Part 20

It was Grant, however, to whom he first talked alone, walking in the garden. Grant could see nothing on the horizon but a prospective marriage between Sir Harry Brent and Lady Sidney Pawle, which appeared to him eminently as one that should give satisfaction to all parties concerned.

"Of course they won't want to be married yet awhile," he said, "but we're expecting an engagement any day. I must say that it has all turned out in a most extraordinarily satisfactory way. Supposing the boy had done what his father did! He'd seen nobody here; he might very well have got taken in by somebody who wouldn't have been the right sort of person for him to marry when he cut himself loose. And there was just the chance of this one girl being here when he came home. One is inclined to think of Lady Brent managing everything, but she didn't actually manage that. It just came about."

Wilbraham listened to all this, his own thoughts running all the time. Sidney and Jane and Harry were in another part of the garden, out of sight, but not out of hearing. A burst of laughter punctuated the close of the Vicar's speech. "Wouldn't they want to get away by themselves if it's as you think?" Wilbraham asked.

"Ah, my boy, you don't recognize the march of the great passion," said Grant. "I've loved watching those three together, because it is all going as I should have expected."

"Copy in it," suggested Wilbraham.

"Well, that's your way of putting it. But of course one takes in everything that passes before one's eyes, and if it doesn't come out exactly like it, it's----"

"Near enough to look like it. Well, I suppose you've made a study of it, and all the old women who read your immortal works will shiver down their spines and say, 'It was just like that with me.' But I'd rather take Jane's opinion about it than yours."

"Would you? Well, Jane's having the time of her life. They're awfully nice to her. Of course they're just in the state when it's gratifying to have somebody like Jane with them, who thinks there never was anybody like either of them. They flatter each other through her."

"Oh, that's how it's going to be worked out, is it? The old women will love that. It's a new touch, and they'll wish they'd thought of it for themselves, in time. Did Jane tell you it was like that, or was it your own mighty brain?"

"You're jealous of my success, Wilbraham. But I don't mind your jibes. I don't write for the highbrows like you, and I do touch the hearts of thousands. Jane talks to her mother. I shouldn't expect her to talk to me about it."

"Well, what does Mrs. Grant say? She's got some sense."

"She keeps rather quiet about it. I think she's just thankful that Harry has somebody to keep him bright and cheerful while he's at home. You made a mistake, you know, before, in not letting him have young people to play with."

"He had your two."

"As it happened, yes. But they were only children. Jane is older now, but not old enough, fortunately, to have the danger of complications. Apart altogether from the question of a love affair with Lady Sidney, I believe it's the best thing that could happen for him to have those two with him while he's here. It's an awful welter of blood and horror out there, you know, Wilbraham. None of the young fellows who come home talk much about it, but it doesn't need much imagination to see what a healing process it is for anybody like Harry to spend a few weeks with people like those two girls as his chief companions, in a quiet lovely place like this."

"Now you're talking sense yourself for a change. Here's Mrs. Brent coming. Don't leave me alone with her. It's an awful welter of red tape and incompetence where I've just come from, but I don't want her as a healing process till I feel a little stronger."

But the Grants had to be going very shortly, and Mrs. Brent was not to be denied.

Her first address to Wilbraham, however, was not on the subject of her grievances. "Oh, I forgot to tell you when I wrote," she said. "You know that artist--Bastian--who came down here two summers ago?"

"Yes," said Wilbraham, with his heart in his mouth.

"Well, I've found out that he married a great friend of mine--oh, years ago, but I hadn't forgotten her. She died, poor girl, but of course the daughter who was with Mr. Bastian here was hers. I wish I'd known. I'd have gone to see them."

"You wouldn't have wanted to bring that time up, would you?" said Wilbraham, scarcely knowing what to say.

