Chapter V: Part 5

Very grim and very silent was Mrs. Hanson this morning. Last night that maid, the maid she had brought up from babyhood had told her that she hated her, had said "shan't" to her, had defied her.

Mrs. Hanson had had a strict upbringing herself, she had married Hanson because he was in regular work and was drawing good pay, twelve shillings a week, no less. Her parents had told her to marry Hanson and she had married him. The marriage market has its branches in the smallest of villages and marriages of convenience are not luxuries enjoyed only by the rich and the wellborn.

And she, in her turn, had found a very suitable husband for this wayward maid who, lacking in duty and obedience, definitely refused to accept that husband.

Very well then! Mrs. Hanson had every reason to be hurt and aggrieved.

Betty had risen early--as usual--had cleaned out the little cottage kitchen, had polished the stove till it shone, had made the fire and had prepared the breakfast just as usual, but all the time she was doing it, she knew that she was doing it for the last time.

Last night her grandmother had said to her, "You shall go!"

Her grandmother never changed her mind, never relented, never altered. Betty knew this of long, long experience, besides in any event she would go, she would not stay--no, not even if her grandmother begged her to on her bended knees, and that was not in the least likely. They had their breakfast together in stony silence. After breakfast Mrs. Hanson spoke.

"Wash they things and put them back on the dresser--for the last time!" she added.

Betty had washed the things, she had replaced them on the dresser, on to the snowy white board of the dresser top she had permitted one large hot tear to splash.

Her grandmother sat stiffly upright in her chair by the window with the huge family Bible open on the little rickety round table before her.

Mrs. Hanson always turned to the Bible for comfort and for advice in times of stress and doubt. She was reading stolidly through the story of Naboth's Vineyard and was deriving much spiritual comfort from it. Very stern and unrelenting she looked sitting primly bolt upright, her hands resting on the book and her spectacles adjusted on the end of her long and pointed nose.

Now and again out of the corner of her eye she glanced at the girl who was slowly putting the finishing touches to her work. In a little while the girl must be gone, Mrs. Hanson was a stern and unrelenting woman.

Where the girl would go to, Mrs. Hanson did not know, she never gave it a thought.

"She did say, she did hate me!" the old woman thought. "Hate--a perilous wicked thing for a young gell to say--and to abide in a house of hatred, I will not! There's the Bible for it--'Better a dinner of yarbs and contentment therewith than a stalled ox in the house----'" Mrs. Hanson looked up, a shadow had fallen across the window, there came a light tapping on the door.

"Bless me and bless my dear soul!" said Mrs. Hanson aloud, "if here b'ain't my Lady Homewood, Betty quick--quickly open the door to Her Ladyship, quick now! Do 'ee hear me speak?"

The door was opened by Betty. Coming from the hot bright sunlight of the outer world into the twilight of the little room, Kathleen could only see a slight, slender figure in an old cotton gown, which figure bobbed a deferential, yet it almost seemed a defiant little curtsey to her.

"This is Mrs. Hanson's cottage?" Kathleen asked.

"Yes, my lady!"

Mrs. Hanson had risen, she bobbed, it was no half hearted curtsey this of hers, she seemed to sink into the floor to her middle and then rose again, tall and lean and agitated.

"Mrs. Hanson I be, my Lady, and proud I be to see your Ladyship here--Betty, a chair for her Ladyship, my maid!"

Betty brought a chair, she flicked it with a duster and placed it that Kathleen might be seated.

And now Kathleen, whose sight had grown accustomed to the dimmer light of the room, could see the child plainly, and seeing her, wondered a little at the loveliness of the little piteous face, the drawn mouth, the big saddened eyes that had so evidently recently shed tears.

Poor pretty little maid! Kathleen remembered what Debly had told her of the child lying out in the grass, sobbing her heart out in the darkness of the night. She looked at the stern puritanical looking old woman and Kathleen, who was hot blooded and generous, felt instinctive dislike of her, which dislike was unjust and ill placed.

So, having come expressly about this girl with the golden hair and the sweet oval face, Kathleen, being a very diplomatic young woman, spoke of everything and anything else under the sun. She told Mrs. Hanson how often she had admired the neatness and prettiness of the little front garden.

"It is so nice to see gardens so well kept, I am sure yours is a great credit to you, and oh Mrs. Hanson, do please sit down, we can't talk comfortably, can we, if you stand?"

"Oh, my Lady, to sit in your presence!"

"Then you will force me to stand too!" said Kathleen.

So Mrs. Hanson sat down on the very edge of her hard chair and they talked of the garden, that neat little garden with its flower beds, surrounded by nice large flint stones which Betty whitened regularly every Saturday, to make all prim and clean and spotless for the Sunday.

"You have lived here many years?" Kathleen asked.

"A Hanson hev always lived in this cottage, my Lady, from time out o' mind. A Bifley were I born, my mother being a Pringle, and me married to Amos Hanson when I were just turned seventeen."

"Ah yes!" Kathleen said. "And this is your granddaughter?"

"My granddarter her be," said Mrs. Hanson sternly.

"And of course you need her here to help you in this little cottage?" Kathleen hazarded.

"I du not need she, my Lady, and her be going to leave me, her be, this very day!"

"To--to leave--you--you mean the child is going away? Where is she going to?"

