3

The Kind Companions

1.

Agatha would have called Hubert’s proposal of marriage a thoroughly British affair. Discarding all superficial eloquence, he told his tale of love in the baldest, most colloquial terms. Lois was profoundly impressed. This lapse from fluency was exactly calculated to convince her of his earnestness. The emotion must be strong indeed before which Hubert could be dumb. She searched about in her memory for the speech which she had prepared for the occasion.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘that my feelings towards you are all that you could wish.’

Her candour charmed him. He caught her to his heart with but a passing fear that she would find him deficient in originality. Then, invaded for a few moments by a genuine emotion of self-forgetfulness, he kissed her a second time with no misgivings at all. They were truly happy.

A strange noise, a pervading, humming throb, at length shook them out of their preoccupation. The whole air seemed full of it.

Lois exclaimed:

‘What can that be? Is it a threshing machine?’

They were in the library, a room which they habitually frequented since the epoch of the Dante paper. Moving to one of the windows they looked down into the avenue. John and the head gardener stood together gazing upward. Other gardeners were seen running in the distance; they also stared at the sky. Lois and Hubert threw up the sash and leaned far out of the window just in time to see the tail of an airship disappear over the house. It was the first Lois had seen and she nearly fell out of the window in her excitement. Hubert, after a second’s consideration, decided that he must be excited too. Earlier in his courtship it would have been more impressive to remain calm, but just now he had better fall in with his lady’s mood.

‘We can see it from the terrace,’ she cried, and flew down to the south side of the house.

Gerald and Agatha were discovered there, gaping intelligently, while Cynthia and Sir Thomas were seen advancing from the rose garden at a pace which, in any other couple, might have been a run. Lady Clewer and Miss Barrington hung out of a window on the first floor, and everyone enjoined everyone else to look at the airship. The elusive machine turned suddenly north, however, and disappeared behind some trees. A short discussion was held as to the best vantage point from which to see it again. Lois suggested James’s studio, which had a window looking that way. She ran indoors again, up the main staircase, down a long gallery, through a baize door into the kitchen wing, up more stairs, noisy and uncarpeted, through a corridor and up a narrow garret ladder into a spacious loft running the whole length of the wing. The company panted at her heels.

The loft was not entirely given over to James. The darker end of it was used as a box room, and old luggage, gay with the labels of continental hotels, was piled there. Here also was Cynthia’s bassinette, a high nursery-chair, bed-tables and other less sightly appliances for nursing the sick. Everything in fact which the household did not normally require. At the further end of the room, by the large window, many canvases were stacked, and a small table was covered with rags and brushes. There was an easel and a moulting arm-chair, condemned in the Lyndon nurseries. Here sat James, looking more peculiar than usual, in a strange chintz pinafore which his stepmother had forced him to assume while painting. He spoilt his clothes so. He was peacefully smoking a pipe, and at their incursion he rose and retreated as far as possible, eyeing them suspiciously.

‘May we come in, James?’ asked Lois, tapping the door after she had entered the room. ‘We want to see the airship.’

He looked in alarm at the furniture by the door and asked:

‘What airship?’

‘We don’t accuse you of having one here,’ said Cynthia, pushing her way in. ‘It happens to be outside in the sky. I don’t suppose you noticed it.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ he agreed, glancing out of the window.

‘My dear James,’ remonstrated Marian, as she toiled up the last of the garret stairs, ‘how unobservant you are! It’s making a tremendous noise.’

James paid no attention to this, but moved to the door and looked anxiously down the stairs demanding:

‘How many more people are going to come up?’

Agatha, who never hurried, was achieving the taxing ascent under the escort of Hubert, John, Gerald and Sir Thomas Bragge. Their voices floated up beyond the well of the narrow stairs. Sir Thomas could be heard remarking sententiously:

‘The future of the world lies in the air, Lady Clewer.’

‘Yes, but …’ panted Agatha, ‘I don’t see how it can ever be really safe …’

‘From the military point of view, Agatha, safety isn’t always the first consideration. In the next big war …’

‘Oh, come, Blair! Isn’t that rather an exploded idea? Just consider! It would be almost impossible to use the things without endangering the lives and property of non-combatants….’

Agatha appeared in the doorway, a little flushed with so much unusual exertion, and began at once to apologise to James for their intrusion.

‘I do hope you weren’t working very hard and that we are not interrupting you,’ she said. ‘But there is this airship outside, which we want to see. Come and look at it.’

She caught his arm and drew him to the window where the others were already gathered. They stood watching the marvel until it disappeared behind the low, wooded hills on the horizon. Whereupon, without more ado, the majority of the group prepared to depart. But Agatha was determined that for once a modicum of civility should be paid to James. She asked him, with her most engaging smile, if he would not show them some of his pictures. She assured him that it would give them all great pleasure, ignoring tranquilly the furtive signals whereby Marian sought to prevent such a catastrophe. James looked surprised but not ill pleased. He took a canvas from the pile and set it on the easel in a good light.

The party viewed it in silent embarrassment and nobody ventured upon comment until Sir Thomas rushed into the breach.

‘Well, Mr Clewer, and what is this supposed to be?’ he inquired with uneasy geniality.

Cynthia tittered and James explained that it was a bit of country beyond Boar’s Hill.

‘I didn’t know you painted landscapes,’ said Agatha. ‘I … I rather like all those telegraph posts going up and down.’

‘Oh, but James,’ exclaimed the stepmother, ‘you have done nicer ones than that. Do show us one of your portraits.’

‘I will in a minute,’ said James. ‘You can’t have finished looking at this yet.’

They stared for a little longer at the mustard fields and ploughed furrows beyond Boar’s Hill. Lois glanced at Hubert in extreme anxiety. She had staked much upon his first view of James’s work, for she had hinted more than once that she thought it might have merit. Hubert’s face was perfectly expressionless, and her heart sank. At last they were permitted to see something else. James put up a picture of a man driving a traction engine, explaining:

‘That’s old Jellybelly.’

‘Old what?’ demanded Gerald, who was looking happier than he had done since he came to Lyndon.

‘He used to drive the traction engine when they were making the new road across the park,’ explained the artist. ‘His real name was Jellifew, but the men in his gang called him Jellybelly because of the shape of his stomach.’

John gave a shout of laughter.

‘Lord, yes, I remember him! This is uncommonly good, James! Best thing you ever did in your life.’

‘Do you think so?’ said James seriously. ‘Now I don’t think it is, myself. But it’s one of the best I’ve done.’

‘But you ought to have seen this old man,’ said Agatha to the others. ‘He was like somebody out of a Russian novel. And with this head like Samuel Johnson. I’d forgotten how impressive he was.’

‘I don’t remember him,’ said Marian coldly.

‘A most striking portrait,’ murmured Gerald. ‘What do you make of it, Ervine? You know about these things, and I don’t.’

‘It’s … well observed …’ said Hubert after a pause.

‘The composition is rather unusual, don’t you think?’ queried Lois hopefully.

‘Possibly,’ rejoined Hubert, bland and enigmatic.

Marian, who found the whole subject of Jellybelly a little coarse, now determined that they must not disturb James any longer and swept them all from the room. She was more than annoyed with Agatha for exhibiting him in this way; it had been perfectly unnecessary and very embarrassing for everyone. James took himself much too seriously already, without any encouragement from his sister-in-law. She pursued Agatha and Gerald out on to the terrace in order to tell them so.

‘If you don’t mind my saying so,’ she began, ‘I really do think it’s a pity to take too much notice of James’s pictures. You must know, with all your experience, Mr Blair, how difficult these cases are. They are so liable to get a tremendous opinion of themselves.’

‘What cases?’ asked Gerald in surprise. ‘Is there anything the matter with him?’

Marian raised her eyebrows as though she had expected more perception from a London specialist.

‘Well … he’s queer,’ she said, pursing her lips.

‘How do you mean? Neurotic? He doesn’t look it.’

‘Not neurotic. Not that. No!’ Marian shook her head sadly. ‘But we’ve always had a great deal of trouble with poor James. Mentally, you know, he has never been quite like other people.’

‘Really? Well, that mightn’t be altogether a disadvantage. I don’t think I should expect the man who painted those pictures to have a mind quite like other people. But hasn’t he been off, studying in Paris, like any other lad?’

‘Oh, yes. He was in Paris. But not alone. He was very carefully looked after, poor boy. It was necessary. He can’t really look after himself. He made no friends of his own age, for instance, as any other young man would have done.’

‘He had very little chance,’ said Agatha.

‘My dear Agatha! He could have made friends perfectly well if he had wished. What was there to stop him?’

‘Everything, I should have thought. His peculiar position. The supervision under which he lived. His own eccentric manner….’

‘There you are,’ said Marian triumphantly. ‘That’s what I said. It was his own fault that he did not make friends. His queer ways put them off, and no wonder.’

‘He looks extraordinary,’ observed Gerald thoughtfully. ‘But that doesn’t prove him to be without ability at his own job. Many men of very exceptional powers have been rather strange looking.’

