The fact that Lassigny's proposal to Beatrix and her acceptance of it had taken place in a houseful of people made it impossible to keep the affair a family secret. Reminders of its being known soon began to disturb the quietude of Abington Abbey.
Grafton went up to the Bank a few days after he had brought Beatrix down, and his sister-in-law called upon him there and asked to be taken out to luncheon. She had come up from the country on purpose and wanted to hear all about it.
Grafton was seriously annoyed. "My dear Mary," he said politely, "it can only be a pleasure to take you out to lunch at any time, and in half an hour I shall be ready to take you to the Berkeley, or wherever you'd like to go to. Will you make yourself comfortable with the paper in the meantime?"
"Oh, I know you're furious with me for having come here, George," she said, "and it's quite true I've never done it before. But Imusttalk to you, and when James said you were coming up to-day I knew it was the only way of getting you. You'd have put me off politely—you're always polite—if I'd telephoned. So please forgive me, and go back to your work till you're ready.I'll write a letter or two. I shall love to do it on the Bank paper."
He came back for her in less than the half-hour. She had her car waiting, and directly they had settled themselves in it he said: "Now look here, Mary, I'm glad you've come, after all. I'll tell you exactly what has happened and you can tell other people. There's no mystery and there's nothing to hide. Lassigny asked B to marry him in the way you've heard of. When he came here to talk it over with me I put one or two questions to him which offended him, and he withdrew. That's all there is to it."
"I don't think it's quite enough, George," she replied at once. "People are talking. I've had one or two letters already. It's hard on poor little B too. She doesn't understand it, and it's making her very miserable."
"Has she written to you about it?"
"Of course she has. You sent her to me while you were getting rid of her lover for her, and she had to write and tell me what had happened. It isn't like you to play the tyrant to your children, George; but really you do seem to have done it here. She won't forgive you, you know."
That was Lady Grafton's attitude at the beginning of the hour or so they spent together, and it was her attitude at the end of it. He had gone further in self-defence than he had had any intention of going, but all she had said was: "Well, I know you think you're right, but honestly I don't, George. ConstanceArdrishaig wrote to me about it and said that they were perfectly delightful together. He thought the world of her, and everybody knows that when a man does fall in love with a thoroughly nice girl it alters him—if he's been what he ought to have been."
Travelling down in the train Grafton found himself embarked upon that disturbing exercise of going over a discussion again and mending one's own side of it. Mary ought to have been able to see it. She had used some absurd arguments; if he had answered her in this way or that, she would have been silenced. Or better still, if he had refused to discuss the matter at all, and rested himself upon the final fact that it was Lassigny who had withdrawn; and there was an end of it. She had, actually, seemed to realise that there was an end of it. She didn't suggest that anything should be done. He rather gathered that Lady Ardrishaig had some intention of writing to Lassigny and trying to 'bring it on again.' Mary had seemed to hint at that, but had denied any such idea when he had asked her if it was so. She had been cleverer at holding him aloof than he had been in holding her. If there was anything that could be done by these kind ladies who knew so much better what was for his daughter's welfare than he did, it would be done behind his back.
Beatrix met him at the station. When they were in the car together she snuggled up to him and said: "Did you see Aunt Mary, darling?"
It was the first time she had used an endearing expression to him since he had brought her home. Hehad experienced a great lift of spirit when he had seen her waiting for him on the platform, looking once again like her old self, and she had kissed him and taken his arm as they went out to the car. But now his heart sank like lead. "Yes, I saw her," he said shortly.
That was all. Beatrix gradually withdrew herself from her warm contact with him, and spoke of surface matters in the lifeless voice she now habitually used towards him. It was plain to him that Lady Grafton had given her to understand that she was going to do something to help her. He had not understood that there had been a correspondence between them.
He complained of it to Caroline. "I suppose she wrote and asked Aunt Mary to see me," he said. "I don't like it at all. Hasn't she got any love for me left? She was just like she always has been for a few minutes, while she thought something might have happened. But it wasn't really for me. It's all that fellow,—and he doesn't want her any more."
Caroline spoke to Beatrix. "You're making Dad awfully unhappy," she said.
"Well, he's making me awfully unhappy," said Beatrix, without waiting for anything further. "He wants me to love him, and of course I do. But I simply can't make a fuss of him, when he's behaving so unfairly. Everybody sympathises with me, except him. And nobody can see any reason for his sending René away, as he did."
It was true that most people who knew about it didsympathise with Beatrix. She received letters, and wrote letters. For the first time in the history of the Grafton family letters that arrived were not common property. No one asked Beatrix whom hers were from, if they came at breakfast-time, nor did she volunteer the information, though sometimes she showed them to Caroline afterwards.
The neighbours knew the story. It annoyed Grafton when he first realised that it was a matter of common talk. The information came to him from Lady Mansergh, of all people in the world.
Lady Mansergh was of an earlier generation of stage beauties than those who now so admirably play their titled parts. She was obviously and frankly 'common.' No one who knew her could have thrown doubt upon the genuine gold of her heart, whatever they may have thought of that of her head, but it had needed all of it to reconcile Grafton to seeing his girls made much of by the stout affectionate lady, who had taken them all to her ample bosom from the first. He had, as a matter of fact, been nearer to the Vicar's opinion, that Lady Mansergh was not a person for them to become intimate with, than to Worthing's, that she was 'perfectly all right, and couldn't possibly do them any harm.' He had even talked to Miss Waterhouse about it, but somewhat to his surprise she had not advised any standing off in whatever relationship the proximity of the two houses might bring about. "Whatever is odd about her they laugh at," she said. "It makes no more impression on them than that. She is a good-heartedwoman, and it is their innocence and brightness that she loves in them. She would never do or say anything that could offend them."
