"She is very pretty, isn"t she?"
"Very--like a Verrocchio angel--who has been to college! She is an artist?"
"She paints. She admires Delorme."
"That one can see. And he admires her!"
"We--my mother--wants him to paint her."
"He will--if he knows his own business."
"A Miss Penfold?" said Lady Barbara, putting up her eyegla.s.s. "You say she paints. The modern girl must always _do_ something! _My_ girls have been brought up for _home_."
A remark that drove Tatham into a rash defence of the modern girl to which he was quite unequal, and in which indeed he was half-hearted, for his fundamental ideas were quite as old-fashioned as Lady Barbara"s. But Lydia, for him, was of no date; only charm itself, one with all the magic and grace that had ever been in the world, or would be.
Suddenly he saw that she was looking at him--a bright, signalling look, only to tell him how hugely well she was getting on with Delorme. He smiled in return, but inwardly he was discontented. Always this gay camaraderie--like a boy"s. Not the slightest tremor in it. Not a touch of consciousness--or of s.e.x. He could not indeed have put it so. All he knew was that he was always thirstily seeking something she showed no signs of giving him.
But he himself was being rapidly swept off his feet. Since their meeting at Threlfall, which had been interrupted by Melrose"s freakish return, there had been other meetings, as delightful as before, yet no more conclusive or encouraging. He and Lydia had indeed grown intimate. He had revealed to her thoughts and feelings which he had unveiled for no one else--not even for Victoria--since he was a boy at school with boyish friendships. And she had handled them with such delicacy, such sweetness; such frankness too, in return as to her own "ideas," those stubborn intractable ideas, which made him frown to think of. Yet all the time--he knew it--there had been no flirting on her part. Never had she given him the smallest ground to think her in love with him. On the contrary, she had maintained between them for all her gentleness, from beginning to end, that soft, intangible barrier which at once checked and challenged him.
Pa.s.sion ran high in him. And, moreover, he was beginning to be more than vaguely jealous. He had seen for himself how much there was in common between her and Faversham; during the last fortnight he had met Faversham at the cottage on several occasions; and there had been references to other visits from the new agent. He understood perfectly that Lydia was broadly, humanly interested in the man"s task: the poet, the enthusiast in her was stirred by what he might do, if he would, for the humble folk she loved. But still, there they were--meeting constantly. "And he can talk to her about all the things I can"t!"
His earlier optimism had quite pa.s.sed by now; probably, though unconsciously, under the influence of Lydia"s nascent friendship with Faversham. There had sprung up in him instead a constant agitation and disquiet that could no longer be controlled. No help--but rather danger--lay in waiting....
Delorme had now turned away from Lydia to his hostess, and Lydia was talking to Squire Andover on her other side, a jolly old boy, with a gracious, absent look, who inclined his head to her paternally. Tatham knew very well that there was no one in the county who was more rigidly tied to caste or rank. But he was kind always to the outsider--kind therefore to Lydia. Good heavens!--as if there was any one at the table fit to tie her shoe-string!
His pulses raced. The heat, the golden evening, the flowers, all the lavish colour and scents of nature, seemed to be driving him toward speech--toward some expression of himself, which must be risked, even if it lead him to disaster.
The dinner which appeared to Tatham interminable, and was really so short, by Victoria"s orders, that Squire Andover felt resentfully he had had nothing to eat, at last broke up. The gentlemen lingered smoking on the loggia. The ladies dispersed through the garden, and Delorme--after a look round the male company--quietly went with them. So did the gentleman in the dinner jacket and black tie. Tatham, impatiently doing his duty as host, could only follow the fugitives with his eyes, their pale silks and muslins, among the flowers and under the trees.
But his guests, over their cigars, were busy with some local news, and, catching Faversham"s name, Tatham presently recalled his thoughts sufficiently to listen to what was being said. The topic, naturally, was Faversham"s appointment. Every landowner there was full of it. He had been seen in Brampton on market day driving in a very decent motor; and since his accession he had succeeded in letting two or three of the derelict farms, on a promise of repairs and improvements which had been at last wrung out of Melrose. It was rumoured also that the most astonishing things were happening in the house and the gardens.
"Who on earth is the man, and where does he come from?" asked a short, high-shouldered man with a blunt, pugnacious face. He was an ex-officer, a J.P., and one of the most active Conservative wire-pullers of the neighbourhood. He and Victoria Tatham were the best of friends. They differed on almost all subjects. He was a ma.s.s of prejudices, large and small, and Victoria laughed at him. But when she wanted to help any particularly lame dog over any particularly high stile, she always went to Colonel Barton. A c.o.c.kney doctor attached to the Workhouse had once described him to her as--"eart of gold, "edd of feathers"--and the label had stuck.
