“Something!” echoed the girl. “Why, a very great deal. Of that I am quite certain.”
“You know nothing of its nature?” asked her friend Cicely, with her woman’s eagerness to inquire.
“Of course not, dear. Father never confides any secrets to me,” she replied. “He always says that women gossip too much, and that it is through the chattering wives of Members of the House, whom he calls the jays, that much mischief is done.”
“The jays!” laughed Sir Pemberton. “Very good! I suppose he has given them that name because of their fine feathers. Personally I shall be glad to get to Dinard out of it all for a while.”
“We always enjoy Dinard, Sheila,” declared his wife. “You really must get your father to bring you to the Royal this summer. We shall be there all the season. We sent the car over a week ago.”
Cicely, or Lady Wheeler to give her her title, was a giddy little woman who, after being a confirmed flirt and known in Mayfair as one of its prettiest butterflies, had married a man more than double her age, for Wheeler was fifty, interested in spinning-mills in Yorkshire, and sat in Parliament for the constituency in which his mills were situated. At the last moment she had jilted young Stenhouse, of the Grenadier Guards, for the more alluring prospect of Wheeler’s title and his money. Hence the Morning Post had one day announced to the world that her marriage with the good-looking young Captain would “not take place,” and a week later her photograph had appeared as the future Lady Wheeler.
She had joined that large circle of London society who are what is known in their own particular jargon as “spooky.” She attended séances, consulted mediums, and believed in the statements of those who pretended to have made psychic discoveries. Yet Sheila, who was far too level-headed to follow London’s latest craze, was devoted to her, and had been ever since they studied together at that fashionable school near Beachy Head.
“I spoke to father to-day about a little trip across to you,” Sheila replied, “and he thinks he may be able to do it when the House is up.”
“That’s good,” declared Sir Pemberton in his plethoric voice. “Get him to bring his car over too, and we’ll have a tour together through Brittany and down to Nantes and the Touraine.”
“I’d love to see the old châteaux there,” Sheila declared. “There’s a big illustrated book about them in the library—Blois, Chenonceaux, Chinon, Loches, and the rest.”