Part 4

But when he was in his bath his thoughts turned back to less æsthetic compensations. The great and essential question of what he was going to _do_ at Hartling, had been solved for him. There would be games, a succession of games of various kinds, to be played with skill against opponents from whom he would be learning all the time. (That old chap Turner was a fair nailer at billiards! He played all his shots with "drag" like a professional!) He would not, of course, be able to improve his own game appreciably in three or four days, but with luck he might be asked to stay a week. He would accept like a bird if they did ask him.... He must try to entertain the old man when that promised talk came off. He was evidently the boss still, in spite of his age. The invitation to stay had come straight from him. He was an impressive old fellow too, with a remarkable air of dignity and what one spoke of vaguely as "personality." He gave you the feeling that he would get his own way about things.... His eldest son did not take after him. Rather a sloppy chap, Uncle Joe. His tie had been all round his neck by the end of dinner. Funny the way he had shut up about Italy. He was probably only a gasser, and did not in the least want to live there. He would certainly let the property down when he came into it, unless he had some one to look after it for him.

Arthur had a contempt for slackness. His opinion of his cousin had gone up a hundred per cent. since he had learnt that Hubert's handicap was "plus three." That was a form of efficiency. Melancholy-looking devil, though. They were all a bit on that side for some reason or another; looked depressed and bored, as if they were tired of waiting for something ... except Eleanor. She was different from the others. Different, but not necessarily nicer. There was a touch of the schoolmistress about her. She wanted to do what she thought were the right things.

Elizabeth might be amusing when one got to know her better.

V

Arthur saw very little of Eleanor and old Mr Kenyon in the course of the next few days. They had lunch and dinner with the family, and once or twice he caught sight of them in the garden while he was playing croquet with Elizabeth; but on none of these occasions did he find an opportunity of speaking to either of them. Meanwhile, he was improving his acquaintance with the other members of the party permanently assembled at Hartling; although further than that he was unable to go. He had revised his first impression of them as being definitely inimical, but they remained acquaintances.

His uncle and Mr Turner had come nearest to passing beyond the limitations of polite intercourse; and the latter had shown an interest in Arthur's plans for the future; had, indeed, discussed with him the prospects of getting an appointment in Canada, and promised him two or three introductions. But the point at which he and all the others had drawn back, had been the returning of any sort of confidence. They offered none, and put him off if he attempted any question. They left him with the impression of some important reserve behind all their treatment of him. It was as if they all shared some secret that he could never know. When he was with them he could never forget that he was an outsider, not one of the family.

He had even been aware of that reserve as a check upon the development of his flirtation with Elizabeth. She at once encouraged him and kept him at a distance. She might have been a princess of the blood, amusing herself with a member of the nobility whom she might know but could never marry. He had been definitely piqued by that attitude in his own first cousin, and had tried to break down her defence, to claim her as an equal and a contemporary. So far, however, that attempt had been a failure. She had not apparently resented his overtures, but they had not advanced his intimacy with her. There was some invisible barrier always between them, a barrier that seemed to be essential and permanent.

He was sorry because he believed that he was ready to fall in love with her if she would let him. She was certainly pretty in a general sort of way, with brown eyes, rather dark hair, and a fair skin that had freckled over the bridge of her snub nose. And her mastery of the game of croquet had been a revelation to him. He had realised on that first Sunday morning how scientific a game croquet could be, played on that perfect lawn. She was as much his superior, hopelessly beyond rivalry in her own game as Charles Turner or Hubert were in theirs. Her tennis was fairly good, too; quite as good as his own, but she complained that she got no practice. Hubert played, but none of the others, except Eleanor, who seldom had any time for games.

Arthur was taking a lesson from Mr Turner in the billiard-room at a quarter to seven on Tuesday evening when Eleanor came in to him with a message.

She waited while her uncle played his shot and then turning to Arthur said:--

"Would you mind dressing early to-night, Mr Woodroffe? My grandfather thought he might find a chance of talking to you before dinner."

