The Secret of Greylands (18 page)

As the coachman drove cautiously down the rough road Lady Duxworth laid her hand over Cynthia's.

“My dear, I cannot tell you how sorry I am to hear of your cousin's illness. It is so good of you to come to nurse her, but it must be very depressing work for two young girls. I wish I could have brought your cousin away too.”

“Nursing does not seem to have depressed her,” Lord Arthur interposed. He glanced back at the house. “Curious thing, I could have sworn I had seen her before, yet I can't place my recollection at all.”

“Oh, my dear boy, one meets every one in society!” Lady Duxworth shrugged her shoulders and dismissed the subject. “She is very pretty,” she went on, turning to Cynthia. “Was her father a brother or a cousin of yours?”

Cynthia hesitated; her difficulties, which she had plainly foreseen when Gillman insisted on her accepting the invitation, were beginning already.

“I do not fancy he was either; but I really know very little about the Hammond family,” she replied truthfully.

Her embarrassment was perfectly patent, and Lady Duxworth looked a little surprised.

“I wish I had known earlier that you were all at Greylands. It seems such a pity not to find it out until our last day, when we have been at the Towers for a month, for I could—at any rate while I was here—have made things a little livelier for you. Really, Greylands looks to me as though it might be haunted, with all those dark trees around. I wonder at Lady Hannah's liking for it, yet Mr Gillman tells me it was entirely her choice to settle down there.”

“Yes, I suppose it was; she seems to like it.”

“There is no accounting for taste,” Lord Arthur remarked sagely. “One man's meat is another man's poison, don't you know.”

“Arthur always has a proverb to suit every occasion,” Lady Marion remarked, with a low ripple of laughter.

“Wish I had!” Lord Arthur defended himself. “Awfully useful things, proverbs. I used to hear my nurse quote them when I was a kid, and that sort of thing sticks, don't you know.”

Cynthia felt as though she had been out of the world for years. She sat silent, well aware that to the rest of the party she must look
gauche
and unformed, yet unable for the life of her to join in the merry badinage that went on.

She was glad when the long drive was over and they pulled up before Duxworth Towers.

“Ah, Duxworth and Petre are back, then!”

Lady Duxworth said as they got out and saw a motor farther on.

“What should you say if they have brought a friend of yours with them, child?” with a smile at Cynthia.

“A friend of mine?” Cynthia faltered, shrinking behind as her thoughts flew to Lord Letchingham. “I don't understand.”

“Well, don't look frightened!” Lady Duxworth patted her arm. “It is nobody very formidable. What do you say to a cousin?”

“A cousin!” Cynthia looked up and saw that one of the men coming down the steps was Farquhar; the other two she rightly judged to be Lord Duxworth and his son.

Farquhar held out his hand with a smile.

“So you actually managed to storm the enchanted castle and bring away the Princess!” he said to Lady Duxworth. “I give you my compliments.”

“Oh, yes, that was comparatively easy,” Lady Duxworth assented as she drew Cynthia with her into the hall. “But I was not allowed to see my old friend. I was agreeably surprised in Mr Gillman, though, after all that I have heard; he is a very handsome man and has really charming manners.”

“Yes,” Cynthia said doubtfully. “Certainly he is much younger than Cousin Hannah, otherwise I do not know that there is much—”

“Much fault to be found with the marriage,” Lady Duxworth concluded briskly. “I dare say you are right. Our neighbours always know our business better than we know ourselves.”

“Every man knows where his own shoe pinches,” murmured Lord Arthur, in the background.

Meanwhile Cynthia, still feeling bewildered and apprehensive, was being greeted and welcomed by Lord Duxworth and Lord Petre. The former, a curious contrast to his tall, slim wife, was a short, stodgy little man, with a pleasant red face and red hair and side whiskers. As Lady Duxworth finished her speech, Lord Petre turned to his mother.

“Gillman!” he repeated. “Gillman, did you say? Why, I met a man of that name the year before last. It was when I was at Monte Carlo. He was an attractive sort of fellow, but an infernally bad hat, or so it was rumoured. It was said that he used to scrape acquaintance with all the silly young fools who frequent the tables and take them home to his villa and get them to play
écarté
till they had lost every penny they possessed. He had a pretty little wife with him too. I fancy she had her share in attracting visitors to the house; but I don't suppose this would be the same?”

