“Any place,” the girl exclaimed as she entered, “more unlike a solicitor’s office, I never saw! Flowers outside and flowers on your desk, Mr. Pengarth! Don’t you have to apologize to your clients for your surroundings? There’s absolutely nothing, except the brass plate outside, to show that this isn’t an old-fashioned farmhouse, stuck down in the middle of a village. Fuchsias in the window sill, too!”
He placed a chair for her, and laid down the deed which he had been examining, with a little sigh of relief. It really was very hard work pretending to be busy.
“You see, Miss Juliet,” he explained with twinkling eyes, “my clients are all country folk, and it makes them feel more at home to find a lawyer’s office not very different from their own parlor.”
She nodded.
“What would the great man say?” she inquired, pointing to the rows of black tin boxes which lined the walls.
“Sir Wingrave Seton is never likely to come here again, I am afraid,” he answered. “If he did, I don’t think he’d mind. To tell you the truth, I’m rather proud of my office, young lady!”
She looked around.
“They are nice,” she said decidedly, “but unbusinesslike.”
“You’re going to put up the pony and stay to lunch, of course?” he said. “I’ll ring for the boy.”
She stopped him.
“Please don’t!” she exclaimed. “I have come to see you—on business!”
Mr. Pengarth, after his first gasp of astonishment, was a different man. He fumbled about on the desk, and produced a pair of gold spectacles, which he adjusted with great nicety on the edge of his very short nose.
“On business, my dear!” he repeated. “Well, well! To be sure! Is it Miss Harrison who has sent you?”
Mr. Pengarth’s visitor looked positively annoyed. She leaned across the table towards him so that the roses in her large hat almost brushed his forehead. Her wonderful brown eyes were filled with reproach.
“Mr. Pengarth,” she said, “do you know how old I am?”
“How old, my dear? Why, let me see!” he exclaimed. “Fourteen and—why, God bless my soul, you must be eighteen!”
“I am nineteen years old, Mr. Pengarth,” the young lady announced with dignity. “Perhaps you will be kind enough to treat me now—er—with a little more respect.”
“Nineteen!” he repeated vaguely. “God bless my—nineteen years old?”
“I consider myself,” she repeated, “of age. I have come to see you about my affairs!”
“Yes, yes!” he said. “Quite natural.”
“For four years,” she continued, “I seem to have been supported by some relative of my father, who has never vouchsafed to send me a single line or message except through you. I have written letters which I have given to you to forward. There has been no reply. Have you sent on those letters, Mr. Pengarth?”
“Why certainly, my dear, certainly!”
“Can you tell me how it is that I have had no answer?”
Mr. Pengarth coughed. He was not at all comfortable.
“Your guardian, Miss Juliet, is somewhat eccentric,” he answered, “and he is a very busy man.”
“Can you tell me, Mr. Pengarth, exactly what relation he is to me?”
There was a dead silence. Mr. Pengarth found the room suddenly warm, and mopped his forehead with a large silk handkerchief.
“I have no authority,” he declared, “to answer any questions.”
“Then can you tell me of your own accord,” she said, “why there is all this mystery? Why may I not know who he is, why may I not write to him? Am I anything to be ashamed of, that he will not trust me even with his name? I am tired of accepting so much and not being able to offer even my thanks in return. It is too much like charity! I have made up my mind that if this is to go on, I will go away and earn my own living! There, Mr. Pengarth!”
“Rubbish!” he exclaimed briskly. “What at?”
“Painting!” she declared triumphantly. “I have had this in my mind for some time, and I have been trying to see what I can do best. I have quite decided, now, to be an artist.”
“Pictures,” he declared sententiously, “don’t sell!”
“Mine do,” she answered, smiling. “I have had a check for three guineas from a shop in London for a little sea piece I did in two afternoons!”
He regarded her admiringly.
“You are a wonderful child!” he exclaimed.
“I am not a child at all,” she interrupted warmly, “and you can just sit down and write to your silly client and tell him so.”
“I will certainly write to him,” he affirmed. “I will do so today. You will not do anything rash until I have had time to get a reply?”
“No!” she answered graciously. “I will wait for a week. After that—well, I might do anything!”
“You wouldn’t leave Tredowen, Miss Juliet!” he protested.
“It would break my heart, of course,” she declared, “but I would do it and trust to time to heal it up again. Tredowen seems like home to me, but it isn’t really, you know. Some day, Sir Wingrave Seton may want to come back and live there himself. Are you quite certain, Mr. Pengarth, that he won’t be angry to hear that we have been living at the house all this time?”
