twice had sir isaac come near to betraying the rapid and extensive preparations for the subjugation of his wife, that he hid behind his silences. he hoped that their estrangement might be healed by a certain display of strength and decision. he still refused to let himself believe that all this trouble that had arisen between them, this sullen insistence upon unbecoming freedoms of intercourse and movement, this questioning spirit and a gaucherie of manner that might almost be mistaken for an aversion from his person, were due to any essential evil in her nature; he clung almost passionately to the alternative that she was the victim of those gathering forces of discontent, of that interpretation which can only be described as decadent and that veracity which can only be called immodest, that darken the intellectual skies of our time, a sweet thing he held her still though touched by corruption, a prey to "idees," "idees" imparted from the poisoned mind of her sister, imbibed from the carelessly edited columns of newspapers, from all too laxly censored plays, from "blear-eyed" bookshow he thanked the archbishop of york for that clever expressive epithet!—from the careless talk of rashly admitted guests, from the very atmosphere of london. and it had grown clearer and clearer to him that his duty to himself and the world and her was to remove her to a purer, simpler air, beyond the range of these infections, to isolate her and tranquillize her and so win her back again to that acquiescence, that entirely hopeless submissiveness that had made her so sweet and dear a companion for him in the earlier years of their married life. long before lady beach-mandarin's crucial luncheon, his deliberate foreseeing mind had been planning such a retreat. black strand even at his first visit had appeared to him in the light of a great opportunity, and the crisis of their quarrel did but release that same torrential energy which had carried him to a position of napoleonic predominance in the world of baking, light catering and confectionery, into the channels of a scheme already very definitely formed in his mind.
his first proceeding after the long hours of sleepless passion that had followed his wife's hampton court escapade, had been to place himself in communication with mr. brumley. he learnt at mr. brumley's club that that gentleman had slept there overnight and had started but a quarter of an hour before, back to black strand. sir isaac in hot pursuit and gathering force and assistance in mid flight reached black strand by midday.
it was with a certain twinge of the conscience that mr. brumley perceived his visitor, but it speedily became clear that sir isaac had no knowledge of the guilty circumstances of the day before. he had come to buy black strand—incontinently, that was all. he was going, it became clear at once, to buy it with all its fittings and furnishings as it stood, lock, stock and barrel. mr. brumley, concealing that wild elation, that sense of a joyous rebirth, that only the liquidation of nearly all one's possessions can give, was firm but not excessive. sir isaac haggled as a wave breaks and then gave in and presently they were making a memorandum upon the pretty writing-desk beneath the traditional rose euphemia had established there when mr. brumley was young and already successful.
this done, and it was done in less than fifteen minutes, sir isaac produced a rather crumpled young architect from the motor-car as a conjurer might produce a rabbit from a hat, a builder from aleham appeared astonishingly in a dog-cart—he had been summoned by telegram—and sir isaac began there and then to discuss alterations, enlargements and, more particularly, with a view to his nursery requirements, the conversion of the empty barn into a nursery wing and its connexion with the house by a corridor across the shrubbery.
"it will take you three months," said the builder from aleham. "and the worst time of the year coming."
"it won't take three weeks—if i have to bring down a young army from london to do it," said sir isaac.
"but such a thing as plastering——"
"we won't have plastering."
"there's canvas and paper, of course," said the young architect.
"there's canvas and paper," said sir isaac. "and those new patent building units, so far as the corridor goes. i've seen the ads."
"we can whitewash 'em. they won't show much," said the young architect.
"oh if you do things in that way," said the builder from aleham with bitter resignation....
2
the morning dawned at last when the surprise was ripe. it was four days after susan's visit, and she was due again on the morrow with the money that would enable her employer to go to lady viping's now imminent dinner. lady harman had had to cut the social friends' meeting altogether, but the day before the surprise agatha alimony had come to tea in her jobbed car, and they had gone together to the committee meeting of the shakespear dinner society. sir isaac had ignored that defiance, and it was an unusually confident and quite unsuspicious woman who descended in a warm october sunshine to the surprise. in the breakfast-room she discovered an awe-stricken snagsby standing with his plate-basket before her husband, and her husband wearing strange unusual tweeds and gaiters,—buttoned gaiters, and standing a-straddle,—unusually a-straddle, on the hearthrug.
"that's enough, snagsby," said sir isaac, at her entrance. "bring it all."
she met snagsby's eye, and it was portentous.
latterly snagsby's eye had lost the assurance of his former days. she had noted it before, she noted it now more than ever; as though he was losing confidence, as though he was beginning to doubt, as though the world he had once seemed to rule grew insecure beneath his feet. for a moment she met his eye; it might have been a warning he conveyed, it might have been an appeal for sympathy, and then he had gone. she looked at the table. sir isaac had breakfasted acutely.
in silence, among the wreckage and with a certain wonder growing, lady harman attended to her needs.
sir isaac cleared his throat.
she became aware that he had spoken. "what did you say, isaac?" she asked, looking up. he seemed to have widened his straddle almost dangerously, and he spoke with a certain conscious forcefulness.
"we're going to move out of this house, elly," he said. "we're going down into the country right away."
she sat back in her chair and regarded his pinched and determined visage.
"what do you mean?" she asked.
"i've bought that house of brumley's,—black strand. we're going to move down there—now. i've told the servants.... when you've done your breakfast, you'd better get peters to pack your things. the big car's going to be ready at half-past ten."
lady harman reflected.
"to-morrow evening," she said, "i was going out to dinner at lady viping's."
"not my affair—seemingly," said sir isaac with irony. "well, the car's going to be ready at half-past ten."
"but that dinner——!"
"we'll think about it when the time comes."
husband and wife regarded each other.
"i've had about enough of london," said sir isaac. "so we're going to shift the scenery. see?"
lady harman felt that one might adduce good arguments against this course if only one knew of them.
sir isaac had a bright idea. he rang.
"snagsby," he said, "just tell peters to pack up lady harman's things...."
"well!" said lady harman, as the door closed on snagsby. her mind was full of confused protest, but she had again that entirely feminine and demoralizing conviction that if she tried to express it she would weep or stumble into some such emotional disaster. if now she went upstairs and told peters not to pack——!
sir isaac walked slowly to the window, and stood for a time staring out into the garden.
extraordinary bumpings began overhead in sir isaac's room. no doubt somebody was packing something....
lady harman realized with a deepening humiliation that she dared not dispute before the servants, and that he could. "but the children——" she said at last.
"i've told mrs. harblow," he said, over his shoulder. "told her it was a bit of a surprise." he turned, with a momentary lapse into something like humour. "you see," he said, "it is a bit of a surprise."
"but what are you going to do with this house?"
"lock it all up for a bit.... i don't see any sense in living where we aren't happy. perhaps down there we shall manage better...."
it emerged from the confusion of lady harman's mind that perhaps she had better go to the nursery, and see how things were getting on there. sir isaac watched her departure with a slightly dubious eye, made little noises with his teeth for a time, and then went towards the telephone.
in the hall she found two strange young men in green aprons assisting the under-butler to remove the hats and overcoats and such-like personal material into a motor-van outside. she heard two of the housemaids scurrying upstairs. "'arf an hour," said one, "isn't what i call a proper time to pack a box in."
in the nursery the children were disputing furiously what toys were to be taken into the country.
lady harman was a very greatly astonished woman. the surprise had been entirely successful.
