The Arbiter Part 29

They went on across the hollow, and up a slight ascent. They strolled idly round the woodland house, and saw, as they expected, in the agreeable little garden behind, a long table all ready for luncheon.

"This is capital," said Wentworth. "You see, as I told you, they always expect people," and a waiting maid appearing at that moment, Wentworth proceeded to order luncheon for himself and Rendel in the best German he could muster. Unfortunately, however, the proprietor of the establishment was engaged in his cellar on important business, and the dialect spoken by the red-handed and red-cheeked maiden who received them was not very intelligible. However, by dint of nodding of heads and pointing out items on the bill of fare, they came to an understanding, Wentworth taking for granted that something quite unintelligible that she had said about the table was an inquiry as to whether they would sit at it, which indeed it was. But it was further an inquiry as to whether they were of the party that was coming to sit at it, which he also quite cheerfully and unsuspectingly answered in the affirmative. He then pulled out his watch, and pointing to a given time at which he would return, he and Rendel went further away into the wood.

CHAPTER XXII

When they returned, half an hour later, the little garden was no longer empty. People were coming and going, the table was covered with food; Lady Chaloner was seated at it, and at a little distance from her Princess Hohenschreien, with M. de Moricourt inevitably in her wake.

Lady Chaloner's readiness in the German tongue was not equal at this moment to her sense of injury. It was Princess Hohenschreien, therefore, who was charged with the negotiations, and who was discussing in voluble and amused German with the inn-keeper the heinousness of his crime in having promised two unknown pedestrians a seat at that very select table. The inn-keeper was full of apologies. Not having a nice discrimination of the laws that govern the social relations of our country, he had thought that if the strangers were English they were ent.i.tled to sit down with the others.

"What does he say, Maddy?" said Lady Chaloner. "Ask him if he can't put them somewhere else. Good Heavens! here they are!" she said _sotto voce_ as two people came through the trees at the bottom of the garden, and then stopped in surprise at seeing how populous it had become. Then, as Lady Chaloner looked at them, she suddenly realised with relief that she knew them.

"What!" she cried, "is it you? Are you the two people who came in here and ordered luncheon in the middle of our party?"

"I am afraid we are, do you know," said Wentworth, as he came forward.

"We didn't know how indiscreet we were being. We'll go somewhere else."

"Not at all, not at all," said Lady Chaloner. "How do you do, Mr.

Rendel? I have not seen you for a long time. Of course you must lunch with us, so it all ends happily. Maddy, this is Mr. Francis Rendel--Princess Hohenschreien."

Rendel bowed. He had had one moment, as they came up into the garden and saw there were other people there, before Lady Chaloner had recognised them, to make up his mind as to what he would do. Then he had said to himself desperately that he would risk it. After all, he might be exaggerating the whole thing; Wentworth did not know, and so the others might not. Rendel had felt during the last hour one of those strange sudden lightenings of the burden of existence that for some unexplained reason come to our help without our knowing why. He was almost beginning to think life would be possible again. At any rate, here, at the present moment, he would not try to remember or realise what it was going to be, what it must be. He would sit here on this peerless day with these pleasant friendly people, and this one hour at any rate the sun should s.h.i.+ne within and without.

"That's right," said Lady Chaloner, pointing to two places some way down the table at her left; "sit anywhere."

As Wentworth and Rendel stood opposite to the Princess and her attendant cavalier, the door of the house, which faced them, opened, and Lady Adela Prestige appeared in the doorway, with some more people behind her.

"How delightful this is!" Lady Adela cried, as she stepped out into the garden.

"Isn't it?" said Lady Chaloner. "Look how amusin'," she continued. "Mr.

Wentworth and Mr. Rendel have come to luncheon too, quite by chance."

Lady Adela nodded to Wentworth, whom she was seeing every day, and bowed to Rendel, whom she knew slightly. Then, as Rendel looked beyond her, he saw who was coming out of the house in her wake--Lord Stamfordham, followed by Philip Marchmont. Stamfordham, coming out into the dazzling sunlight, did not at first see who was there. In that hurried, almost imperceptible interval, Rendel had time to grasp that here was the horrible reality upon him in the worst form in which it could have come.

He had wild visions of saying something, doing something, he knew not what, instantly repressed by the Englishman's repugnance to a scene.

Then he pulled himself together, and simply stood and waited. And as he waited he saw Stamfordham come up to the table with a pleased smile, prepared to sit down on Lady Chaloner's right hand, next the seat into which Lady Adela had dropped. Then Stamfordham suddenly saw the two men still standing on the other side of the table, and recognised in one of them Francis Rendel. A swift extraordinary change came over his face.

The genial content of the man who, having deliberately put all his usual cares and preoccupations behind him was now, under the most favourable conditions, prepared to enjoy a holiday in genial society, suddenly disappeared. He involuntarily drew himself up, his face became hard and stern; he again looked as Rendel had seen him look the last time they had met. The mental agony of the younger man during that moment was almost unendurable. What was going to happen next? As in a dream he heard the comfortable voice of Lady Chaloner, who had never in her life, probably, spoken with any misgivings, whose calm confidence in the bending of contingency to her desires nothing had ever occurred to shake.

"Will you sit down there, Lord Stamfordham? We have two new recruits to our party, you see. I don't think I need introduce either of them."

