Chapter II: Book II: Sanchia at Wanless Hall (1)

I

A telegram was handed to her as she came in from the garden, her broad-brimmed straw hat in her hand, and a bunch of fritillaries nodding in her blouse. That dates and places her at once: the time was April, and she was fond of curious flowers. She stood in the doorway to get the sunset glow upon the missive, and was herself ensanguined and enhanced, a sunny-haired, low-breasted young woman of middle height, rather faintly coloured, wholesome to see, with a bowed upper lip, and clear, grey-blue eyes of extreme directness and candour. A trick of looking you full, of considering you and her answer together, she had--a mild, steady beam, a radiance within the orb which told of a hidden glory. Her brows were level, eyebrows arched; her bust, though set like Aphrodite's of Melos, was full. The curving corners of the bow of her lips assured her the possession, even when she was most serious, of a lurking smile. Taking off her gardening gloves that she might break the red envelope, she disclosed a pair of fine, white, nervous hands, and pointed fingers which wore no rings.

The address, which she was careful to read before she tore the envelope, was--

Miss Percival, Wanless, Felsboro'.

Opening then, she read as follows:--

Home to-morrow seven people Ingram.

If she frowned slightly, it was a mere approach of the fine eyebrows to each other. She certainly smiled--wisely and meditatively, without showing her teeth. She touched her chin--a rounded, full chin--with the telegram, as she looked up at the maid who brought it.

“I must see Mrs. Benson about this. It's from Mr. Ingram.”

“Yes, Miss Percival.”

A friendly desire to share the puzzle was now manifest in the clear eyes.

“You see, Minnie, it might mean one of two things, and I am not quite sure which of them it does mean.” She looked again at the message with amused interest; but one could not have said whether she was amused at her interest, or interested in her amusement. That was part of Miss Percival's charm, that she was always baffling you.

But Minnie, the maid, was demure and monotonous under the attack of friendly desires. “No, Miss Percival,” she said, and added, “I am sure I couldn't say.” She stood aside from the doorway as the young lady entered the billiard-room, saying, as she went, “Ask Mrs. Benson to come to my room, Minnie, please; and tell Frodsham I should like to see him directly he comes to-morrow morning.”

She heard Minnie's “Very well, Miss Percival,” as she disappeared, smiling still, and with a slight heightening of colour. When her colour rose, it rose evenly, flooding her face and neck with the dawn-hue. There were no patches or streaks of flame; she showed, as it were, incandescent.

She crossed the hall in the deepening dusk, a fine, littered room, where a great log-fire revealed the tall portraits of ladies and gentleman of long ago--sportsmen with spaniels at their feet, general officers in scarlet, pointing through smoke the direction of the enemy, a judge in ermine and full bottomed wig, a lady in white satin leaning against a broken column in a park, and backed by a brewing thunderstorm; and as she went her way gave a couple of glances to right and left, picked up a _Bradshaw_ from a side-table, stooped to put a tiger-skin straight. She continued down a long corridor, swinging her hat, and entered an open doorway at the extreme end. By the way she tossed the hat on to a chair and stirred the crackling logs with the point of her shoe, it was to be supposed that she was in her demesne. Standing with a foot on the fender she presently fell into a reverie, and presently reopened and re-read her telegram. Certainly she was smiling, and certainly her colour was enhanced.

The room, though business-like, was feminine. It had a Chippendale bureau between the windows, its pigeon-holes stuffed with papers; but there were flowers upon it, and elsewhere many photographs, and pictures evidently chosen by the tenant. The _Dante_ from the Bargello was one, the three headless _Fates_ of the Parthenon another; the _Hermes_ and the _Sophocles_, all in autogravure. It had a piano and a small bookcase containing the poets in green morocco, a uniform set. Elsewhere, in a larger bookcase, were miscellaneous volumes, by no means all novels, though novels there were. One shelf was filled with household books: cookery, bee-keeping, poultry, the _Dog in Health and Disease_, the horse, the flower-garden, _Botany, British Edible Fungi_, the _World of Vegetables_, were some of the subjects treated of. Below the bookcase was a row of japanned tin boxes, carefully lettered in white paint. House Accounts, Garden Accounts, Stable Accounts, one read. A fourth bore the words “Wood Sales and Miscellaneous.”

If you were alone, waiting in the room, you would glance at the photographs perched about, like alighting butterflies, upon piano and mantelshelf and occasional table. You would pass over, I believe, the children on ponies and in sailor suits, that elderly, ample lady, brooched and in black, beaming under the status of Grandmamma, that gaitered gentleman with a square-topped felt hat upon his head and grizzled whiskers below his ears, in favour of a group of five girls in black muslin and lace, sisters evidently, prosperously together, an uncommonly happy five. They look on good terms with themselves and with each other. They look frankly at you out of the frame--and how they must have dazzled the photographer with their five pair of bright, uncompromising eyes! Hands rest easily upon familiar shoulders, elbows on knees. One of them smiles outright, two are very ready to smile; one is more serious, as becomes the eldest of five; and one is round-cheeked and solemn--the baby.

Miss Percival and her sisters, it's clear. One can't mistake the rounded chin, the level brows, the promise of womanhood. Women should always be photographed in evening dress if, like the Misses Percival, they have nothing to hide. But now to pick out our Miss Percival. You will observe that the young ladies' names are neatly printed beneath their persons.

