Chapter VII

"A man's foes shall be they of his own household."
ST. MATTHEW.

It was over. Everything was over: formalities, letters of condolence, wreaths and crosses, the thud of falling earth on Sir George's last sleeping-place, the dismal trail of carriages, the no less dismal crowds of villagers about the old church and graveyard. All the dreary panoply of woe, that is gall and wormwood to the real sufferers, boasts one justification only. It is a clumsy fashion of showing respect to the dead. Let the living endure it as best they may.

Sir Nevil Sinclair, the worst man on earth for public functions, had endured it with a fortitude and tact approved even of Jane: but this afternoon--pacing the vast lawn, where twin-cedars made a fragrant drawing-room--he was undeniably thankful to be "through with it all." Summer, having got over her fit of ill-temper, was once more a thing of sweetness and light. Rainbow sparkles flashed from every leaf and petal; and all the birds were out after their harvest of worms.

Ten days, now, since he had left Como and his girl-bride. More like a month, it seemed; so absolute, so abrupt had been his change of atmosphere and surroundings. The "longest letter he ever had" reposed in his breast-pocket and a second had arrived that morning, brimful of sympathy for his loss. Brave letters, both; though beneath the surface cheerfulness, he discerned the ache of love and longing, to which his own heart throbbed passionate response. For the sake of his father it had been possible to leave her. But now that father was gone, he grudged every hour of his truancy.

And yet----!

A new sense--dormant hitherto--had been sending up green shoots through the dark and pain of this past week; the sense of possession, inherent in his race. For the mere title he cared little; for the house--with its insistence on minor tyrannies, domestic and social--less than he ought. It was the good earth herself, the good great trees of her begetting, the wide spaces of heather, beyond the pine plantation, that climbed up and up behind stables and kitchen-garden: it was these that he rejoiced to have and to hold, to shield from the desecration of promiscuous building that is fast converting the Queen of Home Counties into a suburban paradise.

More than all Nevil loved the beeches that had given the place its name. Beyond a rose-garden that flanked the east wing, sprang and outspread the gracious symmetry of their trunks and limbs, grey and dull silver, dappled with mosaic of pale lichens, robed and crowned with satin-bright cascades of a million leaves. In May their emerald carpet was alight with sheets of bluebells; in early autumn brown with beech-mast, flecked with scarlet of moss-cups and fungi; and at all times patterned with every conceivable shade of green. Temple and storehouse of squirrels, song-birds, pigeons, and pheasants--religiously preserved by Sir George--the noble wood stretched on and up a bold sweep of rising ground; ending, as the pine plantation ended, in wind-swept spaces of heather, gorse, and broom.

And it was his own: all his own. Magic words that no democratic zest for parcelling out the earth in snippets will ever rob of their deep significance. But for Nevil Sinclair the legitimate joy of ownership was marred by revelations brought to light during a long morning with Reynolds, the family lawyer. He had taken his client through Sir George's papers the day after the funeral and had made the whole situation painfully clear to the new baronet, whose heritage was but a fraction of the well-ordered estate left by his grandfather, Sir Robert; an early Victorian politician of simple tastes and rigid sense of duty.

Hard not to censure the dead while those revelations were in progress. Not that Sir George had been wilfully extravagant or careless of the old place, that was nearer and dearer to him than his God. But the Sinclairs had never been men of wealth; and from early days of possession "things" had gone against him; a phrase conveniently comprehensive and vague. Blind to moral and spiritual values--with the complacent blindness of a certain sturdy British type, that sees life in clear-cut unlinked fragments--he had determined that his sons should not be "hampered" by the pinch that makes character. Their allowances had been more liberal than the estate could afford. Nevil, in particular, with his artist hobbies and zest for travel, had been a costly item. But from year to year, pride and generosity combined had withheld Sir George from telling the truth. Then, in the loneliness following upon his wife's death, had come the temptation--inspiration he had deemed it then--to mend matters by gambling discreetly on the big scale. It was the one weak point in a shrewd, level-headed, if limited, nature. Secretly indulged in, it had exacted penalty to the uttermost, and poisoned the whole.