So Lady Mansergh drove over occasionally to the Abbey to see her pretty bunch of girls, as she called them, and shook her fat sides with merriment at the entertainment they afforded her. She had a married step-daughter staying with her at this time, with a family of little children, and the Grafton girls, especially Barbara, were baby worshippers. So that took them to Wilborough. And there were the links in the park, which Sir Alexander had handed over to an informal club, with Worthing as its secretary. Grafton played on them frequently himself, and whenever there was anybody there from the Abbey Lady Mansergh was pretty sure to put in an appearance at some point or other of the course, with a pressing invitation to lunch or tea. If it were not accepted she would keep them company for a time, waddling along with her dachshund and her pug, in a state of high good humour, and talking most of the time, both at those stages of the game that admitted of conversation and those that didn't.
Grafton's objections to her as an intimate of his children to this friendly open extent had died down. There are some people who can be taken purely on the basis of the heart, whatever other factors go to their composition, and Lady Mansergh was one of them. But, friendly as he felt towards her, he was by no means prepared to admit her into confidence on such a matter as this of Beatrix's. A question of marriage, or oflove—Lady Mansergh's experiences on either might include many points of interest; but the tacit understanding surely was that such experiences on her part should be kept in the background. She was what she was now, in this intimacy with his family, and nothing of what she had been.
She got hold of him one afternoon after he had finished his round, and was strolling up with the rest through the garden on their way to tea on the terrace. Tea was not quite ready, and she took him off to her rock-garden, with which his was now in hot competition. Caroline had been coming with them, but Lady Mansergh sent her back. "I've got something to say to your father, dear," she said. "You go and talk to somebody else. You shall come along with me and look at the sempervivums after tea if you want to."
She lost no time in coming to the point. "Now, Mr. Grafton," she said, "I like you and you like me; there's no offence between friends. Can't you do something for that poor dear little girl of yours? She's crying her eyes out for the man she loves.Ican see it ifyoucan't. A father's a father, but he hadn't ought to act harsh to his children. You'll have her going into a decline if you don't do something."
Grafton stood still and faced her. "I didn't know it was that you wanted to talk to me about," he said. "Really, Lady Mansergh, I can't discuss it with you. Let's go back to the others."
She laid her fat hand on his sleeve. "Now don't cut up offended, there's a dear man," she said in apleading soothing voice. "I do so love those girls of yours, that it isn't like interfering. Just let me talk to you a bit about it. No harm'll be done if you can't see it as I do when we've had our little chat."
He walked on again with her. "There's nothing to talk about," he said. "I don't know what you know or from whom you know it, but the facts are that the man asked for my permission to marry Beatrix and then withdrew his request. He has now left England and—well, there's an end of it. He is going, evidently, to forget all about her, and she must learn to forget him. She'll do it quickly enough if her kind friends will leave her alone, and not encourage her to think she's been hardly used. She hasn't been hardly used by me, and to be perfectly straight with you I don't like being told that I'm dealing harshly with my children. It isn't true, and couldn't be true, loving all of them as I do."
"Oh, I know you're aperfectfather to them," said Lady Mansergh enthusiastically. "And they simply adore you—every one of them. I'm sure it does anybody good to see you together. But whatIthink, you know, Mr. Grafton, is that when fathers love their daughters as you love those sweet girls of yours, and depend a lot on them, as, of course, you do, with your wife gone, poor man!—well, you don'tlike'em falling in love. It means somebody else being put first like, when you've always been first yourself. But lor', Mr. Grafton, they won't love you any the less when they take husbands. You'll always be second if you can'tbe first; and first you can't always be, with human nature what it is, and husbands counting for more than fathers."
"I think that's perfectly true," said Grafton, in an easy voice. "A father can't hope to be first when his daughters marry, but he'll generally remain second. Well, when my daughters do marry I shall be content to take that position, and I shall always remember you warned me that I should have to. Thank you very much."
"Ah, now you're laughing at me," she said, looking up in his face, "but you're angry all the same. You ought not to be angry. I'm telling you the woman's side. When a woman loves a man she loves him whatever he is, and if he hasn't been quite what he ought, if she's a good woman she can make him different. That's what she thinks, and she's right to think it. The chance of trying ought not to be took from her."
"Perhaps not," said Grafton. "But in this case it has been taken from her by the man himself. It comes down to that first and last, Lady Mansergh. It's very kind of you to interest yourself in the matter, but really there's nothing to be done, except to encourage Beatrix to forget all about it. If you'll take your part in doing that, you'll be doing her a good turn, and me too."
"There is something to be done, and you could do it," she said. "That's to write and tell the Marquis that you spoke hurriedly. However, I know you won't do it, so I shan't press you any more."
"No, I don't propose to do that," he said. "And now I think we'll talk about something else."
It was difficult to be angry with the stout kind-hearted lady herself, but Grafton was angry over the episode—more angry than he had been over any other. He and Caroline had come over in the little car that he drove himself, and he talked to her about it going back. "It's really intolerable that a woman like that should be mixed up in it," he said. "She's a good-hearted old thing, but she hasn't exactly the sort of history that makes her a person to consult in an affair like this. If B has so far forgotten herself as to make a confidant of Lady Mansergh it's time I talked to her about it. I've just let it alone so far, and hoped she'd recover herself by degrees. But she seems to be making her grievance public property, and she must leave off doing that."
"I don't think shecanhave said anything to Lady Mansergh," said Caroline, rather doubtful about it, all the same. "I think Geoffrey Mansergh must have told her. He knows a lot of people that we do."
"Oh, she talked about B crying her eyes out for him. She must have tried to get sympathy from her. Besides, she does talk about it to other people. There's that little Mollie Walter. And the Pemberton girls. They look at me as if I were a sort of ogre. And the Beckley girl too. Really, I'm not going to be put in that position. It's time B was brought to her senses. If she's going to change the whole of her attitude towards me because of this, I suppose I've got to put upwith it. But I'm not going to be held up here as a brutal tyrannical father, and have the whole of our jolly family life spoilt, as she's spoiling it now."
