The Hermit of Far End Part 8

"I shall always be pleased with the woman who makes Tim happy," she answered simply.

Durward was silent a moment; then he returned to the attack.

"She's a very pretty young woman, don't you think?"

"Sara? No, I shouldn't call her exactly pretty. Her face is too thin, and strong, and eager. But she is a very uncommon type--like a black and white etching, and immensely attractive."

It was several days before Sara was able to introduce the topic of Tim's profession, but she contrived it one afternoon when she and Elisabeth were sitting together awaiting the return of the two men for tea.

"It will be profession enough for Tim to look after the property,"

Elisabeth made answer. "He can act as agent for his father to some extent, and relieve him of a great deal of necessary business that has to be transacted."

She spoke with a certain finality which made it difficult to pursue the subject, but Sara, remembering Tim's suddenly hard young eyes, persisted.

"It's a pity he cannot go into the Army--he's so keen on it," she suggested tentatively.

A curious change came over Elisabeth's face. It seemed to Sara as though a veil had descended, from behind which the inscrutable eyes were watching her warily. But the response was given lightly enough.

"Oh, one of the family in the Service is enough. I should see so little of my Tim if he became a soldier--only an occasional 'leave.'"

"He would make a very good soldier," said Sara. "To my mind, it's the finest profession in the world for any man."

"Do you think so?" Elisabeth spoke coldly. "There are many risks attached to it."

Sara experienced a revulsion of feeling; she had not expected Elisabeth to be of the fearful type of woman. Women of splendid physique and abounding vitality are rarely obsessed by craven apprehensions.

"I don't think the risks would count with Tim," she said warmly. "He has any amount of pluck." And then she stared at Elisabeth in amazement.

A sudden haggardness had overspread the elder woman's face, the faint sh.e.l.l-pink that usually flushed her cheeks draining away and leaving them milk-white.

"Yes," she replied in stifled tones. "I don't suppose Tim's a coward.

But"--more lightly--"I think I am. I--don't think I care for the Army as a profession. Tim is my only child," she added self-excusingly. "I can't let him run risks--of any kind."

As she spoke, an odd foreboding seized hold of Sara. It was as though the secret dread of _something_--she could not tell what--which held the mother had communicated itself to her.

She shivered. Then, the impression fading as quickly as it had come, she spoke defiantly, as if trying to rea.s.sure herself.

"There aren't many risks in these piping times of peace. Soldiers don't die in battle nowadays; they retire on a pension."

"Die in battle! Did you think I was afraid of that?" There was a sudden fierce contempt in Elisabeth's voice.

Sara looked at her with astonishment.

"Weren't you?" she said hesitatingly.

Elisabeth seemed about to make some pa.s.sionate rejoinder. Then, all at once, she checked herself, and again Sara was conscious of that curiously secretive expression in her eyes, as though she were on guard.

"There are many things worse than death," she said evasively, and deliberately turned the conversation into other channels.

During the days that followed, Sara became aware of a faintly perceptible difference in her relations with Elisabeth. The latter was still just as charming as ever, but she seemed, in some inexplicable way, to have set a limit to their intimacy--defined a boundary line which she never intended to be overstepped.

It was as though she felt that she had allowed Sara to approach too nearly some inner sanctum which she had hitherto guarded securely from all intrusion, and now hastened to erect a barricade against a repet.i.tion of the offence.

More than once, lately, Sara had broached the subject of her impending departure from Barrow, only to have the suggestion incontinently brushed aside by Major Durward, who declared that he declined to discuss any such disagreeable topic. But now, sensitively conscious that she had troubled Elisabeth's peace in some way, she decided to make definite arrangements regarding her immediate future.

She was agreeably surprised, when she propounded her idea, to find Mrs.

Durward seemed quite as unwilling to part with her as were both her husband and son. Apparently the alteration in her manner, with its curiously augmented reticence, was no indication of any personal antipathy, and Sara felt proportionately relieved, although somewhat mystified.

"We shall all miss you," averred Elisabeth, and there was absolute sincerity in her tones. "I don't see why you need be in such a hurry to run away from us." And Geoffrey and Tim chorused approval.

Sara beamed upon them all with humid eyes.

"It's dear of you to want me to stay with you," she declared. "But, don't you see, I _must_ live my own life--have a roof-tree of my own? I can't just sit down comfortably in the shade of yours."

"Pushful young woman!" chaffed Geoffrey. "Well, I can see your mind is made up. So what are your plans? Let's hear them."

"I thought of taking rooms for a while with some really nice people--gentlefolk who wanted to take a paying guest--"

"Poor but honest, in fact," supplemented Geoffrey.

Sara nodded.

"Yes. You see"--smiling--"you people have spoiled me for living alone, and as I'm really rather a solitary individual, I must find a little niche for myself somewhere." She unfolded a letter she was holding. "I thought I should like to go near the sea--to some quite tiny country place at the back of beyond. And I think I've found just the thing. I saw an advertis.e.m.e.nt for a paying guest--of the female persuasion--so I replied to it, and I've just had an answer to my letter. It's from a doctor man--a Dr. Selwyn, at Monkshaven--who has an invalid wife and one daughter, and he writes such an original kind of epistle that I'm sure I should like him."

Geoffrey held out his hand for the letter, running his eyes down its contents, while his wife, receiving an a.s.senting nod from Sara in response to her "May I?" looked over his shoulder.

Only Tim appeared to take no interest in the matter, but remained standing rather aloof, staring out of the window, his back to the trio grouped around the hearth.

"'Household . . . myself, wife, one daughter,'" muttered Geoffrey.

"Um-um--'quarter of a mile from the sea'--um----'As you will have guessed from the fact of my advertising'"--here he began to read aloud--"'we are not too lavishly blessed with this world's goods. Our house is roomy and comfortable, though abominably furnished. But I can guarantee the climate, and there are plenty of nicer people than ourselves in the neighbourhood. It wouldn't be fitting for me to blow our own particular household trumpet--nor, to tell the truth, is it always calculated to give forth melodious sounds; but if the other considerations I have mentioned commend themselves to you, I suggest that you come down and make trial of us.'"

"Don't you think he sounds just delightful?" queried Sara.

Manlike, Geoffrey shook his head disapprovingly.

"No, I don't," he said decisively. "That's the most unbusinesslike letter I've ever read."

"_I_ like it very much," announced Elisabeth with equal decision. "The man writes just as he thinks--perfectly frankly and naturally. I should go and give them a trial as he suggests. Sara, if I were you."

"That's what I feel inclined to do," replied Sara. "I thought it a delicious letter."

Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders resignedly.

"Then, of course, if you two women have made up your minds that the man's a natural saint, I may as well hold my peace. What's the fellow's address?--I'll look him up in the Medical Directory. Richard Selwyn, Sunnyside, Monkshaven--that right?"

He departed to the library in search of Dr. Selywn's credentials, presently returning with a somewhat rueful grin on his face.

"He seems all right--rather a clever man, judging by his degrees and the appointments he has held," he acknowledged grudgingly.

"I'm sure he's all right, a.s.serted Sara firmly.