Chapter VII: Part 7

"I don't recall your face, 'pon my soul I am afraid I don't. But one sees so many faces, hey? And now--my dear Homewood, tell me all about the wonderful things you have been doing here." And his lordship turned his back on Mr. Coombe with marked deliberation.

Coombe clenched his fists.

"Supercilious beast!" he muttered. "I'll teach him, I ain't done with him yet, not by a long sight, I haven't. You wait, Jobson----"

But Jobson turned and stared out into the garden through the window. He was losing faith in the ability of Coombe to make Peers of the Realm feel unhappy.

*CHAPTER XXII*

*MR. COOMBE WEARS A WHITE TIE*

Kathleen had given them tea, she had chatted and laughed, she had concealed every feeling and every thought with that skill that is acquired by every intelligent, well educated woman.

How daintily she presided over the tea tray. Her white hand never trembled--was it three lumps or only two that Sir Josiah took? What a kind, friendly glance she flashed at Allan as he took his father's cup from her hand. How should Allan know, how should anyone in that room, save perhaps one, know that every nerve in her delicate body was quivering, that in her heart there was a mingled fear and joy, gladness and sorrow, anxiety for the future, and regret for the past.

"No tea for me, child, the doctor positively forbids it, positively," his lordship said; he sighed. "No one appreciates a cup of tea more than I, but I am obliged to forego it. One has to give up many things, eh Sir Josiah, the falling leaf must not be too roughly dealt with, else perhaps it will fall even before its time. No, no tea for me, my love, but if I might beg a glass of soda water--just a glass of plain soda water--with perhaps the merest, the very merest touch of brandy, hey Allan, just to take the bite off the soda water, so to speak?"

Coombe, sipping tea which he had no love for, eyed his enemy the peer, malevolently. His lordship, he noticed, reversed the programme, it was the merest touch of the soda water to take the bite off the brandy.

"Owes me four hundred and treats me like dirt, hanged if I don't bung a writ into him!" thought Coombe.

He happened to be sitting near to Lord Gowerhurst and presently his lordship adjusted his monocle and stared at Coombe.

"Ah, ha, Mr. Groom, I think that you were telling me just now that we had met at Hansbar, Langworthy's place in Somerset? Have you known the Langworthys long, eh?"

"I didn't say anything of the kind," Coombe growled sullenly. "I said----"

"Oh, yes, I remember, some other Langworthy, quite so."

"I'll bet a shilling," Coombe whispered under his breath, "I'll bet a shilling, my lord, as you remember me a sight better than you pretend you do."

Gowerhurst regarded Coombe's hot red face coldly and critically.

"I never, I never remember anyone I prefer to forget, my dear Mr. Groom," he said. "It's an excellent plan--eh? An excellent plan, saves a great deal of trouble and annoyance, eh?"

And now Kathleen was alone, she had come to her room, she had locked the door on herself. She sat down by the window and put her elbows on the sill and rested her chin on her hands.

He had come back.

It had almost stunned her, its unexpectedness and suddenness. She had not had time to realise what it all meant, all that she could realise was, that he was here.

She saw herself now, as she had been, a girl of eighteen, a girl deeply, desperately in love; she remembered how she had lain through long, sleepless nights, tossing on her pillow. How willingly in those days she would have gone with him into direst poverty, the deeper the poverty how much more would she have gloried in it. To tramp the roads by his side, to sing in the streets with him, to crouch beside him under some friendly hedge for the night--yes, she would have done that very willingly and yet--yet perhaps common sense, perhaps the hereditary instinct of her kind had kept her from such folly.

But she had loved him. Now, sitting here, she was realising that perhaps she had loved him more--more after he had gone and left her as she believed forever, than she had actually loved him while he was yet with her.

It is often the way, when the beloved object ceases to be real and tangible, when he becomes a memory--with what virtues can we clothe him? In memory we only recall all the good, the best that was in him--memory charitably forgets the numerous little faults, the tiny acts of selfishness, the little outbursts of foolish temper. No, they are all gone. So, because he was the beloved object, memory is eager to idealise him.

Perhaps it had been so with her--yet she had loved him--she had thrilled to the passion in his boyish voice, to the love in his boyish, ardent eyes. A child's love, a school girl's love, her father had said. "My dear child, I'm a man of the world and you are a young Miss who has only just learned to do her back hair up; accept it from me, the person who marries his or her first love lives to regret it. First love is merely a kind of preliminary canter, it's good exercise, provided you don't take it too seriously, but if you do take it seriously why then it is the deuce and all."

She smiled to herself, recalling her father's words. It had been her first love and her only love, it had lived with her for ten years and during those ten years it had seemed to her to have grown stronger, better, purer. It had perhaps made her a little cold to the world about her, yet in reality it had made her heart more tender, had made her more prone to sympathy and tenderness and kindness.

Why had he come, why had he come back? She clenched her hands tightly.

The few short months of her married life with Allan had been quiet and peaceful, uneventful, happy, yes happy! she had always liked him, she liked him better now than she had before he had given his name to her.

