by Guy McCrone
Again Phœbe laughed; this time to the postman’s bewilderment. What, he wondered, was there to laugh at?
“Now, how did you hear that?” she asked.
He looked surprised, scratched a ruddy, weather-beaten cheek, and pulled a white side-whisker reflectively. “Och. I don’t ken. Ye jist hear,” he said with embarrassment.
But Lady Hayburn, having been a farm child, was remembering. Country people had ways of knowing all about you and your affairs almost before you knew about them yourself. Henry and she had been here for a very short time, yet these cottages across the fields, with their rising, blue smoke, that far-off village over there in the haze, would know all about them already.
From the front steps of the house, Phœbe smiled down at him. “I don’t mind, you know,” she said. “Are you the regular postman?”
Aye.”
“We’ll see each other again, then.” She came down two steps and held out her hand.
The old man took off his postman’s hat as he returned the handshake. Thereafter he turned away, sturdily crunching the gravel of the drive with heavy boots, and deciding to spread the verdict that the new mistress of Whins of Endrick was “a nice like young wumman, that didna seem tae bother her heed wi’ the P’s and the Q’s”.
Phœbe examined the letters, strolling about in the sunlight. It was only ten o’clock. But Henry had gone more than two hours since. It was pleasant out here, with the lingering dew still wet upon the lawn; with the finches twittering across there among the tracery of the drooping birch branches. Inside, men were still working. There was intermittent hammering and a smell of paint.
Bills. One or two business letters addressed to herself; letters from tradespeople about this new house. Henry had left everything to her. He had enough on his hands, he said; both at the yards and on his stand in the Industrial Hall at the Exhibition. It must be ready for the opening on the second of May, and there was still much to do.
A letter with a French stamp in Robin’s handwriting addressed to his father. Her fingers had almost begun to tear it open, when she remembered that Robin was a grown man now, that she had no right to read what he wrote to Henry; until, at least, Henry had given her permission to do so. It had been different when he was a schoolboy.
She walked about, wondering. She thought of the news David had brought her, and the letter she had, as a consequence, written to Stephen Hayburn. Stephen must have got it by now. Had he taken action? And was Robin writing to his father about that? She could not think so. In these days, Robin stood closer to herself than to Henry. He would almost certainly write first to her about anything so difficult.
Phœbe bent down to look at a clump of primroses growing in the moss beneath the birches. The action was mechanical. Her mind was still on Robin. But the poor boy was scarcely grown up yet! Might not his uncles, after all, be imagining? It was difficult for her to believe that Robin could have the passions of a man.
A tradesman was signing to her from the doorway. She was glad to be forced to go back into the house, glad to be forced to drag her mind from nagging thoughts, glad to be forced to make decisions about such things as painting and carpets.
II
It was Sir Henry Hayburn’s custom, when he got home in the evening, to drink a large and strongly-brewed cup of tea to which much cream and sugar had been added. He claimed that this whetted his appetite for dinner. He was standing by a window, still in his old Inverness, drinking this when Phœbe gave him Robin’s letter. He laid down the cup on the windowsill and tore it open.
The letter was long and, for Robin, strangely humble. He had written what he had resolved to write with as much bare truth as his sense of the dramatic would allow him. He sought to hide nothing, realising, as he said, that he could not ask for his father’s help so long as he kept things from him. Denise was older, but they loved each other dearly. Yet some strange scruple—he guessed an old unhappiness, or an early shock of some kind—made her quite determined against marriage. His father might not yet know this, but with Denise’s help he was writing stories, one of which had already been accepted at a very good price. Thus he could look to keeping himself if need be. Yet, since he felt better in health, he would even go so far as promise to give up writing, if only his parents would help him with Denise now, for this matter of Denise could not wait. And she must, surely, after what had happened between them, come to see that marriage was the only thinkable course. Thus Robin’s letter went on confessing, arguing, and pleading, through several pages.
Having read it, Sir Henry put it down on the windowsill, took up his teacup and went on drinking his tea, staring out of the window as he drank.
His wife could not read his face. “Henry. What does Robin say?”