She was all bristles at once. "I think I was very badly treated about all that," she said. "I'd nothing whatever to be ashamed of in what I came from, and all the time it was made to look as if I had. I half believed it myself, but now I know better. Every one of my family is doing well. They're not in the position I'm in, of course, but there's no need to be ashamed of any of them. In fact, I've made up my mind to introduce Harry to his relations on my side of the family. I'm going to ask him to take me up to London before he goes back. Then he'll see for himself."

"Do you think you're wise?" said Wilbraham, relieved at having got away from the subject of the Bastians.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "What's the objection?"

"Well, you say they're not equal to you. They may be very good sort of people; I dare say they are; but what's the sense of dragging them in at this time of the day--after twenty years--to mark the difference?"

"What difference?"

"Well, the difference between them and Lady Brent."

"Lady Brent! How can you talk like that? It's just that I'm so mad with Lady Brent that I----"

"I know it is. All you can think of is to score off her. You're not thinking of Harry; you're not even thinking of yourself. What are you going to get, out of going back on everything you've stood for for the last twenty years? Harry thinks of you as belonging to Royd, in the same sort of way as Lady Brent does. Why should he have ever thought of you as anything different? Now you're proposing to show him the difference. You say yourself they _are_ different. You're going to show him the difference between Lady Brent and them. Which is likely to come out of it best? I don't know; I'm asking you."

"Oh, you're just trying to aggravate me," she said. "You always were like that. I don't know why I talk to you at all."

"Well, if you've finished, I think I'll go in. I want a peaceful time as long as I'm here. You're the only person who doesn't seem to be comfortable and happy. I'd rather be with those of them who are."

"I'm not at all happy. I'm just miserable. Harry doesn't love me any more, and I don't know what to do about it."

They had come to the bowling alley where Wilbraham had thought out his difficulties two summers before. She sank down on to the seat and cried.

Wilbraham felt very sorry for her, but determined to prevent her from making mischief if he could. "Look here," he said, "I don't think it really much matters whether you introduce Harry to your people or not. He's grown up now, and all that idea of keeping things from him is over. Do what you like about it. Lady Brent won't try to stop you; I'm pretty certain of that. She has given up trying to direct his life. Why can't you?"

Her sobs increased. "I'm his mother," she said. "I've had so little of him. I can't give him up now."

"You had him during the whole of his childhood, more than most mothers have their sons. Lady Brent may have been a bit jealous of you; I dare say she was; she's got her weaknesses like all the rest of us. But she didn't try to get him away from you. I was here most of the time, and I could see that plainly enough. You know it too. You'll be much happier about things if you try to be fair to her, as she's tried to be fair to you."

"Oh, of course it's her you're thinking of all the time. I don't come in at all."

"Yes, you do come in. I'm trying to help you to get things straight. The fact is your nose has been put out of joint by this girl who's here. It isn't Lady Brent at all, though you heap it all back on her. You can't expect a boy of Harry's age to go about tied to his mother's apron strings, when there's somebody young for him to play with. You like the girl all right, don't you?"

She had dried her eyes and sat leaning forward in an attitude of picturesque misery. "It doesn't seem to matter whether I like her or not," she said. "Harry won't talk to me about her. If he told me he was in love with her I should do my best to sympathize with him. I want to be everything to my son."

"Of course you do; and of course you can't be. If he hasn't told you he's in love with her, it's because he isn't. For goodness' sake let him be happy while he's here, and in his own way. He'll be going back soon enough, and you won't want him to think of his holiday spoiled by your complaints. You're selfish, you know. It's yourself you're thinking of all the time, not him. You used not to be like that."

"Oh, well," she said, rising, "I suppose I must put up with it. It's the common lot of mothers. I shan't talk about it any more, to you or anybody."

