Some of its sons had gone over the ridge of hill, had seen strange sights and heard strange sounds—some of them had not returned. . . . Prices were higher—it was harder now to live than it had been but not much harder. Already the new generation was growing up. One or two, Tom Giles the Butcher, Merriweather, a farmer, talked noisily and said that soon the country would be in the hands of the people. Well, was it not already in the hands of the people? Anyway, they'd rather be in the hands of Sir Charles than of Giles.
How were they to know that Giles' friends would be better men than Sir Charles? Worse most likely. . . .
Into all this Henry sank. Among the few books in the library he found several dealing with the history of the house, of the Duncombes, of the district. Just as he had conjured up the Edinburgh of Scott and Ballantyne, so now his head was soon full of all the Duncombes of the past—Giles Duncombe of Henry VIII.'s time, who had helped his fat monarch to persecute the monasteries and had been given the lands of Saltingham Abbey near by as a reward; Charles Duncombe, the admiral who had helped to chase the Armada; Denis Duncombe, killed at Naseby; Giles Duncombe, the Second, exquisite of Charles II.'s Court killed in a duel; Guy Duncombe, his son, who had fled to France with James II.; Giles the Third of Queen Anne's Court, poet and dramatist; then the two brothers, Charles and Godfrey, who had joined the '45, Charles to suffer on the scaffold, Godfrey to flee into perpetual exile; then Charles again, friend of Johnson and Goldsmith, writer of a bad novel called The Forsaken Beauty, and a worse play which even Garrick's acting could not save from being damned; then a seaman again, Triolus Duncombe, who had fought with Nelson at Trafalgar, and lost an arm there; then Ponsonby Duncombe, the historian, who had known Macaulay and written for the Quarterly, and had drunk tea with George Lewes and his horse-faced genius; then Sir Charles's father, who had been simply a comfortable country squire—one of Trollope's men straight from Orley Farm and The Claverings, who had liked his elder son, Ralph (killed tiger-shooting in India), and his younger son Tom both better than the quiet, studious Charles, whom he had never understood. All these men and their women too seemed to Henry still to live in the house and haunt the gardens, to laugh above the stream and walk below the trees. So quiet was the place and so still that standing by the pond under the star-lit sky he could swear that he heard their voices. . . .
Nevertheless the living engaged his attention sufficiently. Besides Millie and Christina and Peter there were with him in the house, in actual concrete form, Sir Charles and his sister. Lady Bell-Hall had now apparently accepted Henry as an inevitable nuisance with whom God, for some mysterious reason known only to Himself, had determined still further to try her spirit. She was immensely busy here, having a thousand preoccupations connected with the house and the village that kept her happy and free from many of her London alarms. Henry admired her deeply as he watched her trotting about in an old floppy garden-hat, ministering to, scolding, listening to, admonishing the village as though it was one large, tiresome, but very lovable family. With the servants in the house it was the same thing. She knew the very smallest of their troubles, and although she often irritated and fussed them, they were not alone in the world as they would have been had Mrs. Giles, the butcher's wife, been their mistress.
It happened then that Henry for his daily companionship depended entirely upon Sir Charles. A strange companionship it was, because the affection between them grew stronger with every hour that passed, and yet there were no confidences nor intimacies—very little talk at all. At the back of Henry's mind there was always the incident in the cab. He fancied that on several occasions since that he had seen that glance of almost agonizing suffering pass, flash in the eyes, cross the brow; once or twice Duncombe had abruptly risen and with steps that faltered a little left the room. Henry fancied also that Lady Bell-Hall during the last few days had begun to watch her brother anxiously. Sometimes she looked at Henry as though she would question him, but she said nothing.
Then, quite suddenly, the blow fell. On a day of splendid heat, the sky an unbroken blue, the fountain falling sleepily behind them, bees humming among the beds near by, Duncombe and Henry were sitting on easy chairs under the oak. Henry was reading, Duncombe sitting staring at the bright grass and the house that swam in a haze of heat against the blue sky.
"Henry," Duncombe said, "I want to talk to you for a moment."
Henry put down his book.
"I want first to tell you how very grateful I am for the companionship that you have given me during these last months and for your friendship."
Henry stammered and blushed. "I've been wanting—" he said, "been wanting myself a long time to say something to you. I suppose that day when I had done the letters so badly and you—you still kept me on was the most important thing that ever happened to me. No one before has ever believed I could do anything or seen what it was I could do—I always lacked self-confidence and you gave it me. The War had destroyed the little I'd had before, and if you hadn't come I don't know——"