She liked him better and yet better every day, she liked him because he confided in her, because he was honest and open with her, because while he lavished no caresses on her, for would not caresses have been humbug and hypocrisy, he gave her a quiet affection and respect that won her heart to him. He had told her of his plans with old Custance, how he would make money and help repay his father a little of the much that his father had done for them both.

And then he had promised once that if ever--ever love came to him, the love that nearly always comes knocking at a man's heart at some time in his life, he would tell her candidly and truthfully and they would face the fact together. And she for her part had promised that she would tell him if--the lover of long ago should come back into her life.

And he had come, and so she must tell him, as she had promised to do; she must be honest and truthful with Allan, surely he deserved that of her.

There was a tap on the door and Kathleen rose and opened it.

"My lady, 'ee'll be wanting me? I've been waiting for the bell, my lady, but 'ee didn't ring it."

"No, Betty, I didn't ring, but--but come in. Betty, what is the matter?"

"Matter? Oh, my lady, nothing du be the matter wi' I."

"But your face is white, child, and your eyes look red from crying. Is there anything wrong, Betty? Have you seen your grandmother and is she still angry with you?"

"I bain't seen her, my--my lady, and I du not care whether her be still angry wi' me or not--for it be all the same to I."

"You shouldn't say that, child."

"For never, never will I marry Abram, my--my lady, never will I. Sooner would I drownd myself in the river, which I would du gaily, aye gaily, my lady, than--than marry Abram who I never could abide."

Kathleen smiled. "There need be no talk of that now, Betty, surely?"

"No, my lady, but I can't help thinking about it, specially when I du see Abram loitering about the green gate, my lady, and know he du be waiting for I."

"Then I will see that he is not permitted to loiter there, as you dislike him so much, Betty."

"I hate him, I du, I hate him mortally, my lady, I du. Oh, my lady, his hands du be terribul, terribul; if 'ee did see 'em they would make you shudder like they do I."

"But perhaps you dislike this poor Abram so much, Betty, because there is someone else?" Kathleen asked. "Is that the truth, my little maid?"

"Oh, my lady, I--I doan't know, I doan't know. No, no, there bain't anyone else, no one else--I promise, I swear, my lady, there bain't, there couldn't be! How could there be?"

Kathleen took her hand, she held it, it was very hot, this small hand of the girl's.

"Betty, child," she said, "you are not well this evening, your hand is hot and--" she lifted her hand to Betty's forehead, that cool, white, slender hand of hers, and let it rest there for a moment.

"And your head is hot, too, child, you had better go to bed and presently I will ring and ask that something is taken to you. No, Betty, don't wait, I can manage quite well to-night; go to bed, child, and go to sleep and forget all your troubles, and if you don't want Abram, why then, Betty, you shall not have Abram and no one shall force you to." She pushed the silken fair hair back from the girl's forehead; she smiled af her.

"Now to bed, Betty, and to sleep and forget all your little troubles, child, and to-morrow come to me with a smile on your lips as I would have you."

"Oh--my lady, if--if I could only dare--dare tell--'ee," Betty cried passionately. She caught Kathleen's hand and held it with both her own. "If only I could dare----"

"Dare what? Betty, tell me, child, if there is anything----?"

"No, no, I can't, I be mad to speak of it even--I think I be going mad altogether, my lady, sometimes I du think I bain't like other maids wi' such foolish strange notions that I get. I can't--can't tell 'ee, my lady, doan't ask me, for I can't--I can't." And then Betty flung the kind hand away and rushed to the door, fumbled for a moment with the lock, and then opened the door, fled.

"And so," Kathleen said, "we all have our troubles, our fears and our loves, Betty and I and all Eve's daughters."

She dressed herself, it was no hardship or novelty to her.

She looked at herself in the glass without vanity, but rather with a curious interest.

"I'm twenty-eight," she said, "in a few months I shall be twenty-nine--yet I have no wrinkles and there are no silver threads yet--I wonder--I wonder does he think me much changed? He is changed, greatly changed, yet I knew him, of course I knew him; I should have known him among ten thousand, I should have known him had he come in rags and poverty, just as I knew him, now he has come to me in his prosperity and health and strength."

She went down the stairs, she went into the drawing room and found, as she had almost feared she would find, that he was there alone. He came forward eagerly to greet her.

"Kathleen, are you angry with me?"

"Why should I be angry, Harold?"

"For coming."

"It would have been better, kinder to me if--if you had stayed away."

"And kinder to myself," he said bitterly. "Kathleen, do--do you think that this does not mean suffering to me?"

"Why did you come?"

"Your father told me you--you knew and approved, that you would be glad to welcome me."

She did not answer.

"But now I know that that was untrue; you did not know that I was coming----"

"I did not know," she said. "No, I did not know."

"Kathleen, Kathleen, you waited so long, all--all those years and yet not quite long enough; another few months, if only you had waited another few months, Kathleen."

She turned to him suddenly, her face bright, her cheeks flushed.

"You--you have seen him, my husband, you have taken his hand, you--you are here, his guest--our honoured guest--the past is dead and gone; I waited--ten years--" her voice broke for a moment, "then I looked at your letters for the last time and--and burned them all, and when I saw their black ashes in the grate, I knew that from that moment my new life began, a life that could not, must not, hold memories of a past. It was Fate and we--we must accept it; I have accepted it--so we--you and I--we meet again--as friends--" She held out her hand to him, she smiled at him.

