Part 10

"He dines and sleeps here to-morrow with an old friend--they are staying at Frencham together. I didn't want him here all the time," she said, significantly. "He raved quite enough about Gerald Vincent's girl those two days in town."

"I thought Stringer found out there was a 'young bounder' in the way?"

"Awfully lucky, wasn't it?" Mrs. Lakeman said, triumphantly, and off her guard for a moment. "But Tom came afterwards and saw him, too--and was quite choked off. It's extraordinary how completely the Vincents have gone smash."

But Farley took no interest in the Vincents. "Carringford hangs about Lena far too much unless something is coming of it," he said. "I should tell him so if I were you."

"He's coming to us in Scotland on the tenth. They'll have opportunities there," she answered, carelessly. "Let us go and look for her."

Lena meanwhile was sitting on a grave in the churchyard, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands, looking out towards the Surrey hills, and she, too, was thinking of Tom Carringford and Margaret. She had been uneasy from the moment they had met each other on the embankment. She had seen Margaret's beauty and Tom's recognition of it, and they were something like each other--well-grown and healthy, a boy and girl that matched. She was not violently in love with Tom herself, but she simply couldn't bear that he should escape her, and on one pretext or another she brought him perpetually to her side. It was easy enough, for they had known each other since they were born, and Mrs. Lakeman had helped him with the house in Stratton Street when he was left alone in it. Since his father's death and his sister's marriage she had taken the place of a near relation. He knew that Lena liked him, but it never occurred to him that her feeling was anything more--she always squirmed and looked into people's eyes and called them "dear"; if it had occurred to him he would probably have proposed on the spot, for there was no particular reason why he should not marry her, except that she was a little too clinging, and too fond of darkened rooms and limp clothes. He liked fresh air and a straightforwardness he could understand: there were many praiseworthy elementary qualities in Tom Carringford.

"He'll be quite happy with us in Scotland," Lena said to herself. "We'll sit by the streams or walk in the woods all day; he'll feel that we belong to each other and tell me he loves me"--for she was cloying even in her secret thoughts--"I think we must be married this autumn, then mother will be free. I wonder if mother will marry Dawson Farley." Lena was sharp enough, and was quite aware of the actor's vague intentions, little as he imagined it. She looked up at the wood--the crown--in the near distance, and then at the fields that led to the farm. That must be Margaret's wood, she thought, for Tom, who was frankness itself, had told the Lakemans of his visit to Chidhurst and his walk with Margaret.

Lena would have gone across the fields to the farm, but Mrs. Lakeman, who always had an eye for effect, would not hear of it.

"We will pay Mrs. Gerald Vincent a formal visit," she said, "in our best clothes and new gloves, and drive up to the door properly."

They had hired an open fly for the two days they were going to stay. Nothing could make it imposing--it was just a ramshackle landau, and that was all, and the driver was the ordinary country flyman. It happened--though this had nothing to do with the Lakemans--that he was the same man, grown old, who twenty years ago had taken the elder Bartons to Woodside Farm when they went to expostulate with the widow concerning her second marriage. He thought of it to-day as he went down the green lane and in at the farm gates, for afterwards he had come to know with what their errand had been concerned.

Mrs. Lakeman, with Lena beside her, sat on the front seat, Dawson Farley facing them. "I never believe in treating these people carelessly," she remarked, as she fidgeted with her lace handkerchief--it was scented with violets--and held back her lace parasol as they drove in at the gates. Then she was almost startled. "What a lovely place!" she exclaimed. "Look at that porch, and those old windows. Gerald's not such a fool, after all! And a Dutch garden, too--why, I could live and die here myself!"

"I don't think so," Mr. Farley said, cynically.

"It's just what I thought it would be," Lena cooed. "I felt sure that Margaret lived in the midst of flowers."

They had stopped by the porch. The front door was open, but not a soul was visible.

"You must get down and ring the bell, Dawson," Mrs. Lakeman said, a little puzzled, as if she had expected the inhabitants of the house to run out and greet her. Then suddenly Towsey appeared. Margaret's hint had evidently taken effect, for she wore the black dress that she usually kept for Sundays, and a white apron that met behind her generous waist. Above the porch, from the window seat of her own room, Margaret, listening and watching, heard Mrs. Lakeman ask, in a clear voice that always seemed to have a note of derision in it: "Is Mrs. Gerald Vincent at home?"

