SIR HARRY (continued 6)

They went down to a little sheltered garden below the house. It had been partly hollowed out of the rock, and was partly rock-strewn grass and gorse and fern tamed into some semblance of ordered ground, but not too much to take from the charm of its wildness. Steps cut in the rock led down to it from above, and steps had been made from it to the sea, which lay fifty or sixty feet below. They sat on a stone bench overlooking the heaving emerald mass of the sea, and the waves breaking in a high tide against the cliffs and the huge scattered rocks that littered the shore.

They were very good friends now, these two. It was Jane who had brought them together, for she greatly admired both of them, and would not be content until they admired one another. So they laughed at her and affected a wondering awe at each other's perfections when they were in her presence; and when they were alone together they sometimes kept up the game, to prevent themselves falling into sadness over their private troubles.

They were both a little sad now, as they sat on the sun-warmed rock and looked out on the surge of the waves. Nature was so bright and fresh and happy, and seemed to be inviting a mood to respond to her own. She could put on this air of perpetual laughing youthfulness, though age-old and subject to moods very different. It seemed ungracious not to laugh and be happy with her.

"It's lovely here," Sidney said. "If only things would go right! You're the most perfect person in the world, Harry. I ought to be quite happy being here with you, but I want somebody else. I'm wanting him rather badly just at present."

"Well, you're everything you ought to be, but I want somebody else too," he said.

He rose impulsively and leant against the wall of the little terrace with one arm resting on it, and looked down at her. "I've thought I'd tell you for some time," he said. "I want to tell somebody. I can't tell Jane; she's too young. But you're in the same boat as I am; you'll understand. And we're friends too, aren't we?—always have been."

She had appeared startled at his announcement, but her face was soft as he finished. "Oh, yes, we're friends," she said. "I'm so glad you've told me, Harry. Do you know I've wondered sometimes whether there was somebody. You so often look—well, you look like I feel. You're enjoying yourself, but there's somebody you're thinking of all the time who isn't there. Do tell me about it."

He told her about his meeting with Viola on the moor, and how they had seen one another constantly afterwards and loved one another. Sidney's eyes were kind as she listened, but there was a little frown of puzzlement on her face. It was to be supposed that she wanted to "place" this lovely girl who had come to Harry as a revelation when he had been only a boy, and whom he adored still. He had told her nothing about her so far, except that her father was an artist and they had been holiday-making at Royd. There were many questions she wanted to ask.

"Have you got a photograph of her, Harry?" was the first that she asked. She wanted to satisfy herself that he was not idealizing somebody not worthy of him.

Half unwillingly he took his case out of his pocket, and Viola's photograph out of it. "It isn't as beautiful as she is," he said, "but it's like her in some ways."

Sidney took the card and looked at it for a long time. It was of Viola as Harry had first known her, young and sweet and untroubled.

"She's very lovely," she said, slowly. Then she looked up at him with a smile. "I'm so glad, Harry. I shouldn't like to think of you in love with somebody who wasn't like that. But I think she'd have to be, for you to fall in love with her. Have you seen her since?"

Yes, he had seen her two or three times before he had been sent abroad, and he had been with her since he had come back, before he had come to Royd. She was in London, working in a government office. He was going to London for a few days before his leave was up, and would see her again after that before he went to France.

He spoke as if he was troubled about it, and she knew why. But there was a lot to learn about it yet. And there was something about the beginnings of this love affair that she could not quite reconcile with her knowledge of Harry.

"Of course you're both frightfully young," she said. "Noel and I are of an age to get married if they'd let us, but I suppose you could hardly expect them to think that you were. But mightn't they accept your engagement, and let her be here with you?"

He came and sat on the seat beside her again. "Of course we shall be married some day," he said. "But we never thought about that, or about what you call an engagement—I mean we didn't think of it in the way that older people would. We were just happy loving each other."

"Oh, I know," she said. "It's a lovely time that—perhaps the best of all. But afterwards you come down to the earth a little. I suppose it has been like that with you, hasn't it? There are one's people to be considered, and what they are likely to think about it. I suppose nobody knows—at Royd."

"Wilbraham does—my tutor, you know. Nobody else does."

She showed surprise at this. "Did he find out you were seeing her?" she asked.

He stirred uneasily. He did not answer her question directly. "I don't suppose you'd realize quite how it was with me here, before I went away," he said. "They'd kept me shut up. I was happy enough, but I knew absolutely nothing about the world. From what I've learnt since, I know it must look as if we had met surreptitiously. Perhaps we did, and yet it wasn't like that either. It was the most natural thing in the world for us to be together as we were. At first I even thought of telling my mother about it. I don't know now when it first dawned upon me that they wouldn't have approved—or why. I shouldn't have cared much if they had known. But it was such a beautiful secret between Viola and me; I didn't want it to be spoiled by other—older people—coming in."

"Mr. Wilbraham knew," she said.

"He'd seen her. He knew what she was like. He's a dear old thing—full of understanding and sympathy. I don't know why he didn't tell Granny. I didn't ask him not to. I wouldn't have done that; that would have looked as if I had done something I was ashamed of. I've had an idea since that he had some sort of feeling that we were two men together, and it wasn't for us to be directed in our affairs by a woman. Something like that. Granny has always been very much at the head of things here."

"Yes, I see," she said. "But now you're older, Harry; and it has lasted? That sort of love, when you're very young, doesn't always last, you know. Wouldn't Lady Brent accept it now? It would be so lovely if she could come here, and you could be happy with her as long as you're in England. You wouldn't have to go away to London to see her then."

There was silence for a time, except for the noise of the waves on the rocks, and the plaintive cry of the gulls wheeling above them. Harry sat looking on the rocky floor, Sidney out to sea.

"I've had to decide such a lot of things for myself lately," he said. "I'd decided not to do that."

She thought his tone sounded as if he were wavering about his decision. She did not look at him, but said: "With Noel and me it's a very ordinary sort of difficulty. He's not what they'd call a good match. But I suppose they won't hold out if we show that we mean to have our own way. If they do, well, I shall wait till I'm twenty-one and marry him—just like that. But, of course, it would make a lot of difference if they smiled on us now, instead of keeping us apart. The real reason why we've come down here is because if he comes home on leave I should see him, and they don't want me to; and partly, I suppose, because they think you and I might get to like each other, now we're both grown up. Why can't they let us be happy in our own way—the older people? They've done what they wanted, or if they haven't they're probably rather sorry for it now. I should be very glad if Noel were in the sort of position that my sisters' husbands are. But I shouldn't love him any better for it. It's love that counts."

"Yes, of course," said Harry. "Well, both you and I are going to get what we want by and by. I suppose we shall have to wait about the same time for it. But you never know what's going to happen to you in these days. If I were to get killed, I should have missed something I ought to have had. You'd say it wouldn't make much difference to me, but I don't look at it like that; and anyhow it would make a difference to Viola, all her life."

Her eyes had filled with tears. "It just doesn't do to think about that," she said, "or to talk about it."

He looked at her quickly, and put his hand on hers as it lay on the stone between them. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to be a brute. We take it like that, you know; it doesn't make any difference to us. Nobody worries about it. But, of course it's different for you."

She dried her eyes. "It won't happen to Noel or you," she said. "We shall all four of us be happy by and by. But why shouldn't you be happy now, Harry? Is it necessary that you should keep it a secret still?"

The troubled look returned to his face. "I'm different from other men," he said. "Everything was spared me when I was young. I've had to learn everything since I grew up, and it isn't a pleasant world to learn in now. But whatever I have to do I must do now on my own responsibility. I should have to ask for Viola to come here. I couldn't do that. When she comes here, she'll come of her own right—the right that I shall give her."

"But if you were to tell them about her, Harry——"

"Yes, that's what I've thought of doing. But I can't do that either. They might accept her, but if they didn't—it's like it is with you. They want something else."

She sighed. "I'm glad you've told me, at any rate," she said. "It puts everything right now. You know about me and I know about you. I suppose Jane doesn't know?"

"No. And we mustn't tell her. I wish I could, but it wouldn't be fair on her. She'll be the first person I shall tell on that happy day when I can tell everybody."

CHAPTER XXIV

HOLIDAY

Wilbraham came down to Royd for a week-end visit. It was all he could spare from his arduous duties. He was thinner than he had been, but seemed to have flourished under the severe course of work to which he had submitted himself. He seemed harder and more self-reliant. Lady Brent saw at the first glance that his old temptation had not troubled him, or if it had troubled him that he had got the better of it.

