a row of lights gleamed from shovelstrode manor, on the north slope of ashdown forest. shovelstrode was in sussex, and looked straight over the woods into surrey and kent. round it the pines heaped up till they gave a ragged edge to the hill behind it. into the house they cast many shadows, and even when at night they were curtained out of the lighted rooms, one could hear them rustling and thrumming a strange tune.
tony strife crept up the back stairs to the schoolroom. she paused for a moment and listened to a distant buzz of voices. her mother must be having visitors, so she would not go near her—she would sit in the schoolroom till it was time to dress for dinner. tony was sixteen, healthy and clean-limbed, with a thick mouse-coloured plait between her shoulders. she wore a school-girl's blouse and skirt, with a tie of her school cricket-colours. she had in her manner all the mixture of confidence and deference which points to one who is paramount in her own little world, but is for some reason cast adrift in another where she has never been more than subordinate.
the schoolroom was in darkness. the fire was unlighted and the blinds were up, so that the shadows of the pines rushed over the square of moonlight on the floor, waving and gliding and curtseying in the wind. tony, who had expected[pg 21] drawn blinds and a cosy fireside, was a little dismayed at the dreariness of her kingdom. "i wonder if they got my postcard," she thought forlornly. but the schoolroom was the schoolroom, with or without a fire, and her own special province now that awdrey had grown up, and exchanged its austere boundaries for a world of calls and dances and chiffons and flirtations. it was a little bit of the glorious land of school from which she had been so abruptly exiled. for the first time since her return a certain warmth glowed in her heart—she sat down on the window-sill and looked out at the pines.
she wondered how soon she would be able to go back to school. perhaps there would be no more cases, and the clear, all-sufficient life would start again at the half-term. meantime she would write every week to her three best friends and the mistress she "had a rave on," she would work up her algebra and perhaps get her remove into the sixth next term; and she would finish that beastly nightgown she had been struggling with ever since easter, and be able to start a frock, like the rest of the form.
her calculations were interrupted by the sound of footsteps in the passage and a rather strident voice calling—
"tony! tony!"
the next minute the door flew open, and a girl a few years older than herself burst in.
"hullo!—so you are home! i saw your box in the hall, and swore you must have come back for some reason or other; but of course mother[pg 22] wouldn't believe me. what on earth have you come for?"
"they've got whooping-cough at school, and mrs. arkwright sent us all home. didn't mother get my postcard?"
"postcard! of course not. we'd no idea you were coming, and your room isn't ready for you, or anything. you ought to have known better than to send only a card—they get kept back for days sometimes. and when you arrived, why didn't you come into the drawing-room and see mother, instead of sneaking up here?"
"i thought you had visitors—i could hear them talking. i meant to come down after i'd changed."
"i see. well, you'd better come now and speak to mother. she's quite worried about your being here, or rather about my saying you're here when she says you aren't."
"right-o!" and tony followed her sister out of the room.
in a way awdrey was like her, but with a more piquant, impertinent cast of features. she was dressed in the latest combination of fashion and sport, with a very short skirt to display her pretty ankles and purple silk stockings. she was strongly scented with some pleasant, flower-like scent, which, however, made tony wrinkle up her nose with disgust.
"you were quite right about there being visitors," said the elder girl in a more friendly tone. "captain le bourbourg was here, and as only mother and i were in, i went with him to the door—complications, of course!"
[pg 23]
"ass," said tony shortly.
awdrey giggled, apparently without resentment, and the next minute they were in the drawing-room.
the drawing-room at shovelstrode was an emasculate room, plunged deep in yellow and dull green. the furniture had a certain ineffectiveness about it, in spite of its beauty. the only thing which was neither delicate nor indefinite was the heavily beamed ceiling, reflecting the firelight. the girls' mother lay on a sofa between the fire and the half-curtained window, just where she could see the moon. she wore a yellow silk wrapper, and on her breast lay dull, strangely set stones. she was reading a little book of unorthodox mysticism, and others, in floppy suède bindings, were on the table beside her.
