Part 16

It was by no means an easy fence to tackle, but George’s methods were decidedly workmanlike. “There’s only my pay, but I’ve just been offered a good billet in East Africa. The climate is first rate, there’s any amount of things to do and one can live at much less cost than one does here. Of course, there’s no saying exactly how it will pan out, but anyhow, will you chance it?”

It took Miss Cass but a very short time to express her willingness “to chance it.” She too, it seemed, had the valuable faculty of knowing her own mind. Not in anywise immodestly did she rush upon her fate; she was able to display the conventional diffidence of one fully acquainted with the rules of the game, but it was not difficult to set the doubts of George Norris at rest. From the moment he had climbed into the back of the cart she had known that he was hers.

En route to the station there had been an opportunity to weigh the pros and the cons of the matter in her cool and sagacious mind. All the same, it was not coolness nor was it sagacity that had carried the day with her. She liked this young man because she liked him. He was the new, highly efficient type the war had evolved. She knew nothing about him, but instinctively she would trust this man as she would trust few men when it came to a tight place. And there was an air of romance about him.

It was an act of foolhardiness, no doubt, for a girl of position, but she had been made reckless by recent events. Besides, she was “out” for freedom. She had had one brief taste of it, and making due allowance for its drawbacks, her appetite was keen for more. Irksome the experiences of the last ten days had certainly been, yet she was quite determined now to do as she chose with her own life. She asked nothing highfalutin’ nor did she look for it, but she meant, if possible, to escape altogether from the stuffy circle of Castle Carabbas with its hierarchical connections and its feudal ideas. Now was the moment for those autocratic people, her father and mother, to learn once for all the limit of their power.

As there was no one else on the Down platform, they were able to seal the compact in the fashion ordained by nature and custom. “But, do you know,” the young man confessed even at this delicious moment, “if you hadn’t been so much up against it I mightn’t have had the pluck to ask you.”

Such naïveté delighted her. Also, it was very intriguing.

“But why not?” she archly inquired. “I’m only a friendless governess, am I not, with food and house-room provided and a wage of thirty pounds a year?”

“Yes, you are down on your luck,” he frankly admitted. “But I don’t mind betting a shilling that you haven’t been so always. Now tell me honestly, haven’t you once been Top Dog?”

She didn’t try to conceal her amusement even if she masked a proper feminine curiosity. “I don’t know why you should think so,” she said with the smile provocative which yet was a counterfeit of complete indifference.

“There’s something about you”--his naïveté was charming--“that is always giving you away. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if this was your first situation.”

“But didn’t you say the other day”--she would have been less than her sex had she not enjoyed drawing him out--“that you thought I had been abroad in the service of foreign royalties?”

“I’ve had all sorts of theories about you,” he confessed. “But it won’t surprise me at all if none of them meets the case.”

She archly expressed relief, the light of humor in her eye. He was enchanted by the look of her and yet he was a little anxious too. At the back of his mind there was a subtle feeling that “he was having his leg pulled.” The feeling had always been there, even from the first moment he had talked with her. Somehow she was immensely mature for her years. She appeared to have so much in hand. And a word here and there, an odd phrase, a chance inflection of voice, even her way of looking at people and her manner of entering a room were continually giving her away.

Besides, he had seen from the first that the other ladies of the household had regarded her as a natural enemy. Perhaps it was the sense of their injustice that had first drawn him to her. But from day to day he had increasingly admired the bold and implacable skill with which she had carried the war into the country of her foes. She mightn’t have one shilling to rub against another, this mysterious little lady, but she had rare courage, great will power and infinite resources of her own.

All the same, sitting delightfully close to her on a seat of the deserted Down platform and the great deed done, even at this exquisite moment he was not absolutely sure that she was not laughing at him. And in spite of the elation within this feeling grew upon him as they talked. Somehow, he was less certain of the prize he had won than a victorious suitor should have been. And he had not to look far for reasons.