Harry drove a dogcart to the station to meet him. The greeting was warm between them. Wilbraham looked him up and down. "I can't say they've smartened you up," he said, "because you didn't want it. But they've turned you into a soldier. I hope you haven't forgotten all your classics."

Harry laughed, but made no reply. When they had driven out of the little town and were on the long lonely country road, he said: "I wanted to see you first. Of course you'll be talking me over with Granny. There are some things I don't want said."

"If you mean about Viola," said Wilbraham after a pause. "I've kept my own counsel—and yours—for nearly two years. I've never been quite sure that I was right to do it. I believe it might have been better for you if Lady Brent had known. But at any rate, I have kept silence, and it isn't my affair now. It's yours. I quite recognize that."

"Have you seen her?"

"Viola? Since you came home, you mean. You know that I saw her occasionally before. Yes, I've seen her. Of course she wants you. You're going up next week, aren't you? Have you arranged that here?"

"Not yet. I told mother that I should be going to London, but I haven't said when yet."

"They won't like it, I suppose. You won't give them any reason for going. They'll think you just want to get away from here to amuse yourself as other young men do who are home on leave."

"I'm afraid they must think what they like. I hate all this secrecy—and deception. I won't deceive them more than I can help. They must let me go my own way, and not ask questions. But it's deception all the same. Why did you let me in for it?"

"Let you in for it? I let you in for it! What on earth do you mean, Harry?"

"Not you chiefly. But you were in it. You kept me knowing nothing. Supposing it hadn't been Viola I fell in love with! Oh, I've learnt a lot since you and I met last. I know what men are, and I'm not different from others at bottom, though there's miles between me and them in some ways. It's Viola I owe everything to—not Granny or mother or you. I don't know how I should have lived through it if it hadn't been for her. I should have lost everything that I was." He spoke more slowly. "Viola is everything in the world to me," he said, "everything in this world or the next. I want you to understand that. I loved her before, but I love her a thousand times more, now that I know. All this—Royd, and Granny and mother—everything that it all meant to me, is nothing to me now, apart from her. Whatever there is that's real in it—I can't explain it, but it's as if she'd have to give it back to me before I can make it anything again. If you can see that, then you may be able to help a little. Viola is to come first in everything, but until it's all straightened out I want Granny—and mother—to be as little troubled about me as possible. Make it look natural to them, my going to London; don't let them think that I'm tired of them, or of Royd. I'm not, only it's all very little to me beside Viola."

"I think you're unjust to us," said Wilbraham. "Say we hadn't prepared you for what you've been through—what nobody could have foreseen."

"Oh, it would have been just the same if I'd gone straight to Sandhurst—perhaps worse—if I hadn't known Viola."

"Well, that's where you're unjust. It was only Viola—or somebody like her—that you could have fallen in love with, as you did. We'd done that for you."

Harry thought this over. Wilbraham breathed more freely the longer his silence lasted. He recognized with gratitude that old sense of fairness and reasonableness which had never been absent in his dealings with Harry. "It's what you have to think of when you feel inclined to blame your grandmother," he said.

"I don't think I'm inclined to blame her," Harry answered to this. "I'm very sorry for her. That's why I want to let her down as easily as I can. Afterwards everything will be right for her, and she'll see—she's quite wise enough—that it was right that I should take my life into my own hands. That's what I'm going to do. I had to do it once before."

"She accepted that, you know."

"Yes, in a wonderful way, I think. And she'll accept Viola. But not now. I should have to ask her for Viola, and I'm not going to do that. Besides, she's got other ideas in her head for me."

"Lady Sidney, I suppose you mean. From what your mother has written, you seem to want her to think that her wishes are being carried out."

"Sidney and I understand one another. She knows about Viola. I'm very glad she's here. I couldn't have stayed here without her and little Jane. I suppose the beastly world would say that I'm just amusing myself with a pretty girl, as I can't be with the girl I love. They might even think there's some danger in it. But the world doesn't know love as I know it." He turned to Wilbraham with a smile. "What you did, my friend, you and Granny between you, was to unfit me for the society of men. After being with nobody but men for all this time, I'm glad enough to have two girls as my friends before I go back to it. As for Granny, she's arranged all that for me, as she's used to arrange everything, and if she's disappointed with the outcome of it, I'm afraid it can't be helped. It's just that arranging that I have to make my stand against, with as little bother about it as possible."

"I've said already, and I'll say it again, that you're hard on Lady Brent. I fully believe that if you were to tell her about Viola—now—she'd accept it. Then all the secrecy you say you hate would be over."

"I think it's quite possible that she might. I don't think my mother would. In any case, there'd be questions and difficulties. Viola would be discussed and reckoned up in a way I can't bear to think of. When the time comes I shall bring Viola here and say: 'This is the girl I love, and she loves me, though I'm not worth anything beside her.' Then there'll be no questions and no difficulties, and Viola will take her place here, and we shall be happy for the rest of our lives."

"You mean that she'll take Lady Brent's place here, I suppose. It's no good blinking matters."

Harry laughed at him. "You always were a persistent old thing," he said, "but I'm very glad to see you again. Tell me about Viola, and what she said to you."

Wilbraham found himself, somewhat to his surprise in spite of the preparation he had had, in an atmosphere of serenity, and almost of gaiety. There had been nothing like it in all the years he had lived at Royd Castle. He told himself that unless he had known how it was with Harry he would certainly have thought that the pleasure he obviously took in Sidney's society was leading to something else. The Grants were there when he arrived. It was a little intimate friendly happy party of which no single member seemed to have a care upon his or her shoulders. Only Mrs. Brent seemed rather out of the stream. Wilbraham saw that he would be invited on the first opportunity to listen to the tale of Mrs. Brent's dissatisfaction.

It was Grant, however, to whom he first talked alone, walking in the garden. Grant could see nothing on the horizon but a prospective marriage between Sir Harry Brent and Lady Sidney Pawle, which appeared to him eminently as one that should give satisfaction to all parties concerned.

"Of course they won't want to be married yet awhile," he said, "but we're expecting an engagement any day. I must say that it has all turned out in a most extraordinarily satisfactory way. Supposing the boy had done what his father did! He'd seen nobody here; he might very well have got taken in by somebody who wouldn't have been the right sort of person for him to marry when he cut himself loose. And there was just the chance of this one girl being here when he came home. One is inclined to think of Lady Brent managing everything, but she didn't actually manage that. It just came about."

Wilbraham listened to all this, his own thoughts running all the time. Sidney and Jane and Harry were in another part of the garden, out of sight, but not out of hearing. A burst of laughter punctuated the close of the Vicar's speech. "Wouldn't they want to get away by themselves if it's as you think?" Wilbraham asked.

"Ah, my boy, you don't recognize the march of the great passion," said Grant. "I've loved watching those three together, because it is all going as I should have expected."

"Copy in it," suggested Wilbraham.

"Well, that's your way of putting it. But of course one takes in everything that passes before one's eyes, and if it doesn't come out exactly like it, it's——"

"Near enough to look like it. Well, I suppose you've made a study of it, and all the old women who read your immortal works will shiver down their spines and say, 'It was just like that with me.' But I'd rather take Jane's opinion about it than yours."

"Would you? Well, Jane's having the time of her life. They're awfully nice to her. Of course they're just in the state when it's gratifying to have somebody like Jane with them, who thinks there never was anybody like either of them. They flatter each other through her."

"Oh, that's how it's going to be worked out, is it? The old women will love that. It's a new touch, and they'll wish they'd thought of it for themselves, in time. Did Jane tell you it was like that, or was it your own mighty brain?"

"You're jealous of my success, Wilbraham. But I don't mind your jibes. I don't write for the highbrows like you, and I do touch the hearts of thousands. Jane talks to her mother. I shouldn't expect her to talk to me about it."

"Well, what does Mrs. Grant say? She's got some sense."

"She keeps rather quiet about it. I think she's just thankful that Harry has somebody to keep him bright and cheerful while he's at home. You made a mistake, you know, before, in not letting him have young people to play with."

"He had your two."

"As it happened, yes. But they were only children. Jane is older now, but not old enough, fortunately, to have the danger of complications. Apart altogether from the question of a love affair with Lady Sidney, I believe it's the best thing that could happen for him to have those two with him while he's here. It's an awful welter of blood and horror out there, you know, Wilbraham. None of the young fellows who come home talk much about it, but it doesn't need much imagination to see what a healing process it is for anybody like Harry to spend a few weeks with people like those two girls as his chief companions, in a quiet lovely place like this."