"A Londoner, picked up badly hurt on the road, by Undershaw, I understand, and carried into the lion"s den," said Andover, in answer to Barton. "And now they say he is obtaining the most extraordinary influence over the old boy."
"And the house--turned into a perfect palace!" said the rector, throwing up his hands.
The others, except Tatham, crowded eagerly round, while the rector described a visit he had paid to Faversham, within a few days of the agent"s appointment, on behalf of a farmer"s widow, a parishioner, under notice to quit.
"Hadn"t been in the house for twenty years. The place is absolutely transformed! It used to be a pigsty. Now Faversham"s rooms are fit for a prince. Nothing short of one of your rooms here"--he addressed Tatham, with a laughing gesture toward the house--"comparable to his sitting-room. Priceless things in it! And close by, an excellent office, with room for two clerks--one already at work--piles of blue-books, pamphlets, heavens knows what! And they are fitting up a telephone between Threlfall and some new rooms that he has taken for estate business in Pengarth."
"A _telephone_--at Threlfall!" murmured Andover.
"And Undershaw tells me that Melrose has taken the most extraordinary fancy for the young man. Everything is done for him. He may have anything he likes. And, rumour says--an enormous salary!"
"Sounds like an adventurer," grumbled Barton, "probably is."
Tatham broke in. "No, you"re wrong there, Colonel. I knew Faversham at college. He"s a very decent fellow--and awfully clever."
Yet, somehow, his praise stuck in his throat.
"Well, of course," said Andover with a shrug, "if he _is_ a decent fellow, as Tatham says, he won"t stay long. Do you imagine Melrose is going to change his spots?--not he!"
"Somebody must really go and talk to this chap," said Barton gloomily. "I believe Melrose will lose us the next election up here. You really can"t expect people to vote for Tories, if Tories are that sort."
The talk flowed on. But Tatham had ceased to listen. For some little time there had been no voices or steps in the garden outside. They had melted into the wood beyond. But now they had returned. He perceived a white figure against a distant background of clipped yew.
Rising joyously he threw down his cigarette.
"Shall we join the ladies?"
"I say, you"ve had a dose of Delorme."
For he had found her still with the painter, who as soon as Tatham appeared had subsided languidly into allowing Lady Barbara to talk to him.
"Oh! but so amusing!" cried Lydia, her face twinkling. "We"ve picked all the Academy to pieces and danced on their bones."
"Has he asked you to sit to him?"
Lydia hesitated, and in the soft light he saw her flush.
"He said something. Of course it would be a great, great honour!"
"An honour to him," said Tatham hotly.
"I"m afraid you don"t know how to respect great men!" she said laughing, as they drew out of the shadow of the Italian garden with its clipped yews and cypresses, and reached a broad terrace whence the undulations of the park stretched westward and upward into the purple fissures and clefts of the mountains. Trees, fells, gra.s.s were steeped in a wan, gold light, a mingling of sunset and moonrise. The sky was clear; the gradations of colour on the hills ethereally distinct. From a clump of trees came a soft hooting of owls; and close behind them a tall hedge of roses red and white made a bower for Lydia"s light form, and filled the night with perfume.
"What do great men matter?" said Tatham incoherently as they paused; "what does anything matter--but--_Lydia!_"
It was a cry of pain. A hand groped for hers. Lydia startled, looked up to see the face of Tatham looking down upon her through the warm dusk--transfigured.
"You"ll let me speak, won"t you? I daresay it"s much too soon--I daresay you can"t think of it--yet. But I love you. I love you so dearly! I can"t keep it to myself. I have--ever since I first saw you. You won"t be angry with me for speaking? You won"t think I took you by surprise? I don"t want to hurry you--I only want you to know--"
Emotion choked him. Lydia, after a murmur he couldn"t catch, hid her face in her hands.
He waited; and already there crept through him the dull sense of disaster. The impulse to speak had been irresistible, and now--he wished he had not spoken.
At last she looked up.
"Oh, you have been so good to me--so sweet to me," and before he knew what she was doing, she had lifted one of his hands in her two slender ones and touched it with her lips.
Outraged--enchanted--bewildered--he tried to catch her in his arms. But she slipped away from him and with her hands behind her, she looked at him, smiling through tears, her fair hair blown back from her temples, her delicate face alive with feeling.
"I can"t say yes--it wouldn"t be honest if I did--it wouldn"t be fair to you. But, oh, dear, I"m so sorry--so dreadfully sorry--if it"s my fault--if I"ve misled you. I thought I"d tried hard to show what I really felt--that I wanted to be friends--but not--not this. Dear Lord Tatham, I do like and admire you so much--but--"
"You don"t want to marry me!" he said bitterly, turning away.