"You are to come in," said Towsey, brusquely.

Mrs. Lakeman trailed into the living-room, followed by Lena and Mr. Farley. She looked at the great fireplace piled with logs and bracken, at the old-fashioned chair on either side, at the oak table in the middle, and the chest against the wall, then back at the porch and the glorious view beyond it. Within, all was dim and cool and still; without, summer was at its highest and nature holding carnival. Impressionable and quick to succumb to influences, she was charmed. "I call this the perfection of peace and simplicity," she exclaimed, as they stood in a group waiting.

A door on the left opened, a tall figure appeared and hesitated. Mrs. Lakeman went forward with emotion, just as she had done to Gerald, but there was a shade of fine patronage in her manner this time. "It must be Mrs. Vincent--dear Gerald's wife," she said.

Mrs. Vincent looked at her visitor with calm wonderment.

"Yes," she said, simply. "I suppose you are a friend of his? Margaret thought you might come."

"I am Hilda Lakeman. You have heard of me, of course." Mrs. Lakeman's lips twisted with her odd smile. "You can imagine that I wanted to see you. I made a point of coming at once. We are staying at Sir George Stringer's till Monday."

"Perhaps you will come in," Mrs. Vincent said, a little awkwardly. Mrs. Lakeman followed her into the best parlor, and looked round it with surprise. The room was perfect in its way. She had pictured something more comfortless.

"Dear Gerald's books," she said in a low tone to herself, glancing up at the well-filled shelves--"and his writing-table and reading-chair," she added, with a thrill. "The piano, I suppose, is Margaret's?" she asked, with an air of knowing how to place and value everything; for on a closer inspection she had decided that, after all, Mrs. Vincent was the simple farmer woman she had imagined. She was tall, and in the distance had an air of distinction, it was true; but Mrs. Lakeman felt it to be a spurious one--a chance gift of squandering nature. Her eyes and mouth were still beautiful, but her hair was gray, her throat was brown and drawn, her shoulders were a little bent. "She is quite an old woman," Mrs. Lakeman thought, triumphantly, as she walked across the room, listening to the rustling of her own dress, and noting the stuff one clumsily made--such as a housekeeper might have worn--in which Mrs. Vincent stood waiting to see what her visitors would do next. "I wonder what she thinks of her prospect of being Lady Eastleigh?" Mrs. Lakeman thought, and then, with courteous but extreme formality, and the swift change of manner that was peculiar to her, she said: "This is my daughter, Mrs. Vincent--she has been looking forward to seeing you; and I have ventured to bring our old friend, Mr. Dawson Farley. I am sure it needs no excuse to present so famous a person to you--"

She stopped, for Hannah had entered and stood, half humbly, half defiantly, by the door. Hannah had dressed herself in her best, but the blue alpaca frock and the black alpaca apron and the white muslin tie round her neck only added to her uneasiness. Her hair was pulled well back, and two horn hair-pins showed in the scanty knot into which it was gathered at the top.

"That's Hannah," Mrs. Vincent explained, "my daughter by my first husband."

"How do you do?" Mrs. Lakeman said, with an odd smile, and looked at her insolently. "We are delighted to see you."

"How do you do?" Hannah answered, grimly. "Margaret thought you'd be coming. Won't you sit down?" She indicated seats to the visitors with an air of inferiority, and a consciousness of it, that was highly satisfactory to Mrs. Lakeman, whose dramatic instincts were fast coming into play.

"Miss--let me see--it was Miss Barton, I think? This is my daughter Lena, and this is Mr. Farley." Her manner was almost derisive as she presented them. "Ah! there is our Margaret. My dear!" and she folded Margaret in her arms, "I told you we should come. You knew we should, didn't you? It's such a wonderful thing," she went on, turning to Mrs. Vincent, "to see Gerald's child."

"She's a fine, tall girl," Mrs. Vincent answered, looking at Margaret with pride.

"We've come to see you in your home, you little thing," Lena whispered, and pulled Margaret gently towards her.

"It's very kind of you," Margaret answered, repelled immediately. "But if I'm a fine, tall girl I can't be very little, can I?"