"Now you're talking sense yourself for a change. Here's Mrs. Brent coming. Don't leave me alone with her. It's an awful welter of red tape and incompetence where I've just come from, but I don't want her as a healing process till I feel a little stronger."

But the Grants had to be going very shortly, and Mrs. Brent was not to be denied.

Her first address to Wilbraham, however, was not on the subject of her grievances. "Oh, I forgot to tell you when I wrote," she said. "You know that artist—Bastian—who came down here two summers ago?"

"Yes," said Wilbraham, with his heart in his mouth.

"Well, I've found out that he married a great friend of mine—oh, years ago, but I hadn't forgotten her. She died, poor girl, but of course the daughter who was with Mr. Bastian here was hers. I wish I'd known. I'd have gone to see them."

"You wouldn't have wanted to bring that time up, would you?" said Wilbraham, scarcely knowing what to say.

She was all bristles at once. "I think I was very badly treated about all that," she said. "I'd nothing whatever to be ashamed of in what I came from, and all the time it was made to look as if I had. I half believed it myself, but now I know better. Every one of my family is doing well. They're not in the position I'm in, of course, but there's no need to be ashamed of any of them. In fact, I've made up my mind to introduce Harry to his relations on my side of the family. I'm going to ask him to take me up to London before he goes back. Then he'll see for himself."

"Do you think you're wise?" said Wilbraham, relieved at having got away from the subject of the Bastians.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "What's the objection?"

"Well, you say they're not equal to you. They may be very good sort of people; I dare say they are; but what's the sense of dragging them in at this time of the day—after twenty years—to mark the difference?"

"What difference?"

"Well, the difference between them and Lady Brent."

"Lady Brent! How can you talk like that? It's just that I'm so mad with Lady Brent that I——"

"I know it is. All you can think of is to score off her. You're not thinking of Harry; you're not even thinking of yourself. What are you going to get, out of going back on everything you've stood for for the last twenty years? Harry thinks of you as belonging to Royd, in the same sort of way as Lady Brent does. Why should he have ever thought of you as anything different? Now you're proposing to show him the difference. You say yourself they are different. You're going to show him the difference between Lady Brent and them. Which is likely to come out of it best? I don't know; I'm asking you."

"Oh, you're just trying to aggravate me," she said. "You always were like that. I don't know why I talk to you at all."

"Well, if you've finished, I think I'll go in. I want a peaceful time as long as I'm here. You're the only person who doesn't seem to be comfortable and happy. I'd rather be with those of them who are."

"I'm not at all happy. I'm just miserable. Harry doesn't love me any more, and I don't know what to do about it."

They had come to the bowling alley where Wilbraham had thought out his difficulties two summers before. She sank down on to the seat and cried.

Wilbraham felt very sorry for her, but determined to prevent her from making mischief if he could. "Look here," he said, "I don't think it really much matters whether you introduce Harry to your people or not. He's grown up now, and all that idea of keeping things from him is over. Do what you like about it. Lady Brent won't try to stop you; I'm pretty certain of that. She has given up trying to direct his life. Why can't you?"

Her sobs increased. "I'm his mother," she said. "I've had so little of him. I can't give him up now."

"You had him during the whole of his childhood, more than most mothers have their sons. Lady Brent may have been a bit jealous of you; I dare say she was; she's got her weaknesses like all the rest of us. But she didn't try to get him away from you. I was here most of the time, and I could see that plainly enough. You know it too. You'll be much happier about things if you try to be fair to her, as she's tried to be fair to you."

"Oh, of course it's her you're thinking of all the time. I don't come in at all."

"Yes, you do come in. I'm trying to help you to get things straight. The fact is your nose has been put out of joint by this girl who's here. It isn't Lady Brent at all, though you heap it all back on her. You can't expect a boy of Harry's age to go about tied to his mother's apron strings, when there's somebody young for him to play with. You like the girl all right, don't you?"

She had dried her eyes and sat leaning forward in an attitude of picturesque misery. "It doesn't seem to matter whether I like her or not," she said. "Harry won't talk to me about her. If he told me he was in love with her I should do my best to sympathize with him. I want to be everything to my son."

"Of course you do; and of course you can't be. If he hasn't told you he's in love with her, it's because he isn't. For goodness' sake let him be happy while he's here, and in his own way. He'll be going back soon enough, and you won't want him to think of his holiday spoiled by your complaints. You're selfish, you know. It's yourself you're thinking of all the time, not him. You used not to be like that."

"Oh, well," she said, rising, "I suppose I must put up with it. It's the common lot of mothers. I shan't talk about it any more, to you or anybody."

"That's right," said Wilbraham, as they strolled towards the house. "And don't make complaints to Harry, either. It's not the way to get what you want from him. Of course you know that really, as well as I do. Only it's difficult, isn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know," she said. With the end of her emotion she seemed to have entered a mood almost of indifference. "If I've stood what I have all these years, and kept myself under as I have, I suppose I can go on doing it. It's coming down here that has upset me. I've been happy enough in London. Of course I've wanted to hear about Harry, but he's promised me now that he'll write to me regularly. I shall be better off, in a way, than I've ever been. I'm somebody there, you see. Here I'm nobody. I shan't stay here a moment longer than Harry does. I hate the place now. Why have you never been to see me in London?"

"I don't know that you've ever asked me. Where do you live?"

She told him. She was sharing a flat with an old friend, a woman who had been on the stage with her, had had an unhappy married life, but had got on in her profession.

"Margaret Creedy?" said Wilbraham. "I've seen her act. She's very good."

"Yes, you wouldn't have thought she began in the chorus, would you? She never had much voice, which was perhaps just as well for her, or she'd have been in musical comedy still. She doesn't like it remembered, and of course I don't want it known either; but we often talk over old times. It was from her, by the by, that I heard about Mrs. Bastian. She married a gentleman, like I did; but he'd come down in the world. Bastian isn't his real name, you know.".

"What is his real name?"

"I don't know. I meant to find out about him, and go and see what the girl is like. You never told me much about her, but if she's like her mother she ought to be very pretty."

"She is very pretty, but——"

"Oh, you mean I ought not to let them know who I was, as they've been here. Perhaps I shan't. I don't want to give her any handles against me."

"By her I suppose you mean Lady Brent. Everything comes back to her. You'll think better of all that some day. I wish you'd think better of it now. Royd would be a less prickly house to live in."

"Oh, I shall behave myself, never you fear," she said as she left him.

He thought it probable that she would. He had made an impression on her, though she was not of the sort that would acknowledge it. She was evidently making her own life, and even if she had dropped all pretence of war work, for which she had gone to London, it was not a life that would let the name of Brent down, as he had rather feared. Margaret Creedy was an actress of some distinction, and would be very careful not to jeopardize the social position she had won for herself. And Mrs. Brent, for all her independent talk, was guided by a sense of her own importance in the world. Probably the joint establishment was as rigidly respectable as any in London.

As for possible complications with the Bastians, Wilbraham could do nothing. If the revelation came in that way, it must come, and for himself he didn't care when it came. He was tired of all the secrecy, and thought too that Harry was wrong in keeping his secret; or, at any rate, right or wrong in being unwilling to disclose it himself, that it would be better for him if it were known.

He was inclined to dread the talk that he saw coming with Lady Brent. He badly wanted a recreative rest himself, and hated the idea of exercising his brain in steering clear of admissions to her, hated also the idea of deceiving her by doing so, when all the time he was in sympathy with her in her doubts and disappointments. What was done was done. Harry was what he was, and if she had made any mistake in his upbringing, which he did not admit, it would do no good now to dwell on it with regret. Harry was working it all out for himself, and as far as Wilbraham could see, was not making such a bad job of it. He would tell her that, when she began to discuss him, and cut the conversation as short as he conveniently could. Then he would be free to enjoy himself, in the company of the people he liked best in the world, and in the place which seemed to him, coming back to it, a haven of peace and beauty.

But apparently that was all that Lady Brent wanted of him. She told him that Harry seemed much more his old self now that he had been home a week or more, and that she was glad that there was young companionship for him, and beyond that she did not discuss him at all.

So Wilbraham enjoyed his two days at Royd, and went back to his work greatly refreshed, and with most of his doubts about Harry set at rest. He might be longing for Viola all the time, as he had said he was, but he managed to hide it effectually and seemed to be enjoying his holiday as much as anybody.