“Certain,” Mr. Pengarth declared firmly. “He left everything entirely in my hands. He did not wish me to let it, but he did not care about its being altogether uninhabited. The arrangement I was able to make with your guardian was a most satisfactory one.”
“But surely he will come back himself some time?” she asked,
The lawyer shook his head sorrowfully.
“I am afraid,” he said, “that Sir Wingrave has no affection for the place whatever.”
“No affection for Tredowen,” she repeated wonderingly. “Do you know what I think, Mr. Pengarth? I think that it is the most beautiful house in the world!”
“And yet you talk of leaving it.”
“I don’t want to go,” she answered, “but I don’t want to be accepting things all my life from someone whose name even I do not know.”
“Well, well,” he said, “you must wait until I have written my letter. Time enough to talk about that later on. Now, if you won’t stay to lunch, you must come and see Rachael and have some cake and a glass of wine.”
“How sweet of you,” she exclaimed. “I’m frightfully hungry. Can I do anything to stop growing, Mr. Pengarth? I’m getting taller and taller!”
She stood up. She was head and shoulders taller than the little lawyer, slim as a lath, and yet wonderfully graceful. She laughed down at him and made a little grimace.
“I’m a giraffe, am I not?” she declared; “and I’m still growing. Do show me your garden, Mr. Pengarth. I want to see your hollyhocks. Everyone is talking about them.”
They were joined in a few minutes by a prim, dignified little lady, ridiculously like Mr. Pengarth, whom he called sister, and she Miss Rachael. Juliet walked down the garden between them.
“Sister,” Mr. Pengarth said, “Juliet has come today to see me on business. In effect, she has come to remind me that she is grown up.”
“Grown up,” Miss Rachael protested vigorously, “rubbish!”
“I am nineteen years old,” Juliet declared.
“And what if you are,” Miss Rachael replied briskly. “In my young days we were in the nursery at nineteen.”
“Quite so,” Mr. Pengarth assented with relief. “You took me by storm just now, Miss Juliet. After all, you are only a child.”
“I am old enough to feel and to mean all that I said to you, Mr. Pengarth,” she answered gravely. “And that reminds me, too—there was something else I meant to ask you.”
“Sister,” Mr. Pengarth said, “have you ordered the wine and the cake?”
“Bless me, no!” Miss Rachael declared. “It shall be ready in five minutes.”
She entered the house. Mr. Pengarth stooped to pick some lavender.
“The only time I ever saw Sir Wingrave Seton,” she said, “was on the day before I was told that a relation of my father had been found, who was willing to take charge of me. There was a younger man with him, someone very, very different from Sir Wingrave. Do you know who he was?”
“A sort of secretary of Sir Wingrave, I believe, dear. I never met him. I was, unfortunately, away at the time they came.”
“He was very nice and kind to me,” the girl continued, “just as nice as Sir Wingrave was horrid. I suppose it was because they came on that day, but I have always connected him somehow with this mysterious relation of mine. Mr. Aynesworth didn’t help to find him, did he?”
“Certainly not!” the lawyer answered. “The instructions I had came first from Mr. Saunders, the vicar of the parish. It was he who appeared to have made the necessary inquiries.”
“Horrid old man!” she declared. “He used to make me feel that I wanted to cry every time that I saw him.”
“Miss Rachael is calling us,” the lawyer declared with obvious relief.
“New cake!” Juliet declared, “I can smell it! Delicious!”
“There are two letters,” Aynesworth announced, “which I have not opened. One, I think, is from the Marchioness of Westhampton, the other from some solicitors at Truro. They were both marked private.”
Wingrave was at breakfast in his flat; Aynesworth had been in an adjoining room sorting his correspondence. He accepted the two letters, and glanced them through without remark. But whereas he bestowed scarcely a second’s consideration upon the broad sheet of white paper with the small coronet and the faint perfume of violets, the second letter apparently caused him some annoyance. He read it through for a second time with a slight frown upon his forehead.
“You must cancel my engagements for two days, Aynesworth,” he said. “I have to go out of town.”
Aynesworth nodded.
“There’s nothing very special on,” he remarked. “Do you want me to go with you?”
“It is not necessary,” Wingrave answered. “I am going,” he added, after a moment’s pause, “to Cornwall.”
Aynesworth was immediately silent. The one time when Wingrave had spoken to him as an employer, was in answer to some question of his as to what had eventually become of the treasures of Tredowen. He had always since scrupulously avoided the subject.