The 2:10 Up was duly signalled, a full twenty minutes late. Presently it drew up with a prodigious rattle at the platform opposite.

“I suppose you are going up by the next,” said George. “But it’s not so good as this one, you know. It doesn’t start till something past five and it won’t get there until a good bit past one in the morning. I know, because I’ve traveled by it for my sins.”

Ethel--already he had permission to call her Ethel because somehow Girlie didn’t suit her at all!--rejoined that no matter what her sins might be it was not necessary for her to travel to town by the 5:40.

“What, you are staying the night here in Clavering!” His tone was a complex not unpleasing of hope, fear, surprise, bewilderment.

“Ye-es, in the neighborhood, I think, unless I suddenly change my plans.”

“With your mother’s friends, the Lancelots, I suppose?” He couldn’t help laughing as he recalled the audaciously comic turn she had given to the topic of the Lancelots at the family luncheon.

“I’m sure they’ll put me up for a night if I ask them,” she said demurely.

“Oh, I’m sure they will. They’ll be delighted.” But even now he didn’t really know if he was justified in taking her friendship with the Lancelots seriously.

She was a mystery, that was the truth of the matter. And her answer to his next question provided ample confirmation of the fact.

The question itself was a simple one. What were her immediate plans? In his rôle of accepted suitor he felt it incumbent upon him to ask. Had she relations in the district? If she had, might he accompany her forthwith and be presented to them.

Her reply was brief but it was surprising. “Oh, yes, do come with me by all means--to Clavering Park.”

“To Clavering Park!”

“Yes--to meet my father.”

To meet her father! The gaze he fixed upon her was blankly incredulous. But in the fragment of time necessary for a survey of her expressive countenance the fable of the dead solicitor’s daughter collapsed completely and for ever.

XL

TO Clavering Park--to meet her father!

George had been pretty sure from the first that she was playing a part. But what was the part she was playing? Who was her father if he was not a deceased solicitor? He did not forget her other picturesque statement that she was the offspring of a butler and a lady’s maid. George was inclined to think that so far as he himself was concerned it might simplify matters considerably if this proved to be the case. Still, it would not be wise to build hopes upon it.

The young man began to view a developing situation with a deepening anxiety. Instinct told him that there might be rocks ahead. “By the way, who is your father? What is his name?”

“You must come and meet him.” With a laugh defiant rather than gay she got up abruptly from the station bench.

Perforce it had to be left at that, for the time being at all events. George was prepared to go with her to the world’s end if she commanded him, so why not to Clavering Park? He rose, too, from the bench and went with her across the bridge to the Up platform just as the belated 2.10 was in the act of moving off.

In the station yard was a decrepit taxi which they were able to hire and in about half an hour the lodge gates of Clavering Park confronted them. By now the bewilderment and curiosity of George were almost unbearable. He was in the seventh heaven, it was true, but native commonsense grimly warned him that his heaven was strangely insecure. The romance of the circumstances was weaving a spell of its own; the sense of enchantment increased as the mystery grew; he was beginning slowly to realize what a truly delightful thing she was to possess and on that very account, as became one who had learned much in a hard school, he understood how necessary it was to take care. There must be no counting of chickens. Somehow the nearer they drew to their destination the less favorable grew the portents. By the time the lodge gates had opened and their taxi had rattled through, the sense of “Ethel’s” innate Top-Doggishness had developed quite remarkably.

“Those trees and the deer remind me of my home.” She might have been speaking for the sake of conversation; on the other hand her intention may have been to prepare his mind for certain revelations to follow.

“Tell me, Ethel, where is your home?” In his own apprehensive ear his voice sounded odd, strained, nervous.

“I live in Ireland.”

“I used to live there too,” he said. “Ireland was where I was brought up.”

“Really. Now that’s very interesting.” The tones of her voice were so soft and warm and rich that they made him think of velvet. “Do tell me exactly where.”

“I was brought up at a place called Bally Euchra in County Kildare.”

She gave a faint cry of suppressed astonishment. “What a small world! Bally Euchra of all places! Why, my grandfather lives there.”