‘I’m afraid,’ sighed Marian, ‘that long experience has taught me not to hope too much. It isn’t exceptional ability that ails poor James.’

She hastened off to dictate letters to Miss Barrington.

‘Who says that fellow is mentally deficient?’ inquired Gerald testily.

‘Oh, nobody of any consequence,’ replied his cousin. ‘No doctor has, of that I am convinced. It was an established family legend when I first met him, and it probably has as much truth as most family legends. He certainly was very much more peculiar when he was younger. What do you think of him, Gerald?’

‘I like him. Really very much. There’s no sort of temperamental humbug about him, is there?’

‘There isn’t, certainly.’

‘A little direct at times, perhaps. But it’s a good fault. You like him, don’t you?’

‘I do,’ she confessed. ‘I find him a very restful companion. But I cannot understand how he comes to be John’s brother.’

Gerald said nothing to this, an issue which disappointed her. Irritably aware of his unspoken disapproval she was always seeking to entrap him into some criticism of her house or her husband which could be challenged and resented. But he would not give her an opening. Only from his silences did she guess his hostility to Lyndon and its proprietor. She had in consequence no chance of telling him that he was impertinent, a thing which she was longing to do.

Their estrangement had grieved her sharply and she was truly anxious to punish him for all the disquiet he was causing her. She had never supposed that four years could bring no changes. She was steeled against the shock of hearing that he loved another, although she would hardly have been surprised to discover that he still loved herself. But for this mute, melancholy condemnation she had not been prepared. At one moment he would treat her with all the old friendliness; on the next he would harden and draw away. She was most desirous of an open dispute in which she could tax him with intolerance. Such an encounter would relieve them both. She would demand whether he expected her to remain seventeen all her life. She would force him to blame John, to blame Lyndon, for the changes which he thus condemned. Then she would hurl at him all the dignified wrath of a loyal wife. She began to compose some very scathing sentences as they paced side by side towards the Dutch garden.

Sheltered amid its clipped hedges another pair of kind companions wandered in close conversation.

‘A queer chap, your younger brother, what?’ quoth Sir Thomas. ‘I understand from your mother that he’s a little….’

He tapped his forehead and Cynthia laughed. She made no attempt to deny the inference.

‘Well, now,’ he continued. ‘Those pictures, y’know! A bit thick! What?’

‘Lois admires them like anything.’

‘Does she now? Really! Well!’

‘But then she’s clever, you know. I’m afraid I’m not clever like that.’

The golden eyelashes flickered over the dark eyes. It was quite obvious that Cynthia had no particular wish to be clever.

‘Quite right too,’ approved Sir Thomas. ‘Personally I’ve no use for clever women. Bluestockings! No reflection intended upon little Miss Lois, though. But what’s a woman want brains for?’

‘They don’t need them like men do.’

‘That’s right. They don’t. What I always say is, let the women leave the brain work to the men. What, after all, are brains for? To make money, ain’t they? Well, and that’s a man’s job. What’s a woman’s job, you’ll say? Why, to spend it! No need of brains to do that, eh, Miss Cynthia?’

‘Rather not,’ agreed the maiden earnestly.

‘That’s what a man needs,’ continued Sir Thomas with unction. ‘A wife who can enjoy spending what he’s made. It gives him something to work for. It’s a lonely game, you know. Piling up cash and no one to spend it on. Yes! Very lonely! A little girl like you would never guess how lonely an old chap like me can feel.’

He looked almost pathetic as he said this, for he was really coming to believe that business successes are an empty triumph for a single man.

‘It’s very harrowing,’ said Cynthia thoughtfully.

If her dark eyes held a hint of derision, he could not know it, for she kept them modestly upon the ground.

‘If I had a wife now, that’s what I’d want,’ said he. ‘A girl who could turn herself out properly. Who’d make every other woman look green. But a lady, mind you! A girl who could hold her own in any society. I’d be proud to foot her bills, I tell you. But then, I don’t suppose any nice girl would look at me. Not an old chap like me.’

‘Are you old?’

This was evidently a surprise to Cynthia and Sir Thomas beamed.

‘Well, not so very old when you come to think of it. But old, I daresay, compared to the young fellows you’re accustomed to.’

‘I’m not out,’ said Cynthia primly. ‘I don’t know any young men except James and John.’

‘Really? Now is that so? I could hardly have believed it.’

Sir Thomas was thinking how very accomplished she was if this were true. He could have sworn that hers was no prentice hand in the tender game.

‘Of course I’m not out. My hair isn’t up.’

She shook the shining, honey-coloured mane upon her white neck. They paused in their walk and Sir Thomas delicately picked up a silky tress between a stubby red thumb and forefinger.

‘I see that,’ he said. ‘No, I knew you weren’t out. But don’t tell me you haven’t got a fancy boy for all that.’

‘Oh, no. Think of Mother!’

He thought of Marian. She was indeed an indefatigable duenna. It might really be that this damsel was as flawless as she seemed. Her complacence was all the more gratifying to him on account of a recent rebuff which he had received from another quarter. This wound seemed to smart less as he fingered Cynthia’s yellow hair.

‘Well,’ he suggested, ‘I suppose you’ll soon come out? Be presented and all that? You’re just longing for it, eh?’

‘I’m not quite sure,’ said Cynthia doubtfully. ‘I don’t want to come out if it means going about with Mother. Lois has been out four years and I don’t think she gets much fun. She has no freedom.’

‘A girl gets a better time once she’s married,’ he observed.

‘Yes. I suppose so.’

‘Little girl …’ he began, and paused, at a loss.

He had slipped an arm round her shoulders and she permitted the embrace with an indifference admirably calculated to encourage him. He was on the point of further demonstrations when Agatha and Gerald came round the corner of the hedge. Sir Thomas removed his arm. As he met the cool, speculative gaze of Lady Clewer the slow purple mounted to his bald brow. The two couples passed each other with brief civilities. Sir Thomas, once out of sight and hearing, hinted that Blair and his cousin seemed to be very fond of each other’s company. Cynthia assented, and he was about to say that he wouldn’t be in Sir John’s shoes. But he desisted. It wouldn’t do for his companion to think that he sympathized with jealous husbands. A very little might still be sufficient to scare her.

Agatha laughed at the encounter.

‘These yew walks are dangerous,’ she said.

‘He’s an old horror,’ said Gerald. ‘How can you allow it?’

‘I’m not responsible for Cynthia. She isn’t my daughter.’

‘No. But this is your house.’

‘And you feel that our escutcheon is blotted?’

Gerald said nothing.

‘You mustn’t worry about Cynthia,’ she urged. ‘She’s perfectly able to look after herself.’

‘I’ve no doubt of it.’

‘You used not to be so censorious.’

‘You used not to be so …’

‘So what?’ she demanded quickly.

‘So tolerant.’

‘Well? Do you object to my being tolerant?’

‘Oh, no!’ he said politely, ‘I wouldn’t dream of questioning your right to be anything you like.’

‘I should hope not! But for all that you are growing rather critical, don’t you think? You’re always making me feel it.’

He did not deny it, but said:

‘We’ve got into different galleys, my dear. We’ve drifted apart, as the sentimental songs say.’

‘I know. But I’m sorry. I don’t like it.’

There was an accent of genuine distress in her voice which touched him. He had not supposed that she could be hurt by anything he said or did.

‘I was very sorry myself when first I realized it,’ he told her. ‘But I saw that it was inevitable, so I resigned myself.’

‘I don’t resign myself to things so easily,’ she said sombrely.

‘Oh, you’d better!’

He stopped and looked at her in consternation. All his peace of mind was based upon a belief that she was happy, and in harmony with the life she had chosen. He was frightened by the restiveness of her tone.

‘You’d better,’ he repeated.

‘Oh, Gerald!’

He wished that she would not look at him so sorrowfully. Too intolerably reminiscent, she was, of the woman he had lost. He must either fly from her or challenge her. If he held his ground an instant longer he must attempt some master word which would bring this ghost to life.

‘Agatha! Do you remember Canverley Fair?’

Rooks, cawing loudly in the elm trees behind the house, seemed to echo his own dismay at what he had said. She was reflecting and he jogged her memory in spite of himself.

‘We went on swing-boats … and we saw a fat lady … and you were …’

‘Sick! Oh, yes, Gerald! I do remember. Oh, of course! How funny that was! What funny little things we were!’

‘We managed to enjoy ourselves.’

‘Did we? I suppose so. Fancy my forgetting! But do you know, I believe I made myself forget about it deliberately. I think I used to be very ashamed of it. And now it seems just funny! It’s strange how one outgrows one’s follies! One does at least leave off blushing for them.’

‘Thank heaven!’

‘But that was a very pretty fair,’ she exclaimed, delving further into the past.

‘Was it?’

‘Well, wasn’t it? I seem to remember it as very pretty. All the colours were nice. Bright colours …’

She stood looking at him: looking beyond him into that resplendent memory. And it seemed to him that she could never have changed at all. Her eyes, innocent and candid, were the eyes of his early love. She had been restored to him, and he knew that his hard-won peace was gone for ever.

