Chapter 24

"THE WAY OF A MAN WITH A MAID"

Peter began to feel annoyed. More and more clearly did he realise that his chief object in coming home was to see Jan again; and here was he, still in London in the third week of June, and never so much as a glimpse of her.

Her last letter, too, had postponed his visit indefinitely, and he almost thought she was not treating him quite fairly. It was, of course, a confounded bore that Hugo Tancred should have turned up just now, but Peter saw no reason for staying away for ever on that account. He knew Wren's End was a good-sized house, and though he appreciated Jan's understanding of the fact that he wouldn't exactly choose to be a fellow-guest with such a thoroughly bad hat as Hugo Tancred, still he considered it was laying too much stress upon the finer shades of feeling to keep him away so long.

His aunt was delighted to have him; London was very pleasant; he had dined out quite a number of times, attended some big parties, seen all the best plays, and bought or ordered all the new clothes he needed, and a good deal that he didn't need at all. He had also bought a motor to take out with him. It was more than time to get within range of the main objective of his leave.

Suggestions that Jan _must_ have shopping to do and might as well come up for a day or two to do it only elicited the reply that she had no money for shopping and that it was most unlikely that she would be in London again for ages.

She hadn't answered his last letter, either, which was another grievance.

Then came a letter with the Amber Guiting post-mark, and in a handwriting he did not know--a funny little, clear, square handwriting with character in every stroke.

He opened it and read:

"DEAR MR. LEDGARD,

"It is just possible you may have heard of me from Mrs. Tancred or Miss Ross, but in case you haven't I will explain that I am nurse to the little Tancreds and that Miss Ross is my dearest friend. I think it would be a very good thing if you came down to see her, for her brother-in-law is here, and I am never quite sure what he might persuade her to do if he put the screw on about the children. There is a comfortable inn called 'The Green Hart,' and there's another called 'The Full Basket,' but I fear you'd not get a room there as it's very small and always chock-full at this time of year with fishing people.

"You see, if you came down to 'The Green Hart,' Jan couldn't say anything, for you've a perfect right to stay there if you choose, and I know it would help her and strengthen her hands to talk things over with you. She has spoken much of your kindness to them all in India.

"Do you fish, I wonder? I'm sure Squire Walcote would be amiable to any friend of Jan's.

"Believe me, yours truly,

"MARGARET MORTON."

Peter put the letter in his pocket and left the rest of his correspondence till after breakfast, and his aunt decided that he really was a most amusing and agreeable companion, and that she must have been mistaken last night in thinking he seemed rather depressed and worried.

After breakfast he went out to send a reply-paid telegram, and then to the garage, where he kept his car. Among other places he drove to "Hardy Brothers" in Pall Mall, where he stayed over an hour.

By the time he got back to Artillery Mansions it was lunch time. More letters awaited him, also a telegram.

During lunch he mentioned casually that he was going down into the country for the week-end to fish. He was going to motor down.

"Yes," in answer to his aunt's inquiry, "I do know people down there, but I'm not going to stay with them. I'm going to the inn--one's freer, you know, and if the sport's good I may stay on a few days."

* * * * *

Mr. Withells came again for Hugo on Saturday morning and proposed a run right over to Cheltenham for a rose show. Hugo declined the rose show, but gratefully accepted the drive. He would potter about the town while Mr. Withells inspected the flowers. The Grange head-gardener had several exhibits, and was to be taken on the front seat.

They started soon after breakfast and would be gone the whole day, for it was an hour and three-quarters run by road and two by train.

"I wish he had offered to take you," Jan said to Meg when the big motor had vanished out of the drive. "It would have been so nice for you to see Major Morton."

"And sit bodkin between Hugo and Mr. Withells or on one of those horrid little folding-seats--no, thank you! When I go to see my poor little papa I shall go by train by myself. I'll choose a day when their dear father can help you with the children."

After lunch Meg began to find fault with Jan's appearance. "I simply won't see you in that old grey skirt a minute longer--go and put on a white frock--a nice white frock. You've got plenty."

