Sir Henry would have taken his wife’s arm, but she avoided him. He shrugged his shoulders and plodded up the steep path by her side.
“The whole question of Lessingham is rather a problem,” he said. “Of course, you and Helen have seen very much more of him than I have. Isn’t it true that people have begun to make curious remarks about him?”
“How did you know that, Henry?” Philippa demanded.
“Well, one hears things,” he replied. “I should gather, from what I heard, that his position here had become a little precarious. Hence his sudden disappearance.”
“But he is coming back again,” Philippa reminded her husband.
“Perhaps!”
Philippa signified her desire that her husband should remain a little behind with her. They walked side by side up the gravel path. Philippa kept her hands clasped behind her.
“To leave the subject of Mr. Lessingham for a time,” she began, “I feel very reluctant to ask for explanations of anything you do, but I must confess to a certain curiosity as to why I should find you lunching at the Canton with two very beautiful ladies, a few days ago, when you left here with Jimmy Dumble to fish for whiting; and also why you return here on a trawler which belongs to another part of the coast?”
Sir Henry made a grimace.
“I was beginning to wonder whether curiosity was dead,” he observed good-humouredly. “If you wouldn’t mind giving me another—well, to be on the safe side let us say eight days—I think I shall be able to offer you an explanation which you will consider satisfactory.”
“Thank you,” Philippa rejoined, with cold surprise; “I see no reason why you should not answer such simple questions at once.”
Sir Henry sighed deprecatingly, and made another vain attempt to take his wife’s arm.
“Philippa, be a little brick,” he begged. “I know I seem to have been playing the part of a fool just lately, but there has been a sort of reason for it.”
“What reason could there possibly be,” she demanded, “which you could not confide in me?”
He was silent for a moment. When he spoke again there was a new earnestness in his tone.
“Philippa,” he said, “I have been working for some time at a little scheme which isn’t ripe to talk about yet, not even to you, but which may lead to something which I hope will alter your opinion. You couldn’t see your way clear to trust me a little longer, could you?” he begged, with rather a plaintive gleam in his blue eyes. “It would make it so much easier for me to say no more but just have you sit tight.”
“I wonder,” she answered coldly, “if you realise how much I have suffered, sitting tight, as you call it, and waiting for you to do something!”
“My fishing excursions,” he went on desperately, “have not been altogether a matter of sport.”
“I know that quite well,” she replied. “You have been making that chart you promised your miserable fishermen. None of those things interest me, Henry. I fear—I am very much inclined to say that none of your doings interest me. Least of all,” she went on, her voice quivering with passion, “do I appreciate in the least these mysterious appeals for my patience. I have some common sense, Henry.”
“You’re a suspicious little beast,” he told her.
“Suspicious!” she scoffed. “What a word to use from a man who goes off fishing for whiting, and is lunching at the Carlton, some days afterwards, with two ladies of extraordinary attractions!”
“That was a trifle awkward,” Sir Henry admitted, with a little burst of candour, “but it goes in with the rest, Philippa.”
“Then it can stay with the rest,” she retorted, “exactly where I have placed it in my mind. Please understand me. Your conduct for the last twelve months absolves me from any tie there may be between us. If this explanation that you promise comes—in time, and I feel like it, very well. Until it does, I am perfectly free, and you, as my husband, are non-existent. That is my reply, Henry, to your request for further indulgence.”
“Rather a foolish one, my dear,” he answered, patting her shoulder, “but then you are rather a child, aren’t you?”
She swung away from him angrily.
“Don’t touch me!” she exclaimed. “I mean every word of what I have said. As for my being a child—well, you may be sorry some day that you have persisted in treating me like one.”
Sir Henry paused for a moment, watching her disappearing figure. There was an unusual shade of trouble in his face. His love for and confidence in his wife had been so absolute that even her threats had seemed to him like little morsels of wounded vanity thrown to him out of the froth of her temper. Yet at that moment a darker thought crossed his mind. Lessingham, he realised, was not a rival, after all, to be despised. He was a man of courage and tact, even though Sir Henry, in his own mind, had labelled him as a fool. If indeed he were coming back to Dreymarsh, what could it be for? How much had Philippa known about him? He stood there for a few moments in indecision. A great impulse had come to him to break his pledge, to tell her the truth. Then he made his disturbed way into the breakfast room.
“Where’s your mother, Nora?” he asked, as Helen took Philippa’s place at the head of the table.
“She wants some coffee and toast sent up to her room.” Nora explained. “The wind made her giddy.”
Sir Henry breakfasted in silence, rang the bell, and ordered his car.
“You going away again, Daddy?” Nora asked.
“I am going to London this morning,” he replied, a little absently.
“To London?” Helen repeated. “Does Philippa know?”
“I haven’t told her yet.”
Helen turned towards Nora.
“I wish you’d run up and see if your mother wants any more coffee, there’s a dear,” she suggested.
Nora acquiesced at once. As soon as she had left the room, Helen leaned over and laid her hand upon Sir Henry’s arm.
“Don’t go to London, Henry,” she begged.