“Be so good as to look out the trains for me,” Wingrave continued. “I cannot go until the afternoon,” he added after a momentary pause. “I have an engagement for luncheon. Perhaps, if you are not too busy, you will see that Morrison packs some things for me.”
He moved to the writing table, and wrote a few lines to the Marchioness, regretting that his absence from town would prevent his dining with her on the following day. Then he studied the money column in several newspapers for half an hour, and telephoned to his broker. At eleven o’clock, he rode for an hour in the quietest part of the park, avoiding, so far as possible, anyone he knew, and galloping whenever he could. It was the only form of exercise in which he was known to indulge although the knowledge of English games, which he sometimes displayed, was a little puzzling to some of his acquaintances. On his return, he made a simple but correct toilet, and at half-past one he met Lady Ruth at Prince’s Restaurant.
Lady Ruth’s gown of dove color, with faint touches of blue, was effective, and she knew it. Nevertheless, she was a little pale, and her manner lacked that note of quiet languor which generally characterized it. She talked rather more than usual, chattering idly about the acquaintances to whom she was continually nodding and bowing. Her face hardened a little as the Marchioness, on her way through the room with a party of friends, stopped at their table.
The two women exchanged the necessary number of inanities, then the Marchioness turned to Wingrave.
“You won’t forget that you are dining with me tomorrow?”
Wingrave shook his head regretfully.
“I am sorry,” he said, “but I have to go out of town. I have just written you.”
“What a bore,” she remarked. “Business, of course!”
She nodded and passed on. Her farewell to Lady Ruth was distinctly curt. Wingrave resumed his seat and his luncheon without remark.
“Hateful woman,” Lady Ruth murmured.
“I thought you were friends,” Wingrave remarked.
“Yes, we are,” Lady Ruth assented, “the sort of friendship you men don’t know much about. You see a good deal of her, don’t you?”
Wingrave raised his head and looked at Lady Ruth contemplatively.
“Why do you ask me that?” he asked.
“Curiosity!”
“I do,” he remarked; “you should be grateful to her.”
“Why?”
“It may save you a similar infliction.”
Lady Ruth was silent for several moments.
“Perhaps,” she said at last, “I do not choose to be relieved.”
Wingrave bowed, his glass in his hand. His lips were curled into the semblance of a smile, but he did not say a word. Lady Ruth leaned a little across the table so that the feathers of her hat nearly brushed his forehead.
“Wingrave,” she asked, “do you know what fear is? Perhaps not! You are a man, you see. No one has ever called me a coward. You wouldn’t, would you?”
“No!” he said deliberately, “you are not a coward.”
“There is only one sort of fear which I know,” she continued, “and that is the fear of what I do not understand. And that is why, Wingrave, I am afraid of you.”
He set down his glass, and his fingers trifled for a moment with its stem. His expression was inscrutable.
“Surely,” he said, “you are not serious!”
“I am serious,” she declared, “and you know that I am.”
“You are afraid of me,” he repeated softly. “I wonder why.”
She looked him straight in the eyes.
“Because,” she said, “I did you once a very grievous wrong. Because I know that you have not forgiven me. Because I am very sure that all the good that was in you lies slain.”
“By whose hand?” he asked quietly. “No! You need not answer. You know. So do I. Yes, I can understand your fear. But I do not understand why you confess it to me.”
“Nor I,” she answered. “Nor do I understand why I am here—at your bidding, nor why I keep you always by my side whenever you choose to take your place there. Are you a vain man, Wingrave? Do you wish to pose as the friend of a woman whom the world has thought too ambitious to waste time upon such follies? There is the Marchioness! She would do you more credit still.”
“Thank you,” he answered. “I like to choose the path myself when I pass into the maze of follies!”
“You have not yet explained yourself,” she reminded him. “Of all people in world, you have chosen us for your presumptive friends. Why? You hate us both. You know that you do. Is it part of a scheme? Lumley is investing money on your advice, I am allowing myself to be seen about with you more than is prudent—considering all things. Do you want to rake out the ashes of our domestic hearth—to play the part of—melodramatic villain? You are ingenious enough, and powerful enough.”
“You put strange ideas into my head,” he told her lightly. “Why should I not play the part that you suggest? It might be amusing, and you certainly deserve all the evil which I could bring upon you.”
She leaned a little across the table towards him. Her eyes were soft and bright, and they looked full into his. The color in her cheeks was natural. The air around him was faintly fragrant with the perfume of her clothes and hair.
“We couldn’t leave off playing at the game—and act it, could we?” she murmured. “We couldn’t really—be friends?”
Lady Ruth had played her trump card. She had touched his fingers with hers, her eyes shone with the promise of unutterable things. But if Wingrave was moved, he did not show it.