"Who is always grumbling about the washing? Besides, I want to garden."

"You can't garden this afternoon. On such a lovely day it's your duty to dress in accordance with it. I'm going to clean up my children, and then we'll all go down to the post-office to buy stamps and show ourselves. _You_ ought to call on Lady Mary--you know you ought. Go and change, and then come and see if I approve of you. You might leave a card at the vicarage, too. I know they're going to the rose show, so you'd be quite safe."

"You're a nuisance, Meg," Jan complained. "Let you and little Fay go swanking down the village if you like, but why can't you leave Tony and me to potter comfortably in our old clothes?"

"I'm tired of your old clothes; I want you to look decent for once. You haven't done anything I asked you for ages. You might as well do this."

Jan sighed. "It seems rather absurd when you yourself say every soul we know will be at the flower show."

"I never said anything of the kind. I said Mrs. Fream was going to the flower show. Hurry up, Jan."

* * * * *

"Well, will I do? Will I satisfy the hedges and ditches, do you think?" Jan asked later, as she appeared in the hall clad in the white raiment Meg had commanded.

Meg turned her round. "Very nice indeed," she said. "I'm glad you put on the expensive one. It's funny why the very plain things cost such a lot. I like the black hat with your white hair. Yes, I consent to take you out; I don't mind owning you for my missus. Children, come and admire Auntie Jan."

Jan dutifully delivered a card at the vicarage, and the nursery party left her to walk up the Manor drive alone. Lady Mary was in, and pleased to see her, but she only stayed a quarter of an hour, because Meg had made her promise to meet them again in the village. They were to have tea in the garden with the children and make it a little festival.

What a funny little thing Meg was, she thought as she strolled down the drive under the splendid beeches. So determined to have her own way in small things, such an incarnation of self-sacrifice in big ones.

A man was standing just outside the great gates in a patch of black shade thrown by a holly-tree in the lodge garden. Jan was long-sighted, and something in the figure and its pose caused her to stop suddenly. He wore the usual grey summer suit and a straw hat. Yet he reminded her of somebody, but him she had always seen in a topee, out of doors.

Of course it was only a resemblance--but what was he waiting there for?

He moved out from the patch of shade and looked up the drive through the open gates. He took off his hat and waved it, and came quickly towards her.

"I couldn't wait any longer," he said. "I won't be the least bit of a nuisance. I've come to fish, and I'm staying at 'The Green Hart'.... And how are you?"

She could never make it out, when she thought it over afterwards, but Jan found herself standing with both her hands in his and her beautiful black parasol tumbled unheeded in the dust.

"I happened to meet the children and Miss Morton, and they asked me to tell you they've gone home. They also invited me to tea."

"So do I," said Jan.

"I should hardly have known Tony," he continued; "he looks capital. And as for little Fay--she's a picture, but she always was."

"Did they know you?"

"_Did_ they know me!"

"Were they awfully pleased?"

"They were ever so jolly; even Tony shouted."

At the lodge they met the Squire. Jan introduced Peter and explained that he had just come down for a few days' fishing and was staying at "The Green Hart." The Squire proffered advice as to the best flies and a warning that he must not hope for much sport. The Amber was a difficult river, very; and variable; and it had been a particularly dry June.

Peter bore up under this depressing intelligence and he and Jan walked on through warm, scented lanes to Wren's End; and Peter looked at Jan a good deal.

Those who happened to be in London during the season of 1914 will remember that it was a period of powder and paint and frankest touching-up of complexions. The young and pretty were blackened and whitened and reddened quite as crudely as the old and ugly. There was no attempt at concealment. The faces of many Mayfair ladies filled Peter with disrespectful astonishment. He had not been home for four years, and then nice girls didn't do that sort of thing--much.

Now one of Jan's best points was her complexion; it was so fair and fresh. The touch of sunburn, too, was becoming, for she didn't freckle.

Peter found himself positively thankful to behold a really clean face; a face, too, that just then positively beamed with warm welcome and frank pleasure.