Pitiful beyond speech, it seemed to Nevil--and to Jane, the crowning irony--that the poor old man should have lost his life in straining after a fortune for which the son cared little; while the heritage, for which he did care, was flung on his hands shorn of its immemorial dignity: one-third heavily mortgaged; the rest a costly burden hard to maintain on the dwindled income left to him out of the wreck. There remained, also, his pictures, and Martino's prophecy of leaping into fame. How wise, beyond expecting, had been his undutiful decision! Jane herself must admit that; if not now, at least by the summer's end, when the Ramayāna series would be near completion. A special exhibition of them, should the subject happen to "catch on," would at least help towards paying off the mortgage that withheld him from full mastery of his own.

But here a fresh dilemma tripped him up. Clearly it seemed his duty to remain at home for the present, to inaugurate in person the new _régime_. And behind the sense of duty lurked a natural longing to share this new possession with Lilamani, to install her here as Queen. Yet he had given his word to her, and to her father, that this more critical phase of her transplanting should not be hastily carried out; and well he knew that the time was not yet ripe for her, or for Jane, the unappeased; possibly the unappeasable.

For although the public ordeal was over, the private ordeal had yet to come. Not until this morning had she reverted to the subject of his marriage. Throughout the week he had discerned a touch of sisterly fellow-feeling beneath her chain-mail. But the revelation in her father's last letter rankled sore; and this morning, when she requested a word or two with Nevil after breakfast, there could be no mistaking the repressed hostility in her tone. She supposed that since he had married to please himself, and was thoroughly satisfied with the arrangement, he would now see fit to announce the fact. Distressing though it was, to conceal it any longer might give a bad impression; and it had occurred to her that this afternoon, when they would all be together for tea in the large hall, would be a suitable time.

"A detailed confession of what you are pleased to consider my delinquency, in full family conclave? Is that the programme?" he asked, frowning, and looking out across the lawn where a solitary blackbird pranced and piped, serenely indifferent to everything but worms.

"Put it that way, if you like," she answered with composure. "I merely meant it would be as well that you should tell your news in person, before the boys and Uncle Bob go away. I haven't even mentioned it yet to Ned."

"Very considerate of you!" said Nevil in an even tone. "Ned" was Lord Roscoe, a milder, less formidable person than his wife; and Nevil, seeing her determination to make things hard for him, denied her the satisfaction of knowing how well she was succeeding.

"I'm quite ready, when they are," he had concluded casually, as he left her.

And now--he knew that they were ready; very much ready--and that he was not.

They had been marshalled into the large hall, nine of them; for the Sinclairs were a clannish family, and those who did not live in or near London had stayed on a few days at Jane's request. While he flagrantly kept them waiting, Nevil pictured them all discussing him in subdued tones; mildly curious; and thankful, in secret, for something fresh to think of; though none but Christina would honestly have confessed the fact.

From all save her he anticipated disapproval, if not hostility. She and he had sat up till midnight in the study one evening and had talked it all out. He had shown her the big carbon photo of his portrait and converted her into a hot partisan. But of the rest there was little hope: his two brothers, well-groomed, conventional types of the professions they adorned; George's fiancée, Phillippa Weston--commonly called Phil; Miss Julia Sinclair, cultured, within due limits, and devoted to good works; Sir Robert Sinclair, a leading light of the Foreign Office, lately retired, and his wife, Lady Margaret, daughter of a Scottish peer, mannered, suave, unimpeachably correct. Beyond these remained only Jane herself, Lord Roscoe--a sound Conservative, though too purely a student and a philosopher to approve his wife's vehement party-spirit; and Jeffrey Moss, Vicar of Bramleigh, a second cousin once removed. For the Bramleigh living was in the Sinclairs' gift, and it behoved them to "keep it in the family." Nevil suspected that Sunday's casual invitation for Tuesday had been given with this event in view; a suspicion that did not allay his repressed irritation or facilitate the task in hand.

Not all his loyalty to Lilamani could make so public a confession, other than distasteful to a man of Nevil's temperament. His very insight put him at a disadvantage. He understood these Sinclairs far better than they understood him. He could see the thing through their eyes; could gauge to a nicety their half-nervous, half-resentful attitude towards the abnormal, more especially when that particular devil entered into a pillar of the house.