"That's right," said Wilbraham, as they strolled towards the house. "And don't make complaints to Harry, either. It's not the way to get what you want from him. Of course you know that really, as well as I do. Only it's difficult, isn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know," she said. With the end of her emotion she seemed to have entered a mood almost of indifference. "If I've stood what I have all these years, and kept myself under as I have, I suppose I can go on doing it. It's coming down here that has upset me. I've been happy enough in London. Of course I've wanted to hear about Harry, but he's promised me now that he'll write to me regularly. I shall be better off, in a way, than I've ever been. I'm _somebody_ there, you see. Here I'm nobody. I shan't stay here a moment longer than Harry does. I hate the place now. Why have you never been to see me in London?"

"I don't know that you've ever asked me. Where do you live?"

She told him. She was sharing a flat with an old friend, a woman who had been on the stage with her, had had an unhappy married life, but had got on in her profession.

"Margaret Creedy?" said Wilbraham. "I've seen her act. She's very good."

"Yes, you wouldn't have thought she began in the chorus, would you? She never had much voice, which was perhaps just as well for her, or she'd have been in musical comedy still. She doesn't like it remembered, and of course I don't want it known either; but we often talk over old times. It was from her, by the by, that I heard about Mrs. Bastian. She married a gentleman, like I did; but he'd come down in the world. Bastian isn't his real name, you know.".

"What is his real name?"

"I don't know. I meant to find out about him, and go and see what the girl is like. You never told me much about her, but if she's like her mother she ought to be very pretty."

"She is very pretty, but----"

"Oh, you mean I ought not to let them know who I was, as they've been here. Perhaps I shan't. I don't want to give _her_ any handles against me."

"By _her_ I suppose you mean Lady Brent. Everything comes back to her. You'll think better of all that some day. I wish you'd think better of it now. Royd would be a less prickly house to live in."

"Oh, I shall behave myself, never you fear," she said as she left him.

He thought it probable that she would. He had made an impression on her, though she was not of the sort that would acknowledge it. She was evidently making her own life, and even if she had dropped all pretence of war work, for which she had gone to London, it was not a life that would let the name of Brent down, as he had rather feared. Margaret Creedy was an actress of some distinction, and would be very careful not to jeopardize the social position she had won for herself. And Mrs. Brent, for all her independent talk, was guided by a sense of her own importance in the world. Probably the joint establishment was as rigidly respectable as any in London.

As for possible complications with the Bastians, Wilbraham could do nothing. If the revelation came in that way, it must come, and for himself he didn't care when it came. He was tired of all the secrecy, and thought too that Harry was wrong in keeping his secret; or, at any rate, right or wrong in being unwilling to disclose it himself, that it would be better for him if it were known.

He was inclined to dread the talk that he saw coming with Lady Brent. He badly wanted a recreative rest himself, and hated the idea of exercising his brain in steering clear of admissions to her, hated also the idea of deceiving her by doing so, when all the time he was in sympathy with her in her doubts and disappointments. What was done was done. Harry was what he was, and if she had made any mistake in his upbringing, which he did not admit, it would do no good now to dwell on it with regret. Harry was working it all out for himself, and as far as Wilbraham could see, was not making such a bad job of it. He would tell her that, when she began to discuss him, and cut the conversation as short as he conveniently could. Then he would be free to enjoy himself, in the company of the people he liked best in the world, and in the place which seemed to him, coming back to it, a haven of peace and beauty.

But apparently that was all that Lady Brent wanted of him. She told him that Harry seemed much more his old self now that he had been home a week or more, and that she was glad that there was young companionship for him, and beyond that she did not discuss him at all.

So Wilbraham enjoyed his two days at Royd, and went back to his work greatly refreshed, and with most of his doubts about Harry set at rest. He might be longing for Viola all the time, as he had said he was, but he managed to hide it effectually and seemed to be enjoying his holiday as much as anybody.

*CHAPTER XXV*

*MRS. BRENT KNOWS*

Royd Castle was empty, except for the servants, for the first time for twenty years. Everybody had gone away, including Lady Brent, who, however, was not very far off, for she was only visiting Lady Avalon for a few days at Poldaven.