A clean face; a cool, clean frock; kind, candid eyes and a gentle, sincere voice--yes, they were all there just as he remembered them, just as he had so often dreamt of them. Moreover, he decided there and then that the Georgian ladies knew what they were about when they powdered their hair--white hair, he thought, was extraordinarily becoming to a woman.

"You are looking better than when I was in Bombay. I think your leave must have done you good already," said the kind, friendly voice.

"I need a spell of country air, really to set me up," said Peter.

They had an hilarious tea with the children on the Wren's lawn, and the tamest of the robins hopped about on the step just to show that he didn't care a fig for any of them.

Meg was just going to take the children to bed when Mr. Withells brought Hugo back. It was an awkward moment. Peter knew far too much about Hugo to simulate the smallest cordiality; and Hugo was too well aware of some of the things Peter knew to feel at all comfortable in his presence. But he had no intention of giving way an inch. He took the chair Meg had just vacated and sat down. Mr. Withells, too, sat down for a few minutes, and no sooner had he done so than William dashed out from amongst them, and, returning, was accompanied by Captain Middleton.

"No tea, thank you. Just got down from town, came with a message from my uncle--would Miss Ross's friend care for a rod on the Manor water on Monday? A brother officer who had been coming had failed at the last minute--there was room for four rods, but there wasn't a chance of much sport."

Miles was introduced to Peter and sat down by him. The children rushed at Miles and, ably impeded by William, swarmed over him in riotous welcome, wholly regardless of their nurse's voice which summoned them to bed.

Meg stood waiting.

"Miss Morton's father lives in Cheltenham," Jan said to Mr. Withells, who seemed rather left out. "She's going to see him on Tuesday--to spend the day."

"Then," said Mr. Withells in his clear staccato, "she must take the 9.15--it's much the best train in the day. And the 4.55 back. No other trains are at all suitable. I hope you will be guided by me in this matter, Miss Morton. I've made the journey many times."

So had Meg; but Mr. Withells always irritated her to such an extent that had it been possible, she would have declared her intention to go and return by quite different trains. As it was, she nodded pleasantly and said those were the very trains she had selected.

Miles thrust his head out from among the encompassing three and respectfully implored Mr. Withells' advice about trains to Cricklade, which lay off the Cheltenham route, even going so far as to note the hours of departure and arrival carefully in a little book.

Finally Meg came and disencumbered Miles of the children and bore them away.

When her voice took on a certain tone it was as useless to cope with Meg as with Auntie Jan. They knew this, and like wise children gave in gracefully.

Elaborate farewells had to be said to everybody, and with a final warm embrace for Miles, little Fay called to him "Tum and see me in my baff."

"Captain Middleton will have gone long before you are ready for that," Meg said inhospitably, and trying to look very tall and dignified she walked up the three steps leading to the nursery. But it is almost impossible to look imposing with a lagging child dragging at each hand, and poor Meg felt that her exit was far from effective.

William settled himself comfortably across his master's knees and in two minutes was snoring softly.

Miles manifested so keen an interest in Mr. Withells' exhibits (he had got a second prize and a highly commended) that the kindly little man was quite attracted; and when Miles inquired about trains to Cheltenham he gave him precisely the same advice that he had given Meg.

* * * * * * * *

The station at Amber Guiting is seldom crowded; it's on a shuttle line, and except on market-day there is but little passenger traffic.

Therefore a small young lady with rather conspicuously red hair, a neat grey coat and skirt, a shady grey straw hat trimmed with white clover and green leaves, and a green parasol, was noticeable upon the platform out of all proportion to her size.

The train was waiting. The lady entered an empty third-class carriage, and sitting in the corner with her back to the engine, shut herself in. The train departed punctually, and she took out from her bag a note-book which she studied with frowning concentration.

Ten minutes further down the line the train stops again at Guiting Green, and here the young lady looked out of the window to see whether anyone was travelling that she recognised.