They walked on again. He followed her towards the house, confused and sad. His dislike of her surroundings, their luxury, materialism, and sensuality, deepened to a sharp horror. He was so certain now that she would one day see them with his eyes. It seemed to him that endless suffering was in store for her.

Lois, observing their lugubrious approach, remarked to Hubert that Agatha and Mr Blair seemed to spend their time in walking about the garden in silence. Considering how old was their friendship, she said, they had uncommonly little to say to each other.

‘Not like us,’ exulted Hubert.

This was very true. Lois and Hubert had an eternity of things to say to each other. It was as if the whole of their united future, now spread so gloriously before them, could scarcely suffice for all the wagging their tongues would have to do. But first of all she wanted to know what he thought of James’s pictures. He was unwilling to tell her, for he believed her to be fond of James.

‘Of course, the ones he showed us weren’t his best,’ she said wistfully.

‘One would hope not.’

‘Oh, Hubert! Were they so very bad?’

‘Oh, no! The boy can paint all right. But they weren’t the kind of thing that appeals to me. My taste isn’t infallible, you know. Now, Lois. What am I to say to your mother? And when and where?’

Lois considered and then decided:

‘You will have to be careful. She will think, you see, that you should have spoken to her first. Not that she objects to you. I don’t see how she can do that. But she will pretend to at first, just to show how careful she is. And you must get her leave to speak to me, and then allow her to arrange an opportunity for you. She won’t do that for a day or two, but eventually she will. Then, when we’ve been shut up in the drawing-room, or sent out in the punt, or whatever it is, for a suitable length of time, we will emerge and say we are engaged. She will think about it for a week and then put it in the Morning Post. It honestly will save trouble for her to think she has managed it all. I used to fight over things, but it isn’t worth while, really. Now I use guile, as Agatha does, or did, with her mother, and life is much calmer.’

‘Well, it all seems rather complicated to me, but you know her best. I’ll follow any plan you recommend. Shall I go now?’

‘Yes, you’d better. She’ll be with Miss Barrington in her sitting-room. You know where it is? Opening out of the long gallery. Ask to see her alone for a moment. Rather mysteriously. She loves being asked to see people alone.’

‘Right, my angel.’

Hubert went, and she decided that she could not spend the palpitating interval better than in scolding James. It would relieve her spirits, and he needed it. Mounting again to the loft she discovered the artist plunged in contemplation before the portrait of Jellybelly.

‘James, I’m furious with you,’ she began.

‘Why?’ he asked mildly.

‘Why on earth did you show those pictures to Hu—to Mr Ervine? Why couldn’t you have shown him the portrait you did of me, or that thing you got the prize for in Brussels?’

‘These are better.’

‘You think so? Nobody else does. I was so ashamed, seeing you make such a fool of yourself in front of Mr Ervine. Anyone could see what he thought. I’ll never praise your work again.’

‘No. I expect you’d better not.’

‘I was never so humiliated in my life.’

‘Yes. I expect you felt a pretty good fool,’ said James in an interested voice.

‘I don’t believe you are one bit sorry.’

‘Not a bit. Why should I be?’

‘When I’ve always backed you up, I really do think … however, you suffer for it. I don’t.’

He thought this over and then asked:

‘Where does it hit me?’

‘Only that everyone laughs at you. You could have impressed him if you’d tried. As it is, it’s easy to see that he thinks your work isn’t worth his attention.’

‘Well?’

‘Well, that’s your loss. You really are very dense, James. He is a thoroughly artistic person. He could be a lot of use to you.’

‘How?’

‘Let me tell you that you are getting altogether too conceited. Since you came back from Paris you seem to think you know everything. Other people have been to Paris. Mr Ervine has. He’s a more experienced man than you are. He’s been everywhere and knows everyone. You might profit considerably by his advice.’

‘I don’t want his advice. I’ve no doubt he talks. You all do. Like a lot of rooks cawing.’ He stared at the elm trees beyond the stable roof. ‘Worse than any rooks. I’d sooner hear rooks any day. What’s he done? Show me that. These talking people make me sick.’

‘It wouldn’t do you any harm to listen to us occasionally. You only make us all laugh at you, giving yourself such airs. I can assure you that your pictures were not admired this morning.’

James turned round suddenly and, angry as she was, she quailed before the whiteness of his face. She recognized the onset of one of those rare but terrific rages which had been a legendary terror in the Lyndon nurseries. It had always been accepted that, when James did lose his temper, he might do anything.

‘Get out!’ he muttered, advancing towards her. ‘Get out! Or I’ll throw you out of the window.’

‘Nonsense, James,’ she scolded. ‘Don’t dare to talk like that.’

But her voice shook a little and she took a step back.

‘I will,’ he said, coming quite close to her. ‘And I’ll throw out the next of you that comes up here without being asked.’

He picked her up and carried her towards the window. She screamed loudly and tugged at his hair, but the grip of his long arms never slackened. She experienced, for the only time in her life, all the humiliations of weakness before violence. Her sharp heels drummed against his shins. She told Hubert afterwards that it was like being carried off by a gorilla. He steadied himself with one knee against the low sash, held her out over the void, and spoke:

‘Will you keep out of here after this?’

‘Yes, James. Oh, you are a brute!’

‘You’d better be careful. Will you leave off telling me whose advice I’m to take?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you keep your opinions to yourself? And your friends’ opinions, too, if you can?’

‘Yes. Do you call yourself a gentleman?’

‘No. But if you’ll promise you may come in again.’

He spoke too late. Before he could lift her back into safety she had slipped from his arms. She fell six feet on to a sloping roof and slithered down the slates. A leaden gutter-pipe at the extreme end of the roof checked her descent. She lay still on the slope, too frightened to move, while below her there was a clear drop of three storeys into the paved kitchen yard. James, his passion evaporated, leant out of the studio window and looked at her. His eyes were popping out of his head with horror.

‘Are you hurt?’ he called.

‘No. But I shall fall if I move. Oh, you shall pay for this, James!’

‘Could you get along a little that way and jump into that tree, do you think?’

‘No, I couldn’t. I shall fall if I move, I tell you.’

‘I’ll get a ladder. I won’t be long.’

He ran down and met Marian and Hubert emerging into the long gallery from Marian’s sitting-room.

‘Lois is on the roof,’ he announced. ‘She can’t get down.’

‘On the roof,’ cried Marian. ‘How did she get there?’

‘From my studio window. I dropped her out. She is on the sloping bit. She says she will fall if she moves.’

‘Good heavens!’ Marian turned pale. ‘But how dangerous!’

Hubert bounded up to the studio and looked out of the window at his love on the slates below. She lay there sobbing to herself.

‘Lois!’ he called. ‘Are you all right?’

‘How can I be all right?’ she replied with some irritation. ‘Look at me!’

‘Don’t look downwards whatever you do. You might get giddy.’

‘I won’t.’

‘They are getting a ladder. I can see them bringing it through the kitchen garden.’

‘I do hope, after this, you’ll have James shut up in a lunatic asylum.’

‘Is it his fault?’

‘Of course it is. He put me here.’

‘But not on purpose?’

‘Oh, yes. He simply picked me up and threw me out.’

‘Good God! The brute! It’s incredible. He must be mad.’

‘He is.’

‘But what did he do it for?’

‘Oh, … he was annoyed.’

‘What about?’

‘Well, it was something I said.’

‘But what did you say?’

Lois felt suddenly very reluctant to tell Hubert what she had said. It did not lend itself to repetition in cold blood.

‘What were you quarrelling about?’ he asked again.

‘Well, … you, for one thing.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes. I’ll tell you after.’

A crowd had now collected in the kitchen yard. Marian and Miss Barrington, Agatha and Gerald, Cynthia and Sir Thomas, James and John, all the gardeners and most of the servants stood gazing up at Lois on the roof much as they had gazed at the airship earlier in the morning. Ladders were collected and tied together but still fell short of the required height. Hubert, at the window, swore at the general stupidity and encouraged Lois in such endearing terms as should have left no doubt, in the mind of a less preoccupied audience, as so the relations between them.

‘They are sending into Oxford for the man who cleans the gutters,’ he told her. ‘His ladder is longer.’

Lois burst into fresh sobs.

‘I can’t possibly wait here till then,’ she wailed. ‘I shall move, and then I shall fall off.’

James, John, and Gerald consulted together in the yard; they shouted to the gardeners for a strong rope and ran into the house. Joining Hubert in the studio, shortly afterwards, they explained that James was going down after her.

‘It’s his idea,’ explained John. ‘He thinks he can take the rope with him and tie it round her waist. Then we can pull her up. When we’ve got her safe we can send it down again for him.’

‘Doesn’t look too safe,’ said Hubert frowning.

‘It isn’t. But that gutter isn’t strong and I’m uncommonly afraid of it breaking under her. That’s why I don’t want to wait for this man from Oxford. I don’t think the thing will hold; you can see it bulging from the yard, and if it broke she would shoot straight off the roof.’