Barely had he time to echo her surprise with a faint cry of his own when the taxi drew up beneath the portico in front of the house, thereby denying him the opportunity of asking who her grandfather could possibly be.

It was just as well, no doubt, that such was the case, for had that particular question been answered, there is little doubt that George Norris would have bolted for his life!

XLI

GEORGE rang the bell. Of the servant who promptly answered it “Ethel” asked if Lord Carabbas was there and if so could they see him. The man said he would inquire and showed them in.

“Lord Carabbas!” Midway between astonishment and dismay Ethel’s cavalier muttered to himself that name of ill omen as they entered the house.

The servant politely indicated chairs in the hall and then went in search of Lord Carabbas.

In the waning light of the November afternoon the hall seemed to be deserted. But it was not. Deep in a corner near the large open fireplace was an unsuspected presence. And scarcely had they time to realize that a third person was there when the presence sprang out upon them.

With a cry that was half a sob, half a shriek, Girlie fell upon Elfreda and flung both arms round her. By means of the spate of wild words that followed, Elfreda learned that Girlie was ruined irretrievably, that her career was blighted and that she fully expected to be sent to prison.

“Sent to prison! Pray, whatever for!”

With the aid of a second spate of half suppressed sobs Girlie told the story of the missing necklace; she also disclosed that a Scotland Yard detective was going to arrest her on suspicion.

George Norris, embarrassed considerably by a scene of which he was rather an unwilling witness and the cause of which was very obscure, nervously withdrew some paces into the hall proper. He was greatly troubled. The plot was thickening. But as to what had actually occurred he was quite in the dark. Here, however, was mystery indeed. Moreover, the march of events still gave no clew as to the ground on which he stood.

Still, he was at the threshold of enlightenment.

In a short time the servant returned. He was accompanied, however, not by Lord Carabbas but by the mistress of the house. Mrs. Minever greeted Elfreda in a sort of flutter of curiosity. She then went on rather incoherently to explain that Lord Carabbas was out. Would the visitors care to wait for him as he was expected back quite soon? With surprising coolness Elfreda promptly accepted the invitation.

George for his part could still only view the situation with bewilderment. He was altogether in the dark. His bewilderment, moreover, was now tinged by alarm. For reasons of his own he had no particular desire at that moment to meet Lord Carabbas. The stern fact had not yet dawned upon the young man that Lord Carabbas was the father of “Ethel.”

There was no way of retreat now that things had gone so far. Besides, as George stood listening to the conversation of Ethel and Mrs. Minever he was quickly devoured by a passion for further enlightenment.

“But do you mind telling me who you are?” he heard Mrs. Minever say.

Elfreda gave her name. Any attempt at concealment would have been useless. As the amazing story was now by way of being public property the mistress of the house had already guessed her visitor’s identity, but the unsuspecting George was stupefied. In the next moment, while his mind was still chaos, he awoke to the fact that Lady Elfreda was gravely presenting him to Mrs. Minever.

Poor George was staggered. He could but dimly grasp the truth. Overcome by a sense of his own inadequacy, he felt he was growing more and more ridiculous. “But I don’t understand,” he said faintly.

“I’m afraid I must ask Lady Elfreda to explain,” said Mrs. Minever with her color rapidly mounting, with an odd tremor in her voice and with a rather forced laugh.

“Please ask Miss Cass to enlighten you.” And Elfreda cast a wicked glance at that ineffectual lady.

“Miss Cass!” Poor George seemed more bewildered than ever.

“Ask her to tell you what has happened.” The amazing Elfreda spoke with the slightly bored air of one dismissing a tedious matter. And then, for all the world as if it no longer existed for her, at Mrs. Minever’s suggestion she turned calmly upon her heel and accompanied that lady to the drawing room.

George Norris left alone with Miss Cass in the agreeable vicinity of the good log fire made his halting plea for further enlightenment. Girlie, stricken as she was by the sense of her own guilt and the humiliation of her own absurdity, had great difficulty in complying with the request. Even upheld as she was now by the arrival of Lady Elfreda, it still called for a mighty effort to hold her tears in check.

