Chapter III: Lady Burdon Comes to "post Offic"

I

In the morning Lady Burdon came with Rollo to make her request that Percival might spend much of his time at the Old Manor as Rollo's playmate. In these seven years since the amazement at Miller's Field, this was but her third visit to the estate, her first for the purpose of staying any length of time, and the first that had seen Rollo with her. Two days had been spent here when Jane Lady Burdon had been brought to rest in Burdon churchyard; three when Mr. Maxwell, the agent, had been troublesome and importunate in the matter of expensive alterations on the property. Lady Burdon had come down then "to have an understanding with him;" as she expressed it--"to see for herself." The result had been as unfortunate for Mr. Maxwell (to whom she had shown some temper) as it had been augmentative of the dislike she had always felt for the property and its greedy responsibilities. The result had been to filter over the countryside from Mr. Maxwell that she was the controlling partner in the new representatives of the house; that hers was the refusal to take up the urgently needed irrigation scheme; hers the scandal (as it became) of neglect to carry out improvements in the cottages over at Abbess Roding; hers the crime (as it was held) of the selling-up over at Shepwall that entailed eviction of tenants old on the land as the house of Burdon itself.

On the other hand the result had been to return Lady Burdon to the Mount Street life with at least a temporary stop put to the Maxwell whinings and at least a lighter drain from the Mount Street expenses.

Miss Oxford had not seen her on either of these visits. Miss Oxford had only smiled in an odd way when she heard of the behaviour that had set the countryside clacking. The better Lady Burdon flourished, the more Lady Burdon exercised the prerogatives of her usurped position, the riper she ripened for the blow, when there should be returned to her the son whose mother she had murdered; that was the entertainment Miss Oxford nursed through these years, living so gently and so quietly, "thinking" so much, poor dear.

"Strange-like?" "Silly-like?" Or dreadfully sane? For Miss Oxford's own part, she knew only one thing of her mental condition. At very rare intervals there seized her a state that was related to and that recalled the tremendous pressure in her brain when she had knelt, consumed with hate and desire for vengeance, by Audrey's death-bed. It took the form of a sudden violent fluttering in her brain, as though a live, winged thing were beating there, beating to be free. The pressure that came by Audrey's death-bed had ended in a snap--in something giving that left her extraordinarily, tinglingly calm, possessed by the plan and certainty of revenge to be taken by Audrey's son--one day. The fluttering, the winglike beating ended of its own volition, and outside any command she could put upon it--sweeping up all her senses in its beating, only leaving to her the terror that it would end--in what? Sometimes it came in just the tiniest flutter, without cause and gone as soon as come, just arresting her and frightening her like a swift shoot of pain in a nerve. Sometimes in the briefest flutter but with cause; such a case had been when Percival told her of his meeting with the Burdons and she had caused him to exclaim by clutching his hand. Once of much longer duration and of new effect, and with revelation to her of the end it threatened. That was when, a few days ago, she had stood alone with Percival in the great hall of Burdon Old Manor. It was the fluttering that had bade her make him put on his cap and cry 'I hold!' and she had been informed that if it did not stop--if it did not stop!--if it did not stop! she would scream out her secret--run through the house and cry to all that Lady Burdon was--

It had stopped. The beating wings ceased. She was returned to her quiet, gentle waiting.

II

It always took the same form--the presentation of a picture.

"They're coming! They're coming!" cried Percival, bursting into the parlour with tossing arms, aflame with excitement, hopping on lively toes, to announce Lady Burdon and Rollo. "They're coming, Aunt Maggie!" and he was away to greet them at the gate.

Aunt Maggie was at the table where post-office business was conducted. The open door gave directly on to the garden path; and she heard voices and then a step on the threshold and bent over the papers before her; and then a pleasant tone that said "Good morning, I am Lady Burdon," and immediately the beating wings, wild, savage, whirling, and she transported from where she sat to watch herself in the picture that the fluttering always brought.

Immense beating of the wings, the sound drumming in her ears; seven years rolled up as a stage-curtain discloses a scene, and she saw the room in the Holloway road, herself kneeling there and Audrey's voice: "... and then said 'I am Lady Burdon' ... O Maggie! O Maggie! ... and I said 'Oh, how can you be Lady Burdon?' ... Maggie! Maggie!" The beating wings drove up to a pitch they had never before reached. Through their tumult--buffeted, as it were, by their fury--and from the scene in which she saw herself, she looked up and saw Lady Burdon smiling there, and heard Lady Burdon's voice: "Good morning, I am Lady Burdon." Again, as in the great hall with Rollo, if it did not stop!--if it did not stop!--if it did not stop! she must cry out: "You are not! You said that to Audrey and killed her! Now--"

And again, and this time when the terrible fluttering had almost beaten itself free and she had formed her lips to release it, it suddenly stopped. As at the bedside, seven years before, she fell from paroxysm of passion to unnatural calm, so now she was returned to her normal, quiet self, content to wait, and she said quite quietly: "Percival told me to expect you."

Lady Burdon advanced pleasantly. "Ah, and I hope he also remembered to tell you of my apologies. I am afraid we kept him with us much too long last night."

She looked around the room with the air of one willing to chat and to be entertained, and Miss Oxford, murmuring there was no occasion for apology, advanced a chair with: "Please sit down, if you will. This is very humble, I am afraid. It is only the post-office, you know; and only a toy post-office at that."

