CHAPTER XXXI
Gossett in the country was a very different person from Gossett inGrosvenor Square. An intimate at Mandeleys was not at all the samething as a caller in town, and David found himself welcomed thatevening with a grave but confidential smile.
"The drawing-room here is closed for the present, sir," he observed,after he had superintended the bestowal of David's coat and hat upon anunderling. "We are using the gallery on the left wing. If you will beso kind as to come this way."
David was escorted into a long and very lofty apartment, cut off fromthe hall by some wonderful curtains, obviously of another generation.The walls were hung with pictures and old-fashioned weapons. At thefar end was a small stage, and at the opposite extremity a little boxwhich had apparently at some time been used by musicians. Some largebeech logs were burning in an open fireplace. The room containednothing in the way of furniture except a dozen or so old-fashionedchairs and a great settee.
"These large rooms," Gossett explained, "get a little damp, sir, so hislordship desired a fire here."
He had scarcely disappeared when a door which led into the gallery wasopened, and Lady Letitia came slowly down the stairs. The place waslit only by hanging lamps, and David's impression of her, as he turnedaround, were a little unsubstantial. All the way down the stairs andacross that strip of floor, it seemed to him that he could see nothingbut her face. She carried herself as usual, there was all the pride ofgenerations of Mandeleys in her slow, unhurried movements and thecarriage of her head. But her face.--David gripped at the back of oneof the tall chairs. He made at first no movement towards her. Thiswas the face of a woman into which he looked. The change there was socomplete that the high walls seemed to melt away. It was just such avision as he might have conceived to himself. Her words checked thefancies which were pouring into his brain. He became again the puzzledbut everyday dinner guest.
"I am very glad that you have come, Mr. Thain," she said, giving himher hand, "and I am very glad indeed to see you alone, even if it isonly for a moment, because I feel--perhaps it is my thoughts thatfeel--that they owe you an amende."
"You are very kind," he replied, a little bewildered. "I am glad to behere. What have you ever done which needs apology?"
"I spoke of my thoughts," she reminded him, with a little smile. "WhatI once thought, or rather feared, I am now ashamed of, and now that Ihave told you so I am more at ease."
She stood up by his side, little flashes of firelight lighting her softwhite skin, gleaming upon the soft fabric of her gown. She wore noornaments. The Mandeleys pearls, generally worn by the unmarried womenof the family, were reposing in the famous vaults of a West Endpawnbroker. Her strong, capable fingers were innocent of even a singlering, although upon her dressing table there was even at that momentreposing a very beautiful pearl one, concerning which she had made someinsignificant criticism with only one object, an object which sherefused to admit even to herself. David remained silent through sheerwonder. He had a sudden feeling that he had been admitted, even if foronly these few moments, into the inner circle of hertoleration--perhaps even more than that.
"I hurried down," she explained, "just to say these few words, and Isee that I was only just in time."
The curtain had been raised without their noticing it, and the Duchess,with Grantham by her side, had entered. There was a slight frown uponthe latter's forehead; the Duchess was humming softly to herself.
"Well, Sir Anthony, so you've kept your word," she said to David, whenhe had shaken hands with Grantham. "I can see quite well what thecountry is going to do for you, unless you are looked after. Theamiable misanthrope is the part you have in your mind. Gracious!Motors outside! Have we got a party, Letitia?"
Letitia, who to David's keen observation seemed already to have lostsomething of that strange new quality which she had shown to him only afew moments ago, shook her head.
"The Vicar and Mrs. Vicar, and the Turnbulls, and Sylvia's father."
"I am not going to be bored," the Duchess declared firmly. "I insistupon sitting next to Mr. Thain. How pretty Sylvia looks! And what abecoming colour! Now listen to me, David Thain," she went on, drawinghim a little on one side, "you are not to flirt with that child. It'slike shooting them before they begin to fly. You understand?"
"Not guilty," David protested. "I can assure you that I am a passivevictim."
"Silly little goose," the Duchess murmured under her breath, "waitingthere for you to go and speak to her, with all sorts of sentimentalnonsense shining out of her great eyes, too. I shall go and talk toold General Turnbull till the gong goes. Why we can't have dinnerpunctually with a small party like this, I can't imagine."
Sylvia was certainly glad to welcome David. Her father came up in afew moments and shook hands heartily.
"Still buy your own cutlets, eh, Mr. Thain?" he asked. "Jolly goodcutlets they were, too!"
"I suppose you have a housekeeper and all sorts of things," Sylvialaughed, "and live in what they call regal magnificence."
David's protest was almost eager.
"I have a man and his wife who came down with me from London," he said,"and one or two servants--very few, I can assure you. Won't you comeand try my housekeeping, Colonel, before you move on, and bring MissSylvia?"
"With pleasure, my boy," the Colonel declared. "We leave for town nextSaturday. Any day between now and then that suits Sylvia."
Dinner was announced, and David found himself placed at a round tablebetween the Duchess and Sylvia. The former looked around thebanqueting hall with a shiver.
"Reginald," she protested, "why on earth do you plant us in the middleof a vault like this? Why on earth not open up some of the smallerrooms?"
The Marquis smiled deprecatingly. His extreme pallor of the last fewdays had disappeared. He seemed younger, and his tone was more alert.
"This room is really a weakness of mine," he confessed. "I like avaulted roof, and I rather like the shadows. It isn't damp, if that iswhat you are thinking of, Caroline. We have had fires in it ever sincewe came down--timber being the only thing for which we don't have topay," he added.
"It makes one feel so insignificant," the Duchess sighed. "If you weredining fifty or sixty people, of course, I should love it, but a dozenof us--why, we seem like spectral mites! Look at old Grand-UnclePhilip staring at us," she went on, gazing at one of the huge picturesopposite. "Pity you cannot afford to have electric light here,Reginald, and have it set in the frames."
