harry had held long sessions in his mind as to whether he should or should not ask other people to vail to meet lady oxted and miss aylwin at the end of the month. it was but a thin hospitality, he was afraid, to bring two ladies down to wiltshire to spend a country sunday, and provide for their entertainment only the society of himself and his uncle; and this fear gradually deepening to certainty, he hurriedly asked four or five other guests, only two days before the projected visit, in revolt all the time at the obligations of a host. all of these, however, as was not unnatural at this fullest time in the year, were otherwise engaged, and he opened each letter of regret with increasing satisfaction. he had been balked in the prosecution of his duty; it was no use at this late hour trying again.
there were also other reasons against having a party. his uncle's health, for instance, so he wrote to him, had not been very good since his attack. he had been left rather weak and shattered by it, and though his letter was full of that zest and cheerfulness which was so habitual a characteristic with him, harry felt that it might[pg 142] be better, particularly since his first meeting with miss aylwin would of necessity be somewhat of an emotional strain to him, not to tax him further, either with the arrangements incidental to a larger party or with their entertainment. these dutiful considerations, it must be confessed, though perfectly genuine, all led down the paths of his own desires, for it was just the enforced intimacy of a partie carrée in the country from which he promised himself such an exquisite pleasure. with a dozen people in the house, his time would not be his own; he would have to look after people, make himself agreeable to everybody, and be continually burdened with the hundred petty cares of a host. but, the way things were, all that sunday they would be together, if not in fours then in pairs, and the number of possible combinations of four people in pairs he could see at once was charmingly limited.
but, though to him personally the refusal of others to come to his feast was not an occasion of regret, an excuse to the two ladies as to the meagreness of the entertainment he was providing for them, however faltering and insincere, was still required. this he made with a marvellously radiant face, a few evenings before their visit, as he sat with them in lady oxted's box at the opera.
"i have to make a confession," he said, drawing his chair up at the end of the second act of lohengrin, "and, as you are both so delighted with the music, i will do so now, in the hopes[pg 143] that you may let me off easily. there is absolutely no one coming to meet you at vail; there will be my uncle francis and myself, and that is all."
evie turned to him.
"that is charming of you," she said, "and you have paid us a compliment. it is nothing to be asked as merely one of a crowd, but your asking us alone shows that you don't expect to get bored with us. make your courtesy, aunt violet!"
"but there's the luck," said lady oxted. "i gathered that the luck was the main object of our expedition, though how it was going to amuse us i don't know, any more than i know how dr. nansen expected the north pole to amuse him. and why, if you wanted to see it, evie, harry could not send for it by parcel post, i never quite grasped."
"or luggage train, unregistered," said evie. "why did you not give it to the first tramp you met, lord vail, and ask him to take it carefully to london, for it was of some value, and leave it at a house in grosvenor square the number of which you had forgotten? how stupid of you not to think of that! and did you see the luck when you were down last week?"
"yes; it came to dinner every night. i used to drink its health."
"good gracious! i shall have to take my very smartest things," cried evie. "fancy having to dress up to the luck every evening!"
[pg 144]
"give it up, dear, give it up," said lady oxted. "the luck will certainly make you look shabby, whatever you wear. oh! those nursery rhymes!—ah! here's bob.—bob, what can have made you come to the opera?"
lord oxted took his seat, and gazed round the house before replying.
"i think it was your absolute certainty that i should not," he replied. "i delight in confuting the infallible; for you are an infallible, violet. it is not your fault; you can not help it."
lady oxted laughed.
"my poor man," she said, "how shallow you must be not to have seen that i only said that in order to make you come!"
"i thought of that," he said, "but rejected the suspicion as unworthy. you laid claim, very unconvincingly i allow, the other day to a passion for truth and honour. indeed, i gave you the benefit of a doubt which never existed.—and you all go down to vail on saturday. i should like to come, only i have not been asked."
"no, dear," said lady oxted. "i forbade harry to ask you."
"oh! you didn't," began harry.
"i quite understand," said lord oxted; "you refrained from asking me on your own account, and if you had suggested such a thing, my wife would have forbidden you. one grows more and more popular, i find, as the years pass."
"dear uncle bob, you are awfully popular[pg 145] with me," said evie. "shall i stop and keep you company in london?"
"yes; please do," said he.
"but won't it be rather rude to lord vail?"
"yes, but he will forgive you," said lord oxted.
"indeed, i sha'n't, miss aylwin," said harry. "don't think it. but will you then come to vail, lord oxford? i thought it would be no use asking you."
