Marriage a la mode by Mrs. Humphry Ward (best book club books TXT) 📖

I told you about that affair of Theresa Weightman?"

A stare--an astonished admission. Precisely!

"Well, she's in great trouble. Her husband threatens absurdities. She has always confided in me--she trusts me, and I can't have that letter wandering about the world."

"I certainly sent it back!"

"No--you never sent it back. You have three of mine. And you know how careless you are--how you leave things about. I was always on tenterhooks. Look again, _please_! You must have some idea where they might be."

Perplexity--annoyance!

"When we sold the London house, all papers and documents were sent down here. We reserved a room--which was locked up."

"_A la bonne heure!_ Of course--there they are."

But all the same--great unwillingness to search. It was most unlikely he would be able to find anything--most unlikely there was anything to find. He was sure he had sent back everything. And then a look in the fine hazel eyes--like a horse putting back its ears.

All of no avail--against the laughing persistence which insisted on the letters. "But I must have them--I really must! It is a horrid tragedy, and I told you everything--things I had no business to tell you at all."

On which, at last, a grudging consent to look, followed by a marked determination to go back to the drawing-room....

But it was the second _tete-a-tete_ that was really adroit! After tea--just a touch on the arm--while the Duchess was showing the Nattiers to Mrs. Barnes, and Lelius was holding the lamp. "One moment more!--in the conservatory. I have a few things to add." And in that second little interview--about nothing, in truth--a mere piece of audacity--the lion's claws had been a good deal pared. He had been made to look at her, first and foremost; to realize that she was not afraid of him--not one bit!--and that he would have to treat her decently. Poor Roger! In a few years the girl he had married would be a plain and prickly little pedant--ill-bred besides--and he knew it.

As to more recent adventures. If people meet in society, they must be civil; and if old friends meet at a dance, there is an institution known as "sitting out"; and "sitting out" is nothing if not conversational; and conversation--between old friends and cousins--is beguiling, and may be lengthy.

The ball at Brendon House--Chloe still felt the triumph of it in her veins--still saw the softening in Roger's handsome face, the look of lazy pleasure, and the disapproval--or was it the envy?--in the eyes of certain county magnates looking on. Since then, no communication between Heston and Upcott.

* * * * *

Mrs. Fairmile was now a couple of miles from the meet. She had struck into a great belt of plantations bounding one side of the ducal estate. Through it ran a famous green ride, crossed near its beginning by a main road. On her right, beyond the thick screen of trees, was the railway, and she could hear the occasional rush of a train.

When she reached the cross road, which led from a station, a labourer opened the plantation gates for her. As he unlatched the second, she perceived a man's figure in front of her.

"Roger!"

A touch of the whip--her horse sprang forward. The man in front looked back startled; but she was already beside him.

"You keep up the old habit, like me? What a lovely day!"

Roger Barnes, after a flush of amazement and surprise, greeted her coldly: "It is a long way for you to come," he said formally. "Twelve miles, isn't it? You're not going to hunt?"

"Oh, no! I only came to look at the hounds and the horses--to remind myself of all the good old times. You don't want to remember them, I know. Life's gone on for you!"

Roger bent forward to pat the neck of his horse. "It goes on for all of us," he said gruffly.

"Ah, well!" She sighed. He looked up and their eyes met. The wind had slightly reddened her pale skin: her expression was one of great animation, yet of great softness. The grace of the long, slender body in the close-fitting habit; of the beautiful head and loosened hair under the small, low-crowned beaver hat; the slender hand upon the reins--all these various impressions rushed upon Barnes at once, bringing with them the fascination of a past happiness, provoking, by contrast, the memory of a harassing and irritating present.

"Is Heston getting on?" asked Mrs. Fairmile, smiling.

He frowned involuntarily.

"Oh, I suppose we shall be straight some day;" the tone, however, belied the words. "When once the British workman gets in, it's the deuce to get him out."

"The old house had such a charm!" said Chloe softly.

Roger made no reply. He rode stiffly beside her, looking straight before him. Chloe, observing him without appearing to do anything of the kind, asked herself whether the Apollo radiance of him were not already somewhat quenched and shorn. A slight thickening of feature--a slight coarsening of form--she thought she perceived them. Poor Roger!--had he been living too well and idling too flagrantly on these American dollars?

Suddenly she bent over and laid a gloved hand on his arm.

"Hadn't it?" she said, in a low voice.

He started. But he neither looked at her nor shook her off.

"What--the house?" was the ungracious reply. "I'm sure I don't know; I never thought about it--whether it was pretty or ugly, I mean. It suited us, and it amused mother to fiddle about with it."

Mrs. Fairmile withdrew her hand.

"Of course a great deal of it was ugly," she said composedly. "Dear Lady Barnes really didn't know. But then we led such a jolly life in it--_we_ made it!"