“But my dear Helen, I must,” he replied, a little curtly.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” she persisted. “You know, you’ve tried Philippa very high lately, and she is in an extremely emotional state. She is all worked up about last night, and I wouldn’t leave her alone if I were you.”
Sir Henry’s blue eyes seemed suddenly like points of steel as he leaned towards her.
“You think that she is in love with that fellow Lessingham?” he asked bluntly.
“No, I don’t,” Helen replied, “but I think she is more furious with you than you believe. For months you have acted—well, how shall I say?”
“Oh, like a coward, if you like, or a fool. Go on.”
“She has asked for explanations to which she is perfectly entitled,” Helen continued, “and you have given her none. You have treated her like something between a doll and a child. Philippa is as good and sweet as any woman who ever lived, but hasn’t it ever occurred to you that women are rather mysterious beings? They may sometimes do, out of a furious sense of being wrongly treated, out of a sort of aggravated pique, what they would never do for any other reason. If you must go, come back to-night, Henry. Come back, and if you are obstinate, and won’t tell Philippa all that she has a right to know, tell her about that luncheon in town.”
Sir Henry frowned.
“It’s all very well, you know, Helen,” he said, “but a woman ought to trust her husband.”
“I am your friend, remember,” Helen replied, “and upon my word, I couldn’t trust and believe even in Dick, if he behaved as you have done for the last twelve months.”
Sir Henry made a grimace.
“Well, that settles it, I suppose, then,” he observed. “I’ll have one more try and see what I can do with Philippa. Perhaps a hint of what’s going on may satisfy her.”
He climbed the stairs, meeting Nora on her way down, and knocked at his wife’s door. There was no reply. He tried the handle and found the door locked.
“Are you there, Phili
ppa?” he asked.
“Yes!” she replied coldly.
“I am going to London this morning. Can I have a few words with you first?”
“No!”
Sir Henry was a little taken aback.
“Don’t be silly, Philippa,” he persisted. “I may be away for four or five days.”
There was no answer. Sir Henry suddenly remembered another entrance from a newly added bathroom. He availed himself of it and found Philippa seated in an easy-chair, calmly progressing with her breakfast. She raised her eyebrows at his entrance.
“These are my apartments,” she reminded him.
“Don’t be a little fool,” he exclaimed impatiently.
Philippa deliberately buttered herself a piece of toast, picked up her book, and became at once immersed in it.
“You don’t wish to talk to me, then?” he demanded.
“I do not,” she agreed. “You have had all the opportunities which any man should need, of explaining certain matters to me. My curiosity in them has ended; also my interest—in you. You say you are going to London. Very well. Pray do not hurry home on my account.”
Sir Henry, as he turned to leave the room, made the common mistake of a man arguing with a woman—he attempted to have the last word.
“Perhaps I am better out of the way, eh?”
“Perhaps so,” Philippa assented sweetly.
CHAPTER XXVI
Table of Contents
Philippa, late that afternoon, found what she sought—solitude. She had walked along the sands until Dreymarsh lay out of sight on the other side of a spur of the cliffs. Before her stretched a long and level plain, a fringe of sand, and a belt of shingly beach. There was not a sign of any human being in sight, and of buildings only a quaint tower on the far horizon.
She found a dry place on the pebbles, removed her hat and sat down, her hands clasped around her knees, her eyes turned seaward. She had come out here to think, but it was odd how fugitive and transient her thoughts became. Her husband was always there in the background, but in those moments it was Lessingham who was the predominant figure. She remembered his earnestness, his tender solicitude for her, the courage which, when necessity demanded, had flamed up in him, a born and natural quality. She remembered the agony of those few minutes on the preceding day, when nothing but what still seemed a miracle had saved him. At one moment she felt herself inclined to pray that he might never come back. At another, her heart ached to see him once more. She knew so well that if he came it would be for her sake, that he would come to ask her finally the question with which she had fenced. She knew, too, that his coming would be the moment of her life. She was so much of a woman, and the passionate craving of her sex to give love for love was there in her heart, almost omnipotent. And in the background there was that bitter desire to bring suffering upon the man who had treated her like a child, who had placed her in a false position with all other women, who had dawdled and idled away his days, heedless of his duty, heedless of every serious obligation. When she tried to reason, her way seemed so clear, and yet, behind it all, there was that cold impulse of almost Victorian prudishness, the inheritance of a long line of virtuous women, a prudishness which she had once, when she had believed that it was part of her second nature, scoffed at as being the outcome of one of the finer forms of selfishness.
She told herself that she had come there to decide, and decision came no nearer to her. A late afternoon star shone weakly in the sky. A faint, vaporous mist obscured the horizon and floated in tangled wreaths upon the face of the sea. Only that line of sand seemed still clear-cut and distinct, and as she glanced along it her eyes were held by something approaching, something which seemed at first nothing but a black, moving speck, then gradually resolved itself into the semblance of a man on horseback, galloping furiously. She watched him as he drew nearer and nearer, the sand flying from his horse’s hoofs, his figure motionless, his eyes apparently fixed upon some distant spot. It was not until he had come within fifty yards of her that she recognised him. His horse shied at the sight of her and was suddenly swung round with a powerful wrist. Little specks of sand, churned up in the momentary stampede of hoofs, fell upon her skirt. For the rest, she watched the struggle composedly, a struggle which was over almost as soon as it was begun. Captain Griffiths leaned down from his trembling but subdued horse.
