Chapter XI: Mrs. Sinclair Pays a Visit

Melville's absence from The Vale occurring thus simultaneously with Sir Ross Buchanan's defection made the time hang heavy on Mrs. Sinclair's hands, and, her other visitors being few, she suddenly found herself deprived of all companionship. It was not long before this solitude became intolerable to her, and as her repeated little notes to Melville remained without an answer she determined to go to call on him in person. He, of course, had duly received these several communications, but as none of them contained the news which he desired--that Sir Ross had resumed his visits--he did not think that any good purpose would be served by prosecuting his attentions to his aunt.

As a consequence of his disaster at the races he was obliged to economise again. For breakfast, followed by luncheon at his club or some good restaurant, he substituted a meal which would in France be termed _déjeûner_, but which he significantly labelled "brunch," as being neither the one thing nor the other, although compact of both. Then in the afternoon he lounged by the Achilles Statue, and played billiards if chance threw in his way any acquaintance with kindred tastes but less skill than his own. And in the evening he would dine alone at some one of the many cheap restaurants in Soho, or have a chop in solitude at home. The life was all right in a way, but aimless and not to his taste. Yet even he could not bring himself to make fresh demands upon his uncle until a more reasonable period had elapsed.

It was after one of these purposeless saunters in the Park that he went back to his rooms. The day had been very hot, and, after letting down the sun-blinds, Melville threw himself upon the sofa and idly blew rings of smoke into the still air. A pile of illustrated papers lay within reach, syphons and decanters stood upon a table at his elbow, and he was just falling into a doze when he heard a woman's voice, and in another moment his valet opened the outer door with his master-key and ushered Mrs. Sinclair in.

Melville jumped to his feet and greeted her effusively, checking her mixture of apologies and reproaches with admirable tact.

"It was a case of Mahomet and the mountain," she said. "You didn't come and didn't answer my letters--I never thought you could be so abominably rude, Melville--and I wanted to see you, so there was no help for it but to disregard proprieties and come here. Why don't you marry some charming girl, so that I can call without being compromised or compromising you? You would be a delightful husband."

"So I have been explaining," Melville answered, "but the charming girl has the bad taste to prefer somebody else. Get some tea, Jervis, and some strawberries and things."

Mrs. Sinclair settled herself in a comfortable chair, with her back to the light, and took stock of her surroundings.

"I wonder how it is that bachelors always have such delightful quarters? This room is an effective answer to the old sneer that no place can be quite comfortable without a woman's touch."

"Perhaps I'm a bit effeminate in my tastes," Melville replied. "Lots of musical Johnnies are, you know. How is Sir Ross Buchanan?"

He switched off the conversation from trifles to essentials with perfect ease, and Mrs. Sinclair showed no resentment.

"He hasn't been near me since the day you saw him," she answered. "That is the principal reason why I've called now. Sir Ross hasn't been to see me, nor have you, and I'm being bored to death. Why have you stopped away, Melville?"

"I've had some business to attend to," he said, "and it didn't turn up trumps. And now I'm a sick man--broke, and generally down on my luck."

"All the more reason for you to avoid your own company," she retorted. "Moping's no use to anybody. Come and dine with me to-night?"

"Delighted," said Melville, but without enthusiasm.

"I'll get a box somewhere, and we'll pretend we're going the pace. My show, you know," she added, thinking that the expense might be inconvenient to him.

Melville liked the little touch of _camaraderie_.

"You're a good sort, Lavender," he said approvingly. "What a pity you and Sir Geoffrey couldn't run together in double harness!"

A slight frown crossed her brow.

"If you mourn over the pity of everything you'll die of compassion," she remarked, "and that's a silly sort of end for any man to come to. How is Sir Geoffrey? Have you seen him lately?"

"No," said Melville, "but I am going to Fairbridge to-morrow."

"Take me," said Mrs. Sinclair impulsively.

"My dear Lavender!" Melville said aghast; "what on earth will you want me to do next?"

He was not only astonished but alarmed at the suggestion, for nothing could be devised more fraught with danger to his own schemes. Yet he did not know what a woman of Lavender's temperament might not be capable of doing. On her part, it is true, Mrs. Sinclair had made the suggestion on the spur of the moment, but, having once made it, she was fascinated by it. Possibly, unrecognised by herself, there was in her heart some remorse for the injury she had done Sir Geoffrey, some hunger to set eyes once more upon the man who, if old enough to be her father, had nevertheless been her husband; at all events, she insisted.