Howbeit she was able to tell the incredible story after a fashion. It was such a poor and halting fashion, its lapses were so many that the unlucky George had to fill in the gaps as well as he could. The task was not easy for George’s naturally quick intelligence did not serve him well in these trying moments. But as with ever-growing dismay he really got the hang of the story at last, he hardly knew whether to laugh like a sportsman or to allow a sense of outrage to consume him. For he himself, as he was not slow to realize, had merely been fooled and put in a false position like every one else.

He was able to muster a laugh, but the underside of it was not mirth exactly. Over head and ears in love with the wicked little witch he certainly was, but he saw at once that all their plans were knocked awry. Laugh as he might at the absolute success of the trick that had been played, the cynicism and the arrogance which deprived every one of any rights in such an affair could not be passed over. Even the most injudicious of lovers must not omit that aspect of the case.

“But why--but why,” said the bewildered young man, as he gazed in humorous horror at the tear-stained Miss Cass, “why in the name of heaven did you let her do it?”

“She made me,” was Girlie’s simple and pathetic answer.

“Made you!” Like several other people he felt a desire to shake this pretty little noodle. But a sense of justice forced him to conclude that what she said was true. Such a will as hers would be nought in the scale with the implacable Elfreda’s. Recalling as he now did each phase of that young woman’s career of eleven days’ humorous devilment at The Laurels, he was inclined to exonerate Miss Cass. There was but one door where the blame could lie.

“The little devil!” George gave a sly whistle. “And I suppose her father has gone to The Laurels to fetch her?”

Girlie said that Lord Carabbas had.

“Well, if he’s the Lord Carabbas I remember”--George burst into a sudden laugh--“she’ll have to consider herself lucky if she doesn’t get a thoroughly sound whipping.”

Girlie shuddered and turned pale. This display of emotion was followed by silence. She herself had in prospect a penalty even more severe. A stricken conscience was causing her a great deal of pain. She felt that she deserved to suffer, and although it was good to hear this young soldier laugh heartily at the whole affair, there was something in his manner which implied that privately he thought so too. Poor Girlie had nothing of the picturesque aplomb of the culprit in chief. Her sense of guilt was there for all to see.

As for George Norris, this remarkable conversation with the real Miss Cass had suddenly made life very difficult. His dream was shattered. For all his merit as a soldier and the distinction he had won, he was an extremely modest fellow. It was not for men like himself to aspire to the Lady Elfreda Catkins of the world, however much he might adore them. Secretly he was full of resentment. Such mischievous impudence was entirely amazing. He had a strong desire to punish her, but with the perversity of a very human being, her attraction for him was never so great as now she stood revealed in all her wickedness.

Laugh he might, but the mirth of George Norris was of the kind that seeks to cover a deep wound. He was far more in love with this dainty rogue than was either wise or desirable. But he had now to meet the fact squarely that she was beyond his reach. True, he could claim to be her accepted suitor, but circumstances alter cases.

Yes, the case was altered. The only course now was to pocket his pride along with the rest of his fine feelings and return at once to The Laurels a sadly humiliated man. The little wretch! How dare she? Once more he posed that futile question as he gazed at the visibly wilting form of the real Miss Cass.

Even Lady Elfreda’s calm retirement to the drawing room was an added impertinence. It was her way, no doubt, of turning him down. She had fooled him, as she had fooled every one else, to the utmost limit and then cast him off like an old glove. Suddenly the decent George began “to see red.” He would give a good deal to get back a little of his own.

The longer George talked with Miss Cass the more fully did he seem to realize that only one line of conduct would now consort with his dignity. All the same, it was not going to be easy to follow. To say the least his position was very uncomfortable. The immediate problem, as it seemed to him now, was whether or no he should take a formal leave of Lady Elfreda. Merely to say good-by or not to say good-by--which course would best salve his damaged feelings?

