Then he went out for a long walk alone, pondering what was the matter with him. Had that little witch dropped the old familiar poison into his veins after all? Certainly some women made life vivacity and pleasure, while others--his mother or Mrs. Watton, for instance--made it fatigue or tedium.
Ever since his boyhood Tressady had been conscious of intermittent a.s.saults of melancholy, fits of some inner disgust, which hung the world in black, crippled his will, made him hate himself and despise his neighbours. It was, possibly, some half-conscious dread lest this morbid speck in his nature should gain upon the rest that made him so hungry for travel and change of scene after he left college. It explained many surprises, many apparent ficklenesses in his life. During the three weeks that he had spent in the same house with Letty Sewell he had never once been conscious of this lurking element of his life. And now, after four days, he found himself positively pining for her voice, the rustle of her delicate dress, her defiant, provocative ways that kept a man on the alert--still more, her smiling silences that seemed to challenge all his powers, the touch of her small cool hand that crushed so easily in his.
What had she left the house for in that wilful way? He did not believe her excuses. Yet he was mystified. Did she realise that things were becoming serious, and did she not mean them to be serious? If so, who or what hindered?
As for Fontenoy--
Tressady quickened his step impatiently as he recalled that hara.s.sed and toiling figure. Politics or no politics, _he_ would live his life!
Besides, it was obviously to his profit to marry. How could he ever make a common household with his mother? He meant to do his duty by her, but she annoyed and abashed him twenty times a day. He would be far happier married, far better able to do his work. He was not pa.s.sionately in love--not at all. But--for it was no good fencing with himself any longer--he desired Letty Sewell"s companionship more than he had desired anything for a long time. He wanted the right to carry off the little musical box, with all its tunes, and set it playing in his own house, to keep him gay. Why not? He could house it prettily, and reward it well.
As for the rest, he decided, without thinking about it, that Letty Sewell was well born and bred. She had, of course, all the little refinements a fastidious taste might desire in a woman. She would never discredit a man in society. On the contrary, she would be a great strength to him there.
And she must be sweet-tempered, or that pretty child Evelyn Watton would not be so fond of her.
That pretty child, meanwhile, was absorbed in the excitement of her own small _role_. Tressady, who had only made duty-conversation with her before, had found out somehow that she was sympathetic--that she would talk to him charmingly about Letty. After a very little pretending, he let himself go; and Evelyn dreamt at night of his confidences, her heart, without knowing it, leaping forward to the time when a man would look at her so, for her own sake--not another"s. She forgot that she had ever criticised Letty, thought her vain or selfish. Nay, she made a heroine of her forthwith; she remembered all sorts of delightful things to say of her, simply that she might keep the young member talking in a corner, that she might still enjoy the delicious pride of feeling that she knew--she was helping it on.
After the big "shoot," for instance, when all the other gentlemen were stiff and sleepy, George spent the whole evening in chattering to Evelyn, or, rather, in making her chatter. Lady Tressady loitered near them once or twice. She heard the names "Letty," "Miss Sewell," pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing--one talker catching up the other. Over any topic that included Miss Sewell they lingered; when anything was begun that did not concern her, it dropped at once, like a ball ill thrown. The mother went away smiling rather sourly.
She watched her son, indeed, cat-like all these days, trying to discover what had happened--what his real mind was. She did not wish for a daughter-in-law at all, and she had even a secret fear of Letty Sewell in that capacity. But somehow George must be managed, her own needs must be met. She felt that she might be undoing the future; but the present drove her on.
On the following morning, from one of Mrs. Watton"s numerous letters there dropped out the fact that Letty Sewell was expected immediately at a country house in North Mercia whereof a certain Mrs. Corfield was mistress--a house only distant some twenty miles from the Tressadys"
estate of Ferth Place.
"My sister-in-law has recovered with remarkable rapidity," said Mrs.
Watton, raising a sarcastic eye. "Do you know anything of the Corfields, Sir George?"
"Nothing at all," said George. "One hears of them sometimes from neighbours. They are said to be very lively folk. Miss Sewell will have a gay time."
"Corfield?" said Lady Tressady, her head on one side and her cup balanced in two jewelled hands. "What! _Aspasia Corfield_! Why, my dear George--one of my oldest friends!"
George laughed--the short, grating laugh his mother so often evoked.
"Beg pardon, mother; I can only answer for myself. To the best of my belief I never saw her, either at Ferth or anywhere else."
"Why, Aspasia Corfield and I," said Lady Tressady with languid reflectiveness--"Aspasia Corfield and I copied each other"s dresses, and bought our hats at the same place, when we were eighteen. I haven"t seen her for an eternity. But Aspasia used to be a _dear_ girl--and so fond of me!"
She put down her cup with a sigh, intended as a reproach to George.
George only buried himself the deeper in his morning"s letters.
Mrs. Watton, behind her newspaper, glanced grimly from the mother to the son.
"I wonder if that woman has a single real old friend in the world. How is George Tressady going to put up with her?"
The Wattons themselves had been on friendly terms with Tressady"s father for many years. Since Sir William"s death and George"s absence, however, Mrs. Watton had not troubled herself much about Lady Tressady, in which she believed she was only following suit with the rest of West Mercia.