Mrs. Hanson did not answer. The girl was still in the room, seemingly busy at the dresser, but Kathleen looking could see the slender shoulders shake and knew what a big fight the little maid was putting up to keep herself from bursting into tears.

What little village tragedy was here? she wondered.

"Is she going to London?" Kathleen asked.

"I du not know, my Lady!"

"But----" Kathleen said.

Mrs. Hanson rose, she was trembling.

"My Lady, that I should hev to tell 'ee a stranger, yet with a face so kind, that emboldened I be--my Lady--this maid, this perilous wicked maid----" the old dame stopped for a moment, quivering and shaking, "this perilous bad, wicked onnatchral maid did say to me--I hate 'ee, I du! Said it my lady wi' her own lips and tongue, she did! And I said tu her 'Betty Hanson, granddarter o' mine, 'ee may be, but never, never will I abide in a house where hatred du exist, so out of this house du 'ee go for a bad perilous maid on the morrow!' And this be the morrow, my Lady----"

"But she is so young, only a child and surely you would not let her go without, knowing she is going into safety and into the house of friends? She is your granddaughter and you are responsible for her! Do you think that you are acting rightly? Do you think--oh please don't think that I am preaching to you--but she is so young and so pretty and to think of her going--and never even knowing where the poor child is going to!"

"I hev chose for she a good husband, a man wi' thirty-five shillings a week coming in, a cottage too and of quiet ways!"

"But if she does not love him?" Kathleen asked, and, remembering her own marriage, blushed red as a rose.

"Love him indeed, my lady, hev I not chose he for she? A good upstanding, upright man as ever was, to Church reg'lar twice a Sundays, walking in the fear of God, he du, and very respectable wi' never a word to be heard against he--and--and----" Mrs. Hanson paused nervously and exhausted for the moment.

"But she is only a child! Betty, come here, Betty!"

"Betty, du 'ee hear her Ladyship a-speaking to 'ee?" cried the grandmother.

But Betty at the dresser, her back obstinately turned, did not move.

"There, there!" said Mrs. Hanson triumphantly, "'ee can see for yourself, my Lady, how bad and de-fiant and obstinant her du be--Oh Betty, shame on thee!" the old woman added, for Kathleen herself had risen and had gone across the room to the lonely little figure and all suddenly had put a kind arm about those heaving shoulders.

"Betty, Betty child, come and tell me all about it!" she said in that sweet gentle voice of hers that could break down any barrier of anger and defiance. And then Betty, knowing, feeling that here was a friend, broke down suddenly and giving way to the long threatening tears, laid her head against Kathleen's breast and sobbed.

"I hate him, I hate him I du and fear him I du, My--my lady and grandmother be so bent on my marrying he and I, I can't! Oh, I can't bear it, I can't and 'tis breaking my heart, it be, my--my Lady!"

"Hush, little one, don't cry!" Kathleen said.

"Betty, I be mortal ashamed of 'ee, I be!" said Mrs. Hanson. "Mortal ashamed and all put about I be!"

"Please, Mrs. Hanson, let me speak to her!" said Kathleen. She drew Betty towards her chair, she sat down and held the girl's hot little hand and looked into the pretty flushed tear stained face. Poor pretty child!

"How old are you, Betty?" she asked.

"I be--be eighteen, my Lady!"

"And behaving she be like she were but seven!" said Mrs. Hanson. "A perilous bad----" she paused.

"Your grandmother says you must go, Betty!"

"Aye, I du, I du, and when I du say a thing, by that thing I du abide!" said Mrs. Hanson. "Go, I said, and go she shall! A very unrelenting woman I be!"

And then at last came a flash of anger into Kathleen's eyes.

"Yes, a very hard and unrelenting woman, I fear, Mrs. Hanson! Has this child no other friends, no other relations, than you?"

"Never a soul hev she got, and I hev brought she up!"

"And now would turn her out of the house, knowing that she had no one to go to, no one to keep and protect her, for shame, Mrs. Hanson!" cried Kathleen in just indignation. Mrs. Hanson said nothing, she quivered and shook. Perhaps in her heart of hearts she wanted to give way, but she had said it, a stern and unrelenting woman was she, and prided herself on it.

"And where will you go to, Betty, when you leave your grandmother's cottage?"

"Oh my lady, I du not know, indeed I du not! For I hev not thought of it, but I wouldn't mind where I did go, so be it was not to Abram Lestwick, who I du hate and of whom I be in most mortal terror, my--my lady!"

"Then you shall not go to him, you shall come to me, Betty, and you shall be my little maid!" Kathleen said.

"To--to the Manor House, my--my lady?" Betty stammered, "Oh my Lady, to--to the Manor House?"

"Why, of course, child, for I live there!"

"Oh my Lady, I--I couldn't, don't ask me--I couldn't bear to--to go there and see it all--all as it be now--I couldn't my Lady, 'twould break my heart!"

Kathleen looked at her in amazement. "But why, Betty?" she said. "I don't understand!"

"My Lady," interposed Mrs. Hanson, "if so be as I may be allowed to speak----" she paused, quivering with indignation, "'tis but right I should tell 'ee this, that this wayward, obstinate, perilous gel was forever in they old gardens before Mr. Homewood bought the old place, forever she was, spite of all I did say to she. Sometimes of nights I du verily believe she would rise and go stealing off to they gardens, a terribul state they was in too, and coming back wi' her frock all covered wi' green like and sometimes tored by the wall over which she did climb most shameful----"

Kathleen heard, she looked at the girl who stood with bowed head before her.