Even if I were sure of dates, I should not insist upon the serious one. So far as I can judge, the photograph is some eight or ten years old. I go by the style of hair-dressing which it shows, and by the name of the photographer, who signs from Wigmore Street. He is out of date; fashion has deserted him. Then that grave, watchful young goddess, who sits enthroned with her nymphs about her, must be a great deal older than our lady of this room, of the doubtful smile and friendly desires. She has the sedate air of eight-and-twenty, and by this time must be thirty-six or even more. She is Philippa, anyhow, we read. Who comes next? Here is Hawise, standing behind her of the throne and the centre, with a hand on her bare shoulder. She is laughing, sleepily; she is distinctly pretty, but distinctly, also, fat. She cannot be the owner of this room.

There's a taste for names in the Percival family: we have Philippa, Hawise. Now for the seated pair, one on either side of Philippa: they are Melusine, who has a long neck and a very demure look, and a great deal of hair, and Victoria, who, having just tossed back her head, lifts her chin and glimmers at you through half-shut eyes. Her lips laugh snugly at some mischief meditating. Neither of these can be our lady, who must therefore be the last and youngest, this child of eighteen or so, round-cheeked, round-eyed and serious, with critical lids, like those of the Farnese Hera, and a beautiful mouth: Sanchia-Josepha, crouched on the floor at the feet of Philippa. A charming bevy of maidens--Philippa, Hawise, Melusine, Victoria, Sanchia-Josepha; ten years ago happily sisters and rich in promise, looking out boldly at the veiled years ahead of them. Ten years ago? Call it eight, and you make our Miss Percival, say, six-and-twenty by this time.

There are many other photographs--girls and women, most of them; but here is a man, dignified by a place apart upon the bureau. He occupies one side of it by himself, balanced by the sisters at the other. A youngish man in yeomanry uniform he appears only in torso. He has the smooth head of a soldier, and rather a low, but very square, forehead. His eyes are smallish, and set deep. They look to be grey, light grey, but may be light blue. He has a good nose, high-bridged, large, thin, and practically straight. Such noses are seldom perfectly straight, and his is not. I observe that he has curled his moustache with the tongs, so that it is well away from his upper lip. If I had been he I should not have done that. It is too much trouble--and if a man takes pains about his toilette, those pains ought not to be evident. Moreover, the mouth is by no means this young man's best feature. There is a twist, the hint of a snarl in the upper lip. The lower protrudes. The gentleman is the least in life underhung. Consider his chin. It has the jut of the Hapsburgs', of Charles the Fifth's, not pronounced by any means, but undoubtedly there. Firmness, or perhaps obstinacy, hard judgment, an uneven temper, a leaning to autocracy, I read in this portrait. There is no signature, nothing to tell you who he is. Certainly, no Percival.

I call your attention to one more photograph, in marked distinction to others of your notice. Those were, in every sense, full--dress affairs; this one, in all senses, undress. It is the work of an amateur, you can see at once--small, rather blurred to begin with, not perfectly focussed, and fading now towards the end of all such gear. It represents a bareheaded young lady in a white gown pinned very high. She is standing in a pond, with the water well over her knees. One hand keeps her balance with a pole, the other grasps a streamer of water-weed. Floating beyond her upon some kind of raft is a man, bareheaded also, in a white sweater with a rolling collar. His face is shadowed--you can see that his hair, black and straight, falls over his eyes. He is raking up the weed with his hand, his arm bare to the shoulder. Below is written, in a round, sprawling hand, “To Sanchia from Percy.” Both the workers are intent upon their task, with no idea that they are posing. The girl has a Greek face, and a very fine pair of legs heedlessly displayed. The man is as thin as a gypsy. Out of the dark in which his face is hidden gleam his white teeth. A classical, rather than romantic scene. The absence of draperies suggest it; but the absence of self-consciousness is conclusive.

But I keep Miss Percival too long at the fender. She had been standing there for some minutes after her entry, first re-reading her telegram, next stroking her chin with it. She was thoughtful still, and still smiling. Once she looked over her shoulder through the window to the dying day, and lightly sighed. The time was April's end, and had been squally, with violent storms; but the last onslaughts of the north-wester had routed the rain-clouds. The day was dying under a clear saffron sky, and a thrush piped its mellow elegy. Miss Percival heard him, and listened, smiling with her lips, and with her eyes also which the serene light soothed. Her lips barely moved, just relaxed their firm embrace, but no more. She held the light gratefully with her eyes, seemed unwilling to lose a moment of it, wistful to be still out of doors. Again she lightly sighed, and presently resumed her downward gazing at the fire.

Knuckles quavered at the door. She straightened herself, turned, and called out definitely, “Come in.” Mrs. Benson stood before her, vast, massive, black-gowned, cloudy for trouble, a cook.

There was instantly to be observed in Miss Percival's lifted head and eyes the same frank appeal for interchange of sentiments as had been manifested to Minnie the maid. Her brows were smoothed out, her smile became less dubious; her intention to be friendly was deliberately expressed. But truth will have it that, just as before, Mrs. Benson's guard turned out at the same moment, as at a signal. To vary the figure, her vedettes, in touch with the advancers, fell back upon the main body.

If the young lady perceived this she did not cease to be amiably disposed. “Oh, Mrs. Benson,” she said, “I've had a telegram.”

Mrs. Benson, with strict non-committal, lifted her eyebrows to “Well, well!” It was as if she implied that such things were to be expected in a world full of trouble. “So I hear, Miss Percival,” she grimly said.

“It's from Mr. Ingram, you know.”

“Ah, well--” Mrs. Benson could have been heard to sigh; but among the many things which Miss Percival chose to ignore, this sort of thing was one. Trouble to her, always, was a signal which braced the nerves and sinews.

