The Hall and the Grange: A Novel

by Archibald Marshall

[CHAPTER XV]

THE RIFT

Dusk was beginning to fall as Colonel Eldridge took a last stroll round the garden he loved, smoking the pipe to which he had taken when he had decided that cigars were too expensive for him any longer. The rest of the family were at the Grange, except the two children, who were supposed to be in bed. Whether they actually were so or not their father allowed himself to doubt, with a smile at the corners of his mouth. They had been keeping him company until summoned by Miss Baldwin, and his thoughts were still upon them. He had a great love for young children, but some stiff reserved trait in his character prevented him from showing it, even to his own, when there was anyone else by. What he liked was to have them to himself, and listen to their prattle, which was all music in his ears, though he affected to exercise some control over it. He would rather stay at home with the children, he had said, than dine at the Grange; but Mrs. Eldridge had understood that he would not go there until the dispute between him and his brother was settled. Sir William was coming down late that evening, dining on the train.

The children actually were in bed; for Miss Baldwin, always eager to get to her evening's reading, was strict in this matter. She was sitting by the window that faced on to the drive. She liked best the other windows, with their view across the lawn, but thought that Colonel Eldridge might look up and see her there, and feel that he was being watched. She did take an occasional surreptitious look at him. He was interesting her at this time, for she thought that he must soon come into the story which she was weaving around Pamela, and though she knew how he ought to act in order to advance the interest of the story, she was not sure that he would fulfil her expectations. It was more interesting so. One did not always want to look at pages ahead in an exciting story.

Miss Baldwin was not so immersed in the printed story she was reading as to be quite oblivious to the beauty of the scene before her, in the fading light of the summer evening. She sometimes raised her eyes to it, with a grateful sense of its increasing her enjoyment in the pleasant hour that was all her own. The sky was an expanse of faint pulsing blue, passing to a delicate rose above the horizon; the distant country was losing its sharper details in the pale haze that enveloped it, but the heavy mass of Pershore Castle could still be seen in the middle distance, and kept alive in her mind that other story which she was making for herself.

It was this state of awareness, no doubt, that suggested to her that the motor-car which she descried on the drive, upon one of her upward looks, was bringing one of Pamela's suitors to interview Pamela's father. Horsham had driven himself over a few evenings before, after dinner, with the offer of a joy-ride. She rose hastily and looked out of the other window. Colonel Eldridge was still there, looking at his roses now, in the garden nearest the drive. He would be seen by whoever was in the car, and it was probable that the ensuing conversation would take place under her eyes.

The car could be seen more plainly when she went back, and it was a disappointment to recognize it as Sir William Eldridge's big touring Rolls-Royce, instead of the more modest and slightly out-of-date Rénault from Pershore Castle. It had purred up to the iron gate which divided the gravelled square in front of the house from the park by the time she had adjusted her mind to the disappointment, and while the chauffeur was opening the gate she looked out again at Colonel Eldridge, who by this time had heard it, and was moving towards where he could see who was coming. She saw Sir William hitch himself out of the driving-seat, and go across to his brother, with the light active step which she always admired in him, and heard his hearty greeting. "Well, Edmund, old fellow, I thought I'd come and have a word or two with you on my way home, though I wasn't sure that you wouldn't be dining at the Grange. Eleanor wrote that Cynthia and the girls were."

It seemed to Miss Baldwin that Colonel Eldridge's reply to the greeting was lacking in the warmth which it invited. But his manner was never so free and open as Sir William's, who had the pleasantest way with him, even when he addressed himself to a retiring but appreciative governess. The words he used had no importance to impress themselves upon her, but Sir William's next speech, delivered in his clear voice, which carried them up to her, were: "I'm glad I've found you alone, then. Look here, old boy, let's get this tiresome business that we've been writing about out of the way." Here they moved off together on to the lawn. "The last thing in the world I want is to get up against you, and if I've done or written anything that has offended you, I'm sorry for it."

There was a pause before Colonel Eldridge replied. His voice was in a lower key, and by this time they were out of hearing. Miss Baldwin, who had much delicacy of feeling, shut the two windows which looked on to the lawn, softly, while their backs were turned to her; but she did not forbid herself to conjecture what it was that had happened between them or to taste her own surprise that anything should have happened to bring forth that introductory speech. She did not connect it with the affair in which she was so interested, for she had not given Sir William a part in that story. Probably it was nothing of any consequence, and when they had talked it over, walking up and down the lawn, Colonel Eldridge with his pipe, Sir William with his cigar, they would go into the house, and Sir William would take a little refreshment before driving himself home to the Grange. The great car stood there below, its latent power ready to be put in motion at a moment's notice, and the chauffeur stood by it, as if he, at least, was not expecting to be kept there long.