The Master of the Priory

by Annie Haynes

  She hastened upstairs. On the bed was laid out the one evening dress she possessed. It was not in any sense a fashionable one, it was too long in the sleeves and too high in the neck, but it was better made than most of her garments and fitted her tall, slim figure to perfection. When it was donned, she looked at herself with dissatisfied eyes, then she put on her smoked glasses and gave a sigh of relief. “That is better.”

  As she turned to leave the room a sudden vision of the last time she had dined late rose before her eyes and filled them with hot, scorching tears. She saw again the big dining-room, the exquisitely appointed table, above all the kind, smiling eyes of the father who had loved her, whose pride she had been. She heard her own voice.

  “So Céleste has done my hair in the newest fashion, daddy. Don’t I look grown up?”

  “Ah, but I don’t want my little girl turned into a grown-up woman,” her father had returned with a gay laugh. It was the last time his eyes had smiled at her, the last time she had been “Daddy’s little girl.”

  It was just ten years ago to-night. As she thought of the father whose grey hair had gone down in sorrow to his grave she bent her head for a moment over her clasped hands, then Maisie’s voice was heard outside. Elizabeth dashed the tears from her eyes. She was the governess again, nothing more.

  Maisie was much excited at the prospect of dining downstairs. The guests, the rector and his wife and their visitor, had already arrived. Maisie hurried off to greet her friends. The governess slipped quietly into a seat half shadowed by the heavy window curtains.

  Then she glanced round the room.

  Sir Oswald was talking to Mrs. Stamways, the rector’s wife, and his face wore the look of sadness that was becoming habitual to it. Elizabeth looked in vain for the rare smile that at times transformed his whole expression.

  “So I hear you are a stranger in the neighbourhood, like myself.”

  The voice made Elizabeth start; she looked up quickly. The Stamways’ guest had come over to her corner and was taking a seat near.

  She was a pleasant-looking woman, still in the early forties. Her dark hair was powdered with grey, but her complexion was as fresh, her eyes as bright as those of a young girl. Voice and manner were alike pleasant, and Elizabeth felt strangely drawn to her.

  “I am thinking of taking a house in the neighbourhood for the summer,” she went on conversationally. “Walton Grange. I wonder if you know it?”

  “I don’t think so,” Elizabeth said doubtfully.

  “Ah, well! You will have to bring Maisie to see me when I am settled there,” the other said quickly. “It is quite an Elizabethan house, you know—a moat and all that sort of thing.”

  They went on talking. Lady Davenant was talking over parish matters with Mrs. Stamways. Sir Oswald and the rector were discussing the political prospects, Maisie was occupying the attention of the only other visitor—the curate.

  When dinner was announced, Elizabeth felt that she had made a friend, and she looked forward eagerly to a renewal of the conversation.

  “I think I shall have to take you in, Miss Martin,” said Maisie, offering her little arm gravely as the others paired off.

  At the dinner table Elizabeth found herself between Maisie and Mr. Meyer, the curate, while opposite she could catch a glimpse of her new friend talking to Sir Oswald.

  For some time the conversation was general, but at last there came a lull.

  Sir Oswald was speaking.

  “Yes, Walton Grange is a delightful old house. A trifle gloomy, perhaps, and I hope you won’t find it dull in the neighbourhood, Lady—” Elizabeth did not catch the name. “I don’t know whether Walton is quite the house for a lady living alone.”

  “Oh, but I think I shall not be alone long,” his partner interrupted him with the flashing smile Elizabeth found so delightful. “I hope later on to have my daughter with me.”

  “Oh, you have a daughter, I beg your pardon, but I had no idea—” Sir Oswald said with a puzzled air.

  “She has been away from home so long that, like the rest of the world, you have forgotten,” she interrupted him, and it seemed suddenly that her mouth and eyes grew sad. “But I naturally remember, and I do not think it will be long before she comes home now. And then you see I shall not find Walton Grange gloomy, and I shall not mind your neighbourhood being dull, because I shall have my girl at home again.”

  “But surely—” Elizabeth did not catch the rest of Sir Oswald’s rejoinder.