“It's to say--but I think you had better read it.” It was held out unfalteringly, while Mrs. Benson dived for, opened, wiped, tested, and fixed her spectacles. These operations concluded, it was received as might have been a dangerous explosive.

Punctuating as she went, Mrs. Benson read, _“Home to-morrow--seven people--Ingram.”_ Then she looked, confirmed in her omens, over the rim of her spectacles. “Seven people, Miss Percival! A house-party! And, as you may say, at a moment's notice. Dear, dear, dear!”

Miss Percival remained cheerful. “Oh, I don't read it like that,” she said, went behind Mrs. Benson, and read over her shoulder, pointing the words with a pencil still wet from her mouth. “'Home to-morrow, seven--with people--Ingram.' That's what it must mean, of course.” She spoke wooingly, but Mrs. Benson was not to be won.

“Then, why does he say 'Seven people,' Miss Percival? Why does he say that?”

“But he doesn't, according to me.” She laughed. “He is telling us the time of his train. How could we meet him and his people if he didn't?”

“Ah,” said Mrs. Benson, heavily prepared for the worst, “how could we? That's where it is, you see. But of course he wouldn't think of _us_.”

“But he does, you know. He has. He says that he will have people with him. That is to prepare us.” Mrs. Benson's fist crashed into the paper.

“How many people, Miss Percival? How many people? Why, seven, of course? What else could it be? And where's the fish to come from for seven people? And what about maids and valets? Does he count up the likes of them? He's not Mr. Ingram if he does. Not he! Nor his father before him. And what's Frodsham going to do about carriage-room for seven--and the servants as well--and the luggage, and all? Dogs, very likely, dogs and cats, and parrots. Who knows? I've seen 'em bring scritch-owls and hawks on their wrists before now. Oh, they'll do anything, some of 'em--anything to be looked at. That's what it is; they want looking at. And I'd look at 'em if I had my way!”

Mrs. Benson, shining with indignant heat, had to be pacified. She required much tact, the exercise of a low and musical voice. It cooed upon her like a dove's. Miss Percival used her hands, too, and in the end had one of them on Mrs. Benson's shoulder. The charm worked. Dinner should be cooked for five or six; Frodsham should meet the seven-four from London with the omnibus and luggage-cart. There would be no dogs at this time of year. Parrots were urged upon her again, but tentatively. She chuckled them away, musically, with real relish for the picture. She was sure there would be no parrots. Now she must see about the bedrooms--but Mrs. Benson peered round into her glowing face.

“And what about your supper, Miss Percival? It's just upon ready. And there's a sweet-bread.”

Miss Percival almost caressed the ridiculous good soul. Her arm remained about her shoulder, her hand touched it. “How nice of you! I'll go and get ready at once. Then I'll see what rooms we had better have. Wasn't it lucky we did the drawing-rooms last week?”

Gloom gathered again. Mrs. Benson thought that some people didn't deserve their luck. It was clear to whom she referred; certainly not to Miss Percival, for instance. But the young lady, with really extraordinary simplicity, replied that surely Mr. Ingram deserved credit for having well-chosen his ministers. “Yourself,” she said, “for the kitchen, and me for the hall.” She exploded this little bomb with some heightening of colour.

Mrs. Benson, glancing at her sideways, observed the blush, and was scared. She blinked. Miss Percival's blush deepened.

In the awkward pause that ensued the friendly hand was about to be removed, when Mrs. Benson, with an effort which did honour to her resources, said, “We all have our troubles, Miss Percival, else we shouldn't be here, as the Bible says. The good Book! Well for them as read therein. Now, only this afternoon Mr. Menzies was talking to me about things at large, and he says, 'Mrs. Benson, what's to be done with Struan Glyde?' quite sudden. So I says, 'And what should be done with such a one, Mr. Menzies, but wallop him?' and he shakes his head and says, 'He's on the catarampus, ma'am--in one of his black fits. Tells me to go my way and let him alone; then turns his back.' Now, what about such troubles as that, Miss Percival?”

Miss Percival looked serious, but not especially interested. Her eyes looked before her, but seemed not to see anything. She asked, “What did Mr. Menzies say to him next?” but if she was interested it was not in that matter.

Mrs. Benson brandished her voice. “Ha, you may well ask me. 'No, my man,' he says, 'but 'tis you that must go mine while I'm head-gardener at Wanless,' he says. That's what Mr. Menzies told him, the elderly man that he is--and now look at this. Young Glyde turns his back upon him, with no more notice taken than you or I would have of a flea on the arm. Insolence, that is. Downright insolence of an elderly man. Ah,” said Mrs. Benson with tightening lips, “if you come to troubles!”

Miss Percival's tone was sympathetic, if her eyes were still sightless. “Really! I'm very sorry. I'll see Mr. Menzies about it to-morrow, and of course I'll talk to Struan. He _is_ difficult--it's very tiresome of him. I saw him this afternoon but had no notion of all this. I can't think how it is. Nerves, I suppose. He's a human creature, you see, as well as a gardener.”

Mrs. Benson was incapable of seeing such a possible combination: her explanation was simpler. Human! She scorned him. “Bad blood,” she said with energy; “bad, black, gypsy blood. He'll be murdering one of us in her bed in a day or two. You see if he don't.”

Miss Percival did not deny the suggestion. She considered it rather--its effect, its effectiveness. “Struan is tiresome, of course,” she said, “but I do think he has tried to restrain himself lately. He promised me he would.” She turned her full gaze suddenly upon Mrs. Benson, and almost disarmed that lady. “I like him, you know. He's very nice to me.”

