by Annie Haynes
“Hilary, if Godfather is down here you must send for him. I must talk to him about this new doctor and the wonderful cures he is making.”
“I expect Sir Felix is sure to come in some time today,” Hilary returned hesitatingly. “But I don’t know what to say about the new cure, Fee. Those much-talked-of cures are so often take-ins – you know what Dad used to say about them – and they are very expensive.”
“I dare say!” Fee’s voice trembled. For a moment he seemed to be on the verge of an outburst. “Of course you would think of the expense first. I wonder how you would like to lie here on this couch all day and never see anything but this horrid garden.”
Hilary protested.
“Fee, dear, it is really a nice garden, and Godfather had such lovely plants put in it for us.”
“I don’t care if he did,” Fee said passionately. “I would rather look out on to the dirtiest London street with some life going on, people passing backwards and forwards, than on the most beautiful of these blessed Heathcote gardens, and be stuck up here away from everything.”
“Well, I don’t know what to do, Fee. Godfather thinks you will like it when you get used to it.”
“Used to it!” Fee hunched his shoulders and glowered at his sister. “I shall not get used to it! I will not get used to it! And when Godfather comes –”
“Beg pardon, sir,” the charwoman interposed pacifically, “but when I was cleaning up at the top I see Sir Felix in the churchyard, going to her ladyship’s grave, he were, and a beautiful cross of white flowers in his hand. Ay, it isn’t many wives as are mourned and looked after as her ladyship is. All most chaps thinks of is getting another as soon as they can. A compliment to the first, some folks thinks. Not a bit of it, I says. It’s just that they likes a change. Most of ’em ’ud get the second before the first were buried, if they could. Why, there is Sir Felix himself coming in at the gate. Maybe I had better do what I have to do another time.”
She scuttled off, wiping her hands on her apron.
Hilary went out to meet Sir Felix.
He drew her into the garden. “I want to talk to you, Hilary. And you ought to be out of doors all day drinking in this beautiful air. If Fee persists in sticking in the house, you at any rate ought to have your chair on the lawn.”
Hilary looked rather wistful.
“Yes, I should love it. But Fee just won’t. And I can’t leave him alone, poor boy.”
Sir Felix frowned.
“‘Tiresome boy’ is what I feel inclined to say. I have let him alone so far, but I shall have to have a serious talk with him one day soon.”
“You must remember Dad spoiled him. And” – Hilary hesitated a moment – “I don’t know how much money we have, Sir Felix, but I suppose you will tell us all about it when things are settled up.”
“I shall render an account of my stewardship when Fee comes of age,” Sir Felix said gravely, though a faint smile was lurking round his mouth. “But there is plenty for your present needs, Hilary. What is it you want – new frocks?”
Hilary repressed a shiver.
“No, indeed! I don’t feel as if I should ever want one again. It is Fee – he has seen about some wonderful cures that a Dr. Blathwayte is making in all sorts of bone diseases, and he is wild to try him. I am afraid he is very expensive.”
“I expect he is,” Sir Felix said dryly. “I think I have heard of the man. Bit of a quack, isn’t he? Is he an osteopath?”
“No, I imagine not,” Hilary said doubtfully. “At least the papers don’t call him that. But do you think anything can be done?”
“In the way of Fee going to him, do you mean?” Sir Felix said slowly. “Well, I don’t know. I will make inquiries and let you know. Hilary, do you remember what day this is?”
“Day!” Hilary repeated vaguely. “Day of the month, do you mean? I’m sure I don’t know. All days seem so much alike to me now.”
“It is the anniversary of my wife’s death,” Sir Felix said, his voice dropping almost to a whisper. “I always make a point of being here and laying her favourite flowers on her grave myself. She was very fond of you, Hilary.”
“I was very fond of her,” Hilary said earnestly. “She was always so kind to me.”
“She loved you,” Sir Felix went on hoarsely. “Hilary, I often think how pleased she would be to see you here in Heathcote, the place that was so dear to her – and with me!”
