With Edged Tools Part 44

It may have hurt Millicent, but it hurt Jocelyn more--for the smile had left her hearer's face. She was off her guard, as she had been once before when Sir John was near, and Millicent's face betrayed something which Jocelyn saw at once with a sick heart--something that Sir John knew from the morning when he had seen Millicent open two letters--something that Lady Cantourne had known all along.

"And was Mr. Meredith on the Plateau when it was besieged?" asked Millicent, with a drawn, crooked smile.

"Yes," answered Jocelyn. She could not help seizing the poor little satisfaction of this punishment; but she felt all the while that it was nothing to the punishment she was bearing, and would bear all her life.

There are few more contradictory things than the heart of a woman who really loves. For one man it is very tender; for the rest of the world it is the hardest heart on earth if it is called upon to defend the object of its love or the love itself.

"But," cried Millicent, "of course something was done. They could never leave Mr. Meredith unprotected."

"Yes," answered Jocelyn quietly, "Mr. Oscard went up and rescued him. My brother heard yesterday that the relief had been effected."

Millicent smiled again in her light-hearted way.

"That is all right," she said. "What a good thing we did not know! Just think, auntie dear, what a lot of anxiety we have been spared!"

"In the height of the season, too!" said Jocelyn.

"Ye--es," replied Millicent, rather doubtfully.

Lady Cantourne was puzzled. There was something going on which she did not understand. Within the sound of the pleasant conversation there was the cliquetis of the foil; behind the polite smile there was the gleam of steel. She was rather relieved to turn at this moment and see Sir John Meredith entering the room with his usual courtly bow. He always entered her drawing-room like that. Ah! that little secret of a mutual respect. Some people who are young now will wish, before they have grown old, that they had known it.

He shook hands with Lady Cantourne and with Millicent. Then he stood with a deferential half-bow, waiting for the introduction to the girl who was young enough to be his daughter--almost to be his granddaughter.

There was something pathetic and yet proud in this old man's uncompromising adherence to the lessons of his youth.

"Sir John Meredith--Miss Gordon."

The beginning--the thin end of the wedge, as the homely saying has it--the end which we introduce almost every day of our lives, little suspecting to what it may broaden out.

"I had the pleasure of seeing you last night," said Sir John at once, "at Lady Fitzmannering's evening party, or 'At Home,' I believe we call them nowadays. Some of the guests read the invitation too much au pied de la lettre for my taste. They were so much at home that I, fearing to intrude, left rather early."

"I believe the skirt-dancing frightened you away, Sir John," said Millicent merrily.

"Even old birds, my dear young lady, may sometimes be alarmed by a scarecrow."

"I missed you quite early in the evening," put in Lady Cantourne, sternly refusing to laugh. She had not had an opportunity of seeing him since her conversation with Jocelyn, and the dangers of the situation were fully appreciated by such an experienced woman of the world.

"They began to clear the upper end of the room," he explained, "and I a.s.sisted them in the most practical manner in my power."

He was beginning to wonder why he had been invited--nay, almost commanded--to come, by an imperious little note. And of late, whenever Sir John began to wonder he began also to feel old. His fingers strayed towards his unsteady lips as if he were about to make one of those little movements of senile helplessness to which he sometimes gave way.

For a moment Lady Cantourne hesitated between two strokes of social diplomacy--but only for a moment. She had heard the bell ring, and trusted that at the other end of the wire there might be one of those fatuous young men who nibbled at that wire like foolish fish round a gilt spoon-bait. Her ladys.h.i.+p decided to carry on the social farce a few minutes longer, instead of offering the explanation which all were awaiting.

"We women," she said, "were not so easily deterred from our social duties."

At this moment the door opened, and there entered a complex odour of hairwash and perfumery--a collar which must have been nearly related to a cuff, and a pair of tight patent-leather boots, all attached to and somewhat overpowering a young man.

"Ah, my dear Mr. Grubb," said Lady Cantourne, "how good of you to call so soon! You will have some tea. Millicent, give Mr. Grubb some tea."