  Quite a hubbub of conversation seemed to rise around and she heard no more.

  But as she listened and replied to the curate’s mild platitudes, she could not help thinking of the sweet-faced woman opposite and wondering what the daughter could be like who apparently of her own free choice left such a mother to solitude. She looked again at the kind eyes and the tender mouth, and a sudden swift longing that she had known such a mother came over her. Surely then she would have been guarded and protected, and she would not have made havoc with her life.

  Meanwhile the curate was thinking that Miss Martin was even more difficult to talk to than he had imagined. When he first spoke to her she seemed to look right over his head and replied to his remarks most diconcertingly at random. Those smoked spectacles, too, were a tremendous drawback, he decided; it was like talking to some one on the other side of a screen or down the telephone, an instrument which Mr. Meyer frankly detested.

  Yet as she turned to speak to Maisie, he could not help admiring the delicate profile, the dainty moulding of chin and throat, and wishing that he could see her eyes behind the glasses. He rather admired the straight, plain bands of hair, they reminded him of the Madonnas of the early Masters.

  He went on talking, perhaps in time she would become more responsive, he hoped. Presently the subject of the Stamways’ guest and Walton Grange occurred to him.

  “It is a lonely old place,” he prattled on. “The grounds are extensive, and there are quaint yew hedges with birds and beasts carved on the top, don’t you know. But I should not care for the moat myself. I should fancy it would make a house damp. Perhaps I am rather inclined to exaggerate that danger, though,” he added with the little laugh which Elizabeth thought so affected, “since rheumatism is a terrible complaint in my family.”

  “Indeed! That is very sad,” Elizabeth said politely.

  “Yes! It is a cruel infliction,” Mr. Meyer went on. “Not of course that there are not many worse,” he added in his clerical manner, “from which we must be thankful we do not suffer. Lady Treadstone will be an acquisition to the neighbourhood, I am sure.”

  “Lady—who?”

  The question broke across his halting sentences like a bombshell.

  If Mr. Meyer had sought to obtain Miss Martin’s attention his words had certainly had the desired effect now. The governess’s cheeks, even her lips were white. It was evident that she was suffering from some almost uncontrollable agitation.

  “Lady—who?” she repeated feverishly. “What—name did you say? Not—”

  Mr. Meyer looked at her, his mild blue eyes wide with amazement.

  “Treadstone,” he said again. “Why, Miss Martin, surely you knew that the lady to whom you were talking so long before dinner was Lady Treadstone?”

  “No, I did not know,” Elizabeth said dully. A great mist was rising before her eyes, she felt suddenly faint and sick, she bit her lips, she dug her nails deep in the palms of her hands. At all hazards she must not, dare not, faint.

  “She is the late Lord Treadstone’s widow,” Mr. Meyer went on. “And of course he was immensely rich, he left everything he could away from the title to her. I did not know she had a daughter, but I expect it would be by her first marriage. She was a widow when she met Lord Treadstone.”

  “Was she?” For the life of her Elizabeth could say no more. It was with unfeigned relief that she saw Lady Davenant give the signal to leave the table.

  As she followed the others into the drawing-room she saw Lady Treadstone ma
ke room for her on the settee, she saw the other woman’s kind eyes cloud over as she passed on coldly and placed herself behind Lady Davenant.

  The evening seemed interminable to her, but it was not in reality long before Lady Davenant signed to her that she and Maisie might retire. She would have passed out with a slight bow, but Lady Treadstone rose.

  “Our little chat has made me feel we ought to know one another better, Miss Martin,” she said pleasantly. “Will you drive over with me and look at Walton one day next week? It would give me so much pleasure.”

  Elizabeth constrained herself to answer coldly, more than ever thankful for the screen that hid the passion in her eyes.

  “You are very kind. But my time is not my own.”

  “I am sure Lady Davenant—” Lady Treadstone said eagerly.

  But Elizabeth only bent her head. “I fear it would be quite impossible, thank you very much.’’

  Upstairs in her room she dashed the glasses from her eyes, she threw back her masses of hair.