“Better read for yourself.”
Phœbe raised her eyes to her husband’s face at the end of the reading. She expected to find it dark with anger, but instead it was flushed and meek, and his eyes would not meet her own. Years ago she had seen this look, suffered bitterly, and at last learnt the ways of compassion. Compassion came first now. She ran to Henry and put her arms about him. “Henry! He’s just a child. It’s a boy’s madness.”
“He’s my son.” Henry stood stiff in her arms.
“He’s my son, too. If he’s yours he’s mine. You’ve never grudged my right to him before.”
“Grudged? Do you want him?”
Crushing his stiffness to her she cried out: “Want! Want my own son! Want Robin! Did I want him when I took your baby from you that night in Vienna?”
“He’s my blood, Phœbe. Poor stuff.”
She could feel his body shudder with a dry sob. Her voice softened, as she drew down his reluctant head and kissed him. “Oh, Henry! Don’t behave as if the end of the world was here. Come and sit down.” She led him to a seat. How well she knew that look, as he sat there. The old look of bewildered fecklessness. She let him sit thus for a time, herself walking about in the room. Presently, as she turned to him, she saw that he was looking at her. “Henry,” she said, “what are we going to do?”
“Do?”
“Yes. Surely you realise you must do something.”
He nodded. “Yes. Something.” Again he sat pondering stupidly for a time. But to a man who is by nature decisive, decision must come. “I can still manage to get a late train for London,” he said.
“London, Henry?”
“Then I can cross the Channel tomorrow.”
So he was going to Robin. “Oh, Henry! I had better come with you.”
“No. I’ll send for you if I want you. You had better stay and tell everybody where I am. They’ll be wondering. But don’t tell them too much.”
III
It had been easy to get a sleeping-berth on a Riviera train. At this time of the year fashion was travelling north, not south.
Henry lay heavy-headed and unable to sleep. It was his second night thus, and the intervening day had been taken up in crossing the Channel and getting himself to Paris. He was tired out.
Now, in the swaying, hurrying darkness, his thoughts revolved in circles. Robin. The boy was a fool. He must be rescued from this woman. But it must be done with care. For Robin was excitable and frail.
That rush job in the shipyard he had promised to supervise himself? What would they do about it? Would they have sense enough to grasp his long telegram of instructions, written out in the train last night and sent back from London? This unforeseen absence might cost him several thousand pounds. But then there was Robin. He must go to look after Robin.
And the stand at the Exhibition? He had not been able to give the final directions about that either. What would people think if Hayburn and Company—? But there was no choice. He must travel south to his son.
What was all this nonsense about writing? Who was encouraging Robin to write? Was it that woman who thought she had got hold of him? The boy must have been keeping low company ever to have met her.
Low company? Memory pointed an accusing fin
ger. Henry stirred, uneasy and restless, in this narrow bed that was flying through the night. Now, from the front, he could hear the whistle of the French locomotive; the high foreign note as the train rushed over a level crossing.
And yet if he, Henry Hayburn, had not transgressed, there would have been no Robin. None of the thousand gentle moments of his growing up. None of this present pain. But none of the joy Robin’s existence had brought to them. Brought to himself and—amazingly—to Phœbe. Phœbe, to whom that existence should have been an insult. Where did wrong stop and right begin?
Round in circles. The weary thoughts of a brain that could make decisions that were unemotional and concrete; a brain that could only grope among the dilemmas of the spirit.
But he had had enough of this. He sat up, threw back the sheets, uncovered his roof-light, and found his pipe. That was better. The taste of tobacco helped to clear his thinking. He looked at his watch. It was three o’clock.
Robin. What, then, must be the first step? What was the plan of action? Henry’s eyes, ranging aimlessly, caught the railway map framed there on the wall to show the route the train was taking. Marseilles. And then, thereafter, along the French Riviera through the well-known towns. Cannes, Nice, Monte Carlo, Mentone. These last two resorts lay within easy reach of each other. The train would get to Marseilles in the morning. Thereafter it took many hours to follow the coastline to Mentone. That gave him time to wire Stephen from Marseilles. He would get out at Monte Carlo, where Stephen must meet him. He would find out how to see and talk to this woman before his son even knew he was in the south.
