“‘A. G., aged fourteen.’ Let me see. Why, of course that was Antony Gray, Richard Gray’s son. But I never knew his father. He—I mean the boy—was staying in rooms with his aunt, Mrs. Stanley. She was his father’s sister, and married George Stanley. Something to do with the stock exchange, and quite a wealthy man, though a bad temper. And his wife was not a happy woman, as you can guess. Temper means such endless friction when it’s bad, especially with regard to things like interfering with the servants, and wanting to order the kitchen dinner. So absurd, as well as annoying. There’s a place for a man and a place for a woman, and the man’s place is not the kitchen, even if his entry is only figurative. By which I mean that Mr. Stanley did not actually go to the kitchen, but gave orders from his study, on a sort of telephone business he had had fixed up and communicating with the kitchen. So trying for the cook’s nerves, especially when making omelettes, or anything that required particular attention. She never knew when his voice wouldn’t shout at her from the wall. A small black thing like a hollow handle fixed close to the kitchen range. Quite uncomfortably near her ear. Worse than if he himself had appeared at the kitchen door, which would have been normal, though trying. And Mr. Stanley never lowered his voice. He always spoke as if one were deaf, especially to foreigners who spoke English every bit as well as himself. Mrs. Stanley gave excellent wages, and even bonuses out of her dress money to try and keep cooks. But they all said the voice from the wall got on their nerves. And no wonder. And then unpleasantness when the cooks left. As if it were poor Mrs. Stanley’s fault, and not his own. She once suggested they should give up their house and live in an hotel. He couldn’t have a telephone arrangement to the kitchen there. But he was more unpleasant still. Almost violent. And he died at last of an attack of apoplexy. Such a relief to Mrs. Stanley. Not the dying of apoplexy, which was a grief. But the quiet, and the being able to keep a cook when he had gone.” Mrs. Arbuthnot paused a moment to take breath.
“Do you know what became of the boy?” asked Trix.
Mrs. Arbuthnot considered for an instant.
“I believe he went abroad. Yes; I remember now, hearing from Mrs. Stanley just before she died herself, poor soul—ptomaine poisoning and a dirty cook, some people seem pursued by cooks, figuratively speaking, of course,—that her brother had lost all his money and died, and that Antony had gone abroad. We are told not to judge, and I don’t, but it did seem to me that Mrs. Stanley ought to have made him some provision, if not before her death, at least after it. By will, of course I mean by ‘after’! which in a sense would have been before death. But you understand. Instead of which she left all her money to a deaf and dumb asylum. No doubt good in its way, but not like anything religious, which would have been more justifiable, though she was a Protestant. And teaching dumb people to speak is always a doubtful blessing. They have such an odd way of talking. Scarcely understandable. But perhaps better than nothing for themselves, though not for others. Though with a penniless nephew and all that money I do think—But, as I said, we are told not to judge.”
“And you don’t know what became of him after that?” asked Trix.
Mrs. Arbuthnot looked almost reproachful.
“My dearest, how could I? Mrs. Stanley in the family grave with her brother,—she mentioned that particularly in her will, and not with her husband, I suppose she could not have had much affection for him,—I could not possibly hear any more of the young man. There were no other relations, and I did not even know what part of the world he was in. Nor should I have thought it advisable to write to him if I had, unless it had been a brief letter of consolation as from a much older woman, which I was. But even with age I do not think a correspondence between men and women desirable, unless they are related, especially with Mrs. Barclay’s novels so widely read. Not for my own sake, of course, as I do not think I am easily given to absurd notions. But one never knows what ideas a young man may not get into his head. And now, dear child, I must dress. Maunder has been sighing for the last ten minutes, and I know what that means. And you’ll be late yourself, if you don’t go.”
Much later in the evening, Trix, in a far corner of the drawing-room with a novel, found herself again pondering deeply on her discovery.
She was absolutely and entirely certain that the man with the wheelbarrow was none other than Antony Gray, the boy with whom she had played in her childhood. She remembered now that his face had been oddly familiar to her at the time, though, being unable to put any name to him, she had looked upon it merely as a chance likeness. But since he was Antony Gray, what was he doing at Chorley Old Hall?
Her first impulse had been to write to the Duchessa, tell her of her certainty, and ask her to find out any particulars she could regarding the man. She had abandoned that idea, in view of the fact that she would have to say where she had met him, which would very probably lead to questions difficult to answer.