“I wish,” he said, “that I could accept your offer in the spirit with which you tender it. Unfortunately, I am a maimed person. My sensibilities have gone. Friendship, in the more intimate sense of the word, I may never hope to feel again. Enmity—well, that is more comprehensible; even enmity,” he continued slowly, “which might prompt a woman to disguise herself as her own lady’s maid, to seek out a tool to get rid of the man she feared. Pardon me, Lady Ruth, you are eating nothing.”
She pulled down her veil.
“Thank you, I have finished,” she said in a low tone.
He called for the bill.
“Pray, don’t let my little remark distress you,” he said. “I had almost forgotten the circumstance until something you said brought it into my mind. It is you yourself, you must remember, who set the example of candor.”
“I deserve everything you can say,” she murmured, “everything you can do. There is nothing left, I suppose, but suffering. Will you take me out to my carriage? You can come back and have your coffee with the Marchioness! She keeps looking across at you, and it will please her to think that you got rid of me.”
He glanced at his watch.
“I am afraid,” he said, rising, “that I must deny myself the pleasure of seeking the Marchioness again today. I have a train to catch in half an hour. You are ready?”
“Quite!”
They made their way through the maze of tables towards the door, Lady Ruth exchanging greetings right and left with her friends, although the tall, grave-looking man who followed her was by far the greater object of interest.
“Just like Ruth to keep him in her pocket,” remarked her dearest friend, looking after them; “they say that he has millions.”
She sighed a little enviously.
“The Barrington menage needs a little backing up,” her companion remarked. “I should say that he had come just in time. The Marchioness has her eye upon him too. There may be some fun presently.”
Lady Ruth’s dearest friend smiled.
“I will back Ruth,” she said drily. “Emily is beautiful, but she is too obvious, and too eager! Ruth’s little ways are more subtle. Besides, look at the start she has. She isn’t the sort of woman men tire of.”
Lady Ruth held out her hand through the window of her electric coupe.
“Thank you for my luncheon,” she said. “When shall we see you again?”
“In a few days,” he answered, standing bareheaded upon the pavement. “I shall call directly I return.”
Lady Ruth nodded and leaned back. Wingrave smiled faintly as he turned away. He had seen the little shudder which she had done her best to hide!
Lady Ruth found her husband at home, writing letters in his study. She sank wearily into a chair by his side.
“Been lunching out?” he inquired.
She nodded.
“At Prince’s, with Wingrave.”
He made no remark, but he seemed far from displeased.
“If I’d only had the pluck,” he remarked a little disconsolately, “I might have made thousands by following his advice this week. It was you who put me off, too!”
“It turned out all right?” she asked.
“Exactly as he said. I made five hundred! I might just as well have made five thousand.”
“Can you let me have a couple of hundred?” she asked. “The people are all bothering so.”
“You know that I can’t,” he answered irritably. “I had to send the lot to Lewis, and then it wasn’t a quarter of what he is pressing for. We shall never get through the season, Ruth, unless—”
She raised her eyes.
“Unless what?”
“Unless something turns up!”
There was a short, uncomfortable silence. Lady Ruth rose to her feet and stood facing the fireplace with her back to him.
“Lumley,” she said, “let’s face it!”
He gave a little start.
“Face what?” he inquired.
“Ruin, the Bankruptcy Court, and all the rest of it!” she declared, a note of defiance creeping into her tone.
Her husband’s face was white with astonishment. He stared across at her blankly.
“Are you mad, Ruth?” he exclaimed. “Do you know what you are saying?”
“Quite well,” she answered. “I’m a little sick of the whole show. The tradespeople are getting impertinent. I don’t even know where to get flowers for dinner tonight or where to go for my Ascot gowns. It must come sooner or later.”
“You’re talking like a fool,” he declared harshly. “Do you know that I should have to give up my seat and my clubs?”
“We could live quietly in the country.”
“Country be—hanged!” he exclaimed savagely. “What use is the country to you and me? I’d sooner put a bullet through my brain. Ruth, old lady,” he added more gently, “what’s gone wrong? You’re generally such a well plucked’un! Have you—had a row with Wingrave?” he asked, looking at her anxiously.
“No!”
“Then what is it?”
“Nothing! I’ve lost my nerve, I suppose!”
“You want a change! It isn’t so very long to Cowes now and, thank heavens, that’ll cost us nothing. We’re going on Wingrave’s yacht, aren’t we?”
“Yes! We did accept.”
Barrington fidgeted for a moment with a paper knife.