“Lady Cranston!” he exclaimed in astonishment.
“That’s me,” she replied, smiling up at him. “Have you been riding off your bad temper?”
He glanced down at his horse’s quivering sides. Back as far as one could see there was that regular line of hoof marks.
“Am I bad-tempered?” he asked.
“Well,” she observed, “I don’t know you well enough to answer that question. I was simply thinking of yesterday evening.”
He slipped from his horse and stood before her. His long, severe face had seldom seemed more malevolent.
“I had enough to make me bad-tempered,” he declared. “I had tracked down a German spy, step by step, until I had him there, waiting for arrest—expecting it, even—and then I got that wicked message.”
“What was that wicked message after all?” she enquired.
“That doesn’t matter,” he answered. “It was from a quarter where they ought to know better, and it ordered me to make no arrest. I have sent to the War Office to-day a full report, and I am praying that they may change their minds.”
Philippa sighed.
“If you hadn’t received that telegram last night,” she observed, “it seems to me that I should have been a widow to-day.”
He frowned, and struck his boot heavily with his riding whip.
“Yes, I heard of that,” he admitted. “I dare say if he hadn’t gone, though, some one else would.”
“Would you have gone if you had been there?” she asked.
“If you had told me to,” he replied, looking at her steadfastly.
Philippa felt a little shiver. There was something ominous in the intensity of his gaze and the meaning which he had contrived to impart to his tone. She rose to her feet.
“Well,” she said, “don’t let me keep you here. I am getting cold.”
He passed his arm through the bridle of his horse. “I will walk with you, if I may,” he proposed. She made no reply, and they set their faces homewards.
“I hear Lessingham has left the place,” he remarked, a little abruptly.
“Oh, I expect he’ll come back,” Philippa replied.
“How long is it, Lady Cranston, since you took to consorting with German spies?” he asked.
“Don’t be foolish—or impertinent,” she enjoined. “You are making a ridiculous mistake about Mr. Lessingham.”
He laughed unpleasantly.
“No need for us to fence,” he said. “You and I know who he is. What I do want to know, what I have been wondering all the way from the point there—four miles of hard galloping and one question—why are you his friend? What is he to you?”
“Really, Captain Griffiths,” she protested, looking up at him, “of what possible interest can that be to you?”
“Well, it is, anyhow,” he answered gruffly. “Anything that concerns you is of interest to me.”
Philippa realised at that moment, perhaps for the first time, what it all meant. She realised the significance of those apparently purposeless afternoon calls, when through sheer boredom she had had to send for Helen to help her out; the significance of those long silences, the melancholy eyes which seemed to follow her movements. She felt an unaccountable desire to laugh, and then, at the first twitchings of her lips, she restrained herself. She knew that tragedy was stalking by her side.
“I think, Captain Griffiths,” she said gravely, “that you are talking nonsense, and you are not a very good hand at it. Won’t you please ride on?”
He made no movement to mount his horse. He plodded along the soft sand by her side—a queer, elongated figure, his gloomy eyes fixed upon t
he ground.
“Until this fellow Lessingham came you were never so hard,” he persisted.
She looked at him with genuine curiosity.
“I was never so hard?” she repeated. “Do you imagine that I have ever for a single moment considered my demeanour towards you—you of all persons in the world? I simply don’t remember when you have been there and when you haven’t. I don’t remember the humours in which I have been when we have conversed. All that you have said seems to me to be the most arrant nonsense.”
He swung himself into the saddle and gathered up the reins.
“Thank you,” he said bitterly, “I understand. Only let me tell you this,” he went on, his whip poised in his hand. “You may have powerful friends who saved your—”
He hesitated so long that she glanced up at him and read all that he had wished to say in his face.
“My what?” she asked.
His courage failed him.
“Mr. Lessingham,” he proceeded, “from arrest. But if he shows his face here again in Dreymarsh, I sha’n’t stop to arrest him. I shall shoot him on sight and chance the consequences.”
“They’ll hang you!” she declared savagely.
He laughed at her.
“Hang me for shooting a man whom I can prove to be a German spy? They won’t dare! They won’t even dare to place me under arrest for an hour. Why, when the truth becomes known,” he went on, his voice gaining courage as the justice of his case impressed itself upon him, “what do you suppose is going to happen to two women who took this fellow in and befriended him, introduced him under a false name to their friends, gave him the run of their house—this man whom they knew all the time was a German? You, Lady Cranston, chafing and scolding your husband by night and by day because he isn’t where you think he ought to be; you, so patriotic that you cannot bear the sight of him out of uniform; you—the hostess, the befriender, the God knows what of Bertram Maderstrom! It will be a pretty tale when it’s all told!”
“I really think,” Philippa asserted calmly, “that you are the most utterly impossible and obnoxious creature I have ever met.”
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