The glance that emphasized the last two words deepened an uneasy suspicion that had been springing up in Hilary’s mind of late.
“You have been very good to us, Sir Felix – to Fee and to me.”
“Good!” Sir Felix repeated. “Good! That is not quite the right adjective, Hilary. Naturally any man would do anything for the woman he – loves.”
With a startled movement of distaste Hilary sprang away from him. He was too quick for her, however. He caught her hand and placed it on his arm, patting it with a quiet fatherliness that was in itself reassuring.
“Did you never guess, Hilary?” he questioned. “Dear, sometimes I have thought all the world must know. Your father wanted it above all things. It was his great wish that you –”
“Please, Sir Felix!” With a touch of quiet dignity Hilary drew herself away. “You know that I am engaged to Basil Wilton.”
Sir Felix did not speak for a minute. His blue eyes had a curious baffled expression as he glanced at Hilary’s averted head.
“I had hoped that everything between you and young Wilton was at an end. You know how your father objected to it – forbade anything in the nature of an engagement.”
“Dad had only just heard about it – us – the day before – he died,” Hilary said brokenly. “I feel sure everything would have been different – later. He – he always wanted me to be happy.”
The vertical lines between the lawyer’s eyebrows were deepening.
“He left you to me, Hilary. I told him of my love for you in our last long talk together and he – he approved.”
Hilary’s brown eyes met his, the latent antagonism in them of which he had been conscious of late very perceptible.
“Dad knew of my love for Basil,” she said firmly. “He couldn’t have thought it was any good anyone else thinking of – I mean, he only left me in your charge because you are my godfather.”
“Hateful relationship!” Sir Felix ejaculated with sudden fire. “To me you are – just the woman I love. Hilary, can’t you care for me?”
“As my godfather, yes,” Hilary said, a suspicion of malice in her tone. “For the rest, I cannot allow you to speak of anything else, Sir Felix. I love – I belong to Basil Wilton.”
Sir Felix drew in his lips. With one rapid stroke he beheaded a tall delphinium in the border that was just bursting into flower.
“It is a pity Wilton is not as loyal to you as you are to him,” he said abruptly.
Hilary turned back to the house. She looked Sir Felix squarely in the face as he joined her.
“What do you mean?” she questioned quietly.
“I’ll leave it to some one else to tell you,” Sir Felix returned.
At this moment the front door was flung open and the tall, gaunt figure of Miss Lavinia Priestley came in sight. She was wearing black, of course. The modern fashion of disregarding mourning she looked upon as almost indecent, and her sensible short skirts were extremely sensible, and extremely short, her long skinny legs, encased presumably in the fashionable silk stockings, were further encased in stout knitted gaiters. She wore a black hat of the style usually described as a smart little pull-on. From it there protruded ends of sandy, shingled hair like dilapidated drake’s tails. There was a certain jauntiness about her gait as she came forward, and instead of spectacles she wore a pair of rimless eyeglasses perched precariously upon the bridge of her high Roman nose.
“Aunt Lavinia!” Hilary exclaimed in amazement. “Why, I thought you were –”
“On the high seas,” the spinster returned, as she made an
ineffectual dab at her niece’s cheek and then shook hands with Sir Felix. “But the Sheikh-like person turns out to be a fraud He promised his deluded wife she should have visitors over from England as often as she liked or she could get ’em. Now, when she invites me, he turns nasty, and not content with shutting her up in his harem or zenana or whatever he calls the thing, off he marches with her into the desert, where of course she can’t get an English nurse or doctor or anything, and stops me by wireless. I don’t know what is to be done.”
She took off her pince-nez, rubbed some mist from it, and replaced it.
“Marriages between Englishwomen and Arabs ought not to be allowed,” Sir Felix said shortly. “If I had my way I would make it penal for an Englishwoman to enter upon any such connexion.”
“I dare say you would!” Miss Lavinia turned upon him with a certain amount of warmth. “But I should just like to know what you would do if you were a woman who had spent her time in uncongenial work and felt her youth going day by day and nothing before her but a solitary old age with nothing to live upon but her scanty savings eked out by the miserable old age pension. I guess if a magnificent Sheikh-like person came along and asked you to go to live with him in a palace with every luxury, plenty of money and servants to wait upon you, you would go fast enough.”