"Why should I not go?"

"You would save yourself an unpleasant interview if you gave yourself up to the police at once," Melville answered; "but, of course, you are not serious. Fancy putting your head in the lion's mouth like that!" and he laughed.

Mrs. Sinclair looked at him gravely.

"I've been doing nothing but think for a week," she said, "and, do you know, I'm really not sure that it would not be the best thing for me to go to Sir Geoffrey and tell him all about it. I don't believe he would prosecute me or even apply for a divorce. Of course, I should have to come to terms with the Sinclair lot, and Sir Geoffrey might have to see me through any difficulty with them. But if I did that, he's just the sort of man to take care that I should be no worse off afterwards than I was before. He always respected people who did the square thing. And as for the rest, he knows that if he fed me I'm not the sort of reptile to sting his bosom."

Melville grew more and more anxious, for this mood was a difficult one to combat. He affected to consider the point sympathetically.

"You may be right," he replied; "but that's not the Sir Geoffrey whom I know. He has always been most generous to me, but I've never seen the soft side of the man. He does respect people who do the square thing, but, on the other hand, he never forgives those who don't. And he's as proud as Lucifer."

"I know," said Lavender, and flushed.

Melville noted her heightened colour and drew confidence from it.

"After you left him, Lavender--that morning--all those years ago----"

"Yes?" she said, as Melville seemed to hesitate.

"Well, how do you suppose he took it?"

"I can't possibly tell," she replied impatiently, and Melville drove his advantage further home; he would work upon her imagination as much as he could.

"I can picture him so clearly," Melville said meditatively. "At first he was angry--frightfully angry, and only thought of how he would punish you when you came back. Then, as you stayed away, he began--more to save his own honour than for any other reason--to invent explanations of your absence, but all the time he was raging at having been made a fool of by the child whom he had honoured by marrying. Then he began to search for you, at first with the idea of saving you from going to the devil, but afterwards with the different idea that he might be able to divorce you and put an end to the whole miserable business. But years went by and you never came back, and the little nine days' wonder was forgotten and he inherited the title, and now he not only hopes but believes that you are dead. And if you crop up again you'll hurt him in his pride ten thousand times more than you did when you left him, because then he was nobody in particular, and now he's a baronet and the best part of a millionaire, with a big position and heaps of friends, all of whom suppose him to be unmarried. You will be his dead past rising up like a ghost and ruining him, and he will never forgive you. Sir Geoffrey never does forgive. No, Lavender, you will have to pay for what you've done; pay to the uttermost farthing!"

There was silence for some moments, and then the tension was broken by the valet bringing in the tea-things, which he placed by Mrs. Sinclair. Melville rose and heaped some strawberries on a plate, flanking them with wafer-biscuits.

"It's a nice little world as it is," he said, as if carrying on some trivial conversation begun before the servant came into the room. "People ought always to enjoy things as they are. That's not only good philosophy, but a much easier one to put into practice than is commonly supposed."

He drank the tea that Mrs. Sinclair gave him, and waited until the valet noiselessly disappeared.

"Well?" he said interrogatively.

"I suppose you are right, as usual," she answered, with some reluctance, and Melville breathed more freely. "I suppose it would be madness to confess. But can't I go with you to-morrow, all the same? You can take me on the river and leave me somewhere while you go to the house. I promise not to get in your way."

Melville did not care about the idea, but having carried the point that was most important, thought it might be politic to conciliate the woman upon whose docility so much depended.

"I will take you with pleasure," he said cordially. "We will get a boat at Shipton's, near the old lock, and row up stream to the Manor House. I will leave you somewhere near there, and after I've seen Sir Geoffrey we will drift down in time to catch a train at St. Martin's Hill."

"I'll take a luncheon basket," Mrs. Sinclair said, her usual cheerfulness returning, "and we'll make a picnic of it."

But when Melville had put her into a cab and regained his cosy room, he shook his head doubtfully.

"I don't like it a little bit," he said moodily. "Fancy my piloting that good lady up to Fairbridge of all places in the world! It would be just my luck if Ralph and Gwen were punting and spotted us, and Lavender gave the show away. Or Sir Geoffrey even might see her, attired in the latest thing in river costumes and looking as fit as a fiddle, when he fondly imagines she's dying of consumption in a garret in Hampstead. It's a jolly sight too dangerous to please yours truly. I hope to goodness it will rain cats and dogs!"