Mrs. Benson gasped, but recovered just in time to resume the dark oracles in her keeping. “Ah,” she said, “he _would_ be. If you can call it nice--”

“He's wonderful in the garden,” Miss Percival calmly continued. “Even Menzies admits it. He'll work all day. He's never tired.”

“Nor's a tiger,” the cook snapped. “Nor's a tom-cat.”

Miss Percival looked pitifully at her and smiled. “Poor Struan--you don't like him. I'll see him to-night. I have an influence, I think.”

Mrs. Benson touched the hand that lay within her reach, which had lately been upon her shoulder. “Don't, my dear, don't,” she said.

“Why not?” asked the lady with her lifted brows. “Why shouldn't I?”

“Influence! The likes of him!--Gypsy blood at midnight--soft-voiced, murderous--”

She gave no coherent answer, but smiled always, then leaned forward and stroked Mrs. Benson upon her personable cheek. “Dear old thing, let me do as I like. It's much better for everybody,” she presently said.

II

It had clouded over after sunset: there was no moon visible, but an irradiance was omnipresent, and showed the muffled yew-tree walks, and the greater trees colossal, mountains overshadowing the land. Here and there, as you went, glimmered daffodils, like the Pleiades half-veiled, and long files of crocuses burned like waning fires.

Miss Percival, at about nine o'clock, came gently down one of these alleys, with a scarf over her head and shoulders. She looked like a nymph in Tanagra. And as if she knew where she was going, exactly, she walked gently but unfalteringly between the linked crocus-beacons to where the alley broadened into a bay of cut yews, to where ghostly white seats and a dim sun-dial seemed disposed as for a scene in a comedy. The leaden statue of a skipping faun would have been made out in a recess if you had known it was there. And as she entered the place a figure seated there, with elbows on knees and chin between his palms, looked up, listening, watching intently, then rose and waited.

“Struan,” said Miss Percival comfortably, “are you there?”

“I'm here,” she was answered.

Thereupon she came easily forward and stood near him. She was in white from top to toe; he could see the clean outline of her head and neck, denned by the hooding scarf. He had not as yet taken off his hat, but now, as she stood there silent, he slowly removed it. Still there was nothing said. Miss Percival was very deliberate.

Presently she spoke. “You didn't tell me this afternoon that you'd had a bother with Mr. Menzies. Why didn't you tell me?”

“Why should I tell you?” The words seemed wrung from him. “Why should you care?”

“Of course I care,” she said. “You know that I care. Why didn't you tell me? ... But I know why you didn't.”

“You do not.” He denied her hotly.

“Oh, but I do. Because you were ashamed.”

“It was not. I'm not ashamed. He's an old fool. He thinks he can teach me my business. Melons! Plants! Why, I'm one of them. What can he teach me?”

“He's a very good gardener,” Miss Percival began, but the rest was drowned.

“Gardener--he! He's a botcher. He measures his melons by the pound. It's money he wants, money-value. So much dung--so much meat. He says, 'Be careful, you, of the water-pot; go steady with your syringe. You'll damp off those plants it you're not handy,' he tells me. To me, this! Don't I know what the life of a plant must have, and how, and where it must be fed? He's an old fool, and you know it. And I'll not be told things I have got by heart before a lad new to his breeches. Besides,” he added darkly, “he'd vexed me before that, and bitterly.”

“How did he vex you?” Miss Percival's voice came cool and clear, but commanding.

“That I cannot tell you,” said he.

“But I want to know.” This seemed to her sufficing reason.

But he was dogged. “Then I can't help you. You cannot be told.”

“But perhaps I ought to be told. Do you think I ought?”

“Indeed, I don't know.”

“Well, will you tell me?”

“I will not, indeed. That is, I cannot.”

“It's very extraordinary.”

He made no answer.

“Struan,” said Miss Percival, after a while, “you are angry.”

He turned quickly. “With you? Never.”

“I didn't say that. I said you were angry.”

He said, “Ah--and so I am.”

“I am included, I suppose.”

“You are not. It could not be.”

She laughed. “I don't know---”

He was vehement. “But you do know. You know it very well.”

She had no answer; but she smiled to herself; and I have no doubt she knew.

For two minutes or more there was silence, a time of suspense. Then Miss Percival said, “I've had a telegram. Mr. Ingram is coming to-morrow.”

To this he said nothing. She went on.

“He is bringing people with him. Mrs. Benson was very funny about it. He is coming at seven with some people, and she would read it that he was coming with seven people. When I asked her, how could we meet him if he had not told us the time? she made a grievance of it, and said that was so like him. So it is, of course.”

Struan remained speechless, and had turned away his face. Miss Percival continued her reflections aloud.

“How long has he been away? More than a year. He wrote once from Singapore--then from Rawal-pindi--and that was all, until I got this telegram. He's very casual, I must say.” Here she paused.

Struan said suddenly, “Miss Percival, I'm going.”

She turned with interest, and asked, with not too much interest, “Oh! Why?”

He said, “You know why.”

She lowered her voice by a tone, but no more. “I hope you won't. It would be a pity. There's no real reason for it. I'll speak to Menzies to-morrow. He doesn't mean any harm to you. He's only old and grumpy.”

“He's a fool,” said Struan. “Certainly, he's a fool. But that's neither here nor there.”

Miss Percival, ignoring what she chose to ignore, said again, “I hope you won't go.”

The young man shifted his ground, and dug his heel into the turf. “I must--indeed, I must.”

“Where shall you go?”

“God knows.”

“Why must you go?”

“You know why.”

