"I'm a mass of dust—I must go and change before tea," he said abruptly.
He went into the house, and she was left to some agitated thinking.
An hour later, the broad lawns of Beechmark, burnt yellow by the May drought, were alive with guests, men in khaki and red tabs, fresh from their War Office work; two naval Commanders, and a resplendent Flag-Lieutenant; a youth in tennis flannels, just released from a city office, who seven months earlier had been fighting in the last advance of the war, and a couple of cadets who had not been old enough to fight at all; girls who had been "out" before the war, and two others, Helena's juniors, who were just leaving the school-room and seemed to be all aglow with the excitement and wonder of this peace-world; a formidable grey-haired woman, who was Lady Mary Chance; Cynthia and Georgina Welwyn, and the ill-dressed, arresting figure of Mr. Alcott. Not all were Buntingford's guests; some were staying at the Cottage, some in another neighbouring house; but Beechmark represented the headquarters of a gathering of which Helena Pitstone and her guardian were in truth the central figures.
Helena in white, playing tennis; Helena with a cigarette, resting between her sets, and chaffing with a ring of dazzled young men; Helena talking wild nonsense with Geoffrey French, for the express purpose of shocking Lady Mary Chance; and the next minute listening with a deference graceful enough to turn even the seasoned head of a warrior to a grey-haired general describing the taking of the Vimy Ridge; and finally, Helena, holding a dancing class under the cedars on the yellow smoothness of the lawn, after tea, for such young men as panted to conquer the mysteries of "hesitation" or jazzing, and were ardently courting instruction in the desperate hope of capturing their teacher for a dance that night:—it was on these various avatars of Helena that the whole party turned; and Lady Mary indignantly felt that there was no escaping the young woman.
"Why do you let her smoke—and paint—and swear—I declare I heard her swear!" she said in Buntingford's ear, as the dressing-bell rang, and he was escorting her to the house. "And mark my words, Philip—men may be amused by that kind of girl, but they won't marry her."
Buntingford laughed.
"As Helena's guardian I'm not particularly anxious about that!"
"Ah, no doubt, she tells you people propose to her—but is it true?" snapped Lady Mary.
"You imagine that Helena tells me of her proposals?" said Buntingford, wondering.
"My dear Philip, don't pose! Isn't that the special function of a guardian?"
"It may be. But, if so, Helena has never given me the chance of performing it."
"I told you so! Men will flirt with her, but they don't propose to her!" said Lady Mary triumphantly.
Buntingford, smiling, let her have the last word, as he asked Mrs. Friend to show her to her room.
Meanwhile the gardens were deserted, save for a couple of gardeners and an electrician, who were laying some wires for the illumination of the rose-garden in front of the drawing-room, and Geoffrey French, who was in a boat, lazily drifting across the pond, and reading a volume of poems by a friend which he had brought down with him. The evening was fast declining; and from the shadow of the deep wood which bordered the western edge of the pond he looked out on the sunset glow as it climbed the eastern hill, transfiguring the ridge, and leaving a rich twilight in the valley below. The tranquillity of the water, the silence of the woods, the gentle swaying of the boat, finally wooed him from his book, which after all he had only taken up as a protection from tormenting thoughts. Had he—had he—any chance with Helena? A month before he would have scornfully denied that he was in love with her. And now—he had actually confessed his plight to Mrs. Friend!
As he lay floating between the green vault above, and the green weedy depths below, his thoughts searched the five weeks that lay between him and that first week-end when he had scolded Helena for her offences. It seemed to him that his love for her had first begun that day of the Dansworth riot. She had provoked and interested him before that—but rather as a raw self-willed child—a "flapper" whose extraordinary beauty gave her a distinction she had done nothing to earn. But every moment in that Dansworth day was clear in memory:—the grave young face behind the steering-wheel, the perfect lips compressed, the eyes intent upon their task, the girl's courage and self-command. Still more the patient Helena who waited for him at the farm—the grateful exultant look when he said "Come"—and every detail of the scene in Dansworth:—Helena with her most professional air, driving through soldiers and police, Helena helping to carry and place the two wounded men, and that smiling "good-bye" she had thrown him as she drove away with Buntingford beside her.
The young man moved restlessly; and the light boat was set rocking. It was curious how he too, like Lucy Friend, only from another point of view, was beginning to reflect on the new intimacy that seemed to be developing between Buntingford and his ward. Philip of course was an awfully good fellow, and Helena was just finding it out; what else was there in it? But the jealous pang roused by the thought of Buntingford, once felt, persisted. Not for a moment did French doubt the honour or the integrity of a man, who had done him personally many a kindness, and had moreover given him some reason to think—-(he recalled the odd little note he had received from Buntingford before Helena's first week-end)—that if he were to fall in love with Helena, his suit would be favourably watched by Helena's guardian. He could recall moreover one or two quite recent indications on Buntingford's part—very slight and guarded—which seemed to point in the same direction.
All very well: Buntingford himself might be quite heart-whole and might remain so. French, who knew him well, though there was fourteen years between them, was tolerably certain—without being able to give any very clear reason for the conviction—that Buntingford would never have undertaken the guardianship of Helena, had the merest possibility of marrying her crossed his mind. French did not believe that it had ever yet crossed his mind. There was nothing in his manner towards her to suggest anything more than friendship, deepening interest, affectionate responsibility—all feelings which would have shown themselves plainly from the beginning had she allowed it.
But Helena herself? It was clear that however much they might still disagree, Buntingford had conquered her original dislike of him, and was in process of becoming the guide, philosopher, and friend her mother had meant him to be. And Buntingford had charm and character, and imagination. He could force a girl like Helena to respect him intellectually; with such a nature that was half the battle. He would be her master in time. Besides, there were all Philip's endless opportunities of making life agreeable and delightful to her. When they went to London, for instance, he would come out of the shell he had lived in so long, and Helena would see him as his few intimate friends had always seen him:—as one of the most accomplished and attractive of mortals, with just that touch of something ironic and mysterious in his personality and history, which appeals specially to a girl's fancy.
And what would be the end of it? Tragedy for Helena?—as well as bitter disappointment and heartache for himself, Geoffrey French? He was confident that Helena had in her the capacity for passion; that the flowering-time of such a nature would be one of no ordinary intensity. She would love, and be miserable—and beat herself to pieces—poor, brilliant Helena!—against her own pain.
What could he do? Might there not be some chance for himself—now—while the situation was still so uncertain and undeveloped? Helena was still unconscious, unpledged. Why not cut in at once? "She likes me—she has been a perfect dear to me these last few times of meeting! Philip backs me. He would take my part. Perhaps, after all, my fears are nonsense, and she would no more dream of marrying Philip, than he would dream, under cover of his guardianship, of making love to her."