He took her hand and held it tightly, he looked into her eyes, then he groaned, he bent his head and kissed the hand before he let it go, and then from beyond the door there came the sound of voices, Coombe's loud and dominant, argumentative.

"Not wear a white tie with a dinner jacket, Jobson? I tell you I'll wear any tie I like--and if people don't like it, they can do the other thing. A black tie makes me look like a waiter, by George, and I won't wear 'em. And if I want to wear a pink or a sky blue tie, why hang it, I'll wear it. And if it isn't the fashion, well I'll make the fashion like that fellow Beau--Beau Brummagem, or whatever his confounded name was."

All unknowingly Coombe had struck the right note, he had done Kathleen a service. A dead and gone love, burned love-letters, ten long years of waiting, of hoping and praying and nothing to reward the faithfulness and the loyalty--what mattered all that? Away with melancholy thoughts, away with sadness and regrets--poor Romance must fly for the moment and hide her diminished head before the advance of a stout gentleman in evening dress, wearing a white tie. Kathleen smiled. Honest Mr. Coombe little knew how grateful his hostess felt to him at that moment.

*CHAPTER XXIII*

*"I BELONG TO THEE"*

Lord Gowerhurst justly prided himself on the "Stanwys manner" which he had to perfection. If he were formal he carried his formality with grace, he was studiously polite, he was courteous, urbane--and a wet blanket.

He crushed utterly those four jolly City gentlemen, who would have been ten times happier if his lordship and his manner had not been there. Sir Josiah, seated on the right hand of his daughter-in-law, perspired freely from sheer nervousness, mingled with a kind of admiration and awe. Jobson and Cutler were noticeably ill at ease, and consumed by anxiety lest they might say or do the wrong thing. Mr. Coombe was resentful and would have been sarcastic had he dared.

That man, sitting facing Mr. Coombe, fingering the stem of his wineglass with his delicate white fingers, monopolising the conversation with his confounded drawling aristocratic voice and his infernal air of superiority, who was he? Was not he the same man who one day had come cringing into his, Coombe's, office hoping to raise a loan of two thousand on some rotten securities; was not he the same man who had well nigh wept when the loan had not materialised?

"And there he sits," thought Coombe, "there he sits, treating us all as if we were dirt, looking down on us, the rotten, humbugging, insolvent old--old--beast."

No one could find fault with the dinner, indeed his lordship gracefully congratulated his daughter on the excellence of her chef. Good Mrs. Crozier had watched over everything and had seen to everything, and a lady of her experience was scarcely likely to allow a dinner to go to table that would not be a credit to the household over which she ruled.

The wines, too, were above reproach, Sir Josiah had spared no expense in this matter, but there was something wrong with the atmosphere, yes the atmosphere was all wrong. Sir Josiah could not find one word to say. Even Cutler was unable to introduce an observation concerning the island of Demauritius, its Governor and the Governor's wife, his daughter. Jobson was frankly and noticeably unhappy, and in his agitation had splashed his white shirt front with gravy. Coombe was oppressed, angry and bitter, trying hard to find something to say that would take the wind out of the sails of that drawling, dandified, supercilious aristocrat on the other side of the table.

Kathleen had her own thoughts and the subject of them was sitting beside her on her left, facing Sir Josiah. She could feel his eyes on her now and again, she tried to laugh and to talk frankly and freely, but she was conscious of a weight, of a fear, of joy, she hardly knew what.

And Allan, too, his thoughts had strayed away from that unhappy dining table. They were out in the garden, not in the garden as it was now, all shrouded in the soft darkness of the summer night, but in a garden filled with sunshine, sunshine that touched and glorified a little head of gold, that lighted up a sweet, oval face and glistened on eyes as blue as the skies.

Why, why, why? He asked himself and could scarce frame the question. How much less the answer to it. Better that she should go, but poor child, how unfair to her. Yet he could not go; how could he? And to live here, under the same roof, to see her, perhaps every day, to have that strange memory, which was yet no memory, recalled every time he saw her. How could it be, how could he be loyal to Kathleen? Why should that girl, that child whom he had seen but once, mean so much to him? How were their lives connected; what could some unknown past have held, a past that affected their present and their future so greatly?

Coombe had grasped the opportunity. There had come a lull, Coombe seized on it, he began a story in a loud voice. It was about a deal in some shares. Coombe, in his eagerness to talk, grew involved, he floundered. He appealed to Sir Josiah, Sir Josiah who frowned, remembering that he had instructed Coombe that there was to be no "shop." Coombe saw the frown and got more mixed than before, Sir Josiah had let him down. He turned to Jobson, but Jobson had no help to offer.

"Anyhow, there it was, Munston bought seven thousand and fifty and Lockyer I forget how many, and the bottom fell out of the market see, ha, ha."