"You are very sweet," Lena whispered again, and stroked her shoulder. "You remember Mr. Farley, don't you, dear?"

"Oh yes," Margaret said, shaking hands with him.

"He is staying with us till Monday morning," Mrs. Lakeman explained. "Then we are all going back together, very early, indeed, in order to catch the Scotch express from Euston."

"It's not a long stay," Mrs. Vincent said, with the restraint in her manner that was always impressive. "The place is worth a longer one. You will come to think so."

"I dare say, but we must start for Scotland on Monday, and, as I never can travel at night, we must leave here in the morning and go up to town by the eight o'clock train in order to catch the day express. Tom Carringford is coming over to-morrow afternoon"--and she looked up at Margaret with a smile--"to dine and sleep. He is at Frencham now, dear boy; but he said he must come and spend to-morrow evening with us and go up and see us off in the morning." She wished Margaret to understand distinctly that Tom belonged to them.

"Is he going to Scotland, too?" Margaret asked, rather lamely, for lack of something else to say.

"Not with us. He is so disappointed, dear boy, at not being able to get away, but he comes to us in a week or two." She stopped for a moment and turned impulsively to Mrs. Vincent. "But I want to talk about Gerald," she said. "He told you of his visit to us? It was years since I had seen him-- Mr. Farley wanted to meet him so much, too," she broke off to add, always careful to include every one in the room in her talk. "They ought to have gone to see him, of course--he had a magnificent part; but Gerald would take Margaret to 'King John'. He thought it would educate her more and amuse her less, I suppose."

"Is Mr. Farley an actor?" Hannah asked.

"Dawson, that ought to take it out of you!" Mrs. Lakeman laughed. "There's one place in the world, at any rate, where they haven't heard of you." And then turning to Hannah, she said, impressively, "He is the greatest romantic actor in England, Miss Barton."

"It's a thing I am not likely to have heard," Hannah answered. "I have never entered a theatre, or wished to enter one."

Lena made a little sound of sympathy. "I always like the Puritans," she said. "They were so self-denying."

"I'm a very wicked person, perhaps," Dawson Farley said, with pleasant cynicism, that almost won Hannah in spite of herself. "But all the same, won't you show us your garden, Miss Barton?" It seemed to him sheer insanity to come to the country and stay in-doors.

"I wish you young people would all go to the garden. I want to talk to this dear woman alone, and we have only a quarter of an hour to stay," Mrs. Lakeman said.

"You'll take a cup of tea?" Mrs. Vincent asked, for it always seemed to her that a visit was a poor thing unless it included refreshment.

"No, thank you; we must get back. And now tell me," she went on, when they were alone, "what does Gerald say about Cyril? He sent me a little note when he arrived, but he hadn't seen him then." The note was merely an acknowledgment of a sentimental farewell one she had sent him, but Mrs. Lakeman did not think it necessary to mention this.

"He sent you a note--from Australia?" Mrs. Vincent asked, wonderingly.

"Of course he did." She put her hand on Mrs. Vincent's. "You know what he and I were to each other once?"

"What were you?" Mrs. Vincent asked, the light beginning to dawn upon her.

"He didn't tell you?" Mrs. Lakeman said, in a low voice. "Perhaps he couldn't bear to speak of it; but he and I were all the world to each other till his opinions separated us. My father was Dr. Ashwell, Bishop of Barford--of course you have heard of him?" Her tone implied that even in these parts her father could not have been unknown. "He and my mother, Lady Mary--she was Lady Mary Torbey before she married"--the vulgarity of Mrs. Lakeman's soul was quite remarkable--"were devoted to Gerald; we all were, in fact, and he was devoted to us. But of course it was impossible," and she shrugged her shoulders.

"I suppose you thought it would have done you harm to marry him, when he didn't pretend to believe what he didn't feel to be true?" Mrs. Vincent said, in her calm, direct manner.

"Well, you see--it couldn't be." The woman was horribly phlegmatic, Mrs. Lakeman thought. She was neither impressed nor jealous; her attitude, if anything, was mildly critical. "Of course, I wasn't free to do as I liked, as you were. Poor, dear Gerald! I know he suffered horribly. That's the curse of a position like ours. One has to accept its obligations," she added, loftily.

