The Mating of Lydia Part 20

said Melrose, in his most determined voice.

"Of course, if you persist in asking him to stay, I suppose he must ultimately decide." Undershaw's tone betrayed his annoyance. "But I warn you, I reserve my own right of advice. And moreover--supposing you do furnish this room for him, allow me to point out that he will soon want something else, and something more, even, than a better room. He will want cheerful society."

"Well?" The word was challenging.

"You are most kind and indefatigable in coming to see him. But, after all, a man at his point of convalescence, and inclined to be depressed--the natural result of such an accident--wants change, intellectual as well as physical, and society of his own age."

"What's to prevent his getting it?" asked Melrose, shortly. "When the room is in order, he will use it exactly as he likes."

Undershaw shrugged his shoulders, anxious to escape to his consultation.

"Let us discuss it again to-morrow. I have told you what I think best."

He turned to go.

"Will you give that order to Barclay?"

Undershaw laughed.

"If I do, I mustn't be taken as aiding and abetting you. But of course--if you wish it."

"Ten o'clock to-morrow," said Melrose, accompanying him to the door. "Ten o'clock, sharp." He stood, with raised forefinger, on the threshold of the newly opened room, bowing a stiff farewell.

Undershaw escaped. But as he turned into the pillared hall, Nurse Aston hurriedly emerged from Faversham's room. She reported some fresh trouble in one of the wounds on the leg caused by the accident, which had never yet properly healed. There was some pain, and a rise in temperature.

The unfavourable symptoms soon subsided. But as the fear of blood-poisoning had been in Undershaw's mind from the beginning, they led him to postpone, in any case, the arrangements that had been set on foot for Faversham's departure. During three or four days afterward he saw little or nothing of Melrose. But he and Nurse Aston were well aware that unusual things were going on in the house. Owing to the great thickness of the walls, the distance of Faversham's room from the scene of action, and the vigilance of his nurse, who would allow no traffic whatever through the front hall, the patient was protected from the noise of workmen in the house, and practically knew nothing of the operations going on. Melrose appeared every evening as usual, and gave no hint.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, Melrose met Undershaw in the hall, as he entered the house.

"How is he?"

"All right again, I think, and doing well. I hope we shall have no further drawbacks."

"Be good enough to give me ten minutes--before you see Mr. Faversham?"

The invitation could not have been more _grand-seigneur_ish. Undershaw, consumed with curiosity, accepted. Melrose led the way.

But no sooner had they pa.s.sed a huge lacquer screen, newly placed in position, and turned into the great corridor, than Undershaw exclaimed in amazement. Melrose was striding along toward the south wing. Behind them, screened off, lay regions no longer visible to any one coming from the hall. In front, stretched a beautiful and stately gallery, terminating in a pillared window, through which streamed a light to which both it and the gallery had been strangers for nearly a score of years. A ma.s.s of thick shrubbery outside, which had grown up close to the house, and had been allowed for years to block this window, together with many others on the ground floor, had been cut sheer away. The effect was startling, and through the panes, freed from the dust and cobwebs of a generation, the blue distant line of the Pennines could be distinctly seen far away to the southeast. The floor of the gallery was spread with a fine matting of a faint golden brown, on which at intervals lay a few old Persian or Indian rugs. The white panelling of the walls was broken here and there by a mirror, or a girandole, delicate work of the same date as the Riesener table; while halfway down two Rose du Barri tapestries faced each other, glowing in the June sun. It was all s.p.a.cious--a little empty--the whole conception singularly refined--the colour lovely.

Melrose stalked on, silently, pulling at his beard. He made no reply to Undershaw's admiring comments; and the doctor wondered whether he was already ashamed of the impulse which had made him do so strange a thing.

Presently, he threw open the door he had unlocked the week before, Undershaw stepped into a room no less attractive than the gallery outside. A carpet of old Persian, of a faded blue--a few cabinets s.p.a.ced along the walls--a few bookcases full of books old and new--a pillared French clock on the mantelpiece--a comfortable modern sofa, and some armchairs--branches of white rhododendron in a great enamelled vase--and two oval portraits on the walls, a gentleman in red, and a gentleman in blue, both pastels by Latour--in some such way one might have catalogued the contents of the room. But no catalogue could have rendered its effect on Undershaw, who was not without artistic leanings of a mild kind himself--an effect as of an old debt paid, an injustice remedied, a beautiful creation long abused and desecrated, restored to itself. The room was at last what it had been meant to be; and after a hundred and fifty years the thought of its dead architect had found fruition.