He raised himself in the boat, filled with a new inrush of will and hope, and took up the drifting oars. Across the water, on the white slopes of lawn, and in some of the windows of the house, lights were appearing. The electricians were testing the red and blue lamps they had been stringing among the rose-beds, and from the gabled boathouse on the further side, a bright shaft from a small searchlight which had been fixed there, was striking across the water. Geoffrey watched it wandering over the dark wood on his right, lighting up the tall stems of the beeches, and sending a tricky gleam or two among the tangled underwood. It seemed to him a symbol of the sudden illumination of mind and purpose which had come to him, there, on the shadowed water—and he turned to look at a window which he knew was Helena's. There were lights within it, and he pictured Helena at her glass, about to slip into some bright dress or other, which would make her doubly fair. Meanwhile from the rose of the sunset, rosy lights were stealing over the water and faintly glorifying the old house and its spreading gardens. An overpowering sense of youth—of the beauty of the world—of the mystery of the future, beat through his pulses. The coming dance became a rite of Aphrodite, towards which all his being strained.
Suddenly, there was a loud snapping noise, as of breaking branches in the wood beside him. It was so startling that his hands paused on the oars, as he looked quickly round to see what could have produced it. And at the same moment the searchlight on the boathouse reached the spot to which his eyes were drawn, and he saw for an instant—sharply distinct and ghostly white—a woman's face and hands—amid the blackness of the wood. He had only a moment in which to see them, in which to catch a glimpse of a figure among the trees, before the light was gone, leaving a double gloom behind it.
Mysterious! Who could it be? Was it some one who wanted to be put across the pond? He shouted. "Who is that?"
Then he rowed in to the shore, straining his eyes to see. It occurred to him that it might be a lady's maid brought by a guest, who had been out for a walk, and missed her way home in a strange park. "Do you want to get to the house? I can put you across to it if you wish," he said in a loud voice, addressing the unknown—"otherwise you'll have to go a long way round."
No answer—only an intensity of silence, through which he heard from a great distance a church clock striking. The wood and all its detail had vanished in profound shadow.
Conscious of a curious excitement he rowed still further in to the bank, and again spoke to the invisible woman. In vain. He began then to doubt his own eyes. Had it been a mere illusion produced by some caprice of the searchlight opposite? But the face!—the features of it were stamped on his memory, the gaunt bitterness of them, the brooding misery.
How could he have imagined such a thing?
Much perplexed and rather shaken in nerve, he rowed back across the pond—to hear the band tuning in the flower-filled drawing-room, as he approached the house.
CHAPTER IX
About ten o'clock on the night of the ball at Beechmark, a labourer was crossing the park on his way home from his allotment. Thanks to summertime and shortened hours of labour he had been able to get his winter greens in, and to earth up his potatoes, all in two strenuous evenings; and he was sauntering home dead-tired. But he had doubled his wages since the outbreak of war and his fighting son had come back to him safe, so that on the whole he was inclined to think that the old country was worth living in! The park he was traversing was mostly open pasture studded with trees, except where at the beginning of the eighteenth century the Lord Buntingford of the day had planted a wood of oak and beech about the small lake which he had made by the diversion of two streamlets that had once found a sluggish course through the grassland. The trees in it were among the finest in the country, but like so much of English woodland before the war, they had been badly neglected for many years. The trees blown down by winter storms had lain year after year where they fell; the dead undergrowth was choking the young saplings; and some of the paths through the wood had practically disappeared.
The path from the allotments to the village passed at the back of the wood. Branching off from it, an old path leading through the trees and round the edge of the lake had once been frequently used as a short cut from the village to the house, but was now badly grown up and indeed superseded by the new drive from the western lodge, made some twenty years before this date.
The labourer, Richard Stimson, was therefore vaguely surprised when he turned the corner of the wood and reached the fork of the path, to see a figure of a woman, on the old right-of-way, between him and the wood, for which she seemed to be making.
It was not the figure of anyone he knew. It was a lady, apparently, in a dark gown, and a small hat with a veil. The light was still good, and he saw her clearly. He stopped indeed to watch her, puzzled to know what a stranger could be doing in the park, and on that path at ten o'clock at night. He was aware indeed that there were gay doings at Beechmark. He had seen the illuminated garden and house from the upper park, and had caught occasional gusts of music from the band to which no doubt the quality were dancing. But the fact didn't seem to have much to do with the person he was staring at.
And while he stared at her, she turned, and instantly perceived—he thought—that she was observed. She paused a moment, and then made an abrupt change of direction; running round the corner of the wood, she reached the path along which he himself had just come and disappeared from view.
The whole occurrence filliped the rustic mind; but before he reached his own cottage, Stimson had hit on an explanation which satisfied him. It was of course a stranger who had lost her way across the park, mistaking the two paths. On seeing him, she had realized that she was wrong and had quickly set herself right. He told his wife the tale before he went to sleep, with this commentary; and they neither of them troubled to think about it any more.
Perhaps the matter would not have appeared so simple to either of them had they known that Stimson had no sooner passed completely out of sight, leaving the wide stretches of the park empty and untenanted under a sky already alive with stars, than the same figure reappeared, and after pausing a moment, apparently to reconnoitre, disappeared within the wood.
"A year ago to-day, where were you?" said one Brigadier to another, as the two Generals stood against the wall in the Beechmark drawing-room to watch the dancing.
"Near Albert," said the man addressed. "The brigade was licking its wounds and training drafts."
The other smiled.
"Mine was doing the same thing—near Armentières. We didn't think then, did we, that it would be all over in five months?"
"It isn't all over!" said the first speaker, a man with a refined and sharply cut face, still young under a shock of grey hair. "We are in the ground swell of the war. The ship may go down yet."
"While the boys and girls dance? I hope not!" The soldier's eyes ran smiling over the dancing throng. Then he dropped his voice:
"Listen!"
For a very young boy and girl had come to stand in front of them. The boy had just parted from a girl a good deal older than himself, who had nodded to him a rather patronizing farewell, as she glided back into the dance with a much decorated Major.
"These pre-war girls are rather dusty, aren't they?" said the boy angrily to his partner.
"You mean they give themselves airs? Well, what does it matter? It's we who have the good time now!" said the little creature beside him, a fairy in filmy white, dancing about him as she spoke, hardly able to keep her feet still for a moment, life and pleasure in every limb.
The two soldiers—both fathers—smiled at each other. Then Helena came down the room, a vision of spring, with pale green floating about her, and apple-blossoms in her brown hair. She was dancing with Geoffrey French, and both were dancing with remarkable stateliness and grace to some Czech music, imposed upon the band by Helena, who had given her particular friends instruction on the lawn that afternoon in some of the steps that fitted it. They passed with the admiring or envious eyes of the room upon them, and disappeared through the window leading to the lawn. For on the smooth-shaven turf of the lawn there was supplementary dancing, while the band in the conservatory, with all barriers removed, was playing both for the inside and outside revellers.