But now that George had reappeared as a promising politician, his mother--till he married--had to be to some extent accepted along with him. Mrs. Watton accordingly had thought it her duty to invite her for the election, not without an active sense of martyrdom. "She always has bored me to tears since I first saw Sir William trailing her about," she would remark to Letty. "Where did he pick her up? The marvel is that she has kept respectable. She has never looked it. I always feel inclined to ask her at breakfast why she dresses for dinner twelve hours too soon!"
Very soon after the little conversation about the Corfields Lady Tressady withdrew to her room, sat thoughtful for a while, with her writing-block on her knee, then wrote a letter. She was perfectly aware of the fact that since George had come back to her she was likely to be welcome once more in many houses that for years had shown no particular desire to receive her. She took the situation very easily. It was seldom her way to be bitter. She was only determined to amuse herself, to enjoy her life in her own way. If people disapproved of her, she thought them fools, but it did not prevent her from trying to make it up with them next day, if she saw an opening and it seemed worth while.
"There!" she said to herself as she sealed the letter, and looked at it with admiration, "I really have a knack for doing those things. I should think Aspasia Corfield would ask him by return--me, too, if she has any decency, though she _has_ dropped me for fifteen years. She has a tribe of daughters.--_Why_ I should play Miss Sewell"s game like this I don"t know! Well, one must try something."
That same afternoon mother and son took their departure for Ferth Place.
George, who had only spent a few weeks at Ferth since his return from India, should have found plenty to do both indoors and out. The house struck him as singularly dingy and out of order. Changes were imperatively demanded in the garden and in the estate. His business as a colliery-owner was in a tangled and critical condition. And meanwhile Fontenoy plied him incessantly with a political correspondence which of itself made large demands upon intelligence and energy.
Nevertheless he shuffled out of everything, unless it were the correspondence with Fontenoy. As to the notion that all the languor could be due merely to an unsatisfied craving for Letty Sewell"s society, when it presented itself he still fought with it. The Indian climate might have somehow affected him. An English winter is soon forgotten, and has to be re-learnt like a distasteful lesson.
About a week after their arrival at Ferth George was sitting at his solitary breakfast when his mother came floating into the room, preceded by a rattle of bangles, a flutter of streamers, and the barking of little dogs.
She held various newly opened letters, and, running up to him, she laid her hands on his shoulders.
"Now"--thought George to himself with annoyance, "she is going to be arch!"
"Oh! you silly boy!" she said, holding him, with her head on one side.
"Who"s been cross and nasty to his poor old mammy? Who wants cheering up a bit before he settles down to his horrid work? Who would take his mammy to a nice party at a nice house, if he were prettily asked--eh?
who would?"
She pinched his cheek before he could escape.
"Well, mother, of course you will do what you like," said George, walking off to supply himself with ham. "I shall not leave home again, just yet."
Lady Tressady smiled.
"Well, anyhow, you can read Aspasia Corfield"s letter," she said, holding it out to him. "You know, really, that house isn"t bad. They took over the Dryburghs" _chef_, and Aspasia knows how to pick her people."
"Aspasia!" The tone of patronising intimacy! George blushed, if his mother did not.
Yet he took the letter. He read it, then put it down, and walked to the window to look at a crowd of birds that had been collecting round a plate of food he had just put out upon the snow.
"Well, will you go?" said his mother.
"If you particularly wish it," he said, after a pause, in an embarra.s.sed voice.
Lady Tressady"s dimples were in full play as she settled herself into her seat and began to gather a supply of provisions. But as he returned to his place, and she glanced at him, she saw that he was not in a mood to be bantered, and understood that he was not going to let her force his confidence, however shrewdly she might guess at his affairs. So she controlled herself, and began to chatter about the Corfields and their party. He responded, and by the end of breakfast they were on much better terms than they had been for some weeks.
That morning also he wrote a cheque for her immediate necessities, which made her--for the time--a happy woman; and she overwhelmed him with grateful tears and embraces, which he did his best to bear.
Early in December he and she became the Corfields" guests. They found a large party collected, and Letty Sewell happily established as the spoilt child of the house. At the first touch of her hand, the first glance of her eyes, George"s cloud dispersed.
"Why did you run away?" George asked her on the first possible occasion.
Letty laughed, fenced with the question for four days, during which George was never dull for a single instant, and then capitulated. She allowed him to propose to her, and was graciously pleased to accept him.
The following week Tressady went down with Letty to her home at Helbeck.
He found an invalid father, a remarkably foolish, inconsequent mother, and a younger sister, Elsie, on whom, as it seemed to him, the burdens of the house mainly rested.
The father, who was suffering from a slow but incurable disease, had the remains of much natural ability and acuteness. He was well content with Tressady as a son-in-law; though in the few interviews that Tressady was able to have with him on the question of settlements the young man took pains to state his money affairs as carefully and modestly as possible.
Letty was not often in her father"s room, and Mr. Sewell treated her, when she did come, rather like an agreeable guest than a daughter. But he was evidently extremely proud of her--as also was the mother--and he would talk much to George, when his health allowed it, of her good looks and her social success.
With the younger sister Tressady did not find it easy to make friends.