"Why did you go to the garden, Betty?" she asked softly.

"Because--oh I--I don't know, because--I can't--can't tell 'ee, my Lady, I can't tell 'ee, but it be all changed and altered now wi' great fences put up and--and my stone maid gone and 'twould break my heart, my Lady to go there and not see she, my stone maid, any more!"

"The stone maid is not gone, Betty, and the gardens have not been altered, but only made beautiful and they tell me that they must be just as they were in the old days!"

"I wonder, my Lady, as 'ee have the patience to talk wi' she!" said Mrs. Hanson.

But Kathleen took no notice. "So, Betty, will you come to me and be my little maid?"

"And glad and grateful!" said Mrs. Hanson. "Say it!" she commanded. "Elizabeth Hanson, say it, yes--and glad and grateful I du be, my Lady, to 'ee for your great kindness, and drop my Lady a curtsey, 'ee unmannerly maid, as I be sore ashamed of!"

"If only----" Kathleen thought, "if only the old woman would leave the child alone, poor Betty, I can see why that little spirit of hers was goaded into rebellion at last!"

"I need no thanks!" Kathleen said, "I only want Betty to say that she will come; you will come, child?"

How kind were those eyes that looked into hers, how sweet a smile there was on her Ladyship's beautiful face! It must have melted a heart of stone and Betty's warm passionate little heart was not of stone. So she broke down, sobbing and crying, she would come and glad and grateful she was, and come she would that very day if her Ladyship would but have her.

"Pack your little box, Betty," Kathleen said, "and I will send one of the men presently to fetch it for you and I think and hope you will be happy and--and maybe Betty, you will not find the old garden so changed after all. I will answer for it there are no ugly fences and the stone maid stands where she did in the middle of the lake, Betty, so--go come and see your little friend again!" She held out her kind hand, but Betty did not take it, instead she dropped suddenly onto her knees and kissed that white hand as if it had been the hand of a Queen, and so like a queen was Kathleen to the country maid, a Queen all beautiful, all generous, all kind. Queen! No, an angel from Heaven rather! And when she had gone Betty stood there, all unmindful that her grandmother was here and she spoke her thoughts aloud.

"Very willing and glad I would be," she said slowly, "very willing and glad to die for she, I would!"

Mrs. Hanson sniffed, she had no patience with such outrageous and exaggerated statements.

"Get 'ee off and pack your box," she said sharply, "and think yourself lucky, Betty Hanson, as 'ee hev found another home, and a kind mistress, too kind I be afeared! Too kind and lenient like wi' 'ee and your folly, my maid!"

*CHAPTER XVII*

*HAROLD SCARSDALE RETURNS*

Kathleen's face was very thoughtful, a little sad even, as she walked back along the white dusty road. She hardly saw the village folk, who bobbed and curtseyed to her as she passed. She saw only a sweet oval face, a glorious head of glittering hair, a pair of sad, wistful blue eyes.

"So these people do, as their betters!" she thought. "They drive and goad their children into unhappy marriages! My Lord's daughter must be made to marry thirty thousand a year, as little Betty, Mrs. Hanson's granddaughter, is to be forced into marriage with thirty shillings a week! How wrong and what a shame it all is! Money, rank, position and interest! Is there no such thing as love left in the world at all? May not a man choose his mate, a woman choose for herself from among all men, the one she loves? It seems not, in village or in city, in cottage or in palace, and I----" she paused. "I did as I was bidden and I am happier perhaps than I deserve to be!"

Kathleen, unlike other well born young ladies of Society, had had no maid, in the old days she could not afford one. Amy, the parlour maid, had assisted her into the dresses that were so very seldom paid for, and Kathleen had long since adopted the unladylike practice of doing her own hair. So when she came to Homewood she had decided to continue without a maid, though the funds were not lacking now and the dresses were certainly paid for.

Of course little Betty Hanson would not know a tithe of those things that a good and practiced lady's maid should know. She would not be able to do her ladyship's hair in the latest and most becoming style. She would not be able to select gowns suitable for special occasions. She would not be able to massage my lady's white hands and perhaps her face. She would not be able to flatter and fawn and sponge and perhaps rob and lie. No, Betty Hanson was not likely to have any of these desirable accomplishments.

Kathleen had an honest admiration for beauty. She was one of those rare women who can see and appreciate beauty in another woman. She would have everything about her beautiful if she could. She feared that perhaps to those who were unbeautiful, she was a little unjust. To Ann, the very plain housemaid who came from the Fulham Road, for instance, Kathleen was more than unusually kind and generous, because in her heart of hearts she did not like Ann. And she believed that she did not like Ann because Ann had a sallow, greasy skin, a misshapen nose and small mean eyes, set too closely together and a loose, nondescript kind of mouth.

Ann, as a matter of fact, was a stupid, blundering creature, who forgot to do one half of what she was told and deliberately neglected to do the other half, who generally did everything badly, and had a habit of breaking the most expensive things she could put her clumsy hands on. Once Kathleen, goaded and irritated by Ann's hopeless imbecility had spoken sharply--sharply for her--to the girl and had promptly repented of it and had given Ann five shillings and begged a half day off for her from Mrs. Crozier, the housekeeper.

But that was like Kathleen and that was why the servants adored her.

