"With no precise result--that is to say, she did not promise to surrender them--not immediately. But I have every hope----" He paused mysteriously.
"Of what?" If his uncle had really a chance of getting them, he was not such a fool after all. Perhaps he was a cleverer man than one gave him credit for being.
"Well, of course, one has very little ground for any real a.s.sertion, but we discussed the matter at some length. I think I convinced her that it would be her wisest course to deliver up the letters as soon as might be, and I a.s.sured her that we would let the matter rest there and take no further steps. I think she was impressed," and he sipped his tea slowly and solemnly.
"Impressed! Yes, but what has she promised?" Robin cried impatiently.
He knew Dahlia better than they did, and he did not feel somehow that she was very likely to be impressed with Uncle Garrett. He was not the kind of man.
"Promised? No, not a precise promise--but she was quite pleasant and seemed to be open to argument--quite a nice young person."
"Ah! you have done nothing!" There was a note of relief in Clare"s exclamation. "Why not say so at once, Garrett, instead of beating about the bush? There is an end of it. We have failed, Robin, both of us; we are where we were before, and what to do next I really don"t know."
It was rather a comfort to drag Garrett into it as well. She was glad that he had tried; it made her own failure less noticeable.
Robin looked at both of them, gloomily, from the fireplace. Aunt Clare, handsome, aristocratic, perfectly well fitted to pour out tea in any society, but useless, useless, useless when it came to the real thing; Uncle Garrett and his eyegla.s.s, trying to make the most of a situation in which he had most obviously failed--no, they were no good either of them, and three weeks ago they had seemed the ultimate standard by which his own life was to be tested. How quickly one learnt!
"Well, what is to be done?" he said desperately. "It"s plain enough that she means to stick to the things; and, after all, there can only be one reason for her doing it--she means to use them. I can see no way out of it at all--one must just stand up to it."
"We"ll think, dear, we"ll think," said Clare eagerly. "Ideas are sure to come if we only wait."
"Wait! But we can"t wait!" cried Robin. "She"ll move at once.
Probably the letters are in the lawyer"s hands already."
"Then there"s nothing to be done," said Garrett comfortably, settling back again into his book--he was, he flattered himself, a man of most excellent practical sense.
"No, it really seems, Robin, as if we had better wait," said Clare.
"We must have patience. Perhaps after all she has taken no steps."
But Robin was angry. He had long ago forgotten his share in the business; he had adopted so successfully the role of injured sufferer that his own actions seemed to him almost meritorious. But he was very angry with them. Here they were, in the face of a family crisis, deliberately adopting a policy of _laissez-faire_; he had done his best and had failed, but he was young and ignorant of the world (that at least he now admitted), but they were old, experienced, wise--or, at least, they had always seemed to him to stand for experience and wisdom, and yet they could do nothing--nay, worse--they seemed to wish to do nothing--Oh! he was angry with them!
The whole room with its silver and knick-knacks--its beautifully worked cushions and charming water-colours, its shining rows of complete editions and dainty china stood to him now for incapacity. Three weeks ago it had seemed his Holy of Holies.
"But we can"t wait," he repeated--"we can"t! Don"t you see, Aunt Clare, she isn"t the sort of girl that waiting does for? She"d never dream of waiting herself." Dahlia seemed, by contrast with their complacent acquiescence, almost admirable.
"Well, dear," Clare answered, "your uncle and I have both tried--I think that we may be alarming ourselves unnecessarily. I must say she didn"t seem to me to bear any grudge against you. I daresay she will leave things as they are----"
"Then why keep the letters?"
"Oh, sentiment. It would remind her, you see----"
But Robin could only repeat--"No, she"s not that kind of girl," and marvel, perplexedly, at their short-sightedness.
And then he approached the point--
"There is, of course," he said slowly, "one other person who might help us----" He paused.
Garrett put his book down and looked up. Clare leaned towards him.
"Yes?" Clare looked slightly incredulous of any suggested remedy--but apparently composed and a little tired of all this argument. But, in reality, her heart was beating furiously. Had it come at last?--that first mention of his father that she had dreaded for so many days.
"I really cannot think----" from Garrett.
"Why not my father?"
Again it seemed to Clare that she and Harry were struggling for Robin ... since that first moment of his entry they had struggled--she with her twenty years of faithful service, he with nothing--Oh! it was unfair!
"But, Robin," she said gently--"you can"t--not, at least, after what has happened. This is an affair for ourselves--for the family."
"But _he_ is the family!"
"Well, in a sense, yes. But his long absence--his different way of looking at things--make it rather hard. It would be better, wouldn"t it, to settle it here, without its going further."
"To _settle_ it, yes--but we can"t--we don"t--we are leaving things quite alone--waiting--when we ought to do something."
Robin knew that she was showing him that his father was still outside the circle--that for herself and Uncle Garrett recent events had made no difference.
But was he outside the circle? Why should he be? At any rate he would soon be head of the House, and then it would matter very little----
"Also," Clare added, "he will scarcely have time just now. He is with father all day--and I don"t see what he could do, after all."
"He could see her," said Robin slowly. He suddenly remembered that Dahlia had once expressed great admiration for his father--she was the very woman to like that kind of man. A hurried mental comparison between his father and Uncle Garrett favoured the idea.
"He could see her," he said again. "I think she might like him."
"My dear boy," said Garrett, "take it from me that what a man could do I"ve done. I a.s.sure you it"s useless. Your father is a very excellent man, but, I must confess, in my opinion scarcely a diplomat----"
"Well, at any rate it"s worth trying," cried Robin impatiently. "We must, I suppose, eat humble pie after the things you said to him, Aunt Clare, the other day, but I must confess it"s the only chance. He will be decent about it, I"m sure--I think you scarcely realise how nasty it promises to be."
"Who is to ask?" said Garrett.
"I will ask him," said Clare suddenly. "Perhaps after all Robin is right--he might do something."
It might, she thought, be the best thing. Unless he tried, Robin would always consider him capable of succeeding--but he should try and fail--fail! Why, of course he would fail.
"Thank you, Aunt Clare." Robin walked to the door and then turned: "Soon would be best"--then he closed the door behind him.
His father was coming down the stairs as he pa.s.sed through the hall.
He saw him against the light of the window and he half turned as though to speak to him--but his father gave no sign; he looked very stern--perhaps his grandfather was dead.
The sudden fear--the terror of death brought very close to him for the first time--caught him by the throat.
"He is not dead?" he whispered.
"He is asleep," Harry said, stopping for a moment on the last step of the stairs and looking at him across the hall--"I am afraid that he won"t live through the night."
They had both spoken softly, and the utter silence of the house, the heaviness of the air so that it seemed to hang in thick clouds above one"s head, drove Robin out. He looked as though he would speak, and then, with bent head, pa.s.sed into the garden.
He felt most miserably lonely and depressed--if he hadn"t been so old and proud he would have hidden in one of the bushes and cried. It was all so terrible--his grandfather, that weighty, eerie impression of Death felt for the first time, the dreadful uncertainty of the Feverel affair, all things were quite enough for misery, but this feeling of loneliness was new to him.