CHAPTER XXV

MRS. BRENT KNOWS

Royd Castle was empty, except for the servants, for the first time for twenty years. Everybody had gone away, including Lady Brent, who, however, was not very far off, for she was only visiting Lady Avalon for a few days at Poldaven.

To the Grants, left to themselves, after the unusual amount of society they had lately enjoyed, there was a sense of emptiness, though their own summer life was in full swing, and the Vicar had a bright new idea for a novel, which was keeping his thoughts happily employed. There were to be a young man and two girls, and nobody was to know which of the girls the young man was really in love with until the last chapter.

"Of course I got the idea from those three," he told his wife, "although it couldn't be exactly like them. Harry and Sidney might be, but the second girl would have to be older than Jane, but still rather young. She would be a sort of confidante of the other two, who would be inclined to fall in love with one another. Then she would gradually find that she was in love with the young man herself. I should make it rather pathetic, but not overdo it, of course. She would keep her feelings to herself, out of loyalty to her friend. I haven't quite worked it out yet, but the reality would come in a flash. The young man would find that it was she he was in love with. I shouldn't be able to leave the other girl in the air. There might be somebody else for her. It will come all right, now my brain has begun to work on it. I should have to make her very charming, so that it would seem as if the man must be in love with her."

"You mustn't make it too like Harry and Sidney," said Mrs. Grant.

"Oh, I should be careful about that, though their way with each other has been very attractive to watch. They're so frank, and so completely friendly—a very delightful pair of young people I call them. It would be much more effective to have young lovers behaving like that to one another than the usual sort of love affair that one meets with in fiction. The odd thing about it, though, is that they have parted now and nothing has come of it all."

Mrs. Grant laughed. "Perhaps it's because they weren't lovers after all," she said, "and were so frank and friendly with each other because they weren't. You must be careful about that, David."

But he would not admit that Harry and Sidney weren't in love with one another. It was clear for everybody to see. Of course Harry was rather an exceptional young man. That was plain from the way he had come back to Royd as if he were master there already. There was tremendous strength of character in him, and even Lady Brent recognized it, and did not seek to direct him in any way. It was very likely that he had made up his mind that it would not be right to engage himself to Sidney until the war was over. But it was also likely that they had an understanding between themselves. It could hardly be otherwise.

"He has certainly altered," said Mrs. Grant. "He goes his own way as one would hardly have expected of him in some respects. I don't know why he should have wanted to be with Mr. Wilbraham for a week before he went to France. Poor Mrs. Brent was rather sad about it, especially when he wrote to say that he was not coming down again."

"And now she's gone posting up to London to get hold of him. I've no patience with Mrs. Brent. She has greatly deteriorated. Well, I must be getting on with my work. I shall very soon be ready to make a start on the first chapter."

Jane had been very subdued in demeanour since Sidney and Harry had both departed, and frequently sought her mother's company. She came to her this morning, when her lessons were done, and sat with her in the garden as she worked.

"Did father say that there was going to be a great attack on the Germans soon?" she asked, after a little desultory conversation.

"It has been expected for some time. I suppose it can't be long before it comes now."

"I suppose that's why Harry's leave has been cut short. Will there be a great many of our people killed, mother?"

"I'm afraid so, dear."

"Harry might be," said Jane. "He's very brave."

"You mustn't let yourself dwell on that, darling. He has been spared so far."

"Did you know he had been wounded?"

Mrs. Grant looked at her in surprise. "Not seriously," she said.

"Sidney and I both think he was, though he wouldn't tell us, and said we weren't to talk about it. Have you noticed he always keeps his sleeve buttoned when he's playing tennis?"

Mrs. Grant hadn't noticed particularly, but said that she remembered now that he did.

"Well, he's got an awful great scar in his arm. We saw it once by accident. A Turk did it with a bayonet. When we found out, he did tell us a little, and about the time he was in hospital. He told us about an orderly who had been frightfully good to him, and said he saved his life when he was very ill, by nursing him all the time. He liked to talk about him; his name was Tom Weller. Sidney thought he couldn't have been so ill just from a wound in the arm, and then he said he'd had a little shell wound in the body, but he wouldn't tell us any more. We think it must have been a serious one. We found out afterwards that he didn't go to hospital for his bayonet wound at all."

Mrs. Grant was conscious of a feeling of surprise and some discomfort. She knew that Harry was not likely to fail in any of a young man's courageous work, and yet she had thought of him as having got off lightly, except in the hardships of a trooper's life. And that he had never mentioned even the actions in which he had been wounded seemed so to accentuate the division that he had made between himself and those who loved him. He might have died and they would have known nothing. Apparently he had been very near to death. She wondered whether Jane had any theory to account for his unusual reticence about himself.

"I'm very glad Lady Brent will hear about him now," she said. "It's dreadful to think what might have happened when they couldn't have got to him."

"Well, they couldn't, anyhow, when he was in Egypt. He says it was much better that they shouldn't have been anxious about him, and as it turned out there was no need to have been anxious. I must say I'm rather glad we didn't know, though it's horrid to think of our enjoying ourselves at home when Harry was nearly dying. Sidney and I both told him that we wanted to know everything about him now, and he promised to."

"To write to you?"

"Yes; or to let us have a message. You see we're real friends, mother dear. We've had a lovely time together and enjoyed ourselves frightfully; but it hasn't been quite all enjoying ourselves. Sidney and I both know that Harry dreads things. I don't mean being wounded, or anything like that. But everything is so different for him. What we both got to know was that he wanted it to be like it used to be here as much as ever it could be. That's why he won't talk about the war. We could make him forget it; so we were sometimes more lively than we really felt. I'm sure I don't feel at all lively now."

Her mother stole a glance at her, as she sat with a calm face looking out in front of her.

"Well, darling," she said, "you'll have Harry home on leave again. I'm sure both you and Sidney have done a lot for him since he's been home this time. There was a sort of strain on him at first which wasn't there afterwards."

"Did you notice that? I'm very glad. Of course Sidney did more than I did. She was with him more, and she's older. But they were both very sweet to me. I think I did help. I love them both. I love Sidney. I wish——"

She broke off abruptly. "I think I can guess what Sidney's secret is," said her mother, after a pause. "I think she meant me to, you know, when she told you you could tell me that there was a secret."

Jane looked at her eagerly. "I don't suppose she really meant me not to tell you," she said.

"If I've found it out for myself, she wouldn't mind you talking about it. I shouldn't mention it to anybody else. I thought, when you told me, that perhaps she was in love with somebody, and that was why you and she and Harry could all be friends together so happily."

Jane breathed a sigh of relief. "Yes, that's it exactly," she said. "How clever you are, mother! I'm glad you knew. His name is Noel Chancellor. I've seen his photograph. He is very good-looking, but of course not so good-looking as Harry. I can't help thinking that if she'd never seen him she would be in love with Harry."

"Perhaps. But it doesn't always come like that. And he's not in love with her, you see, though there's nobody else, for him."

"No, he isn't." Jane spoke very decisively. "She's such a dear that I did think once that he might have been a little, although he knew about Noel, without being able to help it. But he's not the least little bit. I don't know how I know that, but I do."

"I suppose you know that they think he is, at the Castle."

"Oh, yes. And Lady Avalon will be annoyed when she finds out. But we can't help that."

Mrs. Grant smiled. She loved that "we" that came into Jane's speech. "What about Lady Brent?" she said. "You were such friends with Lady Brent before Harry came home."

"I am still. Of course she wouldn't say anything to me about that. I'm not quite sure that she does expect it. At any rate, I know she was glad for me to be with them. She knew all right that we were helping Harry. Lady Brent sees a lot, though she doesn't talk much."

Mrs. Grant found food for thought in this, and shared it later with Miss Minster. Neither of them had ever been able to make up their minds finally about Lady Brent.

"Supposing she doesn't really expect anything to come of it!" she said. "I'm inclined to trust Jane when she thinks that she doesn't."

"I've liked her much better since she took Jane into her confidence," said Miss Minster. "I'm sorry for her now. I think she lays her plans deeply and then has to sit and do nothing while she sees them fail. But it needs a lot of self-restraint to sit and do nothing. Yes, I'm sorry for her."

"You think Jane is right then?"