But Kathleen was a little disturbed in her mind. She found herself wondering, remembering and wondering--what was this about this child haunting the old garden at the Manor House, climbing the high brick wall and entering into that place of desolation and solitude, called thither, who knows by what strange voices? What was this about her going there of nights to wander about the black solitudes of tangle and weed? Surely it was not right, it was not canny. She smiled at the word, the word that she had heard her old Scottish nurse use years and years ago. Yet it was the right word, it was not canny that a young and pretty girl should have so strange a love for solitudes and weed grown gardens.

"Could it--could it have been she?" What mad nonsense, what folly was this? Kathleen wondered at her own thoughts. How could it have been this girl whom Allan had seen there that day? He had said it was a dream, it must have been a dream--this girl was no dream, but living reality. And then Allan had told her that the girl of his dream had been dressed all in some strange, old world costume, how the garden about her had been in bloom and all so trim and neat and tidy, how the old house, a place of desolation, had been bright and gay with its open windows and blowing curtains, and how the girl herself had gone to him and had kissed him and had put her little mittened hands--mittened hands--had little Betty Hanson ever owned a pair of mittens in her life? No, no those things had gone out in Betty's great-grandmother's time, what mad nonsense it all was! So Kathleen laughed merrily and laughed the ideas and the notions all away.

She went to find Mrs. Crozier--Mrs. Crozier, the elderly, kindly autocrat of the house, Mrs. Crozier who had been housekeeper in a far finer and more magnificent mansion than this, no less a place than Dwennington Hall, the seat of the Duke of Grandon.

"Mrs. Crozier, I have engaged a young village girl, Betty Hanson, granddaughter of Mrs. Hanson, who lives in the cottage up the road towards Little Stretton, she is to be my lady's maid. She is only a child and she will feel strange here at first so----"

"I quite understand, my lady, I'll look after the little thing and make her feel quite at home!"

"Thank you, you do so readily understand me, Mrs. Crozier."

"It's easy enough to understand your Ladyship," Mrs. Crozier said. "There is always some kindly thought in your head, my lady, for others--I know Mrs. Hanson slightly, a good and very respectable woman!"

"Will you send one of the men for Betty Hanson's box presently? And oh Mrs. Crozier, about the fourteenth----"

"I'm making all preparations, my lady, Sir Josiah will be coming of course!" Mrs. Crozier smiled, she held Sir Josiah in very high esteem.

"Not a highly educated gentleman, perhaps," Mrs. Crozier had said over a cup of tea to Mrs. Parsmon, the doctor's wife, "but one of the kind, Mrs. Parsmon that I call Nature's gentlemen! That is my opinion of Sir Josiah Homewood!" So when Mrs. Crozier mentioned his name to Sir Josiah's daughter-in-law, she smiled in a very kindly way.

"Sir Josiah will bring a friend, perhaps two, and my father will come of course," Kathleen's voice changed a little, as it always did in some subtle manner when she spoke of her father. Her face seemed to grow a shade colder, then the cloud passed and she was smiling and thanking Mrs. Crozier again, for her intended kindness to Betty Hanson.

"I'll see her in the morning," she said, "let her come up to me after breakfast and I'll have a long talk with her, and O Mrs. Crozier, as she is leaving her grandmother so suddenly, she may need some things, clothes I mean--I know it is not always easy for a young girl to get all the clothes she needs"--there was a sad reminiscent smile on Kathleen's face, "so will you get anything for her she may require and let me know?"

"I will do everything, my lady."

The fourteenth was the date fixed for the house warming, that event that had a little puzzled Sir Josiah. But he quite understood what it meant now, and he was looking forward to it with much the same feeling as a schoolboy has regarding the coming summer holidays.

At the old fashioned chop house in the City, a table was regularly reserved for Sir Josiah, which he sometimes shared with Cutler and sometimes with Jobson or Cuttlewell, or Priestly (of Priestly, Nicholson, and Coombe, those famous contractors). At that same table now, Sir Josiah bragged and boasted of the glories of Homewood, of his daughter-in-law, Lord Gowerhurst's only child. How he told them of his work at Homewood and of the wonders of the place. "Historical, it is!" he said. "And that feller Davenham, I put him in charge. I know my limitations, Cuttlewell, no man better, when it comes to furnishing in the Period style I'll own I'm beat, but Davenham knows, an expensive man I'll admit, but what's money, what's money?"

What was money indeed! Had not Sir Josiah been in pursuit of it all his life, had he not seemed to worship it? Had not those plump knees of his been for ever bent to the Golden Calf?

"What's money, hey?" he cried. "Ho! William, William! Mr. Cuttlewell will take a glass of that old port with me!"

And William, the antique waiter, of the white side whiskers and the ancient evening dress suit and the large sized, untidy feet, shuffled away to fill the order, for their best and most respected customer.

"I'd like you to see the place, I should, Priestly, my boy! My daughter-in-law, Lady Kathleen, is giving a house warming on the fourteenth. Cutler's running down with me--going to take him down in the car. Hang it, Priestly, you shall come! My daughter-in-law, Lady Kathleen, says all my friends are her friends, and she means it, she's that sort. God bless her! There isn't a truer, sweeter woman on earth and so--so I say God bless her!" The tears came into his eyes, they trickled down his cheek.