"Not too strong," added Sir John, apparently to himself, under the cover of Mr. Grubb's somewhat sc.r.a.ppy greeting.

Then Lady Cantourne went to the conservatory and left Sir John and Jocelyn at the end of the long room together. There is nothing like a woman's instinct. Jocelyn spoke at once.

"Lady Cantourne," she said, "kindly asked me to meet you to-day on purpose. I live at Loango; I know your son, Mr. Meredith, and we thought you might like to hear about him and about Loango."

She knew that with a man like Sir John any indirect approach to the subject would be courting failure. His veiled old eyes suddenly lighted up, and he turned to glance over his shoulder.

"Yes," he said, with a strange hesitation, "yes--you are kind. Of course I am interested. I wonder," he went on, with a sudden change of manner, "I wonder how much you know?"

His unsteady hand was resting on her gloved fingers, and he blinked at it as if wondering how it got there.

Jocelyn did not seem to notice.

"I know," she answered, "that you have had a difference of opinion--but no one else knows. You must not think that Mr. Meredith has spoken of his private affairs to any one else. The circ.u.mstances were exceptional, and Mr. Meredith thought that it was due to me to give me an explanation."

Sir John looked a little puzzled, and Jocelyn went on rather hastily to explain

"My brother and Mr. Meredith were at Eton together. They met somewhere up the Coast, and my brother asked Mr. Meredith to come and stay. It happened that Maurice was away when Mr. Meredith arrived, and I did not know who he was, so he explained."

"I see," said Sir John. "And you and your brother have been kind to my boy."

Somehow he seemed to have forgotten to be cynical. He had never known what it is to have a daughter, and she was ignorant of the pleasant everyday amenities of a father's love. As there is undoubtedly such a thing as love at first sight, so must there be sympathy at first sight.

For Jocelyn it was comprehensible--nay, it was most natural. This was Jack's father. In his manner, in everything about him, there were suggestions of Jack. This seemed to be a creature hewn, as it were, from the same material, moulded on the same lines, with slightly divergent tools. And for him--who can tell? The love that was in her heart may have reached out to meet almost as great a love locked up in his proud soul. It may have shown itself to him, openly, fearlessly, recklessly, as love sometimes does when it is strong and pure.

He had carefully selected a seat within the shadow of the curtains; but Jocelyn saw quite suddenly that he was an older man than she had taken him to be the evening before. She saw through the deception of the piteous wig--the whole art that strove to conceal the sure decay of the body, despite the desperate effort of a mind still fresh and vigorous.

"And I dare say," he said, with a somewhat lame attempt at cynicism, "that you have heard no good of me?"

But Jocelyn would have none of that. She was no child to be abashed by sarcasm, but a woman, completed and perfected by her love.

"Excuse me," she said sharply; "but that is not the truth, and you know it. You know as well as I do that your son would never say a word against you."

Sir John looked hastily round. Lady Cantourne had come into the room and was talking to the two young people: Millicent was glancing uneasily over Mr. Grubb's brainless cranium towards them. Sir John's stiff, unsteady fingers fumbled for a moment round his lips.

"Yes," he said, "I was wrong."

"He has always spoken of you with the greatest love and respect," said Jocelyn; "more than that, with admiration. But he very rarely spoke of you at all, which I think means more."

Sir John blinked, and suddenly pulled himself together with a backward jerk of the arms which was habitual with him. It almost seemed as if he said to himself, as he squared his shoulders, "Come, no giving way to old age!"

"Has his health been good?" he asked, rather formally.

"I believe so, until quite lately. My brother heard yesterday by telegram that he was at Loango in broken health," replied Jocelyn.

Sir John was looking at her keenly--his hard blue eyes like steel between the lashless lids.

"You disquiet me," he said. "I have a sort of feeling that you have bad news to tell me."

"No," she answered, "not exactly. But it seems to me that no one realises what he is doing out in Africa--what risks he is running."

"Tell me," he said, drawing in his chair. "I will not interrupt you.