In this mood he talked to Beatrix immediately he reached home, summoning her into the library in order to do so. He had never lectured one of his children before. None of them had ever needed it. In the old days of occasional childish naughtiness, when as a last resort his authority had been called in, his way had been to take them on his knee and express surprise and sorrow at what he had been told about them. Floods of tears, embraces and promises of complete and fundamental change of conduct had immediately followed, and carried off the remains of whatever naughtiness had been complained of. To hold out against Miss Waterhouse had sometimes been necessary to satisfy that spirit of contrariety which represents the workings of original sin in the best behaved of children. But to hold out against him had never been possible. The melting had come immediately, and subsequent behaviour had always been beautiful until the devil pricked again.
Perhaps if he had acted in some sort of way as would have represented this parental regret, Beatrix might have succumbed to it, as she had always done in the past. But he had shown her so plainly that his love was there ready for her, and that he wanted hers in return, and she had held aloof from him. He was hard with her, and she was hard in return, with a hardness he had never suspected in her. His displeasureseemed not to disturb her at all; she rejected its grounds, and expressed her displeasure with him in return, not with any lack of filial respect, but still as if they were two people on equal terms who had fallen out and could not come together again unless one or the other of them gave way. That he was her father did not appear to her to be reason why she should be the one to give way. She was very sorry, but she couldn't see that she had done anything wrong. She had not, as a matter of fact, said anything to Lady Mansergh, who had heard what had happened from outside. She had been very kind about it, and so had other people who knew. Mollie Walter was her chief friend, and she had told her everything; she didn't see how she could be blamed for that. If she had only told her one side, it was because she couldn't see that there was more than one side. She had never said a word about it to the Pembertons, nor they to her. But they had been more than usually kind to her since, and she supposed it was because they sympathised with her. She didn't see how she could be blamed for that either.
"Well, darling," said Grafton, "perhaps I did you an injustice in thinking that you had talked about it all too much. If so, I'm sorry. But look here, B, we can't go on like this, you know. It's spoiling our family life, and our happiness together. You've had nearly three weeks now to get over it in. When are you going to begin to be what you've always been again?"
"How can you expect me to be the same?" she asked. "I was very happy, and now I'm very unhappy."
"But you're not going to be unhappy all your life, you know. You were as happy here a month ago as all the rest of us. If you can't take so much pleasure in it all just at present you might at least stop spoiling it for us."
"How am I spoiling it for you?"
"Well, I think you know that. We've always been together, and since we've lived here we've all been together in almost everything we've done. Now we're not. You put yourself out of it. It affects us all, and, of course, it affects me more than anybody, because I can't take pleasure in anything that one of my children holds herself apart from, as you're doing. It's more than that. You're almost at enmity with me."
"No, I'm not. But how can I forget what you've done? You've spoilt my life for me. If you hadn't sent him away, I'd have loved you more than ever. Of course I do love you; but I can't help its making a difference."
"My dear child, I've not spoilt your life for you at all. What I've done is to prevent somebody else spoiling it; or, at any rate, I've removed the risk of that happening."
"There wasn't any risk of that happening. I know what he's like, and I know how he loves me. And I love him more than ever now. I always shall love him, whatever happens. You can't make me alter there."
"You're talking very foolishly, B. You're eighteen years old, and you've fallen in love for the first time in life with a man who at the best wouldn't be a particularly suitable life companion for you. Whatever you may feel about it now, you're not going to spend the rest of your days in mourning for him. In six months' time you'll be wondering how you can have felt about him as you do now. I can assure you of that."
She sat looking down upon her hands lying on her lap, with an expression that meant she was not going to answer a statement so absurd as that. Her look of obstinacy stiffened him still further against her, and he proceeded to develop his thesis, not realising that by so doing he was bound to produce just the opposite effect from what he wished.
"Love of this sort is like an illness," he said. "You get over it in that form even if it leads to marriage. If it's the right sort of marriage the love turns into something else that lasts, and no doubt it's the right way to begin. If it doesn't lead to marriage, well, you simply get over it. It's time you began to try."
Still no answer. If hewouldtalk in this way, so incredibly misunderstanding the most beautiful and wonderful thing in the world, it was her duty to listen to him as long as he went on.
He didn't go on any more. He was irritated by her silence. "Oh, well," he said, rising from his chair, "there's no use in saying any more. If you're determined to be love-sick, you must be so, as long as you can keep it up. I should have thought, though, thatyou'd have had more pride than to show yourself pining for a man who, after all, has given you up. I've nothing more to say about it."
When she had left him, as she did immediately, as one released from an unpleasant and undesired interview, he greatly reproached himself for the unkindness of his last speech. It had been dictated partly by that inexplicable perversity which impels to the hurting of those who are loved, but such an impulsion was not likely to be strong in one of Grafton's equable kindly nature. It was beastly to have talked to the poor child in that way. She was suffering, and she couldn't know that her suffering was capable of quick cure. He ought to have been tender of her inexperience, and spared her illusions until time should have shown her what they were. Besides, he wanted her love; it was beginning to distress him greatly that she had so much withdrawn it from him. In his reaction from a mood of hard irritation to one of tenderness his attitude towards the whole question relaxed, and he asked himself again whether he had been entirely right in what he had done.
What had he done? His dislike of Lassigny as a husband for Beatrix had been merely instinctive. If Lassigny had pressed his suit, even without satisfying him that he was not what he seemed to him to be, he could scarcely have held out. There would have been no grounds for his rejection of him that his world could have seen; and he was influenced by the opinion of his world, and, if it had been a question of any onebut his own daughter, would most likely have shared it. Even now, in his greatly softened moods towards her, he would almost have welcomed a state of things in which she would not quite be cut off from hope. Perhaps it would have turned out all right. She was sweet enough to keep any man devoted to her. Her own love was pure enough, even if it was at the stage at which it hardly represented more than physical attraction; and she had a right to her own desires; he could not exercise his parental veto in the last resort on any but very definite grounds, such as could hardly be said to exist here. If only he could have given her what she wanted, and made her happy again, and loving towards himself, it would have lifted a great and increasing trouble from him! The present state of feeling between him and his dearly loved child seemed as if it might part them permanently. He could not look forward to that without a desperate sinking of heart.
