“Yes; Hugo came along. I was glad when that was over. I thought she was going to die. You knew Seymour Glynd?”
“Life Guards? Killed hunting a year ago?”
Inley nodded.
“He was a great deal with us soon after Hugo’s birth. I thought nothing of it. I’d known the fellow all my life. But then one nearly always has.”
He laughed bitterly.
“To cut that part short, two years ago in autumn we had Glynd staying with us down here for shooting. There were some others, of course—Mrs. Jack, Bobbie Elphinton, and Lady Bobbie—but you know the lot.”
“I did.”
“Ah,” he said, “you’ve been well out of it these years. Well, the shoot was to break up on a Friday, and I’d arranged to go to town that day with the rest. Vere didn’t intend to come. She said she was feeling tired, and was going to have a Friday to Monday rest cure. That’s the thing, you know, nowadays. You get a Swedish masseuse down to stay, and go to bed and drink milk. Vere had engaged a masseuse to come on the Friday night. On the Thursday, the day before we were all going to town, Glynd hurt his foot getting over a fence into a turnip field—at least I thought so.”
He stopped.
“Everyone thought so, I believe—except, of course, Vere. I wonder if they did, though?” he added moodily. “Or whether I was the only—But what does it matter now? Glynd said he only wanted a couple of days’ rest to be all right again, and asked me if he might stay on at the Abbey till the Monday. Of course I said ‘Yes; if he wouldn’t want a hostess.’ Because Vere said to me, when she heard of it, that she must have her rest cure all the same. Glynd swore he’d be quite happy alone. So he stayed, and the rest of us came up to town on the Friday. Well, on the Saturday morning I was walking across the park when I met the Swedish massense who was to have gone down to Vere on the Friday night. I knew her, because Vere had often had her before in London. ‘Hullo!’ I said. ‘You ought to be down at Inley Abbey with my wife.’ ‘No, my lord,’ she said. ‘Why not?’ ‘I’ve had a wire from Lady Inley not to go.’ ‘A wire!’ I said. ‘When did you get it?’ ‘On Thursday night, my lord.’ You mean last night?’ I said, thinking Vere must have changed her mind after we had left. ‘No,’ said the woman; ‘on Thursday night, late.’ Then I remembered that, after Glynd had hurt his foot and asked to stay, Vere had gone out alone for a drive in her cart, to get a last breath of air before the rest cure. She must have sent the telegram herself then. All of a sudden I seemed to understand a lot of things.’”