Unknown (64 page)

The moment they reached the entrance, the young girl slipped lightly from Daisy-Queen's flanks and running up the steps opened the massive door. This she held open, clinging to the iron handle in the wind and calling loudly to someone within, wThile Mr. Geard slowly got down from his saddle and moved to the mare's head.

Two servants came hurrying out at her call, a nervous little old man with a straggly white beard and a sturdy, soldier-like, middle-aged man with a rugged, solemn face and grave eyes. The ex-soldier took Daisy-Queen's bridle from Mr. Geard's hand, touched his hat politely to Mr. Geard, and led the mare round the corner of the building, while the old man entered into a hurried, low-toned colloquy with Lady Rachel.

Bloody Johnny struck his crumpled black trousers several times with his riding-crop, gazed round him with calm interest, and then removing his hat and wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, came slowly up the time-indented steps.

When they were all three inside the hallway where burned a large open fire and where the visitor became aware of all manner of trophies of hunting and of fishing hung about rough, smoke-begrimed walls, the old man assisted Bloody Johnny to remove his ulster, gave a glance at his feet as if he expected to have to pull off heavy boots as well, and pushed up a great carved chair to the side of the hearth.

“Do you smoke, Mr. Geard?” enquired Lady Rachel, bringing him a box of cigarettes and holding it out to him with one hand while she gathered up her disordered curls with the other. She came close up to the arm of his chair pressing her young body against the side of it with something of the wild-animal's coaxing movement in her gesture and smiled down into his face, as he leaned his big head back, against the escutcheon of the family carved in smoke-darkened oak, and stretched out his feet towards the blaze.

One of Mr. Geard's deepest characteristics, a characteristic wherein his long line of Saxon ancestors, preserving their obstinate identity under centuries of Norman tyranny, had provided the basis, and his own singular psychic aplomb the magnetic poise, was his power of relaxing his whole being and enjoying his physical sensations without the least self-consciousness or embarrassment in anyone's presence. This characteristic, this complete absence of nervous self-consciousness, ahvays had a reassuring effect upon women, children and animals, as it doubtless would have had upon savages.

It was this deep secret of physical ease, this curious freedom from bodily self-consciousness, that gave Mr. Geard his advantage with the real aristocracy, who strongly resemble women and savages in their contempt for corporeal uneasiness.

Thus as Rachel Zoyland—whose ancestors in the male line had fought under Charlemagne and in the female line had been Varangian henchmen of Byzantine Emperors—bent over the figure of Bloody Johnny, resting after his ride in that heraldic chair, she felt completely untroubled by his crumpled black trousers, by his absurd tie, that looked like the tie of an undertaker, by his grey flannel shirt, the cuffs of which protruded so far beyond the sleeves of his coat, and by his rumpled woollen socks fallen so low over his boots that the skin of his ankles was clearly visible.

She turned now and spoke to the old servant who was still hovering about the hall.

“Tell Mrs. Bellamy she can begin dishing up. John/5 she said. ”Father's only gone down to the end of the South Drive, to see if Mr. Geard was coming that way. He'll be in any minute now."

When the old man had vanished she finished adjusting her hair at a tall gilt-framed mirror between a stuffed fox*s head and a stuffed pike.

“We had a bet which way you'd come, Mr. Geard,” she said after a pause, seating herself on a footstool close to the fire, and rubbing the palms of her hands slowly up and down over the surface of her brown stockings which were in danger of being scorched.

She became thoughtful then as if a very serious and risky idea had come into her head.

Geard watched her silent profile with the firelight playing upon it and he thought to himself—"It would be a wicked thing if these enchanting looks of girls . . . these grave looks when their thoughts are lost in the life-stream . . . should just pass away and be forgotten forever!'' He turned his consciousness inward and sent it rattling down like a bucket . • . down and down and down . . . into the black, smooth, slippery well of his deeper soul.

