CHAPTER IX
THE ENEMY MOVES
"And you mean to say that this French secretary of Trevor's actually lives in the house?" said Aunt Philippa.
"But of course he does," said Chris, opening her eyes wide.
"And is Trevor never away?" demanded Aunt Philippa.
"He hasn't been, but he talks of spending a night in town next week."
"And you will go with him?"
"No, I don't think so. It's too hot."
"Then I presume M. Bertrand will?"
Chris flushed a little. "I don't suppose so. He is feeling the heat too."
She stretched up her hands above her head. "How I wish it would rain!"
Aunt Philippa continued her knitting severely in silence. They were sitting on the terrace awaiting the luncheon-hour. Across the garden came Noel's shrill whistle, and instinctively, before she remembered her aunt's presence, Chris answered it. The boy appeared at the farther end of the long lawn, and came racing towards them.
"Just seen the postman, Chris. Here's a letter for you—such a horrible fist, Sandacre post-mark, and sealed. Wonder who it's from?"
He leaned against her chair to recover his breath and regarded the envelope he held with frank interest.
Chris stretched up her hand for it. "I expect it's from Mrs. Pouncefort."
"Mrs. Pouncefort doesn't write like that!" protested Noel. "No woman could."
"May I have it?" said Chris.
He put it into her hand, but he still leaned against her chair. "Be quick and open it, I say! It looks important."
"I don't suppose it is," said Chris; but she opened it notwithstanding with some curiosity.
Aunt Philippa had arrived only the night before, but she was already very tired of her society, and any diversion was welcome.
"You don't mind?" she murmured to her aunt.
Her eyes were already upon the first page as she spoke. She frowned over the unfamiliar handwriting.
Noel studied it also over her shoulder. "What on earth—" he began.
She looked up suddenly, and crumpled the paper in her hand. "Noel, go away! How dare you!"
He stared at her in amazement. A sharp word from Chris was most unusual.
Aunt Philippa looked up also.
"My dear girl, it isn't private, is it?" said Noel.
Chris was scarlet. She seemed to breathe with difficulty. "Of course it's private! All my letters are private!"
"But it comes from the Pounceforts," objected Noel. "I saw 'Sandacre
Court' at the top of the page."
Chris sprang to her feet impetuously with blazing eyes. "And what if it does? You had no right to look over me. It was a hateful thing to do. What if it does come from Mrs. Pouncefort? Is it mine any the less for that?"
"Oh, don't get huffy!" remonstrated Noel. "Look at you! Anyone would think you had got the palsy. But you needn't pretend it's from Mrs. Pouncefort, because I know better."
"It—it is from Mrs. Pouncefort!" declared Chris.
"Which is a lie," rejoined Noel, with the utmost calmness. "I know you, my dear girl, I know you. You've told 'em before."
"Noel!" Aunt Philippa interposed her voice with extreme dignity. "You forget yourself. If you cannot speak with ordinary courtesy, be good enough to leave us."
Noel heeded the remonstrance no more than if it had been the buzzing of a fly. Chris's spark of temper had kindled his.
"Oh, you can swear it's the truth till all's blue," he declared, raising his voice recklessly. "But that doesn't make it so. In fact, it only makes the contrary all the more likely. Besides, you know you do lie, Chris, so you needn't deny it."
"Noel!"
It was not Aunt Philippa's voice this time, and it had in it so firm a note of authority that instinctively Noel turned.
Mordaunt, just returned from a ride, was standing in his shirt-sleeves at an open window above them. All the colour went out of Chris's face at sight of him, but he did not look at her.
"Come up here," he said to Noel. "I want to speak to you."
"Not coming," said Noel promptly.
"Come up here," Mordaunt repeated.
"What for?" Noel looked up at him, hands in pockets. "You'll be late for lunch if you don't buck up," he remarked, with a smile of cheery impudence.
His brother-in-law's face did not reflect his smile. It was grimly determined. "Come up here," he said again.
"Do go, Noel," Chris murmured uneasily.
"I won't," said Noel doggedly. "I'm not going to be pitched into for nothing. It was you who told the lie, not me."
"Oh, don't be absurd!" exclaimed Chris, in a fever of impatience. "Surely you're not afraid of him!"
"Anyone can see you are," retorted Noel. "I'll bet you daren't go yourself!"
She turned from him sharply without another word, and entered the house.
She met her husband on the threshold of his room, and pushed him impulsively back, her hands against his breast.
"Trevor, please don't be angry with him. He—we often go on like that.
There is nothing to be angry about—indeed."
He took her hands and held them. She was panting a little; he waited while she recovered herself. Then, "Chris," he said very gently, "don't you think it is time you left off being afraid of me?"
"But when you are angry—" murmured Chris.
"You have never seen me angry yet."
"You are not angry with Noel?" she asked quickly.
He smiled a little. "My dear child, Noel is no more capable of making me angry than that fly on the ceiling. But I am not going to have him behaving badly for all that."
"But he didn't," she urged, in distress. "It was all my fault. Trevor—Trevor, please don't say any more! He was quite right. I—I didn't tell the truth."
She made the confession in a broken whisper, with her face hidden against him. But a moment later she had sprung away in haste, for there came the clatter of careless feet upon the stairs, and Noel dashed suddenly upon the scene.
