Part 12 (1/2)
Old friends, new friends, people whom he had never met and whom he had no intention of meeting--were each and all in full cry.
The last letter he opened was in Tom Pache's handwriting. The young man had written at his mother's dictation, and the note contained a long list of the people whom she had promised to invite, or had actually invited, to meet her famous relative.
There was a postscript from Tom himself.
”It is most awfully good of Mr. and Mrs. Maule to have asked Hew Lingard over a few days before they expected him. As you see, mother's plans are all upset, and she is dreadfully worried about it all.”
Then Lingard was already here? Wantele wondered how he was to answer those absurd letters--how to put off these people. He made a point of being on good, if not on very cordial, terms with his neighbours. He and Richard both acknowledged a certain duty to the neighbourhood. In spite of Mr. Maule's physical condition, Rede Place did its fair share of quiet, very quiet, entertaining, generally when Mrs. Maule happened to be away and when Jane Oglander happened to be there.
Athena had long ago decided that her neighbours were the dullest set of people to be found in an English countryside, and that the receiving of them at lunch or dinner bored her to tears.
Well! There was nothing for it now but to go and consult Athena as to what should be done. After all, she was the mistress of Rede Place, and Richard was in no state to be asked tiresome questions or required to make tiresome decisions.
Holding the letters which had so perturbed him in his hand, Wantele slowly retraced his steps. He might as well meet Jane now as at any other time or in any other way.
Wantele knocked at the door of the boudoir. Since her arrival at Rede Place, eight years ago, he had remained on very formal terms with his cousin's wife.
There fell a sudden silence on the occupants of the room, and then, after a perceptible pause, Athena called out in her clear, exquisitely modulated voice, ”Come in. Who is it?”
d.i.c.k Wantele slowly turned the handle of the door, and in a flash he saw that Jane Oglander was not there.
There were but two people in the room. One was Mrs. Maule; she was sitting on a low seat close to the fire, her lovely head bent over an embroidery frame; the other, General Lingard, was standing, looking down at her with an eager, absorbed expression on his face.
Athena was wearing a white gown, fas.h.i.+oned rather like a monk's habit.
It left the slender, rounded column of her neck bare.
The intruder, feeling at once relieved and disappointed, stared doubtfully at the famous soldier. General Lingard looked a younger man than he had done the other night--younger and somehow different, far, far more vividly alive. Perhaps it was his clothes; rough morning clothes are more becoming to the type of man Wantele now took Lingard to be than is evening dress. Both he and Mrs. Maule looked most happily and intimately at ease.
Wantele felt a pang of angry irritation. How like Athena to take General Lingard away from Jane! And to keep him with her while her friend was doubtless engaged in doing what should have been her own job--that is, in looking after Richard.
But many years had gone by since Athena had even made a pretence of looking after Richard. Had Wantele been just, which he was at this moment incapable of being, he would have admitted to himself that Richard would have given Athena small thanks for her company.
”d.i.c.k! Is that you? Why, I thought you weren't coming back till the afternoon! Have you seen Richard?”
Athena had a subtle way with her of making a man feel an intruder.
But Wantele held his ground.
”I always meant to come back in the morning,” he said shortly. ”No, I haven't seen Richard.”
”I'm glad you've come, for Richard's worried about some tiresome letters he's had this morning.”
”Is Jane with Richard?” he asked abruptly.
It was odd of General Lingard not to have come forward and shaken hands.
The soldier had just nodded--that was all. He also seemed to feel the young man's presence an intrusion.
”Jane hasn't come. Didn't you know? I thought she would have written to you. She is staying a week longer with that tiresome friend of hers.
There's to be an operation now, it seems, and the woman's implored Jane to stay with her till it's over. Oh, but ever so many things have happened----”