“Ruth,” he asked, “what’s wrong between you and Wingrave?”
“Nothing,” she answered; “I’m afraid of him, that’s all!”
“Afraid of him! Afraid of Wingrave!” he repeated.
“Yes! I do not think that he has forgotten. I think that he means to make us suffer.”
Barrington was almost dignified.
“I never heard such nonsense in my life, Ruth!” he exclaimed. “I have watched Wingrave closely, and I have seen no trace of anything of the sort. Nonsense! It is worse than nonsense! You must be getting hysterical. You must get all this rubbish out of your head. To tell you the truth—”
“Well?”
“I was thinking that you might ask Wingrave to help us a bit. I don’t believe he’d hesitate for a moment.”
Ruth looked her husband in the face. There was a curious expression in her eyes.
“Do you think that it would be wise of me to ask him?” she demanded.
“Why not?” he answered. “You can take care of yourself. I can trust you.”
“I told you that I was afraid of Wingrave,” she reminded him. “I can take care of myself as a rule—and I do—as you know. I have elected to be one of the unfashionables in that respect. But to ask Wingrave for money is more than I dare do.”
“Then I shall ask him myself,” Barrington declared.
She picked up her gloves and turned to leave the room.
“I should prefer even that,” she said.
“Up to the present, then,” Wingrave remarked, “the child has no idea as to who has been responsible for the charge of her?”
“No idea at all, Sir Wingrave,” the lawyer declared. “Your wishes have been strictly carried out, most strictly. She imagines that it is some unknown connection of her father. But, as I explained to you in my letter, she has recently exhibited a good deal of curiosity in the matter. She is—er—a young lady of considerable force of character for her years, and her present attitude—as I explained in my letter—is a trifle difficult.”
Wingrave was sitting in the lawyer’s own chair. Mr. Pengarth, who was a trifle nervous, preferred to stand.
“She shows, I think, a certain amount of ingratitude in forcing this journey and explanation upon me,” Wingrave declared coldly. “It should have been sufficient for her that her benefactor preferred to remain anonymous.”
“I regret, Sir Wingrave, that I must disagree with you,” Mr. Pengarth answered boldly. “Miss Juliet, Miss Lundy I should say, is a young lady of character—and—er—some originality of disposition. She is a great favorite with everyone around here.”
Wingrave remained silent. He had the air of one not troubling to reply to what he considered folly. Through the wide open window floated in the various sounds of the little country town, the rumbling of heavy carts passing along the cobbled streets, the shrill greetings of neighbors and acquaintances meeting upon the sidewalk. And then the tinkling bell of a rubber-tired cart pulling up outside, and a clear girlish voice speaking to some one of the passers-by.
Wingrave betrayed as much surprise as it was possible for him to show when at last she stood with outstretched hand before him. He had only an imperfect recollection of an ill-clad, untidy-looking child, with pale tear-stained cheeks, and dark unhappy eyes. The march of the years had been a thing whose effects he had altogether underestimated. The girl who stood now facing him was slight, and there was something of the child left in her bright eager face, but she carried herself with all the graceful assurance of an older woman. Her soft, dark eyes were lit with pleasure and excitement, her delicately traced eyebrows and delightful smile were somehow suggestive of her foreign descent. Her clothes were country-made, but perfect as regarded fit and trimness, her beflowered hat was worn with a touch of coquettish grace, a trifle un-English, but very delightful. She had not an atom of shyness or embarrassment. Only there was a great surprise in her face as she held out her hands to Wingrave.
“I know who you are,” she exclaimed. “You are Sir Wingrave Seton. To think that I never guessed.”
“You remember seeing me, then?” he remarked, and his tone sounded all the colder after the full richness of her young voice.
“I just remember it—only just,” she answered. “You see you did not take much notice of me that time, did you? But I have lived amongst your ancestors too long to make any mistake. Why have you stayed away from Tredowen so long?”
“I have been abroad,” Wingrave answered. “I am not fond of England.”
“You had trouble here, I know,” she said frankly. “But that is all past and over. I think that you must forget how beautiful your home is or you would never bear to live away from it. Now, please, may I ask you a question?”
“Any that you think necessary,” Wingrave answered. “Spare me as much as possible; I am not fond of them.”
“Shall I leave you two together for a little time?” Mr. Pengarth suggested, gathering up some papers.
“Certainly not,” Wingrave said shortly. “There is not the slightest necessity for it.”
Mr. Pengarth resumed his seat.
“Just as you please,” he answered. “But you must sit down, Juliet. There, you shall have my clients’ chair.”