She was quite herself again. Through this interview, and always thereafter when she met Lady Burdon or thought of her, she was invested with the calmness that had come to her by the death-bed. She knew quite certainly that she had only to wait. She was not at all anxious. She knew she could wait. She only feared--now for the first time, and increasingly as the attacks became more frequent--that an onset of that dreadful fluttering might descend upon her and might not go before it had driven her to wreck the plan for which she waited--Percival, not she, to avenge his mother.

The fear caused in her a noticeable nervousness of manner. Lady Burdon attributed it to natural embarrassment at this gracious visit, and that made her more gracious yet. Miller's Field would have perceived in Lady Burdon, as she sat talking pleasantly, a considerable change from the Mrs. Letham it had known. She was very becomingly dressed. She had grown a trifle rounder in the figure and fuller in the face since Miller's Field gave her good-by, and that advantaged her. Her olive complexion was warmer in shade, healthier in tinting than it had been. The walk from the Manor had touched her freshly, and she had been pleased by the respectful greetings of the villagers. Rollo, completely in love with Percival, was brighter than she had ever known him. She had hated the idea of burying herself down here for a month; but she was beginning to entertain an agreeable view of taking up her neglected position and dignity in this pleasant countryside. She was very happy as she faced Miss Oxford: her happiness and all that contributed to it made her very comely to the eye; and she was aware of that.

She spoke enthusiastically of Percival. "Such a splendid young man. Such charming manners." She spoke most graciously of knowing all about Miss Oxford and of how plucky of her it was to take up the post-office. She said smilingly that Miss Oxford was not to take advantage of the post-office by keeping herself to herself as the saying was; and when Miss Oxford replied; "You are kind; we have no society here, of course; with the one or two families the post-office makes no difference; we are all old friends; with you, it is different;" she said very winningly: "Not kind, in any case--selfish. It is Percival I am after. We have taken so much to him. He and my Rollo have struck up the greatest friendship, and that is such a pleasure to me. Rollo as a rule is so shy and reserved with children. He has no child friends. It will do him a world of good if Percival may play with him. Percival will be the making of him."

She smiled in confident and happy belief of her words, and Miss Oxford smiled, too. It was not for Lady Burdon to know--yet--that Percival was being brought up to be not Rollo's making but his undoing.

But Miss Oxford only said that the friendship would be capital for Percival also, since Lady Burdon permitted it. "There are no boys here in Little Letham that he can make close companions," she said. "We seem short of children--except among the villagers. I think Mrs. Espart's little girl at Upabbot over the Ridge is the nearest."

Lady Burdon nodded. "Mrs. Espart--yes, I am to go over there. She left cards, thinking we had arrived. Abbey Royal, she lives at, doesn't she?"

"Abbey Royal, yes. One of our show places, you know. What Percival would call 'normous," and Miss Oxford related the "'normous; simply 'normous to me, you know," of Percival's visit to the Manor. "We came to 'enormous' when I was reading to him shortly afterwards," she said, "and he exclaimed: 'I know! 'Normous, like Mr. Amber's house!' Mr. Amber showed him round."

"He is the sweetest little fellow," Lady Burdon laughed. "And reading to him--I was going to ask you about that--about lessons, I mean. Does he do lessons? Rollo's education has been terribly neglected, I am afraid. I thought it would be so nice if he could join his new friend in them while he is here."

"Percival goes every morning to Miss Purdie--you would have passed her cottage--next to the Church."

"Capital," Lady Burdon said. "I will arrange for Rollo."

"She will be delighted. Having Percival has already lost her a chance of another pupil. Mrs. Espart was going to send her little girl over daily, but didn't like the idea of the post-office little boy."

"Ridiculous!" Lady Burdon cried. "I will tell her so." She turned at the sound of much scrambling and laughter in the doorway. "Ridiculous! Rollo, you are going to do lessons with Percival. Now won't that be jolly, darling?"

But it was Percival who was first in and came bounding to them with: "Aunt Maggie! Aunt Maggie! Rollo has got a pony of his own in London and rides it! Well, what do you think of that?"

Aunt Maggie thought it splendid and was introduced to Rollo, and "suddenly seemed to lose her tongue," as Lady Burdon told Lord Burdon at lunch. "Hugged Percival as though she hadn't seen him for a year and scarcely looked at Rollo. Jealous, I believe, at the difference between their stations. Funny, that kind of jealousy, don't you think?"

But it was not jealousy that had silenced Aunt Maggie and caused her to clutch Percival to her breast. At sight of him with Rollo, and of Lady Burdon smiling at him, that fluttering had run up in her brain, and she had clasped Percival to restrain herself while it lasted. It had gone while she held him; but she had almost cried: "Do you dare smile at him? He is Audrey's son! Audrey's son!"

Percival wriggled from her embrace and she heard Lady Burdon say to Rollo: "Well, why not a pony here?" and heard her laugh delightedly at the excited roar the suggestion shot out of Percival.

"I wonder if there is anywhere here we could get a pony for Rollo?" she heard Lady Burdon say, and heard the question repeated, and made a great effort to come out of the shaken state in which the fluttering had left her.

"Over at Market Roding you might get a pony," she said dully. "There is a Mr. Hannaford there. He has ponies. He supplies ponies to circuses, I have heard."

Lady Burdon kissed Percival good-by at the gate. "Lord Burdon shall take you over with Rollo to this Mr. Hannaford," she told him. "That Miss Purdie's cottage? We are going to look in on our way. Run back to your Aunt Maggie. She is tired, I think."

"Well, she's thinking, you know," said Percival.

Lady Burdon laughed. "Thinking, is she, you funny little man? Of what?"

And Percival, in his earnest way: "Well, I don't know. It 'plexes me, you know."