XL
ToClavering Park—to meet her father!
George had been pretty sure from the first that she was playing a part. But what was the part she was playing? Who was her father if he was not a deceased solicitor? He did not forget her other picturesque statement that she was the offspring of a butler and a lady’s maid. George was inclined to think that so far as he himself was concerned it might simplify matters considerably if this proved to be the case. Still, it would not be wise to build hopes upon it.
The young man began to view a developing situation with a deepening anxiety. Instinct told him that there might be rocks ahead. “By the way, who is your father? What is his name?”
“You must come and meet him.” With a laugh defiant rather than gay she got up abruptly from the station bench.
Perforce it had to be left at that, for the time being at all events. George was prepared to go with her to the world’s end if she commanded him, so why not to Clavering Park? He rose, too, from the bench and went with her across the bridge to the Up platform just as the belated 2.10 was in the act of moving off.
In the station yard was a decrepit taxi which they were able to hire and in about half an hour the lodge gates of Clavering Park confronted them. By now the bewilderment and curiosity of George were almost unbearable. He was in the seventh heaven, it was true, but native commonsense grimly warned him that his heaven was strangely insecure. The romance of the circumstances was weaving a spell of its own; the sense of enchantment increased as the mystery grew; he was beginning slowly to realize what a truly delightful thing she was to possess and on that very account, as became one who had learned much in a hard school, he understood how necessary it was to take care. There must be no counting of chickens. Somehow the nearer they drew to their destination the less favorable grew the portents. By the time the lodge gates had opened and their taxi had rattled through, the sense of “Ethel’s” innate Top-Doggishness had developed quite remarkably.
“Those trees and the deer remind me of my home.” She might have been speaking for the sake of conversation; on the other hand her intention may have been to prepare his mind for certain revelations to follow.
“Tell me, Ethel, where is your home?” In his own apprehensive ear his voice sounded odd, strained, nervous.
“I live in Ireland.”
“I used to live there too,” he said. “Ireland was where I was brought up.”
“Really. Now that’s very interesting.” The tones of her voice were so soft and warm and rich that they made him think of velvet. “Do tell me exactly where.”
“I was brought up at a place called Bally Euchra in County Kildare.”
She gave a faint cry of suppressed astonishment. “What a small world! Bally Euchra of all places! Why, my grandfather lives there.”
Barely had he time to echo her surprise with a faint cry of his own when the taxi drew up beneath the portico in front of the house, thereby denying him the opportunity of asking who her grandfather could possibly be.
It was just as well, no doubt, that such was the case, for had that particular question been answered, there is little doubt that George Norris would have bolted for his life!