The girl accepted it with a little laugh. There was no shadow of embarrassment about her manner, notwithstanding the cold stiffness of Wingrave’s deportment. He sat where the sunlight fell across his chair, and the lines in his pale face seemed deeper than usual, the grey hairs more plentiful, the weariness in his eyes more apparent. Yet she was not in the least afraid of him.
“First of all, then, Sir Wingrave, may I ask you why you have been so extraordinarily kind to me?”
“There is nothing extraordinary about it at all,” he answered. “Your father died and left you friendless in a parish of which I am Lord of the Manor. He received a starvation pittance for his labors, which it was my duty to augment, a duty which, with many others, I neglected. I simply gave orders that you should be looked after.”
She laughed softly.
“Looked after! Why, I have lived at Tredowen. I have had a governess, a pony to drive. Heaven knows how many luxuries!”
“That,” he interrupted hastily, “is nothing. The house is better occupied. What I have done for you is less in proportion than the sixpence you may sometimes have given to a beggar for I am a rich, a ridiculously rich man, with no possible chance of spending one-quarter of my income. You had a distinct and obvious claim upon me, and, at no cost or inconvenience to myself, I have endeavored, through others, to recognize it.”
“I will accept your view of the situation,” the girl said, still smiling, but with a faint note of disappointment in her tone. “I do not wish to force upon you expressions of gratitude which you would only find wearisome. But I must thank you! It is in my heart, and I must speak of it. There, it is over, you see! I shall say no more.”
“You are a sensible young lady,” Wingrave said, making a motion as though to rise. “I have only one request to make to you, and that is that you keep to yourself the knowledge which Mr. Pengarth informs me that you insisted upon acquiring. You are nearly enough of age now, and I will make you your own mistress. That is all, I think.”
The smile died away from her lips. Her tone became very earnest.
“Sir Wingrave,” she said, “for all that you have done for me, I am, as you know grateful. I would try to tell you how grateful, only I know that it would weary you. So we will speak only of the future. I cannot continue to accept—even such magnificent alms as yours.”
“What do you mean, child?” he asked, frowning across at her.
“I mean,” she said, “that now I am old enough to work, I cannot accept everything from one upon whom I have no claim. If you will help me a little still, I shall be more than grateful. But it must be in my own way.”
“You talk about work,” he said. “What can you do?”
“I can paint,” she answered, “fairly well. I should like to go to London and have a few lessons. If I cannot make a living at that, I shall try something else.”
“You disappoint me,” Wingrave said. “There is no place for you in London. There are thousands starving there already because they can paint a little, or sing a little, or fancy they can. Do you find it dull down here?”
“Dull!” she exclaimed wonderingly. “I think that there can be no place on earth so beautiful as Tredowen.”
“You are happy here?”
“Perfectly!”
“Then, for heaven’s sake, forget all this folly,” Wingrave said hardly. “London is no place for children. Miss Harrison can take you up for a month when you choose. You can go abroad if you want to. But for the rest—”
She rose suddenly, and sweeping across the office with one graceful movement, she leaned over Wingrave’s chair. Her hands rested upon his shoulders, her eyes, soft with gathering tears, pleaded with his. Wingrave sat with all the outward immobility of a Sphinx.
“Dear Sir Wingrave,” she said, “you have been so generous, so kind, and I may not even speak of my gratitude. Don’t please think me unreasonable or ungracious. I can’t tell you how I feel, but I must, I must, I must go away. I could not live here any longer now that I know. Fancy for a moment that I am your sister, or your daughter! Don’t you believe, really, that she would feel the same? And I think you would wish her to. Don’t be angry with me, please.”
Wingrave’s face never changed; but his fingers gripped the arms of his chair so that a signet ring he wore cut deep into his flesh. When he spoke, his tone sounded almost harsh. The girl turned away to dash the tears from her eyes.
“What do you think of this—folly, Pengarth?”
The lawyer looked his best client squarely in the face. “I do not call it folly, Sir Wingrave. I think that Miss Lundy is right.”
There was a pause. Her eyes were still pleading with him.
“Against the two of you,” Wingrave remarked, “I am, of course, powerless. After all, it is no concern of mine. I shall leave you, Pengarth, to make such arrangements as Miss Lundy desires!”
He rose to his feet. Juliet now was pale. She dashed the tears from her eyes and looked at him in amazement mingled with something which was almost like despair.
“You don’t mean,” she exclaimed, “you are going away without coming to Tredowen?”
“Why not?” he asked. “I never had any intention of going there!”