“Well, of course there is something to be said for that point of view,” Sir Felix acknowledged grudgingly. “But if you had travelled in the East as much as I have, Miss Priestley, you would loathe the idea of this sort of marriage.”
Miss Lavinia tossed her head. “And if you had travelled about the world as much as I have, Sir Felix, you would loathe the sight of starving, miserable old women, decayed ladies they call themselves, I believe as much as I do.”
Sir Felix was not inclined to argue the point.
“Oh, well, I dare say I should,” he conceded gracefully, his glance wandering to Hilary’s half-averted cheek.
“And that’s neither here nor there,” Miss Lavinia finished. “What I want to do is to discuss this affair of Fee’s with you both,” with a curious look at Hilary’s heated face.
CHAPTER 11
“Don’t be a fool, Hilary! Of course the man is in love with you.”
“Well, I’m not in love with him,” Hilary retorted with spirit. “An old man like that – my godfather too! He ought to be ashamed of himself!”
“A man is never too old to fall in love – or never thinks he is,” Miss Lavinia said impatiently. “Besides, Sir Felix is not old – just in the prime of life – and you must think of your future, Hilary. You will not like being a lonely old maid with none too much money.”
Hilary drew herself up.
“I’m not going to be an old maid, Aunt Lavinia! Bachelor women we call them nowadays, by the way. But you forget that I am going to marry – I am engaged to Basil Wilton.”
“Of course you are not going to marry Wilton. How could you without a penny piece between you? Now, Sir Felix –”
“But, Aunt Lavinia,” Hilary interrupted, “you quite approved of my engagement when I told you about it.”
“Engagement, yes,” Miss Lavinia said scornfully. “But you are talking of getting married, quite a different thing. I looked upon Wilton as an experiment – pour passer le temps – just to get your hand in. A little experience gives a girl aplomb when a really serious affair comes along. Men say they like to be the first, but they find it pretty dull when they are.”
“Aunt Lavinia!” Hilary faced round, her cheeks flaming. “I would not think as meanly of people as you do for the world! I hope I shall never lose my faith in human nature.”
“I am sure I hope you never will if it is any satisfaction to you to retain it,” Miss Lavinia returned, in no wise discomposed. “But if you pin the said faith to Basil Wilton I am afraid it will not last long. That is really what brought me down here today.”
“What brought you down here today? I hate hints.” Hilary stamped her foot. “I cannot understand you this morning, Aunt Lavinia. What are you talking about?”
“Basil Wilton, of course. I have just told you so,” Miss Lavinia returned with a slightly exasperated air. “I know you haven’t heard from him regularly, since you came down here. Oh, Fee told me. For goodness’ sake don’t make a fuss about that. Naturally the boy must talk. Well, I saw Mr. Basil Wilton last week, in consequence of which I have made a few inquiries about the young man, and I thought it my duty to come down here and let you know the result.”
“You saw Basil!” Hilary exclaimed, seizing upon the first part of the sentence. “Where? What was he doing?”
“Driving down Bond Street in a smartly appointed car with that Miss Houlton,” Miss Lavinia answered without any further beating about the bush.
“Miss Houlton! Oh!” Hilary drew a long breath of relief. “Oh, that is nothing, Aunt Lavinia. Of course he knew her very well when she was with – Dad.”
“Of course he did!” Miss Lavinia echoed scornfully. “Don’t be silly, Hilary. Miss Houlton was a baggage, with her cast down eyes, looking as if she couldn’t say bo to a goose! She does not cast them down now, I can tell you. Looking right up into Wilton’s face, she was, making all the play she could. And he was not at all backward, either. Doing quite his share in the love-making, I should say.”
“Aunt Lavinia!” Hilary burst out. “Why do you say this? Do you want to make me miserable?”