‘Look! Let me go!’ said the gallant Hubert, a little uncertainly.

‘No. James must go. He’s the lightest of us. And I don’t want to put any extra strain on that gutter. You’re too heavy.’

‘Clewer thinks he can manage it?’ asked Hubert sourly.

‘He’s got a good head for heights. Are you ready, James?’

James dropped over the edge of the window, fell heavily on to the slates, and slipped down to Lois’s side. Leaning upon one elbow he knotted the rope round her waist. As they writhed distressfully together upon the sloping roof they reminded the distracted Hubert of the figures on the Medici tomb. James gave the signal to the men above to pull, and the gutter cracked.

‘Hurry up!’ commanded John. ‘The thing’s going.’

Lois was hoisted into safety as the gutter broke and fell into the yard below. James saved himself by wriggling along the roof to where a drain-pipe gave him a little extra purchase. But he was now out of reach of the window and the rope. Beneath him a large chestnut tree shaded the kitchen court. He eyed it meditatively for a second or two, balanced himself, sprang, and landed in the branches.

‘He really is like a monkey,’ cried Lois, struck by the resemblance for the second time in half an hour.

But his agility failed him at the critical moment. He crashed through the leaves and fell to the ground with a heavy thud. John and Gerald silently hastened from the studio.

‘The branches broke his fall,’ said Hubert reassuringly, as the group in the yard closed round the motionless figure at the foot of the tree.

He and Lois stood alone together at the window. Both were rather pale.

‘I hope he isn’t much hurt,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry I was so angry with him.’

‘But what was it all about?’

She reflected how best she could narrate to him this rather discreditable affair.

‘Poor James,’ she began, ‘… you know we used to be great friends. And it’s naturally rather a shock to him now to find that I think more of your opinion than his.’

Hubert remembered a hint that Marian had just given him and saw light.

‘You mean he doesn’t like being cut out?’

Lois had not quite meant that, but she left it uncontradicted. It was, on the whole, a nicer explanation than the real one. And it might have some truth, when she came to think of it. Such fury does not arise from ordinary pique, but a disappointed lover will do anything. A roar of pain, as Gerald stooped to examine James, caused the pair at the window to exclaim in relief:

‘Then he isn’t dead!’

Hubert began to be indignant again.

‘All the same, you know, it’s no excuse for throwing you out of the window.’

‘No, I know. With anyone else it wouldn’t be. But he, you know … well, he can’t be judged quite like other people.’

‘I suppose not, poor chap. Anyhow, he took some risk getting you up again.’

‘Don’t tell anyone. I think we’ll say it was an accident.’

‘Oh! All right! Perhaps it would be best.’

Gerald put both his hands to his mouth and shouted up to them:

‘A broken collar-bone!’

‘But that isn’t at all serious!’ said Lois in some disappointment.

2.

Immediately after breakfast it was generally a cardinal object with Gerald and Hubert to escape from Sir Thomas Bragge. At this time of day he was most dangerous, for the ladies were seldom on the scene so early. But the young men considered that it was John’s duty to entertain him since John had, presumably, invited him. They did not like hearing about his successful business career, and the constant recital of the glories of the house he meant to build disgusted them both, though on different grounds. Gerald thought it stank of money. Hubert, who did not on principle object to dividends, jibbed at the implied scheme of decoration. They shared a hearty sympathy for the unfortunate architect, who was regarded by Sir Thomas as a kind of stone-mason and bullied abominably.

Gerald thought the garden a safer place than the house and fled to a concealed walk, under a rose-covered pergola, in which to smoke a morning pipe. From this shelter he observed with immense satisfaction the buttonholing of Hubert. Sir Thomas got his victim on the terrace and began to tell him funny stories. Up and down they walked and Hubert seemed to get sadder and sadder. Gerald could not help being a little compassionate, for Sir Thomas’s stories, though almost always improper, were so long and punctuated by so many guffaws that people generally forgot the beginning before he reached the end. It was not quite as bad for Hubert, however, as it would have been for Gerald, since he was studying Sir Thomas and needed to collect more copy. He had already ‘Bragged’ a little for Lois’s entertainment.

Gerald, in delicious security, took his ease under the roses. In a very few days he was hoping to be out of this demoralizing place and back at his work. Lyndon was altogether too full of ladies for his liking. He had shut women out of his life on the day that he learnt of Agatha’s desertion. He took no interest in them, and, except in his consulting room, saw as little of them as a religious in a monastery. His friends were men and he worked with men.

This newly awakened preoccupation with his cousin was, therefore, wholly undesirable and must be shaken off. But he did not believe that it would trouble him long when once he had got away from her. His broken heart had been mended very quickly before; sooner indeed than he quite liked. His profession had absorbed him and he was able to see how disastrous marriage might have been. His particular field was, as yet, almost uncharted. He was one of the pioneers in a new branch of medical science. He possessed enough means to support himself if he did not marry, and he intended to devote his life to experimental research; to use to the full his peculiar opportunities.

He had scarcely thought of Agatha since the first despairing weeks. They had not met until she had been married some two and a half years, for she lay ill at Lyndon when he returned from his sojourn in Paris. He had heard of the death of her baby with detached compassion. Soon afterwards he went to Austria and thence to Italy. Now he was returned to London, was working sixteen hours a day, and accomplishing a third as much as he could wish.

He should not have allowed himself to be entrapped into this visit. But his relatives pestered him and he resented their intimations that he avoided Lyndon for a particular reason. All that was over and done with; he was immune. If a spark of the old feeling had been left he could never have criticized her so coolly. A man must be genuinely out of love who can condemn as he condemned. But he should have distrusted this inclination to protest too much. He now suffered for his over-confidence. He had discovered that she could still command his unreasoned pity. Criticism, as strong as ever, could not kill it. And his conviction that she was destined to pain was the more agonizing to him since he could not leave off condemning her.

For his own sake he must immediately put an end to this state of things. He told himself that it would never do. That it was no concern of his whether she were happy or not. That hers was no isolated case and not to be compared with the pain and sorrow which he encountered daily among his patients. He must get the thought of her out of his head. And he smiled as he thought how he would lecture a patient who had thus lost his sense of proportion. But few physicians can heal themselves.

The path where he walked ended in a low, brick wall enclosing part of the kitchen garden. Upon the other side of this wall he heard a voice which startled him into instant attention. A rather peculiar duologue was going on.

‘Really, Kell … you can’t manage it alone. I oughtn’t to let you.’

‘Oh, that’s all right, my lady. It’s not heavy really. Only a bit awkward.’

‘It would be much better if I were to take the other end. Just wait a minute…. Oh, I’m sorry! Did it catch your elbow?’

‘Not at all, my lady.’

‘It’s just till I get used to the weight….’

Staggering steps ensued, and then:

‘Surely it’s much too large! Couldn’t you find a smaller one?’

‘This was the one Mr Higgins gave me, my lady.’

‘He should have brought it himself. It’s too heavy for a woman. Wait till I call one of the men. Two men….’

Gerald brushed aside the larkspurs in the border, stepped up to the wall, and looked over it. He saw Agatha and the pretty housemaid who had attended the Dante lecture; they were struggling with a large step-ladder. Both were very pink.

‘Where do you want it taken?’ he called.

Agatha pointed to a brick building at the end of the enclosure. Swinging himself over the wall he picked up the ladder for them and set off between the raspberry canes and onion beds. Agatha, following, explained in a distressed voice:

‘It’s so silly. It’s to get some cherries for James. It seems that he has a passion for those little dark morello cherries against the potting-shed wall. They are rather hard to get, they grew so high, and are not very good when you’ve got them. At least, most people don’t care for them. But James likes them better than anything else. Of course, I ordered fruit and flowers to be sent up to him while he was in bed, but Kell tells me it hasn’t been done. She has asked twice for the cherries, but Higgins wouldn’t take the trouble. So today she went and got a ladder, intending to get them herself. I saw her dragging this heavy ladder along. You really shouldn’t, you know, Kell.’

Kell smiled respectfully and helped Gerald to place the ladder against the potting-shed wall. She then produced a little basket which hung from her arm and looked doubtfully from it to the top of the ladder. She was evidently wondering which of the three should climb up and fill it.

‘We will get the cherries and take them up to Mr James,’ said Agatha. ‘You must be very busy at this time of the morning. It was most kind of you to take all this trouble.’

The housemaid murmured a word of thanks and departed, walking sedately up the box-edged path.

Gerald climbed the ladder and began to fill the basket, glancing down from time to time at his cousin as she sat in the sun upon an upturned rhubarb pot. He picked the cherries very slowly, prolonging as far as possible this moment of satisfaction and contentment. He had become aware that it was better to suffer in her company than to be tranquil in her absence. She appeared to him perfect. Nothing she said or did could make the slightest difference to his feeling for her. He could find no fault, and her words and thoughts were beyond reproof simply because they were hers. He had been overtaken unawares by that over-powering need of one individual for another which defies reason and shapes our ends. This final stage of his subjugation had been so sudden and so surprising that he almost fell off the ladder.

