The Lady Evelyn Part 8

"Them boys is born in a hurry and that's how they'll die, James. Just take a mouthful of that wine. I'm sampling it for the guvner. This'll be from him, no doubt."

To do the excellent man justice, it must be admitted that he had been sampling that particular wine during the last twenty years, and still found it necessary to continue his task before he could give a definite opinion. The telegram was another matter. Mr. Griggs read it by the aid of an immense pair of horn-rimmed spectacles, and, having read it, he uttered that exclamation he was wont to employ only upon the very greatest occasions.

"G.o.d bless my poor old gray hairs if her ladyship ain't returning this very evening. Whatever can have put it into her wicked little head to do that? Derby station at eleven-forty, and Fletcher gone haymaking to Matlock. I shouldn't wonder if the beast had been drinking," he added pompously.

James, the footman, admitted that it was very embarra.s.sing.

"I've lived in many families, Mr. Griggs," he said, "and a deal of human nater I've learned. But this 'ere family is wholly a masterpiece. Your good health, sir, and I'm sure I wish you blessings."

"It's easier to wish 'em than to bring 'em," replied the philosopher Griggs. "Where's Partigan now and what's she doing?"

"She's a-partic.i.p.atin' in the Floral fete at the Bath-Dianner in a motor-car or something of that sort."

"She went over with Fletcher, no doubt. That's how his lordship's interests are served in his absence. Is Molly in the 'ouse, James?"

"She was takin' her singin' lesson from the horganist of Moretown half an hour ago."

"Let her sing upstairs with the warmin' pan, and quick about it too. I suppose the shuffer's not in?"

"Gone to Derby to see Mr. Wilson Barrett eat up by lions----"

"Then we'll have to send Williams, the groom, and make a tale. Lord, what a 'ouse to look after. I feel sometimes as such responsibulness will break me up into small coal, James. Just ring that bell and send Molly here. I'll give her a singin' lesson as she won't soon forget."

There never was such a ringing of bells, certainly never such a scampering of overfed menials as the next hour witnessed at the Manor.

Hither and thither they went: Molly up the stairs to look out the sheets, Williams, the groom, to get the single brougham ready, James to set the boudoir straight ("with me own 'ands I done it," he said to Partigan, the lady's maid, afterwards, as though ordinary he did it with other people's hands, which was a true word), Griggs to put away his decanter and enter the kitchen in mighty splendor. Not only this, but stable-boys upon bicycles went flying off to Matlock and Derby to bear the tidings to the absentees.

"Her ladyship a-comin' home," said Partigan when she heard it; "well, that do beat the best!"

"I've always said," Griggs remarked to James, when the first moments of agitation had pa.s.sed, "I've always said the Lady Evelyn isn't ordinary.

Just look at the antics she'd be a-doin' by herself when she thought no one was lookin' at her in the park. Carrying on like a play actress, she was, and me hidin' behind a tree, mortal feared of her throwin' of herself into my arms by mistake. What his lordship would say if I told him of this 'ere, the cherubims above us only knows, James."

"You surely ain't goin' to tell him, Mr. Griggs?"

Griggs tapped his breast with a heavy fist that seemed to make a drum of it.

"A lady's secret--they'd have to cut it out of my bussum, James."

"Then you don't think, perhaps, as she's been staying with Miss Forrester at all?"

This, however, was the beginning of a suggestion which the worthy Griggs would not tolerate at all from one he styled a menial.

"What I think is my own affair. Take my advice and hold your tongue, James. When you get to my time of life you'll know that the less you say about the ladies the better for your good health. Go and get the dining-room ready. She'll be in a rare tantrum when she comes back.

They always are when they've been up in London enjoyin' of theirselves.

His lordship himself is good cayenne after a week on the Continent.

It's enough to make a man take to drink almost."

The reservation was wise, for certainly Mr. Griggs had "almost" taken to drink on many occasions, stopping at the second bottle on a benevolent plea of moderation. This particular occasion, however, was not to prove one for extreme remedies as subsequent events quickly demonstrated. Having seen that all had been prepared, both within and without the house, he composed himself to a comfortable nap in his arm-chair and again had begun to dream of a rich uncle in Australia (whose continued good health he found most provoking), when a loud ringing of bells and a sound of voices in the quadrangle instantly brought him to a state of recollection, and he sat bolt upright and stared wildly at the grandfather's clock in the corner of his pantry as though its fingers reproached his tardiness.

"A quarter to two o'clock. G.o.d bless my poor old head. It must be her ladyship. A quarter to two o'clock. What would her father say to it?"

It was her ladyship, as he said--very tired, very pale, strangely quiet, and with frightened eyes, such as neither Griggs nor anyone in that house had looked upon before. Amazed to see her, dressed in no way for travelling, carrying no other luggage than the purse in her hand, the old butler simply stared as he would have stared at any bogey of Melbourne come suddenly upon him in the witching hours.

"I welcome your ladyship home," he stammered, looking anything but a welcome from his inquiring eyes, and then, most inaptly, he continued: "The trains is very late for the time of year, I must say, my lady."

Lady Evelyn merely said:

"Yes, I am dreadfully late, Griggs. Don't let anyone be disturbed. I could not touch anything to-night. My luggage is to be forwarded from London. Please see that everything is locked up. I am going straight to my room, and shall not want anything at all."

Griggs did not really know what to make of it.

"She was as white as a sheet," he told the kitchen afterwards, "and she asked me to lock up the 'ouse. Now, am I in the 'abit of leavin' the doors open or do I see 'em shut regular? Mark my words, Partigan, there's something more than her luggage she's left in London, and the sooner his lordship takes it out of the cloakroom the better."