“You are very angry with me,” she cried in despair. “I—I—”
Her lip quivered. Wingrave interposed.
“I shall be happy to go and have a look at the place,” he said carelessly, “if you will drive me back. I fancy I have almost forgotten what it is like.”
She looked at him as at one who had spoken irreverently. Her eyes were full of wonder.
“I think that you must have indeed forgotten,” she said, “how very beautiful it is. It is your home too! There is no one else,” she added softly, “who can live there, amongst all those wonderful things, and call it really—home!”
“I am afraid,” he said, “you will find that I have outlived all sentiment; but I will certainly come to Tredowen with you!”
“It was here,” she said, as they passed through the walled garden seawards, “that I saw you first—you and the other gentleman who was so kind to me.”
Wingrave nodded.
“I believe that I remember it,” he said; “you were a mournful-looking object in a very soiled pinafore and most untidy hair.”
“I had been out on the cliffs,” she reminded him, “where I am taking you now. If you are going to make unkind remarks about my hair, I think that I had better fetch a hat.”
“Pray don’t leave me,” he answered. “I should certainly lose my way. Your hair in those days was, I fancy, a little more—unkempt!”
She laughed.
“It used to be cut short,” she said. “Hideous! There! Isn’t that glorious?”
She had opened the postern gate in the wall, and through the narrow opening was framed a wonderful picture of the Cornish sea, rolling into the rock-studded bay. Its soft thunder was in their ears; salt and fragrant, the west wind swept into their faces. She closed the gate behind her, and stepped blithely forward.
“Come!” she cried. “We will climb the cliffs where we left you alone once before.”
Side by side they stood looking over the ocean. Her head was thrown back, her lips a little parted. He watched her curiously.
“You must have sea blood in your veins,” he remarked. “You listen as though you heard music all the time.”
“And what about you?” she asked him, smiling. “You are the grandson of Admiral Sir Wingrave Seton who commanded a frigate at Trafalgar, and an ancestor of yours fought in the Armada.”
“I am afraid,” he said quietly, “that there is a hiatus in my life somewhere. There are no voices which call to me any more, and my family records are so much dead parchment.”
Trouble passed into her glowing face and clouded her eyes.
“Ah!” she said, “I do not like to hear you talk so. Do you know that when you do, you make me afraid that something I have always hoped for will never come to pass?”
“What is it?” he asked.
“I have always hoped,” she said, “that some day you would come once more to Tredowen. I suppose I am rather a fanciful person. This is a country of superstitions and fancies, you know; but sometimes when I have been alone in the picture gallery with all that long line of dark faces looking down upon me from the walls, I have felt like an interloper. Always they seem to be waiting! Tonight, after dinner, I will take you there. I will try and show you what I mean.”
He shook his head.
“I shall never come back,” he said, “and there are no more of my name.”
She hesitated. When at last she spoke, the color was coming and going in her cheeks.
“Sir Wingrave,” she said, “I am only an ignorant girl, and I have no right to talk to you like this. Please be angry with me if you want to. I deserve it. I know all about—that ten years! Couldn’t you forget it, and come back? None of the country people round here, your own people, believe anything evil about you. You were struck, and you struck back again. A man would do that. You could be as lonely as you liked here, or you could have friends if you wished for them. But this is the place where you ought to live. You would be happier here, I believe, than in exile. The love of it all would come back, you would never be lonely. It is the same sea which sang to you when you were a child, and to your fathers before you. It would bring you forgetfulness when you wanted it, or—”
Wingrave interrupted her. His tone was cold, but not unkind.
“My dear young lady,” he said, “it is very good of you to be so sympathetic, but I am afraid I am not at all the sort of person you imagine me to be. What I was before those ten years—well, I have forgotten. What I am now, I unfortunately know. I am a soured, malevolent being whose only pleasure lies in the dealing out to others some portion of the unhappiness which was dealt out to me.”
“I do not believe it,” she declared briskly.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Nevertheless, it is true,” he declared coolly. “Listen! More or less you interest me. I will tell you something which I have never yet told to a single human being. I need not go into particulars. You will probably believe a broad statement. My ten years’ imprisonment was more or less an injustice!”
“Sir Wingrave!”
He checked her. There was not a tremor in his tone. The gesture with which he had repelled her was stiff and emotionless.
“I went into prison one man, I came out another. While I live, I shall never be able to think kindly again of a single one of my fellow creatures. It was not my fault. So far as our affections are concerned, we are machines, all of us. Well, my mainspring has broken.”
“I don’t believe it,” she declared.