At last the basket was full and he descended to her side. Together they strolled away through the vegetables. She was pensive, reflecting upon the strangeness of a lover. She knew him to be that and was just a little triumphant at having won him again. But she could not tell what she had done to bring him back. She asked him to come with her on a charitable visit to James, and they mounted to the sick-room.

James’s bedroom gave no clue to his tastes. The furniture was that which Marian had provided when he had been promoted from the night nursery to a room of his own. Only the bed had been changed in deference to his added inches. There were no memorials of the past, no photographs of school groups, no relics of obsolete, boyish collections, nothing that could throw light on the essential James. His hair-brushes and a couple of ties lay forlornly upon the dressing-table, while on the mantelpiece was a china money-box in the shape of a bathing machine which had been there since his eighth birthday. Pictures had formed part of Marian’s scheme: The Boyhood of Raleigh, Nelson in the Cockpit of the ‘Victory’, and When did you last see your Father? had hung on the walls for seventeen years. To remove them now would have revealed large, brilliant squares on the trellised paper. The whole room was suggestive of a little boy recently deported to a preparatory school with all his more intimate possessions. James, sitting upright in bed and badly needing a shave, did not seem to belong to it at all.

Gerald, used as he was to the study of abnormal mentalities, was struck anew by the baffling qualities of this one. He divined a degree of contra-suggestibility beyond any he had previously encountered. It was impossible to make any impression upon James. He lived in a strange world of his own, developing character, as it were, in spite of his surroundings. Agatha put the basket of cherries on his bed and asked him how he did.

‘I had thought,’ he said very seriously, ‘that I must be extremely ill. But Dr Crosbie tells me that this kind of injury, though always painful, is seldom serious.’

‘I sent up flowers,’ she said, glancing round the room with dissatisfaction. ‘Didn’t they come?’

‘Dolly took them. We don’t think flowers are healthy in a bedroom.’

‘Not healthy? How funny of you, James! What makes you think so?’

‘Well, Dolly has a married friend at Brixton who was a trained nurse. And she told Dolly that flowers in bedrooms give people cancer.’

‘Kell seems to look after you very nicely,’ said Agatha, trying to hide her amusement. ‘Did she give you these to read?’

There was a pile of literature on James’s bed, including several numbers of Home Chat and a Sunday School prize called Leonard’s Temptation. James nodded but explained that the Bible was, in Dolly’s opinion, the best reading for an invalid. She had lent him hers, which had pictures in it, and a large number of pressed flowers and memorial cards of which he apparently knew the several histories.

It was always difficult to talk to James, even if he was, as now, in an expansive mood. His visitors were glad when Lois and Hubert appeared, inspired also to visit the sick. Under the pretext that the room must be crowded the cousins made off.

Agatha said, outside the door:

‘Everyone seems to visit James in couples. I wonder if Cynthia and Sir Thomas have been yet.’

‘That girl … Kell … is very good to him.’

‘Isn’t she? I don’t know what he would do without her. Of course, she isn’t cut out for a housemaid really. She oughtn’t to be in service. She’s too rough and countrified ever to soar beyond being an under-servant; she doesn’t adapt herself like most of them do. She has too much in her. She ought to be a farmer’s wife or something like that. She’d run things splendidly if she were in a position of responsibility.’

Lois and Hubert found that conversation flagged. They were oppressed by the memory of the studio window. The accident which had led to James’s illness was always with them and it tied their tongues. Lois had by now quite convinced herself that it was disappointed love which had caused him to throw her out of the window, and she was inclined to be very forgiving in consequence. But Hubert was not softened; he regarded the fellow as a homicidal lunatic. James was taciturn and made no attempt to help them out. At last they abandoned the effort of talking to him and diverted themselves by laughing at the pictures in Dolly’s Bible. It is to be hoped that they did not know it was hers, for they continued their merriment when she brought in James’s lunch.

‘Who is this party contemplating a sort of astral butcher’s shop?’ demanded Hubert.

‘Oh, that’s Peter on Cornelius’s roof. It’s in Acts.’

‘I never read Acts. It’s got shipwrecks and all sorts of excitements in it, hasn’t it?’

The luncheon tray reminded them of their own need for food and they departed. Dolly, her cheeks deeply flushed, gathered up the markers and pressed flowers, which had been scattered over the bed, and replaced them in the despised Book. James regarded her with sorrow and comprehension.

‘Dolly,’ he said gently, ‘I’m ever so sorry they laughed at your things. I couldn’t stop them.’

‘Miss Lois ought to know better,’ said Dolly. ‘She’s had enough education, I should think, to know it’s wrong to make a mock of sacred things.’

‘He did it first.’

‘More shame to him!’ she cried hotly. ‘And then he comes and sets himself up to teach us! Education! If education makes people talk like ignorant heathen, I’m glad I haven’t got any.’

‘Don’t think about them,’ he urged.

‘People like that call themselves ladies and gentlemen! I wonder they have the face! When they talk so bad that poor people are ashamed to hear them. Don’t you never want to teach them manners, James? I do.’

She bit her lip, realizing that she had called him by his name.

‘They get taught sometimes,’ said James, grinning reminiscently. ‘Do you know how Lois fell out of the window?’

‘No. How?’

‘I put her out.’

‘You never didn’t! What for?’

‘Bad manners.’

‘My stars!’ Dolly gasped. ‘You shouldn’t ought.’

‘I know. I was very much frightened. I thought I’d killed her. But it’s done her no harm.’

‘It hasn’t done her no good neither, seemingly.’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘But you was really very wrong to do it. You have got a nerve! Whatever will you do next?’

‘How should I know?’

He grew morose again.

‘What do you live here for?’ she asked suddenly. ‘I wouldn’t. Not when they treat you like they do. Haven’t you got any money of your own?’

‘Yes. I’ve got about four hundred pounds a year.’

‘What? As much as that? Why, it’s nearly eight pounds a week!’

‘Do you think that much or little?’

‘Depends on how you look at it. At my home we think a man gets good wages if he gets three pounds a week. Why! Lots of men marry on two pounds.’

‘Marry?’ said James. ‘Marry?’

‘Have you finished your soup?’

She bent over him to take the bowl but with his free arm he caught her and forced her to sit on the bed beside him.

‘Marry!’ he exclaimed again. ‘I was a fool not to think of it! Look here, Dolly! I can marry you, can’t I?’

‘Don’t talk silly….’

‘It’s not silly. Couldn’t we be married and have a house of our own? Would you like it?’

‘What?’

‘Why shouldn’t we? Don’t you think we’d be very happy?’

She perceived the gravity of his intention and began to reflect.

‘I used to think I’d never marry anyone,’ she said at last, indecisively. ‘But you’re different somehow. I don’t believe you’d annoy me the way other men would.’

‘Of course I wouldn’t. I don’t annoy you now, do I? Well, why should I then?’

‘That’s right. That’s where it is. And then I believe you’d let me have my way about the house and everything. I like managing things.’

‘Oh, yes, you can do what you like in the house as long as you don’t get telling me how to paint.’

‘Tell you how to paint! Me? Not much! I can’t even draw. But listen while I explain. Will you come to chapel with me Sundays? That’s my trouble. I never felt I could marry a religious man, because my stepfather was religious. And the way he went on … well, it made you hate the name of God sometimes, if you know what I mean. But then, I couldn’t marry an unbeliever, because I’m religious myself, somehow, in spite of my stepfather. Divine worship I like; it’s only religious people I can’t bear. If you’ll come to chapel Sundays and hold your tongue about it other times, and not always be asking blessings, it will just suit me.’

‘Me too,’ said James. ‘I know what you mean.’

‘I never thought I could fancy a husband,’ she observed. ‘But there’s something about you, James … well … I don’t know! So gentle as you are generally and then throwing anybody out of the window!’ She laughed. ‘It seems like I’ve got to keep you out of mischief.’

‘We’ll be married at once,’ he said, revolving the great idea in his mind.

‘We might as well,’ she agreed.

There was a pause while the betrothed pair stared at each other. Dolly began to wonder whether she would have to prompt him, so slow was he in arriving at a clear conception of his own needs. But at last he drew her towards him and began to kiss her fresh cheek, tentatively, and with an embarrassment which seemed to her pitiful. She realized that these were probably the first caresses ever offered by him to any human being since the departure of her aunt from Lyndon. This was not the diffidence of an inept lover but a symbol of the complete isolation in which he had lived.

The knowledge filled her with a passionate tenderness, and, half sobbing, she flung a protecting arm round him as though to shield him from a world which had been too unkind.

3.

‘I can’t quite understand what is going on in the shrubbery,’ said Agatha, sitting up and shading her eyes. ‘First of all I saw Lady Clewer and Mr Ervine walking up and down on the terrace. Then, with a determined air, they went into the shrubbery, just as if they had lost something and were going to look for it. Then she came out without him and went into the house. Then she reappeared with Lois and marched her into the shrubbery. Now I see her coming out again alone. She has presumably left them inside together.’