Stamfordham remained standing for a moment; then he said quietly, but very distinctly--

"I am afraid, Lady Chaloner, that I can't sit down at this table."

A sort of electric shock ran through the careless happy people who were surrounding him. Rendel turned livid. Then he tried to speak. But no words could come; mentally and physically alike he could not frame them.

He pushed his chair away from the table, and moved out behind it; then with his hands grasping the back of it, he bowed to Lady Chaloner without speaking, turned and went away by the little opening in the wood from which he and Wentworth had come. Wentworth, ready and light-hearted as he generally was, was for one moment also absolutely paralysed with amazement and concern, then saying hurriedly, "Forgive me, Lady Chaloner, I must go and see what has happened," he quickly followed.

Lord Stamfordham drew up his chair to the table and sat down. His urbane, genial manner had returned, and he spoke as though nothing had happened; the rest instantly took their cue from him.

"What delightful quarters you have found for us, Lady Chaloner," he said. "I don't think I made acquaintance with this place when I was at Schleppenheim last year."

"Charmin', isn't it?" said Lady Chaloner. And quite imperturbably, at first with an effort, which became easier as the meal went on, the whole party went on talking and laughing as usual, with, perhaps, if the truth were known, an added zest of excitement, certainly on the part of some of its members, at "something" having happened. The two extra places that had been put were taken away again, and the rank closed up indifferently and gaily round the table, as ranks do close up when comrades disappear by the way.

In the meantime Rendel was madly hurrying away through the wood, going straight in front of him, not knowing what he was doing, what he proposed to do--his one idea being to get away, away, away from those smiling, distinguished indifferent people, hitherto his own a.s.sociates, who now all knew the horrible fate that had overtaken him, who would from henceforth turn their backs upon him too. The thought of that moment when he had been face to face with Stamfordham, of those distinct, inexorable tones, of the words which judged and for ever condemned him, burnt like a physical, horrible flame from which he could not escape. He flung himself down at last, and buried his face in his hands, trying to shut out everything, as a frightened child pulls the clothes over its head in the darkness. Then, to his terror, he heard footsteps in the wood. Who was it? Was this some one else who knew?

Would he have to go through it all over again? And he lifted his head in anguish as the steps drew nearer. The sight of the newcomer brought him no relief. It was Wentworth, who, anxious and bewildered, came stumbling along, having by some strange chance come in the direction that brought him to the person he was seeking. Rendel looked at him.

"Well?" he said, in a strained voice, as though demanding an explanation of Wentworth's intrusion.

The sight of his face completely bewildered Wentworth.

"Good G.o.d, Rendel!" he said, "what is it? What has happened?"

There was a pause. Then Rendel said, trying with very indifferent success to speak in a voice that sounded something like his own--

"Didn't you see what happened?"

"I saw that--that--Stamfordham----" Wentworth began, then he stopped.

"Yes," said Rendel curtly, "you saw it--you saw what Stamfordham did?

Well, there's an end of it," and he looked miserably around him as though hemmed in by the powers of earth and heaven.

"But, Frank," Wentworth said, still feeling as if all this were some frightful dream, one of those dreams so vivid that they live with the dreamer for weeks afterwards, and sometimes actually go to make his waking opinion of the persons who have appeared in them, "tell me--what----"

"Jack," said Rendel, "it's no good talking about it. I'll tell you another time, I daresay, if I can. Leave me alone now, there's a good fellow--that's all I want."

"Look here, Frank," said Wentworth; "if it's anything--anything that Stamfordham thinks you've done--that--that you oughtn't to have done--well, I don't believe it, that's all!"

"You are a good friend, old Jack," said Rendel, looking at him. "I might have known you wouldn't believe it."

"Of course I don't," said Wentworth stoutly. "I don't know what it is, but I don't believe it all the same."

"Well," said Rendel slowly, "I'll tell you this for your comfort--you needn't believe it."

"Of course not," said Wentworth heartily, "and I don't care what it is, of course you didn't do it. And what's more, I know you can't have done anything to be ashamed of, and of course other people will know it too,"

he said sanguinely, carried along by his zealous friends.h.i.+p.

Rendel's face turned dark red again. "No," he said, "other people won't.

Of course other people will think I have done it. Don't let's talk about it now. The fact is," mastering his voice with an effort, "I can't, Jack. Just go away, and leave me alone. I'll come back some time."

"But what are you going to do? You're not going to sit here all day, I suppose."

"I'll come later," Rendel said. "You must find your way back without me, there's a good fellow. By the way," he added, "I'm sorry to have spoilt your day; I'm afraid you've had no luncheon. But you'll be back in Schleppenheim in time to get some. Look here, would you mind saying to my wife that--that I've walked a little further than you cared to go, or something of that sort, and that I'll be back at dinner time?"

"Very well," said Wentworth, hesitatingly. "She is not likely to be anxious, is she?" he said dubiously. "I mean, at your being away so long. She won't be alarmed, will she?"

"Oh no," said Rendel. "That is to say, if you don't alarm her." And then looking up and seeing Wentworth's anxious expression, so very unlike the usual one, "And you needn't be alarmed yourself, Jack; I'm not going to do anything desperate," he said, forcing a smile; "that's not in my line."

"No, no, of course not," Wentworth said, with a sort of air of being entirely at his ease. And then reading in Rendel's face how the one thing he longed for was to be alone, he said abruptly, "All right, then, we shall meet later," and strode off the way he had come.