Lady Staveley, realizing that the girl was dreading her mother’s comments on the situation, had been over the day before and persuaded Lady Galston to let her keep Cynthia with her for the present. Fortunately, that lady had not realized that Staveley was a stronghold of the enemy and that Cynthia’s loyalty to the man she had promised to marry would meet with nothing but encouragement there and was only too glad to feel, as she artlessly put it, that Cynthia would be out of mischief for a day or two.
The Staveleys had decided to wipe off two irksome duties in one day and Fayre found himself let in for a big dinner-party of county worthies. He was still stiff and tired from his unwonted exertions and was heartily glad when the evening was over. He managed, however, to glean a few facts about Gregg’s past from people who, on the arrival of the “new doctor,” had made it their business to find out all about him and who responded only too readily to his adroit questions. He also discovered that the local vicar’s wife had known the Allens in Hampshire in years gone by and had followed Mrs. Draycott’s career from the beginning with considerable interest. In her capacity as vicar’s wife she could not approve of her, but Fayre detected a touch of envy in her voice as she recounted some of the episodes in the dead woman’s chequered past. According to her, Mrs. Draycott had managed to “have a good time,” as she expressed it, from the moment she left the schoolroom and, at one time, in spite of her divorce from her first husband, had moved in a smart, but quite reputable, set in London. Of late years, however, she had undoubtedly gone down in the social scale. The Dare Divorce Suit had done her reputation irretrievable damage and she spent most of her time abroad when she was not staying with people who, for old times’ sake or because they were less squeamish than the rest, were still willing to ask her to their houses. Lady Staveley’s invitation, he gathered, had been the result of a large charity entertainment in which they had both been involved and in connection with which Mrs. Draycott had made herself very useful. Unfortunately, when it came to her associates in the last few years, the vicar’s wife proved a broken reed. She knew as little as Miss Allen of the set in which Mrs. Draycott had been moving when she died.
Gregg’s record, allowing for certain embroideries at the hands of the local gossips, proved slightly more enlightening. He had arrived in the neighbourhood about three years before, having come straight from a large, but very poor, practice in London. His predecessor, from whom he had bought his present practice, was retiring, after a long and popular career, and, having weathered a short period of unpopularity due to his brusque manner, Gregg stepped into his shoes as a matter of course. Of his skill there was no question, and, according to Fayre’s informants, he hid a kind heart under a rough exterior. He was unmarried and lived alone, his women-folk being a cook-housekeeper and a maid. He kept one car, which was looked after by the cook’s husband, who combined the duties of chauffeur and gardener. He had the reputation of being a good bridge player, but cared little for society and was not often to be seen at the local entertainments.
On one point Fayre’s informants were unanimous: that never, at any time, could he have been a lady’s man, and the general opinion was that he had once suffered at the hands of a woman. Certainly, his opinion of the sex was unflatteringly small and he made no secret of his views. Fayre began to modify the conclusions he had drawn from Gregg’s antagonistic attitude towards Mrs. Draycott; in the light of what he had just heard, it seemed a fairly natural one.
Cynthia returned just as the party was dispersing and slipped up to her room, so that he had no opportunity of speaking to her that evening. He sent a message by Lady Staveley to the effect that Grey had seen Leslie that morning and that he had found him well and cheerful, and then went to bed himself, feeling more tired than he had been for many a long day.
The fine weather held and the next morning he basely turned a deaf ear to the bells of the little church at Keys and, having seen the Staveleys off to the pursuance of their Sunday duties, went in search of his fellow-truants, Lady Kean and Cynthia. He found them, wrapped in furs, in a sunny corner of the terrace.
Cynthia greeted him eagerly.
“I very nearly came to your room and heaved you out of bed, Uncle Fayre, last night,” she exclaimed. “I did so want to know what you’d been up to. Only Eve said you were too tired. She declared you’d been bicycling!”
Fayre laughed outright at the horror of her tone.
“Why not?” he retorted. “When I left England all the best people bicycled and it seemed to me as good a way to get exercise as any. It never occurred to me that it would make such a sensation. Even the villagers look at me as if I’d suddenly gone mad!”