1
Hilary came in shortly before eleven. Jeremy and Dennis were still out, but everyone else was in the house. I had expected, if she returned at all, to see her wild and despairing, and illogically my sympathy for her underwent a sharp reaction when I saw her composure. Except that she was as white as paper, she didn’t betray herself at all. She even smiled.
“Did you think I was lost?” she inquired.
“If you weren’t lost, what excuse have you got for turning up at this hour?” countered Nunn belligerently.
“I lost my way. Anyone would, on such a night.”
“If the percentage of arthritis and pneumonia in the neighbourhood rises a hundred per cent. in the course of the next week don’t be surprised,” he continued. “A third of the village have also been losing their way in the heather this evening. I wonder you didn’t stumble on any of them.”
“I didn’t.” But I detected a faint change, as though a wind of alarm had ruffled her composure. “I hope people haven’t really been turning out for me.”
“I did my best to dissuade them.”
“Where’s Arthur?” She put the question sharply, and a tinge of colour whipped into the pale cheeks.
“Where should he be except catching his death of cold out there?”
“How stupid when he doesn’t know the way at all.”
“You’d have been extremely offended if you’d found him calmly smoking in here.”
“You’re very solicitous for his health.”
“Someone has to make up for your deficiencies, my dear.”
Hilary looked suddenly like a little girl who is going to cry. “Why are you so bitter about it?”
“Because I think it’s bad manners to keep a guest out in this weather till nearly eleven o’clock.”
“Well, I’ve been out most of the evening myself. But I suppose you don’t mind about that.”
An odd expression crossed Nunn’s face; for an instant, I thought he was going to say one of those things that are never forgotten. Then he appeared to change his mind. I was aware of Mrs. Ross entering the room.
“So there you are. You haven’t eloped, after all.”
“Who was I going to elope with?”
“You seem to have most of the neighbourhood at your feet. Poor Mr. Dennis.”
“I’m sure you saw to it that he took his goloshes.”
“I don’t think he has any. Anyway, he wouldn’t wait for anything. But what made you treat him like that?”
“Like…?”
“Sending him back for your bag, when you knew you’d hidden it. It was only a trick, and a nasty one at that. It was horrid of you to take him out on such an afternoon and then lose him.”
Hilary struggled back to her original casual manner. “That’s just the point. I didn’t take him out. He came. If he would be so tactless as to insist on going where he hadn’t been invited, he mustn’t grumble at the consequences.”
“So you shook him off on purpose?”
“Yes. I had to be alone. You here don’t realise; I never get a minute. I said I wanted to go out by myself. I had to think…”
There was something so endearing about the clumsiness of her excuses, the childish defiance of her manner, that I felt I had had as much as I could stand.
“I expect you’re dog-tired,” I intervened, coming forward and pushing a chair towards her. “And starved. Sit down and let me take off your wet shoes.” And at that I caught sight of Mrs. Ross’s hopeless face and chuckled.
But Nunn wouldn’t let Hilary off so easily. “And have you thought sufficiently?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“About…?”
“Whether I’d marry Arthur or not.”
A new voice said, “And—w-what have you decided?”
At that sound, the least expected of any at such a moment, we all turned like a crowd of marionettes jerked by an identical string. None of us had heard Dennis and Jeremy enter. Jeremy, indeed, still stood so far back in the shadow that Hilary didn’t notice him.
“That I can’t. I’m sorry, Arthur, but James and Meriel will tell you you’re lucky.”
I admired the man at that moment. He didn’t stop to argue or protest. He came through us, pushed her into the chair, asked me if I’d ring the bell, pulled off her shoes and put a cushion behind her head before he made any comments. Then he said, “I won’t ask you for explanations t-to-night, of course. You’re tired out, but perhaps in the m-morning…?” He looked at her with a glance so confiding, so shy and so friendly that Hilary suddenly began to cry.
“It isn’t any good, Arthur. I can’t do it.”
“Well, if you c-can’t, you can’t, of course. D-don’t worry about it to-night. You’re all right, are you? L-look here, sir,” he turned to Nunn, “I think she ought to go to bed at once. She’s worn out, and she oughtn’t to be made to t-talk before the morning.”
“Hear, hear!” put in Jeremy, and at the sound of his voice Hilary flushed a rosy red.
“I thought you were somewhere on the Equator,” she exclaimed. He came across the room and took her hand.
“No, I agree with Dennis that you mustn’t be allowed to talk to-night. To-morrow you can tell us what’s wrong, and we’ll do anything you want. If you should require someone murdered or anything, just let me know.”
She began to laugh, a high uncertain sound, the prelude to certain collapse. “Oh, Jeremy, I wish you could.”
“Why not?” he murmured. “Just one thing. Tell me, is it that hound, Ralph?”
She drew her hand away. “You’ll think me unspeakable, Arthur,” she said, facing round to us all, “and I’m sure James won’t let me stay in his house. But I’m breaking with you because I’m going to marry Ralph Feltham.”
2
After Hilary had gone, I was surprised to find Dennis easily the coolest man of us all.
“Well, of c-course I knew she hadn’t been ploughing about on the Downs all the evening,” he said. “You’ve only g-got to look at her shoes.”
He pointed to them, where they lay on the floor, as he spoke, and we saw what he meant.
