She was once more her quick, shrewd self. All trace of the tears that had surprised her while Mary Batchelor was describing her son"s death had pa.s.sed away. Her half-malicious eyes glanced to right and left, peering into the secrets of the village.
"And these are the people that talk of starving!" she said to George, scornfully, as they emerged into the open road. "Why, anyone can see--"
George, suddenly returned from a reverie, understood what she was saying, and remarked, with an odd look:
"You think their houses aren"t so bad? One is always a little surprised--don"t you think?--when the poor are comfortable? One takes it as something to one"s own credit--I detect it in myself scores of times.
Well!--one seems to say--they _could_ have done without it--one might have kept it for oneself--what a fine generous fellow I am!"
He laughed.
"I didn"t mean that at all," said Letty, protesting.
"Didn"t you? Well, after all, darling--you see, you don"t have to live in those houses, nice as they are--and you don"t have to do your own scrubbing. Ferth may be a vile hole, but I suppose you could put a score of these houses inside it--and I"m a pauper, but I can provide you with two housemaids. I say, why do you walk so far away from me?"
And in spite of her resistance, he took her hand, put it through his arm, and held it there.
"Look at me, darling," he said imperiously. "How _can_ anyone spy upon us with these trees and high walls? I want to see how pretty and fresh you look--I want to forget that poor thing and her tale. Do you know that somewhere--far down in me--there"s a sort of black pool--and when anything stirs it up--for the moment I want to hang myself--the world seems such an awful place! It got stirred up just now--not while she was talking--but just as I looked back at that miserable old soul, standing at her door. She used to be such a jolly old thing--always happy in her Bible--and in Jamie, I suppose--quite sure that she was going to a nice heaven, and would only have to wait a little bit, till Jamie got there too. She seemed to know all about the Almighty"s plans for herself and everybody else. Her drunken husband was dead; my father left her a bit of money, so did an old uncle, I believe. She"d gossip and pray and preach with anybody. And now she"ll weep and pine like that till she dies--and she isn"t sure even about heaven any more--and instead of Jamie, she"s got that oafish lad, that changeling, hung round her neck--to kick her and ill-treat her in another year or two. Well! and do you ever think that something like that has got to happen to all of us--something hideous--some torture--something that"ll make us wish we"d never been born? Darling, am I a mad sort of a fool? Stop here--in the shade--give me a kiss!"
And he made her pause at a shady corner in the road, between two oak copses on either hand--a river babbling at the foot of one of them. He put his arm round her, and stooping kissed her red lips with a kind of covetous pa.s.sion. Then, still holding her, he looked out from the trees to the upper valley with its scattered villages, its chimneys and engine-houses.
"It struck me--what she said of the men under our feet. They"re at it now, Letty, hewing and sweating. Why are they there, and you and I here?
I"m _precious_ glad, aren"t you? But I"m not going to make believe that there"s no difference. Don"t let"s he hypocrites, whatever we are."
Letty was perplexed and a little troubled. He had only shown her this excitability once before--on that odd uncomfortable night when he made her sit with him on the Embankment. Whenever it came it seemed to upset her dominant impression of him. But yet it excited her too--it appealed to something undeveloped--some yearning, protecting instinct which was new to her.
She suddenly put up her hand and touched his hair.
"You talk so oddly, George. I think sometimes"--she laughed with a pretty gaiety--"you"ll go bodily over to Lady Maxwell and her "set" some day!"
George made a contemptuous sound.
"May the Lord preserve us from quacks," he said lightly. "One had better be a hypocrite. Look, little woman, there is a shower coming. Shall we turn home?"
They walked home, chatting and laughing. At their own front door the butler handed George a telegram. He opened it and read:
"Must come down to consult you on important business--shall arrive at Perth about 9.30.--Amelia Tressady."
Letty, who was looking over George"s shoulder, gave a little cry of dismay.
Then, to avoid the butler"s eyes and ears, they turned hurriedly into George"s smoking-room which opened off the hall, and shut the door.
"George! she has come to get more money out of you!" cried Letty, anger and annoyance written in every line of her little frowning face.
"Well, darling, she can"t get blood out of a stone!" said George, crushing the telegram in his hand and throwing it away. "It is a little too bad of my mother, I think, to spoil our honeymoon time like this.
However, it can"t be helped. Will you tell them to get her room ready?"