"I didn't know that anything need make one unfaithful to the man who loved one, and to whom one was bound by promises."

"I thought so, too; but I couldn't break my father's heart. I have never forgiven myself"--she tried hard to put tears into her eyes, but they would not come--"for I know what he suffered. He was a wanderer for years," she went on, "and never able to settle down in London again. I suppose that was how he found his way here. Tell me about your marriage." She gave a little gasp, as if she had screwed up courage to listen to details that would still be harrowing to her; but a gleam of amusement looked out of her blue eyes. Mrs. Vincent saw it, and, little as Mrs. Lakeman would have imagined her to be capable of it, she understood its meaning.

"I shouldn't care to talk about it to a stranger," she answered. "There are things that are sacred outside the Bible as well as written in it."

"I am not a stranger. I can't be a stranger to Gerald Vincent's wife." Mrs. Lakeman tried to be passionate, but it didn't come off very well. "I wouldn't say it to any one else in the world, but I've never ceased to care for him, and I don't believe--I don't believe," she repeated, in a low tone, "that he has ever quite forgotten me."

"I don't suppose he has forgotten you," Mrs. Vincent answered, calmly; "but I am certain that he has been faithful to his wife and child here."

"Of course he has."

"And he's loved them all the years he's known them. You let him go when it would have been inconvenient to marry him; but he didn't marry any one else till he had quite got over it. He's not the sort of man to do anything dishonorable."

"Of course he isn't." Mrs. Lakeman began to feel uncomfortable.

"And it's better that what is past and dead should be buried, and left unspoken of. I know"--she looked Mrs. Lakeman straight in the eyes--"he feels that everything was for the best; and he's been content and happy here. He said it not three months ago, and I think it would have been better not to have raked up bygones."

"You are quite right," Mrs. Lakeman said, heartily, for she was a quick-sighted woman and rather enjoyed being beaten: it made good comedy. "You are a most sensible woman. And now, tell me, won't it seem odd to you to be Lady Eastleigh?"

"I've not thought about it," Mrs. Vincent answered. "A living man has the name at present, and I hope he'll keep it."

"I dare say you would rather he did," Mrs. Lakeman said, patronage coming into her voice again. "It would be rather a difficult change," she added, humorously. "Fancy Gerald, Lord Eastleigh, living at Woodside Farm, with Miss Barton for his step-daughter--the Gerald whom I remember with every woman at his feet."

"I don't see that it would make so much difference," Mrs. Vincent answered, "and I hope he won't call himself by any other name than the one he has been known by. For my part, I never could see why people set so much store on titles. The biggest lord that lives only lies in one grave at last, and it isn't as if Gerald had a son to come after him, or was coming to big estates that had to be thought of. He'll live here again, and be just the same as he always was." She looked bravely at Mrs. Lakeman though her heart was sinking, for she knew that the old life at Woodside Farm was forever at an end. And if he brought this title back with him, might it not cause people to come round him who had never thought of coming before, people who would think her inferior, and let her see what they thought, just as this Mrs. Lakeman did? She couldn't understand it, for the pride of race was in her, too. Had she not come of people who had belonged to the land--God's beautiful land--and spent their lives looking after it, faithful to their wives, bringing up their children to do right? There had not been a stain on their records for generations past--neither drunkard nor bankrupt nor anything of the sort had belonged to them. Suddenly she remembered Mrs. Lakeman.

"Perhaps, as you have to go almost directly, you would like to see the garden, too?" She got up, and for a moment she looked like an empress putting an end to an interview.

Mrs. Lakeman was carried away by her manner. "You are a very remarkable woman," she said, almost generously, "and the most unworldly person I ever came across."

"But you see the fashions and things that people care for in London are not in our way," Mrs. Vincent answered, with a smile. "Are you sure you won't stay for a cup of tea?"

XVII

"Let me sit in the porch with Margaret," said Lena, when they came back from their walk round the garden; "I am quite tired. Take Mr. Farley to see the cows, dear Miss Barton."

Hannah had stood by the visitors and showed the glories of the garden herself. It was her place, she thought, and time that she proved it.

"I want to rest," continued Lena, "and to talk to Margaret about her lover." She sat down and held out her hands. "Do come to me, little Margaret."