Peter Dale was sitting out on the terrace over-looking the principal lawn with the daughter of Lady Mary Chance, a rather pretty but stupid girl, with a genius for social blunders. Buntingford had committed him to a dance with her, and he was not grateful.
"She is pretty, of course, but horribly fast!" said his partner contemptuously, as Helena passed. "Everybody thinks her such bad style!"
"Then everybody is an ass!" said Peter violently, turning upon her. "But it doesn't matter to Helena."
The girl flushed in surprise and anger.
"I didn't know you were such great friends. I only repeat what I hear," she said stiffly.
"It depends on where you hear it," said Peter. "There isn't a man in this ball that isn't pining to dance with her."
"Has she given you a dance?" said the girl, with a touch of malice in her voice.
"Oh, I've come off as well as other people!" said Peter evasively.
Then, of a sudden, his chubby face lit up. For Helena, just as the music was slackening to the close of the dance, and a crowd of aspirants for supper dances were converging on the spot where she stood, had turned and beckoned to Peter.
"Do you mind?—I'll come back!" he said to his partner, and rushed off.
"Second supper dance!" "All right!"
He returned radiant, and in his recovered good humour proceeded to make himself delightful even to Miss Chance, whom, five minutes before, he had detested.
But when he had returned her to her mother, Peter wandered off alone. He did not want to dance with anybody, to talk to anybody. He wanted just to remember Helena's smile, her eager—"I've kept it for you, Peter, all the evening!"—and to hug the thought of his coming joy. Oh, he hadn't a dog's chance, he knew, but as long as she was not actually married to somebody else, he was not going to give up hope.
In a shrubbery walk, where a rising moon was just beginning to chequer the path with light and shade, he ran into Julian Horne, who was strolling tranquilly up and down, book in hand.
"Hullo, what are you doing here?" said the invaded one.
"Getting cool. And you?"
Julian showed his book—The Coming Revolution, a Bolshevist pamphlet, then enjoying great vogue in manufacturing England.
"What are you reading such rot for?" said Peter, wondering.
"It gives a piquancy to this kind of thing!" was Horne's smiling reply, as they reached an open space in the walk, and he waved his hand towards the charming scene before them, the house with its lights, on its rising ground above the lake, the dancing groups on the lawn, the illuminated rose-garden; and below, the lake, under its screen of wood, with boats on the smooth water, touched every now and then by the creeping fingers of the searchlight from the boathouse, so that one group after another of young men and maidens stood out in a white glare against the darkness of the trees.
"It will last our time," said Peter recklessly. "Have you seen
Buntingford?"
"A little while ago, he was sitting out with Lady Cynthia. But when he passed me just now, he told me he was going down to look after the lake and the boats—in case of accidents. There is a current at one end apparently, and a weir; and the keeper who understands all about it is in a Canada regiment on the Rhine."
"Do you think Buntingford's going to marry Lady Cynthia?" asked
Peter suddenly.
Horne laughed. "That's not my guess, at present," he said after a moment.
As he spoke, a boat on the lake came into the track of the searchlight, and the two persons in it were clearly visible—Buntingford rowing, and Helena, in the stern. The vision passed in a flash; and Horne turned a pair of eyes alive with satirical meaning on his companion.
"Well!" said Peter, troubled, he scarcely knew why—"what do you mean?"
Horne seemed to hesitate. His loose-limbed ease of bearing in his shabby clothes, his rugged head, and pile of reddish hair, above a thinker's brow, made him an impressive figure in the half light—gave him a kind of seer's significance.
"Isn't it one of the stock situations?" he said at last—"this situation of guardian and ward?—romantic situations, I mean? Of course the note of romance must be applicable. But it certainly is applicable, in this case."
Peter stared. Julian Horne caught the change in the boy's delicate face and repented him—too late.
"What rubbish you talk, Julian! In the first place it would be dishonourable!"
"Why?"
"It would, I tell you,—damned dishonourable! And in the next, why, a few weeks ago—Helena hated him!"
"Yes—she began with 'a little aversion'! One of the stock openings," laughed Horne.
"Well, ta-ta. I'm not going to stay to listen to you talking bosh any more," said Peter roughly. "There's the next dance beginning."
He flung away. Horne resumed his pacing. He was very sorry for Peter, whose plight was plain to all the world. But it was better he should be warned. As for himself, he too had been under the spell. But he had soon emerged. A philosopher and economist, holding on to Helena's skirts in her rush through the world, would cut too sorry a figure. Besides, could she ever have married him—which was of course impossible, in spite of the courses in Meredith and Modern Literature through which he had taken her—she would have tired of him in a year, by which time both their fortunes would have been spent. For he knew himself to be a spendthrift on a small income, and suspected a similar propensity in Helena, on the grand scale. He returned, therefore, more or less contentedly, to his musings upon an article he was to contribute to The Market Place, on "The Influence of Temperament in Economics." The sounds of dance music in the distance made an agreeable accompaniment.
Meanwhile a scene—indisputably sentimental—was passing on the lake. Helena and Geoffrey French going down to the water's edge to find a boat, had met halfway with Cynthia Welwyn, in some distress. She had just heard that Lady Georgina had been taken suddenly ill, and must go home. She understood that Mawson was looking after her sister, who was liable to slight fainting attacks at inconvenient moments. But how to find their carriage! She had looked for a servant in vain, and Buntingford was nowhere to be seen. French could do no less than offer to assist; and Helena, biting her lip, despatched him. "I will wait for you at the boathouse."
He rushed off, with Cynthia toiling after him, and Helena descended to the lake. As she neared the little landing stage, a boat approached it, containing Buntingford, and two or three of his guests.
"Hullo, Helena, what have you done with Geoffrey?"
She explained. "We were just coming down for a row."
"All right. I'll take you on till he comes. Jump in!"
She obeyed, and they were soon halfway towards the further side. But about the middle of the lake Buntingford was seized with belated compunction that he had not done his host's duty to his queer, inarticulate cousin, Lady Georgina. "I suppose I ought to have gone to look after her?"
"Not at all," said Helena coolly. "I believe she does it often. She can't want more than Lady Cynthia—and Geoffrey—and Mawson. People shouldn't be pampered!"
Her impertinence was so alluring as she sat opposite to him, trailing both hands in the water, that Buntingford submitted. There was a momentary silence. Then Helena said:
"Lady Cynthia came to see me the other day. Did you send her?"
"Of course. I wanted you to make friends."
"That we should never do! We were simply born to dislike each other."