Here was honest pride, honest and unfeigned! He lifted his glass of port, he beamed on them and gave them the toast from his heart. "My daughter-in-law, Lady Kathleen Homewood, God bless her!"

They smiled at him, they took it good naturedly, they knew his worth, a sound man Sir Josiah, good for at least a couple or three hundred thousand and very likely for a good deal more. When a man has a credit good for anything from two to four hundred thousand, who will not put up with his little ways, even though it might be a trifle boring for those who had not the pleasure of Lady Kathleen's acquaintance? So Priestly was asked and Cutler and Cuttlewell too, only unfortunately Cuttlewell could not come, but Jobson could and would!

When the expansive moment was past, Sir Josiah felt a little nervous. Had he overstepped the limits? Had he gone too far; would it not be encroaching on Kathleen's goodness? Conscience smote him. That he had bought and paid for the house, that he was sending down cases of wines regardless of cost, that he was ordering at the big London Stores with the most lavish hand and purse in the world, all that mattered nothing at all! But would Kathleen be annoyed? He wrote to her and received a letter that made his cheeks flush like those of a school miss of sixteen.

"Your friends are mine, bring them all, you cannot bring too many, especially if they are like you. Only let me know how many rooms you want, dear, and believe me to be your affectionate and grateful Kathleen."

"God bless her!" he said. "God bless her!" And that day he added Coombe to the list. What a time they would all have on the fourteenth! How he talked and bragged and boasted, yet strangely enough a change had come over his boasting, it was not of his Lordship the Earl, and her "Ladyship, the Earl's daughter, it was not of the "historical" mansion, and the period rooms and Davenham's whole hearted expenditure in the matter of furnishing the place, it was of "My daughter-in-law, Kathleen."

"Beautiful, ha, ha!" he laughed. "I'll shew you real beauty! You think Lesbia Carter and Sybil Montgomery, those actress girls, are beautiful and so they are, sweetly pretty girls they are, and I don't say one word against 'em, not me! But when you see my daughter Kathleen--Lady Kathleen, then you'll see beauty, then you'll see goodness and sweet gracious womanliness, my boy!"

Cutler and Jobson laughed, they had their little jokes together. "The old boy ought to have married her himself! I'll bet you he's more in love with her than Allan, his son, is!"

"I know Gowerhurst," said Coombe. Coombe was a large man who smoked expensive cigars, with the bands on them, for effect.

"Know him, I should think I do. He owes me a bit now! I'll bet you if he hears I'm going to--what's the name of the place--Homewood--he won't turn up--catch him!"

Lord Gowerhurst had received his invitation. He had not been down to Homewood, he had no love for the country, ancient historical houses and early English gardens did not appeal to him. The house that found the most favour in his sight was his favourite and particular Club, and he preferred the card room there or the billiard room to any garden that ever bloomed. But he must go, he must offer himself up as a sacrifice. Old Homewood would be there of course and his Lordship was not quite easy in his mind about certain speculations into which he had been led. Lumeyer had induced him to put five of the twelve thousand he had obtained from Homewood into the Stelling Reef Gold Mine and his Lordship had heard bad accounts of that same concern. He had tried to sell out and had tried vainly.

Lumeyer, a densely black bearded man, with cherry lips, had told him all would be well, but his Lordship did not believe it. It might conceivably be possible that presently he would need old Homewood's help again.

"Doosid bore and beastly nuisance!" he said. "But I'll have to go, I hate family parties and that kind of thing and Kathleen hasn't mentioned if there's a billiard room. Let me see--the fourteenth will be Friday. I'll leave a telegram with Parsons, the hall porter here, to send on to me the first thing Monday morning, demanding my presence in Town. Kathleen's done well, doosid well, thanks to me! I don't like the tone of her letter, though, no, hang me, I don't like the tone of her letter! Cold and formal, but that's Kathleen, takes after her mother! Doosid cold and doosid formal, well, well!" He paused. "Whatever happens I'll be able to say I did the best possible for my daughter. A man's got to consider his family, I've considered mine, no one can say to the contrary!"

It was in the dining room during luncheon time at his Club that his Lordship was holding communion with his own thoughts. He started now at the sight of a tall elderly, white haired, soldierly man who came in, followed by a somewhat younger man--it was the younger man who claimed his Lordship's attention.

"Who's that?" he asked himself. "Seen that face before--who the doose is it now? Not a member----"

"Here Paul!"

"Yes, my Lord?"

"Paul, did you see that gentleman come in? Who is he?"

"Sir Andrew Moly----"

"Yes, yes, I don't mean the old one, I mean the younger one with him!"

"Don't know, my Lord, can't say! I haven't seen the gentleman before!"

"Then find out!" The man scuttled off.

"I--I know that face, hang me if I don't--wonder who he is?" His Lordship frowned, he adjusted his eyeglass and gazed across to the little table where Sir Andrew Molyneux and his companion were seated.

"Confoundedly annoying to see a fellow's face and not know who the doose he is!" His Lordship thought. "Hello, Paul, well? Have you found out?"

"Yes, my Lord, I did, I took the liberty of asking Mr. Marsmith. I noticed Mr. Marsmith bow to the gentleman as he came in and I took the liberty----"

"Yes, yes, but who is the fellow?"

"A very important gentleman, Governor of some place as I didn't catch the name of, my Lord, somewhere in America, I should think or the Indies--I don't know my Lord, anyhow he is Sir Harold Scarsdale, a very rich----"

"Bless--my--soul!" his Lordship said. "Thanks, that will do, Paul, that will do!"