"Oh, I say, do stop jawing and come down," he said as he presented himself. "Poor Aunt Phil is ravenous for her lunch. What do you want me for, Trevor?"
But Mordaunt turned his back abruptly. "I don't want you now," he said.
"You can go."
"Dash it!" Noel said. "What a rotter you are!" He flung himself full
length upon the window-seat with elaborate nonchalance. "Run along,
Chris," he said. "We're going to talk politics. Shut the door after you.
That's right. Now, my good brother-in-law, what can I do for you?"
He sat up to slay a wasp on the window-pane, flicked the corpse in
Mordaunt's direction with airy adroitness, and lay down again.
"Are you in a wax over anything?" he inquired, with a yawn.
Mordaunt turned quietly round. "Get up!" he said.
Noel laughed up at him engagingly. "You can't kick me so easily lying down, can you? But what do you want to kick me for? I'm quite harmless."
"I am not going to kick you," Mordaunt said. "It is not my way."
"All right, then. Why didn't you say so before?" Noel sat up and regarded him with interest. "Well?" he said at the end of an expectant pause. "Let's have it, man, and have done!"
"I have nothing to give you," Mordaunt returned. "I told you you could go."
Something in the tone rather than the words caught Noel's attention. He bounced suddenly from his lounging attitude to Mordaunt's side, and thrust an affectionate arm about his shoulders.
"What's the matter, old chap? You look as if you had found sixpence and lost half a crown."
"Perhaps I have," Mordaunt returned grimly.
He did not repulse the friendly overture; that also was not his way. But neither did he respond to it. He stood passive, looking out over the park with unobservant eyes.
"Cheer up, I say," urged Noel. "You're such a rattling good chap, you know. I'm getting awfully fond of you."
"Much obliged," said Mordaunt; but he did not seem highly gratified. In fact, his thoughts were plainly elsewhere.
Noel, however, would not be satisfied with this. "What are you grizzling about?" he said. "Tell a fellow!"
Mordaunt's eyes came down to him. "I wish you Wyndhams had a little sense of honour," he said.
"Oh, is that it?" said Noel. "Well, we are not top-heavy in that respect, I own. But, after all, it's not worth worrying about. We get on very nicely without it. And we wouldn't any of us sell a friend."
"I'm glad to know you draw the line somewhere," Mordaunt observed.
"Oh, rather! I wouldn't chouse you for the world. Chris wouldn't either. But we're both shy of you, you know, because you're so beastly moral." He gave his brother-in-law a warm hug to soften the effect of his words. "You may as well tell me what you wanted to say to me just now," he remarked.
"I was going to request you to behave like a gentleman," Mordaunt returned. "But as you don't seem to know what that means—" He paused, looking straight into the Irish eyes that met his with such sublime assurance. "Do you know what it means, Noel?" he asked.
Noel grinned. "You can take me in hand and teach me if it isn't too much trouble. I suppose you didn't like me to tell Chris she was lying about that letter. But she was, you know. There's no getting away from that fact, even if she is your wife."
"I'm not trying to get away from facts," Mordaunt said. "But I do object—strongly—to discourtesy. You may be her brother, but that doesn't entitle you to insult her. Plainly, I won't have it from you or anyone."
"I didn't insult her," declared Noel. "I only said I knew she was telling a cram. She knew it too."
"I know what you said," Mordaunt returned with brevity. "And you are not to say it again. Also, I must ask you to bear in mind that when I say a thing I mean it—invariably. I've had more than enough disobedience from you lately."
"Oh, I say," said Noel, winking gaily, "you don't want much, do you?"
Mordaunt relaxed a little. He put his hand on the boy's shoulder for a moment. "You can be quite a good chap if you try," he said.
Noel responded like a dog to a caress. "The mischief is to keep it up," he said. "But we won't quarrel anyhow. I'll make every allowance for you, old boy, for you're in a beastly unhealthy position; and you'll have to do the same—savvy? But for all that, that letter was no more written by Mrs. Pouncefort than by the man in the moon."
"That letter," Mordaunt said very deliberately, "is neither your affair nor mine."
Could he have seen Chris at that moment he might have changed his mind upon that point, but her young brother's careless chatter kept him from seeking her; nor would he very readily have found her had he done so.
For Chris was securely locked in a little room at the top of the house that had been her childhood's bedroom, and here with blanched face and hands that shook she was reading and reading again the letter that had given rise to so much discussion.
The handwriting was cramped and erratic, wholly unfamiliar, barely decipherable; but she had mastered the contents with tragic dexterity. Her understanding had leaped to the words.
* * * * *
"MY DEAR MRS. MORDAUNT," so went the letter, "You have probably forgotten my existence by this time, and it is with the utmost humility that I venture to recall it to your memory. For myself, it will always be a lasting pleasure to have met you again, and the fact that I share with you a secret of other days cannot but prove a bond between us. That secret I am prepared to guard faithfully, since—apparently—it is of value, if you on your part are ready to purchase my discretion with that of which all have need, but of which I temporarily am unhappily deficient. Briefly, madame, for the sum of five hundred pounds I will undertake that the episode of Valpré shall be consigned to oblivion so far as I am concerned. Otherwise, the strict husband may hear more than you have considered it convenient to tell him.
"Yours, with many compliments,
GUILLAUME RODOLPHE."