There was a stateliness in Lady Dundrannan’s assent, given by her presence and countenance to the arrangement which the allied family of the Rillingtons had—well, I suppose Waldo had—submitted to her approval. The big Briarmount car—even bigger, more newly yellow, than the car of Cimiez—brought down the whole bunch—all the Court, as Sir Paget had called it. Briarmount’s approval was almost overwhelmingly signified. It was not, of course, the thing to mention Lucinda—that was unofficial; perhaps, moreover, slightly shameful. Godfrey, at least, wore an embarrassed air which the ostensible character of the occasion did not warrant; and little Lady Eunice—I suspected that the information had filtered down to her through the other three of them—seemed to look at me with something of the reproachful admiration one reserves for a dare-devil. Waldo, for his part, gave my hand a hard, though surreptitious, squeeze, smiling into my eyes with his old kindness, somehow conveying an immense deal to me about how he for his part felt about the implacabilities, and the way they had affected his life—and now mine. Of course I was myself in the mood to perceive—to exaggerate, or even to imagine—such thoughts in him; but there it was—his eyes traveled from my face to his lady’s shapely back (she was putting Mr. Stannard, the lawyer, at his ease—he was a cadet of an old county family, and one of the best known sportsmen in the neighborhood), and back to my face again, and—well, certainly the situation was not lost on Waldo. But it was only after our business was finished—a short recital of the effect of the deeds from Stannard—didn’t we know more than he did about that? But no doubt it was proper—and then the signatures (“Dundrannan” witnessing in a fine, bold, decisive hand!)—that he said a word to me. “God give you and yours happiness with the old place, Julius!” The pang of parting from it spoke there, as well as kindliness and forgiveness for us.
Sir Paget insisted—certainly not to the displeasure of Mr. Stannard—on “wetting the signatures” with a bottle of his Pommery 1900. Nina just wetted her lips—even to that vintage she could condescend. Then we all strolled out into the garden, while tea was preparing. There was the old place—the high cliffs above it, one narrow wooded ledge fronting the sea; scant acres, but, as it were, with all our blood in them. I felt like a usurper (in spite of the honest money that I was paying), the younger branch ousting the elder, even through an abdication. But I was a usurper happy and content—as, I daresay, they often are, in spite of the poets and the dramatists. Sir Paget and Stannard paired off; Godfrey and Eunice; Waldo sat down on the bench by the door and lit his pipe; I found myself left with Nina Dundrannan. With the slightest motion of her hand she invited me to accompany her along the walk towards the shrubbery. At once I knew that she meant to say something to me, though I had not the least idea on what lines her speech might run. She could be very candid—had she not been once, long ago, she the “skeleton at the feast”? She could also put the truth very decisively in its proper place—a remote one. Fires burnt in her—I knew that; but who could tell when the flames would show?
There was a seat placed where a gap in the trees gave a view of the sea; here we sat down together. With her usual resoluteness she began at once with what she had made up her mind to say.
“Waldo didn’t show me Sir Paget’s note, but he told me a piece of news about you which it gave him; he gave me to understand that you and Sir Paget thought that I, as well as he himself, should know it. He told me that the arrangement was no longer repugnant to his own feelings, although it once would have been; he felt both able and willing to ignore the past, and start afresh on terms of friendship with Madame Valdez—with Lucinda. He asked me what my feelings were. I said that in my view that was hardly the question; I had married into the Rillington family; any lady whom Sir Paget and he, the heads of the family, were prepared to accept and welcome as a member of it, would, as a matter of course, be accepted by me; I should treat her, whenever we met, with courtesy, as I should no doubt be treated by her; a great degree of affection, I reminded Waldo, was not essential or invariable between relations-in-law.” Here Lady Dundrannan smiled for a moment. “Least of all should I desire that any supposed feelings of mine should interfere with the family arrangement about Cragsfoot which you all three felt to be desirable; the more so as it had in a way originated with myself, since, if I had wished to make this place our principal residence, the present plan would never have been thought of at all. So I told him to put me entirely out of the question; he would be quite safe in feeling sure that I should accept the situation with a good grace.”
She paused, and I took occasion to say: “I think we’re all much indebted to you—and myself most of all. Any other attitude on your part would have upset an arrangement which I have come to have very much at heart. I’m grateful to you, Nina.”
“You know a great deal—indeed, you probably know pretty well everything—that has happened between Lucinda and me. You wouldn’t defend all that she did; I don’t defend all I did. When I’m challenged, I fight, and I suppose Jonathan Frost’s daughter isn’t dainty as to her weapons—that’s your point of view about me, anyhow, isn’t it? You’ve always been in her camp. You’ve always been a critic of me.”
“Really I’ve regretted the whole—er—difficulty and—well, difference, very much.”
“You’ve laughed at it even more than you’ve regretted it, I think,” she remarked drily. “But I’ve liked you better than you’ve liked me—though you did laugh at me—and I’m not going to make things difficult or uncomfortable for you. When I accept a state of things, I accept it without reservation. I don’t want to go on digging pins in.”
“If I have ever smiled—as you accuse me of having done—as well as regretted, it was because I saw your qualities as well as hers. The battle was well joined. You’ve both had your defeats and your victories. I should like you to be friends now.”
“Yes, I believe you would; that’s why I’m talking like this to you. But”—her voice took on a sudden ring of strong feeling—“it’s impossible. There are such memories between us.”