‘Rather unusual on her part, isn’t it?’ said Gerald.

‘Very. That’s why I’m puzzled. What can be the meaning of it?’

‘Well, she’s coming to tell us.’

Marian was advancing across the lawn towards the cedar tree, her face aglow with smiles. Though she was at least a hundred yards from the shrubbery she had the air of one who walks on tip-toe. She joined them.

‘I hope you won’t mind my giving you a hint,’ she began, ‘but I wouldn’t go into the shrubbery just now if I were you.’

‘Not if you’d rather we didn’t,’ said Agatha, feeling that no power on earth should induce her to ask why not.

‘Of course, I don’t know,’ pursued the joyful mother, ‘if anything will come of it. But Mr Ervine is having a little talk with Lois. A very important little talk.’

‘So we saw.’

‘Oh, did you guess? How quick of you, dear! Between ourselves I have a very shrewd suspicion of what her feelings are. And nothing could please me more. He is such a nice fellow! And he has been so straightforward about it all, speaking to me before he ever said a word to her. I just had to give him the opportunity.’

‘I see Sir Thomas going into the shrubbery from the terrace,’ exclaimed Agatha.

‘Oh, dear!’ cried Marian, looking much distressed. ‘I can never reach him in time. Can we shout? How can we stop him?’

‘I’ll run,’ said Gerald.

He ran and Marian sank exhausted into his chair.

‘Dear me!’ she said. ‘How all this takes me back to your engagement, Agatha. I never shall forget that dance at the Calthorpes’, and how your mother and I stood at the door of the little conservatory, blocking up the entrance, so that you and John should have time to settle things before anyone came in.’

‘Did you?’ asked Agatha curiously.

‘Yes. And your poor mother was so afraid that you would refuse him. I was a little nervous myself. You were so young. And you hadn’t seen Lyndon.’

Agatha glanced at the house which should have prompted her to so immediate an acceptance of John. It was indeed a magnificent possession. There was no end to its beauty. But she was quite sure that she had never thought of it once during that half-hour in the conservatory. As far as she could remember she had not thought about anything at all. If she had entertained any intelligent ideas they had made no impression. She could recall the heavy scent of the conservatory, and the flame of orchids, the cadences of a distant waltz, John’s hand on her heart and the urgency of his voice. These things had brought her to Lyndon.

‘I was very young,’ she said. ‘I hardly knew what I was doing.’

Gerald was now on the terrace talking to Sir Thomas. She looked at him resentfully. He was unfair and she often wished that she could tell him so. He did her an injustice in supposing that she had not married for love, according to her lights. Everyone, her mother even, had encouraged her to believe that her attachment to John was of an enduring nature. If she had learnt the impermanence of such passion, it was irrevocable experience which had taught her. She could not be expected to know then.

Not that she feared for Lois. This manipulated proposal, so typical of Marian and her kind, did not go for much. Lois and Hubert were really suited to each other; they had a community of tastes which augured well for the future. They would probably make a better thing of it than she and John had done. They would rise to a level of intimacy and companionship impossible to her. And yet, it might not have been impossible if … Here, woman-like, she was able to skip a few thoughts and safeguard her conscience.

Gerald was returning with Sir Thomas and two more chairs. They all sat down under the tree in silence, bending an expectant regard upon the entrance to the shrubbery. At last Gerald asked Marian how long she supposed her young couple would be. Marian looked rather scandalized and said she really didn’t know.

‘They would have to come out by now, surely, if she had refused him,’ suggested Agatha. ‘But do you think it’s quite nice of us to sit here waiting?’

‘I must know when they have finished their little talk,’ urged Marian. ‘I shall have to speak to Lois.’

‘But the rest of us? I think it would be more tactful if we removed ourselves.’

Agatha began to prepare for departure, while Gerald unkindly suggested that the interesting pair might have left the shrubbery by the gate into the park. This idea horrified Marian, and she was about to pursue them when they were all given pause by the hasty approach of Cynthia. They were instantly aware that she had news of interest to communicate to them. So seldom did she move with animation that only the deepest excitement could cause her to hurry as she was now doing. She surveyed them triumphantly for a moment and then drawled:

‘James has torn it this time.’

‘Oh, James!’ said Marian with bored irritation. ‘What has he been doing now?’

‘He wants to marry Kell.’

‘Kell!’

‘Kell, the housemaid?’

Everybody gaped, and Agatha immediately wondered why she had not foreseen it. It was so patently obvious.

‘The third housemaid,’ said Cynthia with relish.

‘Good heavens! But why …?’ began Marian.

‘How should I know?’ replied Cynthia, who believed that she did.

‘Who told you?’ demanded Agatha.

‘John. He and James are hard at it in the study. James got up this morning, you know. The doctor said he might as long as he keeps his arm all tied up. And he went straight off, as soon as he was up, and found John and made this announcement. They want you, please, Mother.’

‘Oh, dear,’ cried Marian, with a glance at the shrubbery. ‘I can’t possibly come yet. I must stay here for a minute or two.’

‘But isn’t it like James?’ exclaimed Agatha.

‘She seems a nice girl,’ contributed Gerald.

‘An uncommonly pretty girl,’ pronounced Sir Thomas. ‘What does she say to it? Will she have him?’

‘You bet she will if she can,’ Cynthia assured them. ‘You’ll have to sack her now, I suppose, Agatha?’

‘Yes, indeed! My dear, it will be most disagreeable for you,’ said Marian sympathetically. ‘Having a thing like this happen in one’s own house! Would you like me to see her for you?’

‘No, thank you,’ replied Agatha a little coldly.

‘I don’t see how you can possibly blame yourself, though,’ continued Marian. ‘Nobody could have foreseen this. I suppose it’s all the result of our letting him go to Paris. However …’

Her glance suggested that they could not really discuss this delicate matter in the presence of gentlemen. Agatha was thinking swiftly. She remembered Kell tugging at the heavy ladder to get cherries for James. She thought of Kell’s Bible on his bed. Kell was really a very nice creature. It was monstrous that anyone should regard the affair in the light of a scandal. Marian’s suggestive hints were not to be endured. Neither James nor Kell should be insulted while Agatha was the lady of Lyndon.

‘I shall be very sorry to lose her,’ she announced. ‘She is such an exceptionally nice girl. But I don’t suppose she will want to stay on as housemaid after she is married.’

This was an open defection and was felt as such by the company. Marian looked dumbfounded. Cynthia and Sir Thomas had much ado not to laugh. The affair, to them, could have but one significance. Gerald Blair became extremely joyful.

‘I think James has shown the most astounding good sense,’ stated the amazing Agatha. ‘I think he will be very lucky if he can succeed in marrying such an admirable creature. I am sure she will make him happy, which no one else has ever tried to do.’

‘My dear Agatha …’ began Marian, but the rebel, quite exhausted by her own violence, had turned away towards the house.

Gerald recognized the frightened pallor which had succeeded her flush of excitement. He had seen it before on an occasion, the only occasion in her life, when she had defied her mother. That was five years ago, and her defiance, if he remembered rightly, had been short lived. This time her rash impetuosity must be encouraged, upheld. He hastened after her and found her, still palpitating, in the flowery spaciousness of her drawing-room. They looked at each other and Gerald ejaculated:

‘Cleared it!’

‘Well, but don’t you agree with me? Don’t you? If she cares for him, don’t you think it’s the best thing that could happen to him? And I honestly don’t think she’d have accepted him if she didn’t.’

‘Of course it is. Any man would be in luck to get a girl like that. She’s splendid. Well balanced, healthy, sane … a good stock. I watched her at that Dante lecture and thought what a fine woman she was.’

‘Oh, don’t talk like that. I don’t mean that. They love each other really and properly, as only one couple in a thousand manage to do. Stop talking like a eugenics textbook.’

‘It’s my job.’

‘Yes. But you know better than that! Gerald! Stop looking out of the window! You know better than that.’

‘I know …’ he began, and pulled up, appalled at the indiscretion of the remark he had been about to make.

The contagious properties of love are proverbial and it is always dangerous for a couple divorced by fate to reflect in unison upon the happier romances of other people. These ill-starred cousins were unlucky in that they had been thrown together at a time when the whole of Lyndon was mating. A moment after Gerald’s too significant pause, they had the prudence to withdraw, somewhat hastily, from an interview which was leading them beyond the bounds of decorum. Agatha ran upstairs and Gerald bolted into the billiard-room.

4.

He left Lyndon next day before she had finished making her leisurely breakfast in bed. She heard the throbbing of his car at the door and the change of gear as it hummed away up the slope. Silence fell upon Lyndon when he was gone, scarcely broken by the peaceful, everlasting sound of mowing and the shouting of cuckoos far off across the water meadows.