To the Grants, left to themselves, after the unusual amount of society they had lately enjoyed, there was a sense of emptiness, though their own summer life was in full swing, and the Vicar had a bright new idea for a novel, which was keeping his thoughts happily employed. There were to be a young man and two girls, and nobody was to know which of the girls the young man was really in love with until the last chapter.

"Of course I got the idea from those three," he told his wife, "although it couldn't be exactly like them. Harry and Sidney might be, but the second girl would have to be older than Jane, but still rather young. She would be a sort of confidante of the other two, who would be inclined to fall in love with one another. Then she would gradually find that she was in love with the young man herself. I should make it rather pathetic, but not overdo it, of course. She would keep her feelings to herself, out of loyalty to her friend. I haven't quite worked it out yet, but the reality would come in a flash. The young man would find that it was she he was in love with. I shouldn't be able to leave the other girl in the air. There might be somebody else for her. It will come all right, now my brain has begun to work on it. I should have to make her very charming, so that it would seem as if the man _must_ be in love with her."

"You mustn't make it too like Harry and Sidney," said Mrs. Grant.

"Oh, I should be careful about that, though their way with each other has been very attractive to watch. They're so frank, and so completely friendly--a very delightful pair of young people I call them. It would be much more effective to have young lovers behaving like that to one another than the usual sort of love affair that one meets with in fiction. The odd thing about it, though, is that they have parted now and nothing has come of it all."

Mrs. Grant laughed. "Perhaps it's because they weren't lovers after all," she said, "and were so frank and friendly with each other because they weren't. You must be careful about that, David."

But he would not admit that Harry and Sidney weren't in love with one another. It was clear for everybody to see. Of course Harry was rather an exceptional young man. That was plain from the way he had come back to Royd as if he were master there already. There was tremendous strength of character in him, and even Lady Brent recognized it, and did not seek to direct him in any way. It was very likely that he had made up his mind that it would not be right to engage himself to Sidney until the war was over. But it was also likely that they had an understanding between themselves. It could hardly be otherwise.

"He has certainly altered," said Mrs. Grant. "He goes his own way as one would hardly have expected of him in some respects. I don't know why he should have wanted to be with Mr. Wilbraham for a week before he went to France. Poor Mrs. Brent was rather sad about it, especially when he wrote to say that he was not coming down again."

"And now she's gone posting up to London to get hold of him. I've no patience with Mrs. Brent. She has greatly deteriorated. Well, I must be getting on with my work. I shall very soon be ready to make a start on the first chapter."

Jane had been very subdued in demeanour since Sidney and Harry had both departed, and frequently sought her mother's company. She came to her this morning, when her lessons were done, and sat with her in the garden as she worked.

"Did father say that there was going to be a great attack on the Germans soon?" she asked, after a little desultory conversation.

"It has been expected for some time. I suppose it can't be long before it comes now."

"I suppose that's why Harry's leave has been cut short. Will there be a great many of our people killed, mother?"

"I'm afraid so, dear."

"Harry might be," said Jane. "He's very brave."

"You mustn't let yourself dwell on that, darling. He has been spared so far."

"Did you know he had been wounded?"

Mrs. Grant looked at her in surprise. "Not seriously," she said.

"Sidney and I both think he was, though he wouldn't tell us, and said we weren't to talk about it. Have you noticed he always keeps his sleeve buttoned when he's playing tennis?"

Mrs. Grant hadn't noticed particularly, but said that she remembered now that he did.

"Well, he's got an awful great scar in his arm. We saw it once by accident. A Turk did it with a bayonet. When we found out, he did tell us a little, and about the time he was in hospital. He told us about an orderly who had been frightfully good to him, and said he saved his life when he was very ill, by nursing him all the time. He liked to talk about him; his name was Tom Weller. Sidney thought he couldn't have been so ill just from a wound in the arm, and then he said he'd had a little shell wound in the body, but he wouldn't tell us any more. We think it must have been a serious one. We found out afterwards that he didn't go to hospital for his bayonet wound at all."

