CHAPTER X
Philippa and Helen started, a few mornings later, for one of theircustomary walks. The crystalline October sunshine, in which everydistant tree and, seaward, each slowly travelling steamer, seemed togain a new clearness of outline, lay upon the deep-ploughed fields, theyellowing bracken, and the red-gold of the bending trees, while the westwind, which had strewn the sea with white-flecked waves, brought downthe leaves to form a carpet for their feet, and played strange musicalong the wood-crested slope. In the broken land through which theymade their way, a land of trees and moorland, with here and there acultivated patch, the yellow gorse still glowed in unexpected corners;queer, scentless flowers made splashes of colour in the hedgerows; arabbit scurried sometimes across their path; a cock pheasant, aftera moment's amazed stare, lowered his head and rushed for unnecessaryshelter. The longer they looked upwards, the bluer seemed the sky. Thegrass beneath their feet was as green and soft as in springtime. Drivenby the wind, here and there a white-winged gull sailed over theirheads,--a cloud of them rested upon a freshly turned little square ofploughed land between two woods. A flight of pigeons, like torn leavestossed about by the wind, circled and drifted above them. Philippaseated herself upon the trunk of a fallen tree and gazed contentedlyabout her.
"If I had a looking-glass and a few more hairpins, I should be perfectlyhappy," she sighed. "I am sure my hair must look awful."
Helen glanced at it admiringly.
"I decline to say the correct thing," she declared. "I will only remindyou that there will be no one here to look at it."
"I am not so sure," Philippa replied. "These are the woods which thespecial constables haunt by day and by night. They gaze up every treetrunk for a wireless installation, and they lie behind hedges and watchfor mysterious flashes."
"Are you suggesting that we may meet Mr. Lessingham?" Helen enquired,lazily. "I am perfectly certain that he knows nothing of the equipmentof the melodramatic spy. As to Zeppelins, don't you remember he told usthat he hated them and was terrified of bombs."
"My dear," Philippa remonstrated, "Mr. Lessingham does nothing crude."
"And yet,--" Helen began.
"Yet I suppose the man has something at the back of his head," Philippainterrupted. "Sometimes I think that he has, sometimes I believe thatRichard must have shown him my picture, and he has come over here to seeif I am really like it."
"He does behave rather like that," her companion admitted drily.
Phillipa turned and looked at her.
"Helen," she said severely, "don't be a cat."
"If I were to express my opinion of your behaviour," Helen went on,picking up a pine cone and examining it, "I might astonish you."
"You have an evil mind," Philippa yawned, producing her cigarette case."What you really resent is that Mr. Lessingham sometimes forgets to talkabout Dick."
"The poor man doesn't get much chance," Helen retorted, watching theblue smoke from her cigarette and leaning back with an air of content."Whatever do you and he find to talk about, Philippa?"
"Literature--English and German," Philippa murmured demurely. "Mr.Lessingham is remarkably well read, and he knows more about our Englishpoets than any man I have met for years."
"I forgot that you enjoyed that sort of thing."
"Once more, don't be a cat," Philippa enjoined. "If you want me toconfess it, I will own up at once. You know what a simple little thingI am. I admire Mr. Lessingham exceedingly, and I find him a mostinteresting companion."
"You mean," her friend observed drily "the Baron Maderstrom." Philippalooked around and frowned.
"You are most indiscreet, Helen," she declared. "I have learnt somethingof the science of espionage lately, and I can assure you that all spokenor written words are dangerous. There is a thoroughly British squirrelin that tree overhead, and I am sure he heard."
"I suppose the sunshine has got into your head," Helen groaned.
"If you mean that I am finding it a relief to talk nonsense, you areright," Philippa assented. "As a matter of fact, I am feeling mostdepressed. Henry telephoned from somewhere or other before breakfastthis morning, to say that he should probably be home to-night orto-morrow. They must have landed somewhere down the coast."
"You are a most undutiful wife," Helen pronounced severely. "I am sureHenry is a delightful person, even if he is a little irresponsible, andit is almost pathetic to remember how much you were in love with him, ayear or two ago."
Some of the lightness vanished from Philippa's face.
"That was before the war," she sighed.
"I still think Henry is a dear, though I don't altogether understandhim," Helen said thoughtfully.
"No doubt," Philippa assented, "but you'd find the not understanding hima little more galling, if you were his wife. You see, I didn't know thatI was marrying a sort of sporting Mr. Skimpole."
"I wonder," Helen reflected, "how Henry and Mr. Lessingham will get onwhen they see more of one another."
"I really don't care," Philippa observed indifferently.
"I used to notice sometimes--that was soon after you were married,"Helen continued, "that Henry was just a little inclined to be jealous."
Philippa withdrew her eyes from the sea. There was a queer little smileupon her lips.
"Well, if he still is," she said, "I'll give him something to be jealousabout."
"Poor Mr. Lessingham!" Helen murmured.
Philippa's eyebrows were raised.
"Poor Mr. Lessingham?" she repeated. "I don't think you'll find thathe'll be in the least sorry for himself."
"He may be in earnest," Helen reminded her friend. "You can be horriblyattractive when you like, you know, Philippa."
Philippa smiled sweetly.
"It is just possible," she said, "that I may be in earnest myself. I'vequarrelled pretty desperately with Henry, you know, and I'm a helplesscreature without a little admiration."
Helen rose suddenly to her feet. Her eyes were fixed upon a figureapproaching through the wood.