She lay drowsily, watching the tempered sunlight which streamed through the half-shaded windows. It fell in great rainbow splashes upon the crystal and silver of her dressing-table. Her breakfast steamed on a tray beside her bed and her morning’s letters were strewed upon the counterpane. At last she roused herself sufficiently to pour out another cup of coffee and examine her mail. There were several pages from her mother, and she frowned a little as she perused them. One passage in particular made her flush and sigh:

‘By the way, I’ve had such a funny letter from Marian. (How I wish we had not got on to these Christian name terms of intimacy! They tie one so!) I must show it to you. It’s most veiled, of course, but it seems she really is getting worried upon the family question. Has she been dropping tactful hints to you? If not, I think you may expect them. Personally, I consider it’s exceedingly impertinent of her, in spite of my own views on the matter, of which you are already aware. Of course it’s important that the place shouldn’t go to the Causfield Clewers, and I really think that the sooner that contingency is provided against, the better. Still, you’ve heard all this before, and I expect you think you know your own business.

Have you talked to J. about standing for Parliament in the next election? I met Tim Fenwick at Lady Peel’s yesterday, and he seemed to take it for granted that the Government would come to grief over this Ulster question. If this is really so, John has no time to lose. He, T. F. I mean, has been nursing his constituency for months. Do get J. to stir himself. I think it would be such an excellent thing for you both; you can do so much for him, canvassing and so on, and people without a family need something of the kind, some common interest to bring them together. And I think a serious object in life would be good for him. If you will persist in what I cannot but regard as a very rash obstinacy, I think the safest course will be to get John into Parliament if possible….’

Agatha, angry as she was, could not help laughing a little at these tactful suggestions. It was so like her mother to think that politics would provide John with a good substitute for paternity.

Since the death of her first-born, the luckless heir of Lyndon, she had steadily refused to bear children or had, rather, postponed the bearing of them to a more convenient epoch. She could not bring herself to face again the trials of that first year of wifehood. It had taught her, with an enduring shock, the nature of her hold upon her husband. She had felt him slipping from her at a moment when she stood in the most need of his supporting tenderness.

It had been his obvious pity for her condition which had alarmed her. He had been much too considerate for her peace of mind. Never for a moment had he forgotten that her eclipsed beauty had made her an object of compassion. This attitude struck her as an insult; a piece of brutality thinly veiled by sentiment. She knew that she had lost all her real power over him and that he was behaving, to her in accordance with his ideas of civility. His renewed ardour at her recovery of health and good looks had made her sure of this. And at that time she cared a great deal for his devotion. She did still. On his subjugation depended most of her own self-esteem.

She had decided to wait some years before taking such a risk again, and he, happy in the recovery of his beautiful wife, had acquiesced. There was plenty of time before them, for Agatha was, in those days, barely nineteen. But the subject was a sore one with Mrs Cocks, who continually urged her daughter to ‘get it over.’ As for Marian, she looked upon such a refusal of responsibility as flighty and a little ill-bred. It is to be doubted whether anyone in the world guessed what tears had been shed by the mother in secret over the child she had never even seen. Now, as she lay at ease in her magnificent bed, a small and very bitter drop splashed on to Mrs Cocks’s letter and blurred the large handwriting. For Agatha had a morbid and unconfessed conviction that no child born to herself and John would meet with a better fate than the first.

His step in the gallery recalled her to herself. Instantly she put her hands to her hair beneath the falling silk and lace of her cap. Searching under her pillow she found a small handkerchief and carefully removed the traces of her tears. When he greeted her she was smiling.

‘Blair has gone,’ he informed her. ‘I expect you heard him go.’

‘Yes.’

‘Hope being here has done him good. He assures me that he is sleeping better. But I can’t say I see much improvement. He came looking haggard and he’s gone away looking haggard.’

‘I don’t think visits to relations are very good rest cures.’

‘You’re right. He should have gone a sea voyage or something.’

He was wandering round the room picking up photographs and putting them down again and fidgeting among the things on her dressing-table.’

‘Lois and Ervine are settled,’ he said. ‘Mamma is going to send the notice to the papers today. Hello! What’s this?’

He held up a small, common-looking object. It was that pocket photograph of Gerald and Agatha which had been taken so long ago at Canverley Fair. She had on the previous night removed it from the cabinet where it had lain forgotten and stared at it for a little time, thinking strange thoughts. She remembered now that she had not put it away.

‘This is Blair, isn’t it?’ continued John. ‘But who’s the kid?’

‘Don’t you recognize her?’

‘Not …? You never wore your hair dragged back like that, did you?’

‘When I was sixteen I did. I was sixteen when that was taken.’

‘But how on earth could your mother allow it?’

‘She didn’t know. We got photographed without her leave at a country fair.’

‘I didn’t mean that. I mean how could she allow you to do your hair like that?’

‘Oh, she liked it like that. It’s unbecoming, isn’t it? But I wasn’t out, you see.’

‘It’s hideous. I didn’t think you could look like that.’

He put it in his pocket and said:

‘I can’t have this thrown away. It’s a family curio.’

‘It wasn’t going to be thrown away. Please give it back, John!’

‘Oh, no. I’m going to keep it. I’ll put it among the miniatures.’

‘No, John! I want it!’

‘You won’t get it. Though I don’t wonder that you don’t want to let it out of your hands. It’s a very compromising piece of evidence, you know.’

‘What of?’ she asked, tremendously startled.

‘That you were ever plain. No one would believe it without positive proof. It gives me unlimited power over you. Cynthia would give her eyes for a squint at it. By the way, now that Mamma has disposed of Lois, I think she will wake up a bit about Cynthia and Bragge.’

‘What do you think about that?’ asked Agatha sitting up.

‘Oh, well … he’s rather a bounder, but if she will have him it’s a good match from the financial point of view.’

‘But he’s so much older….’

‘Yes, it’s a drawback. But if she doesn’t mind, why should we?’

‘I can’t see how she can contemplate such a thing.’

‘I expect she wants her freedom.’

‘But I can’t believe it will turn out happily.’

‘There won’t be any scandals in the family, if that’s what you mean. Cynthia’s got her head screwed on too well for that. And that’s all we need worry about.’

‘I hate his ideas. So vulgar … so mercenary….’

‘What about hers?’

Agatha was silent.

‘You may take it,’ he said, ‘that they will be well matched. She knows her own business. So does he. And a pretty penny she’ll cost him.’

‘At her age,’ argued Agatha, ‘a girl ought to have ideals….’

‘Ought she? Had you?’

He had seated himself beside her on the bed. Silhouetted against the shaded window she could study his massive profile and the slight thickening of his neck over the back of his collar – the first indications of approaching corpulence. Though not really fat, he had too much flesh for thirty-four. But all the Clewer men were large; James would be fat in ten years’ time, fat and pale, whereas John would be fat and red. He was toying with her hand, pressing each white finger slowly back, and she conquered an impulse to snatch it from him.

‘I think I had ideals at seventeen,’ she said thoughtfully.

‘You’d got rid of them by the time I met you. That was one of the first things that struck me about you, Agatha; your sense of proportion! Don’t start losing it now!’

‘If only Sir Thomas wasn’t so …’ She paused and met his eye. ‘Well, you know quite well, don’t you, that …?’

‘She got him on the rebound after a break?’ He laughed. ‘How far did he go before you turned him down?’

‘Oh, a good way, horrid old thing.’

‘Old blackguard!’ He laughed again. ‘I thought as much. In fact it was pretty obvious. But he can’t be blamed so very much. He has a certain amount of excuse, you know, my dear.’

‘But he was your guest.’

‘Well … er … yes. He is a bounder, isn’t he? But Cynthia probably knows all about it, don’t you think?’

‘Are you never jealous, John?’ she asked curiously.

‘Not of that! Consider, my love, what a stormy life we would lead if I began. No. But just occasionally, when you get these soul qualms, you alarm me. I have a suspicion that if you ever deceive me it will be with a bishop or somebody like that.’

After a pause he continued:

‘Oh, I remember now what I really came to talk to you about. It’s this affair of James. Something’s got to be done about it. And my only hope is the girl. I want you to talk to her and see if you can’t scare her off. You know she’s played her cards uncommonly well. She must be a clever girl. I’ve been talking to James and I gather she’s succeeded in hooking him without giving any tricks away. There’s been absolutely nothing in their relations which puts her at a disadvantage. She isn’t forced to have him, you understand?’

‘Perfectly.’

‘I must confess I was surprised.’

‘I’m not. I don’t think you understand either of them.’

‘I don’t understand James, certainly, and you are more likely to understand the workings of another woman’s mind than I am. My own opinion is, however, that she’ll chuck him when she finds that four hundred pounds is all she’ll get with him. She must have thought he had more. When she finds that he hasn’t, she’ll probably change her mind, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t know. It isn’t a bad match for a girl in her class.’

‘Not if the fellow were presentable. But really, you know, the girl’s a fine girl. She must expect some compensation for putting up with James.’

‘Really and truly I think you are mistaking the nature of her attachment to him.’

‘Well, that’s what I want you to find out. You talk to her, quite sympathetically if you like, but just hint what a bad bargain he will be.’

