But--if you don"t pay the taxi, Arthur, it will run up like anything!"
She pointed peremptorily to the ticking vehicle and the impatient driver. Meadows went mechanically, paid the driver, shouldered the bag, and carried it into the hall of the Lodge. He then perceived that two grinning and evidently inquisitive footmen, waiting in the hall for anything that might turn up for them to do, had been watching the whole scene--the arrival of the taxi, and the meeting between the unknown lady and himself, through a side window.
Burning to box someone"s ears, Meadows loftily gave the bag to one of them with instructions that it should be taken to his room, and then turned to rejoin his wife.
As he crossed the gravel in front of the house, his mind ran through all possible hypotheses. But he was entirely without a clue--except the clue of jealousy. He could not hide from himself that Doris had been jealous of Lady Dunstable, and had perhaps been hurt by his rather too numerous incursions into the great world without her, his apparent readiness to desert her for cleverer women. "Little goose!--as if I ever cared twopence for any of them!"--he thought angrily. "And now she makes us both laughing-stocks!"
And yet, Doris being Doris--a proud, self-contained, well-bred little person, particularly sensitive to ridicule--the whole proceeding became the more incredible the more he faced it.
One o"clock!--striking from the church tower in the valley! He hurried towards the slight figure on the distant seat. Lady Dunstable might return at any moment. He foresaw the encounter--the great lady"s insolence--Doris"s humiliation--and his own. Well, at least let him agree with Doris on a common story, before his hostess arrived.
He sped across the gra.s.s, very conscious, as he approached the seat, of Doris"s drooping look and att.i.tude. Travelling all those hours!--and no doubt without any proper breakfast! However Lady Dunstable might behave, he would carry Doris into the Lodge directly, and have her properly looked after. Miss Field and he would see to that.
Suddenly--a sound of talk and laughter, from the shrubbery which divided the flower garden from the woods and the moor. Lady Dunstable emerged, with her two companions on either hand. Her vivid, masculine face was flushed with exercise and discussion. She seemed to be attacking the Under-Secretary, who, however, was clearly enjoying himself; while Sir Luke, walking a little apart, threw in an occasional gibe.
"I tell you your land policy here in Scotland will gain you nothing; and in England it will lose you everything.--Hullo!"
Lady Dunstable"s exclamation, as she came to a stop and put up a tortoise-sh.e.l.l eyegla.s.s, was clearly audible.
"Doris!" cried Meadows excitedly in his wife"s ear--"Look here!--what are you going to say!--what am I to say! that you got tired of London, and wanted some Scotch air?--that we intend to go off together?--For goodness" sake, what is it to be?"
Doris rose, her lips breaking irrepressibly into smiles.
"Never mind, Arthur; I"ll get through somehow."
CHAPTER VI
The two ladies advanced towards each other across the lawn, while Meadows followed his wife in speechless confusion and annoyance, utterly at a loss how to extricate either himself or Doris; compelled, indeed, to leave it all to her. Sir Luke and the Under-Secretary had paused in the drive. Their looks as they watched Lady Dunstable"s progress showed that they guessed at something dramatic in the little scene.
Nothing could apparently have been more unequal than the two chief actors in it. Lady Dunstable, with the battlements of "the great fortified post" rising behind her, tall and wiry of figure, her black hawk"s eyes fixed upon her visitor, might have stood for all her cla.s.s; for those too powerful and prosperous Barbarians who have ruled and enjoyed England so long. Doris, small and slight, in a blue cotton coat and skirt, dusty from long travelling, and a childish garden hat, came hesitatingly over the gra.s.s, with colour which came and went.
"How do you do, Mrs. Meadows! This is indeed an unexpected pleasure! I must quarrel with your husband for not giving us warning."
Doris"s complexion had settled into a bright pink as she shook hands with Lady Dunstable. But she spoke quite composedly.
"My husband knew nothing about it, Lady Dunstable. My letter does not seem to have reached him."
"Ah? Our posts are very bad, no doubt; though generally, I must say, they arrive very punctually. Well, so you were tired of London?--you wanted to see how we were looking after your husband?"