But what could he do? It did, after all, come down, as he had said, to the fact that he had not actually sent Lassigny away. Lassigny had withdrawn his suit. That was the leading factor in the situation.
He went to find Beatrix. He wanted to put this to her, once more, with all the affection that he felt towards her, and to reason with her still further, but not in the same spirit as just now. And he wanted still more to make it up with her. She was beginning to wear him down. She could do without him, but he couldn't do without her.
But Beatrix had gone out, to talk to Mollie Walter,and when she came in again, at tea-time, and brought Mollie with her, she kissed him, and was rather brighter than she had been. There was a great lift in his spirits, and although she did not respond to any appreciable extent to his further affectionate approaches and the gleam of sunshine faded again, he thought he had better let her alone. Perhaps she was beginning to get over it, and the clouds would break again, and finally roll away altogether.
Jimmy Beckley had come over to spend the day at Abington. He had brought his sister Vera with him, not altogether without protest. The Grafton girls, he had explained to her, were always jolly pleased to see him, and he got on well with all of them; in fact they were topping girls, and he didn't yet know which of the three he liked best. If he went over alone he could take his pick, but if she went over with him, one, or perhaps two of them, would have to do the polite to her. He betted that they'd rather have him without her. Vera, however, had said that he was a conceited little monkey, and she was coming. So he had made the best of it, and being of less adamantine stuff than he liked to represent himself, he had driven her over in a pony cart, instead of riding, as he would have done if he had gone alone.
Grafton was in London for the day. Caroline and Vera wanted to talk together, and the other four played lawn tennis. But after a couple of sets Beatrix said it was too hot to play any more and went indoors. Jimmy looked after her with regret. For the moment he judged her to be the most attractive of all the Grafton girls, and had invented some amusing thingsto say to her. It seemed a pity to waste them on Barbara. He liked her, and she and he and Bunting had had a good deal of fun together at one time or another. But it had been boy's fun, in which she had naturally taken a subordinate part, as became one of her sex. She was hardly old enough to awaken a more tender emotion in his breast. He was beginning to feel that towards Caroline and Beatrix both, but was not yet sure which of them he should choose when he came to man's estate. Beatrix was the prettier of the two, but they were both very pretty, and Caroline responded rather more to his advances.
Barbara suggested a tournament between the three of them, but the boys didn't care about that, nor for a three-handed set. Eventually, after a short rest, and some agreeable conversation, Barbara found herself shelved, she did not quite know how, and Jimmy and Bunting went off to the gooseberry bushes; not without advice from Barbara not to make little pigs of themselves.
"It's a rummy thing," said Jimmy, "that girls of Barbara's age never quite know how to behave themselves. They think it's funny to be merely rude. Now neither of us would make a mistake of that sort. I suppose it's because they haven't knocked about as much as we have. They don't get their corners rubbed off."
"Oh, Barbara's all right," said Bunting, who respected Jimmy's opinions but did not like to hear his sisters criticised. "We say things like that to eachother. She didn't mean anything by it. You didn't take it quite in the right way."
"My dear chap," said Jimmy, "you needn't make excuses. They're not wanted here. I know how to take a girl of Barbara's age all right. I'm not saying anything against her either. She's young; that's all that's the matter with her. In a few years' time any fellow will be pleased to talk to her, and I shouldn't wonder if she didn't turn out as well worth taking notice of as Caroline and Beatrix. I say, old chap, I'm sorry to hear about this business of B's. She seems rather under the weather about it. But she'll get over it in time, you'll see. There are lots of fellows left in the world. You won't have her long on your hands, unless I'm a Dutchman."
"It's rather a bore," said Bunting shortly. He had not known that Jimmy knew anything about this business of B's, and had not intended to refer to it. But as he did know, there would be no harm in discussing it with him. He rather wanted the opinion of another man on the subject. "I never saw the chap myself," he added. "But if the pater doesn't think it's good enough, that's enough for me."
"I say, old chap, you must get out of the way of calling your governor pater," said Jimmy. "It was all right at your private school, but it's a bit infantile for fellows of our age."
"Well, the Governor then," said Bunting, blushing hotly. "He saw the chap at the Bank, and told him he wasn't taking any. So the chap went away."
"What are they like on that bush?" asked Jimmy. "I don't care for this lot. Was there anything against the fellow? Ah, these are better. Not enough boodle, or something of that sort?"
"I don't think so," replied Bunting. "He's a rich chap, I think, and a sort of peer in his own country. 'Course I shouldn't care for one of the girls to marry a Frenchman myself."
"I haven't got that sort of feeling," said Jimmy. "It's rathervieux jeu. One of my aunts married a Frenchman; they've got a topping villa at Biarritz and I stayed with them last year. He's plus two at golf, and hunts and all that sort of thing. Just like one of us."
"I believe this chap is too," said Bunting. "Still if the Governor didn't care about it, it's enough for me."
"You said that before. You should get out of the way of repeating yourself, Grafton. It's the girl I'm thinking of. Rather hard luck on her, if she's in love with the fellow. However, there are lots of other fellows who'll be quite ready to take it on."
"You said that before. You should get out of the way of repeating yourself, Beckley."
"One up," admitted Jimmy. "I shouldn't let her mope if I were you. When girls are in that state they want amusing. She was quite lively at first this morning, and I was going to try and buck her up a bit after we'd played a set or two. But she went in before I could get to work. It comes over them sometimes,you know. I shouldn't wonder if she weren't having a good blub at this very moment. It takes 'em like that."
"You seem to know a lot about it for a man of your age."
"Well, I do know a bit. I don't mind telling you, Grafton, as we're pals, and I know it won't go any further, that I was jolly well struck on a girl last winter. Used to meet her in the hunting-field and all that. I'm not sure I didn't save her life once. She was going straight for a fence where there was a harrow lying in the field just the other side that she couldn't see. I shouted out to her just in time."
