The Heart of Penelope

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

IV

Few of us realize how very differently our physical appearance and peculiarities strike each one of any new circle of persons to whose notice we are introduced; and, according to whether we are humble-minded or the reverse, the results of such inspection, were they suddenly revealed, would surprise or amaze us.

When Sir George Downing came forward to greet his hostess, and to be introduced to her mother and to her cousin, his outer man impressed each of them with direct and almost startling vividness. But in each case the impression produced was a very different one.

The first point which struck Lady Wantley in the tall, loosely-built figure was its remaining look of youth, of strength of will, and of purpose. This woman, to whom the things of the body were of such little moment, yet saw how noteworthy was the brown sun-burnt face, with its sharply-outlined features, and she gathered a very clear impression of the distinction and power of the man who bowed over her hand with old-fashioned courtesy and deference; more, she felt that there had been a time in her life when her daughter's guest would have attracted and interested her to a singular degree.

As he raised his head, their eyes met—deep-sunk, rather light-grey eyes, in some ways singularly alike, as Penelope had perceived with a certain shock of surprise, very soon after her first meeting with Sir George Downing. As these eyes, so curiously similar, met for a moment, fixedly, Downing, with a tightening of the heart, said to himself: 'She I must count an enemy.'

Lord Wantley, as he came forward to meet the distinguished stranger to whom he had just been told he must play host, observed him at once more superficially, and yet more narrowly and in greater detail, than Penelope's mother had done.

In the pleasant country-house—of the world worldly—from which Wantley had come, the man before him had been the subject of eager, amused discussion.

One of the talkers had known him as a youth, and had some recollection (of which he made the most) of the romantic circumstances which had attended his disgrace. His return was generally approved, all hoped to meet him, and even, vaguely, to benefit in purse by so doing; but it had been agreed that the recent change of Government lessened Downing's chances of persuading the Foreign Office to carry out the policy which he was known to have much at heart, and on which so many moneyed interests depended. It was said that the Prime Minister had refused to see him, that the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had left town to avoid him! On the other hand, a lady present had heard, 'on the best authority,' that he had not been in England two days before he had been sent for by the Sovereign, with whom he had had a long private talk.

It was further declared that 'the city,' that mysterious potentate, more powerful nowadays than any Sovereign, held him in high esteem, regarding him as a benefactor to that race of investors who like to think that they have Imperial as well as personal interests at heart. And even those who deprecated the fact that one holding no official post should be allowed to influence the policy of their country, admitted that, in the past, England had owed much to such men as Persian Downing. 'Yes, but in these days the soldier of fortune has been replaced by the banker of fortune,' an ex-diplomatist had observed, and the mot had been allowed to pass without challenge.

'And so,' thought Wantley, remembering the things which had been said, 'this is Persian Downing!'

The lean, powerful figure, habited in old-fashioned dress-clothes, looked older than he had imagined the famous man could be. The bushy, dark-brown moustache, streaked with strands of white hair, and the luminous grey eyes, penthoused under singularly straight eyebrows, gave a worn and melancholy cast to the whole countenance.

The younger man also noticed that Downing's hands and feet were exceptionally small, considering his great height. 'I wonder if he will like me,' he said to himself, and this, it must be admitted, was generally Wantley's first thought; but he no longer felt as he had done but a few moments before, listless and discontented with life—indeed, so keenly interested had he, in these few moments, become in Penelope's famous guest that he scarcely noticed the entrance into the room of the young girl of whom his cousin had spoken, and whom she had specially commended to his good offices.

Dressed in a plain white muslin frock, presenting her aunt's excuses in a low, even voice, Cecily Wake suggested to Lady Wantley, who had never seen her before, the comparison, when standing by Penelope, of a snowdrop with a rose. Perhaps this thought passed in some subtle way to Wantley's mind, for it was not till he happened to glance at the girl, across the round table which formed an oasis in the tapestry-hung dining-room, that he became aware that there was something attractive, and even unusual, in the round childish face and sincere, unquestioning eyes.

None of the party, save perhaps Wantley himself, possessed the art of small-talk. Penelope was strangely silent. 'Even she,' her cousin thought with a certain satisfaction, 'is impressed by this remarkable man, who has done her the honour of coming here.'

Then he asked himself, none too soon, what had brought Persian Downing to Monk's Eype? The obvious explanation, that Downing had been attracted by the personality of one who was universally admitted to have an almost uncannily compelling charm, when she cared to exercise it, he rejected as too evident to be true.

Wantley thought he knew his beautiful cousin through and through; yet in truth there were many chambers of her heart where any sympathetic stranger might have easy access, but the doors of which were tightly locked when Wantley passed that way. Like most men, he found it difficult to believe that a woman lacking all subtle attraction for himself could possibly attract those of his own sex whom he favoured with his particular regard. David Winfrith was the exception which always proves a rule, and Wantley admitted unwillingly that in that case there was some excuse; for here, at any rate, had been on Penelope's part a moment of response. But to-night, and for many days to come, he was strangely, and, as he often reminded himself in later life, foolishly, culpably blind.