There was. But it was impossible to judge from the young lady's expression whether the recognition gave her pleasure or not.

She drew in her head very quickly, but not before she had been seen.

"Hullo, Miss Morton! Where are you going? May I get in here?"

"Aren't you travelling first?"

"Not a bit of it. Sure you don't mind? How jolly to have met you!"

Miles looked so smiling, so big and well turned out, and pleased with life, that Meg's severe expression relaxed somewhat.

"I suppose," she said, "you're just going to the junction. But why come to Guiting Green?"

"I came to Guiting Green because it's exactly four miles from the Manor House. And I've walked those four miles, Miss Morton, walked 'em for the good of my health. Wish it wasn't so dusty, though--look at my boots! _I'm_ going to Cheltenham. Where are you going?"

"Cheltenham?" Meg repeated suspiciously. "What are you going to do there?"

"I'm going to see about a horse--not a dog this time--I hear that Smith's have got a horse that may suit me; really up to my weight they say it is, so I took the chance of going over while I'm with my uncle--it's a lot nearer than town, you know. But where are _you_ going?"

"I," said Meg, "am going to Cheltenham----"

"To Cheltenham!" Miles exclaimed in rather overdone astonishment. "What an extraordinary coincidence! And what are _you_ going to buy in Cheltenham?"

"I am going to see my father. I thought I had told you he lives there."

"So you did, of course. How stupid of me to forget! Well, it's very jolly we should happen to be going down together, isn't it?"

They looked at one another, and Miles laughed.

"I'm not at all sure that we ought to travel together after we reach the junction, and I don't believe you've got a third-class ticket." Meg looked very prim.

Miles produced his ticket--it _was_ third-class.

"There!" he said triumphantly.

"You would be much more comfortable in a smoker."

"So would you. We'll take a smoker; I've got the sort of cigarette you like."

At the junction they got a smoker, and Miles saw to it that they had it to themselves; he also persuaded the guard to give Meg a square wooden box to put her feet on, because he thought the seats were too high for her.

It seemed a very short journey.

Major Morton was awaiting Meg when they arrived; a little gentleman immaculately neat (it was quite clear whence Meg got her love of detail and finish)--who looked both washed-out and dried-up. He embraced her with considerable solemnity, exclaiming, "God bless you, my dear child! You look better than I expected."

"Papa, dear, here is Captain Middleton, a friend from Amber Guiting. We happened to travel together."

"Pleased to meet you, sir," said the little Major graciously; and somehow Miles contrived in two minutes so to ingratiate himself with Meg's "poor little papa" that they all walked out of the station together as a matter of course.

Then came the question of plans.

Meg had shopping to do, declared she had a list as long as her arm, but was entirely at her father's disposal as to whether she should do it before or after lunch.

Miles boldly suggested she should do it now, at once, while it was still fairly cool, and then she could have all her parcels sent to the station to meet her. He seemed quite eager to get rid of Meg. The little Major agreed that this would be the best course. He would stroll round to his club while Meg was shopping, and meet her when she thought she would have finished. They walked to the promenade and dropped her at Cavendish House. Miles, explaining that he had to go to Smith's to look at a horse, asked for directions from the Major. Their way was the same, and without so much as bidding her farewell, Miles strolled up one of the prettiest promenades in England in company with her father. Meg felt rather dazed.

She prided herself on having reduced shopping to a fine art, but to-day, somehow, she didn't get through as quickly as usual, and there was a number of items on her list still unticked when it was time to meet her father just outside his club at the top of the promenade.

Major Morton was the essence of punctuality. Meg flew to meet him, and found he had waited five minutes. He was not, however, upset, as might have been expected. He took her to his rooms in a quiet terrace behind the promenade and comfortably near his club. The sun-blinds were down outside his sitting-room windows, and the room seemed cool and pleasant.

Then it was that Meg discovered that her father was looking at her in quite a new way. Almost, in fact, as though he had never seen her before.

Was it her short hair? she wondered.

Yet that was not very noticeable under such a shady hat.

