Part 34 (1/2)

Gaston led the way through the servants' hall. Lawrence, following, had to fight down a nausea of humiliation that was almost physical: he had never before done anything that so sickened him as this sneaking progress through the kitchen quarters in another man's house. At length Gaston, holding up a finger to enjoin silence, brought him out on the main landing overlooking the hall.

There was no carpet on the polished floor but Lawrence when he chose could tread like a cat. He stepped to the bal.u.s.trade. It was as dark as a dark evening, for the great doors were still fast shut, and what scanty light filtered through the painted panes was absorbed, not reflected, by raftered roof, panelled walls, and Jacobean stair. But as he grew used to the gloom he could distinguish Bernard's couch and the powerful prostrate figure stretched out on it like a living bar. Bernard's arms were crossed over his breast: his features were the colour of stone: he might have been dead.

Lawrence was startled. But he could do no good now, and the Frenchman was fidgeting at his bedroom door. Later . . .

Secure of privacy Gaston's decorum relaxed a trifle, for it was clear to him that confidences must be at least tacitly exchanged: M'sieur le captaine could not hope to keep him in the dark, there never was an elopement yet of which valet and lady's maid were not cognizant. Like Catherine, ”You wish I pack for you, Sare?”

he asked in his lively imperfect English. He was naturally a chatterbox and brimful of a Parisian's salted malice, even after six years in the service of Captain Hyde, who did not encourage his attendants to be communicative.

Lawrence was tearing off his accursed evening clothes. (All day it had been the one drop of sweetness in his bitter cup that he had borrowed Lucian's razor and shaved in Lucian's rooms.) ”Get me a tweed suit and boots.”

Gaston frowned, wrinkling his nose: if M'sieur imagined that that nose had no scent for an affair of gallantry--! But still he persisted, even he, though the snub was a bitter pill: himself a gallant man, could allow for jaded nerves. ”You wish I pack, yes?” he deprecated reticence by his insinuatingly sympathetic tone.

”No,” said Lawrence, tying his tie before a mirror. ”I'm coming back.”

”'Ere? Back--so--'ere, m'sieur?”

”Yes, before tonight.”

It was more than flesh and blood could stand. ”Sir Clowes 'e say no,” remarked Gaston in a detached and nonchalant tone, as he gathered up the garments which his master had strewn over the floor. ”'E verree angree. 'E say 'Zut! m'sieur le captaine est parti!--il ne revient plus.'”

”Gaston.” The Frenchman turned from the press in which he was hanging up Lawrence's coat. ”You're a perfect scamp, my man,”

Lawrence spoke over his shoulder as he ran through the contents of a pocketbook, ”and I should be sorry to think you were attached to me. But your billet is comfortable, I believe: I pay you jolly good wages, you steal pretty much what you like, and you have the additional pleasure of reading all my letters. Now listen: I'm coming back to Wanhope before tonight and so is Mrs.

Clowes. I'm not going to run away with her, as Major Clowes gave you all to understand. What you think is of no importance whatever to any one, what you say is equally trilling, but I don't choose to have my servant say it: so, if you continue to drop these interesting hints, I shall not only boot you out, but”

--he turned ”I shall give you such a thras.h.i.+ng in the rear, Gaston--in this direction, Gaston--that you won't be able to sit down comfortably for a month.”

”M'sieur is so droll,” murmured Gaston, removing himself with dignified agility and an unabashed grimace.

Lawrence let himself out by the back stairs again and the kitchen --now in a state of great activity, the gas ring lit and preparations for lunch going on apace--and forth into the yard.

Out in the open air he drew a long breath: safe in tweeds and a felt hat, he was his own man again, but he felt as though he had been wading in mud. The mystified Catherine followed him at a sign into the drive. There Hyde stood still. ”Take that path to the left. You'll find your mistress waiting for you. Help her to dress, and tell her I shall be at the lodge gates when she's ready. And, Catherine--”

He paused, feeling an almost insuperable distaste for his job.

But it had to be done, the girl must not find him tight with his money: that she would hold her tongue was beyond expectation, but if well tipped at least she might not invent lies. It went against the grain of his temper to bribe one of Bernard's maids, but fate was not now consulting his likes or dislikes. He thrust his hand into his pocket--”Look after your mistress, will you?”

The respectably brought up Catherine turned scarlet. She put her hand behind her back. ”I'm sure, sir, I don't want your money to make me do that!”

”If you p.r.i.c.k us shall we not bleed?” It was the first time that Lawrence had ever discovered a servant to be a human being: and his philosophical musings were chequered, till he moved out of earshot, by the clamour of Catherine's irrepressible dismay.

”Oh madam!” he heard, and, ”Well, if I ever-!” and then in a tone suddenly softened from horror to sympathy, ”there now, there, let me get your dress off . . . .” From Mrs. Clowes came no answer, or none audible to him.

Laura joined him in ten minutes' time, neatly dressed, gloved, and veiled, her hair smoothed--it had never been rough so far as Lawrence could observe--her complexion regulated by Catherine's powder puff. ”Are you better?” said Lawrence, examining her anxiously: ”able to walk as far as the vicarage?”

”The vicarage?”

”Wharton's too far off. You're dead tired: You'll have to lie down and keep quiet. Isabel will look after you.” It speaks to the complete overthrow of Lawrence's ideas that for the last hour he had not recollected Isabel's existence. ”And we shall have to wait till Bernard raises the siege: one can't bawl explanations through a keyhole. Besides, I must wire to Lucian.” He slipped his hand under her arm. ”Would you like this good girl of yours to come with you?”

”I will come, madam, directly I've fetched my hat,” said Catherine eagerly. ”You must have some one to look after you, and your hair never brushed and all.”

But Laura shook her head, Catherine must not defy her master.