Red Pottage Part 34

"Really, Mr. Loftus, I'm quite shocked. This absurd faintness! The tent was very crowded, and there is not much air to-day, is there? I shall be all right if I may sit quietly in the hail a little. How deliciously cool in here after the glare outside. A gla.s.s of water? Thanks. Yes, only I hate to be so troublesome. And how are you after that dreadful accident in the boat?"

"Oh! I am all right," said Doll, who by this time hated the subject. "It was Scarlett who was nearly frozen like New Zealand lamb."

Doll had heard Mr. Gresley fire off the simile of the lamb, and considered it sound.

"How absurd you are. You always make me laugh. I suppose he has left now that he is unfrozen."

"Oh no. He is still here. We would not let him go till he was better. He is not up to much. Weak chap at the best of times, I should think. He's lying low in the smoking-room till the people are gone."

"Mr. Scarlett is an old friend of ours," said Lady Newhaven, sipping her gla.s.s of water, and spilling a little; "but I can't quite forgive him--no, I really can't--for the danger he caused to Edward. You know, or perhaps you don't know, that Edward can't swim, either. Even now I can't bear to think what might have happened."

She closed her eyes with evident emotion.

Doll's stolid garden-party face relaxed. "Good little woman," he thought. "As fond of him as she can be."

"All's well that ends well," he remarked, aloud.

Doll did not know that he was quoting Shakespeare, but he did know by long experience that this sentence could be relied on as suitable to the occasion, or to any occasion that looked a little "doddery," and finished up all right.

"And now, Mr. Loftus, positively I must insist on your leaving me quietly here. I am quite sure you are wanted outside, and I should blame myself if you wasted another minute on me. It was only the sun which affected me. Don't mention it to Edward. He is always so fussy about me.

I will rest quietly here for a quarter of an hour, and then rejoin you all again in the garden."

"I hope I am not disturbing any one," said Lord Newhaven, quietly entering the smoking-room. "Well, Scarlett, how are you getting on?"

Hugh, who was lying on a sofa with his arms raised and his hands behind his head, looked up, and his expression changed.

"He was thinking of something uncommonly pleasant," thought Lord Newhaven, "not of me or mine, I fancy. I have come to smoke a cigarette in peace," he added aloud, "if you don't object."

"Of course not."

Lord Newhaven lit his cigarette and puffed a moment in silence.

"Hot outside," he said.

Hugh nodded. He wondered how soon he could make a pretext for getting up and leaving the room.

There was a faint silken rustle, and Lady Newhaven, pale, breathless, came swiftly in and closed the door. The instant afterwards she saw her husband, and shrank back with a little cry. Lord Newhaven did not look at her. His eyes were fixed on Hugh.

Hugh's face became suddenly ugly, livid. He rose slowly to his feet, and stood motionless.

"He hates her," said Lord Newhaven to himself. And he removed his glance and came forward.

"You were looking for me, Violet?" he remarked. "I have no doubt you are wis.h.i.+ng to return home. We will go at once." He threw away his cigarette. "Well, good-bye, Scarlett, in case we don't meet again. I dare say you will pay Westhope a visit later on. Ah, Captain Pratt! so you have fled, like us, from the madding crowd. I can recommend Loftus's cigarettes. I have just had one myself. Good-bye. Did you leave your purchases in the hall, Violet? Yes? Then we will collect them on our way."

The husband and wife were half-way down the grand staircase before Lord Newhaven said, in his usual even voice:

"I must ask you once more to remember that I will not have any scandal attaching to your name. Did not you see that that white mongrel Pratt was on your track? If I had not been there when he came in he would have drawn his own vile conclusions, and for once they would have been correct."

"He could not think worse of me than you do," said the wife, half cowed, half defiant.

"No, but he could say so, which I don't; or, what is more probable, he could use his knowledge to obtain a hold over you. He is a dangerous man. Don't put yourself in his power."

"I don't want to, or in anybody's."

"Then avoid scandal instead of courting it, and don't repeat the folly of this afternoon."

Captain Pratt did not remain long in the smoking-room. He had only a slight acquaintance with Hugh, which did not appear capable of expansion. Captain Pratt made a few efforts, proved its inelastic properties, and presently lounged out again.

Hugh moved slowly to the window, and leaned his throbbing forehead against the stone mullion. He was still weak, and the encounter with Lady Newhaven had shaken him.

"What did he mean?" he said to himself, bewildered and suspicious.

"'Perhaps I should be staying at Westhope later on!' But, of course, I shall never go there again. He knows that as well as I do. What did he mean?"

CHAPTER x.x.xI

The Bird of Time has but a little way To flutter--and the Bird is on the wing.

--OMAR KHAYYaM.

It was the third week of November. Winter, the destroyer, was late, but he had come at last. There was death in the air, a whisper of death stole across the empty fields and bare hill-side. The birds heard it and were silent. The November wind was hurrying round Westhope Abbey, shaking its bare trees.

Lord Newhaven stood looking fixedly out eastward across the level land to the low hills beyond. He stood so long that the day died, and twilight began to rub out first the hills and then the long, white lines of flooded meadow and blurred pollard willows. Presently the river mist rose up to meet the coming darkness. In the east, low and lurid, a tawny moon crept up the livid sky. She made no moonlight on the gray earth.

Lord Newhaven moved away from the window, where he had become a shadow among the shadows, and sat down in the dark at his writing-table.

Presently he turned on the electric lamp at his elbow and took a letter out of his pocket. The circle of shaded light fell on his face as he read--the thin, grave face, with the steady, inscrutable eyes.

He read the letter slowly, evidently not for the first time.

"If I had not been taken by surprise at the moment I should not have consented to the manner in which our differences were settled.

Personally, I consider the old arrangement, to which you regretfully alluded at the time"--("pistols for two and coffee for four," I remember perfectly)--"as preferable, and as you appeared to think so yourself, would it not be advisable to resort to it? Believing that the old arrangement will meet your wishes as fully as it does mine, I trust that you will entertain this suggestion, and that you will agree to a meeting with your own choice of weapons, on any pretext you may choose to name within the next week."

The letter ended there. It was unsigned.

"The time is certainly becoming short," said Lord Newhaven. "He is right in saying there is only a week left. If it were not for the scandal for the boys, and if I thought he would really hold to the compact, I would meet him, but _he won't_. He flinched when he drew lots. He won't. He has courage enough to stand up in front of me for two minutes, and take his chance, but not to blow his own brains out. No. And if he knew what is in store for him if he does not, he would not have courage to face that either. Nor should I if I were in his shoes, poor devil. The first six foot of earth would be good enough for me."

He threw the letter with its envelope into the fire and watched it burn.

Then he took up the gold pen, which his wife had given him, examined the nib, dipped it very slowly in the ink, and wrote with sudden swiftness.

"Allow me to remind you that you made no objection at the time to the manner of our encounter and my choice of weapons, by means of which publicity was avoided. The risk was equal. You now, at the last moment, propose that I should run it a second time, and in a manner to cause instant scandal. I must decline to do so, or to reopen the subject, which had received my careful consideration before I decided upon it. I have burned your letter, and desire you will burn mine."

"Poor devil!" said Lord Newhaven, putting the letter, not in the post-box at his elbow, but in his pocket.