"I don't know. Lady Brent would look farther than most people. She wouldn't need to look much farther than I do in this. What I think is that Harry isn't ready for it yet, and won't be till the war is over. When that oppression is removed from him I think he's quite likely to fall in love with Lady Sidney. That's what I think, and I shouldn't wonder if Lady Brent thought the same. Then it wouldn't make her quite so superhuman as she appears. She'd just be waiting."

This view could not be combated without disclosures. As far as it affected Lady Brent it seemed to be the best explanation of her attitude. "Anyhow she's a wonderful woman," said Mrs. Grant, "and I also like her better than I did, although I never disliked her."

"The person I don't like so well," said Miss Minster, "is Mrs. Brent. I hope we've seen the last of her here for the present."

But they had not, for almost immediately she had spoken a telegram was brought in from Mrs. Brent, announcing her arrival that afternoon, and asking Mrs. Grant to take her in, as there was nobody at the Castle. She also asked Mrs. Grant to meet her at Burport, which seemed to indicate that she had something of importance to disclose to her.

She looked scared and unhappy as she greeted her friend on the platform. "I hope you didn't mind my asking you to put me up," she said. "I believe she's coming back to-morrow, and I wanted to have a long talk with you first."

By "she" Mrs. Grant understood her to refer to Lady Brent, whom she seldom referred to in any other way. "I'm very glad to have you," she said. "I hope nothing is wrong. Have you seen Harry?"

"I'll tell you when we get into the carriage."

When they were settled and driving away, she said: "Have I seen Harry? I think you'll be surprised when I tell you how and where I've seen him. I've never had such a shock in my life. I don't know what to do about it. I had to come straight down to see her. She must deal with it. I can't; it's beyond me. I only hope it won't be beyond her. I must tell you all from the beginning."

She entered into a long explanation of how she had written to Harry at Wilbraham's flat where he was staying. He had come to see her, and had been kind but had seemed annoyed with her for coming up to London when he had not expected it. He had told her that he was very much engaged, and could not see much of her before he went abroad. He had not vouchsafed any account of how he was engaged, but had come to see her once again, in the morning, but had refused to stay to lunch or to make any engagement for the evening. She spoke with some resentment, and not as she had ever spoken about Harry before. It was as if she felt more annoyed at being neglected than sorry at not having him with her.

Mrs. Grant sat silent, and she entered on another long explanation about the Bastians, and her early friendship with Bastian's wife. Then Mrs. Grant began to be extremely interested.

"What possessed me to find out all about them just at this time, and go to see the girl, I can't think," she said. "I think it was Providence leading me. I'd forgotten all about Mrs. Clark, the woman they lodge with, being Mrs. Ivimey's sister, and fortunately—or unfortunately—she didn't open the door to me. The maid said she was in, but had a young gentleman with her. She looked rather knowing as she said it, and I thought it would be amusing to see what the young gentleman was like. You can imagine what I felt when she showed me into the room and I found Harry there."

She looked as if she expected an exclamation of surprise at this climax; but Mrs. Grant had already been prepared for it by her rigmarole. "That explains a great deal," she said. "I suppose they had met here."

"Yes, two years ago, when Harry was a boy—hardly more than a child. Could you believe it of him, and keeping it secret all that time, and ever since?"

"What happened?" asked Mrs. Grant, adjusting her thoughts to many things.

"They were sitting side by side on the sofa. I never had such a shock in my life. I could only stand there and stare. She jumped up, of course. I hadn't given my name, and she didn't even know who I was. Harry looked very black, and stood up too. It was as if a sword was piercing my heart to see my son look at me like that."

She paused for a moment. It occurred to Mrs. Grant that she had rehearsed her tale beforehand, and that phrase had come to her as an effective one. It did not seem to represent what she was actually feeling, though it may have represented what she thought she ought to feel.

"I could only gasp out, 'Harry! You here!' He said, 'Yes, mother!' Then he took hold of the girl's hand, and said, 'This is Viola. We have loved each other for a long time.' That was absolutely all he said, and she said nothing, but just looked at me, as if she was frightened, as I dare say she was."

"Oh, I hope you——"

She did not continue. Mrs. Brent would tell her what she had done.

She did not tell her at once, and Mrs. Grant's heart sank as she expatiated further on what she had felt. "The very thing," she said, "that we'd all sacrificed ourselves to prevent, during the whole of Harry's boyhood. I was absolutely stunned. There they stood hand in hand in front of me, and waited for me to say something. And what could I say? Harry—my boy! And a girl like that! Oh, I shall never get over it. And I can't think what she'll say, though there's one thing—she can't blame me for it."

Mrs. Grant had been thinking rapidly. She had heard about Viola from Mrs. Ivimey. Her impression of her had been of a very young and beautiful girl, of whom nice things were said naturally. It needed some little effort of imagination to connect her with Harry, and certainly it was rather surprising that Harry, of all people, should have cherished that kind of secret. But the picture of the pair of them standing there hand in hand waiting for the speech which she dreaded to be told had not come rose before her. "Oh, he couldn't have gone on loving her for two whole years unless she was sweet and good," she said.

Mrs. Brent bridled in offence. "That didn't come in when I was married," she said. "She's no better than I was. Her mother wasn't brought up as I had been, though there was nothing against her. It simply can't be allowed. I can't do anything. Harry won't listen to me. This girl has taken him away from me. Of course it's all explained now—why he was so different to me when he came home—oh, and why he didn't write, and everything. He wrote to her. He is different. She's made him so. He isn't like my son any more. I'm only thankful that it didn't happen, or at least I didn't know about it, while I was living down here."

It seemed probable that she was congratulating herself that the whole of her interests in life were no longer bound up in Harry. This was no very comforting thought to Mrs. Grant. "I wish you'd tell me how it ended," she said.

"It ended in Harry being very unkind to me," she said, with the first signs of real emotion. "He said that if I had taken the girl as my daughter—as if I could have done that!—all the difficulties would have been ended. As it was he would not see me again before he went to France. Young people are very cruel. I'm his mother who have been everything to him, and now I'm nothing. I came away and left him there. It's all over for me. I've lost my son, and this girl who isn't fit for him has got him. But I don't think she'll be allowed to keep him. I shall see her to-morrow. She won't be pleased at the end of all her plotting and scheming. But I shall be surprised if she doesn't think of something that will put an end to it."

CHAPTER XXVI

LADY BRENT SPEAKS

"Yes," said Lady Brent, "I will certainly do something."

Mrs. Brent had told her story. Lady Brent had come home from Poldaven earlier than she had expected. She had gone up to the Castle and found her, somewhat to her surprise, in her business room. Surrounded by that ancient magnificence she had seemed even more aloof and forbidding than on the last time Mrs. Brent had interviewed her there. But this time she had felt herself supported by a sense of conciliation in herself. The fact that after all her struggles and resentments against her mother-in-law she was now, in the crisis of affairs, putting herself in her hands, appealing to her for help, and a decision where she could do nothing herself, would surely soften her. From this interview she at least had nothing to fear for herself.

But the stiff face and the silence with which she listened to the story brought a sense of discomfort. Mrs. Brent ended on a note more appealing than she had intended to use. "He won't listen to me," she said, "but I'm sure he would to you. Can't you do something?"

lady Brent moved in her chair for the first time. "Yes," she said, with a frown, and in a voice that did nothing to remove the discomfort. "I will certainly do something. I will go up to London this evening."

"By the night train," said Mrs. Brent. "Shall I come with you?"

"I think you had better stop here. You have done enough mischief already."

"Mischief! I? What do you mean?" She was surprised and greatly offended, but also a little frightened.

Lady Brent leant towards her accusingly. "He won't do anything for you, you say. Why should he, when you treat him as you do? A vain selfish fool, thinking of yourself all the time and your own mean little pleasures and dignities! Serve you right if you've lost his love for the rest of your life."

All Mrs. Brent's resentments flared up. Lady Brent had been conciliatory towards her of late, with an evident desire to avoid conflict, and she had taken advantage of it and lost some of her awe of her; she had thought of herself almost as having the upper hand, and had come to this interview prepared to treat with her amicably and be generous in making some admissions. But she wanted a row, did she? Very well then, she should have it. All her Cockney fighting spirit was aroused. She had years of oppression to resent and to revenge. She was not under her thumb now, to be browbeaten and kept in her place. She leapt to the opportunity of striking and wounding.

