Part 30 (1/2)

But Nick glossed it all over. ”Biddy's so charming she'll easily marry some one else.”

”Never, if she loves him. However, Julia will bring it about--Julia will help her,” his mother pursued more cheerfully. ”That's what you'll do for us--that _she'll_ do everything!”

”Why then more than now?” he asked.

”Because we shall be yours.”

”You're mine already.”

”Yes, but she isn't. However, she's as good!” Lady Agnes exulted.

”She'll turn me out of the house,” said Nick.

”Come and tell me when she does! But there she is--go to her!” And she gave him a push toward one of the windows that stood open to the terrace. Their hostess had become visible outside; she pa.s.sed slowly along the terrace with her long shadow. ”Go to her,” his mother repeated--”she's waiting for you.”

Nick went out with the air of a man as ready to pa.s.s that way as another, and at the same moment his two sisters, still flushed with partic.i.p.ation, appeared in a different quarter.

”We go home to-morrow, but Nick will stay a day or two,” Lady Agnes said to them.

”Dear old Nick!” Grace e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed looking at her with intensity.

”He's going to speak,” she went on. ”But don't mention it.”

”Don't mention it?” Biddy asked with a milder stare. ”Hasn't he spoken enough, poor fellow?”

”I mean to Julia,” Lady Agnes replied.

”Don't you understand, you goose?”--and Grace turned on her sister.

XIV

The next morning brought the young man many letters and telegrams, and his coffee was placed beside him in his room, where he remained until noon answering these communications. When he came out he learned that his mother and sisters had left the house. This information was given him by Mrs. Gresham, whom he found dealing with her own voluminous budget at one of the tables in the library. She was a lady who received thirty letters a day, the subject-matter of which, as well as of her punctual answers in a hand that would have been ”ladylike” in a manageress, was a puzzle to those who observed her.

She told Nick that Lady Agnes had not been willing to disturb him at his work to say good-bye, knowing she should see him in a day or two in town. He was amused at the way his mother had stolen off--as if she feared further conversation might weaken the spell she believed herself to have wrought. The place was cleared, moreover, of its other visitors, so that, as Mrs. Gresham said, the fun was at an end. This lady expressed the idea that the fun was after all rather a bore. At any rate now they could rest, Mrs. Dallow and Nick and she, and she was glad Nick was going to stay for a little quiet. She liked Harsh best when it was not _en fete_: then one could see what a sympathetic old place it was.

She hoped Nick was not dreadfully f.a.gged--she feared Julia was completely done up. Julia, however, had transported her exhaustion to the grounds--she was wandering about somewhere. She thought more people would be coming to the house, people from the town, people from the country, and had gone out so as not to have to see them. She had not gone far--Nick could easily find her. Nick intimated that he himself was not eager for more people, whereupon Mrs. Gresham rather archly smiled.

”And of course you hate _me_ for being here.” He made some protest and she added: ”But I'm almost part of the house, you know--I'm one of the chairs or tables.” Nick declared that he had never seen a house so well furnished, and Mrs. Gresham said: ”I believe there _are_ to be some people to dinner; rather an interference, isn't it? Julia lives so in public. But it's all for you.” And after a moment she added: ”It's a wonderful const.i.tution.” Nick at first failed to seize her allusion--he thought it a r.e.t.a.r.ded political reference, a sudden tribute to the great unwritten instrument by which they were all governed and under the happy operation of which his fight had been so successful. He was on the point of saying, ”The British? Wonderful!” when he gathered that the intention of his companion had been simply to praise Mrs. Dallow's fine robustness. ”The surface so delicate, the action so easy, yet the frame of steel.”

He left Mrs. Gresham to her correspondence and went out of the house; wondering as he walked if she wanted him to do the same thing his mother wanted, so that her words had been intended for a p.r.i.c.k--whether even the two ladies had talked over their desire together. Mrs. Gresham was a married woman who was usually taken for a widow, mainly because she was perpetually ”sent for” by her friends, who in no event sent for Mr.

Gresham. She came in every case, with her air of being _repandue_ at the expense of dingier belongings. Her figure was admired--that is it was sometimes mentioned--and she dressed as if it was expected of her to be smart, like a young woman in a shop or a servant much in view. She slipped in and out, accompanied at the piano, talked to the neglected visitors, walked in the rain, and after the arrival of the post usually had conferences with her hostess, during which she stroked her chin and looked familiarly responsible. It was her peculiarity that people were always saying things to her in a lowered voice. She had all sorts of acquaintances and in small establishments sometimes wrote the _menus_.

Great ones, on the other hand, had no terrors for her--she had seen too many. No one had ever discovered whether any one else paid her. People only knew what _they_ did.

If Lady Agnes had in the minor key discussed with her the propriety of a union between the mistress of Harsh and the hope of the Dormers this last personage could take the circ.u.mstance for granted without irritation and even with cursory indulgence; for he was got unhappy now and his spirit was light and clear. The summer day was splendid and the world, as he looked at it from the terrace, offered no more worrying ambiguity than a vault of airy blue arching over a lap of solid green.

The wide, still trees in the park appeared to be waiting for some daily inspection, and the rich fields, with their official frill of hedges, to rejoice in the light that smiled upon them as named and numbered acres.

Nick felt himself catch the smile and all the reasons of it: they made up a charm to which he had perhaps not hitherto done justice--something of the impression he had received when younger from showy ”views” of fine country-seats that had pressed and patted nature, as by the fat hands of ”benches” of magistrates and landlords, into supreme respectability and comfort. There were a couple of peac.o.c.ks on the terrace, and his eye was caught by the gleam of the swans on a distant lake, where was also a little temple on an island; and these objects fell in with his humour, which at another time might have been ruffled by them as aggressive triumphs of the conventional.