"I never heard anything so unreasonable!" said Buntingford warmly.
"Cynthia is a very good creature, and can be excellent company."
Helena gave a shrug.
"What does all that matter?" she said slowly—"when one has instincts—and intuitions. No!—don't let's talk any more about Lady Cynthia. But—there's something—please, Cousin Philip—I want to say—I may as well say it now."
He looked at her rather astonished, and, dimly as he saw her in the shadow they had just entered, it seemed to him that her aspect had changed.
"What is it? I hope nothing serious."
"Yes—it is serious, to me. I hate apologizing!—I always have."
"My dear Helena!—why should you apologize? For goodness' sake, don't!
Think better of it."
"I've got to do it," she said firmly, "Cousin Philip, you were quite right about that man, Jim Donald, and I was quite wrong. He's a beast, and I loathe the thought of having danced with him—there!—I'm sorry!" She held out her hand.
Buntingford was supremely touched, and could not for the moment find a jest wherewith to disguise it.
"Thank you!" he said quietly, at last. "Thank you, Helena. That was very nice of you." And with a sudden movement he stooped and kissed the wet and rather quivering hand he held. At the same moment, the searchlight which had been travelling about the pond, lighting up one boat after another to the amusement of the persons in them, and of those watching from the shore, again caught the boat in which sat Buntingford and Helena. Both figures stood sharply out. Then the light had travelled on, and Helena had hastily withdrawn her hand.
She fell back on the cushions of the stern seat, vexed with her own agitation. She had described herself truly. She was proud, and it was hard for her to "climb down." But there was much else in the mixed feeling that possessed her. There seemed, for one thing, to be a curious happiness in it; combined also with a renewed jealousy for an independence she might have seemed to be giving away. She wanted to say—"Don't misunderstand me!—I'm not really giving up anything vital—I mean all the same to manage my life in my own way." But it was difficult to say it in the face of the coatless man opposite, of whose house she had become practically mistress, and who had changed all his personal modes of life to suit hers. Her eyes wandered to the gay scene of the house and its gardens, with its Watteau-ish groups of young men and maidens, under the night sky, its light and music. All that had been done, to give her pleasure, by a man who had for years conspicuously shunned society, and whose life in the old country house, before her advent, had been, as she had come to know, of the quietest. She bent forward again, impulsively:
"Cousin Philip!—I'm enjoying this party enormously—it's awfully, awfully good of you—but I don't want you to do it any more—"
"Do what, Helena?"
"Please, I can get along without any more week-ends, or parties. You—you spoil me!"
"Well—we're going up to London, aren't we, soon? But I daresay you're right"—his tone grew suddenly grave. "While we dance, there is a terrible amount of suffering going on in the world."
"You mean—after the war?"
He nodded. "Famine everywhere—women and children dying—half a dozen bloody little wars. And here at home we seem to be on the brink of civil war."
"We oughtn't to be amusing ourselves at all!—that's the real truth of it," said Helena with gloomy decision. "But what are we to do—women, I mean? They told me at the hospital yesterday they get rid of their last convalescents next week. What is there for me to do? If I were a factory girl, I should be getting unemployment benefit. My occupation's gone—such as it was—it's not my fault!"
"Marry, my dear child,—and bring up children," said Buntingford bluntly.
"That's the chief duty of Englishwomen just now."
Helena flushed and said nothing. They drifted nearer to the bank, and Helena perceived, at the end of a little creek, a magnificent group of yew trees, of which the lower branches were almost in the water. Behind them, and to the side of them, through a gap in the wood, the moonlight found its way, but they themselves stood against the faint light, superbly dark, and impenetrable, black water at their feet. Buntingford pointed to them.
"They're fine, aren't they? This lake of course is artificial, and the park was only made out of arable land a hundred years ago. I always imagine these trees mark some dwelling-house, which has disappeared. They used to be my chief haunt when I was a boy. There are four of them, extraordinarily interwoven. I made a seat in one of them. I could see everything and everybody on the lake, or in the garden; and nobody could see me. I once overheard a proposal!"
"Eavesdropper!" laughed Helena. "Shall we land?—and go and look at them?"
She gave a touch to the rudder. Then a shout rang out from the landing-stage on the other side of the water.
"Ah, that's Geoffrey," said Buntingford. "And I must really get back to the house—to see people off."
With a little vigorous rowing they were soon across the lake. Helena sat silent. She did not want Geoffrey—she did not want to reach the land—she had been happy on the water—why should things end?
* * * * *
Geoffrey reported that all was well with Lady Georgina, she had gone home, and then stepping into the boat as Buntingford stepped out, he began to push off.
"Isn't it rather late?" began Helena in a hesitating voice, half rising from her seat. "I promised Peter a supper dance."
Geoffrey turned to look at her.
"Nobody's gone in to supper yet. Shall I take you back?"
There was something in his voice which meant that this tête-à-tête had been promised him. Helena resigned herself. But that she would rather have landed was very evident to her companion, who had been balked of half his chance already by Lady Georgina. Why did elderly persons liable to faint come to dances?—that was what he fiercely wanted to know as he pulled out into the lake.
Helena was very quiet. She seemed tired, or dreamy. Instinctively Geoffrey lost hold on his own purpose. Something warned him to go warily. By way of starting conversation he began to tell her of his own adventure on the lake—of the dumb woman among the trees, whom he had seen and spoken to, without reply. Helena was only moderately interested. It was some village woman passing through the wood, she supposed. Very likely the searchlight frightened her, and she knew she had no business there in June when there were young pheasants about—
"Nobody's started preserving again yet—" put in Geoffrey.
"Old Fenn told me yesterday that there were lots of wild ones," said
Helena languidly. "So there'll be something to eat next winter."
"Are you tired, Helena?"
"Not at all," she said, sitting up suddenly. "What were we talking about?—oh, pheasants. Do you think we really shall starve next winter, Geoffrey, as the Food Controller says?"
"I don't much care!" said French.
Helena bent forward.
"Now, you're cross with me, Geoffrey! Don't be cross! I think I really am tired. I seem to have danced for hours." The tone was childishly plaintive, and French was instantly appeased. The joy of being with her—alone—returned upon him in a flood.
"Well, then, rest a little. Why should you go back just yet? Isn't it jolly out here?"
"Lovely," she said absently—"but I promised Peter."
"That'll be all right. We'll just go across and back."
There was a short silence—long enough to hear the music from the house, and the distant voices of the dancers. A little northwest wind was creeping over the lake, and stirring the scents of the grasses and sedge-plants on its banks. Helena looked round to see in what direction they were going.
"Ah!—you see that black patch, Geoffrey?"
"Yes—it was near there I saw my ghost—or village woman—or lady's maid—whatever you like to call it."