“Is it because of Menzies?”

He threw his head up. “Menzies, forsooth!” He scorned Menzies.

“Then I don't see why you should go. I shouldn't like it. I hope you will stay.”

He looked at her now across the dusk, intensely. “You hope I will stay?”

“Yes, certainly I do.”

“You hope I will stay? You ask me to stay?”

She considered. Then she said, “Yes, I think so. Yes, I do.”

“Then,” said Struan, “God help us all. I stay.”

Miss Percival said cheerfully, “I'm so glad. I'll speak to Menzies to-morrow, and get him to leave you alone. He knows how well you do the melons, but of course he would never admit it.” She broke off the interview shortly afterwards.

“I'm going to bed,” she told him. “I've got lots to do to-morrow. Heaps of things. You must get me some of your flowers for the rooms.”

He was not appeased, “Menzies will do it,” he said. She laughed.

“You know what Menzies will say--'Pelargoniums for the hall, Miss Percival, and some nice maidenhair.' He's not inventive, poor Menzies.”

“He's an old fool,” said Struan. “He takes flowers for spangles in a circus.”

Miss Percival again laughed softly, and held out her hand. “Good-night,” she said. “I'm going.”

He touched her hand, and then put his own behind his back.

“Aren't you going to bed?” she asked him.

“Presently,” he said. “I'm going to walk round for a while.”

She hovered for a moment, seemed to hesitate, to weigh the attractions of walking round. It had a charm. Then she decided.

“Good-night,” she bade him for the third time.

He grumbled his good-night, and watched her fade into the dark. Not until she was completely hidden up did he put on his hat again. Then he prowled noiselessly about among the breathing flowers.

III

Wanless, as they call it there,--Wanless Hall, Felsboro', as it is politically,--stands squarely and deeply in the hills of a northern county, plentifully embowered in trees, with a river washing its southern side. To reach house from river you ascend a gentle slope of lawns and groves for some hundreds of feet, then find a broad stepway. That takes you to a terraced, parapeted garden very well tended, as one should be which has four men at its disposition. There stands the house of Wanless, stone-built in the days of Charles the Second--a gleaming, grey front, covered to the first-floor windows with a magnolia of unknown age. The main entrance faces north, from which point the true shape of the place is revealed as a long body with wings, an E-shaped house. Here are the carriage-drive and carriage-sweep; then there's a belt of trees, and beyond that, shaped by the valley, which gradually narrows to the incline of the hills, kitchen-gardens, glass-houses, a pond (fed by a beck), water meadows, and hanging woods. Above those again heather-clad slopes climb to piled rocks and a ragged sky-line. It is a fine property with 5,000 acres of shooting, a good many farms, and a hill village to its account. The lodge at the gate was half a mile away, at the end of a good avenue of beech and sycamore.

Mr. Nevile Ingram who, at thirty, had still the air of a brisk young man and was owner by inheritance of this place, arrived with his guests by the 7.4 train from London. The omnibus brought the four of them, with a maid sitting on the box beside Frodsham, and a bank of luggage behind her head. No parrots, no dogs; but a Mr. Chevenix brought his fishing-rods. Besides this Mr. Chevenix, who had been here before, there was an elderly Mrs. Devereux, white-haired and short-sighted, who used, whenever she could find them, a pair of long-handled glasses, and a young Mrs. Wilmot, pretty, very fair, rather helpless. It was her maid who shared the box-seat with Frodsham.

The absence of a footman at the station had been noted by Mrs. Devereux, the absence of any man-servant at the house struck her as remarkable. There was none, and had been none since Miss Percival assumed command; but at this time Mrs. Devereux knew nothing of Miss Percival. Nevile Ingram, banging the door open with his knee, jumped out first, and stood to help the ladies; the next to emerge was Mr. Chevenix who, the moment he touched earth, said “Right!” and looked as if he had sparkled. It was clear that he had abundant health and was satisfied with all the arrangements of Providence. He surveyed the house, the awaiting virgins at the door, wished them both good evening, nosed the upper air, snuffed the gale, said “Good old Wanless--my precious rods!” and dived for them before the ladies could descend. Thereafter a timidly poising foot and some robust breadth of stocking revealed the anxieties of Mrs. Devereux. On alighting she shook herself like a hen, and her draperies rustled to their length. She found her lorgnettes and surveyed (so to speak) the absent men-servants with blank misgivings. A maid advanced for her jewel-case, but Mrs. Devereux, shutting her eyes, said “Thanks, I carry it,” and pressed it to her bosom. A butler would have had it. Meantime, Mrs. Wilmot, a hand to each cavalier, was descending from the omnibus. She was a pretty, bedraped lady, with wide blue Greuze eyes, and soft lips, always wet and mostly apart. She murmured, “How kind you are to me,” and liked it from Ingram to Chevenix. Ingram said nothing, but Chevenix dropped down his brisk “By Jove, Mrs. Wilmot, that's nothing to what I _could_ do for you--nothing at all.” And then they turned to the house.