"Ah! yes, of course," Arthur agreed. "I'll go now." He could have no doubt that this was a command. Turner had put down his cue as if he had been prepared for some such development as this, and took no further interest in the game. Nevertheless there must have been still something that he did not know, for he looked at Eleanor with raised eyebrows, plainly hinting a question the nature of which she, presumably, could guess; although the slight shrug of her shoulders with which she replied intimated that she did not, as yet, know the answer.

Arthur pondered that exchange of signals as he dressed. He had begun to wonder whether he might not find an explanation of various things that had puzzled him at Hartling; in the desire of the Kenyons to conceal a family secret. Was it not possible that the head of the house was slightly insane? If that were so, everything could be accounted for: their references to people coming in "from the outside"; their half-suspicious reception of himself; the separation of the old man from the family-life except at lunch and dinner; the constant attendance of Eleanor.... Arthur was inclined to believe that he had guessed the riddle, and resolved to be very observant during the coming interview.

He was tying his bow when some one knocked at his bedroom door. He guessed that it was Eleanor come to fetch him, and snatching at his waistcoat, called out, "One minute! I won't be a moment." But when he opened the door a few seconds later, he was amazed to find old Mr Kenyon himself standing outside.

"I'm sorry, sir, I didn't realise ..." Arthur began.

The old man waved aside his apology. "I quite understand," he said. "Naturally you were not expecting me. May I come in?"

"Oh! please. Yes, do," Arthur responded. He felt embarrassed by this strange mark of favour. He had pictured the promised interview as likely to be something of a function. Was it possible that the old man had temporarily escaped from his keeper?

Mr Kenyon had seated himself in a little chintz-covered arm-chair and appeared quite at his ease.

"We shall be quieter here," he said with a smile. "Smoke if you want to. I haven't smoked now for fifty years, but I don't at all dislike it."

Arthur took advantage of this indulgence with a faint smile at the whimsical reflection that the old man had abandoned the habit of smoking more than twenty years before Arthur himself had been born. Mr Kenyon apparently read the young man's thought, for he went on:--

"Yes, there is a long gap between you and me, Woodroffe. I was born in the reign of George the Fourth. And I have no doubt that you find it a little difficulty to realise that I still keep in touch with present-day affairs."

Arthur, with his new suspicion fresh in his mind, was watching the old man with a more or less informed eye, and although he could find at present no least confirmation of his theory, he thought there would be no harm in attempting a leading question.

"Do you really, sir?" he commented. "You mean that you can still take a pleasure in reading about modern life, and hearing about it?"

"And in living it," Mr Kenyon said, with his gentle smile. "You must not suppose that I keep myself shut in here. I often go to town in the car. More often, in fact, than any other member of the family."

"You must have a perfectly marvellous constitution, sir," Arthur said.

Mr Kenyon slightly shrugged his shoulders. "It seems a commonplace to me," he returned. "Perhaps because I have always had it. I have never been ill. But I did not come here to talk about myself. I am more interested in you. I want you to tell me something of your experiences in the war; and then...." He broke off suddenly. His keen blue eyes were intently watching Arthur's face.

"And then, sir?" Arthur prompted him.

Mr Kenyon's expression of watchfulness relaxed. "And then," he said graciously, "something of what you intend to do in the future."

Arthur would have preferred to take the second point first. He had already abandoned his theory of insanity. And it had come to him with an exhilarating sense of certainty that Mr Kenyon intended to "do something for him." When the old man had concluded his sentence, he had worn the benign, generous air of patron.

"Well, you see, sir, I joined up in August, '14," Arthur began, meaning to get the history done with as quickly as possible; but Mr Kenyon pulled him up before he had gone very far with the brief outline he had intended to draw of the main facts of his experience.

"Then you saw service in the trenches?" he put in, and when Arthur admitted that he had, began to pose some very shrewd questions as to the effect that terrible experience might have on a young man's nerves and temperament.