Major Morton had vigorously opposed the nursemaid scheme. To the sympathetic ladies who attended the same strictly evangelical church of which he was a pillar, he confided that his only daughter did not care for "a quiet domestic life." It was a grief to him--but, after all, parents are shelved nowadays; every girl wants to "live her own life," and he would be the last man to stand in the way of his child's happiness. The ladies felt very sorry for Major Morton and indignant with the hard-hearted, unfilial Meg. They did not realise that had Meg lived with her father--in rooms--and earned nothing, the Major's delicate digestion might occasionally have suffered, and Meg would undoubtedly have been half-starved.

To-day, however, he was more hopeful about Meg than he had been for a long time. Since the Trent episode he had ceased even to imagine her possible marriage. By her own headstrong folly she had ruined all her chances. "The weariful rich" who had got her the post did not spare him this aspect of her deplorable conduct. To-day, however, there was a rift in these dark clouds of consequence.

Captain Middleton--he only knows how--had persuaded Major Morton to go with him to see the horse, had asked his quite useless advice, and had subtly and insidiously conveyed to the Major, without one single incriminating sentence, a very clear idea as to his own feelings for the Major's daughter.

Major Morton felt cheered.

He had no idea who Miles really was, but he had remarked the gunner tie, and, asking to what part of the Royal Regiment Miles belonged, decided that no mere pauper could be a Horse-Gunner.

He regarded his daughter with new eyes.

She was undoubtedly attractive. He discovered certain resemblances to himself that he had never noticed before.

Then he informed her that he had promised they would both lunch with her agreeable friend at the Queen's Hotel: "He made such a point of it," said Major Morton, "I could hardly refuse; begged us to take pity on his loneliness, and so on--and I'm feeling rather better to-day."

Meg decided that the tide of fate was too strong for her, she must just drift with it.

It was a most pleasant lunch, save for one incident. Lady Penelope Pottinger and her husband, accompanied by Lottie Trent and a man, were lunching at another table.

Lady Penelope's party came in late. Miles and his guests had already arrived at coffee when they appeared.

They had to pass Miles' table, and Lady Penelope stopped; so did her husband. She shook hands with Meg. Miss Trent passed by with her nose in the air.

Miles presented his relations to the Major and they passed on.

The Major was quite pleased and rather flattered. He had no idea that the tall young woman with Lady Penelope had deliberately cut his host. But Meg knew just why she had done it.

After lunch Miles very properly effaced himself, but made a point of asking the Major if he might act as Miss Morton's escort on the journey back to Amber Guiting.

The Major graciously accompanied Meg while she did the rest of her shopping, and in the promenade they met the Pottinger party again.

The 4.55 was crowded. Miles collected Meg's parcels and suggested to the Major that it would be less tiring for his daughter if they returned first-class. Should he change the tickets?

The Major thought it a sensible proposition, especially with all those parcels. Meg would pay Captain Middleton the difference.

Again an amiable porter secured them an empty carriage. The parcels spread themselves luxuriously upon the unoccupied seats. The Major kissed his daughter and gave her his benediction, shaking hands quite warmly with her "pleasant young friend."

The 4.55 runs right up to the junction without a stop. Meg took off her best hat and placed it carefully in the rack. She leaned her bewildered head against the cushions and closed her eyes. She would drift with the tide just a few minutes more, and then----

Miles put a box of groceries for Lady Mary under her feet. She smiled faintly, but did not speak.

Presently she opened her eyes to find him regarding her with that expression she had surprised once or twice before, and never understood.

"Tired?" he asked.

"Only pleasantly. I think I've only travelled first-class about five times in my life before--and then it was with Mr. Ross."

"And now it's with me, and I hope it's the first of many."

"You say very odd things."

"What I mean isn't in the least odd--it's the most natural thing in the world."

"What is?"

"To want to go on travelling with you."

"If you're going to talk nonsense, I shall go to sleep again."

"No, I don't think I can allow you to go to sleep. I want you to wake up and face facts."