When Miss Percival, looking frailer than she really was because of her black gown, fairer, that is, and paler, entered the hall, she found the party at a loose end. Mr. Chevenix was in a deep chair, turning over _Bradshaw_, and whistling softly to himself. Ingram, hands in pockets, was deprecating the portraits of his ancestors to the two ladies, who were not at all interested in them. He appeared to be considerably bored by his guests, and they to be aware of it. Miss Percival's arrival was timely, if only because she effectively chased out _ennui_. Chevenix, as if he had been waiting for her, jumped up and went to meet her. He shook hands. “Hulloa, Sancie!” he was heard distinctly to say. “By Jove, I'm glad to see you again.” The latter sentence was not quite audible, but sufficiently so to send Mrs. Devereux' lorgnettes up to her nose. Sanchia herself, receiving civilities as if born to them, impelled her to keep them there. She had appeared silently and suddenly out of the blue. And now she hovered, smiling, fair, and unconcerned, like a goddess out of a chariot come to deal judgment, and listened charitably to Mr. Chevenix. How odd! How more than odd! Mrs. Wilmot looked as if her eyes were full of tears, but let nothing escape her. As for Ingram, he greeted the apparition with a smile and a nod sideways. But Mrs. Devereux could have sworn to a scare in the eye. “How are you, Sanchia?” he said, and then to his guests, “Miss Percival will show you where you all are, if you'll--Dinner's at half-past eight, I believe. At least, it always used to be; but I've been away for a year, and they may have changed all that. Have you, by the way?” he asked, with a sudden turn to Miss Percival.

She looked calmly at him. “No. It's still at half-past eight,” she said. He lit his cigarette.

“Will you show these ladies their rooms?” he required of her, adding as an afterthought, “Mrs. Devereux, Mrs. Wilmot. Mrs. Wilmot has a maid somewhere.”

It was a quasi-introduction, awkwardly done. Sanchia gravely bowed, and all might have been well had not her gentle smile persisted. The baffling quality of this, the archaic enigma of it, made Mrs. Wilmot stare at her helpless with brimming blue eyes. It made Mrs. Devereux shiver. It was she, however, who accepted the inclination of the head. “Good evening to you,” she said. The housekeeper! This--person! The pair of them followed her upstairs, Mrs. Devereux marching before, like one of the old _regime_ to the guillotine, Mrs. Wilmot trailing in her wake.

Young Chevenix, when they had disappeared, returned with a grin to his _Bradshaw_. “No change from Sanchia,” he said; and “Let's see: _Birmingham depart_ 4.45. By Gad, that's a good train. No,” he resumed; “no change out of Sancie. How long is it since you were here, Nevile?”

Ingram was staring blankly out of window. “I think a year. I don't know. You went out with me to Brindisi, I believe, and that was April, and so's this--just. So you can work it out. D'you want me to fix you up? You're in the east wing, you know--I expect you are, anyhow. Where you were before.”

“Right,” said Chevenix; “right. Only we're none of us where we were before, my boy. Don't flatter yourself.” He shut _Bradshaw_ with a bang, and went off, singing softly, to a tune of his own, “No change, no change from Sanchia,” which he turned into “Who is Sanchia? What is she, that all our swains...?”

Miss Percival, having played the exact and perfect housekeeper above--with no apparent interest in life but submergence in her duties--returned to the ground floor and sought Minnie in the dining-room. She made her survey calmly, and gave such orders as pertained in smooth tones which could not jar. She seemed to consult where she really directed. “Shall we have the _epergne?_ I think we will, don't you? Yes. It's a grand occasion. I don't think we have ever had ladies at Wanless before.” An admission which staggered Minnie. Her “Oh, yes, Miss Percival,” and “Oh, no, Miss Percival,” were appreciative and good to hear.

She was butler, we find, as well as housekeeper, for as she stood there, meditating the table, Ingram came in, in a hurry, with ideas about wine. He gave them out in jerks, without looking at her. Sherry, of course, a hock, Lafite. No champagne: it's beastly unless you are tired. Oh, and old brandy--the very old. Nothing of the sort to be had in India. The climate kills it. He stood very close to her as he spoke. When he remembered the brandy he put his hand on her shoulder, and finding it there, kept it so. Minnie presently went out of the room upon affairs; and then he looked into her face and said in a new tone, “How are you, Sancie?” He let his hand slide down, encircled her waist lightly with his arm. She gave him her grey eyes and a slow, patient smile. “I am quite well,” she said. “Are you?” Ingram, watching her still, seemed disconcerted, as if he wanted to say or do more, but couldn't, for some reason. What he did was to remove his hand quickly and thrust it into his trouser pocket. It might have been suddenly stung, judging from his way of whipping it away. “Oh, I'm all right, of course. I must go and dress, I suppose.” A year is a long time for an absence. In the doorway he stopped and looked back, a last look. “Supper in my room, you know. We'll talk.” She held to her mysteries, and he went.

Dinner passed gaily, Miss Percival away. Ingram was loquacious, though rather caustic; Chevenix a good foil, easy-tempered, always at a run, a very fair marksman for all his random shooting. His was that happy disposition which finds Nature at large, including men, as precisely there for his amusement. He relished, never failed to relish, the works of God. But then he had perfect health. Mrs. Devereux was something of a grandee, though not quite so much of one as she suspected. Her white hair towered; she wore black velvet and diamonds. Mrs. Wilmot was very much of a pretty woman, and knew to the turn of a hair how much. She had the air of a spoiled child, which became her; was golden and rosy; could pout; had dark blue eyes, which she could cloud at will, and fill, as we know, with tears. She excelled in pathetic silences, to which her parted lips gave an air of being breathless. She was beautifully dressed in cloudy, filmy things, and had a soft, slight, drooping figure. Innocence was her _forte_: her rings were superb.