"It's all a mistake," Margaret began, in dismay.

"Who is it that's her lover?" Hannah asked, looking up sharply.

Lena scented an exciting track, and was happy. "George Stringer told us about him. He saw them in the fields together." She put out her hands again, but Margaret shrank back with something that was like horror. "He said you looked so happy together, darling; and you lingered behind the hedge just as lovers always do."

"He is not my lover, and I hate him!" Margaret exclaimed.

"Mr. Garratt cares nothing for her, I can tell you that," said Hannah, emphatically.

"Oh, but he must," Lena answered. "George Stringer said you blushed so sweetly when you took him to the gate, and spoke of him, and then Tom--our dear Tom--told us how Mr. Garratt came to tea, and he was so careful not to say that you had taken him to the wood for fear there should be jealousy."

"Miss Lakeman, I want you to understand--" Margaret began.

"Darling, you must call me Lena."

"That Mr. Garratt comes here to see Hannah, my half-sister, and not to see me."

"Oh, but Tom said that you and he talked to each other all the time," Lena went on in her sugary voice.

"This is just what I expected, considering the goings on," Hannah cried, almost losing control over herself. "But it's not Margaret that he comes to see."

"No one could come and see any one else when she is here," Lena whispered to herself; but Hannah heard, and answered quickly:

"It's she that puts herself forward and forces herself upon him."

"Oh, she couldn't, she looks so sweet. Here comes Mr. Farley back from his little walk. Shall we ask him if he thinks it possible that any one doesn't love you?"

Margaret turned and blazed at her. "Please be silent," she said; "you may not mean it, but you say things that are simply dreadful, and they sound as if you said them on purpose."

"I'll ask Tom about it when he comes to-morrow; and I'll make him come and see you again if I can." Lena put on an air of being puzzled and a little injured. "But we have not seen each other for three days and I want him for myself, just as Mr. Garratt wants you."

Margaret went forward and put her hand on Hannah's arm. "She's doing it on purpose, Hannah," she said, with distress in her voice, "and because she sees that it vexes you, and that I hate it."

Lena was enjoying herself immensely. "I have made you angry again," she said; "but you look splendid, just as you did in London. Isn't she beautiful, Miss Barton?"

Hannah could hardly bear it. "I have never been able to see it," she said, as her mother and Mrs. Lakeman entered.

Dawson Farley was standing by the porch. "Are you likely to come to London again, Miss Vincent?" he asked.

"I hope I shall, and soon," Margaret answered; and then she went on eagerly, "I heard that you saw Miss Hunstan first when she walked on the stage holding up a princess's train?"

Mr. Farley looked at her curiously. "There is a princess in my new piece," he said. "Do you want to come and hold up her train?"

"I should love it!" she answered, and walked up the grass-covered path with him.

Meanwhile Mrs. Lakeman, too, was amusing herself. "And what do you think of your step-father's chance of coming into the title?" she asked of Hannah.

Mrs. Vincent's lips locked closely together, but she said nothing.

"What title?" Hannah looked up quickly.

Mrs. Lakeman felt that here was quite a new sensation: she had always been a gambler in sensations, an inveterate speculator in effects.

"You know that your step-father will be Lord Eastleigh when his brother dies?"

"I know nothing about it. Why has a mystery been made of it?"

"There has been no mystery made of it," Mrs. Vincent said, firmly. "I don't suppose father will take up the title, and, anyway, it needn't be spoken of while the one who has it lives. It seems like hurrying him into his grave."

But Hannah was not to be silenced. "I suppose this is why we never heard anything of his relations," she said. "Was he ashamed of us?"

"Such a thing never entered his head," Mrs. Vincent answered.

"And why did this brother, who has got a title, go hiding himself in Australia? Did he do something he oughtn't to have done?"

"He never did anything but spend his money too quickly," Mrs. Lakeman answered. "He made an unlucky marriage, of course--dear old Cyril; but heaps of men do that. We must be going, Mrs. Vincent. Some people are coming to tea--the Harfords from Bannock Chase; do you know them?"

"I see them in church, but we have not their acquaintance," Mrs. Vincent answered. Mrs. Lakeman told Dawson Farley afterwards that she said it with the air of a duchess who had refused to call upon them.