"A companion." It was the first nasty thing she had said of me.
"Ha! more than a friend, then. A comrade." He turned the edge neatly.
We walked out on the terrace and a little way up the zigzag path. The day was superb. I found Mr. Tillington, in spite of his studiously languid and supercilious air, a most agreeable companion. He knew Europe. He was full of talk of Rome and the Romans. He had epigrammatic wit, curt, keen, and pointed. We sat down on a bench; he kept Lady Georgina and myself amused for an hour by his crisp sallies. Besides, he had been everywhere and seen everybody. Culture and agriculture seemed all one to him.
When we rose to go in, Lady Georgina remarked, with emphasis, "Of course, Harold, you"ll come and take up your diggings at our hotel?"
"Of course, my dear aunt. How can you ask? Free quarters. Nothing would give me greater pleasure."
She glanced at him keenly again. I saw she had expected him to fake up some lame excuse for not joining us; and I fancied she was annoyed at his prompt acquiescence, which had done her out of the chance for a family disagreement. "Oh, you"ll come then?" she said, grudgingly.
"Certainly, most respected aunt. I shall much prefer it."
She let her piercing eye descend upon me once more. I was aware that I had been talking with frank ease of manner to Mr. Tillington, and that I had said several things which clearly amused him. Then I remembered all at once our relative positions. A companion, I felt, should know her place: it is not her _role_ to be smart and amusing. "Perhaps," I said, drawing back, "Mr. Tillington would like to remain in his present quarters till the end of the week, while I am with you, Lady Georgina; after that, he could have my room; it might be more convenient."
His eye caught mine quickly. "Oh, you"re only going to stop a week, then, Miss Cayley?" he put in, with an air of disappointment.
"Only a week," I nodded.
"My dear child," the Cantankerous Old Lady broke out, "what nonsense you do talk! Only going to stop a week? How can I exist without you?"
"That was the arrangement," I said, mischievously. "You were going to look about, you recollect, for an unsophisticated Gretchen. You don"t happen to know of any warehouse where a supply of unsophisticated Gretchens is kept constantly in stock, do you, Mr. Tillington?"
"No, I don"t," he answered, laughing. "I believe there are dodos and auks" eggs, in very small numbers, still to be procured in the proper quarters; but the unsophisticated Gretchen, I am credibly informed, is an extinct animal. Why, the cap of one fetches high prices nowadays among collectors."
"But you will come to the hotel at once, Harold?" Lady Georgina interposed.
"Certainly, aunt. I will move in without delay. If Miss Cayley is going to stay for a single week only, that adds one extra inducement for joining you immediately."
His aunt"s stony eye was cold as marble.
So when we got back to our hotel after the baths that afternoon, the _concierge_ greeted us with: "Well, your n.o.ble nephew has arrived, high-well-born countess! He came with his boxes just now, and has taken a room near your honourable ladyship"s."
Lady Georgina"s face was a study of mingled emotions. I don"t know whether she looked more pleased or jealous.
Later in the day, I chanced on Mr. Tillington, sunning himself on a bench in the hotel garden. He rose, and came up to me, as fast as his languid nature permitted. "Oh, Miss Cayley," he said, abruptly, "I do want to thank you so much for not betraying me. I know you spotted me twice in the town yesterday; and I also know you were good enough to say nothing to my revered aunt about it."
"I had no reason for wishing to hurt Lady Georgina"s feelings," I answered, with a permissible evasion.
His countenance fell. "I never thought of that," he interposed, with one hand on his moustache. "I-- I fancied you did it out of fellow-feeling."
"We all think of things mainly from our own point of view first," I answered. "The difference is that some of us think of them from other people"s afterwards. Motives are mixed."
He smiled. "I didn"t know my deeply venerated relative was coming here so soon," he went on. "I thought she wasn"t expected till next week; my brother wrote me that she had quarrelled with her French maid, and "twould take her full ten days to get another. I meant to clear out before she arrived. To tell you the truth, I was going to-morrow."
"And now you are stopping on?"
He caught my eye again.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CIRc.u.mSTANCES ALTER CASES, HE MURMURED.]
"Circ.u.mstances alter cases," he murmured, with meaning.
"It is hardly polite to describe one as a circ.u.mstance," I objected.
"I meant," he said, quickly, "my aunt alone is one thing; my aunt with a friend is quite another."
"I see," I answered. "There is safety in numbers."
He eyed me hard.
"Are you mediaeval or modern?" he asked.
"Modern, I hope," I replied. Then I looked at him again. "Oxford?"
He nodded. "And you?" half joking.
"Cambridge," I said, glad to catch him out. "What college?"
"Merton. Yours?"
"Girton."
The odd rhyme amused him. Thenceforth we were friends--"two "Varsity men," he said. And indeed it does make a queer sort of link--a freemasonry to which even women are now admitted.
At dinner and through the evening he talked a great deal to me, Lady Georgina putting in from time to time a characteristic growl about the _table-d"hote_ chicken--"a special breed, my dear, with eight drumsticks apiece"--or about the inadequate lighting of the heavy German _salon_.
She was worse than ever: pungent as a rule, that evening she was grumpy.
When we retired for the night, to my great surprise, she walked into my bedroom. She seated herself on my bed: I saw she had come to talk over Harold.
"He will be very rich, my dear, you know. A great catch in time. He will inherit all my brother"s money."
"Lord Kynaston"s?"
"Bless the child, no. Kynaston"s as poor as a church mouse with the t.i.thes unpaid; he has three sons of his own, and not a blessed stiver to leave between them. How could he, poor dear idiot? Agricultural depression; a splendid pauper. He has only the estate, and that"s in Ess.e.x; land going begging; worth nothing a year, enc.u.mbered up to the eyes, and loaded with first rent-charges, jointures, settlements. Money, indeed! poor Kynaston! It"s my brother Marmaduke"s I mean; lucky dog, _he_ went in for speculation--began life as a guinea-pig, and rose with the rise of soap and cocoa. He"s worth his half-million."
"Oh, Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst"
Lady Georgina nodded. "Marmy"s a fool," she said, briefly; "but he knows which side of his bread is b.u.t.tered."
"And Mr. Tillington is--his nephew?"
"Bless the child, yes; have you never read your British Bible, the peerage? Astonishing, the ignorance of these Girton girls! They don"t even know the Leger"s run at Doncaster. The family name"s Ashurst.
Kynaston"s an earl-- I was Lady Georgina Ashurst before I took it into my head to marry and do for poor Evelyn Fawley. My younger brother"s the Honourable Marmaduke Ashurst--women get the best of it there--it"s about the only place where they do get the best of it: an earl"s daughter is Lady Betty; his son"s nothing more than the Honourable Tom. So one scores off one"s brothers. My younger sister, Lady Guinevere Ashurst, married Stanley Tillington of the Foreign Office. Harold"s their eldest son. Now, child, do you grasp it?"
"Perfectly," I answered. "You speak like Debrett. Has issue, Harold."
"And Harold will inherit all Marmaduke"s money. What I"m always afraid of is that some fascinating adventuress will try to marry him out of hand. A pretty face, and over goes Harold! _My_ business in life is to stand in the way and prevent it."