"You really aren't respectable, Philippa," she declared. "Throw awayyour cigarette, for heaven's sake, and sit up. Some one is coming."
Philippa only moved her head lazily. The sunlight, which came down ina thousand little zigzags through the wind-tossed trees, fell straightupon her rather pale, defiant little face, with its unexpressed evasivecharm, and seemed to find a new depth of colour in the red-gold of herdisordered hair. Her slim, perfect body was stretched almost at fulllength, one leg drawn a little up, her hands carelessly drooping towardsthe grass. The cigarette was still burning in the corner of her lips.
"I decline," she said, "to throw away my cigarette for any one."
"Least of all, I trust," a familiar voice interposed, "for me."
Philippa sat upright at once, smoothed her hair and looked a littleresentfully at Lessingham. He was wearing a brown tweed knickerbockersuit, and he carried a gun under his arm.
"Whatever are you doing up here," she demanded, "and do you knowanything about our game laws? You can't come out into the woods here andshoot things just because you feel like it."
He disposed of his gun and seated himself between them.
"That is quite all right," he assured her. "Your neighbour, Mr.Windover, to whom these woods apparently belong, asked me to bring mygun out this morning and try and get a woodcock."
"Gracious! You don't mean that Mr. Windover is here, too?" Philippademanded, looking around. Lessingham shook his head.
"His car came for him at the other side of the wood," he explained. "Hewas wanted to go on the Bench. I elected to walk home."
"And the woodcock?" she asked. "I adore woodcock."
He produced one from his pocket, took up her felt hat, which was lyingamongst the bracken, and busied himself insinuating the pin feathersunder the silk band.
"There," he said, handing it to her, "the first woodcock of the season.We got four, and I really only accepted one in the hope that you wouldlike it. I shall leave it with the esti
mable Mills, on my return."
"You must come and share it," Philippa insisted. "Those boys of Nora'sare coming in to dinner. Your gift shall be the piece de resistance."
"Then may I dine another night?" he begged. "This place encourages in methe grossest of appetites."
"Have no fear," she replied. "You will never see that woodcock again. Ishall have it for my luncheon to-morrow. I ordered dinner before I cameout, and though it may be a simple feast, I promise that you shall notgo away hungry."
"Will you promise that you will never send me away hungry?" he asked,dropping his voice for a moment.
She turned and studied him. Helen, who had strolled a few yards away,was knee-deep in the golden brown bracken, picking some gorgeouslycoloured leaves from a solitary bramble bush. Lessingham had thrown hiscap onto the ground, and his wind-tossed hair and the unusual colour inhis cheeks were both, in their way, becoming. His loose but well-fittingcountry clothes, his tie and soft collar, were all well-chosen andsuitable. She admired his high forehead and his firm, rather proudmouth. His eyes as well as his tone were full of seriousness.
"You know that you ought to be saying that to some Gretchen away acrossthat terrible North Sea," she laughed.
"There is no Gretchen who has ever made my heart shake as you do," hewhispered.
She picked up her hat and sighed.
"Really," she said, "I think things are quite complicated enough as theyare. I am in a flutter all day long, as it is, about your mission hereand your real identity. I simply could not include a flirtation amongstmy excitements."
"I have never flirted," he assured her gravely.
"Wise man," she pronounced, rising to her feet. "Come, let us go andhelp Helen pick leaves. She is scratching her fingers terribly, and I'msure you have a knife. A dear, economical creature, Helen," she added,as they strolled along. "I am perfectly certain that those are destinedto adorn my dining-table, and, with chrysanthemums at sixpence each,you can't imagine how welcome they are. Come, produce the knife, Mr.Lessingham."
The knife was forthcoming, and presently they all turned their faceshomeward. Philippa arrested both her companions on the outskirts ofthe wood, and pointed to the red-tiled little town, to the sombre,storm-beaten grey church on the edge of the cliff, to the peacefulfields, the stretch of gorse-sprinkled common, and the rolling stretchof green turf on the crown of the cliffs. Beyond was the foam-fleckedblue sea, dotted all over with cargo steamers.
"Would one believe," she asked satirically, "that there should be scopehere in this forgotten little spot for the brains of a--Mr. Lessingham!"
"Remember that I was sent," he protested. "The error, if error there be,is not mine."
"And after all," Helen reminded them both, "think how easily one may bemisled by appearances. You couldn't imagine anything more honest thanthe faces of the villagers and the fishermen one sees about, yet do youknow, Mr. Lessingham, that we were visited by burglars last night?"
"Seriously?" he asked.
"Without a doubt. Of course, Mainsail Haul is an invitation to thieves.They could get in anywhere. Last night they chose the French windows andseem to have made themselves at home in the library."
"I trust," Lessingham said, "that they did not take anything of value?"
"They took nothing at all," Philippa sighed. "That is the humiliatingpart of it. They evidently didn't like our things."
"How do you know that you had burglars, if they took nothing away?"Lessingham enquired.
"So practical!" Philippa murmured. "As a matter of fact, I heard someone moving about, and I rang the alarm bell. Mills was downstairsalmost directly and we heard some one running down the drive. The Frenchwindows were open, a chair was overturned in the library, and a drawerin my husband's desk was wide open."
"The proof," Lessingham admitted, "is overwhelming. You were visited bya burglar. Does your husband keep anything of value in his desk?"
"Henry hasn't anything of value in the world," Philippa replied drily,"except his securities, and they are at the bank."
"Without going so far as to contradict you," Lessingham observed, with asmile, "I still venture to disagree!"
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