Delaine had agreed that it was inconceivable, and they had mourned together over the grotesque possibilities of life. "But you will save her," he had said at last. "You will save her! You will point out to her all she would be giving up--the absurdity, the really criminal waste of it!"
On which he had gloomily taken his departure for an archæological congress at Berlin, and an autumn in Italy; and a few weeks later she had recovered her darling Elizabeth, paler and thinner than before--and quite, quite incomprehensible!
As for "saving" her, Mrs. Gaddesden had not been allowed to attempt it. In the first place, Elizabeth had stoutly denied that there was anything to save her from. "Don't believe anything at all, dear Mummy, that Arthur Delaine may have said to you! I have made a great friend--of a very interesting man; and I am going to correspond with him. He is coming to London in November, and I have asked him to stay here. And you must be very kind to him, darling--just as kind as you can be--for he has had a hard time--he saved Philip's life--and he is an uncommonly fine fellow!"
And with that--great readiness to talk about everything except just what Mrs. Gaddesden most wanted to know. Elizabeth sitting on her mother's bed at night, crooning about Canada--her soft brown hair over her shoulders, and her eyes sparkling with patriotic enthusiasm, was a charming figure. But let Mrs. Gaddesden attempt to probe and penetrate beyond a certain point, and the way was resolutely barred. Elizabeth would kiss her mother tenderly--it was as though her own reticence hurt her--but would say nothing. Mrs. Gaddesden could only feel sorely that a great change had come over the being she loved best in the world, and that she was not to know the whys and wherefores of it.
And Philip--alack! had been of very little use to her in the matter!
"Don't you bother your head, Mother! Anderson's an awfully good chap--but he's not going to marry Elizabeth. Told me he knew he wasn't the kind. And of course he isn't--must draw the line somewhere--hang it! But he's an awfully decent fellow. He's not going to push himself in where he isn't wanted. You let Elizabeth alone, Mummy--it'll work off. And of course we must be civil to him when he comes over--I should jolly well think we must--considering he saved my life!"
Certainly they must be civil! News of Anderson's sailing and arrival had been anxiously looked for. He had reached London three days before this date, had presented his credentials at the Board of Trade and the Colonial Office, and after various preliminary interviews with ministers, was now coming down to Martindale for a week-end before the assembling of the small conference of English and colonial representatives to which he had been sent.
Mrs. Gaddesden saw from the various notices of his arrival in the English papers that even in England, among the initiated he was understood to be a man of mark. She was all impatience to see him, and had shown it outwardly much more plainly than Elizabeth. How quiet Elizabeth had been these last days! moving about the house so silently, with vaguely smiling eyes, like one husbanding her strength before an ordeal.
What was going to happen? Mrs. Gaddesden was conscious in her own mind of a strained hush of expectation. But she had never ventured to say a word to Elizabeth. In half an hour--or less--he would be here. A motor had been sent to meet the express train at the country town fifteen miles off. Mrs. Gaddesden looked round her in the warm dusk, as though trying to forecast how Martindale and its inmates would look to the new-comer. She saw a room of medium size, which from the end of the sixteenth century had been known as the Red Drawing Room--a room panelled in stamped Cordovan leather, and filled with rare and beautiful things; with ebony cabinets, and fine lacquer; with the rarest of oriental carpets, with carved chairs, and luxurious sofas. Set here and there, sparingly, among the shadows, as though in scorn of any vulgar profusion, the eye caught the gleam of old silver, or rock crystal, or agate; bibelots collected a hundred and fifty years ago by a Gaddesden of taste, and still in their original places. Overhead, the uneven stucco ceiling showed a pattern of Tudor roses; opposite to Mrs. Gaddesden the wall was divided between a round mirror, in whose depths she saw herself reflected and a fine Holbein portrait of a man, in a flat velvet hat on a green background. Over the carved mantelpiece with its date of 1586, there reigned a Romney portrait--one of the most famous in existence--of a young girl in black. Elizabeth Merton bore a curious resemblance to it. Chrysanthemums, white, yellow and purple, gleamed amid the richness of the room; while the light of the solitary lamp beside which Mrs. Gaddesden had been sitting with her embroidery, blended with the orange glow from outside now streaming in through the unshuttered windows, to deepen a colour effect of extraordinary beauty, produced partly by time, partly by the conscious effort of a dozen generations.
And from the window, under the winter sunset, Mrs. Gaddesden could see, at right angles to her on either side, the northern and southern wings of the great house; the sloping lawns; the river winding through the park; the ivy-grown church among the trees; the distant woods and plantations; the purple outlines of the fells. Just as in the room within, so the scene without was fused into a perfect harmony and keeping by the mellowing light. There was in it not a jarring note, a ragged line--age and dignity, wealth and undisputed place: Martindale expressed them all. The Gaddesdens had twice refused a peerage; and with contempt. In their belief, to be Mr. Gaddesden of Martindale was enough; a dukedom could not have bettered it. And the whole country-side in which they had been rooted for centuries agreed with them. There had even been a certain disapproval of the financial successes of Philip Gaddesden's father. It was true that the Gaddesden rents had gone down. But the country, however commercialised itself, looked with jealousy on any intrusion of "commercialism" into the guarded and venerable precincts of Martindale.