Part 33 (1/2)

Bit by bit it was all coming out, the cruel and sordid drama played before an audience of housemaids, as one admission led to another and her strength revived for the ordeal. Lawrence shuddered and sat silent, trying to gauge the extent of the mischief. ”What can I do?” said Laura. She looked down at herself and blushed again. ”I do feel so--so disreputable in these clothes. I haven't even been able to wash my face and hands or tidy my hair since I left the hotel.”

”Have you been wandering about in the drive all this time?”

”I suppose so. I was afraid to go into the road in such a pickle.”

”These infernal clothes!” Lawrence burst out exasperated. Their wretched plight was reduced to farce by the fact that they were locked out of their bedrooms, unable to get at their wardrobes, their soaps and sponges and brushes, his collars, her hairpins, all those trifles of the toilette without which civilized man can scarcely feel himself civilized. Most of these wants the vicarage could supply; but to reach the vicarage they had to cross the road. Lawrence got up and stood looking down at Laura.

”Can you trust your maid?”

”Trust her? I can't trust her not to gossip. She's a nice girl and a very good maid, but I've only had her a year.”

”Silly question! One doesn't trust servants nowadays. My man's a scamp, but I can depend on him up to a certain point because I pay him well. Anyhow we must make the best of a bad job. If I cut straight down from here I shall get into the tradesmen's drive, shan't I?”

”But you can't go to the back door!”

”Apparently I can't go to the front,” said Lawrence with his wintry smile. He promised himself to go to the front by and by, but not while Laura was s.h.i.+vering in torn clothes under a bush.

”But what are you going to do?”

”Simply to get us a few necessaries of life. You can't be seen like this, and you can't stand here forever, catching cold with next to nothing on: besides, you've had no food since five o'clock this morning--and not much then.”

”But the servants--if they have orders--”

”Servants!” He laughed.

”But you don't mean to force your way in?”

”Not past Bernard, dear. Don't be afraid: I shall skulk in by the rear.”

It was easy to say ”Don't be afraid”: doubly easy for Lawrence, who had never known Bernard's darker temper. But there was no coward blood in Mrs. Clowes, and she steadied herself under the rallying influence of Hyde's firm look and tone.

”Go, then, but don't be long. And, Lawrence promise me. . .”

”Anything, dear.”

”You won't touch Bernard, will you?” Lawrence was dumb, from wonder, not from indecision. ”No one can do that,” said Laura under her breath. ”Oh, I know you wouldn't dream of it. But yet--if he insulted you, if he struck you . . . if he insulted me. . . ?”

”No, on my honour.”

He touched her hand with his lips--a ceremony performed by Lawrence only once beforehand in what different circ.u.mstances!-- and left her: more like a winter b.u.t.terfly than ever, with her s.h.i.+ning hair, pale face, and gallant eyes, and the silver threads of her embroidered skirt flowing round her over the sunburnt turf.

Wanhope was an old-fas.h.i.+oned house, and the domestic premises were much the same as they had been in the eighteenth century, except that Clowes had turned one wing of the stables into a garage and rooms for the chauffeur. He kept no indoor menservants except Barry, the groom and gardener living in the village, while three or four maids were ample to wait on that quiet family. Pursuing the tradesman's drive between coach-house, tool shed, coal shed, and miscellaneous outbuildings, Lawrence emerged on a brick yard, ducked under a clothes-line, made for an open doorway, and found himself in the scullery. It was empty, and he went on into a big old-fas.h.i.+oned kitchen, draughty enough with its high roof and blue plastered walls.

Here, too, there was not a soul to be seen: a kettle was furiously boiling over on the hob, a gas ring was running to waste near by, turned on but left unlit and volleying evil fumes. His next researches carried him into a flagged pa.s.sage, on his right a sunlit pantry, on his left a dingy alcove evidently dedicated to the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of lamps and the cleaning of boots. He began to wonder if every one had run away. But no: a sharp turn, a couple of steps, and he came on an inner door, comfortably covered with green baize, through which issued a perfect hubbub of voices all talking at once.

He listened long enough to hear himself characterized by a baritone as a stinking Jew, and by a treble as not her style and a bit too gay but quite the gentleman, before he raised the latch and stepped in.

His appearance produced a perfect hush. Except Barry and his own valet they were all there, the entire domestic staff of Wanhope: and to face them was not the least courageous act that Lawrence had ever performed. It was a large, comfortable room, lit by large windows overlooking the kitchen garden; a cheerful fire burnt in the grate this autumn morning, and in a big chair before it sat a cheerful, comely person in a print gown, in whom he recognized Mrs. Fryar the cook. Gordon the chauffeur, a pragmatic young man from the Clyde, in this levelling hour was sitting on the edge of the table with a gla.s.s of beer in his hand. Caroline, the Baptist housemaid, held the floor: she was declaiming, when Lawrence entered, that it was a shame of Major Clowes and she didn't care who heard her say so, but apparently Lawrence was an exception, for like all the rest she was instantly stricken dumb as the grave.

Lawrence remained standing in the open doorway. He would have given a thousand pounds to be in morning attire, but no constraint was perceptible in the big, careless, impa.s.sive figure framed against the sunlit yard.

”Are you Mrs. Clowes's maid?” he singled out a tall, rather stiff, quiet-looking girl in the plain black dress of her calling. ”Is your name Catherine? I want to speak to you.”