One odd thing was noticeable, and noticed intensely by Chevenix, that Ingram hardly ate anything, though he pretended to a hearty meal. It came, Chevenix saw, to dry toast and three glasses of wine, practically. But he made great play with knife and fork, and talked incessantly. He revealed himself at every turn of his monologue--for it came to be a monologue--as one of those men whose motives are so transparently reasonable to themselves that they need never be at the trouble to explain or defend any act of theirs. He was witty, though occasionally brutal, as when he spoke of a dragoman he had had in Egypt, whose defence of his _harem_ had cost him his place. This man, a cultivated Persian, had proposed hospitality to his patron in Alexandria, where he lived. Accepted, he had made a great supper for Ingram, invited his friends and acquaintances, procured musicians and dancing-girls. It was magnificent, Ingram allowed. The trouble came afterwards, when the native guests had gone their ways and patron and host were together. Ingram proposed a visit to the ladies--“the civil thing, it appeared to me. But no, if you please! Mirza turned very glum, pronounced it not the custom: I must excuse him, he says. But I say, Will they excuse _me_, my good man? He makes a sour face, so of course I know that they won't, and that he knows they won't. Then he marches away upon some errand or another, and when he comes back finds me tapping at a door. You never saw such a change in a chap; upon my soul, it was worth it. He went white, he went grey, he went livid. His eyes were like stars. No, I'm wrong. They were not. They were like the flaming swords which kept Adam and Eve out of the garden. Magnificent police arrangements in Eden, they had. I heard his breath whistle through his nose like the wind at a keyhole. He says 'You mistake, sir. You forget. Or do I deserve to be insulted?' I told him that I was the insulted person in the party, and the ladies came next. I swear I heard a chuckle behind the door. That I swear to.”

Chevenix, round-eyed and staring, was heard to mutter, “Good old Nevile! Well, I'll be shot....” Ingram cut short his tale.

“I can't go into what followed. Much of it was irrelevant, all of it was preposterous. It ended by Mirza directing me to the nearest hotel, in perfect English. The crosser he got, the better his English. That's odd, you know. Of course, I chucked the chap. He lost a soft billet.”

There were no comments from the auditory, save such as Mrs. Wilmot's eyes may have afforded. She sighed, and laid her hand for one moment, caressingly, upon her neck. Her rings were certainly superb.

The dessert being on the table, Minnie served the old brandy and retired. Ingram drank of it freely, and began his cigarette the moment that the coffee and spirit-flame appeared. The ladies withdrew to the drawing-room, and Mrs. Wilmot sought the piano. But two chords had not been touched before her eyes found those of Mrs. Devereux, who stood by the fire. Eyebrows exchanged signals.

Then Mrs. Devereux said, “I am most uncomfortable,” and Mrs. Wilmot sighed, “I know.”

IV

The quiet cause of discomfort, slippered and loose-robed, sat meanwhile in an easy-chair, with her feet in the fender. Her hair floated free about her shoulders, silky from the brush. She had a book on her knees, but did not read it. Instead she looked into the fire, frowning.

Faint lines now printed themselves upon her face; two between her brows, one defining the round of each fair cheek. Her eyes showed fathomless sapphire: whatever her thoughts were of they held the secret close. Their gaze was one of fascination, as if she saw things in the fire terrible and strange, figures of the past or of the future, from which she could not turn her face. The curve of her upper lip, where it lay along its fellow and made a dimpled end, sharpened and grew bleak. Poring and smiling into the fire, she looked like a Sibyl envisaging the fate of men, not concerned in it, yet absorbed, interested in the play, not at all in the persons. This friend of Mrs. Benson, this midnight mate of young gardeners, disturber of high ladies' comfort, serene controller of Wanless, she was, it would seem, all things to all men, as men could take her. But now she had the fell look of a cat, the long, sleek, cruel smile, the staring and avid eyes. A cat she might be, playing with her own beating heart, patting it, watching its throbs.

These moments of witchcraft gazing were not many. They had been deliberately begun, and were deliberately done with. Within their span her cares were faced and co-ordinated; and the business over, she sighed and sank more snugly into her chair. She leaned back; her hands crossed themselves in her lap; she shut her eyes. All the lines upon her face softened, melted away. She looked now like an Oread aswoon in the midday heats, pure of thought or dread or memory. Her bosom below her laces rose and fell gently. She slept.

Outside, in the dusky dark, was one who padded up and down the grass on noiseless feet, passing and repassing the window, with an eye for the narrow chink of light.

She slept for a very short time. Towards ten o'clock she awoke. Collecting herself luxuriously, she was seen to face her facts again. Evidently they held her eyes waking; they were dreadfully there, still unresolved or still unpalatable. Before them now she plainly quailed. The flush of her sleep gave delicacy to her carven beauty; she looked fragile and tremulous; it would seem that a little more pity of herself would bring her to tears. As if she knew it, she took her measures, rose abruptly, and after two turns about the room went to a safe, opened it, and plunged herself into the ledger-book, which she took from it. Upon that and a cash-box--with certain involuntary pauses, in which her eyes concentrated and stared--she remained closely engaged until half-past eleven.

At that hour, having ascertained it, she put by her work, went into her bedroom, and began a deliberate and careful toilet. She was pale, serious, and evidently rather scared at herself; she lifted her eyebrows and opened wide her eyes. But she did what she had to do as daintily as ever Amina, in the Arab tale, figured her rice. A person of great simplicity, who did extraordinary things in an ordinary way, at the hour when all Wanless was going to bed, she brushed and banded her shining hair, and dressed herself in silk and lace as for a dinner party. To herself in the glass she gave and received again a face of pure pity and sorrow. She saw herself lovely and love-worthy, sleek under the caress of her own beauty. Yet she knew exactly what she was about to do, and how she would do it, and did not falter at all.