That was better. Something to go on. Henry smoked his pipe to a finish, put it away, and got back into bed. Soon he was actually feeling drowsy.
IV
It was the following afternoon.
Never did a less pleasure-seeking visitor than Sir Henry Hayburn descend at Monte Carlo’s beflowered railway station. In the rush of arriving elegance, the exuberance of French greetings, it was some time before he could find his brother on the platform. He had, indeed, begun to wonder if the sleeping-car attendant had put the money for the telegram into his pocket.
But now Sir Henry saw a well-dressed gentleman moving towards him. “Stephen! So you got my wire? Good of you to come.”
Stephen was always pleased to see his younger brother. There had never been a lack of warmth between them. Indulgently, he took note that Henry had cut himself with his razor in the train this morning, had not bothered to have his boots polished, and looked as though he had been sleeping all night in his clothes. “My dear boy! I never got such a surprise in my life! But why not Mentone? Why not tell Robkin?”
“Take me to some hotel. I may stay here all night,” Henry said. “Robin wrote me a letter. I’ll tell you about it there. Have you been at somebody’s wedding today?”
Stephen raised quizzical eyebrows. “Why?”
“That flower. And all your get-up.”
Stephen looked down at the carnation in his buttonhole. His smile became kindly. “My dear boy! These things grow wild round about here. And my clothes? Well? A man can’t be shabby in these parts, you know.”
The clerk of the unimposing hotel Henry insisted upon choosing had some difficulty in understanding that, of the two gentlemen, the untidy one with the dirty collar was Sir Henry Hayburn. The other gentleman seemed so much more like what he would have expected somehow.
“Well, Henry, what’s this all about?” Stephen asked as the bedroom door closed upon them.
“Robin. He has written to me. How much do you know?”
Stephen took his grey top hat and laid it with his gloves on Henry’s bed. Thereafter, he sat down and contemplatively dangled his malacca cane by its silver head. “You mean about Robin and this unfortunate flutter?”
“Yes. If you like to call it that.”
“I’m sorry about it, Henry. Yes, he’s been talking to me a bit. As a matter of fact, I’m deuced glad to see you. Too much worry for his old uncle.” Stephen went on dangling his cane sympathetically.
Henry looked at him, grunted, drew Robin’s letter from his pocket, and handed it over. Stephen put down his cane, fixed his glass, and began to read it.
While he did so, Henry took off his jacket, loosened his collar, pulled off his shirt, poured cold water into his wash-basin, soaped his entire head and his neck, then rinsed and dried them. As he took out a clean shirt, a floor-valet in a green apron appeared with a can of hot water for the newly-arrived guest, put it down, and withdrew.
Stephen looked up. “What do you mean to do?” he asked.
“I’ve decided to see that woman. I want you to keep the boy out of the way.”
“He’s in bed today, as a matter of fact. Cold—or—I don’t know. The old trouble. Life upsetting him a bit, I daresay. Now don’t turn and look at me like that, Henry. The doctor thinks it’ll be nothing. I’ll tip the old man the wink to keep him in bed most of tomorrow. You’re almost certain to find the lady at home in the morning. And by the way, my dear old man, you must see Lucy. You haven’t said a word to me about my flutter yet!”
Chapter Twenty
ROBIN’S talk of marriage had left Denise disturbed. It had left a sense of tension. Now the note of their relationship was forced. His desperate earnestness had shaken her, leaving her self-accusing and on edge. Her work was suffering. It was impossible that things could go on like this.
Out on her balcony this morning, staring at the boats, the people, and the come and go of traffic on the quay beneath her, Denise sat wondering what she had better do. Go away? No. At least, not yet. She could not, thus easily, bring herself to give him up. Yesterday he had sent a note that he was kept in bed; an affectionate, plaintive note that had alarmed her. Was he really ill? She did not like the idea of his lying down there, sick and unhappy. But she had not been quite surprised. In these last days he had looked strained. Yet he had said nothing to her, except to own once that he was sleeping badly.
