Part 5 (1/2)
It was quite inconceivable to him that Margaret Brandt should, of knowledge and intention, drop their pleasant acquaintance in this fas.h.i.+on. He believed he knew her well enough to know that, even if she had any fault to find with his letter, she would still have replied to it, and would have delicately conveyed her feeling in her answer.
Then, either she had never received it, or, for some good reason or other, she was unable to reply.
He went down to Melgrave Square to make sure that No. 1 was still there. Possibly he might come across Margaret in the neighbourhood. If he did he would know at a glance if she had received his letter.
But No. 1 offered him no explanations. It stood as usual, large and prim and precise, the very acme of solid, sober wealth and a.s.sertive moral rect.i.tude. He was strongly tempted to call and ask for Miss Brandt, but it was only ten o'clock in the morning, and the house looked so truly an embodiment in stucco of Mrs. Grundy and Jeremiah Pixley, that he forbore and went on his melancholy way.
First, to his rooms again, to see if by chance the letter had come in his absence. Then, as it had not, to Lady Elspeth Gordon's for old Hamish's latest news, which, in a letter from his wife, was satisfactory as far as it went, but pointed to a protracted stay. And then, with stern resolution, up to Baker Street and away by train to Chesham, for a long day's tramp through the Buckingham hills and dales, by Chenies to Chorley Wood and Rickmansworth, so to weary the body that the wearier brain should get some rest that night.
The sweet soft air and suns.h.i.+ne, the leisurely life of the villages, and the cheerful unfoldings of the spring, in wood and field and hedgerow, brought him to a more hopeful frame of mind. Every sparrow twittered hope. The thrushes and young blackbirds fluted it melodiously. It was impossible to remain unhopeful in such goodly company. Something unexpected, accidental, untoward, had prevented Margaret replying to his letter. Time would clear it up and set him wondering at his lapse from fullest faith.
Also--he would risk even further rebuff. He would write again, and this time he would trust no precarious and problematical post-office.
He would drop his letter into the Pixley letter-box himself, and so be sure that it got there.
If then no answer,--to the winds with Mrs. Grundy and all her coils and conventions! He would call and see Margaret himself, and learn from her own eyes and face and lips how matters stood, and Mrs. Grundy might dance and scream on the step outside until she grew tired of the exercise.
There was joy and hope in action once more. Patient waiting on slowly-dying Hope is surely the direst moral and mental torture to which poor humanity can be subjected. That is where woman pre-eminently overpa.s.ses man. Woman can wait unmurmuringly on dying Hope till the last breath is gone, then silently take up her burden and go on her way--or, if the strain has been too great, fold quiet hands on quiet heart and follow her dead hopes into the living hope beyond. Man must aye be doing--and as often as not, such natural judgment as he possesses being warped and jangled by the strain of waiting, he succeeds only in making matters worse and a more complete fool of himself.
To be writing to Margaret again was to be living in hope once more.
If nothing came of this, he would call at the Pixley house.
If nothing came of that--he grew valiant in his new access of life--he would beard Jeremiah Pixley in his den in Lincoln's Inn, state clearly how matters stood, and request permission to approach his ward.
After all, this is a free country, and all men are equal under the law, though he had his own doubts as to whether he would find himself quite equal to that gleaming pillar of light, Mr. Jeremiah Pixley.
So he wrote--
”DEAR MISS BRANDT,--I wrote to you a few days ago, giving you the information of our dear friend Lady Elspeth's sudden summons to Inverstrife, to attend her niece, the Countess of a.s.synt.
”I hope you will not consider it presumption on my part to express the fear that my letter has somehow miscarried--probably through some oversight of my own, or carelessness on the part of the postal authorities.
”You will, I know, be glad to hear that Lady Elspeth accomplished her journey in safety and without undue discomfort.
But Lady a.s.synt's condition makes it probable that her stay may be somewhat prolonged.
”I venture to hope that you may regret this as much as I do. All who enjoyed Lady Elspeth's friends.h.i.+p and hospitality cannot but miss her sorely.
”I hope, however, that I may still have the pleasure of meeting you occasionally elsewhere. When one has not the habit of readily making new friends.h.i.+ps one clings the more firmly to those already made.--Sincerely yours,
”JOHN C. GRAEME.”
That letter he dropped into the Pixley letterbox himself that night, and so was a.s.sured of its delivery. But two days pa.s.sed in waning hope, and the afternoon of the third found him on the doorstep of No.
1 Melgrave Square.
II
”Miss Brandt?”
The solemn-faced man-servant eyed him suspiciously as a stranger. He looked, to Graeme, like a superannuated official of the Court of Chancery.