But this was not all. The garden door stood open, and outside, as he walked up to it, Undershaw saw a stretch of smooth gra.s.s, with groups of trees--the survivors of a ragged army--encircling it; a blaze of flowers; and beyond the low parapet wall of lichened stone, from which also a dense thicket of yew and laurel had been removed, the winding course of the river, seventy feet below the Tower, showed blue under a clear sky. A deck chair stood on the gra.s.s and a garden table beside it, holding an ash-tray and cigarettes.

Undershaw, after a pause of wonder, warmly expressed his admiration.

Melrose received it ungraciously.

"Why, the things were all in the house. Clumsy brutes!--Barclay's men would have broken the half of them, if I hadn't been here," he said, morosely. "Now will you tell Mr. Faversham this room is at his disposal, or shall I?"

Half an hour later Faversham, a.s.sisted by his nurse, had limped along the corridor, and was sitting beside the gla.s.s door in an utter yet not unpleasant bewilderment. What on earth had made the strange old fellow take such an odd fancy to him? He had had singularly little "spoiling" in his orphaned life so far, except occasionally from "Uncle Mackworth." The experience was disturbing, yet certainly not disagreeable.

He must of course stay on for a while, now that such extraordinary pains had been taken for his comfort. It would be nothing less than sheer ingrat.i.tude were he not to do so. At the same time, his temperament was cautious; he was no green youngster; and he could not but ask himself, given Melrose's character and reputation, what ulterior motive there might be behind a generosity so eccentric.

Meanwhile Melrose, in high spirits, and full of complaisance, now that the hated Undershaw had departed, walked up and down as usual, talking and smoking. It was evident that the whole process of unpacking his treasures had put him in a glow of excitement. The sudden interruption of habit had acted with stimulating power, his mind, like his home, had shaken off some of its dust. He talked about the pictures and furniture he had unearthed; the Latour pastels, the Gobelins in the gallery; rambling through scenes and incidents of the past, in a vivacious, egotistical monologue, which kept Faversham amused.

In the middle of it, however, he stopped abruptly, eying his guest.

"Can you write yet?"

"Pretty well. My arm's rather stiff."

"Make your nurse write some notes for you. That man--Undershaw--says you must have some society--invite some people."

Faversham laughed.

"I don't know a soul, either at Keswick or Pengarth."

"There have been some people inquiring after you."

"Oh, young Tatham? Yes, I knew him at Oxford."

"And the women--who are they?"

Faversham explained.

"Miss Penfold seems to have recognized me from Undershaw's account. They are your nearest neighbours, aren't they?" He looked smiling at his host.

"I don't know my neighbours!" said Melrose, emphatically. "But as for that young a.s.s, Tatham--ask him to come and see you."

"By all means--if you suggest it."

Melrose chuckled.

"But he won't come, unless he knows I am safely out of the way. He and I are not on terms, though his mother and I are cousins. I dare say Undershaw's told you--he's thick with them. The young man has been insolent to me on one or two occasions. I shall have to take him down.

He's one of your popularity-hunting fools. However you ask him by all means if you want him. He'll come to see you. Ask him Thursday. I shall be at Carlisle for the day. Tell him so."

He paused, his dark eyeb.a.l.l.s, over which the whites had a trick of showing disagreeably, fixing his visitor; then added:

"And ask the women too. I shan't bite 'em. I saw them from the window the day they came to inquire. The mother looked perfectly scared. The daughter's good looking."

Manner and tone produced a vague irritation in Faversham. But he merely said that he would write to Mrs. Penfold.

Two notes were accordingly despatched that evening from the Tower; one to Duddon Castle, the other to Green Cottage. Faversham had succeeded in writing them himself; and in the exhilaration of what seemed to him a much-quickened convalescence, he made arrangements the following morning to part with his nurse within a few days. "Do as you like, in moderation," said Undershaw, "no railway journey for a week or two."