“Highly improbable, I should think!” Lady Duxworth remarked in a repressive voice. “Gillman is not an uncommon name. Will you come in to luncheon, Cynthia? I am sure after your long drive you must be hungry!”

They all trooped into the dining-room, laughing and chattering gaily, and Cynthia took her place at the carefully appointed table between Lord Duxworth and Sir Donald. She felt as if the events of the past few months—her marriage, her flight from Lord Letchingham, and her sojourn at dreary Greylands—had been a dream, and she was back again at the Fearons'—Cynthia Densham once more. Sir Donald's voice at her elbow broke in upon her reverie. He was smiling at her with amused eyes.

“I began to despair of meeting you again. I have haunted the pine-wood for the past week in vain, so at last I took counsel with Lady Duxworth.”

Cynthia looked at him.

“Do you mean that you—” Her expression was distinctly unfriendly.

Sir Donald hastened to make his peace.

“I was so anxious to hear of my aunt,” he pleaded diplomatically, “and it is only through you—”

Cynthia was not inclined to be easily placated.

“I thought I told you that I was at Greylands because I particularly wanted to be quiet?”

Sir Donald looked crestfallen.

“I did not think a quiet visit like this and a quiet chat with your own cousin could be counted as gaiety.”

“Did you not?” Cynthia's tone was cold, and she did not smile as she met his penitent gaze. After a moment's deliberation she turned to Lord Petre. “You were saying that the Mr Gillman you knew—”

“It is a funny thing,” Lord Arthur St Clare broke in in his peculiar low-voiced drawl from his seat beside Lady Marion, “but I feel sure I have met your cousin before, Miss Hammond; her face is quite familiar to me, though I cannot remember in the least where I saw it.”

“Indeed?” Cynthia said vaguely. “I do not know. I fancy Sybil has only been in England about a year. Before then she lived in Australia.”

“She is extremely pretty,” Lady Duxworth said authoritatively. “But she is not in the least like the Hammonds.”

“Well, I am certain I did not meet Miss Sybil for the first time this morning,” Lord Arthur went on argumentatively. “Though I can't place her at present, I never forget a face when I have once seen it, though I am a terrible duffer at names.”

Lord Arthur was evidently a recognized butt, and Lord Petre began to rally him upon some mistakes into which his boasted memory for faces had led him. Sir Donald and Lord Duxworth and even Lady Marion joined, but amidst the storm of chaff and raillery Lord Arthur preserved his expression of imperturbable good nature.

“Give you my word, I never forget a face I have seen,” he reiterated as they rose from the table, “though I never can—Oh, by Jove!” His face looked suddenly serious.

“What is it, Arthur? Have you suddenly remembered where you met her?” Lord Petre inquired with mock interest. “Come, tell us where it was!”

A sort of puzzled amazement was dawning in Lord Arthur's pale-blue eyes.

“I—oh, it is very easy to make mistakes; a fellow can never be sure that he is right!” he stammered evasively.

Lady Duxworth laid her hands on Cynthia.

“Now you are coming with me, dear. I want to hear all about your cousin, and you must tell me all you remember about your dear father and what you have been doing since you lost him.”

This was precisely what Cynthia most desired to avoid, but she had to resign herself to the inevitable, and the next hour was to her a veritable ordeal. Her knowledge of the private history of the Hammonds was of the slightest, and in reply to Lady Duxworth's questions she had to draw in a great measure upon her imagination. With regard to Lady Hannah, however, considering the friendship that had formerly subsisted between her and Lady Duxworth, she was more explicit. Lady Duxworth looked more and more incredulous and puzzled as she went on; it was evident that she found the accounts of the life lived by the invalid at Greylands almost incredible.

“Somebody certainly ought to interfere!” she said decidedly at length. “It is impossible that a woman of Lady Hannah's position should really choose to live in that way without any servants or establishment. I wonder some of her relatives—”

“I don't think she has any nearer than cousins. The present Lord Hammond, besides being a minor, is only her cousin's grandson,” Cynthia said doubtfully, “and it would be no use applying to him. There is only Sir Donald Farquhar,” she added, blushing vividly, to her great annoyance, “and she will not see him!”