  “Did she know me?” she asked herself wildly. “My God, is it possible she knew me?”

  Chapter Six

  SIR OSWALD DAVENANT was walking up and down his study. Long familiarity with the accustomed furniture had made him able to do so with comparative impunity, though every now and then he caught his foot against something and cursed the blindness that impeded his movements.

  He was doing the one thing he had hitherto believed impossible to him, the one thing that had had no place in his well-regulated existence—he was falling in love.

  His marriage had been very happy, he had been very fond of Winifred, the boy and girl friendship had ripened into a very real affection, but there had been—as he himself would have phrased it—“no nonsense about it.”

  This was a very different thing, this craving for the voice and hands of the woman he had never seen. He told himself that the blindness was at fault over this, too, and to some extent he was right. Had he been living his usual active, outdoor life, Elizabeth Martin might have remained his child’s governess to him and nothing more. But, as it was, he caught himself longing for her step in the passage, like the veriest love-sick boy. At first he had not quite realized what it meant, but the hour for deceiving himself was over; to-day for the first time he was asking himself what was to be the end of it all.

  He had always made up his mind that if he recovered his sight he would marry again; he wanted a mistress for his house, a son, an heir to his title and estates. But he had always pictured himself looking round among the marriageable ladies of his acquaintance and choosing a wife with as much thought and deliberation as he gave to all the weightier things of life. Falling suddenly in love had had no place in his calculations.

  He had not arrived at any satisfactory conclusion when there was a perfunctory tap at the door, and Sybil Lorrimer entered hurriedly.

  “Aunt Laura”—she had expressed a wish to call Lady Davenant by this name lately—“has had a letter from Barbara. She is staying with the Turners at Ipsford, with her fiancé, and she is going to bring him over for inspection one of these fine days.”

  “I am glad of that,” Sir Oswald said heartily. “I shall be delighted to renew my acquaintance with Barbara. She is a good girl and deserves one of the best.”

  “Certainly she does,” Sybil acquiesced, but there was not much warmth in her tone.

  Her blue eyes were watching Sir Oswald very narrowly. She saw that he was restless, listening, and her face darkened. She was looking her best in her new mourning, not that that mattered to Sir Oswald, as she said to herself gloomily. But its dead black enhanced the fairness of her skin, the gold of her hair, the blue of her eyes. There was a becoming flush on her cheeks now. She went round to the writing-table.

  “Any letters I can write, Oswald? I see Miss Martin has been busy already.” A faint sneer was in her voice. “What a paragon that woman is!”

  “Miss Martin is most kind and valuable,” Sir Oswald said stiffly.

  There was an accent of defence, of possession almost in his tone that made Sybil feel as if another nail had been driven into the coffin that held her dead hopes. Instinct told her that it would be wise to be silent, but the desire to implant a sting was too strong for her.

  “I am sure she is,” she assented. “Nevertheless, I wish you could see her, Oswald, I wish your eyes were open, my dear cousin,” she ended with a stifled sob.

  Oswald felt supremely uncomfortable. Little as he cared for Sybil Lorrimer, she had been kind to him in the early days of his blindness. He had no wish to appear ungrateful. Nevertheless the slighting tone in which she habitually spoke of Elizabeth Martin grated upon him now, as always.

  “I certainly wish I could see Miss Martin or anyone,” he said, after a moment’s pause. “But, Sybil—I had not meant to mention it to you or anyone yet, but I think I must make you an exception—I went over to Saltowe last week and paid Dr. Maitland a visit.”

  “Yes?” questioned Sybil eagerly.

  “He says that I have made wonderful progress in the past two months; he wants to take me up to Town to see Sir William Chandler next week, then, if he is satisfied, a slight operation would have to be performed. I should have to go into a nursing home for a few days, and then, Maitland says, it would be a practical certainty that I should see all right again.”

  “Oh, how glad I am for your sake!” Sybil exclaimed. She took his hand and held it a minute between her soft palms. “This is the best news in the world.”

  “Thank you very much,” Sir Oswald said, trying to speak unconstrainedly, as, after giving her hand a cousinly pressure, he contrived to free his own.