‘But do you think it’s altogether a thing to be discouraged? She is, after all, a nice, respectable girl and he is not quite like other people. He’s a misfit here. Nobody regards him and he’s not happy, obviously. With a wife and a home of his own he might do much better. And he’s very fond of her.’

‘It wouldn’t do at all,’ said John decidedly. ‘Don’t you see that they would probably be in continual financial difficulties? Always dragging us down and coming to us for help. Besides,’ he added, with some constraint, ‘I think it would be rather a misfortune for James ever to marry anyone. We don’t want a heap of his brats swarming all over the place.’

‘But they won’t live here, surely?’

‘No, but they would eventually, if James came into the place.’

‘It’s early days to think of that.’

‘I can’t help thinking of it. Hang it all, I do care for the place.’

‘It isn’t any worse than the Causfield Clewers getting it. You’ve always said you wouldn’t mind so very much if that happened.’

‘Nor would I. They are a very decent set, I believe. This would be quite a different thing.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’ll see Kell and I’ll put the financial question before her. But I can’t promise not to back her up if she sticks to him. I shall think too well of her.’

‘No, don’t. I don’t want a quarrel. James is so persistent that he may carry this through, just as he did us all over the Paris business. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised. And in that case I don’t want an open breach. It will only make things worse. That’s why I don’t want Mamma to get her finger into this pie; she’s so uncompromising. Be nice to Kell, but tell her firmly that, if they insist upon marriage, we won’t help them in any way. That should scare her.’

‘All right. I’ll see her now.’

‘Need you worry so early?’ He looked grateful. ‘Wait until after lunch. Any time will do. You’ve nothing doing today, have you?’

‘Nothing. But I’ll see her at once and then get up,’ said Agatha briskly.

He kissed her and departed, leaving her to arrange her thoughts for the encounter. Kell was summoned. In her print frock, with her flaming hair tucked away under her cap, she looked out of place in the exotic richness of Agatha’s bedroom. She suggested a marigold in an orchid house. She came and stood at the bedside, looking at her employer with eyes that were respectful but unembarrassed.

‘Sit down, won’t you?’ said Agatha, raising herself upon one elbow and looking kindly at the girl.

Kell sat, with a trace of nervousness, hardly knowing where to place her reddened hands.

‘I wanted to talk,’ continued Agatha, ‘about this marriage. Naturally it is rather a surprise to us. You must forgive us if it is so.’

‘Of course, I see that, my lady,’ rejoined Kell. After a pause she continued in the careful speech she used with her employers, ‘I know he is above me in station. But I think I can make him happy. He is so different from most gentlemen.’

‘He is indeed!’ thought Agatha. Aloud she said: ‘Have you thought—forgive me if I am impertinent—have you thought at all about ways and means? Do you think you can afford to marry, in fact?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Kell, looking surprised. ‘We were going to begin buying our furniture at once.’

‘He has four hundred pounds a year, I believe,’ murmured Agatha.

‘Plenty girls in my class marry on less, Lady Clewer. I’d think very poorly of myself if I couldn’t manage on eight pounds a week. And we’ve got something saved for our furniture.’

‘But then the standard of living would be rather different. You couldn’t live like cottagers, quite.’ Kell looked unconvinced. ‘Or would you?’

‘We thought so,’ the other girl admitted. ‘We don’t want anything different. I’m not marrying him because I want anything different. I don’t like his being in a different class to me. I’d rather he was the same. For us to try to live like gentlepeople would be silly. It wouldn’t suit him nor me.’

‘Then what are your plans?’

‘There’s a little cottage out Bramfield way, my lady, that would do for us very well. I like Bramfield, because I’ve a married cousin living near there. And he likes it because of his pictures. He often goes over there to draw out the scenery.’

‘Does he? Do you like his pictures, Ke … I can’t call you Kell if I’m to be your sister-in-law, can I? May I call you Dolly? It seems to be more sensible, doesn’t it? Tell me how you like his pictures.’

‘I don’t know.’ Dolly looked confused. ‘I hardly understand such things. He seems quite set on it, as you might say.’

‘Do you think he’ll go on painting when you are married?’

‘Why, yes! What else would he do? A man must have something.’

‘But you don’t admire his work particularly?’

Dolly flushed, feeling that her loyalty was in some sort attacked.

‘I think he’s very clever to draw out all those things,’ she said defensively. ‘And they’re very like, I’m sure. I think the machinery in that picture of the traction engine has come out quite beautiful. But I don’t understand such things. At school I was always bad at the drawing.’

Agatha turned to another aspect of the case and asked: ‘What are your immediate plans? It will be very awkward for you during the next few weeks, won’t it? Are you finding it difficult?’

‘Well, they don’t know in The Room yet,’ said Dolly. ‘But I’ve nothing to be ashamed of when they do.’

‘No, indeed! But I was wondering if it would be easier for you to go away for a bit. Have you no friends you could stay with until your marriage?’

Dolly shook her head.

‘There’s only my aunt,’ she said. ‘And she won’t be too pleased. She doesn’t hold with people marrying above them.’

‘We’ll think out a plan,’ said Agatha. ‘I’ll get up now. Could you send Pauline to me.’

Dolly rose, her round face very pink.

‘I have to thank you for your kindness to me,’ she said. ‘I know it is difficult for you and all the family, and I shall always be grateful to you, Lady Clewer, for treating me in such a friendly way. I don’t know whether you and Sir John and old Lady Clewer won’t think that I ought to try and live like a lady when I’m married. But, to my way of thinking, we’d look more foolish if we did that, and give the family more to be ashamed of, than if we went on in the station we are used to.’

‘But you see, Dolly, it won’t be his station.’

‘I know, my lady. No more this isn’t.’ Dolly was becoming earnest and idiomatic. ‘James and me … we are just suited to each other like. We’ll be just a little sort of class to ourselves, I should say.’

‘That will be it,’ said Agatha enlightened. ‘Well … if you are both happy …’

Then, remembering John’s instructions, she repeated his warning as well as she could. Dolly listened with dignity.

‘We don’t want anything done for us,’ she said. ‘And I can promise that we won’t burden you. We wouldn’t like to lose our independence, you see.’

‘Very well, as long as I’ve made it clear to you….’

‘It’s quite clear, thank you, Lady Clewer. We’ll remember it.’

Dolly withdrew and Agatha embarked upon her toilet. Later in the morning she climbed the unaccustomed stairs to James’s attic. The artist, his arm in a sling, sat before the portrait of ‘Jellybelly,’ which had remained on the easel since the day of the accident. Agatha turned her eyes away from it hastily, with that instinct of self-preservation which James’s work usually evoked.

‘I came up,’ she said, ‘to talk about you and Dolly.’

‘Well?’ he asked truculently.

‘I think things will be rather difficult for Dolly, you know.’

‘You can make them difficult.’

‘I don’t want to. Please believe that I don’t want to. What I want to say is this. Wouldn’t it relieve the situation a good deal if you both came with me up to town and stayed in an hotel somewhere until after the wedding? You’ll have a lot of shopping to do and it will be easier all round. I’ve not proposed this to John yet, until I saw what you and Dolly think. But I believe he would think it a good plan if the marriage is really coming off soon.’

‘Thank you, Agatha. But I don’t see, if you are nice to her, that she would have such a bad time here.’

‘But the other servants!’

‘What could they do to her? Dolly won’t mind.’

‘Yes she will. Dear James, if you are going to marry her you must try to think of things from her point of view. Can’t you see that?’

‘Have you spoken to Dolly?’

‘Yes. And I believe she would like the plan if I suggested it.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ll agree all right, if you will be my guest while we are in town, Agatha. Will you do that? I’ve been yours quite long enough. It’s time you were mine.’

‘Well, James … I don’t quite like …’

‘You want to stop it?’ he asked, looking at her keenly.

‘What? The marriage? No I don’t.’ She hesitated a moment and then said: ‘I don’t at all. I believe it ought to be a great success.’

‘Agatha! Then you are really on our side?’

‘Yes. I believe I am.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t ever have guessed. Though I always thought, you know, that you were a nice creature. Nicer than anyone except Dolly.’

He smiled at her, his plain face creased into an unaccustomed beam of delight.

‘You are …’ Words failed him. ‘I can’t tell you what I feel. But I’ll never forget it. Nor will Dolly. It makes it all so much easier. I used to think sometimes that you weren’t one really though you looked like one.’

‘Like what, James?’

‘Oh … one of those women … like Mamma and Lois and Cynthia … a lady, you know. Not like Dolly.’

He fell silent, smiling delightedly at her. Then, suddenly inspired, he jerked his thumb towards the easel.

‘You have it.’

She controlled her features and hoped that she had given no hint of her dismay. But he was, fortunately, quite convinced by her words of gratitude.

‘Shall I bring it down to your room?’ he asked.

She tried to imagine its stark contours in the luxury of her bedchamber.

‘Where on earth can I put it?’ she asked herself, as she stumbled down the garret stairs.