Lady Dunstable threw a sarcastic glance at Meadows standing tongue-tied in the background.
"I wanted to see you," said Doris quietly, with a slight accent on the "you."
Lady Dunstable looked amused.
"Did you? How very nice of you! And you"ve--you"ve brought your luggage?" Lady Dunstable looked round her as though expecting to see it at the front door.
"I brought a bag. Arthur took it in for me."
"I"m so sorry! I a.s.sure you, if I had only known--But we haven"t a corner! Mr. Meadows will bear me out--it"s absurd, but true. These Scotch lodges have really no room in them at all!"
Lady Dunstable pointed with airy insolence to the spreading pile behind her. Doris--for all the agitation of her hidden purpose--could have laughed outright. But Meadows, rather roughly, intervened.
"We shall, of course, go to the hotel, Lady Dunstable. My wife"s letter seems somehow to have missed me, but naturally we never dreamed of putting you out. Perhaps you will give us some lunch--my wife seems rather tired--and then we will take our departure."
Doris turned--put a hand on his arm--but addressed Lady Dunstable.
"Can I see you--alone--for a few minutes--before lunch?"
"_Before_ lunch? We are all very hungry, I"m afraid," said Lady Dunstable, with a smile. Meadows was conscious of a rising fury. His quick sense perceived something delicately offensive in every word and look of the great lady. Doris, of course, had done an incredibly foolish thing. What she had come to say to Lady Dunstable he could not conceive; for the first explanation--that of a silly jealousy--had by now entirely failed him. But it was evident to him that Lady Dunstable a.s.sumed it--or chose to a.s.sume it. And for the first time he thought her odious!
Doris seemed to guess it, for she pressed his arm as though to keep him quiet.
"Before lunch, please," she repeated. "I think--you will soon understand." With an odd, and--for the first time--slightly puzzled look at her visitor, Lady Dunstable said with patronising politeness--
"By all means. Shall we come to my sitting-room?"
She led the way to the house. Meadows followed, till a sign from Doris waved him back. On the way Doris found herself greeted by Sir Luke Malford, bowed to by various unknown gentlemen, and her hand grasped by Miss Field.
"You do look done! Have you come straight from London? What--is Rachel carrying you off? I shall send you in a gla.s.s of wine and a biscuit directly!"
Doris said nothing. She got somehow through all the curious eyes turned upon her; she followed Lady Dunstable through the s.p.a.cious pa.s.sages of the Lodge, adorned with the usual sportsman"s trophies, till she was ushered into a small sitting-room, Lady Dunstable"s particular den, crowded with photographs of half the celebrities of the day--the poets, _savants_, and artists, of England, Europe, and America. On an easel stood a masterly small portrait of Lord Dunstable as a young man, by Bastien Lepage; and not far from it--rather pushed into a corner--a sketch by Millais of a fair-haired boy, leaning against a pony.
By this time Doris was quivering both with excitement and fatigue. She sank into a chair, and turned eagerly to the wine and biscuits with which Miss Field pursued her. While she ate and drank, Lady Dunstable sat in a high chair observing her, one long and pointed foot crossed over the other, her black eyes alive with satiric interrogation, to which, however, she gave no words.
The wine was reviving. Doris found her voice. As the door closed on Miss Field, she bent forward:--
"Lady Dunstable, I didn"t come here on my own account, and had there been time of course I should have given you notice. I came entirely on your account, because something was happening to you--and Lord Dunstable--which you didn"t know, and which made me--very sorry for you!"
Lady Dunstable started slightly.
"Happening to me?--and Lord Dunstable?"
"I have been seeing your son, Lady Dunstable."
An instant change pa.s.sed over the countenance of that lady. It darkened, and the eyes became cold and wary.
"Indeed? I didn"t know you were acquainted with him."
"I never saw him till a few days ago. Then I saw him--in my uncle"s studio--with a woman--a woman to whom he is engaged."
Lady Dunstable started again.
"I think you must be mistaken," she said quickly, with a slight but haughty straightening of her shoulders.