CHAPTER XXIV. AN AWKWARD QUESTION.
John Bradfield was equal to the occasion. Turning so that he faced Marrable, he answered at once:
“Gilbert Wryde’s money! Oh, he left it in the hands of trustees, of course.”
There was a pause, and John turned away, as if feeling that he had satisfied his companion’s thirst for information. But presently Marrable spoke again, and his manner was somewhat lacking in that respect for the rich man which had characterised it on his first arrival:
“You’re one of the trustees, I suppose?”
John Bradfield, very unused of late years to being spoken to in this way, answered curtly enough:
“Yes, I’m one of them. Anything more you want to know?”
“Only this—who are the others?”
“Men you’ve never heard of. Old chums of Wryde’s.”
“Do they live in England?”
“No; out in Australia.”
“Oh!”
This exclamation might be taken as signifying assent, and it was thus that John Bradfield chose to take it; and the subject was dropped out of their talk, if not out of their minds.
The assiduity with which John Bradfield tended his old friend was wonderful. It was remarked that he scarcely let anybody else go near him; that he slept in Marrable’s room, and even served him with his own hands. It escaped remark that on rare occasions when John Bradfield did leave the apartment of his friend, he took care first to send Stelfox out on some errand which would take a considerable time to execute.
Mr. Bradfield’s doubts of Stelfox’s trustworthiness were increasing. Taking the bull by the horns, as his custom was when hard pressed, Mr. Bradfield took the servant severely to task for suffering Mr. Richard to get loose again, and ended by threatening him with instant dismissal if it should occur again.
At this Stelfox looked up.
“Do you mean that, sir?”
“I do, indeed.”
“And what—what, sir, would you do with Mr. Richard, if you did send me away?”
There was some spirit in the servant’s question; there was more in the master’s answer:
“That’s my business!”
And Stelfox, with a glance at his master’s resolute face, made submission.
The day following the accident being Boxing-day, Mrs. Graham-Shute asked and obtained permission from her host to extend her visit, and that of her family, until the day after. It was impossible to go out, much less to travel, on such a day as that, she said.
In spite of this impossibility, however, Mrs. Graham-Shute stayed out nearly the whole of the morning, looking for a suitable house in which she could settle with her family, to fulfil her kind promise of “looking after dear cousin John.” Of course, it was the worst day she could have chosen for her expedition, as the agents’ offices were closed, and the caretakers were making a holiday. But, being a woman of great valour and determination, just when these qualities were unnecessary and inconvenient, she ferreted out the unhappy agents, and made them unlock their books for her benefit, and she chivied the caretakers away from their dinners to attend her over the empty houses, only to declare at the end of the day’s work that she had never met such an uncivil set of people in her life—never!
Mrs. Graham-Shute found, moreover, cause of bitter complaint in other directions. The rents were absurdly high, for one thing. She had imagined that in a hole of a place like this you would be able to pick up a house, with thirteen rooms and a nice garden, for next to nothing. Indeed, to hear her talk, one would have imagined that she looked upon the honour done to a dwelling by her residence within its walls as an equivalent to rent and taxes. The poor lady was quite hurt at the local ingratitude. It was enough, as she said at luncheon-time, to the amusement of dear cousin John, to make one stay in town.
“Why on earth don’t you, my dear?” murmured her husband, who had strenuously opposed the proposed flight to this clubless and remote region, and who knew very well that the love of change had much to do with his wife’s determination to move; and the belief that she would be a great person down here, while in town it had been forced upon her that she was only a very small one indeed.
His wife looked at him reproachfully.
“My dear, you know as well as possible that we must economise for the sake of the children,” she said, with a sigh and a glance at her cousin, as if sure that he would approve her sentiments.
It was fashionable to economise, so Mrs. Graham-Shute was always talking about it; and there it ended. Her husband had suffered from this idiosyncrasy, and he went on in an aggrieved tone:
“Why can’t you begin at Bayswater, and save moving expenses? Everything’s cheaper in town than here, and you’ve something to talk about besides the health of the pigs.”