"It was a lady's maid, I think," said Helena decidedly. "They have a way of getting lost. Do you mind going there?"—she pointed—"I want to explore it."
He pulled a stroke which sent the boat towards the yews; while she repeated Buntingford's story of the seat.
"Perhaps we shall find her there," said Geoffrey with a laugh.
"Your woman? No! That would be rather creepy! To think we had a spy on us all the time! I should hate that!"
She spoke with animation; and a sudden question shot across French's mind. She and Buntingford had been alone there under the darkness of the yews. If a listener had been lurking in that old hiding-place, what would he—or she—have heard? Then he shook the thought from him, and rowed vigorously for the creek.
He tied the boat to a willow-stump, and helped Helena to land.
"I warn you—" he said, laughing. "You'll tear your dress, and wet your shoes."
But with her skirts gathered tight round her she was already halfway through the branches, and Geoffrey heard her voice from the further side—
"Oh I—such a wonderful place!"
He followed her quickly, and was no less astonished than she. They stood in a kind of natural hall, like that "pillared shade" under the yews of Borrowdale, which Wordsworth has made immortal:
beneath whose sable roof
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked
With unrejoicing berries, Ghostly shapes
May meet at noon-tide; Fear and trembling Hope,
Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton
And Time the Shadow:—
For three yew trees of great age had grown together, forming a domed tent of close, perennial leaf, beneath which all other vegetation had disappeared. The floor, carpeted with "the pining members" of the yews, was dry and smooth; Helena's light slippers scarcely sank in it. They groped their way; and Helena's hand had slipped unconsciously into Geoffrey's. In the velvety darkness, indeed, they would have seen nothing, but for the fact that the moon stood just above the wood, and through a small gap in the dome, where a rotten branch had fallen, a little light came down.
"I've found the seat!" said Helena joyously, disengaging herself from her companion. And presently a dim ray from overhead showed her to him seated dryad-like in the very centre of the black interwoven trunks. Or, rather, he saw the sparkle of some bright stones on her neck, and the whiteness of her brow; but for the rest, only a suggestion of lovely lines; as it were, a Spirit of the Wood, almost bodiless.
He stood before her, in an ecstasy of pleasure.
"Helena!—you are a vision—a dream: Don't fade away! I wish we could stay here for ever."
"Am I a vision?" She put out a mischievous hand, and pinched him. "But come here, Geoffrey—come up beside me—look! Anybody sitting here could see a good deal of the lake!"
He squeezed in beside her, and true enough, through a natural parting in the branches, which no one could have noticed from outside, the little creek, with their boat in it, was plainly visible, and beyond it the lights on the lawn.
"A jolly good observation post for a sniper!" said Geoffrey, recollections of the Somme returning upon him; so far as he was able to think of anything but Helena's warm loveliness beside him. Mad thoughts began to surge up in him.
But an exclamation from Helena checked them:
"I say!—there's something here—in the seat."
Her hand groped near his. She withdrew it excitedly.
"It's a scarf, or a bag, or something. Let's take it to the light. Your woman, Geoffrey!"
She scrambled down, and he followed her unwillingly, the blood racing through his veins. But he must needs help her again through the close-grown branches, and into the boat.
She peered at the soft thing she held in her hand.
"It's a bag, a little silk bag. And there's something in it! Light a match, Geoffrey."
He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and obeyed her. Their two heads stooped together over the bag. Helena drew out a handkerchief—torn, with a lace edging.
"That's not a village woman's handkerchief!" she said, wondering. "And there are initials!"
He struck another match, and they distinguished something like F.M. very finely embroidered in the corner of the handkerchief. The match went out, and Helena put the handkerchief back into the bag, which she examined in the now full moonlight, as they drifted out of the shadow.
"And the bag itself is a most beautiful little thing! It's shabby and old, but it cost a great deal when it was new. What a strange, strange thing! We must tell Cousin Philip. Somebody, perhaps, was watching us all the time!"
She sat with her chin on her hands, gazing thoughtfully at French, the bag on her knees. Now that the little adventure was over, and she was begging him to take her back quickly to the house, Geoffrey was only conscious of disappointment and chagrin. What did the silly mystery in itself matter to him or her? But it had drawn a red herring across his track. Would the opportunity it had spoilt ever return?
CHAPTER X
It was a glorious June morning; and Beechmark, after the ball, was just beginning to wake up. Into the June garden, full of sun but gently beaten by a fresh wind, the dancers of the night before emerged one by one. Peter Dale had come out early, having quarrelled with his bed almost for the first time in his life. He was now, however, fast asleep in a garden-chair under a chestnut-tree. Buntingford, in flannels, and as fresh as though he had slept ten hours instead of three, strolled out through the library window, followed by French and Vivian Lodge.
"I say, what weather," said French, throwing himself down on the grass, his hands under his head. "Why can't Mother Nature provide us with this sort of thing a little more plentifully?"
"How much would any man jack of us do if it were always fine?" said Julian Horne, settling himself luxuriously in a deep and comfortable chair under a red hawthorn in full bloom. "When the weather makes one want to hang oneself, then's the moment for immortal works."
"For goodness' sake, don't prate, Julian!" said French, yawning, and flinging a rose-bud at Horne, which he had just gathered from a garden-bed at his elbow. "You've had so much more sleep than the rest of us, it isn't fair."
"I saw him sup," said Buntingford. "Who saw him afterwards?"
"No one but his Maker," said Lodge, who had drawn his hat over his eyes, and was lying on the grass beside French:—"and le bon Dieu alone knows what he was doing; for he wasn't asleep. I heard him tubbing at some unearthly hour in the room next to mine."
"I finished my article about seven a.m.," said Horne tranquilly—"while you fellows were sleeping off the effects of debauch."
"Brute!" said Geoffrey languidly. Then suddenly, as though he had remembered something, he sat up.
"By the way, Buntingford, I had an adventure yesterday evening—Ah, here comes Helena! Half the story's mine—and half is hers. So we'll wait a moment."
The men sprang to their feet. Helena in the freshest of white gowns, white shoes and a white hat approached, looking preoccupied. Lady Mary Chance, who was sitting at an open drawing-room window, with a newspaper she was far too tired to read on her lap, was annoyed to see the general eagerness with which a girl who occasionally, and horribly said "D—mn!" and habitually smoked, was received by a group of infatuated males. Buntingford found the culprit a chair, and handed her a cigarette. The rest, after greeting her, subsided again on the grass.
"Poor Peter!" said Helena, in a tone of mock pity, turning her eyes to the sleeping form under the chestnut. "Have I won, or haven't I? I bet him I would be down first."
"You've lost—of course," said Horne. "Peter was down an hour ago."
"That's not what I meant by 'down.' I meant 'awake.'"