Here was something to set the servants' hall by the ears beyond possibility of discretion. Williams, the groom, who had driven her ladyship home, added an ingredient to the sauce of their curiosity which proved appetizing beyond measure.

"There was a young man at the station wot kept hopping about us just like a 'oss about a hayrick," said he. "I could see she didn't want to take much notice on him, but what was I to do? If he'd have opened his lips, I could have given him something for hisself. But he didn't say nothing to n.o.body and all she says was, 'Drive on at once, Williams, and don't stop for anyone.' Be sure I made the old 'oss slip it. He come along for all the world as though he were riding to 'ounds and me in the first flight."

Williams, be it observed, had not exaggerated at all. There had been a young man at the station and Lady Evelyn had been very frightened by him. What is more remarkable is the fact that she was perfectly well aware of his ident.i.ty and knew him beyond a shadow of doubt for the apparent nonagenarian who had been so persistent at St. Pancras. That white-haired old man and the youth who appeared before her suddenly at her journey's end were certainly one and the same person. The only conclusion possible was this, that she had been watched closely in London and followed thence.

"It must be Count Odin," she said to herself, and upon this she tried to reason out a secret of which the key lay far from her possession.

Why should the man have been at such pains to follow her if he knew her father's name, as he pretended he did? It never occurred to her untrained mind that a foreigner recently arrived from Bukharest might be quite unaware of the ident.i.ty of Robert Forrester and altogether ignorant of the fact that he was Robert Forrester no longer, but had become, by a strange accident of fortune, the third Earl of Melbourne, Baron Norton, and heaven and Burke know what besides. Here had been the Count's difficulty. He had searched every directory in vain for the whereabouts of a man he had now made it his life's purpose to discover. Knowing scarcely anyone in London, and having no particular desire to declare his presence to the Roumanian _charge d'affaires_, his quest had been profitless until chance brought him face to face with the Lady Evelyn in the Strand. Instantly he had resolved never to lose sight of her until he had discovered Robert Forrester's house, and had asked of him that question the answer to which should tell him if his own father were alive or dead.

The Lady Evelyn, upon her part, had no share of the story, save that which her own eyes and the Count's brief words had told her. He had spoken in London of her father, it is true; but there had been no betrayal of a warm anxiety to meet him, nor had he mentioned the name except as a pa.s.sport to Evelyn's confidence. The fact that she had been followed from town to Derbyshire disquieted her exceedingly by the very pains which had been taken to conceal it. No longer could she believe that Count Odin had been fascinated by her acting and had foolishly fallen in love with her. Something lay beyond, and her clever brain divined it to be a thing dangerous both to her father and to herself.

So it was not Etta Romney but my Lady Evelyn, grave and stately, and dreadfully afraid of her own secret and of another's, who returned to Melbourne Hall, and, declining the attentions of her servants, went straight up to her bedroom, but not to sleep. Whatever danger threatened her must speedily declare itself, she thought. It was even possible that the morrow would bring it to her doors.

And if it came, her father would know that Etta Romney had been "presented" by Mr. Charles Izard at a London theatre and that she was his daughter.

He would never forgive her, she thought. It might even be that he would call her his daughter no more.

CHAPTER IX

THE THIRD EARL OF MELBOURNE

There is hardly a pleasanter room in all England than the old Chamber of the Tapestries they use as a breakfast room at Melbourne Hall.

Situated in the west wing of the great quadrangle, and giving off immediately from the famous long gallery, its tiny latticed cas.e.m.e.nts permit a view which reveals at once all the cultivated beauty of the gardens and the wild woodland scenery of the park beyond, in a vista which never fails to win the admiration of the stranger, as it has won the love of many generations who have inhabited that historic mansion.

It is not a large room, but it tells much of the story of the house, its triumphs, its misfortunes, and its glories. Here you have the time-stained arms of John, the first baron, whose cinquefoil azure upon a crimson banner had been carried high at Agincourt; here were the crosslets fitchee of the House of Mar, whose feminine representative had come south to wed the third baron in the days of good King Hal.

Fair fingers had worked these tapestries long ago, waiting, perchance, for news of husband or lover whom the wars had claimed, or fighting for a King whose son would laugh at their story of fidelity. It had been my lady's bower then, and knights and squires had doffed their caps as they pa.s.sed its doors. To-day they gave it no n.o.bler name than breakfast room, and therein, at half-past eight every morning, the Earl of Melbourne, more punctual than the clock itself, sat down to breakfast.

Now, here was a man who had been an adventurer all his life, a man of the field, the forest, and the sea; a bluff bearded man, not unrefined in face and feature, but utterly unsuited by the disposition of his will to the dignity which accident had thrust upon him, and resenting it every hour that he lived.

"What are we but slaves of our birth?" he would ask his daughter pa.s.sionately. "Why am I cooped up in this old house when I might be on the deck of a good ship or under canvas in the Alleghany Mountains?

You say that nothing forbids my doing it. You know it isn't true. The world would cry out on me if I cut myself adrift. And you yourself would be the first to complain of it. We owe it to society, Evelyn, to make ourselves miserable for the rest of our lives. They call it 'station' in the prayer-book, but the man who wrote that had never shot big game on the Zambesi or he'd have sung to a different tune."

Sometimes when Evelyn protested that society would really remain indifferent whatever they did, he would reply, a little brutally, that when she had found a husband it would be another matter.