"i may not be popular," said he, "but i have still a certain pride."
here the orchestra poised and plunged headlong into the splendid overture of the third act; and lady oxted, whose secret joy was the hope that she might, in the fulness of time, grow to tolerate wagner by incessant listening to him, glared furiously at the talkers and closed her eyes. lord oxted, it was observed by the others, thereupon stole quietly out of the box.
the curtain rose with the wedding march, and that done, and the lovers alone, that exquisite duet began, rising, like the voices of two larks, from height to infinite height of passion, as clear and pure as summer heavens. then into the soul of that feeblest of heroines began to enter doubt and hesitation, the desire to know what she had promised not to ask grew in the brain, until it made itself words, undermining and unbuilding all that on which love rests. thereafter, the woman having failed, came tumult and death, the hopeless lovers were left face to face with the[pg 146] ruin that want of trust will bring upon all that is highest, and with the drums and the slow, measured rhythm of despair, the act ended.
"the hopeless, idiotic fool of a girl!" remarked evie, with extreme precision, weighing her words. "oh! i lose my patience with her."
"i thought your tone sounded a little impatient," said lady oxted.
"a little? why, if lohengrin had said he wanted to write a letter, she could have looked round the corner to see that he was not flirting with one of the chorus, and have opened his letter afterward. if there is one thing i despise, it is a suspicious woman."
"you must find a great many despicable things in this world," remarked lady oxted.
"dear aunt, if you attempt to be cynical, i shall go home in a hansom by myself," said evie.
"do, dear; and harry and i will follow in the brougham. do you want to stay for the last act?"
"no; i would sooner go away. i am rather tired, and elsa has put me in a bad temper. good-bye, lord vail, and expect us on saturday afternoon; please order good weather. it will be enchanting; i am so looking forward to it!"
harry himself went down to vail on friday afternoon, for he wished both to satisfy himself that everything was arranged for the comfort of his visitors, and also to meet them himself when they came. the only train he could conveniently catch did not stop at his nearest station, and he[pg 147] telegraphed home that they should meet him at didcot. this implied a ten-mile drive, and his train being late on arrival, he put the cobs to their best pace in order to reach vail in time for dinner. turning quickly and rather recklessly into the lodge gates, he had to pull up sharply in order to avoid collision with one of his own carriages which was driving away from the house. a stable helper not in livery held the reins, and by his side sat a man of dark, spare aspect, a stranger to him. as soon as they had passed, he turned round to the groom who sat behind.
"who was that?" he asked.
"i don't know his name, my lord," said he, "but i drove him from the station last monday. he has been staying with mr. francis since then."
harry was conscious of a slight feeling of vexation, arising from several causes. in the first place (and here a sense of his dignity spoke), any guest, either of his or his uncle's, ought to be driven to the station properly, not by a man in a cap and a brown coat. in the second place, though he was delighted that uncle francis should ask any friend he chose to stay with him, harry considered that he ought to have been told. he had received a long letter from his uncle two days ago, in which he went at some length into the details of his days, but made no mention of a guest. in the third place, the appearance of the man was somehow grossly and uncomfortably displeasing to him.
[pg 148]
these things simmered in his mind as he drove up the long avenue, and every now and then a little bubble of resentment, as it were, would break on the surface. he half wondered at himself for the pertinacity with which his mind dwelt on them, and he determined, with a touch of that reserve and secrecy which still lingered in corners and angles of his nature, that if his uncle did not choose of his own initiative to tell him about this man, he would ask no questions, but merely not forget the circumstance. this reticence on his own part, so he told himself, was in no way to be put down to secretiveness, but rather to decency of manners. his uncle might have the czar of all the russias, if he chose, to stay with him, and if he did not think fit to mention that autocrat's visit, even though it was in all the daily papers, it would be rude even for his nephew to ask him about it. but he knew, if he faced himself quite honestly, that though good manners were sufficient excuse for the reticence he preferred to employ, secretiveness and nothing else was the reason for it. certainly he wished that the man had not been so disrelishing to the eye; there was something even sinister about the glance he had got of him.
mr. francis was in the most cheery and excellent spirits, and delighted to see him. he was employed in spudding plantains from the lawn as the carriage drove up. but, abandoning this homely but useful performance as soon as he[pg 149] heard the wheels on the road, he ran almost to meet him.