He drew out his watch and whistled softly. In common decency he could keep away no longer; and passing through the great domed conservatory, he entered the large hall.

Sir Robert--thick-set and slightly convex, with clipped beard and pince-nez perched at an inquiring angle--dominated the hearth-rug, by instinct, though no fire justified his attitude. The rest made dismal black patches about the room; and Jane stood at the heavy gate-leg table, dispensing tea. Her eyes challenged Nevil's as he entered. He returned her look without flinching; greeted the Vicar and joined Sir Robert on the hearth-rug.

"Well, my lad, we've been wondering what had come to you," said the leading light of the Foreign Office; and a heavy hand on Nevil's shoulder, acutely reminiscent of Sir George, sent a pang through his son's heart. "Where've you been--eh?"

"Strolling round the place. Taking things in," Nevil answered in a level tone, so unusual with him that Christina looked up; and Sir Robert remarked, as one who makes a discovery:

"A goodly heritage, boy."

His nephew nodded absently, one hand stroking and twisting his moustache, a gesture Christina knew of old.

"Tea, Nevil?" from Jane.

"Please."

He roused himself; fetched it, and made room for his cup among a crowd of small bronzes on the mantelpiece: pheasants, dogs, foxes, and others. They had been a weakness of his father's; and most of them were his own boyish gifts.

While he displaced them thoughtfully, an under-current of talk revived between Lord Roscoe and the Vicar, George and Miss Weston.

Then fell the question he dreaded. It was Sir Robert again: Chairman of the Committee, thought his disrespectful nephew, in half-amused irritation.

"Well, Nevil, what's the great secret you've got up your sleeve? Jane's been making us curious. Good news, I hope. We need it."

"The best possible news, so far as I'm concerned," Nevil answered, not without a hint of defiance. Dread confession as he might; to apologize, even remotely, for Lilamani, was an insult nothing should induce him to offer her. "The fact is--while I was abroad I got married."

"The devil you did!" Sir Robert's amazement rippled round the room in a broken murmur. "That's news indeed! Nothing like marriage to check your craze for continental life. Money--I hope? The Place calls for it. But what have you done with the lady? She ought to be here."

"She ought; I admit; if the circumstances were normal. But--they're not."

"Eh--what's that? Not normal?" Sir Robert peered distressfully over his nippers at the two girls. "What the deuce have you been up to now, Nevil? Don't tell me you've married a variety actress, or a foreigner?"

"I suppose you want the truth," Nevil said, sipping his tea. "My wife happens to be an Indian girl; a Hindu of very good family, cultivated, beautiful----"

"But--but--good Lord! A native! Good Lord!" Sir Robert broke in testily, his dismay echoed by minor explosions from Harold and George; while Miss Sinclair dropped her knitting with a gasp. She rather prided herself on being broad-minded; had lately called on two Romanists in her neighbourhood, and found them "really quite estimable people--up to their lights----" But a Hindu! And poor George's son----!

"Perhaps--a converted Hindu, dear Nevil?" she ventured, dreading an outburst from her hot-tempered brother at a moment when even raised voices jarred her sense of fitness and decorum.

"No. She's not converted. Nor likely to be," Nevil answered bluntly.

"But, dear boy, surely it would be possible to----? Our good Jeffrey is so convincing; and Hindus, I have always heard, are remarkably intelligent and open to reason----"

"Yes, Aunt Julia. My wife is quite remarkably intelligent." A spark of the Sinclair temper flashed in Nevil's eyes, and lent an edge to his quiet tone. "She knows the Bible better than some of us do; and religion means a great deal more to her than to the average Christian----"

"Come, come, Nevil! No blasphemy----" Sir Robert interposed with repressed heat.

"Blasphemy, Uncle? I am stating a fact; and I want to make it clear that there will not be any call for Jeffrey's good offices, when I do see fit to bring my wife home."

"You mean to bring her _here_, then? A heathen Lady Sinclair, under your father's roof?"

"Certainly. In time. What else?"

"The devil knows what else! Thank God George has been spared _this_," he added, lowering his voice. Then he swung round sharply. "What do you think of your brother's madness, Jane?"

"I have told Nevil quite frankly what I think," said she. "Outside his own infatuation, there can be no two opinions on the subject."