Paul went away.

"Harold Scarsdale--bless my soul!" He sat and looked at the younger man.

"Altered, confoundedly altered, looks twenty years older, and it is only ten! Let me see, he can't be a day over thirty-five and the fellow looks forty-five. By George, there was that love affair between him and Kathleen. I remember it well, Old Scarsdale, our Rector at Benningley's son. I remember, by George I do, had a few words with the young fellow, called him a presumptuous puppy if I remember right, so he was, by George! But byegones--eh--byegones can be byegones--Kathleen was too sensible and too cold, yes by George, too cold to make a fool of herself, turned him down, very rightly and properly, I remember it all, remember catching him in the garden at Bishopsholme, I remember a letter I got hold of, of his, asking Kathleen to run away with him, the young fool. By George if I remember right, I made it warm for him! And he cleared out, left the country, he seems to have done well for himself, knighted, eh? Well, well, things change, the wheel goes round, one man gets carried up, t'others get taken down. I'm t'other," he smiled grimly. "I'm down! I think--I think----" he paused. "I shall recall--why not? A rich man, Paul said so, sensible fellow Paul. He knows I always like to understand the financial position of other folk--I shall certainly, yes certainly, recall our earlier acquaintance!"

His Lordship bided his time. He waited, he had finished his own luncheon some time since, but he timed his retirement from the dining room to synchronise with that of the other two.

"Why, bless my soul, surely I am not mistaken?"

Sir Andrew turned to look at his Lordship, but this expression of astonishment was not for him.

The other man had halted, seemed to draw back, his face stern and grave, a handsome face, seemed to harden a shade as the Earl thrust himself forward.

"I surely am not mistaking my old friend's son, Harold Scarsdale. If I am, then believe me I offer my sincere apologies, but I can hardly make a mistake!"

"My name is Scarsdale, and----"

"Then you don't remember me, bless my soul, you don't remember me, my name is Gowerhurst!"

"I remember your Lordship perfectly!"

"My dear fellow, I am delighted to see you, it quite takes me back. Come, come, we must have a long talk, a long talk together, eh? How's the world been treating you? Well, I hope, if I can be of service to you, command me! By George, Harold, I always had a sneaking affection for you!"

"You managed to hide it very cleverly, my Lord, ten years ago!

"Ha, ha! Had to, you know, had to! Doting father, that sort of thing, couldn't let my little girl make a bad match! Hang it, if I'd been a rich man, ha, ha, I wouldn't have stood in your way, but I wasn't; I was, and am, come to that, doosid poor, and a father's feelings, Harold, my boy, as you'll know when you are a father yourself, unless----"

"I am not married!" said Scarsdale quietly.

"No, no, quite right. Well as I was saying, a father must consider his child. I may have seemed hard, a little hard perhaps, to you that day, I remember it perfectly well, but I liked you, my dear fellow, all the time my heart was bleeding for you, bleeding, sir! I said to myself, can I, dare I? No, by George, I can't and daren't! I can't see my girl scrubbing her own doorstep and--and turning her dresses and making her own bonnets--I can't think of it! So I nerved myself to be stern, nerved myself, Harold, and all the time my heart bled for you, my dear lad!"

"I remember very well," Scarsdale said quietly, "that you on that occasion called me a cunning, scheming, blackguardly young adventurer, who had dared to presume to look far too high, and you were right, as to the last, my lord, but not as to the first. For I was not cunning or scheming, I--I loved her, worshipped her and forgot everything else----"

"By George! and so you did, so you did! But I was her father, I had to consider ways and means, eh? You'd do the same yourself, you'd have to! But we can't talk here!"

"I am with Sir Andrew Molyneux, an old friend of my father."

"Ah! And your father, dear old fellow, how is he now, eh?"

"He has been dead four years, my Lord, and if you will excuse me----"

"Positively I must see you and have a chat with you over things, Harold. You'll dine with me to-night? Say yes!" Lord Gowerhurst wrung the young man's hand. "Come, come, I can't take no--I positively refuse to take no! Hang it, after all these years old friends and that sort of thing, we can't pass like ships in the confounded night, can we, eh?"

Sir Harold Scarsdale smiled. He had a stern, grave face, but the smile lighted it up.

"To-night then, my Lord, since you wish it, here--at what time?"

"Eight o'clock," his Lordship said briskly, "and I shall look for you, it's been a delight, a sheer delight to see you again!"

*CHAPTER XVIII*

*IN THE DAWN*

My dear Kathleen, I am looking forward with keen enjoyment to my coming visit to your charming home. That I have not come before you will easily understand, my love. I am an old fellow and my ways are not your ways. I am sensitive, very sensitive, as I think you know. To have felt myself de trop would have been a cause of pain to me. I felt I could not do it and though my heart was yearning for you and though I have often, a thousand times, pictured your beautiful home, its master and mistress, though I, in my solitary and none too comfortable rooms, have often visioned to myself your delightful life at Homewood, yet I have never intruded. I have been tempted many times. I have said to myself, I will run down just for the day, then I hesitated. Should I be welcome? I know, I know, my love, that my dear daughter's heart is always affectionately inclined to her doting father, yet in your new life, with your new interests, with your young husband, I have wondered, is there a place, some nook, some corner for the old fellow to stow himself away in?