"Now that is very interesting, very interesting indeed, Mr.--er--Groom--my dear Allan, you and I are not business men, Mr. Groom here is a business man, it is quite interesting to hear these stories, eh? Of course we don't understand 'em, Allan, because, as I say, we are not business men. I have no doubt but that it is an excellent story, but I don't understand it, no, be gad, I don't see the point. It's the same with golfing stories, they may be deuced funny, but when you don't understand them, well you don't, and that's all there is to say to it. Which reminds me of Normandyke--you remember the Duke of Normandyke, my love? His place at Clamberwick was recalled to me by this little place of yours. Of course your home, elegant though it is, is a mere cottage in comparison; Clamberwick is one of the great houses--" and so on and so on, belittling his daughter's house with cheerful patronage and intense superiority, till the colour flamed into Kathleen's cheeks, born of the generous indignation in her heart. She slipped her hand under the table and her cool white fingers closed round Sir Josiah's thick old hand, and pressed it in silent sympathy, love and gratitude.

"I understand, my dear, I understand," the old gentleman whispered. "This Clamberwick may be a great place, my dear, and beyond an old fellow like me, but I'd give you ten such places if I could, and you'd be fit to reign over the lot of 'em."

"I--I wouldn't exchange Homewood for all the Clamberwicks in the world. You made it for us and gave it to us, and I love it for its own and the giver's sake."

She would not tell Allan to-night, she watched Allan. He looked, she thought, a little unhappy, this house party was weighing on his mind. No, she would not tell him to-night, she would wait till after they were all gone. She would keep her promise, of course, and when Harold Scarsdale had gone, when they had bidden one another farewell, and it would be for the last time, she would tell him that it must be for the last time, and as he was a gentleman he would understand and so--so when she told Allan, she would be able to tell him that she had seen the man again, that he had come and gone, and this time forever.

She felt easier, lighter and happier now she had made up her mind. She went to the drawing room and played and sang. Scarsdale, beside the piano, watched her, he turned her music. Now and again he spoke to her, reminding her of some song that called up the past.

"Won't you sing one of them to me, Kathleen?"

"No, no, not to-night, please don't ask me, I--I don't want to think of the past. I told you--there is no past--I burned it with the old letters--it is ashes now." Her lips trembled as she looked up at him and smiled at him. "It is better so, is it not? You know it is. So to-night I shall sing the new songs, the old ones belong to the past and are dead with it."

"If I could only think as you think, or do you think as you speak, Kathleen, do you believe what you say?"

"Yes, I believe it, I know it, it is true."

His lordship, having made a very good dinner, had selected the easiest chair in the room and settled himself down comfortably. Sir Josiah and his friends drifted to the smoking room and their cigars and their talk.

His lordship, taking his ease in his chair, had fallen into a sweet, refreshing slumber, for which he would have to pay presently when bed-time came. Kathleen was singing at the piano with this old friend of hers. Allan looked at them both. He did not quite know what to make of this old friend of Kathleen's, this man Scarsdale. He had not summed him up yet; on the whole he thought he did not much like him. To-night Allan felt in no mood to join his father and his friends, had Sir Josiah been alone it would have been different. Kathleen was interested in her friend. His lordship was asleep, Allan crossed the room quietly, opened a French window, and passed out into the garden.

When a man is face to face with a problem, he must wrestle with it, find an answer to it and act on his own finding. A man who thrusts the thing behind him and leaves it all in the hands of Fate is little better than a coward, and Allan Homewood was no coward.

In this garden he had dreamed a dream and in that dream there had come to him the sweetest little maid on whom the sun had ever shone, and though his eyes had never beheld her before, yet he knew that she came to him as no stranger, but rather as some sweet vision or memory out of a past, which past had never been, in this life at least, and when the dream had gone he had awakened with a feeling of loss that had stayed with him for many days till at last he had managed to banish that feeling.

And now, now a living girl, the very maid of his dreams, had come to him and he had looked at her and known her for the same, and all the old tenderness, the love for her had come welling up in his heart again. And she, strangely, seemed to know him even as he knew her. Had she not called him Allan? Had she not looked at him with that same strange light in her blue eyes as had shone in those of the little maid of his dreams?

"What does it mean?" he whispered. "And what am I to do? Send her away? That would be cruel and unkind, poor little soul." Where had she to go to; why banish her for no fault of her own? And yet how impossible for him to go. But to meet her every day, to see those blue eyes of hers with their strange expression, half pleading, half fearful--to know, for he did know, and must know that this little maid for some strange reason loved him, as he must love her. What should he do? Would Kathleen help him when he told her as tell her he must--yes, he would rely on her sane judgment, on her generous nature, on her sweet womanliness. She would know how to act; he would place it all in Kathleen's hands and all would be well.

He felt relieved to think that he had arrived at some definite conclusion. Kathleen would--he paused suddenly and lifted his head.

From the soft darkness there came to him a sound, the sound of sobbing, as of some child weeping bitterly in its loneliness. It touched him, for he was tender hearted to a fault. Who was it? He went on quickly, yet softly, so as not to frighten or disturb the child. And then he found her, crouching on the stone seat, near the sundial, the slender body bent, the little hands clasped over her face. He knew her at once, he saw the sheen of her hair in the dim light and stood still for a moment, yet the piteous sobbing, the heaving of the shoulders hurt him and he stretched out his hand and touched her gently.