"No woman ever pays a bet if she can help it," said Horne, "—though I've known exceptions. But now, please, silence. Geoffrey says he has something to tell us—an adventure—which was half his and half yours. Which of you will begin?"
Helena threw a quick glance at Geoffrey, who nodded to her, perceiving at the same moment that she had in her hand the little embroidered bag of the night before.
"Geoffrey begins."
"Well, it'll thrill you," said Geoffrey slowly, "because there was a spy among us last night—'takin' notes.'"
And with the heightening touches that every good story-teller bestows upon a story, he described the vision of the lake—the strange woman's face, as he had seen it in the twilight beside the yew trees.
Buntingford gradually dropped his cigarette to listen.
"Very curious—very interesting," he said ironically, as French paused, "and has lost nothing in the telling."
"Ah, but wait till you hear the end!" cried Helena. "Now, it's my turn."
And she completed the tale, holding up the bag at the close of it, so that the tarnished gold of its embroidery caught the light.
Buntingford took it from her, and turned it over. Then he opened it, drew out the handkerchief, and looked at the initials, "'F. M.'" He shook his head. "Conveys nothing. But you're quite right. That bag has nothing to do with a village woman—unless she picked it up."
"But the face I saw had nothing to do with a village woman, either," said French, with conviction. "It was subtle—melancholy—intense—more than that!—fierce, fiercely miserable. I guess that the woman possessing it would be a torment to her belongings if they happened not to suit her. And, my hat!—if you made her jealous!"
"Was she handsome?" asked Lodge.
Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders.
"Must have been—probably—when she was ten years younger."
"And she possessed this bag?" mused Buntingford—"which she or some one bought at Florence—for I've discovered the address of a shop in it—Fratelli Cortis, Via Tornabuoni, Firenze. You didn't find that out, Helena."
He passed the bag to her, pointing out a little printed silk label which had been sewn into the neck of it. Then Vivian Lodge asked for it and turned it over.
"Lovely work—and beautiful materials. Ah!—do you see what it is?"—he held it up—"the Arms of Florence, embroidered in gold and silver thread. H'm. I suppose, Buntingford, you get some Whitsuntide visitors in the village?"
"Oh, yes, a few. There's a little pub with one or two decent rooms, and several cottagers take lodgers. The lady, whoever she was, was scarcely a person of delicacy."
"She was in that place for an object," said Geoffrey, interrupting him with some decision. "Of that I feel certain. If she had just lost her way, and was trespassing—she must have known, I think, that she was trespassing—why didn't she answer my call and let me put her over the lake? Of course I should never have seen her at all, but for that accident of the searchlight."
"The question is," said Buntingford, "how long did she stay there? She was not under the yews when you saw her?"
"No—just outside."
"Well, then, supposing, to get out of the way of the searchlight, she found her way in and discovered my seat—how long do you guess she was there?—and when the bag dropped?"
"Any time between then—and midnight—when Helena found it," said French. "She may have gone very soon after I saw her, leaving the bag on the seat; or, if she stayed, on my supposition that she was there for the purpose of spying, then she probably vanished when she heard our boat drawn up, and knew that Helena and I were getting out."
"A long sitting!" said Buntingford with a laugh—"four hours. I really can't construct any reasonable explanation on those lines."
"Why not? Some people have a passion for spying and eavesdropping. If I were such a person, dumped in a country village with nothing to do, I think I could have amused myself a good deal last night, in that observation post. Through that hole I told you of, one could see the lights and the dancing on the lawn, and watch the boats on the lake. She could hear the music, and if anyone did happen to be talking secrets just under the yews, she could have heard every word, quite easily."
Involuntarily he looked at Helena, Helena was looking at the grass. Was it mere fancy, or was there a sudden pinkness in her cheeks? Buntingford too seemed to have a slightly conscious air. But he rose to his feet, with a laugh.
"Well, I'll have a stroll to the village, some time to-day, and see what I can discover about your Incognita, Helena. If she is a holiday visitor, she'll be still on the spot. Geoffrey had better come with me, as he's the only person who's seen her."
"Right you are. After lunch."
Buntingford nodded assent and went into the house.
* * * * *
The day grew hotter. Lodge and Julian Horne went off for a swim in the cool end of the lake. Peter still slept, looking so innocent and infantine in his sleep that no one had the heart to wake him. French and Helena were left together, and were soon driven by the advancing sun to the deep shade of a lime-avenue, which, starting from the back of the house, ran for half a mile through the park. Here they were absolutely alone. Lady Mary's prying eyes were defeated, and Helena incidentally remarked that Mrs. Friend, being utterly "jacked up," had been bullied into staying in bed till luncheon.
So that in the green sunflecked shadow of the limes, Geoffrey had—if Helena so pleased—a longer tête-à-tête before him, and a more generous opportunity, even, than the gods had given him on the lake. His pulses leapt; goaded, however, by alternate hope and fear. But at least he had the chance to probe the situation a little deeper; even if prudence should ultimately forbid him anything more.
Helena had chosen a wooden seat round one of the finest limes. Some books brought out for show rather than use, lay beside her. A piece of knitting—a scarf of a bright greenish yellow—lay on the lap of her white dress. She had taken off her hat, and Geoffrey was passionately conscious of the beauty of the brown head resting, as she talked, against the furrowed trunk of the lime. Her brown-gold hair was dressed in the new way, close to the head and face, and fastened by some sapphire pins behind the ear. From this dark frame, and in the half light of the avenue, the exquisite whiteness of the forehead and neck, the brown eyes, so marvellously large and brilliant, and yet so delicately finished in every detail beneath their perfect brows, and the curve of the lips over the small white teeth, stood out as if they had been painted on ivory by a miniature-painter of the Renaissance. Her white dress, according to the prevailing fashion, was almost low—as children's frocks used to be in the days of our great-grandmothers. It was made with a childish full bodice, and a childish sash of pale blue held up the rounded breast, that rose and fell with her breathing, beneath the white muslin. Pale blue stockings, and a pair of white shoes, with preposterous heels and pointed toes, completed the picture. The mingling, in the dress, of extreme simplicity with the cunningest artifice, and the greater daring and joie de vivre which it expressed, as compared with the dress of pre-war days, made it characteristic and symbolic:—a dress of the New Time.
Geoffrey lay on the grass beside her, feasting his eyes upon her—discreetly. Since when had English women grown so beautiful? At all the weddings and most of the dances he had lately attended, the brides and the débutantes had seemed to him of a loveliness out of all proportion to that of their fore-runners in those far-off days before the war. And when a War Office mission, just before the Armistice, had taken him to some munition factories in the north, he had been scarcely less seized by the comeliness of the girl-workers:—the long lines of them in their blue overalls, and the blue caps that could scarcely restrain the beauty and wealth of pale yellow or red-gold hair beneath. Is there something in the rush and flame of war that quickens old powers and dormant virtues in a race? Better feeding and better wages among the working-classes—one may mark them down perhaps as factors in this product of a heightened beauty. But for these exquisite women of the upper class, is it the pace at which they have lived, unconsciously, for these five years, that has brought out this bloom and splendour?—and will it pass as it has come?