“It is, nevertheless, true,” he affirmed calmly. “I am living in exile because I have no friends, because friends have become an impossibility to me. I shall not tell you any more of my life because you are young and you would not believe me if I did. Some day,” he added grimly, “you will probably hear for yourself.”
“I shall never believe anything,” she declared, “which I do not choose to believe. I shall never believe, for instance, that you are quite what you think yourself.”
“We will talk of other things,” he said. “Five years ago, you showed Aynesworth where the seagulls built.”
“And now I will show you,” she exclaimed, “if you are sure that your head is steady enough. Come along!”...
It was after dinner that she took him into the picture gallery. Miss Harrison, very much disturbed by the presence of the master of Tredowen, and still more so by the hint which she had already received as to coming changes, followed them at a little distance.
“I am so sorry,” Juliet said, “that we have no cigars or cigarettes.”
“I seldom smoke,” Wingrave answered.
“If only we had had the slightest idea of your coming,” Miss Harrison said for the tenth time, “we would have made more adequate preparations. The wine cellar, at least, could have been opened. I allowed Mr. and Mrs. Tresfarwin to go for their holiday only yesterday, and the cellars, of course, are never touched.”
“Your claret was excellent,” Wingrave assured her.
“I am quite sure,” Miss Harrison said, “that claret from the local grocer is not what you are accustomed to—”
“My dear madam,” Wingrave protested, “I seldom touch wine. Show me which picture it is, Juliet, that you—ah!”
She had led him to the end of the gallery and stopped before what seemed to be a plain oak cupboard surrounded by a massive frame. She looked at him half fearfully.
“You want to see that picture?” he asked.
“If I might.”
He drew a bunch of keys from his pocket and calmly selected one. It was a little rusty, but the cupboard turned at once on its hinges. A woman’s face smiled down upon them, dark and splendid, from the glowing touch of a great painter. Juliet studied it eagerly, and then stole a sidelong glance at the man by her side. He was surveying it critically and without any apparent emotion.
“Herkomer’s, I think,” he remarked. “Quite one of his best.”
“It is your mother?” she whispered.
He nodded.
“I’m not great at genealogy,” he said, “but I can go as far back as that. She was by way of being a great lady, the daughter of the Duke of Warminster.”
“You were an only son,” she said softly. “She must have been very fond of you.”
“Customary thing, I suppose,” he remarked. “Lucky for her, under the circumstances, that she died young.”
He closed the oaken door in front of the picture, and locked it.
“I should like to see the armory,” he said; “but I really forget—let me see, it is at the end of the long gallery, isn’t it?”
She led him there without a word. She was getting a little afraid of him. They inspected the library and wandered back into the picture gallery. It was she, now, who was silent. She had shown him all her favorite treasures without being able to evoke a single spark of enthusiasm.
“Once,” she remarked, “we all had a terrible fright. We were told that everything was going to be sold.”
He nodded.
“I did think of it,” he admitted; “but there seemed to be no hurry. All these things are growing into money year by year. Some day I shall send everything to Christie’s.”
She looked at him in horror.
“You cannot—oh, you cannot mean it?” she cried.
“Why not? They are no use to me.”
“No use?” she faltered.
“Not a bit. I don’t suppose I shall see them again for many years. And the money—well, one can use that.”
“But I thought—that you were rich?” she faltered.
“So I am,” he answered, “and yet I go on making more and more, and I shall go on. Money is the whip with which its possessor can scourge humanity. It is with money that I deal out my—forgive me, I forgot that I was talking aloud, and to a child,” he wound up suddenly.
She looked at him, dry-eyed, but with a strained look of sorrow strangely altering her girlish face.
“You must be very unhappy,” she said.
“Not at all,” he assured her. “I am one of those fortunate persons who have outlived happiness and unhappiness. I have nothing to do but live—and pay off a few little debts.”
He rose directly afterwards, and she walked with him out to the gardens whence a short cut led to the village.
“I have not tried again to make you change your mind,” he said as they stood for a moment on the terrace. “If my wishes have any weight with you, I trust that you will do nothing without consulting Mr. Pengarth.”
“And you—” she faltered, “are you—never in London? Sha’n’t I see you again any time?”
“If you care to, by all means,” he answered. “Tell Mr. Pengarth to let me have your address. Goodbye! Thank you for taking care of my treasures so well.”
She held his cold hand in hers and suddenly raised it to her lips. Then she turned away and hurried indoors.
Wingrave stood still for a moment and gazed at his hand through the darkness as though the ghosts of dead things had flitted out from the dark laurel shrubs. Then he laughed quietly to himself.