything was topping!”
Mrs. Buckingham Brune, for her husband’s benefit, rented a fine moor in Scotland, and here the family were luxuriously established for August and September. Owen, by special permission, lived with one of the keepers, and was chiefly employed to fetch guests to and from the station, or to motor the ladies to the neighbouring sights.
Occasionally Miss Weedon adventured forth alone, and, at a discreet distance from the lodge, picked up a certain young man—who, as it happened, was an acquaintance of the chauffeur’s. Miss Weedon’s love-affairs were not precisely his business, but they had his sympathy and, if desired, his sanction. Supposing Teddy Wantage were anxious to marry the heiress and they liked one another, supposing he were man enough to carry her off—who was to stand in their way? Not he! He detested Mrs. Buckingham Brune, her preposterous pretensions, and shameless tuft-hunting, and was fully prepared to help old lame-dog Teddy over an awkward matrimonial stile.