But Lady Rachel was not thinking any vague, inarticulate thoughts. She was thinking hard and desperately about a most concrete and practical question. Should she confide in this man? She knew her father had an unbounded respect for him. But after all—to speak of such a sacred thing - . . her whole inner life . . . the consecration of all her days ... to a complete stranger . . . five minutes after she had met him—was it possible to do such a thing as that? Wouldn't it be like one of those reckless girls in Russian stories who pour out their burning heart-secrets at a touch, at a sign, at a glance? No; not altogether. There was a difference. The difference consisted in Mr. Geard! A young girl is like a horse or a dog. She judges by a man's eye, Mr. Geard's eye inspired confidence. Rachel, staring gravely and dreamily into Mr. Geard's eye, as she turned from the fire, felt she could trust him with her secret life, as she could not have trusted anyone of those she had known from childhood. But if she were going to say the word, she must say it at once! Her father would be in any second now. Old Bellamy would be in, telling her lunch was ready.

Hark? Was that a door opening? No; only the wind in the chimney. Oh, it would be too late in one minute now. Perhaps her whole future . . . yes! and Ned's whole future depended on her being brave now. It was like putting her horse to a fence! He looked trustworthy. If not for her own sake, for Ned's sake, then, she must do it now . . . Ned - . . Ned . . . Ned . , .

She leapt to her feet and came up to Mr. Geard's side. She was closer to him now even than she had been before. Her hands were clasped behind her back. Her little-girl breasts tightened and shivered. She pressed herself against the edge of his chair.

“Mr. Geard!”

“Yes, Lady Rachel.”

“When my father talks about me to you, about my drinking the waters at Bath or Glastonbury, and about Mr. EdwTard Athling— he's my friend, you know, and my father doesn't approve of him for me—will you promise to take my side, Mr. Geard? Quick! He'll be back in a second. Will you promise to take my side?”

Bloody Johnny found his cold plump fingers clutched fiercely by two hot, feverish, little hands. He turned his dark eyes towards her, without moving his head. It was exactly as if the eyes of an Aztec idol had followed the gestures of a wwshipper.

“All right, child,” said Mr. Geard, “I'll take your side; as long as------”

A door at the end of the hall opened and old Mr. Bellamy came shakily in.

The girl was standing upright in a second and as proud as a young Artemis,

“Is my father back?” she flung out.

“Yes, my lady, he's gone upstairs to wash his hands. Luncheon is served, my lady. His lordship said not to wait for him/”

They had hardly sat down at the table, and Mr. Geard had barely tasted his soup, when the master of the house came hurrying round the table. He shook hands warmly with Mr. Geard and would not allow him to rise from his seat, pressing his hand on his shoulder to prevent such a movement; although to confess the truth, the phlegmatic Mayor of Glastonbury had shown no very energetic sign of getting up.

The meal did not last long and when it was over Lord P. sent his daughter away. “Don't be cross, child,” he said. “I want to talk blood and iron with our good friend.”

The girl rose obediently; throwing, however, a quick sideways glance at Mr. Geard from beneath her long eyelashes. The Marquis got up from the table, led her to the door, opened it and dismissed her with a kiss. Seated again at the table he poured out more wine for both of them, cleared his throat with the impres-siveness of an ambassador and began to speak frankly.

The Marquis of P. had a high, thin retreating forehead, an enormous nose, not bridged in the Roman way like the nose of Mr. Evans and not thinly curved like a hawk as was the nose of Philip Crow, It was a very massive, bony nose; but it had nostrils that quivered with nervous excitement when the rest of the face was quite calm; nostrils like those of an old war-horse. On his short upper lip Lord P. wore a clipped, grey, military mustache, and on his chin a pointed, grey beard.

“What I really wanted to see you about, Geard,” he said, "was simply this. Rachel, as you know, has no mother. My eldest boy is in the Embassy at Budapest, the other one at Prague. My son William, whom Pd like to legitimise if I dared—for he's been more to me than both the others put together—is working for this man Crow at Wookey Hole; acting showman, so he tells me, for the British Public there. Anyway his wife, from what I hear, is a flighty little bitch and no possible help. Well! The point is this. My little Rachel has fallen in love with a young farmer, over at Vtiddlezoy, called Ned Athling. Athling's a good old Saxon name, none better I believe and the boy's people are well-to-do yeomen. But, apart from everything else, my girl's only eighteen; too young for marriage, too young for anything serious or permanent. The women-folk of my family have heard of this lad and they're all up in arms—jumpy in fact, jumpy and vicious. They want me to pack the kid off to the Continent with some terrible old dragon. . . . Then another thing, Geard . . . The child's health's not good . . . not enough red corpuscles in her blood or something . . . and the doctors say she ought to take the waters at Bath, or some damned place. I'm no doctor, Johnny, my friend, and I'm no psychologist; but I do know this, that to tear her away, bag and baggage from any glimpse of this Athling boy would be just to finish her off. My sister Lady Bessie lives at Bath and wants to have her there. But Bess is a positively ferocious old maid. She'd kill the child's heart in a month! I can see it like a map.