Gradually the conversation turned on that still so secret and mysterious country with which Sir George Downing was now intimately connected. His slow voice, even, toneless, as is so often that of those who have lived long in the East, acted, Wantley soon found, as a complete screen, when he chose that it should be so, to his thoughts.

Suddenly, and, as it appeared, in no connection with what had just been said at the moment, Lady Wantley, turning to Downing, observed, 'I perceive that you have a number-led mind?'

Penelope looked up apprehensively, but her brow cleared as the man to whom had been addressed this singular remark replied simply and deferentially:

'If you mean that certain days are marked in my life, it is certainly so. Matters of moment are connected in my mind with the number seven.'

Wantley and Cecily Wake both looked at the speaker with extreme astonishment. 'I felt sure that it was so!' exclaimed Lady Wantley. 'Seven has also always been my number, but the knowledge inspires me with no fear or horror. It simply makes me aware that my times are in our Father's hands.' She added, in a lower voice: 'All predestination is centralized in God's elect, and all concurrent wills of the creature are thereunto subordinated.'

'He may be odd, but he must certainly think us odder,' thought Wantley, not without enjoyment.

But a cloud had come over Penelope's face. 'Mamma!' she said anxiously, and then again, 'Mamma!'

'I think he knows what I mean,' said Lady Wantley, fixing the grey eyes which seemed to see at once so much and so little on the face of her daughter's guest.

Again, to Wantley's surprise, Downing answered at once, and gravely enough: 'Yes, I think I do know what you mean, and on the whole I agree.'

Mrs. Robinson, glancing at her cousin with what he thought a look of appeal, threw a pebble, very deliberately, into the deep pool where they all suddenly found themselves. 'Do you really believe in lucky numbers?' she asked flippantly.

Downing looked at her fixedly for a moment. 'Yes,' he replied, 'and also in unlucky numbers.'

'I hope,' she cried—and as she spoke she reddened deeply—'that your first meeting with David Winfrith will take place on one of your lucky days. He is believed to have more influence concerning the matter you are interested in just now than anyone else, for he claims to have studied the question on the spot.'

'Ah!' thought Wantley, pleased as a man always is to receive what he believes to be the answer to a riddle; 'I know now what has brought Persian Downing to Monk's Eype!' and he also took up the ball.

'Winfrith claims,' he said, 'to have made Persia his special study. I believe he once spent six weeks there, on the strength of which he wrote a book. You probably came across him when he was in Teheran.'

But as he spoke he was aware that in Winfrith's book there was no mention of Downing, and that though at the time of the writer's sojourn in Persia no other Englishman had wielded there so great a power, or so counteracted influences inimical to his country's interests.

'No, I did not see him there. At the time of Mr. Winfrith's stay in Teheran'—Downing spoke with an indifference the other thought studied—'I was in America, where I have to go from time to time to see my partners.' He added, with a smile: 'I think you are mistaken in saying that Mr. Winfrith only spent six weeks in Persia. In any case, his book is good—very good.'

'I suppose,' said Wantley, turning to his cousin, 'that you have arranged for Winfrith to come over to-morrow, or Monday?'

'Oh no,' she answered hurriedly. 'He is going to be away for the next few days; after that, perhaps, Sir George Downing will meet him.' She spoke awkwardly, and Wantley felt he had been clumsy. But he thought that now he thoroughly understood what had happened. Winfrith had evidently no wish to meet informally the man whom his chief had not been willing to receive. Doubtless Penelope had done her best to bring her important new friend in contact with her old friend. She had failed, hence her awkward, hesitating answer to his question. But the young man knew his cousin, and the potency of her spell over obstinate Winfrith; he had no doubt that within a week the two men would have met under her roof, 'though whether the meeting will lead to anything,' he said to himself, 'remains to be seen.'

Wantley was, however, quite wrong. During the hours which Mrs. Robinson had spent that day riding with the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, the name of Persian Downing had not once been mentioned, and at this very moment David Winfrith, playing, after an early dinner, a game of chess with his old father, saw in imagination his lovely friend acting as kind hostess to her mother, for whom he himself had never felt any particular liking, and to Miss Wake and her niece, against both of whom he had an unreasonable prejudice. Lord Wantley he believed to be still away; and, as he allowed his father to checkmate him, he felt a pang of annoyance at the thought that he himself was going to be absent during days of holiday which might have been so much better employed, in part at least, in Penelope's company. Not for many months, not, when he came to think of it, for some two years, had Mrs. Robinson been at once so joyously high-spirited and yet so submissive, so intimately confidential while yet so willing to take advice—in a word, so enchantingly near to himself, as she had been that day, riding along the narrow lanes which lay in close network behind the bare cliffs and hills bounding the coast.

But to Wantley, doing the honours of his smoking room to Sir George Downing, and later when taking him out to the terrace where Mrs. Robinson and Cecily were pacing up and down in the twilight, the presence of this distinguished visitor at Monk's Eype was fully explained by the fact that Winfrith was not only the near neighbour, but also the very good friend, of Mrs. Robinson, and, the young man ventured to think, of himself.

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