But such arrogant assumption of certainty was too much for Christina, who, for Nevil's sake, had repressed herself valiantly so far. Now she leaned forward, defiance in her eyes.

"There _can_ be two opinions, outside infatuation. Because there's mine. I don't want to seem impertinent, but I never thought you would all be so narrow-minded, so insular----"

"Be quiet, Kit," sharply, from Jane. "You _are_ impertinent; and your opinion goes for nothing."

"Doesn't it, indeed? I'm not so sure," quoth the nineteenth-century rebel, less easily quenched than her of the eighties.

In vain she tried to catch Nevil's eye. He had half turned his back, and was rearranging the small bronzes, seemingly indifferent to the tea-cup tempest. But Christina knew better. She longed to hit out furiously at them all; or to get up and throw her arms round his neck. But again she knew better.

"More tea, George?" came the voice of Jane, the inexorable.

Captain Sinclair handed his cup, and Lord Roscoe went quietly out. As a peace-loving man, family dissensions offended his taste, and a certain look in Jane's eyes was always a signal for retreat. A glance over his shoulder drew the Vicar after him. Lady Margaret, bored and a little disgusted, followed in their wake. Phillippa glanced tentatively at her lover, who was scowling into his tea-cup; and she, being young and curious, kept her seat.

Then Sir Robert--seeing that nothing remained but to accept the lamentable fact--said with less heat: "Well, Nevil, your minor eccentricities have been a joke to this one. But since you've tied yourself for life to an Asiatic, there's no more to be said. A civil marriage, I suppose?"

"Yes."

"And may we be allowed to know your immediate plans?"

"I must return to Italy as soon as things are more or less in order. Probably the end of this week."

"And shut up the Beeches?"

"Why not? But as George is on leave, he might as well put in his time here and see to things a bit. Jane, I know, considers him a good deal fitter for that sort of thing than myself."

"Thanks, old chap. Awfully good of you." George's tone suggested sarcasm. "Leave you free to devote yourself to the enchantress--eh?"

"I'm hard at work on a series of pictures," Nevil answered, addressing his uncle and ignoring the thrust. "I hope to exhibit them this winter. I've done one since my marriage of which Signor Martino thinks very highly."

"The picture you wrote of?" asked Jane.

"No. That was her portrait. I gave it to her father."

"H'm."

This was more than Christina could stand. "He's got a ripping big photo of it upstairs," she broke out eagerly. "You ought to see it. Nevil, really they ought. Mayn't I fetch it?"

"Yes, if you like," he answered indifferently, chilled to disgust by their reception of his news.

Miss Sinclair glanced up, mildly expectant:

"Dear Nevil, I am so glad there is a picture----" Devotion to the entire family tree, even unto the remotest tips of its many branches, was a part of her creed. Hindu or no, by some means she must manage to assimilate this new niece.

Christina reappeared in no time, lifting her trophy high, for all to see, and a murmur of reluctant admiration went round the room.

Miss Sinclair held out a hand. "Let me look at it closer, dear. My sight is not what it was."

She looked closer and her brown eyes grew wide. "Why, Nevil, she is really beautiful! And this is your work?"

"Yes."

"No wonder your Italian friend thinks well of it. Remarkable. Look, Robert."

"H'm. Very good-looking. Quite life-like. You've come on extraordinarily, Nevil, I must say."

"Yes. Thanks to my wife. Leseppes, the great French painter and critic, expects me to make a name. Lucky--as things stand--that I did take up art seriously. Bramleigh Beeches needs the shekels, eh, Jane?"

"Very much so. If they ever come in," she answered, her gaze fixed searchingly on the new Lady Sinclair's face. "This is promising. Very. It's your staying power I doubt."

Without further comment, she passed the picture on to George; who glanced at it half in disdain; then whistled softly.

"My word, but she's a beauty! Trust Nevil! What age, old chap?"

"Eighteen," said Nevil, jarred by a savour of the stable in his brother's tone. But George, serenely unobservant, added, with the experienced sagacity of four years' service in India: "M', yes. From seventeen to twenty native girls are about as alluring as they make 'em, even the commoner sort. The deuce of it is they're middle-aged by thirty. Run to flesh, and----"

"Damn you, shut up!" Nevil flashed out, losing control of himself at last.

