CHAPTER XVIII
LEE slept more soundly that night than she had expected, and awoke the next morning feeling very much ashamed of herself. Her determination to leave England for a time was unaltered, but she would have given a great deal to have come to an amicable understanding with Cecil. She had treated him abominably, and he was the last person she desired to wound. When she was in exactly the right temper she would make herself as legible to him as she could, and, as he was the quickest of men, he would understand as much as any mere man could, and would agree that the separation—she might reduce it to six months—was advisable for them both. He would do a good deal of thinking during her absence and the result could not fail to be happy.
She went out on the moor to luncheon and was so amiable and charming and so pointedly bent upon charming no man but her husband that Cecil’s brow cleared and he sunned himself in her presence. But he was seriously disturbed, and she saw it. She had awakened him roughly out of what was doubtless beginning to look like a dream, and he was not the man to close his eyes again until he had quitedetermined of what stuff his dreams were made. But when they were alone he pointedly avoided the subject.
The Gearys arrived next morning, and it seemed to Lee that the whole Abbey was filled with Coralie’s light laughter. She wanted to see everything at once, and the four Californians spent the entire day moving restlessly over the house and grounds.
“Just think,” cried Coralie, flitting about the ghostly gloom of the crypt. “I’m in anAbbey—an old stone thing a thousand years old—oh! well, never mind, a few hundred years more or less don’t matter. It’sold, and it’s stone, and it’s carved, and it’s haunted, and grey-hooded friars were once just where I am. I think it’s lovely. Isn’t it, Ned? Isn’t it?”
But Mr. Geary smiled with the true Californian’s mere toleration of all things non-Californian. Coralie knew that smile, and tossed her head.
“Well, thank Heaven I’m not quite so provincial as that!” she cried with sarcasm. “I’m going to keep you abroad three years.I never in my lifesaw any one so improved as Randolph.”
Whereupon Mr. Geary coloured angrily and strode off in a huff.
“Tell me some more,” demanded Coralie. “Don’t slam the door, Teddy. Hasn’t there ever really been a hooded friar seen stalking through this crypt at night?”
“They do say—You know all the dead earls lie here for a week; and on alternate nights the tenantry and the servants sit up. Those people are superstitious,and they vow that they see shadowy forms way over there; of course lamps are hung on the columns near by—perhaps I can show you a whole chest full of the silver lamps that have been used for centuries. They make the rest of the crypt fairly black, and it is easy enough to imagine anything. The interment always takes place at midnight, by torchlight, even when there is a moon; and there is popularly supposed to be an old abbot telling his beads just behind the procession.”
“How simply gorgeous! Of course I don’t want Lord Barnstaple to die, but I shouldloveto be in at that sort of thing. When Mr. Geary died of course he was just laid out in the back parlour—drawing-room I shall always call it hereafter; poor Mrs. Geary has never been out of California since she left the immortal South—and he really did look so uninteresting, and his casket was so hideously expensive. But an earl—laid out in a crypt—of an ancient Abbey—with tenantry kneeling round and shivering at hooded friars in the background—I’m really alive for the first time! Is there an Abbey we could rent anywhere? I’d only want it for about six months, but I’d have a simply heavenly time so long as the novelty lasted.”
“It would take you six months to get used to the size of it,” said Randolph, “and by the time it had begun to fit perhaps you would feel that everything else was commonplace.” He spoke to Coralie, but he looked at Lee.
She smiled and brought her lashes together. “Sometimes there are things one wants more thanmagnificence,” she said. “Well—Emmy must be awake. I’ll go and speak to her about Tom.”
For Tom was in London and had asked his sister to make known that he desired an invitation to the Abbey, and had come to England merely to look upon its futurechâtelaine.
Lee found Lady Barnstaple in one of her freshest and fluffiest wrappers and in one of her ugliest tempers—attributable doubtless to the fact that Mr. Pix, after three days of hard shooting, had been obliged to go to London on business, and had not yet returned.
“Ask all California if you like,” she said crossly, “but tell them to keep out of my way. I know their airs of old.”
“It’s not at all likely that your guests would put on airs with you. For the matter of that you have the rank that all good Americans approve of—”
“Some people are putting on airs with me,” said Lady Barnstaple darkly.
This was an obvious opportunity to approach a delicate subject, but Lee shrank from it. Moreover, the thing would have run its natural course before her return and one more unpleasantness been avoided. Lady Mary’s advice was wise and appealed to her present craving for a long period of irresponsibility. So she said instead:
“I think of going to California for a visit—with Mrs. Montgomery, about the middle of October.”
Lady Barnstaple raised her eyes and stared at her daughter-in-law. Even in the pink light it wasevident that she changed colour. She dropped her eyes suddenly.
“California is a long way off,” she said dryly. “I wonder Cecil consents; but these little separations are always advisable. How long shall you stay?”
“A year, possibly. I am going to take Mary Gifford with me if Mrs. Montgomery will invite her—as of course she will.”
“Oh, do marry her to Randolph Montgomery! It would be an act of charity.”