"But bless me, how I ramble on? I live a very quiet and uneventful life, my appetite is not what it was. I sometimes walk round to the Club and try and peck a morsel for lunch, but I am not my own man. I think I feel my loneliness. Well, well, my dear, I look forward, as I say, to the fourteenth of this month, with great expectation and happiness. Now I shall behold you in your own home. I shall behold my dear daughter, mistress of a good house, dispensing her and her husband's hospitality with the gracious courtesy that is the birthright only of a woman of breeding. Give my kindly remembrance to your husband and believe me, my dear Kathleen, ever your fond and devoted Father, Gowerhurst.

"P.S. I am taking the liberty of bringing an old friend down with me. I know in such a mansion as Homewood, there are many rooms, may I hope that I am not encroaching in asking that one may be reserved for one for whom you once had a kindly feeling."

Kathleen smiled a little and frowned a little over this letter. It was like her father, he wrote as he spoke. But who was the friend? She hardly gave it a thought, there were so many old friends, was there one for whom she had once had a kindly feeling? She doubted it. Her father, in the old days, had commanded her ready affection at all times for any opulent acquaintance from whom he was hopeful of extracting money. This was in all probability another victim. So Kathleen put the letter aside and forgot all about it, except that she asked Mrs. Crozier to have another room prepared.

She told Mrs. Crozier now, lest she might forget it.

"Oh, my lady," said the housekeeper, "there's that little Betty Hanson who came yesterday, she is waiting your ladyship's pleasure."

"I had not forgotten," Kathleen said. "Will you send her up to my room?"

She smiled at Allan. "My new maid," she said, "the one I told you about, the little girl from the cottage down the road, such a pretty little thing, I am sure you will admire her!"

Allan smiled when she had gone out, he wondered if other wives bespoke their husband's admiration for new maids in this way? Then his smile drifted away and he frowned a little, had Kathleen loved him--she would have been more jealous of his admiration--loved him! How good she was, what a sweet, lovely nature hers was, and how utterly unworthy of her was he!

Had she loved him? Yet, why should he wish for her love when he had given her none of his own? None? No, he did not love her, not as a man should love the wife he has married. He liked her, admired her, respected her, above all living women. She shared with his father the whole of his heart, but it was not "the love," not the passion of young manhood, the worshipping, devouring, all selfish and yet all unselfish love that surely she was worthy to awaken in his breast.

"Betty!" Who had said "Betty"? Who had uttered that name? Mrs. Crozier of course, she had told Kathleen that Betty Hanson was here, but the name awakened memories, memories of that dream. "Her" name had been Betty, had she not told him with her red lips, "Thy Betty," she had said, and he had been "her Allan."

Betty, nonsense! This Betty would be a big bouncing, red cheeked, bold eyed, healthy country girl! As for Betty of his dreams, there was no place for her now in his busy life. There was much to be done. He had taken up farming wholeheartedly, not for ever would he live on his father's bounty. He would improve the place, make it almost self-supporting. He would prove to his father and Kathleen that there was something in him and that he was not merely an idler and a dreamer. So he filled his pipe and lighted it and went out to have a long talk with old Custance at One Tree Hill Farm. For Custance, though old, seemed to be the most progressive man in the place and already he and Allan had laid their heads together and had discussed ways and means to wring money from the fertile soil.

Mrs. Crozier had been very kind to the timid and shy girl. She had had Betty to tea with her in her own private room, she had introduced her to the other servants, and had kept a motherly eye on Betty till the time came for Betty to retire to her own small room in the servant's quarters.

And she was here! actually here, sleeping in this old house, which she had seen so often, watched so often by sunlight and moonlight. She remembered it as it had been then, with its broken windows, with the ivy and the creepers growing over it in one great tangle.

But the garden, she had not seen the garden yet! How would it look when she saw it? What terrible changes would there be there? Her dear garden, what harm had they done to it? How strange and altered would it be?

She could not sleep that night, she lay awake on the strange unfamiliar bed, tossing restlessly.

Her ladyship had said, and how sweet and good was her ladyship, she had said that the stone maiden was still there in the old lake, so she would find one familiar friend.

After a long, sleepless, troubled night for Betty, the daylight dawned at last, and then she rose and dressed very quietly and before the other servants were waking, she crept down the steep stairs to the kitchen.

She did not hesitate for a moment, she seemed to know her way perfectly, yet she had never been inside the house before. The House had always repelled her, its gloom and its silence and its dust had forbidden any desire on her part to explore it. Yet now she made her way unerringly through the great kitchen through the vast and cold scullery, down a long passage till she came to a little door, a door that she knew must be there. And it was there and then she drew a ponderous bolt that had been fashioned by a hand that had been dust for two centuries. She unfastened a huge lock, by a key that required all her strength to turn, and so she opened the door and stepped out into the garden as the rising sun flung its first ray of primrose and gold across the heavens.

Only two steps Betty took, then stood still. The light was dim yet, yet through the grey mists she could see it--not as she had seen it last--yet as she had seen it perhaps in her dreams. It was all so familiar, not as she had dreaded, strange and cold, but it, was as the face of an old friend suddenly grown young again, young and beautiful and sweet.