"But you, yourself, came through without any permanent disaffection?" he continued, after Arthur had let himself go a little on the pathology of war-shock.

"Absolutely, as far as one can judge, sir," Arthur replied.

Mr Kenyon nodded. "I believe it is true, is it not," he asked, "that the really normal man was not subject to these nerve troubles?"

"As far as we know, sir," Arthur replied. "It's the general theory that in the bad cases of psychoneurosis, there was always a predisposition before the man went out."

He would have gone on with a youthful pride in his knowledge to elaborate the theory, but Mr Kenyon switched him off by saying, with a change of tone that suddenly quickened Arthur's interest:--

"You are, now, a fully qualified medical man, I understand?"

"Oh! yes, fully qualified," Arthur said promptly.

Mr Kenyon nodded, and then rose and began to walk slowly up and down the room. He had a silver-headed, ebony stick with him, but he hardly leaned upon it, his back was not bowed, and his step was perfectly firm. His figure and general activity might have been that of a man of sixty.

Arthur watched him with admiration. It was almost incredible to him that the old man could be ninety-one. And it crossed his mind that his uncle might have to wait many years yet before he came into the property.

Mr Kenyon continued to walk up and down the room as he went on:--

"I have thought once or twice lately that I should like to have some one living here in the house who might ..." he paused before he added, "who would be competent in an emergency. There is a doctor in the village--an able, pleasant man, for whom I have considerable respect--but he lives two miles from us, and...." He let the sentence die away without completing it, beginning again in a firmer voice, "At my age, Arthur--I must call you that! we are, after all, connected--one has fancies. I don't deceive myself with any foolish idea that I can live for ever. And one of my fancies, a fairly common one, I believe, is a fear of premature burial. I should like to have some one permanently here whom I could trust. Moreover, I have felt that a competent medical man with whom I was in touch, would be in a position to give me--shall I say--warning. You may be surprised to learn that I--a business man by training and inclination--have been so unbusinesslike as to have left my own affairs unsettled. There are reasons, of course, family reasons that I need not trouble you with, but you must think it very lax in a man of ninety-one not to have completed his testamentary dispositions. I have, it is true, made a will, but not a final one. I have an eccentric inclination--a touch of superstition perhaps--to postpone that duty, although my present will," he turned and faced Arthur with an expression of humorous despair, "is nothing more or less than an untidy mass of codicils. In my opinion, it is dangerously contestable in its present state. Fleet, my lawyer, thinks otherwise, but I have had more experience than he has.

"In any case, I mean to make a new one, and since you have been here it has occurred to me that I might indulge my little eccentricity more safely if I had some competent and experienced person on whom I could rely, permanently in the household; some one who would be with me for an hour or so every day, an expert who would be in a position to say to me: "Kenyon, I must warn you that your days are running out and it is time for you to put your affairs in order." Also, as I have said, I should prefer to trust the matter of my death certificate to a medical man in whose integrity I could have perfect confidence. These are the fancies of a very old man, no doubt, but after all why should I not indulge them if I can? I may tell you quite frankly, Arthur, that I am not of those who make a virtue of self-sacrifice."

He broke off abruptly, stood staring in front of him for a moment, as if he reflected on that last statement, and then sat down again in the chintz-covered arm-chair.

Arthur realised that the time had come for him to reply, and that he was not ready with an answer.

If the arrangement that was now suggested had been hypothecated while he was dressing, he would have laughed at the idea of refusing it; but as Mr Kenyon had been speaking, Arthur had seen a vision of his own future that had been vaguely repellent--a vision of idle, satisfied days spent in perfecting himself at various games, waiting for something that he could not precisely define. What was there to wait for in such a life as that--except death? Marriage and the begetting of children would only be incidents, comparable, perhaps, to the making of his first hundred break or doing the course in "bogey." And yet, what else had life, any life, to offer him? He had no peculiar gifts. He would never become famous. The end of him would almost certainly be a small practice somewhere and a perpetual struggle to live within his income. Nevertheless, his spirit drooped at the prospect of the life he anticipated if he accepted this offer. There was no adventure in it.