"How did you know the harrow was there?"
"'Cos it happened to be on our own place, fortunately, and I remembered it. 'Course it was nothing that I did, really, but she'd have taken a nasty toss, I expect, even if she hadn't killed herself. She went quite white, and thanked me in a way that—well it showed what she thought of it. I believe if I'd said something then—she—I don't think she'd have minded."
"Why didn't you?"
"Oh, I don't know. I suppose I wasn't quite ready."
"You're generally ready enough."
"Ah, you don't know how it takes you, Grafton. You wait till your time comes. That girl could have done anything with me, as long as it kept on. She came to a ball we had that night, and I'd picked up a bit then. I'd made up my mind that if I'd done her a good turn I'd get something for it."
"What did you get?"
"Ah, you want to know too much. But I don't mind telling you that I danced with her four times, and she chucked over a fellow in his third year at Oxford for me."
"Was that all you got?"
"No, it wasn't. But I shan't tell you any more. It wouldn't be fair to the girl. It's all come to an end now, but I'm not going to give her away."
"Do I know her?"
"I can't tell you that either. You might spot who it was, and that wouldn't be quite fair to her. Fact of the matter is I rather fancy I left off before she did. That's the sort of thing girls don't like having known."
"Why did you leave off?"
"Oh, I don't know. She promised to write to me when I went back to Eton,—there, I've let that out—and she didn't do it for I don't know how long. I was rather sick about it, and when she did write I answered her rather coldly. I thought she'd write again and want to know what the matter was. But she didn't. That cooled me off, I suppose, and when I came back this time—well, I found there were other girls I liked better."
"Oh then you've seen her; so she must live about here. Is it Maggie Williams? I thought she was rather a pretty kid when she was at your house the other day."
"Maggie Williams! My dear chap, what are you thinking about? She's an infant in arms. How couldshe have come to a dance at our house, and given me a carnation—there I've let that out. Maggie Williams! Why she gets ink on her fingers."
"I know she's thirteen because she told me so; and she's your parson's daughter; I don't see why she shouldn't have come to your ball."
"Well, she didn't anyhow; and I don't go in for baby-snatching. If I take to a girl she's got to know a bit."
"I don't know all the people about here yet. You might tell me whether I've seen her."
"No, my son. She wouldn't like it."
"I believe it's all swank. If she's grown up, and she let you kiss her, I expect it was just because she thought you were only a little boy, and it didn't matter."
"I never said I did kiss her."
"Well, you must have been an ass if you didn't."
"I didn't say I didn't either. But I don't mind telling you that I'd arranged a sitting-out place with a bit of mistletoe beforehand."
"You might tell me who it was."
"She's a very fine girl. Rides like a good 'un, and sticks at nothing. I don't say it's absolutely all over yet. I shall see what I feel about it next season. I like her best on a horse."
"Is it one of the Pembertons?"
"I've told you I shouldn't tell you who it was."
"Oh then it must be, or you'd have said no. They're all a bit too ancient for my taste."
"There's a lot of the kid in you still, Grafton. If you call Kate Pemberton ancient, I pity your taste. Still, if you're inclined to be gone on Maggie Williams, I dare say youwouldthink Kate Pemberton ancient."
"You're an ass. I'm not gone on Maggie Williams. I only thought she was rather a nice kid. Was it really Kate Pemberton, Beckley? She is rather a topper, now you come to mention it."
"I don't say it is and I don't say it isn't. I say, I think we've made this bush look rather foolish. I vote we knock off now. How would it be if we went and routed B out and tried to cheer her up a bit?"
Bunting was doubtful about the expediency of this step, though he thanked his friend for the kind thought. "I'm leaving her alone a bit just now," he said. "To tell you the truth I'm not very pleased with her. She's not behaving very decently to the Governor."
"Well, I must say I rather sympathise with her there," said Jimmy, as they strolled across the lawn together. "I should always be inclined to take the girl's side in an affair of this sort. If one of my sisters ever comes across my Governor in that way, I think I shall back her up. But they're not so taking as yours; I expect I shall have the whole lot of them on my hands by and by."
"Oh, I don't think you will," said Bunting politely. "Of course your Governor is a good deal older than mine. He doesn't make a pal of you like ours does of us. That's why I don't like the way B is going on. It worries him. Of course he wouldn't have stoppedit at all if he hadn't a jolly good reason. She ought to see that."
"My dear chap, you can't expect a girl to see anything when she's in that state. I know what I'm talking about. Give her her head and she'll come round all right in time."
"Do you think she will?"
"I'm sure of it. You tell your Governor to leave her alone, and pretend not to notice."
"All right, I will. Shall I say that's the advice of James Beckley, Esquire? I say, what about a round with a mashie?"
"I'm game," said Jimmy. "Don't you think it would do B good to fish her out and have a foursome? I'm sorry for that little girl."
"Oh, leave her alone," said Bunting. "Perhaps she'll play after lunch."
"Just as you like, old man. I only thought I might do something to make her forget her troubles for a bit. My advice to you is to go gently with her. I'll give you two strokes in eighteen holes and play you for a bob."
The reason for Grafton's going up to London that day was that another of his sisters-in-law had taken a hand in the affair. Lady Handsworth, under whose wing Beatrix had enjoyed her London gaieties, had written to him to say that it was very important that she should see him. She should be passing through on such and such a day, and would he please come and lunch with her without fail. She had something very important, underlined, to say, which she couldn't write. She didn't want merely to expostulate with him, or to give him advice, which she knew he wouldn't take. As he had allowed her to look after Beatrix, and take a mother's place towards her, she felt that she had a right to a say in the matter of her marriage; so she hoped he wouldn't disappoint her; she didn't want to act in any way apart from him.
