The Zeppelin's Passenger Part 7

Helen sighed. "I suppose," she confessed, "I am the narrowest person on earth. I can think of one thing, and one thing only. If Mr. Lessingham keeps his word, d.i.c.k will be here perhaps in a month, perhaps six weeks--certainly soon!"

"He will keep his word," Philippa said quietly. "He is that sort of man."

The door on the other side of the room was softly opened. Lessingham's head appeared.

"Could I have a necktie?" he asked diffidently. Philippa stretched out her hand and took one from the basket by her side.

"Better give him this," she said, handing it over to Helen. "It is one of Henry's which I was mending.--Stop!"

She put up her finger. They all listened.

"The car!" Philippa exclaimed, rising hastily to her feet. "That is Henry! Go out with Mr. Lessingham, Helen," she continued, "and wait until he is ready. Don't forget that he is an ordinary caller, and bring him in presently."

Helen nodded understandingly and hurried out.

Philippa moved a few steps towards the other door. In a moment it was thrown open. Nora appeared, with her arm through her father's.

"I went to meet him, Mummy," she explained. "No uniform--isn't it a shame!"

Sir Henry patted her cheek and turned to greet his wife. There was a shadow upon his bronzed, handsome face as he watched her rather hesitating approach.

"Sorry I couldn't catch your train, Phil," he told her. "I had to make a call in the city so I came down from Liverpool Street. Any luck?"

She held his hands, resisting for the moment his proffered embrace.

"Henry," she said earnestly, "do you know I am so much more anxious to hear your news."

"Mine will keep," he replied. "What about Richard?"

She shook her head.

"I spent the whole of my time making enquiries," she sighed, "and every one was fruitless. I failed to get the least satisfaction from any one at the War Office. They know nothing, have heard nothing."

"I'm ever so sorry to hear it," Sir Henry declared sympathetically. "You mustn't worry too much, though, dear. Where's Helen?"

"She is in the gun room with a caller."

"With a caller?" Nora exclaimed. "Is it any one from the Depot? I must go and see."

"You needn't trouble," her stepmother replied. "Here they are, coming in."

The door on the opposite side of the room was suddenly opened, and Hamar Lessingham and Helen entered together. Lessingham was entirely at his ease,--their conversation, indeed, seemed almost engrossing. He came at once across the room on realising Sir Henry's presence.

"This is Mr. Hamar Lessingham--my husband," Philippa said. "Mr.

Lessingham was at college with d.i.c.k, Henry, so of course Helen and he have been indulging in all sorts of reminiscences."

The two men shook hands.

"I found time also to examine your Leech prints," Lessingham remarked.

"You have some very admirable examples."

"Quite a hobby of mine in my younger days," Sir Henry admitted. "One or two of them are very good, I believe. Are you staying in these parts long, Mr. Lessingham?"

"Perhaps for a week or two," was the somewhat indifferent reply. "I am told that this is the most wonderful air in the world, so I have come down here to pull up again after a slight illness."

"A dreary spot just now," Sir Henry observed, "but the air's all right.

Are you a sea-fisherman, by any chance, Mr. Lessingham?"

"I have done a little of it," the visitor confessed. Sir Henry's face lit up. He drew from his pocket a small, brown paper parcel.

"I don't mind telling you," he confided as he cut the string, "that I don't think there's another sport like it in the world. I have tried most of them, too. When I was a boy I was all for shooting, perhaps because I could never get enough. Then I had a season or two at Melton, though I was never much of a horseman. But for real, unadulterated excitement, for sport that licks everything else into a c.o.c.ked hat, give me a strong sea rod, a couple of traces, just enough sea to keep on the bottom all the time, and the codling biting. Look here, did you ever see a mackerel spinner like that?" he added, drawing one out of the parcel which he had untied. "Look at it, all of you."

Lessingham took it gingerly in his fingers. Philippa, a little ostentatiously, turned her back upon the two men and took up a newspaper.

"Lady Cranston does not sympathize with my interest in any sort of sport just now," Sir Henry explained good-humouredly. "All the same I argue that one must keep one's mind occupied somehow or other."

"Quite right, Dad!" Nora agreed. "We must carry on, as the Colonel says.

All the same, I did hope you'd come down in a new naval uniform, with lots of gold braid on your sleeve. I think they might have made you an admiral, Daddy, you'd look so nice on the bridge."

"I am afraid," her father replied, with his eyes glued upon the spinner which Lessingham was holding, "that that is a consideration which didn't seem to weigh with them much. Look at the glitter of it," he went on, taking up another of the spinners. "You see, it's got a double swivel, and they guarantee six hundred revolutions a minute."

"I must plead ignorance," Lessingham regretted, "of everything connected with mackerel spinning."

"It's fine sport for a change," Sir Henry declared. "The only thing is that if you strike a shoal one gets tired of hauling the beggars in.

By-the-by, has Jimmy been up for me, Philippa? Have you heard whether there are any mackerel in?"

Philippa raised her eyebrows.

"Mackerel!" she repeated sarcastically.

"Have you any objection to the fish, dear?" Sir Henry enquired blandly.

Philippa made no reply. Her husband frowned and turned towards Lessingham.

"You see," he complained a little irritably, "my wife doesn't approve of my taking an interest even in fis.h.i.+ng while the war's on, but, hang it all, what are you to do when you reach my age? Thinks I ought to be a special constable, don't you, Philippa?"

"Need we discuss this before Mr. Lessingham?" she asked, without looking up from her paper.

Lessingham promptly prepared to take his departure.

"See something more of you, I hope," Sir Henry remarked hospitably, as he conducted his guest to the door. "Where are you staying here?"

"At the hotel."

"Which?"

"I did not understand that there was more than one," Lessingham replied.

"I simply wrote to The Hotel, Dreymarsh."