"Frightfully flattered, sir, by your--your confidence in me and so on," he muttered, "and, of course, in many ways, almost every way...."

Mr Kenyon stopped him. "No, no, Arthur," he said, "I haven't even made my proposal yet; and in any case I do not want you to give me an answer to-night. I understand that at your age you naturally have ambitions, that the future has romantic possibilities for you. I have not forgotten that. But," he leant forward, dropping his forehead on to the ivory handle of the stick he held between his knees, "I have a feeling that your service would not be a very long one--six months, a year perhaps, at the outside." His voice was so low that Arthur could hardly follow him as he concluded: "And then you would have ... opportunity, greater opportunity ... pecuniary advantages ... I would provide for that."

Six months, a year at the outside! He probably knew as well as any one. He looked as sound as a bell, but he might go to pieces all at once. Those queer trances of his were no doubt symptomatic of some deep-seated trouble. Would it be very rotten to take on a job like that with the idea of having money left to you? Arthur fancied that he could make out a good case for himself on that score. And beyond all that personal issue there was a greater one. Putting that hypothetical legacy out of the question, would he not be doing this old man a real service by accepting his offer? He undoubtedly felt the need of some one to perform the two offices he had indicated.

"If I might consider ..." Arthur began, and was interrupted by the sound of the second gong booming through the house.

Mr Kenyon raised his head. "Well, well, Arthur, think it over, think it over," he said, getting to his feet. "I will only add now that it would be a great relief to me if you saw your way to accept my offer. Do not forget that side of it. And--we will have another talk to-morrow."

Arthur was aware of a new atmosphere at the dinner-table that night. For the first time since he had been in the house, the Kenyons were wide-awake and curious; the object of their curiosity was unquestionably himself. They seemed to be watching him. Whenever he looked up the table, he had the impression that one of them had just averted his or her eyes, and when he was talking to Elizabeth or Miss Kenyon, he was conscious of being under steady observation from every part of the table. Only Eleanor kept her eyes down, and to the best of his knowledge never once looked in his direction. Yet this new attitude towards him had no effect of being hostile. It was merely as if he had suddenly become an object of peculiar interest.

Even Miss Kenyon's manner was changed, although it was not until they were half-way through dinner that she put a direct question to him.

"You had your little talk with my father this evening?" she said then in a tone that sounded, he thought, a faint note of propitiation.

"Yes, I did; quite a long talk," he replied, feeling no inclination to make a confidante of Miss Kenyon.

"Has he asked you to prolong your visit to us?" she went on, making a more direct attack. "I hope you may be able to stay over the next week-end in any case."

"Thanks very much, I should like to immensely," Arthur returned. "Yes, Mr Kenyon did suggest something of the sort. In fact...."

"Well!" Miss Kenyon prompted him with a touch of asperity.

"Oh! well, in fact he made a kind of proposal to me that we are going to discuss again to-morrow," Arthur admitted.

Miss Kenyon stared at him thoughtfully for a moment.

"One more or less doesn't after all make much difference in a family like this," she said, with a touch of resignation.

"But I haven't decided yet," Arthur began.

"You will," she interrupted him dryly, and at once devoted her attention to Hubert on the other side.

"Does that mean that you're staying on indefinitely?" Elizabeth asked.

Arthur shrugged his shoulders. "It seems as if you all knew more about it than I do myself," he said. "I really don't know yet."

"But he wants you to?" Elizabeth pressed him.

"Apparently," Arthur admitted.

Elizabeth sighed thoughtfully. "You're a kind of grand-nephew, I suppose," she remarked, addressing no one in particular, and then added, "Are you going to be a sort of tame medical attendant?"

"If I stay," Arthur agreed.

"You'll stay all right," Elizabeth replied, echoing her aunt's tone. "Why shouldn't you?"