"A most unpleasant idea!" her brother objected. "Confess, now, if youcould see two rows of ancestors, all illuminated, looking at you whileyou ate, wouldn't it make you feel greedy?"
The conversation drifted away and became general. The Duchess leanedtowards her neighbour.
"I think I am rather sorry I came here," she whispered.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because I find you disappointing. I thoroughly enjoyed discoveringyou upon the steamer. You were delightfully primitive, an absolutecave-dweller, but you quite repaid my efforts to make a human being ofyou. You were really almost as interesting when we first met inLondon. And now, I don't know what it is, but you seem to have gonethousands of miles away again. You don't seem properly human. Don'tyou like women, or have you got some queer scheme in your head whichkeeps you living like a man with his head in the clouds? Or are you inlove?"
"I haven't settled down to idleness yet, perhaps," he suggested.
"Of course," she went on, "you ought to be in love with me, andmiserable about it, but I am horribly afraid you aren't. I believe youhave matrimonial schemes in your mind. I believe that your affectionsare so well-trained that they mean to trot all along the broad way toSt. George's, Hanover Square."
"And would you advise something different?" he asked bluntly.
"My dear man, why am I here?" she expostulated. "I have a fancy forhaving you devoted to me. What I mean to do with it when I havecaptured your heart, I am not quit
e sure."
Every one was listening to a story which old General Turnbull wastelling. Even Sylvia had leaned across the table. David turned andlooked steadily into his companion's face.
"It seems to me," he said, "that only a very short time ago, Duchess,out of solicitude for my extreme ignorance, you warned me againstsetting my affections too high."
"I was speaking then of marriage," she replied coolly.
"I see! And yet," he went on, "I am not quite sure that I do see. Isthere any radical difference between marriage and a really intimatefriendship between a man and a woman?"
She smiled. Her slight movement towards him was almost a caress.
"My dear, unsophisticated cave-dweller!" she murmured. "Marriage is analliance which lasts for all time. It is apt, is it not, to leave itsstamp upon future generations. Great friendships have existed amongstpeople curiously diverse in tastes and temperament and position. Acertain disparity, in fact, is rather the vogue."
"I begin to understand," he admitted. "That accounts for the curiousclub stories which one is always having dinned into one's ears,hatefully uninteresting though they are, of Lady So-and-So entertaininga great fiddler at her country house, or some other Society ladydancing in a singular lack of costume for the pleasure of artists in aborrowed studio."
"You are not nearly so nice-minded as I thought you were," the Duchesssnapped.
"It is just my painful efforts to understand," he protested.
"Any one but an idiot would have understood long ago," she retorted.
David turned to his left-hand neighbour.
"The Duchess is being unkind," he said. "Will you please take somenotice of me?"
"I'd love to," she replied. "I was just thinking that you were ratherneglecting me. I want to know all about America, please, and Americanpeople."
"I am afraid," he told her, "that I know much more about America than Ido about American people. All my life, since I left Harvard, I havebeen busy making money. I never went into Society over there. I neveraccepted an invitation if I could help it. When I had any time tospare I went and camped out, up in the Adirondacks, or further afieldstill, when I could. We had lots of sport, and we were able to lead asimple life, well away from the end of the cable."
"And you killed bears and things, I suppose?" she said. "How luckythat you are fond of sport! It makes living in England so easy."
He smiled.
"I am not so sure," he confessed, "that I should consider England quiteso much of a sporting country as she thinks herself."
"What heresy!" the Marquis exclaimed, leaning forward.
"Of course, I didn't know that I was going to be overheard," David saidgood-humouredly, "but I must stick to it. I mean, of course, sport asapart from games."
"Shooting?" the Marquis queried.
"I am afraid I don't consider that shooting at birds, half of themhand-reared, is much of a sport," David continued. "Have you evertried pig-sticking, or lying on the edge of a mountain after threehours' tramp, watching for the snout of a bear?"
Letitia had broken off her conversation with Lord Charles and wasleaning a little forward. The Marquis nodded sympathetically.
"Hunting, then?"
David smiled.
"You gallop over a pastoral country on a highly-trained animal, with apack of assistant hounds to destroy one miserable, verminous creature,"he said. "Of course, you take risks now and then, and the whole thinglooks exceedingly nice on a Christmas card, but for thrills, for real,intense excitement, I prefer the mountain ledge and the bear, or therounding up of a herd of wild elephants."
"Mr. Thain preserves the instincts of the savage," the Duchessobserved, as she sipped her wine. "Perhaps he may be right.Civilisation certainly tends to emasculate sport."
"The sports to which Mr. Thain has alluded," the Marquis pointed out,"are the sports of the stay-at-home Englishman. Most of our youngergeneration--those whose careers permitted of it--have tried their handat big game shooting. I myself," he continued reminiscently, "havenever felt quite the same with a shotgun and a stream of pheasants,since a very wonderful three weeks I had in my youth, tiger hunting inIndia.--I see that Letitia is trying to catch your eye, Caroline."
The women left the room in a little group, their figures merging almostinto indistinctness as they passed out of the lighted zone. David'seyes followed Letitia until she had disappeared. Then he was consciousthat a servant was standing with a note on a salver by his side.
"This has been sent down from Broomleys, sir," the man explained.
David took it and felt a sudden sinking of the heart. The envelope wasthin, square and of common type, the writing was painstaking butirregular. There was a smudge on one corner, a blot on another. Davidglanced at the Marquis, who nodded and immediately commenced aconversation with Grantham. He tore open his message and read it:
"The time has arrived. I wait for you here."
He crushed the half-sheet of notepaper in his fingers and then droppedit into his pocket.
"There is no answer," he told the servant.
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