There was a veiled threat in this paragraph. There was always that feeling in his mind that something might be done behind his back by some kind sympathiser with Beatrix. Besides, he did owe something to Lady Handsworth. She played in some sort a mother's part towards Beatrix. To her, if to anybody, he had relegated the duty of watching any movement in themarriage mart of Mayfair, and it was due to her that he should justify himself in his objections to a match that she evidently thought to be a suitable one. They all thought that. Unless he could justify himself he would remain to them as a mere figure of prejudice and unreason.
Lady Handsworth was a good deal older than Lady Grafton, and her manners were not so unbending. But she had a kind heart beneath her stately exterior, and had shown it to Beatrix. She had daughters of her own, and it was to be supposed that she wished to marry them off. They were not nearly so attractive as the Grafton girls whom she had successively chaperoned. But she had made no differences between them, and both Caroline and Beatrix were fond of her.
Part of the big house in Hill Street had been opened up for a few days. Lord Handsworth was in London, and two of the girls were with their mother, but Grafton lunched alone with his sister-in-law, and the servants only came in at the necessary intervals.
She wanted, of course, to know the whys and wherefores of what she evidently considered an unreasonable action on his part, and he resigned himself to going over the ground again. "I can't think why you and Mary don't see it as I do," he said when he had done so. "You're neither of you women who think that money and position are the only things that would matter, and you, at any rate, can't think that it's going to spoil B's life not to marry a man she's fallen in love with at eighteen."
"I'm not sure that that isn't more important than you think, George," she said. "Of course she'll get over it, and, of course, she'll marry somebody else, if she doesn't marry him. But there's nothing quite like the first love, for a girl, especially when she's like B, who has never thought about it, as most girls do, and it has come as a sort of revelation to her."
Grafton felt some surprise at the expression of this view from her. "Yes, if she had fallen in love with the right sort of fellow," he said. "I wish she had, if she has to marry young. Margaret married like that, and she and I were as happy together as two people could be. But a fellow of Lassigny's age, with all that sort of life as his background—taking a sudden fancy to her, and she to him—you're not going to found the happiness Margaret and I had on that, my dear Katherine."
"No two people are alike," said Lady Handsworth; "and you can't tell how any marriage will turn out from that point of view. All that one can say is that a girl ought to have a right to work it out for herself, unless there's a very obvious objection to the man. There isn't here. And you have three daughters, George. You won't be able to pick husbands for all of them that exactly suit your views. You've given me some responsibility in the matter, you know. I own I didn't see this coming on, but if I had I should have thought it was just the right thing. It is as good a match as you could want for any of the girls."
"Oh, a good match! You know I don't care much about that, if it's the right sort of fellow."
"Well, you knew Lassigny. At one time I thought it was quite likely that he would propose for Caroline. You had seen him with her yourself constantly, and never made any objections to him. He had dined with you, and you even asked him down to Abington with us. One would have said that you would have welcomed it. I, at least, would never have supposed that you would treat it as if it were a thing quite out of the question."
"Well, thereissomething in all that, Katherine. But I suppose the fact is that a woman—especially a woman in the position you've been towards B—is always on the lookout for something to happen between a man and a girl who make friends. I can only tell you that I wasn't. I wouldn't have expected it to come on suddenly like that. I've known all about Caroline and her friendships. I suppose you know that Francis Parry wants to marry her. She told me all about it. She's told me about other proposals she's had. That seems to me the normal course with girls who can tell everything to their father, as mine can to me."
She laughed at him quietly. "Caroline has never been in love," she said, "or anywhere near it. Of course she tells you everything, because she wants an excuse for not doing what she thinks perhaps she ought to do. She puts the responsibility on you. When she does fall in love you will very likely know nothing about it until she tells you just as B did."
He laughed in his turn. "I know Caroline betterthan you do," he said. "And I thought B was like her. I'm very distressed about the way she's taking this, Katherine. She's a different child altogether. A day or two ago I thought she was beginning to get over it; but she mopes about and is getting thin. She doesn't want to go away either, though there are plenty of people who want her. And between her and me, instead of being what it always has been,—well, she's like a different person. I hardly know her. There has been no time in my life when things have gone so wrong—except when Margaret died. And until this happened we were enjoying ourselves more than ever. You saw how we'd got ourselves into the right sort of life when you came to Abington. It's all changed now."
"Poor George!" she said. "You couldn't expect it to last quite like that at Abington, you know. You should have bought your country house ten years ago, when the girls were only growing up. You can't keep them there indefinitely. As for B, you can change all that trouble for yourself easily enough. I think, in spite of what you say, you must see that there was not a good enough reason for refusing Lassigny for her. Let it come on again and she'll be happy enough; and she'll be to you what she always has been."
"Oh, my dear Katherine, you, and Mary, and everybody else, quite ignore the fact that it is Lassigny who has withdrawn himself. If I wanted him for B, which I certainly don't, how could I get him? You don't propose, I should think, that I should write to him and ask him to reconsider his withdrawal."
"No, but there are other ways. If you were to withdraw your opposition, and it were known to him that you had done so! I think you ought not to make too much of his withdrawal. He had every right to suppose that you would not object to him as a husband for one of the girls. No man could think anything else after he had been treated as you treated him, and his position is good enough for him to consider himself likely to be welcomed as a suitor. He would be, by almost every parent in England. You can't be surprised at his having taken offence. It would be just as difficult for him to recede from the position you forced him into as for you."
He was silent. "I really don't think it's fair on B to leave it like this," she said. "She will get over it, of course; but she will always think that you hastily decided something for her that she ought to have decided for herself."
"Perhaps it was decided too hastily," he said unwillingly. "I should have been satisfied, I think, to have had a delay. I should always have hated the idea, but——"
"Would you consent now to a delay, if he were to come forward again?"
"Oh, my dear Katherine, what are you plotting? Why not let the child get over it, as she will in a few months?"
"You don't yourself think that she'll get over it in a few months, so as to bring her back to you what she was before. I've plotted nothing, George. I shouldhave left it altogether alone, but I have been asked to talk to you. Mme. de Lassigny is in England. She wants to see you about it. That was why I asked you to come up. She is at Claridge's. She would like you to go and see her there this afternoon. Or she would come here."