"Don't you want me to stay?" Arthur asked.

"Might teach you to play croquet in time," she replied pertly.

"Is that all?" he inquired. He felt as if he were at last getting past that barrier she had set up against him.

She met his eyes frankly and pursed her undoubtedly pretty mouth. "Oh, wait and see," she said.

"I can see now, and I don't want to wait," Arthur returned boldly.

Her smile was not one of encouragement. She had suddenly ceased to flirt with him. "Even puppies don't get their eyes open for nine days," she said coldly, "and you haven't been here four yet. You haven't the least idea what you're talking about."

Arthur frowned impatiently. He was not vexed by the snub he had received--girls of Elizabeth's type thought it "smart" to be rude--but by the reintroduction of that suggestion of a family secret which separated the Kenyons from the outside world. There was an air of arrogance about the thing that annoyed him.

"Is there so much for me to learn here?" he asked dryly.

Elizabeth told him to "shut up."

This was the way in which she always treated him; and as he rather sulkily continued his dinner he asked himself if it was "good enough." If she were willing to be decent, he might possibly fall in love with her, but he was not going to stand being treated like a schoolboy. Elizabeth might go and hang herself.

She made no attempt to entice him out of the silence he was thus too easily able to maintain for the rest of the meal.

But in the drawing-room after dinner, he found that the family as a whole seemed inclined to put him on a new footing. Even Mrs Turner, who had so far almost ignored him, came up and began to talk about the gardens. She was a rather stout woman with something of her brother's carelessness in the matter of dress, and Arthur had wondered how her husband had ever managed to fall in love with her. To-night, however, it occurred to him for the first time that she might in her youth have been the very prototype of her niece Elizabeth.

They had only been talking for a few minutes when her brother joined them. As usual, after dinner, his face was flushed and puffy--an effect due, Arthur judged, to the food rather than to the wine he had taken.

"So you're thinking of joining the family party for a time, I hear?" he began in a friendly voice.

"Well, I haven't decided anything yet," Arthur replied, and waited to see if his uncle would echo his sister's and his daughter's "You will."

He did not. He was fidgeting with his cigar, the ash of which he had dropped and smeared all over his dinner-jacket and waistcoat.

"Giving up the Canada idea, any way?" was his response.

"It was never more than an idea," Arthur said.

"Not a bad one, all the same," his uncle murmured, and then apparently feeling that he was making a mess of what he had to say, he went on, "However, it's not for me to advise you. I can't boast that I'm any sort of example for you, eh, Catherine?"

Mrs Turner kept her eyes on the bead bag she was making, an occupation that certainly necessitated close attention. "Don't you think, Joe ..." she began, and then stopped, picking up a bead on the point of her needle with a slightly exaggerated intentness.

"No, no, of course not," her brother said. "It was only that I thought, as Arthur's uncle, he might care to know--to hear, that is...."

"Oh! rather. I should," Arthur put in, as the sentence failed to get itself completed. "I should be very glad of your advice."

"I was only going to say," his uncle responded, "speaking from my own experience, you know, that the life here, jolly enough as it is in many ways, does not offer much scope for a young fellow with any ambition. There's Hubert, for instance--he's--he's getting lazy--can't blame him; got nothing much to do except play golf--but it's hardly the life one would have chosen for him, eh?"

Arthur smiled. "But I'm not proposing to stay here _permanently_, uncle," he said. "Six months or a year at the outside. I've been having rather a strenuous time you see, and I thought a rest of sorts might do me good."

Joe Kenyon and his sister exchanged a glance that Arthur could not interpret; they might have been recalling some old and rather terrible reminiscence.

"My father said that, did he?" Kenyon said. "Six months or a year at the outside?"

Arthur nodded. He could not possibly tell them why that limit had been assigned.

Mrs Turner sighed and returned to her niggling beads. He brother leaned back in his chair and blew a cloud of smoke. Arthur longed to warn him that the ash was again in danger of falling.