"Betty," he said, "Betty, why are you here and crying, child?"

She did not start, she lifted her head slowly, her hands dropped, he could see her face dimly, white in the starlight.

"Why do I find you here alone, Betty, and weeping?" he asked gently. "Are you in some trouble or suffering?"

She shook her head in silence.

"Then why?"

"Oh, I doan't know, I doan't know," she cried suddenly, she flung out her arms with a gesture of despair. "I doan't understand it all, and it du frighten me, it du. Oh, I be terribul frightened of it all, I be, frightened and yet--glad." She looked up at him. He could see the oval face more clearly now, the shining eyes and the trembling red lips.

He took both her hands suddenly and held them tightly.

"Betty, what does it all mean? Can you tell me, for I do not understand?"

"Nor du I understand," she said. "Oh, tell me, Allan, tell me, did 'ee know me when--Oh, sir--forgive." She broke off suddenly and her head dropped.

"Tell me, what were you going to ask?"

She lifted her head again.

"Did 'ee know me as I knew 'ee, yesterday when I came here and--and found 'ee here, Allan?"

"Yes, I knew you, I knew you, Betty. Once before in a dream you came to me here in this same place and I cannot understand why it should have been so. No, I cannot understand."

"And it du frighten me terribul, terribul, it du. How did I know your name were Allan? How dared--dared I call 'ee Allan, seeing you be my lady's husband and my master, and yet I could not help myself, the name did come from my lips wi'out my knowing it."

"And you never saw me before?"

"Aye, many, many times."

He was startled. "You knew me, Betty, you had seen me before, but when, where?"

"Here, here in this place, in this garden, but 'ee was so different then. Grandmother was angry wi' me for coming, she said I were a bad maid to come here into this old garden, all weed grown and ramy-shackle that it were, but I came often--often--and then I used to see--'ee here, Allan, oh sir." She paused.

"Go on," he said. "Go on, Betty." And still held her quivering hands.

"But 'twas not as a fine gentleman as I did see 'ee," she went on, seeming to gain a little in confidence, though her voice was still tremulous, "'ee wore a queer old hat and brown clothes and--and stockings, and heavy shoes wi' brass buckles to 'em, sir, and for the most part 'ee was working in the garden, digging sometimes, sometimes at work wi' hoe or rake, but always working, bending over the flower beds 'ee were, and never, never did I see your face, sir, yet when I did see your face, I knew it for 'ee."

"Go on, go on."

"There's nothing more to tell 'ee, sir, only that I, contrairywise, came here to the old garden and climbed the wall, I did, and sometimes I did come here of nights when the moon was shining and it was then I see 'ee, sir, working here, bending over your work--and I knew--knew--" she paused.

"You knew----?"

"I knew as--as oh I--I can't tell 'ee, sir, I daren't tell 'ee."

"Tell me, Betty," he whispered, "tell me," and perhaps did not know how much tenderness he had put into his voice.

"I knew as 'ee meant summut to me, sir, as--as somehow it seemed as if 'ee belonged to me and I to thee."

She dropped her eyes, her hands seemed to flutter in his and he said nothing, could not, for he did not know what to say, but he realised that she had put into words that which was in his own mind, in his own knowledge, just as he had meant something to her so had she meant something to him. He had known that in some strange way they belonged to each other.

He spoke, to break the silence that had fallen rather than for any other reason.

"You were unhappy with your grandmother?"

"Terribul, terribul unhappy I were wi' she, sir, for her willed me to marry Abram."

"Abram?" he asked.

"Abram, aye, Abram Lestwick, sir, whom I du hate and de-test most terribul."

"But who is he?"

"Grandmother willed me to marry him, sir, but I would not and she be very wrathful wi' I."

"Poor little soul," he said gently. "Betty, it seems to me that strange and perhaps foolish dreams have--have come to both of us here in this old garden, and we must put those dreams out of our minds, and face life, child, as it really is. Just now you reminded me that I am your lady's husband and I am, and proud and happy that so good and sweet a woman should be my wife----"

"Good and sweet her be, there bain't none like she; I would die for her willing, I would."

"And I think I too, Betty, and so--so--" he paused to listen--out of the darkness there came voices.

"Wonderful air, isn't it? I don't know any air like this. Get a smell of the sea in it, don't you, Cutler, my boy?"

Allan dropped the little hands. He felt suddenly ashamed, felt as though he were about, to be detected in some wrong-doing, and yet, Heaven above knew, that there had not been one wrong thought in his brain.

He would have told her to go, but it was unnecessary. Very quickly and suddenly she snatched at one of his hands, he felt it pressed for a moment against burning lips and then she had gone. He heard the soft rustling of her gown among the bushes, the light tap of her little shoes, and then the heavier stolid tread of his father's honest feet.

Allan dropped onto the stone bench, and there, a minute later Sir Josiah found him.

"Why, who's here, Allan, Allan, my boy--is it you?"

"Yes, father, come here to dream in the old garden. Won't you and Mr. Cutler sit here and finish your cigars?"