"Now what I was wondering was this. Isn't there anyone I could send her to in Glastonbury? Those Chalice Hill waters of yours have enough iron in 'em to put red corpuscles into a hundred anaemic little gals. For God's sake, tell me, Johnny. You're Mayor of the confounded place! Who could I send the kid to, in your town? Who would look after her and feed her properly and see she didn't get into trouble? Mind you, it's a bit of a delicate situation and wants rather nice handling • . . I want her to go on seeing this young chap; not often, you know, but once in a while. I don't want her to get into her little head that Vm acting the enraged papa and trying to separate 'em! What I'd like, of course, would be for her to get a glimpse of those people of his, out at Middlezoy, and have her own reaction—as I'm pretty sure she would; for she's a regular little Zoyland—against the whole tribe of 'em.

"That's my line, you see, Geard; not to bully her, not to play the tyrannical parent; but, if possible, by giving this Athling boy full rope, to let him hang himself with her! These are not the days for acting the feudal baron. These are days when young people do wliat they like. My own feeling is that if my women-folk had not started worrying her about it and insulting young Athling, it would never have got as far as it has. What I was wondering, Johnny, was this . . . whether . , • perhaps . . . you could see your way ... to take her into your own house . . . for a time? You've got an official position in the place. My savage sister in Bath wouldn't say you were an irresponsible person to **-jt a young girl with.

"'My niece is staying with the Mayor of Gkstonbury and taking the waters there,5 I can hear the old spitfire retailing it to her cronies. 'My brother's put his foot down at last en this Bohemian life of hers at Mark Court.' Well, my boy. what do you say to all this? We could tell the dear ladies that the child was helping you with your Pageant . . . the rag-doll factory and so on . . . eh?*5

Bloody Johnny's face had been a scroll of flickering enigmas while this surprising discourse flowed from his entertainer's lips. He had had time to imagine with intense vividness the stir that it would make in his quiet menage, this sudden introduction of Lady Rachel under his roof. He was more than a little tempted to cry out an immediate assent to Lord P.'s complimentary suggestion. How thrilled his faithful Megan would be! How she would murmur about the antiquity of the Rhys family and their connection with the old Welsh princes! Why, before he knew it, the good lady would be discovering some remote cousinship between herself and their noble guest.

But it would never do! He saw awkwardness, dimeulties, complications at every turn-------

“No, no,” he said emphatically, looking straight into the peer's little, piercing, sky-blue eyes. “No, no, Lord P., I cannot take Lady Rachel into my house. Nor do I wish even to talk about it. I heg you to let it rest at that. It would never, never do! But”— and he laid his hand on his host's wrist who had impatiently pushed back his chair and was apparently about to rise—“I can tell you someone who would be the very person to send your child to and leave her with; someone about whom you'd h?ve no reason to worry at all.”

“I've no intention of thrusting my daughter on any of you good Glastonbury people!” replied the Marquis in a huff. “I would never have talked to you about this at all if I hadn't supposed-------”

“Enough, my Lord,” interjected Mr. Geard sternly, “I assure you I am serving you well in this. Let me at least talk to the person I have in mind. I believe she would be overjoyed to take Lady Rachel. And I swear to you, she and she only, in all our town, would serve your purpose as I understand it.”

“Hum . . . hum . . . hum,” mumbled the Marquis, allowing himself to melt a little; but still taking a high and mighty tone. “And who is this very kind and condescending lady, if I may take the liberty of asking?”

“It was Miss Elizabeth Crow, Lord P., that I had in mind. She's an aunt of the manufacturer; but she takes after her mother, the wife of my old Norfolk friend, a woman who was a Devereux, a woman who was, Sir, entirely and utterly, if I may say so, a lady in your most intimate Zoyland sense of that word. She is in fact ... I whisper this in your ears, Lord P. . . . the only real lady, in your sense of the word, in all Glastonbury. Your sister, Lady Bessie Zoyland, could not take exception to her. Miss Elizabeth talks and feels and acts like a Devereux. You yourself would feel it in a second.”