He was still talking with Miss Cass and striving vainly to get a just perception of his own relation to such a set of exceptional circumstances when this problem automatically solved itself. Lady Elfreda came into the hall with an unknown gentleman.

George rose rather stiffly. “I think I’ll be going,” he said lamely.

“Oh, no,” said the scapegrace with cheerful promptitude. “I want you to stay and meet my father. He should soon be here now.”

Such a charmingly easy acceptance of the situation took George aback. “But will your father want to meet me?” he said, fixing an eye sufficiently humorous upon the unknown gentleman.

The unknown gentleman, a large and genial one, was plainly threatened with a fit of laughter.

“Lord Duckingfield, let me introduce General Norris,” said the scapegrace coolly. Her air of taking everything for granted struck Lord Duckingfield and George Norris as exceedingly comic.

Bows were exchanged. Both men, however, maintained an eloquent silence, although to judge by a certain archness of look with which each regarded the other it was clear that their minds spoke the same language.

George, all the same, was suffering acutely from the sense of his position. Even if he was over head and ears in love with the little rogue, that was no reason for courting a public humiliation. “I think I must get back to The Laurels,” he said with all the firmness he could muster. “Good-by, Lady Elfreda.”

XLII

FATE was against George Norris.

Lady Elfreda persisted that he must stay and meet her father. The unwisdom of such a course was open and palpable, but he was a chivalrous fellow and, in spite of the facer dealt him by her wicked trick, he was still in the mood for adventure. Moreover, he was simply devoured by curiosity as to what would happen next.

For a man of average spirit it was worth running a risk of personal insult to learn the next turn in the game. What was to be the end of this amazing comedy? That question lurked in the genial eye of Lord Duckingfield. And the arch glance of that peer seemed to tell George Norris that to beat a retreat at such a moment would be conduct unworthy of a soldier, a sportsman and the possessor of a sense of humor.

Besides, to run away just now would be extremely difficult. Not for the first time this charming little vixen was pitting her will against his, not for the first time was he experiencing its steel-like quality. There was a heavy account to settle with her but she really was delightful. And her “gameness” was magnificent. “Of course, you’ll stay. You _must_ meet The Dadda. He’s great fun.” The affectionate lisp might have been inspired by a favorite golliwog.

“I hope you’ll stay, General Norris.” A smiling but anxious-looking hostess had appeared just in time to enforce the appeal. “Have some tea, at any rate, before you leave us.” Not wishing to show himself a poltroon in the sight of the world General Norris accepted the invitation.

In about five minutes tea was brought into the hall. And then one by one the guests appeared from odd corners of the house. They were hardly more than a round half dozen, a company by no means formidable either in number or in quality, but as the muster grew, George for the first time in his life was afflicted with a desire that the floor might open and swallow him.

There was no reason, of course, why George Norris should suffer this feeling. But he was a member of the weaker sex. She, to whom such an emotion would have been entirely appropriate, gave no sign of turning a hair.

Upon the hostess devolved the task of making Lady Elfreda known to those who might be said to be her victims. It was performed heroically. One and all might be sharing a mild sense of outrage, they might be fuming inwardly at the arrogance of this chit who was hardly out of her teens, but it was hard not to admire her _sang-froid_ in the presence of the enemy.

Really she was as unconcerned as if nothing had happened. She partook of some excellent tea and some cake equally excellent with a zest that atoned for a decidedly scratch luncheon at The Laurels. Poor George, on the other hand, who had had no luncheon at all was unable to peck a crumb. He had been four years in France, his record was vouched for by the row of decorations on his tunic, but at this moment he was ready to own freely that here was the tightest corner he had ever been in.

Everybody behaved beautifully, but it was soon clear to George that one and all were looking forward with huge enjoyment to the appearance of “The Dadda” upon the scene. His return could not be long delayed. And the miserable George was bound to deduce from the suppressed tones and the sly looks all about him that he had been cast for an important part in the play.