She looked at him brightly, only to see in him an angry flash of expression. He turned and faced her.

"I'm glad you think it was jolly. My remembrances are not quite so pleasant."

She laughed a little--not flinching at all--her face rosy to his challenge.

"Oh, yes, they are--or should be. What's the use of blackening the past because it couldn't be the present. My dear Roger, if I hadn't--well, let's talk plainly!--if I hadn't thrown you over, where would you be now? We should be living in West Kensington, and I should be taking boarders--or--no!--a country-house, perhaps, with paying guests. You would be teaching the cockney idea how to shoot, at half a guinea a day, and I should be buying my clothes second-hand through the _Exchange and Mart_. Whereas--whereas----"

She bent forward again.

"You are a very rich man--you have a charming wife--a dear little girl--you can get into Parliament--travel, speculate, race, anything you please. And I did it all!"

"I don't agree with you," he said drily. She laughed again.

"Well, we can't argue it--can we? I only wanted to point out to you the plain, bare truth, that there is nothing in the world to prevent our being excellent friends again--_now_. But first--and once more--_my letters!_"

Her tone was a little peremptory, and Roger's face clouded.

"I found two of them last night, by the merest chance--in an old dispatch-box I took to America. They were posted to you on the way here."

"Good! But there were three."

"I know--so you said. I could only find two."

"Was the particular letter I mentioned one of them?"

He answered unwillingly.

"No. I searched everywhere. I don't believe I have it."

She shook her head with decision.

"You certainly have it. Please look again."

He broke out with some irritation, insisting that if it had not been returned it had been either lost or destroyed. It could matter to no one.

Some snaring, entangling instinct--an instinct of the hunter--made her persist. She must have it. It was a point of honour. "Poor Theresa is so unhappy, so pursued! You saw that odious paragraph last week? I can't run the risk!"

With a groan of annoyance, he promised at last that he would look again. Then the sparkling eyes changed, the voice softened.

She praised--she rewarded him. By smooth transitions she slipped into ordinary talk; of his candidature for the County Council--the points of the great horse he rode--the gossip of the neighbourhood--the charms of Beatty.

And on this last topic he, too, suddenly found his tongue. The cloud--of awkwardness, or of something else not to be analyzed--broke away, and he began to talk, and presently to ask questions, with readiness, even with eagerness.

Was it right to be so very strict with children?--babies under three? Wasn't it ridiculous to expect them not to be naughty or greedy? Why, every child wanted as much sweetstuff as it could tuck in! Quite right too--doctors said it was good for them. But Miss Farmer----

"Who is Miss Farmer?" inquired Mrs. Fairmile. She was riding close beside him--an embodied friendliness--a soft and womanly Chloe, very different from the old.

"She's the nurse; my mother found her. She's a lady--by way of--she doesn't do any rough work--and I dare say she's the newest thing out. But she's too tight a hand for my taste. I say!--what do you think of this! She wouldn't let Beattie come down to the drawing-room yesterday, because she cried for a sweet! Wasn't that _devilish_!" He brought his hand down fiercely on his thigh.

"A Gorgon!" said Mrs. Fairmile, raising her eyebrows. "Any other qualifications? French? German?"

"Not a word. Not she! Her people live somewhere near here, I believe." Roger looked vaguely round him. "Her father managed a brick-field on this estate--some parson or other recommended her to mother."

"And you don't like her?"

"Well, no--I don't! She's not the kind of woman _I_ want." He blurted it out, adding hurriedly, "But my wife thinks a lot of her."

Chloe dismissed the topic of the nurse, but still let him run on about the child. Amazing!--this development of paternity in the careless, handsome youth of three years before. She was amused and bored by it. But her permission of it had thawed him--that she saw.

Presently, from the child she led him on to common acquaintance--old friends--and talk flowed fast. She made him laugh; and the furrows in the young brow disappeared. Now as always they understood each other at a word; there was between them the freemasonry of persons sprung from the same world and the same tradition; his daily talk with Daphne had never this easy, slipping pleasure. Meanwhile the horses sauntered on, unconsciously held back; and the magical autumn wood, its lights and lines and odours, played upon their senses.

At last Roger with a start perceived a gate in front. He looked at his watch, and she saw him redden.

"We shall be late for the meet."

His eyes avoided hers. He gathered up the reins, evidently conscious.

Smiling, she let him open the gate for her, and then as they passed into the road, shadowed with over-arching trees, she reined in Whitefoot, and bending forward, held out her hand. "Good-bye!"

"You're not coming?"

"I think I've had enough. I'll go home. Good-bye."

It was a relief. In both minds had risen the image of their arrival together--amid the crowd of the meet. As he looked at her--gratefully--the grace of her movement, the temptation of her eyes, the rush of old memories suddenly turned