Part 26 (1/2)

Then Elizabeth gave him his tea. After it they talked calmly with an actual approach to cheerfulness till it was time for her to return to the Castle to dress Olivia's hair for dinner. Then she would have it that he should escort her back to the Castle. She declared, truly enough, that he was doing himself no good by moping at the cottage, that people would say that he dare not show himself. He _must_ hold his head up.

She insisted also that they should take the long way round, through the village; that people should see them together. She insisted that he should look cheerful, and talk to her all the length of the village street. The looking cheerful helped to lighten his spirit yet more. As they went through the village she kept looking up at him in an affectionate fas.h.i.+on and smiling.

The village was, indeed, taken aback. It had made up its mind that James Hutchings was a pariah to be shunned. It was not only taken aback, it was annoyed. It had no wish that its belief that James Hutchings had murdered Lord Loudwater should be in any way unsettled.

Mrs. Roper, the mother of William Roper and a lifelong enemy of the Hutchings family, summed up the feeling of her neighbours about the behaviour of James Hutchings and Elizabeth.

”Brazen, I call it,” she said bitterly.

Before they reached the Castle, Elizabeth had come to feel that during the last three days James Hutchings had changed greatly, and for the better. She had an odd fancy that murdering his master had improved his character; the fear of the police had softened him. Not once did he try to domineer over her. That domineering had been the source of their not infrequent quarrels, for she was not at all of a temper to endure it.

Olivia and Grey had again spent their afternoon in the pavilion in the East wood. Their bearing at times had been oddly like that of Elizabeth and James Hutchings. Now and again they had lapsed from their absorption in one another into a like fearfulness. But, unlike Elizabeth and James Hutchings, neither of them said a word about the murder of Lord Loudwater. But both of them seemed a little less under a strain than they had been. This new factor of a quarrel with an unknown woman seemed to open a loophole. Olivia's colouring had lost some of its warmth; the contours of her face were less rounded. Grey had manifestly taken a step backwards in his convalescence; his face was thinner, even a little haggard; there was a somewhat strained watchfulness in his eyes.

They could not tear themselves away from the pavilion till the last moment, and he walked back with her as far as the shrubbery on the edge of the East lawn, and there they parted after she had promised to meet him there that evening at nine.

As Olivia came into her sitting-room Elizabeth and James Hatchings came to the back door of the Castle. She did not say good-bye at once; of set purpose, she lingered talking to him that the other servants might understand clearly that her att.i.tude to him was definitely fixed.

But at last she held out her hand and said: ”I must be getting along to her ladys.h.i.+p, or she'll be waiting for me.”

James Hutchings looked round, considered the coast sufficiently clear, caught her to him, kissed her, and said huskily: ”You're just a ministering angel, Lizzie, and there's more sense in your little finger than in all my fat head. I'm feeling a different man, and I'll baulk them yet.”

”Of course you will, Jim,” said Elizabeth, and she opened the door.

”Lord, how I wish I was coming in with you--back in my old place! I should be seeing you most of the time,” he said wistfully.

Elizabeth stopped short, flus.h.i.+ng, and looked at him with suddenly excited eyes.

At his words a great thought had come into her mind.

”Wait a minute, Jim. Wait till I come back,” she said somewhat breathlessly, and, leaving the door open, she hurried down the pa.s.sage.

She hurried up to her room, took off her hat, and hurried to Olivia. She found her in her sitting-room looking through an evening paper to learn if any new fact about the murder had come to light.

”If you please, your ladys.h.i.+p, James Hutchings has come to ask if your ladys.h.i.+p would like him to come back for the time being till you've got suited with another butler,” said Elizabeth in a rather breathless voice.

Olivia looked at Elizabeth's flushed, excited and hopeful face, and smiled.

”Why, have you and James made it up, Elizabeth?” she said.

”Yes, m'lady,” said Elizabeth, and the flush deepened in her cheeks.

”Then go and tell him to come back, by all means,” said Olivia.

”Thank you, m'lady,” said Elizabeth, in accents of profound grat.i.tude, and she ran out of the room.

Olivia smiled and then she sighed. It was pleasant to have given Elizabeth such obviously keen pleasure. She never dreamed that Elizabeth and James Hutchings were under the same strain of fear and anxiety as she herself, and that she had given them great help in their trouble, for Elizabeth saw that the return of James Hutchings to his situation would give the wagging tongues full pause.

James Hutchings was dumbfounded on receiving the message. He stared at Elizabeth with his mouth open.

”Be quick, Jim. Get your clothes and be back in time to wait on her ladys.h.i.+p at dinner,” said Elizabeth.

James Hutchings came out of his stupor.