"Do you know her?"
"No. But Lady Ardrishaig does. They have met. She wrote to me. I think you ought to see her, George. You have admitted that it was all done too hastily, with him. If your objections to him are reasonable you ought to be able to state them so that others can accept them."
"It will be a very disagreeable interview, Katherine."
"It need not be. And you ought not to shirk it on that account."
"I don't want to shirk anything. Very well, I will go and see this good lady. Oh, what a nuisance it all is! I wish we'd never seen the fellow."
The telephone was put into operation, and Grafton went immediately to Claridge's. The Marquise received him in a room full of the flowers and toys with which rich travelling Americans transform their temporary habitations into a semblance of permanence. She was of that American type which coalesces so well with the French aristocracy. Tall and upright, wonderfully preserved as to face and figure; grey hair beautifully dressed; gowned in a way that even a man could recognise as exceptional; rather more jewelled than an Englishwoman would be in the day-time, but not excessivelyso for essential suitability; vivacious in speech and manner, but with a good deal of thegrande dameabout her too. The interview was not likely to be a disagreeable one, if she were allowed to conduct it in her own fashion.
She thanked Grafton pleasantly for coming to see her, and then plunged immediately into the middle of things. "You and my son hardly finished your conversation," she said. "I think you slightly annoyed one another, and it was broken off. I hope you will allow me to carry it on a little further on his behalf. And I must tell you, to begin with, Mr. Grafton, that he has not asked me to do so. But we mothers in France love our sons—I am quite French in that respect—and I know he is very unhappy. You must forgive an old woman if she intervenes."
She could not long since have passed sixty, and but for her nearly white hair would not have looked older than Grafton himself. He made some deprecatory murmur, and she proceeded.
"I have long wanted René to range himself," she said. "He will make a good husband to a girl whom he loves—I can assure you of that, for I know him very well. He loves your little daughter devotedly, Mr. Grafton. Fortunately, I have seen her for myself, once or twice here in London, though I have never spoken to her. I think she is the sweetest thing. I should adore him to marry her. Won't you think better of it, Mr. Grafton? I wouldn't dare to ask you— I have really come toLondon on purpose to do it—if I weren't sure that you were mistaken about him."
"How am I mistaken about him?" asked Grafton. "I am very English, you know. We have our own ideas about married life. I needn't defend them, but I think they're the best there are. They're different from the French ideas. They're different from your son's ideas. He made that plain, or we shouldn't have parted as we did."
"Well, I am glad you have put it in that direct way," she said. "I have a great deal of sympathy with your ideas; they're not so different from those in which I was brought up. I wasn't brought to Europe to marry a title, as some of our girls are. It was a chance I did so. I was in love with my husband, and my married life was all I could wish for, as long as it lasted. It would be the same, I feel sure, with your daughter."
Grafton smiled at her. "If we are to talk quite directly," he said "—and it's no good talking at all if we don't—I must say that, as far as I can judge, American women are more adaptable than English. They adapt themselves here to our ideas, when they marry Englishmen, and they adapt themselves to Frenchmen, whose ways are different from ours. I don't think an English girl could adapt herself to certain things that are taken for granted in France. I don't think that a girl like mine should be asked to. She wouldn't be prepared for it. It would be a great shock to her if it happened. She would certainly havea right to blame her father if she were made unhappy by it. I don't want my daughters to blame me for anything."
She had kept her eyes steadily fixed on him. "Well, Mr. Grafton," she said, "we won't run away from anything. Can you say of any man, French or English or American, who is rich and lives a life chiefly to amuse himself, that he is always going to remain faithful to his wife? How many young Englishmen of the type that you would be pleased to marry your daughter to could you say it of, for certain?"
"Of a good many. And I should say there wasn't one who wouldn't intend to keep absolutely straight when he fell in love with a girl and wanted to marry her. If he wasn't like that, I think one would know, and feel exactly the same objection as I must admit I feel towards your son."
"Oh, but you do mistake him. It was because you doubted him that he took such offence. As he said to me, it was like saying that your own daughter was not worthy to be loved for all her life."
Grafton felt a sudden spurt of resentment. His voice was not so level as usual as he said: "It's easy enough to put it in that way. He said much the same to me. Of course she's worthy to be loved all her life. Would you guarantee that she always would be?"
There was the merest flicker of her eyelids before she replied: "How could one guarantee any such thing for any man, even for one's own son? All I can tell you is that he will make her a devoted husband, andher chances of happiness are as great with him as if he were an Englishman. I won't say that he has never loved another woman. That would be absurd. What I can say is that he does love no one else, and that he loves her in such a way as to put the thought of other women out of his mind. That is exactly what love that leads to marriage should be, in my opinion. Don't you agree with me, Mr. Grafton?"
"Yes," he said. "It ought to do that."
"And if it does, what more have you a right to ask? Our men are chivalrous. The very fact of his marrying an innocent English girl, who would be hurt by what she had had no experience of would act with my son—or I should think with any gentleman."
"Frenchmen generally marry innocent girls, don't they, Madame?"
"You mean that it doesn't prevent them leaving them afterwards. Well, perhaps not always. But surely, Mr. Grafton, you do ask too much, don't you? If he loves her and she loves him, it isn't reasonable to keep them apart, is it?"
He paused for a moment before asking: "How am I keeping them apart?"
"Would you allow them to come together again?" she asked in her turn.
He stirred uneasily in his chair. The thought of his little B once more living with him moved him. "I think it would be better if they didn't," he said. "But if—after a time——"
"Oh, I don't mean now at once," she said. "Indeedthat would be impossible, for I have persuaded him to go to America. He is to start very shortly, and won't be in England again before he goes."
Grafton felt a considerable sense of relief at this statement. "How long is he to be away?" he asked.
"Oh, I hope for the winter, if he amuses himself. But he may want to hunt in England."