"Nevil--dear!" she protested in dismay; and Christina, snatching away the photo, muttered wrathfully: "Upon my word, George! You are a beast!"

"Sorry, Nevil," the delinquent remarked grudgingly. "I was only telling you the truth."

"It's not the truth--altogether. The--the premature ageing is chiefly the country; their feeding; their way of life. It doesn't follow that Lilamani----"

"Lila--which?" from Harold, who had been more amused than otherwise by what he privately dubbed "a family scrap."

"Lilamani," Nevil repeated with quiet emphasis, and was thankful that just then Sir Robert emerged abruptly from his reflections.

"Look here, my dear boy. I'm still in a fog. You haven't told us yet how this incredible affair came to pass."

"Another time, Uncle Bob," replied Nevil, unfeigned weariness in his tone. "I've had about all I can put up with at a sitting."

At that Jane rose, decision in every square inch of her.

"If you don't mind, I'll ask you to go now. Nevil and I must finish talking this out alone."

"Quite so, my dear; quite so," fussily, from Sir Robert. "Whatever you think best."

And they went.

Then Jane turned to her brother.

"Now, Nevil."

"Well? What?"

Both spoke quietly; yet it was as if a pair of duellists had unsheathed swords.

"How can you talk calmly of returning to Italy this week, when you know quite well that your rightful place is here?"

"Of course it is. If there were not very good reasons for my being elsewhere--just now. My rightful place, if it comes to that, is--with my wife."

"And she refuses----?"

Nevil smiled, in spite of himself.

"If you knew her, even slightly, you wouldn't ask such an absurd question. It is I who refuse to bring her here--yet. In the first place, if Martino isn't quite misguided, the set of pictures I am working at should be worth more to Bramleigh Beeches than my presence here this summer; and I want to get them done, or nearly done, in the right atmosphere. Then----" he hesitated. "You may as well have it straight. I refuse point-blank to bring my wife to her future home till I have clear proof that she will be decently received by you and all the rest of them."

It was Jane's turn to hesitate.

"What--precisely do you mean by that?" she asked without looking at him.

"I mean kindly, affectionately. Just as you would receive Miss Weston if George were in my place."

"My dear Nevil, there's a difference! You ask a good deal----"

"I don't ask. I am stating conditions."

"And suppose the conditions--fail to satisfy you?"

"I am supposing," he answered coldly, "that my relatives, even if narrow and prejudiced, are at least human beings; that they will--later, if not now--give the woman, who is to fill my mother's place, a fair chance of proving that she too is human, lovable, admirable---- Good Lord, Jane," he broke out, maddened past endurance by her chill antagonism. "If I'd married a Hottentot or an American negro, I could excuse you. But I presume even you will acknowledge that there's some racial connection between Indians and Europeans, which makes all the difference in the world."

Jane drew herself up.

"Of course I see that, Nevil. I may be prejudiced. I'm not ignorant. It's quite bad enough, in any case. But after all--we gain nothing by recriminations. And as this child of eighteen will be virtually the head of the family, we can but make the best of her."

"Make her _feel welcome_," Nevil corrected, with emphasis. "Write to her before she comes."

"Yes. If you wish it. One can say the usual polite things. Kit, at least, can say them honestly. Does she read English with ease?"

"She's as well-read as Christina." He drew out his letter-case and handed her--not without reluctance--Lilamani's June Love-Song. "She wrote that."

Jane read it, with raised brows: evidently impressed; though so unrestrained an outpouring of "sentiment" was, in her view, almost indecent.

"Talented. And very devoted," she said in a changed tone, handing it back. "I'll write to her, Nevil--later on, as nicely as I can."

But her brother, though mollified, was still sore from the afternoon's ordeal, which was her doing.

"It's just as well you should write her a decent letter or two, Jane," said he with a direct look, not to be misread. "Considering all things, you owe that much, at least, to her--and to me."

For once in her life Jane Roscoe was quite put out of countenance; and before she could recover herself--Nevil was gone. Four days later he left for Italy: for Lilamani, and the Ramayān pictures--and peace.