He scarcely knew what he was saying. He was glad that they had come, and yet perhaps sorry too.

*CHAPTER XXIV*

*IN WHICH LORD GOWERHURST RISES EARLY*

His lordship had had a bad night. He had gone to sleep after his dinner, a foolish thing to do. He had tossed and turned restlessly in a strange bed and he loathed strange beds. Then after what had seemed to be interminable hours of sleeplessness and misery, he had fallen asleep to be awakened in apparently a few minutes by a feathered chorus in the beech tree, just outside his window.

What a noise they made, what a commotion with their piping and their shrill chattering. His Lordship sat up and solemnly cursed all birds.

A cock saluted the dawn in the customary manner; another, apparently some little distance away, took up the challenge. Lord Gowerhurst heard the crowing receding farther and farther till it was lost in the distance, then it came back, seemingly step by step to the original cock that was somewhere in his immediate neighbourhood. And all the time the birds kept up their incessant twittering and chattering and piping till the poor gentleman's nerves were on edge.

He rose, he thrust one bony leg from the bed, then the other. He went to the window, he shook his fist at the birds.

"Shoo! go away you beasts!" he shouted. "Go away, shoo!"

He slammed the window down and went back to bed, but it was useless. He put his head under the clothes, but he could still hear the babel of sounds. As the sun rose higher so did the sounds increase; there came the barking of dogs, the lowing of cattle from the green pastures, a hen had laid an egg somewhere and was proclaiming the fact triumphantly. Her husband shouted his joy, the other cocks took up the chorus. It was Bedlam and Babel let loose.

Added to the other sounds of animal and bird life came presently fresh contributions. A sleepy-eyed servant banged a pail down somewhere, doors were being opened and shut with unnecessary vigour.

"London, give me London. It's the only place in the world fit to sleep in, as for this country, this--" His lordship sat up and exploded with wrath and profanity.

He would stay in bed no longer, bed was purgatory; it was but six. He had never risen at six in the morning in his life. Frequently he had retired at this hour. He rang for hot water to shave.

At his chambers in Maybury Street, Webster, his landlord, valeted him. Webster shaved him every morning and dressed him with the same care as a young mother bestows on her darling. But Webster was employed during the day at his lordship's club, so had not been able to come.

The old gentleman's hand shook very severely this morning, he cut himself twice. He was entirely unhappy and in the blackest of ill humours when he went downstairs.

Early as it was, everyone seemed to be up. Sir Josiah, rosy and cheerful, came in from the garden, looking ridiculous with a great armful of flowers.

"Good morning, my lord, nice and early, eh? Lovely morning, nothing like getting up when the dew's on the grass, eh?" Then came Cutler, followed by Coombe, offensive in white flannel trousers; Kathleen, looking as fresh as the morning itself, came to him and kissed him. She saw his humour, she knew it of old, the morning was never his lordship's best time.

Happy he who can rise in the morning in a spirit of kindliness and good humour, who commences the day as he means to live through it, in good will and amity with all. Thrice happy they who live with such a man.

Kathleen knew her father.

"Would you like to have breakfast served you alone quietly in my own little room, dear?" she asked.

"Would I what? Hang it! do you want to get rid of me? Am I not good enough to sit down to breakfast with your absurd friends? Has that gentleman in the white trousers been attending a tennis party? It is somewhat early for tennis parties, is it not? Barely seven yet--is Homewood going to decorate a Church or is he merely masquerading as a Jack in the Green? Where's Scarsdale? Not down yet? I don't blame him, I never heard such an infernal din in my life--cocks crowing, birds shouting, dogs barking and--and cut my face twice, begad, twice--which means a deuced uncomfortable day for me and--and--and your father is to be poked away into a little back room and have his meals by himself, is he? I'm hurt, Kathleen, positively hurt; had you told me that my society was distasteful to you, had you only told me that you were asking me out of politeness, begad, out of compliment, why then I should have stayed away. I feel it, I am an old fellow and oversensitive perhaps, little things, little unkindnesses wound me, as perhaps a few years ago they would not. As one grows older one----"

"Come into breakfast, father," she said, and slipped her hand under his arm.

Scarsdale came down a little late. He held Kathleen's hand for a moment, looked her in the eyes and sat down.

"I slept badly," he said quietly, "in fact I could not sleep at all, it was strange to me to realise that the same roof that sheltered you--" he paused.

"Tea or coffee?" Kathleen asked brightly.

His lordship was like a bear with a very sore head, the Stanwys manner was not in evidence. He growled and cursed under his breath. He flung poisoned darts of wit, sneers and jibes at Coombe and they glanced harmless enough from that gentleman's toughened hide, but they went home when he turned his battery on Sir Josiah.

"Poisonous old devil he is," Coombe muttered to himself as he put away a huge breakfast.

*CHAPTER XXV*

*BESIDE THE LAKE*

They had all gone out together, Sir Josiah and his Lordship in Sir Josiah's car, Mr. Coombe and Mr. Cutler and Mr. Jobson with a large quantity of golf sticks in Allan's car, and Allan himself had gone over to One Tree Farm to discuss intensive culture, scientific pedigree poultry and pig raising and farm business generally; and Kathleen found herself for the first time alone with Harold Scarsdale.