"If you told him that he might see her again wouldn't he want to come back? Perhaps he wouldn't want to go. I think I should stipulate, anyhow, that he did go—or at least that he shouldn't see her again, or write to her, say for six months. I think, perhaps, I haven't the right to reject him altogether, on the ground of my objections. But I do feel them strongly. It will be a grief to me if my daughter makes this marriage. I have a right, I think, to make sure that her feeling for him is at least strong enough to stand six months of being parted. If she is the same at the end of it, then perhaps I couldn't hold out. I think the same test might apply to him. It would relieve my fears somewhat for the future, if he still wants to marry her at the end of that time."
"Perhaps he won't, Mr. Grafton," she said, with a slight change of manner. "You may have asked yourself why I should have pleaded with you, as I have done, for permission for my son to pay addresses to your daughter. Though I should be proud of her, and should love her too, it would not be a brilliant match for my son. I might prefer another sort of match for him. As you have said, Americans makegood wives for French husbands—perhaps better than English girls. They do not demand so much."
He gathered that she was feeling uneasy at being in the position of asking for what she would have preferred to concede as a favour, and was rather amused at it. "I should have thought it would have suited you much better," he said, with a smile. "Why is it that you should not be satisfied with the unreasonable objections of an Englishman who ought to be pleased at the idea of his daughter marrying your son?"
"Because I don't hold rank to be the chief thing in marriage, any more than you do, Mr. Grafton," she answered him directly. "And money isn't wanted in this case, though more money is always useful in our world. It is just because I want for my son in marriage what you want for your daughter that I should like to see him marry her. It is that and because he loves her in the way that should make a happy marriage, and is very unhappy about her. I did think at first that it would be best that he should get over it, because to tell you the truth I was offended by the way in which you had received him, and didn't see how that could be got over. But I have put my pride in my pocket. Let him go to America, as it has been arranged, and stipulate, if you like, that nothing further shall be done or said, until he comes back again—or for six months. Then, if they are both of the same mind, let us make the best of it, Mr. Grafton, and acknowledge that theyare two people who are meant to marry. Won't you have it that way?"
"I won't say no," said Grafton. "But, you know, Madame, you have brought another consideration into the situation. He is to be free, I take it, to pay his addresses to somebody else, if he feels inclined, and that, I suppose, was what you had in your mind when you persuaded him to go to America. It's only because I hate seeing my little daughter unhappy that I am giving way. If he changes his mind, during the next six months, and she doesn't——"
"She will be more unhappy than ever, I suppose. Yes, there is that risk. It happens always when two people are kept apart in the hope of one of them changing their mind."
He laughed, and rose to take his farewell. "What I shall tell my daughter is that she must consider it over for the present," he said. "But if he makes an offer for her again next year, I shall reconsider it."
"I don't think you need do more, Mr. Grafton," she said.
Caroline, only, met her father at the station. He was disappointed that Beatrix hadn't come. His mind had been lighter about her than for some time, as he had travelled down. It had been greatly disturbing him to be at issue with this much-loved child of his, and to lose from her all the pretty ways ofaffection that had so sweetened his life. He knew that he had given way chiefly because the results of his holding out against her were hardly supportable to himself. She had the 'pull' over him, as the one who loves least always has in such a contest. His weapons were weak in his hands. But he did not mind much; for there was the prospect of getting back again to happy relations, and that counted for more than anything. She would be grateful to him, and give him her love again.
He could not have felt quite like this about it if he had given in entirely because he wanted to please Beatrix. It was necessary that he should find some other justification for himself; and it was not difficult to find. If Lassigny still wanted to marry her after six months' parting and she wanted it too, it would be unreasonable to object on the grounds that he had taken. His dislike of Lassigny, which had not existed at all before, had died down. Seen in the light of his mother's faith in him, he was a figure more allied to the suitor that Grafton would have accepted without such questionings as his foreign nationality had evoked. For the time being he could think of an eventual marriage without shrinking. But this state of mind was probably helped by the consideration that anything might happen in six months. It was at least a respite. There was no need to worry now about what should come after.
He told Caroline what had happened as they drove home together. He had said nothing beforehand ofhis going up to see Lady Handsworth. He had not wanted again to have Beatrix's hopes raised, and to suffer the chill of her disappointment.
"Everybody seems to think that I'm most unreasonable," he said. "I'm half-beginning to think so myself. I suppose B will forget all about what's been happening lately when I tell her, won't she?"
"Oh, yes, darling," said Caroline. "She loves you awfully. She'll be just what she always has been to you."
"Oh well, that's all right then. I shall be precious glad to go back to the old state of things. I may have been unfair to her in one or two points, but I'm sure I've been right in the main. If there's to be nothing settled for six months that's all I can ask. I think I should have been satisfied with that at first. At least I should have accepted it."
"So would B. She said so."
"Yes, I know. You told me. How jolly it is to get down here after London! We're all going to enjoy ourselves at Abington again now. Let's get up early to-morrow, shall we?"
The early risings had been given up of late. The edge of pleasure in the new life and the new place had become blunted. But it all seemed bright again now, and the country was enchanting in the yellow evening light.
So was the house when they reached it. September was half-way through, and though the days were warm and sunny, there was a chill when the sun had gonedown. A wood fire was lit in the long gallery, which with curtains closed, lamps and candles lit, and masses of autumn flowers everywhere about it, was even more welcoming than in its summer state.
Grafton sat there with Beatrix on a sofa before the fire. Her head was on his shoulder and his arm was round her. She cried a little when he told her, but she was very happy. She was also very merry throughout the evening, but alternated her bursts of merriment with the clinging tenderness towards him which he had so missed of late. It was only when he was alone in his room that a cold waft came over his new-found contentment. He had forgotten all about Lassigny for the time being. Could he ever accept Lassigny as part of all this happy intimate family life? He would have to, if Beatrix were to get what she wanted, and were still to remain allied to it. But Lassigny hardly seemed to fit in, even at his best. He was all very well as a guest; but when they were alone together, as they had been this evening—— Oh, if only B could see her mistake!