"That's what you'd like," she said, "for me to lose his love. You've tried to take him away from me all his life up till now, and you haven't been able to do it. Now you'll make use of this, somehow, to get your way. But you won't do it. If he won't listen to me, he won't listen to you. I'm a fool, you say. Yes, I was a fool to come to you and think you could do anything. You've worked and worked to have your own way, and now it's ended like this. You'll suffer for it. You'll suffer for it more than I shall."

Lady Brent listened to this, leaning back in her chair again. When she spoke her voice was even, but her face was white and her hands lying in her lap trembled ever so little. If Mrs. Brent's fury had not blinded her, she might have noticed these signs and taken warning from them, for they had never been shown before, even in the sharpest encounters between them.

"Whatever suffering there is to be," said the low decisive voice, "I shall no doubt feel more than you. You're a very poor creature, and as long as you have something in life to amuse you you won't suffer much through others. I've tried to make the best of you, for Harry's sake. You've had your chance with him—a better chance than you could ever have had but for me. Sometimes I've thought it had succeeded to have you here, when I've wished with all my heart that you could be away. But the test has come now, and you've failed. Yes, you've failed, much more than you know. You're upset in your foolish way now, but you think I have only to step in and do something, and it will be put right for you again. It will never be put right."

Mrs. Brent had tried to break in once or twice in the course of this speech, but the level voice had gone on till the end, and the eyes fixed upon her had never wavered. She realized that nothing would be spared her, that whatever dislike and hostility she might choose to express in her anger would be met by a feeling at least as strong, which would find expression now, after being kept under for years, with a force in comparison with which her own powers of attack were as nothing. Already she was affected by it. She glimpsed hatred of her behind the steady utterance. She had talked freely of her own hatred, but it was a terrifying thing to feel it returned.

"I don't know what you're thinking about," she said, half sulkily. "I'd nothing to do with his meeting this girl. I did know her mother, as it happened, but hadn't any idea that it was her mother. It isn't through me any more than through you that he's got himself mixed up with people like that."

"That's all that you can see in it, is it? People like that! You think this girl is like you were, when my poor Harry came across you. I loved my son, far more than you have it in you to love yours, but I know he was weak and foolish; and he was fitly mated. This Harry isn't weak and foolish. Do you think he'd be likely to do what his father did? Is that all you know of him after all these years?"

She tried to control herself. "You may say what you like about me," she said, in a voice that trembled a little. "I know you hate me and always have, for marrying your son, and still more for being Harry's mother. But say what you like, Harry is doing exactly what his father did. Why should you take it for granted that this girl is any different to what I was? It's just your spite against me. You haven't seen her."

"No, but you have."

That hit her like a blow in the face. Always battering at the gates of her mind, to which she had never given it entrance, was the thought that Viola was surprisingly different from herself, surprisingly unlike what she would have expected her mother's daughter to be, though in feature she resembled her.

Still it was true that Lady Brent had not seen her, and could not know. "Her mother was an actress, no better than I was," she said, "—not so good in many ways. Her father is a scene-painter in a theatre, and drinks too. My father was a good man, though he may not have been what you'd call a gentleman. That's what all your wonderful bringing up of Harry has led to. If he'd been brought up more naturally, and not everything and everybody sacrificed to keep him shut up down here, it's very unlikely that this would have happened."

"You think that, do you, in your loving wisdom? You had the boy always before you, and saw what he was growing into. So did I, and I trusted him. You couldn't."

"I don't mind your sneers. At any rate, on the first opportunity he does what any other boy might do. He meets a girl and falls in love with her, and keeps it from us all the time he's meeting her, and afterwards."

"Keeps it from you, I suppose you mean."

"Keeps it from all of us, I said. Did you know any more than I did that he had met this girl down here?"

"Of course I knew."

She could only sit and stare, with her mouth a little open. Whatever she may have thought of, it had never been this.

Lady Brent did not treat her disclosure as a triumph to be dwelt upon. "How could I help knowing?" she went on. "I loved Harry. Nothing could have happened in his life to alter it that I shouldn't have noticed. When I saw that something had happened I waited until it came to me what it was."

"You knew, and you let it go on!" The revelation had taken all the sting out of her. She was more interested than offended.

"Didn't I tell you that I trusted Harry? I knew what he was, if you didn't. I should have known if he had taken a wrong turning in life, and then I should have tried to influence him. When I did know what had happened I knew well enough that he hadn't taken a wrong turning, by the way he bore himself. You couldn't see that. You can't even see it now."

Mrs. Brent's surprise was still strong enough to swamp her resentment at wounding speeches. "Why didn't you do anything afterwards, when he went away?" she asked. "You did do something. You got Sidney Pawle down here. You hoped that she and Harry would fall in love with one another. I know that. You thought they had. I know that too. I think you're making yourself out cleverer than you are, though I don't deny you were clever, if you found out what nobody else did."

"It matters very little to me," said Lady Brent, "what you deny or what you accept. You've made yourself nothing and you are nothing. I believe that this girl Harry loves is worthy of him, or he wouldn't have gone on loving her. But they were both very young. It might have died out of itself. I didn't know whether it had or not. I might have found out, but I wouldn't take any steps to do that. And even if the girl is worthy of him, there are objections otherwise. You have named them yourself. There are no such objections to Sidney Pawle. I should have been glad if Harry's first attachment had worn itself out and he could have married her. Yes, I did hope that they might have fallen in love with one another. You are right there. You are quite wrong in saying that I thought they had. You may have thought so, who knew so little of Harry. I knew very soon that there was something in the way."

Mrs. Brent was beaten. Even resentment no longer moved her. She wanted to ward off further blows, and to propitiate. "When you go up to London, shall you tell Harry that we are ready to recognize his engagement to this Viola Bastian?" she asked.

Lady Brent seemed to take breath. She had given her explanation as to one with whom she might have been talking on equal terms. But there was still punishment to be dealt out, the smouldering fire of years of dislike and contempt, which had been banked up so as only now and then to show a flicker, but now could be allowed to burst into scorching flame.

"Why should I tell you what I mean to do?" she said, with fierce scorn. "Stay where you are till I've put right what you hadn't the sense or the heart to do; and don't meddle. Then you can go where you like and do what you like; only not here. For years I've had to live with you, and bear with your ignorance and vanity and folly, and keep you from going back on what you'd set your hand to of your own free will. I've defended you from your silly selfish self, so that your own son shouldn't see what a thing of naught you were. You've had your chance up to the last moment. Directly it depends upon yourself you can only strike the son you say you love in his tenderest place, and then come snivelling to me to mend the damage you've done. You want me to put myself on your side, and treat him as you did. Be very sure that I shall treat him in no way as you have done. I've stood aside all these years, so as not to take what was owing to you, as I might well have done if I'd lifted a little finger. Now I'll take whatever I've earned. Mend your own broken pieces if you can. I'll do nothing to help you. Live your own useless selfish life. You shall have money for it. But live it away from here. You told me once, in one of your foolish discontented fits, that this house was like a prison to you. You're free of your prison. Go; and do what you like with your liberty."

She rose suddenly, and went out. Mrs. Brent sat for a time where she was, with a white frightened face. Then she went out of the room too, and out of the house, weeping silently. She would not stay there another minute. She would not run the risk of meeting that terrible woman again, who had treated her so wickedly. She would never see her again, and as for taking money from her—she would work her fingers to the bone before she would touch a penny. She went down to the Vicarage, where she poured out her outraged feelings to Mrs. Grant, and gained some consolation from her. A strong cup of tea also did much to comfort her, and after that she went to bed with a headache. Exhausted by the emotions of the day she slept throughout the night, which Lady Brent spent sitting upright in a railway carriage, her endless thoughts running to the steady beat of the train.

Wilbraham met her in London very early in the morning and took her to her hotel. "Harry went off yesterday," he told her. "I sent your telegram on to him, but there has been no answer yet. There may be one to my rooms this morning. But it doesn't very much matter, does it, as long as he knows that you are going to see Viola?"

"If he should be killed!" she said. It was the thought that the iron wheels had dinned into her brain all through the night. She could not help giving it utterance; but she said immediately, "Oh, we mustn't think of that. You have arranged that I am to see the girl this afternoon?"

"Yes, I will take you there. You'll rest during the day, won't you? You must be very tired."

He stole a look at her. She was looking as if the long journey had tried her severely. He had never thought of her as getting old, but now he did.

"Yes, I will rest," she said. "There is nothing else to do. Do you know I haven't been in London for twenty years?"

She was looking out of the window of the taxi-cab, at the London streets beginning to fill up with the day's traffic. She wanted a respite. The innumerable questions he had to ask of her must wait.

