AMAZING STORY.
She snatched a paper from the nearest boy, but it contained only the news we had just read on the club tape.
Judith seemed more upset at the news of Sir Charles’ condition, I thought, than about the “Houghton Siege,” as the papers called it. She said she must go at once to Lady Thorold, and, hailing a passing taxi, left us.
As I looked at the pictures of Houghton Park, in that paper we had bought, I could not help wondering what the Rutland people must be saying.
Only a month or two ago, the sudden flight of the Thorolds from Houghton, and the events that had followed, had brought that exclusive county notoriety, which I knew it hated.
Then there had been the mystery of old Taylor’s death in the house in Belgrave Street, and quite recently the mystery of the mummified remains, both of which events had again brought Rutland indirectly into the limelight of publicity, the Thorolds and myself being Rutland people.
Now, to cap everything, came this “Siege of Houghton Park,” to which the newspapers, one and all, accorded the place of honour in their columns. It was the “story of the day.” This final ignominy would give Rutland’s smug respectability its deathblow. Never again, would its county families be able to rear their proud heads and look contemptuously down upon the families of other counties and mentally ejaculate—“We thank thee, O Lord, that we are not as these publicans.” Henceforth, proud and exclusive Rutland would bear the brand of Cain, or what “the county” deemed just as bad—the brand of Public Notoriety. Yes, there is amazing snobbishness, even yet, in our rural districts. Yet there is also still some sterling British broad-mindedness—the old English gentleman, happily, still survives.
Faulkner had asked me to go to a theatre with him. He knew, he said, he could not ask Vera, with her father so ill, but Violet de Coudron would be there. He would try to get a fourth, as he had a box. There was no good in moping, he ended, sensibly enough.
I returned to King Street to dress, intending to telephone first, to the hospital, to inquire for Sir Charles. On the table, in my sitting-room, a telegram awaited me. Somehow I guessed it must be from Vera in her distress, and hurriedly tore it open—
“Father sinking fast,” it ran, “and beseeching for you to come to him. Come at once. Most urgent—Vera.”