"why, antoinette!" she cried. "whatever are you here for, child?"
"they had whooping-cough at school," said awdrey glibly, "and sent her home—and the silly idiot wrote and told us on a postcard, which we'll probably get some time next week."
lady strife sighed.
"it's very disturbing, my dear, very disturbing—for me, that's to say. and as for your father, i expect he'll be furious. he hates things happening in a disorderly way and people being in the wrong place."
"i'm sorry," said tony, "but i'll work all the time i'm here, so i really shan't lose anything by it."
"well, it's not your fault, of course," rather[pg 24] doubtfully. "come and give me a kiss," she added, realising that the ceremony had been omitted.
"how are you, mother?"
"oh, about the same, thank you. weak of body, but not, i trust, weak of soul. i am wonderfully comforted by this little book of sakrata balkrishna's. our soul, he says, tony, sits within us as a watcher, holding aloof from the poor, suffering body, and weaving a new mantle of flesh for its next manvantara."
"buddhism?..." asked tony awkwardly.
"buddhism! my dear child—as if i would have anything to do with that modern corruption of pure brahminical faith! no, antoinette, this is the ancient vedantin philosophy, as old as the world. by the way, has your box come?"
"yes. i brought it with me in the taxi."
"the taxi! you were lucky to find one at the station."
"i didn't find it. a man got it for me from the dorset arms."
"a man!" cried awdrey.
"yes, quite an ordinary sort of man, but rather decent."
"i wonder who he was. how romantic, tony!"
"rats! it wasn't in the least romantic. when i got out of the station i found the car wasn't there to meet me, and all the cabs were gone, and i didn't know what to do. then rather a nasty-looking man came along, and asked me what was the matter, and when i told him, he said i'd better spend the night in east grinstead as it was so late,[pg 25] and he knew of a very nice place i could go to. i didn't like to refuse, as he seemed so polite and interested, but of course i wanted to come here, and i was awfully glad when another man came and said he could get me a cab quite easily. the first man didn't seem to like it, though—perhaps he had some poor relation who let lodgings."
"tony!" cried her sister. "you really mustn't go about alone. you're much too innocent."
"my darling child," wailed her mother, "my dove unsoiled by knowledge!"
tony looked surprised, but her answer was checked by the sound of footsteps in the hall.
"girls, there's your father!" cried lady strife. "now, tony, you will have to explain. and remember i hate a scene—it clogs my soul with matter."
"right-o, mother!" and tony hurried out into the passage.
here she managed to get through the "scene," such as it was. sir gambier strife was a man to whom time and place were all-important, and as the time of term was inevitably linked with the place of school, he felt justly indignant at the separation of the two. "whooping-cough! people were such milksops nowadays. when he was a boy the sooner one got whooping-cough the more one's relations were pleased. how old was tony? sixteen? then the sooner she had whooping-cough the better."
this, however, was all said in rather a low voice, sir gambier realising as much as any one the[pg 26] importance of not clogging his wife's soul with matter.
by the time he entered the drawing-room, he was talking of other things.
"i was down at wilderwick this evening—you know that place at the bottom of wilderwick hill, where the furlongers live?"
"yes. sparrow hall."
"that's it. well, this evening there was a flag tied to the chimney. i asked old carter what it was all about, and he said they're expecting the other brother home—the one that's been in gaol for the last three years."
"it's a long time since i've seen the furlongers," said awdrey, "they've been lying low for the last few months, and i don't think i've ever seen the one who's been in gaol."
"i saw him three years ago, just after we came here. he was swaggering about the kent end of their land with his gun. he won't do much swaggering there in future. by jove! it must have hit 'em hard to sell that property to old lowe."
"they've only got a poky little farm now. but, father, do tell us what he's like, that youngest furlonger—he sounds interesting."
"oh, he wasn't much to look at—a great strong fellow, for ever showing his teeth. but i've been told he's got brains, plenty of 'em, wouldn't have landed himself in prison if he hadn't."
"when is he coming out?"
"they were expecting him this evening, i believe. hullo! what's the matter?"