  Sybil was busy with speculations as to how this intelligence would affect her. She did not doubt that it would effectually put an end to Miss Martin’s rivalry. No man with the use of his eyes could hesitate between her and the dowdy-looking governess, she agreed. Besides, the passing of Sir Oswald’s blindness would necessarily imply the close of his association with Miss Martin. She would be relegated to her proper place, Sybil said to herself viciously. Still, there remained the society round, into which an eligible parti such as Sir Oswald Davenant would be eagerly welcomed. Sybil decided that it behoved her to lose none of the time remaining.

  “Won’t you come out for a walk this lovely morning?” she said. “Do, Oswald. It would do you good.”

  He hesitated.

  “Well, Miss Martin and Maisie have gone down to Dr. Williams with a message. I promised to walk as far as the lodge to meet them. If you will be my escort instead of Perkins, I shall be most grateful.”

  Sybil’s brows were drawn together. She bit her underlip. This was not at all what she had meant, but she told herself she could not afford to refuse.

  “Of course I shall be delighted,” she returned. “I won’t be a moment putting on my hat, Oswald.”

  She was back almost as soon as she had promised, and they set off down the drive, Sybil exerting herself to keep up the inconsequent chatter which she fancied amused Sir Oswald. His attention wandered considerably, and she received some vague replies for which, perhaps unjustly, she blamed the governess, and which had the effect of renewing her wrath against that luckless individual.

  They had nearly reached the lodge gate when they caught sight of the two coming towards them. Warm though the day was, Miss Martin still wore her thick veil and her horn-rimmed glasses.

  Maisie greeted the new-comers joyfully and at once attached herself to her father. Sir Oswald dropped Sybil’s arm.

  “I think my daughter will be my guide,” he said playfully.

  Sybil had to acquiesce with a smile, but she was by no means rendered more amiable. She glanced at the governess, who was walking silently at Maisie’s side.

  “How do you contrive to bear that thick veil this weather, Miss Martin! I should simply faint if I tried to walk about in one.”

  The attack was unexpected. The governess flushed hotly.

  “I am used to it. I d
o not find it too hot,” she hesitated. Then her voice steadied itself. “I first took to it because I have very bad neuralgia in my temples, and when one has accustomed oneself to anything of this kind it is very difficult to leave it off.”

  “So I should imagine,” said Sybil disagreeably.

  They walked on a few steps, then Elizabeth turned to Sir Oswald.

  “I wonder whether I might leave Maisie with you for a few minutes, Sir Oswald? I have a message from Dr. Williams for Lady Davenant and I should like to deliver it as soon as possible.”

  “By all means,” Sir Oswald assented courteously. “We can’t wander very far, Miss Martin. You will find us somewhere about here when you come back.”

  “Thank you very much,” the governess responded. She walked on briskly, her tall, slight figure looking brisk and alert as it was outlined against the grey old trunks of the oaks in the drive.

  “Miss Martin did not like what you said about her veil,” Maisie said shrewdly. “Did you want to, make her cross, Sybil?”

  It was Sybil’s turn to flush now. “No, of course I didn’t,” she said irritably. “But I can’t think of why she wears the thing. It’s just as though she were afraid of her face being seen.”

  “Really, Sybil—” Sir Oswald was beginning, a note of anger in his voice that certainly Sybil had never heard before.

  He was interrupted. There was a sound of a car in the drive behind them. Maisie sprang back with a cry of welcome.

  “Oh, Barbara! Barbara dear! Daddy, it is Barbara, come to see us at last.”

  Meanwhile Elizabeth, walking quickly, had gained the house. She delivered her message to Lady Davenant, and then went to her own room. Never the most Job-like of individuals, Sybil Lorrimer’s remarks, coming after a morning of small irritations, had had the effect of raising her temper to boiling point. Her cheeks were hot, her eyes were flashing; it was the old Elizabeth who looked back at her out of the glass. She waited a minute or two to control herself, then, as she readjusted her hat she said half-aloud, “Oh, why can’t she let me alone? If she knew how little I want to interfere with her plans—that I only want to be left in peace.”