"Facts?"

"A fact."

"Facts are sometimes very unpleasant."

"I hope the fact I want you to face isn't exactly that--if it is ... then I'm ... a jolly miserable chap. Miss Morton--Meg--you must see how it is with me--you must know that you're dearer to me than anything on earth. I think your father tumbled to it--and I don't think he minded ... that I should want you for my wife."

"My poor little papa would be relieved to think that anyone could...."

"Could what?"

"Care for me ... in that way."

"Nonsense! But I'm exceedingly glad to have met your father."

"Why?"

"Because I wanted to meet him."

"Again, why?"

"Because he's your father."

"Did you observe that Miss Lotty Trent cut you dead at the Queen's to-day?"

"I did notice it, and, like you, I wonder why."

"I can tell you."

"I don't think you'd better bother. Miss Trent's opinion of me really doesn't matter----"

"It was because you were with me."

"But what a silly reason--if it is a reason."

"Captain Middleton, will you answer a question quite truthfully?"

"I'll try."

"What have you heard about me in connection with the Trents?"

"Not much, and that I don't believe."

"But you must believe it, some of it. It may not be so bad--as it might have been--but I put myself entirely in the wrong. I deceived Mrs. Trent and I did a thing no girl in her senses ought to have done."

"Look here, Meg," said Miles, leaning forward. "I don't want to know anything you don't choose to tell me; but since you _are_ on the subject--what did happen between you and that ... and Walter Brooke?"

Meg, too, leant forward; the express swayed and lurched. Their faces were very near; their eyes met and held each other in a long, searching gaze on the one side and an answering look of absolute candour on the other.

"I promised to go away with him, and I went away a few miles, and something came over me that I couldn't go any further, and I broke my promise and ran away. Jan knows it's true, for it was to them I went. But the Trents would never believe it, though Mr. Ross saw Mrs. Trent herself, and told her exactly what had happened. And I daresay ... they are quite justified."

"And how many times have you seen him since?"

"Never till the other day, when he nearly ran over William."

"And how long ago is it since all this happened?"

"Nearly six years."

"Don't you think it's about time you put it all out of your mind?"

"I had put it out of my mind ... till ... you came."

"It didn't make any difference to me."

"I shall never forget that," Meg said, so low that the rattle of the train wholly drowned her remark, but it couldn't conceal her smile.

Miles lost his head. He kneeled down plump on the floor of that compartment and took her in his arms and kissed her.

* * * * * * * *

"All the same, I don't believe I can marry you," she said later.

"Why on earth not?"

"Because I don't think I'm a suitable wife for you."

"Surely I'm the best judge of that."

"No, you're not a judge at all. You think you're in love with me...."

"I'm hanged if I do--I _know_."

"Because you're sorry for me----"

"On the contrary, I'm sorry for myself. I think you're a hard-hearted ... obstinate ... little...."

Mr. Withells would have been scandalised at the conduct of Miles. He would undoubtedly have described it as both "insanitary and improper."

"Oh, please listen!" Meg gasped. "Perhaps a long time hence ... if you're still of the same mind...."

"Anyway, may I tell people?"

"Not a soul. I won't have my Jan worried just now. I've undertaken those children ... and she's having a bad time with that brother-in-law----"

"I say, Meg, what is it about that chap Tancred? I can't stick him.... Is he a bad egg, or what?"

"He is...."

"Poor Miss Ross! But why does she have him there?"

"Oh, it's a long story--and here we are at the junction, and I'm not going on first to Amber Guiting--so there!"

* * * * *

Jan in the pony-cart was waiting outside when Meg came from the little station. Captain Middleton followed in her train, laden with parcels like a Father Christmas.

He packed her and the parcels in, covered both the ladies with the dust-holland, announced that he had bought a charger, and waited to get into the Manor motor till they had driven out of the station.

They neither of them spoke till they had turned into the road. Then Jan quoted softly: "When I go to see my poor little papa, I shall go by train _by myself_."