Denise sighed. If he were still unwell tomorrow she would go down to the hotel and ask Lucy Hayburn to take her to his room. Lucy could, she felt, scarcely refuse her.
Denise looked out across the flat waters of Garavan Bay at the still, airless mountainside. It was unnaturally hot for a day in late April. Sultry.
Crossing to her table, she fingered the pages upon which she should be working. No. Something must be done. Why on earth had she allowed herself to become entangled with a young man whose ways, whose ideas were so different from her own?
But she must try to do a bit of this. She pulled over her chair.
Her woman came out. “A monsieur asking to see Mademoiselle.”
“Who is he, Philomene?”
Philomene did not know. She had never seen him before.
“I’ll come.” Disinclined for work, Denise was glad of interruption.
A lean, angular man was standing in the doorway. She saw at once he was not French, that his untidy clothes had been made for a colder land. And that his expression, too, was oddly familiar. But where could she have seen this man before? His movements seemed awkward and embarrassed as he came forward into the light.
“Yes?” she said, speaking the word in English.
“Miss St. Roch?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” He appeared surprised. Why? Did she look to him other than he had expected. “My name is Henry Hayburn.”
“Sir Henry Hayburn?”
“Yes.” He blushed, she saw, conscious of her womanhood.
“Please sit down.”
“Thank you.” For a time he waited hesitant, sitting erect in his chair, until, forced by her determined silence and by the question in her face, he added: “Miss St. Roch, I’m Robin Hayburn’s father.”
“Of course! That’s where the familiar look comes from. Oh no, I’m sorry. It wouldn’t. You’re only his foster-father. Isn’t that so?”
“Robin seems to have told you a lot of things, Miss St. Roch.”
“Ye
s, he has, Sir Henry. He’s a great friend of mine.”
“I know.”
She was unsure of what to say to this. But of one thing she was sure: she was sure she did not mean to sit before him listening to a paternal lecture. “I hear Robin has been ill,” she said. “How is he? I hope it isn’t much.”
“I haven’t seen him yet. He doesn’t even know I’m in this town. I wanted to see you first, Miss St. Roch.” Sir Henry might blush in her presence, responding to her womanhood, but he intended to say what he had come to say.
“See me first, Sir Henry?” She, too, felt her colour mounting.
“Some days ago, Miss St. Roch, I got a letter from my son telling me all about his very close friendship with you. Everything. He wants my help to persuade you to marry him.” He stopped, obviously waiting to see the effect of his words.
Anger had begun to rise in her, but as yet she did not show it. “Well, Sir Henry?” she asked. “And now you’ve had a look at me, does that make sense to you?”
“No, it does not.”
Despite her growing annoyance, Denise had the curiosity to ask: “Why?”
“Well, anybody could see you’re too old and too clever. But if you’re thinking about it, remember that my boy is very young, that he is ill, and that he hasn’t got a penny of his own.”
Denise jumped up. “Do you actually think I’ve been attracting Robin for his money, Sir Henry?”
“I haven’t said so. But such things have been known.” Then, because, perhaps, of her look of intense displeasure: “Oh, I’ll admit I expected quite a different type of person, Miss St. Roch. Not a young woman of education.”
“Thank you, Sir Henry.” Her voice was icy. “But money has never entered with myself and Robin. Never! Whatever there was about the rest of it!”
Now he, too, was standing up, wondering what next to say to her. “I’m taking my son away, Miss St. Roch, just as soon as I can take him,” he said at last.
A cloud crossed her face and was gone. “Quite right, Sir Henry! See that he’s kept away from people like me!” Then, with a cry, as though to relieve her feelings: “Oh, I’m sick of family interference, sick of silly talk!” Again she turned to him. “But thanks for making up my mind for me. I’m getting out of here. So don’t be in a hurry. Your son will never see me again! I’m disappearing today—at once.” She went to the door and flung it open. “Goodbye, Sir Henry Hayburn,” she said.