Lady Duxworth smiled as she drew her own conclusions, coupling the blush with Sir Donald's anxiety that she should invite his cousin to pay her a visit; but her face sobered again.

“Ah, I am so sorry to hear that!” she said quickly. “You must try to alter it, Cynthia. Poor boy, she was always so fond of him, and he was devoted to her, and it hurts him terribly that she should turn from him now. It must be your part to make peace, Cynthia dear!”

Cynthia looked mutinous.

“I do not know that I can do anything,” she said.

Lady Duxworth felt disappointed; the likeness she saw in Cynthia to her old friend had attracted her in the first place, but now, glancing at the girl's firm mouth and sparkling eyes, she was inclined to wish that the more plastic-looking Sybil had been the one to accept her invitation.

“It must be as you please, certainly,” she said coldly. “But one can hardly help sympathizing with Sir Donald—or at least it seems so to me.”

Seeing her change of expression Cynthia felt a quick throb of compunction.

“I am sure—” she began hastily.

But the time for confidences was past. The door opened and Lady Marion's bright face looked in.

“Have you not finished, mother? Tea is waiting.” 

Cynthia would have drawn back, but Lady Duxworth rose.

“We have quite finished.”

She went out through the open window to the tea-table, which was set on the lawn beneath a broad-spreading cedar, and Cynthia followed, feeling miserably that she had alienated one who might have proved a valuable friend.

Sir Donald hovered around her at tea-time, but all his attention failed to win a smile or a glance, and he stood by her looking gloomy and disconsolate.

Lady Duxworth, though far too great a lady to let her guest feel neglected, was yet fully able to make Cynthia recognize that she had displeased her, and it was with great relief that the girl saw the carriage that was to take her back to Greylands drive round.

After she had taken leave of her host and hostess Sir Donald leaned over her as she sat in the carriage and, under pretext of arranging the rug, managed to touch one hand.

“Have I offended beyond forgiveness?”

“Certainly not, Sir Donald!” Cynthia answered primly. “It was only that I thought you knew I came into the country for quiet; but it does not matter.”

Sir Donald's eyes looked troubled; they dwelt wistfully on the small, averted face.

“I did not understand! I am very sorry; I am afraid I thought only of my own pleasure in seeing you.”

Something in his tone melted Cynthia's resentment; a flicker of colour passed over her cheeks, and her eyes drooped.

Sir Donald's spirits rose as he noted the signs.

“You will forgive me, Cynthia?”

The girl gave him one shy glance.

“Perhaps—oh yes”—hastily as the coachman flicked his whip—“certainly I will!”

“P
OOR
Hannah! Stop your snivelling, then! Who loves poor Hannah?”

“Who loves you anyway I should like to know?” Sybil inquired captiously, contriving to give the parrot's tail a tweak that made it emit a loud discordant shriek of rage and set it dancing about its cage. “I shall strangle that bird one day, I know, Cynthia.”

The other girl looked up from her book with a smile.

“No, you won't; Polly's bite is sharp enough to protect her. What a baby you are, Sybil! The parrot would not be half such a nuisance if you did not tease her.”

Sybil came over and perched on the arm of her chair.

“One must do something. I am not, like you, always happy if I have got my nose poked inside some musty, fusty, old book. What have you got there—Browning? Ugh!” wrinkling up her straight little nose. “Where did you find it?”

“In the drawing-room. I thought I might bring it out to read it. It is Cousin Hannah's and Mr Gillman must have given it to her—see!” She turned to the title-page. “‘To my darling Hannah, from her devotedly attached Henry,'” she read. “Sybil, what are you doing?”

For Sybil, leaning over her, had suddenly snatched the book from her hand and flung it face downwards on the ground.

“Disgusting!” she said hotly, her eyes flashing, her cheeks flaming. “I wonder how she dare?”

Cynthia looked at her in amazement.

“Well, ridiculous as the expression may sound to you, I suppose a man has the right to address his own wife as he pleases!” She picked up the book. “I believe you have broken the back, Sybil. What will Cousin Hannah say?”