Mrs. Grant was conscious of a feeling of surprise and some discomfort. She knew that Harry was not likely to fail in any of a young man's courageous work, and yet she had thought of him as having got off lightly, except in the hardships of a trooper's life. And that he had never mentioned even the actions in which he had been wounded seemed so to accentuate the division that he had made between himself and those who loved him. He might have died and they would have known nothing. Apparently he had been very near to death. She wondered whether Jane had any theory to account for his unusual reticence about himself.

"I'm very glad Lady Brent will hear about him now," she said. "It's dreadful to think what might have happened when they couldn't have got to him."

"Well, they couldn't, anyhow, when he was in Egypt. He says it was much better that they shouldn't have been anxious about him, and as it turned out there was no need to have been anxious. I must say I'm rather glad we didn't know, though it's horrid to think of our enjoying ourselves at home when Harry was nearly dying. Sidney and I both told him that we wanted to know everything about him now, and he promised to."

"To write to you?"

"Yes; or to let us have a message. You see we're real friends, mother dear. We've had a lovely time together and enjoyed ourselves frightfully; but it hasn't been quite all enjoying ourselves. Sidney and I both know that Harry dreads things. I don't mean being wounded, or anything like that. But everything is so different for him. What we both got to know was that he wanted it to be like it used to be here as much as ever it could be. That's why he won't talk about the war. We could make him forget it; so we were sometimes more lively than we really felt. I'm sure I don't feel at all lively now."

Her mother stole a glance at her, as she sat with a calm face looking out in front of her.

"Well, darling," she said, "you'll have Harry home on leave again. I'm sure both you and Sidney have done a lot for him since he's been home this time. There was a sort of strain on him at first which wasn't there afterwards."

"Did you notice that? I'm very glad. Of course Sidney did more than I did. She was with him more, and she's older. But they were both very sweet to me. I think I did help. I love them both. I love Sidney. I wish----"

She broke off abruptly. "I think I can guess what Sidney's secret is," said her mother, after a pause. "I think she meant me to, you know, when she told you you could tell me that there was a secret."

Jane looked at her eagerly. "I don't suppose she really meant me not to tell you," she said.

"If I've found it out for myself, she wouldn't mind you talking about it. I shouldn't mention it to anybody else. I thought, when you told me, that perhaps she was in love with somebody, and that was why you and she and Harry could all be friends together so happily."

Jane breathed a sigh of relief. "Yes, that's it exactly," she said. "How clever you are, mother! I'm glad you knew. His name is Noel Chancellor. I've seen his photograph. He is very good-looking, but of course not so good-looking as Harry. I can't help thinking that if she'd never seen him she would be in love with Harry."

"Perhaps. But it doesn't always come like that. And he's not in love with her, you see, though there's nobody else, for him."

"No, he isn't." Jane spoke very decisively. "She's such a dear that I did think once that he might have been a little, although he knew about Noel, without being able to help it. But he's not the least little bit. I don't know how I know that, but I do."

"I suppose you know that they think he is, at the Castle."

"Oh, yes. And Lady Avalon will be annoyed when she finds out. But we can't help that."

Mrs. Grant smiled. She loved that "we" that came into Jane's speech. "What about Lady Brent?" she said. "You were such friends with Lady Brent before Harry came home."

"I am still. Of course she wouldn't say anything to me about that. I'm not quite sure that she does expect it. At any rate, I know she was glad for me to be with them. She knew all right that we were helping Harry. Lady Brent sees a lot, though she doesn't talk much."

Mrs. Grant found food for thought in this, and shared it later with Miss Minster. Neither of them had ever been able to make up their minds finally about Lady Brent.

"Supposing she doesn't really expect anything to come of it!" she said. "I'm inclined to trust Jane when she thinks that she doesn't."