"ages, it seems literally ages, since you were here, dear boy!" he said. "and see, harry, i have not been idle in preparing for our charming visitors. croquet!" and he pointed to a large deal box that lay underneath the clipped yew hedge. "templeton and i found the box in a gardener's shed," he said, "and we have been washing and cleaning it up. ah! what a fascinating game, and how it sets off the ingenuity of the feminine mind! i was a great hand at it once, and i think i can strike the ball still. come, dear boy, let us get in; it is already dinner time. ah! my flute; it would never do to leave that," and he tripped gaily off to a garden seat near, on which lay the case containing the favourite instrument.
it happened that at dinner the same night mr. francis passed harry through a sort of affectionate catechism, asking him to give an exhaustive account of the manner in which he had spent the hours since he left vail a fortnight ago. harry complied with his humour, half shy, half proud of the number that had to be laid inside lady oxted's door, and when this was finished:
"now it is my turn, uncle francis," he said. "begin at the beginning, and tell me all as fully as i have to you."
"well, dear harry, if i have not galloped about like you, taking ditch and fence, i have trotted along a very pleasant road," he said. "all the week after you left me i was much employed[pg 150] in writing about estimates and details with regard to the electric light. you must look at those to-morrow; they will be rather more expensive than we had anticipated, unless you have fewer lights of higher power. however, that business was finished, i remember, on saturday; on sunday i had my class, and dawdled very contentedly through the day. and all this week i have been busy in little ways—one day will serve for another; at the books all the morning, and in the afternoon pottering about alone, doing a bit of gardener's work here, feeding the pheasants there—and they are getting on capitally—or down at the farm. then very often a nap before dinner, and a blow on the flute afterward. a sweet, happy, solitary time."
the servants had left the room, and as mr. francis said these words, he looked closely at harry, and saw his face, so he thought, harden. the lips were a little compressed, the arch of the eyebrows raised ever so little; something between surprise and a frown contracted them. he had already thought it more than possible that harry might have met the other trap driving away from the house, and he thought he saw confirmation of it in his face. he sighed.
"ah, harry," he said, "can you not trust me?"
mr. francis's voice was soft, almost broken; his blue eyes glistened in the candlelight, but still looking intently at his nephew. and, at the amenity and affection in his tone, the boy's[pg 151] reserve and secretiveness, which he had labelled good manners, utterly broke down.
"you have read my thoughts," he said, "and i apologize. but why, why not have told me, uncle francis? you could not have thought i should mind your having who you liked here?"
mr. francis sighed again.
"i will tell you now," he said, slightly accentuating the last word. "i did not tell you before; i purposely concealed it now; yes, i even used the word solitary about my life during the last week, in order to save you anxiety."
"anxiety?" asked harry.
"yes; you met, probably somewhere near the lodge gates, one of your carriages going to the station. a man out of livery drove it; a man of middle age sat by him. he was my doctor, harry, and he came here on monday last. i wished"—and his tone was frankness to the core—"i wished to get him out of the house before you came; i did not know you were coming till this afternoon, and i saw he could just catch the train to town. i ordered the carriage to take him instantly, and the man had not time to get into livery. that is all."
at once harry was all compunction and anxiety; he left his chair at the end of the table, and drew it close beside his uncle.
"dear uncle francis," he said, "what was his opinion of your health? he was satisfied?"
"fairly well satisfied," said mr. francis. "the upshot was that i must live very quietly,[pg 152] and take no great exertion, and guard against quick movements. i might then hope, i might certainly hope, to live several more years yet. at my age, he said, one must not go hurdle-racing. seventy-three! well, well, i am getting on for seventy-three!"
harry was tongue-tied with a sort of vague contrition—for what, he could hardly tell. he had been put in the wrong, but so generously and kindly that he could not resent it. he had had no suspicions of any kind, and his uncle's simple frankness had made him wear the aspect of the suspector. indeed, where could suspicion look in? suspicions—what of? the gist of his feeling had been that he should have been told, and here was the considerable reason why he had not—a reason sensible, conclusive, and dictated by thoughtful affections. yet he felt somehow ashamed of himself, and his shame was too ill-defined for speech. but there was no long pause, for mr. francis almost immediately got up from his chair, with a nimbleness of movement which perhaps his doctor would not have liked.
"well! a truce to these sombrenesses, harry," he said. "indeed, i am brisk enough yet. ah, what a pleasure to have you here instead of that excellent, kind, unsociable fellow! i have such a good story for you; let us go to the billiard room; i could not tell you before the servants, though i have had it on the tip of my tongue all the evening. the doctor recommended me billiards after dinner; gentle, slow[pg 153] exercise like that was just the thing, he said. well, that story——"
harry rose too.
"one word more," he said. "is your doctor a really first-rate man? you remember, i wanted you to see a good man. what is his name?"
"dr. godfrey," said mr. francis, "32 half-moon street. he is a first-rate man. i have known him since he was a boy."