“How pleased she would be! But I think it can be managed, particularly as Tiny likes her; and Mrs. Montgomery would be sure to fall in love with her and conceive it her mission to modify her voice.”
“Well, I hope she’ll stay in California. I’m sick of her. I’m sick of the rudeness of English people, anyhow.”
“You have cultivated their rudeness with a good deal of energy. It seems to me that most Americans cultivate that attribute more successfully than they cultivate any others of the many English attributes they admire so profoundly,” Lee observed.
“Well, I wish you’d let me alone!” shrieked Lady Barnstaple. “Don’t speak another word to me to-day.”
Lee hastily retreated and sent off a telegram to Tom, then went out in search of the others. She found them by the lake feeding the swans.
“The swans and the peacocks make it all just perfect!” cried Coralie. “I want Ned to sit up allnight with me in the crypt to see if there won’t be a ghost, and he won’t do it.”
“As if there were such things,” said Mr. Geary disdainfully.
Lee turned to Randolph. “You look a whole generation older than Ned,” she said, with the sensation of having just made the discovery of how much improved he was. “I believe you could almost bring yourself to believe in a ghost.”
He smiled and opened her parasol. “And you, I am afraid, have taken on at least a century—without being aware of the fact. I am afraid you will realise it when you return to California.”
“I want California more and more every day.”
“We shall see. The changes of association are very subtle. I can only hope they are not so deeply wrought in you as they sometimes appear to be—that you will really enjoy your year in California, I mean.”
They were walking toward the fell, and the others were some distance behind.
“I am going to ask Aunty to invite Mary Gifford to go back with us. She is my best friend here and she is simply dying for a change.”
“I am sure mother will be delighted. She will undertake her reformation at once.”
“That is what I told Emmy. How do you like her—Mary, I mean?”
“She interests me very much, if only to see how wide she can open her mouth.”
“No, but seriously—Mary is such a problem to me.”
“Well, she’s a beauty, like a blue and white moonlight in mid-winter; and has a tantalising sort of elusiveness. I detest Englishwomen as a rule, but I never met a woman before who talked so loud and at the same time suggested an almost exaggerated shrinking and modesty. The combination is certainly striking.”
“It isn’t that she’s really cold,” said Lee, with the deep subtlety of her sex, “but she’s never met the right man. I only hope she won’t fall in love with you, but she admires you tremendously.”
“Ah!”
“Do pay her a lot of compliments and show her a lot of little attentions; Englishwomen get so tired of doing all the work. But don’t make love to her.”
“I have no intention of making love to her,” said Randolph; but if he had a deeper meaning he kept it out of his eyes—those eyes which had lost their nervous facility of expression, and rarely looked otherwise than cold and grey and thoughtful.
Tom arrived next morning, talkative, restless, and irresponsible; but although he frankly avowed himself as much in love as ever, he hastened to add that he would not mention it any oftener than he could help. For several days Lee neglected the other guests and devoted herself to her old friends. The last three had certainly brought the breezes of the Pacific with them, and they talked California until Lady Mary, who had joined them several times, declared she could stand it no longer.
“I’ll go with you gladly if Mrs. Montgomery will take me; and I intend to make love to her, you maybe sure,” she said to Lee, “but I really can’t stand feeling so out of it. And besides you are all so intimate and happy together, it’s almost a sin to intrude. You’re looking much brighter since they came.”
“It has done me good to see them again, and it’s made me want to go back more than ever.”
“I can understand. But it’s a pity Cecil can’t go with you. He’s looking rather glum. Is that what’s the matter with him?”
“I am not sure,” said Lee uneasily. “I’m going to have a talk with him on Sunday. I did say something about it on Monday night, but of course—well——”
“It’s hard to persuade an English husband that he’s got to conform to the American habit of matrimonial vacations and plenty of them.” Lady Mary laughed. “Speaking of vacations, Mr. Pix is taking rather a long one, but I believe he returns on Monday. I can’t quite make out, but I fancy the men have rather snubbed him—as much as they decently can. He must feel frightfully out of it. I only hope he won’t lose his temper. He’s got a nasty one, and if he let it go he’s underbred enough to shriek out anything. I saw with my own eyes that Lord Barnstaple avoided playing with him the night before he left. Of course Lord Barnstaple carried it off as he does everything, but I think the man noticed it all the same.”
“Then I wish he had pride enough to keep out of the house, but of course he hasn’t.”
“Your Californians now are so different. They are quitecomme il faut——”
“Mary Gifford, you are really intolerably rude!”
“Upon my word I don’t mean to be. And as you know, I want to marry one.” She paused a moment, then raised her cold blue eyes to Lee’s. “I too have a will of my own,” she announced, “and when I make up my mind to do a thing I do it. I am going to marry Mr. Montgomery, and whether you go back to California or not I am going with my future mother-in-law.”
“Of course I shall go; and it is seldom that a woman—particularly a beauty—fails to get a man if she makes up her mind to it. He is interested; there’s that much gained.”