Questions of this kind floated through his mind as he lay looking at
Helena, melting rapidly into others much more peremptory and personal.
"Are you soon going up to Town?" he asked her presently. His voice seemed to startle her. She returned evidently with difficulty from thoughts of her own. He would have given his head to read them.
"No," she said hesitatingly. "Why should we? It is so jolly down here.
Everything's getting lovely."
"I thought you wanted a bit of season! I thought that was part of your bargain with Philip?"
"Yes—but"—she laughed—"I didn't know how nice Beechmark was."
His sore sense winced.
"Doesn't Philip want you to go?"
"Not at all. He says he gets much more work done in Town, without Mrs.
Friend and me to bother him—"
"He puts it that way?"
"Politely! And it rests him to come down here for Sundays. He loves the riding."
"I shouldn't have thought the Sundays were much rest?"
"Ah, but they're going to be!" she said eagerly. "We're not going to have another party for a whole month. Cousin Philip has been treating me like a spoiled child—stuffing me with treats—and I've put an end to it!"
And this was the Helena that had stipulated so fiercely for her week-ends and her pals! The smart deepened.
"And you won't be tired of the country?"
"In the winter, perhaps," she said carelessly. "Philip and I have all sorts of plans for the things we want to do in London in the winter. But not now—when every hour's delicious!"
"Philip and I!"—a new combination indeed!
She threw her head back again, drinking in the warm light and shade, the golden intensity of the fresh leaf above her.
"And next week there'll be frost, and you'll be shivering over the fire," he threw at her, in a sarcastic voice.
"Well, even that—would be nicer—than London," she said slowly. "I never imagined I should like the country so much. Of course I wish there was more to do. I told Philip so last night."
"And what did he say?"
But she suddenly flushed and evaded the question.
"Oh, well, he hadn't much to say," said Helena, looking a little conscious. "Anyway, I'm getting a little education. Mrs. Friend's brushing up my French—which is vile. And I do some reading every week for Philip—and some drawing. By the way"—she turned upon her companion—"do you know his drawings?—they're just ripping! He must have been an awfully good artist. But I've only just got him to show me his things. He never talks of them himself."
"I've never seen one. His oldest friends can hardly remember that time in his life. He seems to want to forget it."
"Well, naturally!" said Helena, with an energy that astonished her listener; but before he could probe what she meant, she stooped over him:
"Geoffrey!"
"Yes!"
He saw that she had coloured brightly.
"Do you remember all that nonsense I talked to you a month ago?"
"I can remember it if you want me to. Something about old Philip being a bully and a tyrant, wasn't it?"
"Some rubbish like that. Well—I don't want to be maudlin—but I wish to put it on record that Philip isn't a bully and he isn't a tyrant. He can be a jolly good friend!"
"With some old-fashioned opinions?" put in Geoffrey mockingly.
"Old-fashioned opinions?—yes, of course. And you needn't imagine that I shall agree with them all. Oh, you may laugh, Geoffrey, but it's quite true. I'm not a bit crushed. That's the delightful part of it. It's because he has a genius—yes, a genius—for friendship. I didn't know him when I came down here—I didn't know him a bit—and I was an idiot. But one could trust him to the very last."
Her hands lay idly on the bright-coloured knitting, and Geoffrey could watch the emotion on her face.
"And one is so glad to be his friend!" she went on softly, "because he has suffered so!"
"You mean in his marriage? What do you know about it?"
"Can't one guess?" she went on in the same low voice. "He never speaks of her! There isn't a picture of her, of any sort, in the house. He used to speak of her sometimes, I believe, to mother—of course she never said a word—but never, never, to anyone else. It's quite clear that he wants to forget it altogether. Well, you don't want to forget what made you happy. And he says such bitter things often. Oh, I'm sure it was a tragedy!"
"Well—why doesn't he marry again?" Geoffrey had turned over on his elbows, and seemed to be examining the performances of an ant who was trying to carry off a dead fly four times his size.
Helena did not answer immediately, and Geoffrey, looking up from the ant, was aware of conflicting expressions passing across her face. At last she said, drawing a deep breath:
"Well, at least, I'm glad he's come to like this dear old place—He never used to care about it in the least."
"That's because you've made it so bright for him," said Geoffrey, finding a seat on a tree-stump near her, and fumbling for a cigarette. The praises of Philip were becoming monotonous and a reckless wish to test his own fate was taking possession of him.
"I haven't!"—said Helena vehemently. "I have asked all sorts of people down he didn't like—and I've made him live in one perpetual racket. I've been an odious little beast. But now—perhaps—I shall know better what he wants."
"Excellent sentiments!" A scoffer looked down upon her through curling rings of smoke. "Shall I tell you what Philip wants?"
"What?"
"He wants a wife."
The attentive eyes fixed on him withdrew themselves.
"Well—suppose he does?"
"Are you going to supply him with one? Lady Cynthia, I think, would accommodate you."
Helena flushed angrily.
"He hasn't the smallest intention of proposing to Cynthia. Nobody with eyes in their head would suggest it."
"No—but if you and he are such great friends—couldn't you pull it off?
It would be very suitable," said Geoffrey coolly.
Helena broke out—the quick breath beating against her white bodice:
"Of course I understand you perfectly, Geoffrey—perfectly! You're not very subtle—are you? What you're thinking is that when I call Philip my friend I'm meaning something else—that I'm plotting—intriguing—"
Her words choked her. Geoffrey put out a soothing hand—and touched hers.
"My dear child:—how could I suggest anything of the kind? I'm only a little sorry—for Philip,"
"Philip can take care of himself," she said passionately. "Only a stupid—conventional—mind could want to spoil what is really so—so—"
"So charming?" suggested Geoffrey, springing to his feet. "Very well, Helena!—then if Philip is really nothing more to you than your guardian, and your very good friend—why not give some one else a chance?"
He bent over her, his kind, clever face aglow with the feeling he could no longer conceal. Their eyes met—Helena's at first resentful, scornful even—then soft. She too stood up, and put out a pair of protesting hands—"Please—please, Geoffrey,—don't."
"Why not—you angel!" He possessed himself of one of the hands and made her move with him along the avenue, looking closely into her eyes. "You must know what I feel! I wanted to speak to you last night, but you tricked me. I just adore you, Helena! I've got quite good prospects—I'm getting on in the House of Commons—and I would work for you day and night!"