[pg 27]
"oh, it's suddenly struck me," cried awdrey. "perhaps he was tony's man."
"tony's man!—what d'you mean?"
awdrey poured forth the story of her sister's adventure. "she said he was an awful-looking man, and goodness knows where he'd have landed her if the other man hadn't turned up and scared him away. i'm sure he must have been furlonger, it isn't likely there'd be two scoundrels like that about."
sir gambier turned red.
"i won't have you girls mixed up in such things."
"she didn't want to be mixed up in it," interrupted awdrey, "it wasn't her fault. but it's lucky the other man turned up. you don't know who he was, i suppose, tony?"
"he said his name was smith."
"that doesn't help us much. but, by jove! how furlonger must hate him!"
"we don't know he was furlonger."
"he must have been; it's just the thing a ticket-of-leave convict would do—try to victimise an innocent-looking girl."
"i'm not innocent-looking!" cried tony indignantly.
"well, i shan't argue the point with you. you must have looked pretty green for him to have said what he did. by the way, what was furlonger locked up for, father?"
"something to do with the wickham rubber companies. farming wasn't good enough for him, so he took to finance—with the result that the[pg 28] whole family was ruined; had to sell all their land, except a few inches round the house—and the young man got three years in gaol into the bargain."
"wickham got ten—so furlonger can't be as bad as wickham."
"he's a rotten scoundrel, i tell you. diddled thousands of respectable people out of their money. then put up the most brazen defence—said that at the beginning he had no idea of the unsoundness of the scheme; 'at the beginning,' mark you—confesses quite coolly that he knew it was a fraud before the end."
"well, i think it rather sporting of him," said awdrey.
"he may have a beautiful soul," murmured lady strife; "why do people always look at actions rather than motives? poor young furlonger may have sinned more divinely than many pray. it's motive that makes all the difference. motive may make the robbing of a till a far finer action than the endowing of a church."
"tut, tut, my dear! what a thought to put into the girls' heads. besides, it isn't as if the only thing against the furlongers was that one of 'em's been in gaol. they're the most disreputable lot i ever met, don't care twopence for any one's good opinion."
"they're quite well connected really, aren't they?" said awdrey.
"yes, that's the worst of it. their mother was a daughter of lord woodshire's, and i believe their father had rather a fine place near chichester. but[pg 29] he went to the bad—ahem! shocking story—died in paris—tut, tut!—the children were left to shift for themselves, and bought sparrow hall with their mother's money—all the chichester estate was chucked away by old furlonger."
"i think they sound rather interesting. it's a pity the youngest should have embarked on the white slave traffic."
"white slave traffic!—hush, my dear. young girls don't talk about such things."
"no—they get mixed up in 'em instead. tony, i hope you'll meet your mr. smith again."
"he's not my mr. smith," said tony hotly.
"oh, it's impossible to talk to any one rationally to-night! father's started on 'young girls,' and tony's trying to make out she was born yesterday." she seized her sister by the arm. "come upstairs and dress for dinner."
tony was only too glad to escape, and they went up to widely different rooms.
awdrey's was furnished with a telling combination of coquetry and sport. silver toilet articles and embroidered cushions contrasted with her hunting-crop over the mantelpiece, her tennis racket on the wall. what struck one most, however, was the number of men's photographs which crowded the place. from frames of every conceivable fabric they stared with bold, glassy eyes. awdrey smiled at them lovingly, as they woke either memory or emotion. she had once said that the male sex was roughly divisible into two groups—g.p.'s and h.p.'s—grand passions and hideous[pg 30] pasts. tony gave them a scornful glance as she passed the door.
her own room was austere and white. an indefinable coolness haunted its empty corners and clear spaces. there were no photographs, as she had not yet unpacked the photographs of her girl friends which usually adorned the mantelpiece. there were only three pictures—a memling madonna, holbein's portrait of a young woman, and watts' sir galahad, beloved of schoolgirls.
tony sat down on the bed and began to unplait her hair.
"what a fool awdrey is," she murmured to herself, "always thinking of love, and all that rot."