But Maude went breezily on:
“Ah, but in town you’re tempted to buy things; my feminine heart can’t resist a bargain. Now, here,” she ended triumphantly, “you can’t spend money, because there’s nothing to buy!”
Here John Bradfield struck into the conversation.
“Isn’t there, though? There are bargains to be had here as well as in town, as I have found to my cost.”
Maude smiled at this remark, having only frowned at her husband’s. And, of course, she remained unconvinced.
Mrs. Graham-Shute spent her own and her daughters’ afternoon in making a list of the houses they had seen, with their several defects and good qualities. The former consisted, not in imperfect drainage and “stuffy” bed-rooms, but in “reception rooms” too small for the entertainments by which she proposed to dazzle the neighbourhood.
Meanwhile, Donald, left to his own devices, tried hard to contrive an interview with Chris, who had, during the last day or two, avoided him with a persistency which nettled him exceedingly. During the last conversation he had had with her, she had reproached him with following her about at the suggestion of his mother. While greatly annoyed and offended by her perspicacity, it had not made him less anxious for the flirtation he had promised himself with such an “awfully pretty girl.” This being the last day of his stay at Wyngham Lodge, he felt that he must come to such an understanding with her as would pave the way for a welcome when he and his family should return to Wyngham for a permanent residence.
When, therefore, Donald saw Chris walking in the garden, he put on his hat and sauntered out there too. It was on the south side of the house that Chris was walking, and she appeared to be looking at nothing but the sea. As she drew near the east wing, however, she glanced up from time to time shyly at the windows. On hearing footsteps on the path behind her, she turned quickly, and flushed, with an unmistakable expression of disappointment, on coming face to face with Donald. He was taken aback; his vanity was wounded; and instead of addressing her as he had intended, he stepped aside for her to pass him, and followed the path she had been taking towards the east-end of the house. Angry and mortified, he went on as far as the enclosed portion of the grounds. And here, lying on the ground just within the locked gate, he saw an envelope lying on the damp grass. Stooping, and putting his hand through the wire fence, he found that the envelope was just within his reach. Drawing it through, he discovered that it contained a letter, that it was directed to “Miss Christina Abercarne,” and that it was too dry to have lain there long.
While he was turning the missive over in his hand, and looking about him, considering from what quarter the letter could have come, Chris bore down upon him with a crimson face and very bright eyes.
“That note is for me, is it not?” said she, as she managed to see the superscription.
Now Donald was not particularly chivalrous, and he thought it quite fair that he should find some advantage to himself in his discovery. So he said, holding the letter behind him:
“What are you going to give me not to tell?”
Chris drew herself up haughtily.
“I am not going to give you anything, Mr. Shute. But you will have to give me my letter.”
“And you won’t mind if I repeat this little anecdote, say, at the dinner-table to-night?”
“Not a bit. And you, I dare say, won’t mind what I shall think of you?”
It was his turn to blush now. He stammered out that, of course, he was only in fun, and he handed her the letter in the most sheepish and shame-faced manner. Although she took it from him very coolly, to all appearance, a strange thrill went through her as she held it, and knew unfamiliar as the handwriting was, from whom it came.
Donald stared at her. For there had flashed over her face a strange look, half gladness, half sorrow, and he felt with jealousy that some other man had roused in her the feeling he would have liked her to have for himself. For a moment she seemed hardly conscious that she was not alone; then recovering herself quickly, she remembered that this wretched youth had the power, if he liked, to increase the misfortunes of a man who was unlucky enough already. So she said, catching her breath, and speaking with a most eloquent moisture in her eyes, and with a tremor in her voice which few male creatures could have resisted:
“Of course—I believe you, I believe what you said—that you were only in fun. You would not care to bring real misery upon—anybody, would you?”
Donald was touched, and he reddened, under the influence of a kindly emotion, even more deeply than he had done with anger.
“You may trust me,” was all he said.
Christina held out her hand, taking it away again, however, before he had time to do more than hold it for a half second in his.
“Thank you—very much,” said she, as she hurried away.