He breakfasted with her in her private sitting-room, where they could talk afterwards, if she was so minded, before he went off to his work. She came to it refreshed, and was ready for him when they were alone together.

"Tell me about the girl," she said. "I know she must be good and sweet, and I know that she has helped Harry through his difficult time."

"I can't tell you more than that," he said, "except that she's beautiful, and exactly what you'd want her to be, except perhaps in the matter of her birth. I don't say anything against her upbringing, as it has left her what she is. But you seem to know everything about her already. I've known you for a good many years, but you're always full of surprises. The greatest you've ever given me is when you wired that you'd always known. You must have thought of me as a pretty large size in fools during some of the conversations we used to have. How did you find out, and when?"

She smiled at him. "I think you might have guessed that I knew," she said, "when I let you come to London to find out about Harry, and to get a message to him. I didn't particularly want you to know then, because, to tell you the truth, I did rather hope that it wouldn't continue. I saw that it had done him no harm, but it still might have been nothing more than a pretty boy and girl love-making. Then I shouldn't have wanted him to know that I had surprised his secret."

"No," he said. "You showed infinite wisdom, as you always do. But tell me how you knew."

"Something had happened to Harry. I think I must have guessed it the very first time he met her, or at least when he found out he loved her, and I think that must have been the first time he met her, or why shouldn't he have told us? I was always on the lookout for changes in him, and you see I knew the signs of this change. Harry is much more like my dear husband was, when he was young, than he is like his father. It was only that kind of love that could have made him so happy and so silent and so absorbed. Oh, I knew very soon, and of course I put two and two together, and knew who it was. Afterwards, little pieces of evidence came to me, but I didn't try to seek them, and I didn't need them. Nobody guessed they had met. Nobody knew at Royd, except me—and you."

He laughed ruefully, and told her how and when he had found out. "Perhaps you guessed even before I did," he said. "Were you annoyed with me for keeping it to myself?"

"I knew that you would have told me, if I had given you any encouragement. I didn't want you to tell me. I knew too that you had seen her and must have thought of her as I think now. If you hadn't I think you would have told me anyhow."

He breathed a sigh of relief. "That's off my mind then," he said. "I didn't like keeping anything from you. And I've told Harry more than once that he had nothing to fear from you."

"He couldn't believe that, I suppose. He might have thought that I would behave as Charlotte—that light fool—has behaved."

"You had Harry's letter before you saw her?"

"Yes, but the post is very late at Poldaven. I went home at once, and saw her. On my way to Royd I thought how I could bring some of the truth home to her. I think I made an impression."

Her voice was as quiet as before, but something in its tone caused him to look up. "You didn't spare her, I suppose," he said.

"No, I didn't spare her. I think I was cruel. I know I meant to be. But she's not worth troubling oneself about. Anger is a debasing passion, and I'm not sure that mine was altogether righteous anger. I wanted to make an end of her. I hope for the future I shall need to see very little of her."

He looked grave. "Can't you forgive her, if things go right now?" he asked.

"Oh, forgive her! If I know anything of her—and I ought to by this time—she'll never forgive me. She'll hate me to her dying day, and I care no more than if she loved me. What is the love of a poor thing like that worth? She loved Harry, and what does that amount to?"

"She did love him, though. She did give her life up to him, in the only way she could have done. It wasn't in her to make herself happy living as she did—as we all did—at Royd. But she stuck to it for nearly twenty years."

"Oh, yes. I kept her to that. I was fair to her; I gave her her chance. It would have been an immense relief if she had gone away. If I hadn't been fair to her I could have got rid of her easily enough. She would have gone, and she would never have known that she hadn't gone of her own accord."

He laughed at that. "I think there were times when you nearly allowed yourself to drive her away," he said. "Of course I don't defend what she did. She had a great chance with Harry, and she lost it. But it is hard, I suppose, for mothers to lose their sons after they have been so much to them. There is some excuse for her."

"I don't think there's any," she replied at once. "And as for its being hard on mothers, it's only that kind of mother—foolish and sentimental and selfish—who puts herself into rivalry with the other kind of love, when the time comes for it. The love of a child is very sweet, but it can't last like that much beyond childhood. She'd had it all. She's had it to the full. Nobody tried to deprive her of it, though of course she accuses me of trying to do so. I might have done. I shouldn't have wearied Harry with my love as she has wearied him. I should have been less exigent, less selfish, controlled myself more. She doesn't know, even now, and I shan't take the trouble to tell her, that she doesn't love him nearly as much as she thinks she does. If it weren't for her jealousy she would be quite content to live her own life chiefly apart from him, now he is grown up, and no longer a child to be petted, and to return petting. She has lived her foolish shallow life apart for the last two years, and she has let it be known that she thinks herself raised in living it. Oh, you needn't worry yourself about Charlotte. She hasn't got the depth to feel anything for long."

CHAPTER XXVII

LADY BRENT AND VIOLA

Lady Brent wondered, when Mrs. Clark opened the door to her at Bastian's lodgings, how much was known at Royd of what had already happened in this house. If Mrs. Clark had not discovered who Harry was, which seemed unlikely, and had not seen Mrs. Brent, she knew well enough whom she was admitting now. It was not made plain that she expected the visit, but she expressed no surprise at it, and evidently expected to be recognized. Lady Brent said a few words to her about her sister at Royd, as she was being conducted up the stairs. Everything would come into the light now, and it was much better so.

Viola was alone in the sitting-room. It had been made very tidy, and was filled with flowers. The great red roses might have been Harry's gift to her. The little row of vellum-bound books above the table in her corner certainly were, for Wilbraham had procured them to his order.

Viola stood by the middle table as they entered. She looked very young and very beautiful—all the more beautiful because of the colour that was flooding her delicate skin, and the half-alarmed look in her dark eyes.

Lady Brent waited until the door was shut behind her, searching her with her eyes, and then went forward and kissed her. Viola did not seem to have expected this. She was confused, and there was moisture in her eyes as she greeted Wilbraham, though she smiled at him.

Wilbraham spoke first. "You've had Lady Brent's telegram," he said. "And now she's come herself. Everything is all right, Viola."

Her tears fell. "If Harry loves you, my dear, that's enough for me," said Lady Brent, taking her hand.

"And you can hardly be blamed for loving him," said Wilbraham. "We all love him. I don't know why, but we do."

She laughed, as she was meant to do, and dried her tears. "I've had a telegram from him," she said. "He sent you his dear love."

Lady Brent showed her pleasure. "I wish he'd told me sooner," she said. "You might have been with him at Royd."

"We've all been making a mistake, Viola," said Wilbraham. "I suppose I'm most to blame, because I've had this lady under observation for a good many years, and might have known that nothing so important as you could have escaped her."

He wanted to keep the interview on a light key, at least until talk should flow between them. They had both been through a good deal during the last few days, but the trouble was ended now, and the sooner it could be forgotten the better.

Lady Brent and Viola were sitting side by side on the sofa. Lady Brent was not quite ready for the lighter note. "You know that Harry's bringing up was different from that of other boys," she said. "It was owing to me that it was so, and though I tried to avoid the appearance of dominating him, I could hardly escape being looked upon as a person who might take a decisive line either with him or against him. But I can say very truly that my guiding rule was love for him. I love Harry very much, and I have trusted him too. I wouldn't have stood out against him in anything that he had a right to decide for himself."

"I'm afraid it was I at first who wanted to keep our secret to ourselves," Viola said. "Or at least perhaps not quite at first, for then we didn't think about it; but when we first found out that we loved one another. I think he would have told you then, but I knew more about the world than he did, and I didn't think that you would want us to go on loving one another. Afterwards I did what he wanted."

"We all do what Harry wants," said Wilbraham. "He has that sort of way with him. I've done it myself, when I ought to have stood out."

"Harry is very happy now," said Viola. "He sent me a long telegram. Would you like to see it?"

"No," said Lady Brent, marking the motion she made with her hand, which showed the warm nest in which Harry's telegram was reposing. "Keep it for yourself. I want to ask you if you'd like to come down to Royd now, or wait till Harry can bring you. You will have a warm welcome whichever you like to do. He might like to know you are there."

"I expect the claims of the government service will have to come first, unreasonable as it may appear," said Wilbraham, marking her slight hesitation. "I know they have to with me."

"I couldn't get away just now," she said. "And in August I was going away for a fortnight with father—if Harry is all right."