She had tried to avoid this, yet in some fashion she had known that it must come sooner or later. She had suggested that he should go out with the others, but he had quietly declined. And so if it must be, well it must be. If she and Harold Scarsdale must come to a definite understanding, why not sooner than later? She was a coward to shun it.

From her bedroom window she saw him sauntering up and down the broad paved pathway. That he was waiting for her, confident that she would come to him, she knew, and she knew that she must go.

"Betty!"

"Yes, my Lady?"

"Sir Harold Scarsdale is in the garden; will you go down to him and tell him that I will join him soon? There he is, Betty, you can see him from here."

"I see him, my Lady, and I'll go and tell him." Betty turned away.

"Betty!"

"My Lady?"

"Betty, are you unhappy, child?"

"Unhappy, oh, my lady, I be very happy here, indeed--indeed I be--very happy I be, my lady."

"You look white and troubled, child," Kathleen said. "Is--is that man, is your grandmother--troubling you?"

"No, my Lady, I've not seen Grandmother since I came here."

"And Lestwick?"

"Abram du hang about waiting for I, my Lady, Polly Ransom have told me that Abram du continually be hanging about the green door, my Lady, but I doan't go out and so I du never see he."

"I will speak to Mr. Homewood about it and ask him to interview this Lestwick and tell him to keep away from here, for I will not have you worried and troubled, Betty. Now run down, child, and tell Sir Harold."

Scarsdale paced up and down in the warm sunlight, waiting, as years ago he had waited in another garden for the coming of his beloved.

And presently she would come to him, he did not doubt that. He turned now at the sound of a light step, but it was not she, he knew that--who, who loves, does not know the step of the beloved one? Is it not different from all other footfalls in the world, as different as 'her' voice is different from all other voices. A man usually knows the step of the woman he loves, but a woman always knows the step of her man. Scarsdale, turning slowly, knew full well that it was not Kathleen. A stern, silent man was he, misjudged by many who thought him cold and even heartless. Men found but little pleasure in his society, women none, for he had neither heart nor admiration to give them. He had looked at beautiful women and had failed to see their beauty, because only one face was beautiful in his sight. But this little maid tripping to him so demurely in the sunlight was pretty enough to win an unaccustomed smile to his lips.

What a pretty child she was, a fit handmaiden for Her!

"You want me?" he asked, and his voice was a little more gentle than usual.

She dropped him a curtsey, "My Lady sent me to say that she would be here in the garden very soon, sir."

"Thank you." He stood looking at her, at the pretty, downcast face. He looked after her when she had turned back towards the house. A pretty little country girl with a sweet voice, he thought, and then, even before she had whisked out of sight behind a door, he had forgotten her and his thoughts had gone back to the one to whom they were constant.

She was coming, and when she came what should he say to her? Just as ten years ago he had watched and waited for her in another garden, his heart filled with love for her, so he was watching and waiting now and his love was the same, no--not the same, for, even he, was conscious of its change. But it was no less, it was even more, it was greater, it burned with a stronger flame, a greater passion.

And after ten years--did many men love for ten long years, were many men as constant as he had been? Would not that constancy count for something with her? Surely, surely it must, for women prized constancy in a man above all other things.

So the smile still lingered on his lips, as he turned and slowly made his way along the sun warmed path. What should he say to her when she came, what had he said to her in the old days when he had poured out his heart to her? A thousand things, a million things, and yet all were summed up in three words, "I love you."

He had given her everything, a man's love, a man's constancy. His heart had not beaten one throb the faster for any woman but her. His eyes had found no pleasure in looking on any other woman's face. Could man give more than he had given? What could he ask in return? Everything--and he knew that he must ask everything of her.

Kathleen was conscious of a trepidation, of a nervousness unusual to her. A strange shyness had come to her, an unwillingness to meet him; yet she must and because she must she was here. She had asked herself--Was he the same, had the years altered him? And she had answered her own questions with No and Yes: he was not the same, the years had altered him. She scarcely knew this silent, almost morose man. He came to her with his tanned, lean face, his deep sombre eyes, as almost a stranger, just now and again for a fleeting moment she saw something in his face, heard something in his voice that brought back memories of the boy she had known and loved. Yet they were but fleeting.

The ardent, outspoken, honest, loving boy had changed into the quiet, self-contained man. The man had infinitely more self-control than the boy. Yet she had seen those eyes of his lighten up, had seen the spark of fire gleam in them and she knew that it was not the same flame that had burned so brightly in the boyish eyes.

He met her and looked at her with a smile on his face, but he did not speak and she spoke because she knew that the silence must be broken.

"I saw you from my window, you have been admiring the--our garden," she said.

"I do not think that I have given the garden a thought."

"Yet is it not beautiful enough? And to think that a few months ago it was little more than a jungle and now----"

"It is beautiful, yet I knew another infinitely more beautiful to me than this. You knew that garden too, Kathleen, our garden at Bishopsholme, the garden where I used to wait for you, where I first told you----" his voice quavered and trembled and her eyes, downcast, dared not lift themselves to his face.