CHAPTER IX
"Now, my dear George! I do think I may claim at least that you should remember I am your _mother_!"--the speaker raised a fan from her knee, and used it with some vehemence. "Of course I can"t help seeing that you don"t treat me as you ought to do. I don"t want to complain of Letty--I daresay she was taken by surprise--but all I can say as to her reception of me last night is, that it wasn"t pretty--that"s all; it wasn"t _pretty_. My room felt like an ice-house--Justine tells me n.o.body has slept there for months--and no fire until just the moment I arrived; and--and no flowers on the dressing-table--no little _attentions_, in fact. I can only say it was not what I am accustomed to. My feelings overcame me; that poor dear Justine will tell you what a state she found me in. She cried herself, to see me so upset."
Lady Tressady was sitting upright on the straight-backed sofa of George"s smoking-room. George, who was walking up and down the room, thought, with discomfort, as he glanced at her from time to time, that she looked curiously old and dishevelled. She had thrown a piece of white lace round her head, in place of the more elaborate preparation for the world"s gaze that she was wont to make. Her dress--a study in purples--had been a marvel, but was now old, and even tattered; the ruffles at her wrist were tumbled; and the pencilling under her still fine eyes had been neglected. George, between his wife"s dumb anger and his mother"s folly, had pa.s.sed through disagreeable times already since Lady Tressady"s arrival, and was now once more endeavouring to get to the bottom of her affairs.
"You forget, mother," he said, in answer to Lady Tressady"s complaint, "that the house is not mounted for visitors, and that you gave us very short notice."
Nevertheless he winced inwardly as he spoke at the thought of Letty"s behaviour the night before.
Lady Tressady bridled.
"We will not discuss it, if you please," she said, with an attempt at dignity. "I should have thought that you and Letty might have known I should not have broken in on your honeymoon without most _pressing_ reasons. George!"--her voice trembled, she put her lace handkerchief to her eyes--"I am an unfortunate and miserable woman, and if you--my own darling son--don"t come to my rescue, I--I don"t know what I may be driven to do!"
George took the remark calmly, having probably heard it before. He went on walking up and down.
"It"s no good, mother, dealing in generalities, I am afraid. You promised me this morning to come to business. If you will kindly tell me at once what is the matter, and what is the _figure_, I shall be obliged to you."
Lady Tressady hesitated, the lace on her breast fluttering. Then, in desperation, she confessed herself first reluctantly, then in a torrent.
During the last two years, then, she said, she had been trying her luck for the first time in--well, in speculation!
"Speculation!" said George, looking at her in amazement. "In what?"
Lady Tressady tried again to preserve her dignity. She had been investing, she said--trying to increase her income on the Stock Exchange.
She had done it quite as much for George"s sake as her own, that she might improve her position a little, and be less of a burden upon him.
Everybody did it! Several of her best women-friends were as clever at it as any man, and often doubled their allowances for the year. She, of course, had done it under the _best_ advice. George knew that she had friends in the City who would do anything--positively _anything_--for her. But somehow--
Then her tone dropped. Her foot in its French shoe began to fidget on the stool before her.
Somehow, she had got into the hands of a reptile--there! No other word described the creature in the least--a sort of financial agent, who had treated her unspeakably, disgracefully. She had trusted him implicitly, and the result was that she now owed the reptile who, on the strength of her name, her son, and her aristocratic connections, had advanced her money for these adventures, a sum--
"Well, the truth is I am afraid to say what it is," said Lady Tressady, allowing herself for once a cry of nature, and again raising a shaky hand to her eyes.
"How much?" said George, standing over her, cigarette in hand.
"Well--four thousand pounds!" said Lady Tressady, her eyes blinking involuntarily as she looked up at him.
"_Four thousand pounds!_" exclaimed George. "Preposterous!"
And, raising his hand, he flung his cigarette violently into the fire and resumed his walk, hands thrust into his pockets.
Lady Tressady looked tearfully at his long, slim figure as he walked away, conscious, however, even at this agitated moment, of the quick thought that he had inherited some of her elegance.
"George!"
"Yes--wait a moment--mother"--he faced round upon her decidedly. "Let me tell you at once, that at the present moment it is quite impossible for me to find that sum of money."
Lady Tressady flushed pa.s.sionately like a thwarted child.