That was what lay like a shadow over the brightness brought by the recognition of her. The war was to be finished by that hoarded effort for which those who knew were breathlessly waiting. But the hoard was chiefly of men, and much of it must be scattered if success was to be gained by it.

Lady Brent made no pretence of taking it anything but seriously. "I have friends at the War Office," she said. "We should get news at Royd as soon as in London, perhaps sooner." She made no allusion to the other reason that Viola had given. How did Harry regard Bastian? She had talked that over with Wilbraham. They did not know even if he had met him. He was not to be asked to Royd until Harry gave the word.

Viola still seemed to be hesitating, and Lady Brent took her hesitation to mean that she would rather not come to Royd without Harry, and accepted it at once. She talked to her about Harry, and presently Viola was talking about him too, filling her hungry ears with news of the times at which she had missed him.

Viola knew that he had been wounded, though he had kept it from her at the time. "He was very ill after the second wound," she said. "A man who was with him wrote to me when he couldn't, and I got a telegram to say he was better before I got the letter, so I wasn't so unhappy as I might have been. I don't think he would have got through that if he hadn't been so splendidly strong and young, and hadn't been so devotedly nursed. All the men he was with loved him, and this one never left him."

Lady Brent would not let it be seen how much this news of his past danger moved her. Here was a thing for which none of her searching thoughts had prepared her. "He has told us scarcely anything of what has been happening to him," she said. "It seemed to lie upon him heavily."

"It doesn't now," said Viola. "Being at Royd has brought him back. He has told me all about Jane and Sidney. Do you think I might write to Jane now, and tell her about us?"

Lady Brent was struck by her entire absence of jealousy. She might have felt sad that the healing process had not been all her own work. It showed how unselfishly she loved him, and how sure she was of him.

"Jane is a loyal little soul," she said. "She will be very pleased to hear from you, I know." She smiled at Viola. "The one thing I never quite gauged at its proper value was the companionship of young people. I think now that he ought to have had more of it. But he seemed so happy, with all his own pursuits."

"Oh, he was happy, I know," she said, eagerly. "It is wonderful to hear him talk of his life at Royd. Perhaps I'm not altogether sorry I was nearly the first, because I got it all. Harry isn't like anybody else that ever lived. He's wonderful. He couldn't have been quite the same if he hadn't been brought up always in that beautiful place, and left a great deal to himself and the woods and the hills and the sea."

"I am glad you think of it like that," said Lady Brent. "But I have been troubled by something he said to me when he first came home. His upbringing has made him what he is, but there are many things it didn't prepare him for. I think he was dreading going out again, as an officer. He doesn't know other young men of his class. He is so different from them, and they want everybody to be alike. With the men of simpler lives that he has lived with and fought with he would have made his way more easily."

"Yes," said Viola. "I was very sad at first to think of him thrown into that rough hard life, but I needn't have been. And I think now he is happier about the other."

She looked at Wilbraham, who said: "We've had it out, we three together. It's not as serious as you have been thinking. You must remember that he hasn't been with young men of his own sort at all; and in the ranks of course he'd look at them from another angle altogether; and perhaps he wouldn't like everything he saw about them—his officers, I mean. That's all it is, really—a diffidence about how he's going to fit in with them. But of course he'll make his way, with the other subalterns and people, just as he did with the men. There's so much character in him, as well as everything that young men do value in each other. I think we persuaded him that he'd be a good deal better off than he has been, didn't we, Viola?"

"Oh, he didn't want very much persuasion. He said he had been worrying himself about things that didn't really matter. But he was so much happier about everything when he came back from Royd. I don't think even I could have done that—not alone. It would just have been we two, keeping out of the world together. And poor Harry is in the world now."

"Yes," said Wilbraham, "and well fitted to cope with it. Of course it came as a shock to him at first. It would have done that anyhow, and he would have had to square his accounts with it by himself, before he could have felt himself at his ease. We couldn't have helped him. If you're still troubling yourself about having made mistakes, dear lady, I don't think you need. You made very few. You forged the good steel in him, but it had to be tempered."

This view of it comforted her. "We shall all be very happy now," she said.

When they had talked a little longer, Bastian came in.

Lady Brent rose from the sofa, and they stood looking at one another for an instant before Bastian shook hands with her, with a laugh. "I wasn't prepared for this," he said. "Have you known who I was?"

"No," she said. "Your people thought you were on the other side of the world."

"I meant them to," he said. "I'd no use for my people, after the way they behaved to me. I took rather an absurd name, which was the last they would recognize me under if they ever came across it, which seemed unlikely."

Viola and Wilbraham were in bewilderment. "Lady Brent and I used to know one another in the old days," Bastian said to Viola. "It shows how I've cut myself off from that world that I didn't even know she was Lady Brent." He turned to Lady Brent. "It did once occur to me, after we'd been to Royd, to go to a Public Library and find out who you were, from a book. But I forgot all about it. I'm a thorough Bohemian you see, and more comfortable so."

His light tone did not please her. "If I had known who you were," she said, "when you came to Royd, we should have met, and I should have known Viola before."

His face changed as he looked quickly from her to Viola. "I'm glad you've made friends now," he said. "All the same, I doubt if you would have taken to her two years ago. I've got too far away from what I was when you knew me."

"Well, it wouldn't have been you so much that we should have thought about," said Wilbraham.

Bastian laughed. "You needn't worry about me now," he said to Lady Brent. "I'll own that I have had ideas of fighting you when the time came. I should rather have enjoyed it. I think quite as highly of Viola as you do of your grandson, and I was going to tell you so. But—well, I'm glad to know there's no necessity. I think you've behaved well; but I remember that you always had the reputation of behaving well. You'll get some reward for it in this instance, for you know without my having to take the trouble to prove it to you that Viola's birth is as good as her manners, and as for me I shall not intrude upon you with my debased habits when I've once handed Viola over."

"I used to like you as a little boy," said Lady Brent, calmly. "You were mischievous and perverse, and afterwards gave a great deal of trouble to your parents, who had not deserved it; but I don't suppose your habits are so debased as you pretend they are. I shall be very glad if you will bring Viola down to Royd when you take your holiday, if she cares to come. I think Harry would like to know that she is there."

Then Viola accepted the invitation, and Bastian did not refuse it, though he said that it was many years since he had stayed in a country house, and he didn't think he should remember the rules.

Lady Brent told Wilbraham about him afterwards, what his family was and where they came from, which was near her own girlhood's home. "I must say that I am relieved," she said. "On her father's side her birth to all intents and purposes is as good as Harry's, and on her mother's it is no worse. It counts for something. I married before Michael—that is his real name, and I suppose suggested the Angelo to his freakish imagination—before he grew up, but I was always hearing stories of his wildness and extravagance afterwards. There was never much real harm in him, and there were some very good qualities to balance what harm there was. His parents were over-strict with him, but they were fond of him, and I think if he hadn't taken offence at their attitude towards his marriage, in which of course they were amply justified, they would have come round in time."

"It may have been better for him that they didn't," said Wilbraham. "He's had to make his own living, which has probably been salutary for him, and his responsibility to Viola has kept him fairly straight. I wish he didn't drink quite so much whisky or smoke such vile tobacco, but drink hasn't taken hold of him so much as I thought it had at one time. If he had been anything like what you'd call a drunkard it would have affected Viola more. What do you think of Viola?"

"I'm glad she came to Royd, and that Harry met her," she said.

CHAPTER XXVIII

IN THE BALANCE

So far Harry had been brought in his life's story.

The gods had showered their gifts upon him. They had given him strength and beauty; a mind quick to receive their messages and eager to interpret them; a heart that went out to others and drew others to it; largesse of temporal favours, which they scatter here and there but are apt to withhold from those whom they endow with their choicest gifts. His manhood had been tried in a hard school, had been established and wrought to finer issues by it. He had known great happiness, and also suffering both of mind and body, without which happiness itself is but a monochrome. He had entered the high courts of love, and worshipped in them devoutly.

For what had they prepared him, on whom they had smiled, not so uniformly as to soften his fine fibre, but as if they would have cherished so rare an example of their handiwork, and led it towards still higher desert of their bounties? Would they not watch over him and preserve him from the ultimate dangers which youth was plunging to meet at this point in the world's long history? Or is the world's history itself a mere point in time, as it unrolls itself before their unwearying eyes, so that it matters not what destruction may be wrought in it, since there is infinity in which to forge new combinations of flesh and brain and fortune?