"Where I first told you how I loved you--I have seen that garden in my dreams a thousand times, I have had cool visions of it in the sweltering heat of the tropical nights. I have seen it--and you--always you--and yet my memory never did you justice Kathleen. To-day you are more beautiful, more sweetly gracious, more lovable----"

"Hush!" she said.

"Why should I be silent when silence would be but pretence? Ten years ago I loved you with all my heart and soul, for ten years my love has been constant, my dreams and my memories of you were sweeter to me than the living realty of other women--I cared nothing for them, my heart was all yours."

"Harold!" she said. "Harold!" She put her hand on his arm. "The past is dead and it must lie dead and--and forgotten----"

"Forgotten! You tell me to forget when I have lived on memories, when the visions of you that my brain has conjured up have been the only real, the only beautiful things in my life: have I not heard your voice speaking to me in the stillness of those hot nights, have I not felt your cool hand on my brow when fever assailed me? You, even though thousands of miles parted us, were with me always. You were by my side in daylight and in darkness, my other self, my better, purer, sweeter self, and now after ten years when all that I had of you, all that I had in the world was memory of you, you tell me to forget----"

"Because you must," she said softly, "because--oh because you must."

"And did you forget? Could you have forgotten at the word of command?" he said. His cheeks were flushed under their tan, his eyes were gleaming and his words came quick and fast. "Could you have forgotten so easily? No, you too were faithful, you waited, Kathleen. You told me so yourself. You waited--hoping, dear, did you not, hoping that I should come back to you as, God willing, I meant always to come back. You knew as I knew that it was the great love, the one and only love of our two lives. It came to you, dear, when you were little more than a child, to me when I was but a boy, but it will last through my life and yours--yours too, and knowing this, you tell me to forget."

"Listen," she said. "Listen--this is my home, you are my friend, my husband's guest----"

"Does that matter, does anything in this world matter save that I have come back to you, that you and I love one another now as we did then and that after years of separation, years of heart sickness and longing, we are, thank God, together again. Does anything matter but that? You are married, you married the man for his money--his father's money--your father told me this--I am not speaking in anger, dear, nor contempt, I am only stating what I know to be a fact. You gave him no love, how could you, when you had none to give, for your heart was always mine."

"Oh hush, hush! Before you say any more, Harold, listen, for you must listen to me now. My father told you only the truth, I married for money, for a home, for a future--I had given up hope, I had waited so long, my youth was passing. I looked ahead, I saw old age and loneliness and oh--perhaps I was a coward, but I was afraid--afraid--Perhaps you had forgotten, perhaps you no longer lived--remember, remember that for ten years I heard no word of you: I know now that in not writing one word to me you were faithfully keeping the word of honour that my father forced you to give. Yet I did not think you had died, Harold, for if you were dead I think--I think I should have known--you were only a boy, I told myself, and the love of a boy changes, absence so often means forgetfulness. There are other women younger and more beautiful than I--No, no, let me speak, I know now that I was wrong--I know that I was wrong--yet how could I know it then? I was twenty-eight, twenty-eight and what had I to look forward to? Nothing! nothing in the world--my father had nothing to give me, I was useless, I could not work, I knew of no trade--I had been brought up in idleness, a useless creature--and the future--it meant--starvation, not merely genteel poverty, it meant worse, it meant----"

"I know, and you married for money--for a home--have I blamed you, have I shewn anger, Kathleen? No, dear, I pitied you. You married this man for his money only----"

"Not wholly, I liked him, respected him----"

"Liked him, respected him----" he smiled grimly. "But I had your heart?"

"Yes----" she said, "then."

"And now--now still now--always!"

"It is not fair, it is cruel, it is unlike you to ask me," she said, "it is too late to ask me now----"

"It is not too late. Was not your sin against me, against your love greater when you married him than any you might commit against him now?"

"I am his wife, I have promised to be faithful and true to him."

"You promised to be faithful and true to me; do you remember our parting at Bishopsholme, you promised then when I held you in my arms, when the tears were in your dear eyes--you promised always to love me, always to be faithful and true, all your life long--you promised me then with tears, beloved."

"And I performed--I waited for ten years. Never passed a day that I did not waking think of you, that I did not when I lay down to sleep ask God's blessing on you and then Fate was too strong----"

"It was Fate that brought me here to-day."

"So that we could meet as friends, take one another by the hand and----"

"As friends--you and I----" his voice quivered with scorn and bitterness--"Friends!"

They had come to the little lake, the pool where stood the stone nymph and where in the deep green water the great carp swam lazily. She was remembering how she and Allan had stood here days ago and had spoken of this little stone maiden.

"Kathleen, true love, love that is loyal and lasting and good and true is the holiest, the best and most enduring thing in this world, it stands far, far above a mere ceremony. It is Heavensent. You dare not sin against that love, dear, for Heaven itself put it in your heart. I have been faithful all those years, I have loved you. I have dreamed of you, spoken to you in my thoughts, and now I have come back, I have come to you for--my reward, Kathleen."

She turned slowly and looked at him, her face had grown white.

"Harold, I do not understand."