Her garden--yes it was hers! Changed and yet not changed, even more hers, it seemed to her, now, than had been the weed grown, tangled desert she remembered. Yet she remembered that she had seen it thus in dreams and now, as the sun rose, as the sky was flooded with the glory of the dawn, she saw her garden in all its beauty, in all its reality, as sometimes she had seen it in those strange dreams that had come to her.

Had she not seen it like this when those figures, those strange, beautiful, unreal figures of her imagination had promenaded these old walks, those gracious ladies with their strange old world costumes, their hair dressed so high on their heads, their tiny slim waists, their great bell-like skirts and their little red heeled shoes. Those men in their rich deep skirted coats, their stockinged legs, their swords, their wigs--all those visions that had come to her in dreams, had they not moved and lived in a garden like this, this same garden as it was now, all trim and sweet and gay with flowers?

She felt her heart pounding, throbbing, beating as it had never beat before. She hurried on and on, down the broad stone pathway to the lake and there she saw her little friend, just the same as always, the broken pitcher on her shoulder.

So while the sun rose higher and higher, Betty stood there and nodded solemnly to the little stone figure, who never nodded back. And then, turning to go back to the house before the others should know that she had come here unpermitted, she stopped suddenly and uttered a little choking cry of wonder and amazement. For from here she could see the house, a place of the living, no longer a place of the dead. She could see the curtains fluttering in the breeze at the many open windows, she could see the signs of life there, the primness and neatness of it all!

And it was all familiar, there was no strangeness to her here, she was looking at that which her eyes had seen before and yet how could it be, since she had not entered this place, since those days before the workmen had come to alter it all? How could it be? and yet it was! And then suddenly she turned and did not know why, and looked at an old stone seat that stood on the edge of the great ring about the sundial. Why had she looked at it? What had she expected to see there? What she saw was an old, old stone seat, grey and brown and green in the shadows, golden white where the sun's rays touched it.

And then, filled with wonder, filled with a strange sense of fear, she ran to the house and so back through the door which she bolted and barred after her, and up the steep stairs to her own little room and to sit on the bed with her hands clasped and her eyes staring into vacancy, a vacancy which yet seemed to hold many things, and one thing she saw very plainly, a man who was young, a man whom she knew instantly as he whom she had seen so often at his work in the old garden. But now she saw his face, and he smiled at her, a lean, strong, sunburned face, with eyes as blue as her own! How often in those strange dreams had she seen him, quaintly dressed in a suit of snuff coloured brown, toiling at his work with spade and hoe. "Allan!" she said suddenly. "Allan!" And then she uttered a cry, she hid her face in her hands and shivered suddenly, for she was conscious of a strange feeling of fear, for here was something she could not understand. "Allan!" Why had she said that name? What had put it into her mind and brought it to her lips?

*CHAPTER XIX*

*THE DREAM MAIDEN*

If Allan Homewood, Esquire, should by chance meet his wife's maid or any other servant on the stairs, or in one of the innumerable passages of the old fashioned house, it was scarcely likely that he would give more than a passing glance and more than a passing thought to the domestic. If little Betty Hanson should happen suddenly on the master of the house at a turn in the passageway, what more becoming than she should drop her eyes demurely and go on her way?

So while Allan and Betty Hanson had met perhaps a dozen times or more, neither had really seen the other.

Allan was vaguely conscious of a small trim figure, and a wealth of golden hair, which figure when he came tapping at the door of his wife's room usually flitted out by another door.

Betty took kindly to her new duties, she was intelligent, she was quick and she was very eager to be of service to her mistress. Because she was eager to learn she learned rapidly. Kathleen was a gentle mistress, who never lost her temper and saw something rather pitiful in the young girl's evident desire to please.

"Poor little thing!" she said, "she is grateful!" So she was more than usually kind to Betty and the girl whose heart was bursting with love and gratitude, would very willingly have lain down and allowed Kathleen to trample on her.

"What do you think of my little maid, Allan? Don't you think the child is pretty?"

"Eh, your maid? Oh yes!" Allan said. "Quite a pretty little thing!" He was thinking of something else, the fourteenth of the month was weighing rather heavily on him and his spirits.

If it had only been his father who was coming, or only Kathleen's, but that both should come, that both should bring friends of their own troubled Allan. He knew that his father's friends were not likely to find much favour with his Lordship. Allan had met most of them, he knew Cutler, a prosy, self sufficient, middle aged bore. Jobson was another of the same type. Coombe was a big man with a loud voice and vulgar aggressive manner. He told interminable stories without wit or point. They were sound men in the City, very likely, but he dreaded their advent here. For his father he felt nothing but pride and affection. He knew the old man's goodness of heart, his generous nature, his simplicity, for these he loved him and honoured him above all men. Let my Lord Gowerhurst sneer at that good honest man if he dared--if he dared--in his, Allan's presence. It was not of his father, but of Cutler, Jobson, Coombe and Company that Allan felt nervous and whom he worried about.

Kathleen had told him that her father was bringing a friend.

"Who?" Allan asked.

"I don't know, Allan, he writes, an old friend of mine--but I doubt it, very few of my father's friends were mine--I am sorry," she said frankly, "that he is coming. I know that you do not like him, Allan, I cannot wonder that you do not!" She sighed and her head drooped a little.

And Allan, looking at her, felt his heart swell with pity, for he knew what that proud spirit of hers had been called on to suffer because of her father, the Earl.

But was it pity only that made his heart swell, that made him take a step towards her, then stand hesitating?