“They’re m-muddy, of course. But anyone who walked a quarter of a mile on the cleanest path would be muddy in weather like this. But compare them with yours,” he nodded to Jeremy, “or mine, and see the difference. S-she didn’t lose her way at all. She kept to the paths all the time.”
“Then she’s been deliberately deceiving you,” broke in Meriel indignantly. I caught a glimpse of Eleanor’s face; it was tragic. She looked as if she were going to speak when Dennis forestalled her.
“What we’ve got to f-find out is whether she’s marrying Feltham, or t-thinks she’s going to marry him, because she has to—I mean, because he’s g-got some sort of hold over her—or whether it’s because she wants to.”
“Wants to!” exclaimed Eleanor in a dreadful voice. “Can you imagine any woman wanting to marry Ralph Feltham?”
“Quite a lot have w-wanted to,” Dennis pointed out, a little apologetically. “And I d-don’t think it’s very odd, either. I mean, we live a good deal by the law of contrast. You could hardly f-find anyone less like all of us than Feltham, c-could you? It’s pure reaction, I should s-say.”
Nunn observed in his curt, unvarnished manner, “Upon my soul, Dennis, you take it pretty coolly. Do you mean to say you’re going to stand aside and let a fellow with Feltham’s reputation marry the girl you were engaged to?”
“Oh, no,” said Dennis, in some surprise. “Of course not. And even if I would, Freyne wouldn’t. But I’m just pointing out a second reason why Hilary might be prepared to. He’s very picturesque, and there is something that Hilary would call romantic about marrying a man of his achievements.”
“He’s either being very modest or very subtle,” announced Mrs. Ross in decisive tones, “and when men are being modest they’re always proudest of themselves. Besides, I dare say he doesn’t want to marry the chit any more—unless he’s going to be philanthropic on top of everything else.”
“Do you call it philanthropic to marry Hilary?”
“It would save her from herself, wouldn’t it?”
“By preventing her from marrying anyone else? But I don’t agree. I shouldn’t save Hilary, as you call it, by preventing her marrying Feltham, though between us that’s what we’ve got to do. I’m only pointing out his probable attraction.”
“Over your own?”
“A girl I t-thought at that time I wanted to marry—it’s about t-ten years ago now—told me she couldn’t t-think of anyone she’d rather have for a second husband. I dare say t-that’s how Hilary feels.”
Then Jeremy stopped all this senseless badinage by saying in a thoughtful voice, “Whereabouts is Feltham at this moment? I didn’t realise he was in the neighbourhood.”
“He’s not supposed to be,” returned Eleanor, “but with Ralph you can never tell. He has a shooting-lodge over at Ravensend, and he comes down every now and again.”
“Where did you say Hilary gave you the slip?” Jeremy turned to Dennis.
“At M-Merlin’s Wood.”
“H’m. I hadn’t realised that. Of course, there’s a direct short cut to Ravensend. That explains a lot. In fact, it must have been Hilary’s footstep we heard. No wonder she stopped dead when we shouted. I wonder if we could get over there to-night. Fog’s lifted, hasn’t it?”
“I don’t c-care if it’s lifted as high as H-heaven,” said Dennis, in his mild, determined tones, “you aren’t going to hunt out Feltham t-to-night.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You aren’t going to hunt out Feltham to-night.”
“No? Who says not?”
“I do.”
“You…?”
“Yes. I’m officially engaged to her still. D-don’t forget that. And I won’t have the s-scandal. What do you suppose people would s-say if they heard she spent several hours with the fellow and t-then you went and tried to throttle him? B-because that’s what it would c-come to. It always does, with hot-headed fellows like you.”
“All the same,” repeated Jeremy, coolly, “I think I shall go. Just smell out the land, so to speak. No?” as Dennis shook his head. “Who’ll stop me?”
“I w-will, if it comes to that.” When Jeremy laughed in an unpleasant manner, the tall, casual fellow reached out an arm and with a muscular strength for which none of us had given him credit, had Jeremy’s wrists between his fingers and slowly, silently, forced him on to his knees. Jeremy was like whipcord and india-rubber; the rest of us watched fascinated. I could see that it took Dennis every ounce of his strength and atom of skill to hold his man; but hold him he did.
Jeremy yielded with a good grace. “Your trick,” he said. “And I wish some time you’d show me how that’s done. I thought I knew most of the dodges, but that’s a new one on me.”
“Asiatic in origin,” murmured Dennis. “Sorry and all that. Damned undignified, I know, but you m-must see that if you were allowed to have your crazy way, you’d play straight into Feltham’s hands. In fact, I w-wouldn’t mind betting most of what I’ve g-got, that he’s sitting up, hoping for something of the kind.”
Meriel Ross’s plaintive voice broke in again. “But why does he want to marry Hilary, do you suppose? Because she’s going to inherit ten thousand pounds next week? But now that we have sensible laws, there’s nothing to compel her to give him anything.”
“Still, a girl doesn’t marry a man with the idea of hanging on to every penny of her own, if he’s in a tight corner,” Nunn put in. “Anyway, she’s reckless about money.”
Dennis said, so thoughtfully that we all began to laugh, “We can’t tell that that is the reason. He m-may want her for herself.”
“Men are odd,” Mrs. Ross agreed. “But if that’s true, he’s in better company than he’s been for years, I should imagine. And now I’m going to bed. Really, it’s been a most remarkable evening, and I seem to have enjoyed it a good deal, especially this last part.” She smiled affectionately at Jeremy and waved her hand to the rest of us.