The Wooden Horse Part 21

"I shall get the s.h.i.+vers if I don't move," he said, and rang the bell.

The slatternly servant that he had expected to see answered the bell, and the tap-tap of her down-at-heels slippers sounded along the pa.s.sage as she departed to see if Mrs. Feverel would see him.

He waited in the draughty hall; it was so dark that coats and hats loomed, ghostly shapes, by the farther wall. A door opened, there was sound of voices--a moment's pause, then the door closed and the maid appeared at the head of the stairs.

"The missis says you can come up," she said ungraciously.

She eyed him curiously as he pa.s.sed her, and scented drama in the set of his shoulders and the twitch of his fingers.

"A military!" she concluded, and tap-tapped down again into the kitchen.

A low fire was burning in the grate and the blind napped against the window. The draught blew the everlastings on the mantelpiece together with a little dry, dusty sound like the rustle of a breeze in dried twigs.

Mrs. Feverel sat bending over the fire, and he thought as he saw her that it would need a very great fire indeed to put any warmth into her.

Her black hair, parted in the middle, was bound back tightly over her head and confined by a net.

She shook hands with him solemnly, and then waited as though she expected an explanation.

Harry smiled. "I'm afraid, Mrs. Feverel," he said, "that you may think this extraordinary. I can only offer as apology your acquaintance with my son."

"Ah yes--Mr. Robert Trojan."

Her mouth closed with a snap and she waited, with her hands folded on her lap, for him to say something further.

"You knew him, I think, at Cambridge in the summer?"

"Yes, my daughter and I were there in the summer."

Harry paused. It would be harder than he expected, and where was the daughter?

"Cambridge is very pleasant in the summer?" he asked, his resolution weakening rapidly before her impa.s.sivity.

"My daughter and I found it so. But, of course, it depends----"

It depended, he reflected, on such people as his son--boys whom they could cheat at their ease. He had no doubt at all now that the mother was an adventuress of the common, melodrama type. He suspected the girl of being the same. It made things in some ways much simpler, because money would, probably, settle everything; there would be no question of fine feelings. He knew exactly how to deal with such women, he had known them in New Zealand; but he was amused as he contemplated Clare's certain failure--such a woman was entirely outside her experience.

He came to the point at once.

"My being here is easily explained. I learn, Mrs. Feverel, that my son formed an attachment for your daughter during last summer. He wrote some letters now in your daughter's possession. His family are naturally anxious that those letters should be returned. I have come to see what can be done about the matter." He paused--but she said nothing, and remained motionless by the fire.

"Perhaps," he said slowly, "you would prefer, Mrs. Feverel, to name a possible price yourself?"

Afterwards, on looking back, he felt that his expectations had been perfectly justified; she had, up to that point, given him every reason to take the line that he adopted. She had listened to the first part of his speech without remark; she must, he reflected afterwards, have known what was coming, yet she had given no sign that she heard.

And so the change in her was startling and took him utterly by surprise.

She looked up at him from her chair, and the thin ghost of a smile that crept round the corners of her mouth, faced him for a moment, and then vanished suddenly, was the strangest thing that he had ever seen.

"Don't you think, Mr. Trojan, that that is a little insulting?"

It made him feel utterly ashamed. In her own house, in her drawing-room, he had offered her money.

"I beg your pardon," he stammered.

"Yes," she answered slowly. "You had rather misconceived the situation."

Harry felt that her silences were the most eloquent that he had ever known. He began to be very frightened, and, for the first time, conceived the possibility of not securing the letters at all. The thought that his hopes might be dashed to the ground, that he might be no nearer his goal at the end of the interview than before, sharpened his wits. It was to be a deal in subtlety rather than the obvious thing that he had expected--well, he would play it to the end.

"I beg your pardon," he said again. "I have been extremely rude. I am only recently returned from abroad, and my knowledge of the whole affair is necessarily very limited. I came here with a very vague idea both as to yourself and your intentions. In drawing the conclusions that I did I have done both you and your daughter a grave injustice, for which I humbly apologise. I may say that, before coming here, I had had no interview with my son. I am, therefore, quite ignorant as regards facts."

He did not feel that his apology had done much good. He felt that she had accepted both his insult and apology quite calmly, as though she had regarded them inevitably.

"The facts," she said, looking down again at the fire, "are quite simple. My daughter and your son became acquainted at Cambridge in May last. They saw a great deal of each other during the next few months.

At the end of that time they were engaged. Mr. Robert Trojan gave us to understand that he was about to acquaint his family with the fact.

They corresponded continually during the summer--letters, I believe, of the kind common to young people in love. Mr. Robert Trojan spoke continually of the marriage and suggested dates. We then came down here, and, soon after our arrival, I perceived a change in your son's att.i.tude. He came to see us very rarely, and at last ceased his visits altogether. My daughter was naturally extremely upset, and there were several rather painful interviews. He then wrote returning her letters and demanding the return of his own. This she definitely refused.

Those are the facts, Mr. Trojan."

She had spoken without any emotion, and evidently expected that he should do the same.

"I have come," he said, "on behalf of my son to demand the return of those letters."

"Demand?"

"Naturally. Letters, Mrs. Feverel, of that kind are dangerous things to leave about."

"Yes?" She smiled. "Dangerous for whom? I think you forget a little, Mr. Trojan, in your anxiety for your son's welfare, my daughter's side of the question. She naturally treasures what represents to her the happiest months of her existence. You must remember that your son's conduct--shall I call it desertion?--was a terrible blow. She loved him, Mr. Trojan, with all her heart. Is it not right that he should suffer a little as well?"

"I refuse to believe," he answered sharply, "that this is all a matter of sentiment. I regret extremely that my son should have behaved in such a cowardly and dastardly manner--it has hurt and surprised me more than I can say--but, were that all, it were surely better to bury the whole affair as soon as may be. I cannot believe that you are keeping the letters with no intention of making public use of them."

"Ah," said Mrs. Feverel, "I wonder."

"Hadn't we better come to a clear understanding, Mrs. Feverel?" he asked. "We are neither of us children, and this beating about the bush serves no purpose whatever. If you refuse to return the letters, I have at least the right to ask what you mean to do with them."

"Here is my daughter," she answered, "she shall speak for herself."

He turned round at the sound of the opening door, and watched her as she came in. She was very much as he had imagined--thin and tall, walking straight from the hips, giving a little the impression that she was standing on her toes. Her eyes seemed amazingly dark in the whiteness of her face. She seemed a little older than he had expected--perhaps twenty-five or twenty-six.

She looked at him sharply as she entered and then came forward to her mother. He could see that she was agitated--her breath came quickly, and her hands folded and unfolded as though she were tearing something to pieces.

"This," said Mrs. Feverel, "is my daughter, Mr. Trojan. My dear, Mr.

Henry Trojan."

She bowed and sat down opposite her mother. He thought she looked rather pathetic as she faced him; here was no adventuress, no schemer.

He began to feel that his son had behaved brutally, outrageously.

Mrs. Feverel rose. "I will leave you, my dear. Mr. Trojan will tell you for what he has come."

She moved slowly from the room and Harry drew a breath of relief at her absence. There was a moment's pause. "I hope you will forgive me, Miss Feverel," he said gently. "I'm afraid that both your mother and yourself must regard this as impertinent, but, at the same time, I think you will understand."