"You didn't adore me a month ago!" said Helena, a triumphant little smile playing about her mouth. "How you lectured me!"
"For you highest good," he said, laughing; though his heart beat to suffocation. "Just give me a word of hope, Helena! Don't turn me down, at once."
"Then you mustn't talk nonsense," she said vehemently, withdrawing her hand. "I don't want to be engaged! I don't want to be married! Why can't I be let alone?"
Geoffrey had turned a little pale. In the pause that followed he fell back on a cigarette for consolation. "Why can't you be let alone?" he said at last. "Why?—because—you're Helena!"
"What a stupid answer!" she said contemptuously. Then, with one of her quick changes, she came near to him again. "Geoffrey!—it's no good pressing me—but don't be angry with me, there's a dear. Just be my friend and help me!"
She put a hand on his arm, and the face that looked into his would have bewitched a stone.
"That's a very old game, Helena. 'Marry you? Rather not! but you may join the queue of rejected ones if you like.'"
A mischievous smile danced in Helena's eyes.
"None of them can say I don't treat them nicely!"
"I daresay. But I warn you I shan't accept the position for long. I shall begin again."
"Well, but not yet!—not for a long time," she pleaded. Then she gave a little impatient stamp, as she walked beside him.
"I tell you—I don't want to be bound. I won't be bound! I want to be free."
"So you said—à propos of Philip," he retorted drily.
He saw the shaft strike home—the involuntary dropping of the eyelids, the soft catch in the breath. But she rallied quickly.
"That was altogether different! You had no business to say that,
Geoffrey."
"Well, then, forgive me—and keep me quiet—just—just one kiss, Helena!"
The last passionate words were hardly audible. They had passed into the deepest shadow of the avenue. No one was visible in all its green length. They stood ensiled by summer; the great trees mounting guard. Helena threw a glance to right and left.
"Well, then—to keep you quiet—sans préjudice!"
She demurely offered her cheek. But his lips were scarcely allowed to touch it, she drew away so quickly.
"Now, then, that's quite settled!" she said in her most matter-of-fact voice. "Such a comfort! Let's go back."
They turned back along the avenue, a rather flushed pair, enjoying each other's society, and discussing the dance, and their respective partners.
It happened, however, that this little scene—at its most critical point—had only just escaped a spectator. Philip Buntingford passed across the further end of the avenue on his way to the Horne Farm, at the moment when Helena and Geoffrey turned their backs to him, walking towards the house. They were not aware of him; but he stopped a moment to watch the young figures disappearing under the green shade. A look of pleasure was in his blue eyes. It seemed to him that things were going well in that direction. And he wished them to go well. He had known Geoffrey since he was a little chap in his first breeches; had watched him through Winchester and Oxford, had taken as semi-paternal pride in the young man's distinguished war record, and had helped him with his election expenses. He himself was intimate with very few of the younger generation. His companions in the Admiralty work, and certain senior naval officers with whom that work had made him acquainted:—a certain intimacy, a certain real friendship had indeed grown up between him and some of them. But something old and tired in him made the effort of bridging the gulf between himself and men in their twenties—generally speaking—too difficult. Or he thought so. The truth was, perhaps, as Geoffrey had expressed it to Helena, that many of the younger men who had been brought into close official or business contact with him felt a real affection for him. Buntingford would have thought it strange that they should do so, and never for one moment assumed it.
After its languid morning, Beechmark revived with the afternoon. Its young men guests, whom the Dansworth rioters would probably have classed as parasites and idlers battening on the toil of the people, had in fact earned their holiday by a good many months of hard work, whether in the winding up of the war, or the re-starting of suspended businesses, or the renewed activities of the bar; and they were taking it whole-heartedly. Golf, tennis, swimming, and sleep had filled the day, and it was a crowd in high spirits that gathered round Mrs. Friend for tea on the lawn, somewhere about five o'clock. Lucy, who had reached that stage of fatigue the night before when—like Peter Dale, only for different reasons—her bed became her worst enemy, had scarcely slept a wink, but was nevertheless presiding gaily over the tea-table. She looked particularly small and slight in a little dress of thin grey stuff that Helena had coaxed her to wear in lieu of her perennial black, but there was that expression in her pretty eyes as of a lifted burden, and a new friendship with life, which persons in Philip Buntingford's neighbourhood, when they belonged to the race of the meek and gentle, were apt to put on. Peter Dale hung about her, distributing tea and cake, and obedient to all her wishes. More than once in these later weeks he had found, in the dumb sympathy and understanding of the little widow, something that had been to him like shadow in the desert. He was known to fame as one of the smartest young aide-de-camps in the army, and fabulously rich besides. His invitation cards, carelessly stacked in his Curzon Street rooms, were a sight to see. But Helena had crushed his manly spirit. Sitting under the shadow of Mrs. Friend, he liked to watch from a distance the beautiful and dazzling creature who would have none of him. He was very sorry for himself; but, all the same, he had had some rattling games of tennis; the weather was divine, and he could still gaze at Helena; so that although the world was evil, "the thrushes still sang in it."
Buntingford and Geoffrey were seen walking up from the lake when tea was nearly over.
All eyes were turned to them.
"Now, then," said Julian Horne—"for the mystery, and its key. What a pity mysteries are generally such frauds! They can't keep it up. They let you down when you least expect it."
"Well, what news?" cried Helena, as the two men approached. Buntingford shook his head.
"Not much to tell—very little, indeed."
It appeared to Horne that both men looked puzzled and vaguely excited. But their story was soon told. They had seen Richard Stimson, a labourer, who reported having noticed a strange lady crossing the park in the direction of the wood, which, however, she had not entered, having finally changed her course so as to bear towards the Western Lodge and the allotments.
"That, you will observe, was about ten o'clock," interjected French, "and I saw my lady about eight." Buntingford found a chair, lit a cigarette, and resumed:
"She appeared in the village some time yesterday morning and went into the church. She told the woman who was cleaning there that she had come to look at an old window which was mentioned in her guide-book. The woman noticed that she stayed some time looking at the monuments in the church, and the tombs in the Buntingford chantry, which all the visitors go to see. She ordered some sandwiches at the Rose-and-Crown and got into talk with the landlord. He says she asked the questions strangers generally do ask—'Who lived in the neighbourhood?'—If she took a lodging in the village for August were there many nice places to go and see?—and so on. She said she had visited the Buntingford tombs in the chantry, and asked some questions about the family, and myself—Was I married?—Who was the heir? etc. Then when she had paid her bill, she enquired the way across the park to Feetham Station, and said she would have a walk and catch a six o'clock train back to London. She loved the country, she said—and liked walking. And that really is—all!"