“No, I want to make you sensible,” her aunt retorted. “Sir Felix took me into his confidence just now. Here you have the chance of marrying a man, good-looking, distinguished in his profession, rich enough to give you everything you want, head over ears in love with you. And you want to chuck him over for a penniless doctor’s assistant, who will have to leave you to drag out your youth in solitude, and when he does marry you will expect you to slave day and night for him and his children. Oh, it is no use flying out at me, Hilary. And it is no use trying to avoid facts. The less people can afford to have children the more they generally have. I can foresee you asking for the King’s Bounty for triplets.”
“Aunt Lavinia!” Hilary burst out with flaming cheeks. “How can you be so – so disgusting and – and so vulgar?”
“Disgusting! It is not disgusting – it is perfectly natural,” Miss Lavinia contradicted with spirit. “And it is you that will have to put up with it, not me! And, as for being vulgar, my dear Hilary – most natural things are.”
Hilary made no further answer. Her lips were firmly compressed as she walked over to the big window looking on to the garden and stood gazing straight before her with unseeing eyes. The two were standing in the little drawing-room at Rose Cottage. The sun was streaming in at the open window and the potpourri from the great jars smelt fragrant in the warmth. From the garden borders there came the sweet scent of the old-fashioned herbaceous blossoms, the soft damp smell of the upturned earth. A humming bee floated lazily into the room, outside a dragon-fly flashed by.
Miss Lavinia surveyed her niece’s back with a twinkle in her eye. At last she tapped her on the shoulder.
“Now, Hilary, better give up dreaming about your future offspring and come to present facts. I told you I had made a few inquiries about your young man and Iris Houlton. I find that for the past week or two Wilton has been living in the girl’s flat. The general idea, in so far as people think about one another at all in London, seems to be that they are married. I must say I doubt that. But, now, is that how you like the man you are engaged to to behave?”
When Hilary turned, the colour in her cheeks had faded and even her lips were white.
“I have yet to be convinced that he does behave so.”
“I expected that,” Miss Lavinia returned, quite unmoved by the doubt cast on the accuracy of her statement. “Now, Hilary, I want you and Fee to come up to town for a week. You can look up Mr. Wilton and Fee can see this doctor he is raving about and ascertain whether he thinks he can do anything for him. If he does – well, it will have to be managed somehow. The b
oy must have his chance. What do you say?”
“I – don’t know.” Hilary hesitated. “We have not much money, you know, Aunt Lavinia.”
“And I have not much, either,” Miss Priestley said grimly. “But I dare say if we put our spare coppers together we might find enough. Anyway I’ll pay the preliminary expenses – railway journey, hotel bill and fee for the examination. Afterwards, if he is hopeful, we must see what we can arrange.”
“You are very good, Aunt Lavinia. But I don’t think we ought to take your money. You know Dad always said –”
“It was a very different matter when he was alive,” Miss Lavinia interrupted. “That is all settled then, Hilary. The bit of change will do Fee good too. The lad is moping here. What do you think of a week to-morrow?”
“Oh, Fee will love it, of course. He hates Heathcote. And this new treatment may do him good, though I don’t think Dad was ever very hopeful.”
“Doctors never are about their own families. The shoemaker’s children are always the worst shod,” Miss Lavinia said scoffingly. “It would be a grand thing if Fee could be made to walk again, Hilary.”
When this project was unfolded to Fee, he was frankly delighted. Quite apart from the castles in Spain he built on the somewhat scanty foundation of the new doctor’s treatment, the prospect of the little visit to London, the getting away from Heathcote for a few days, was enchanting. There could be no doubt that Fee was a true cockney and the probability was against his ever settling down at Heathcote.
Sir Felix Skrine was not equally pleased. He had made up his mind that his wards should live in the country, and there could be small doubt that on the ground of economy as well as of health he was right. Nevertheless, after an intimate talk with Miss Lavinia, he withdrew his objection to the London plan and offered to pay the expenses out of the estate, as he phrased it.
Even the railway journey up was pure joy to Fee. Not once did he complain of the fatigue of which he had constantly spoken on the way down.