At a quarter past twelve her summons came--a knock at the door, the turning of the handle, the push to open, and Ingram's voice. “Come along, Sancie,” he said, and went away without any more ceremony. She got up from her chair, put her book down, having marked her place, and followed him after a few minutes' meditation. Ingram's quarters were on the ground floor of the house, as hers were, but in the opposite wing. She had two rooms in the western arm of the E; the whole of the eastern was his.

He was at table when she came in and shut the door behind her, at a table fairly naped, with fine glass, silver, and flowers upon it. There was hothouse fruit, too, a melon, a little pyramid of strawberries in fig-leaves. He was eating smoked salmon and bread and butter with appetite. By his side, half empty, was a champagne glass. A pint bottle stood at his elbow.

He hailed her gaily, with a jerk of his head, a “Come along,” and a lifted glass. Leaning back as she came on, watching and waiting for her, he stretched out his left arm. She smiled rather conventionally, did not meet his eyes, but came within reach. His arm encircled her, and drew her in. “Well, my girl, well!” he said, glancing up, laughing, tempting her to laugh. She looked down gently, blushing a little, and condescended to him, stooped and brushed his forehead with her lips. Condescension expresses her act. It was exactly done as one would humour an importunate child, excuse its childishness, and grant it its desire of the moment.

So it must have been felt by him, for there was a sharp, short tussle of wills. She would have had him contented, but he was not so to be contented. There was a little struggle, much silent entreaty from him, much consideration from her above him--her doubting, judging, discriminating eyes, her smile, half-tender and half-scornful; but in the end he kissed her lips, the more ardently for their withholding. Then he allowed her to sit by the table, not far off, and resumed his smoked salmon and his zest. She declined to share the meal; was neither hungry nor thirsty, she said. “Have your own way, my dear,” he concluded the match; “you'll feel all the better for it, I know.” She cupped her chin in her hand, and watched the play of knife and fork, her thoughts elsewhere.

“Now, Sancie,” he said presently, in his usual direct manner, “how long is it since I've seen you?”

She answered at once, without looking up, “A year and ten days.”

He shook his head. “That's too long. That's absurd. I don't like that kind of thing, as a man domestically inclined. But I've been a devil of a way. I wrote to you--from where?”

“From Singapore,” she told him.

“So I did. I remember. But I went to Egypt before that. First-rate place, Egypt. I know it well, but am always glad to be there. Fine river of its own. We went to Khartoum, and two marches beyond; then Singapore and the Straits, Burmah, Ceylon; then India. Didn't I write to you from India?”

“Yes,” she told him. She was balancing a salt-spoon idly on a wine-glass, and seemed scarcely to listen. He rattled on.

“Had great days in India. Shooting, fishing, pig-spearing; polo, dances, rajahs, pretty women, pow-wows of sorts, and a chance of a fight. All in a year, my friend--I beg your pardon--and ten days. Quick work, eh? One crowded year of glorious life. A cycle of Cathay.”

She was looking at her saltspoon, stretched beyond her the length of her arm. “I'm sure you were very happy.”

He looked at her directly. “Oh, I was, you know. Otherwise, I guess I should have written. I was idiotically happy. And you?”

“I was busy,” she told him, “idiotically busy.” He laughed gaily.

“That's one for me--and a shrewd one. Oh, you deep-eyed scamp! Sancie, you never give yourself away. I've noticed that many and many a time. And not I only, I can assure you. Bill Chevenix, now---”

Her thoughts, her regard, were far away from a world of Ingrams and Chevenixes. She may have heard, but she gave no sign. He rattled on.

“Oh, you're splendid, of course you're splendid. The comfort of you! I go off to the ends of the world--without a care left behind me--or taken with me, by Jove! No bothers, no worry--letters opened, the right ones, answered and done with. Letters forwarded, the right ones, unopened. How you can guess, it beats me! No worry. You don't ask me to write to you--or expect it. You don't write to me--and I don't expect it. You know me just as I know you. There's a confidence, a certainty about you. That's what's so splendid. There can't be a girl in the world like you.” He clasped her in triumph. “My Sancie! Back I come at the end of my time, and everything's in apple-pie order. And to crown all, there's you at the door, to welcome me--and wait your turn--and wait your turn. Always the same--my wise, fine Sanchia!” He leaned forward, picked up and held her hand. “My dear, I love you,” he said, and jumped up and kissed her. Then, as he stood above her, the triumphant young man, with the hand of possession on her shoulder, “Upon my word,” he declared to the assembled universe, “this is a very satisfactory world, so far as I am concerned.”

When he was seated again, and invited her to talk domestic affairs, she returned from her reverie, and gathered in all her self-possession. The estate, the household, the parish, the county: there was no mistaking his interest in these matters. He was interested in the smallest particulars: her broods of young chicks, her pigeons, the tabby cat's kittens, the Rector's baby. He asked searching questions. How many cows were in milk just now; when would Menzies have asparagus fit to eat? The servants--was all well there? Their young men? Nothing escaped him. She was quite ready for him, took a dry tone, showed a slight sense of the humour of the situation, descended to trifles, had statistics at her fingers' ends. She met him, in a word, as he wished to be met, as jointly concerned in these minute affairs.

He lit a cigar, and drew her to the fire. He would have had her on his knee, but she would not. She sat on a straight chair beside his easy one, and allowed him to play with her hand.

He talked now in jerks, between puffs, of his adventures; his first shot at a tiger, some trouble with hillmen at Peshawur, a row at a mess-table, in which two chaps lost their heads, and one his papers. He had been present as a guest, but had kept well in the background. There had been a lot of drinking done--luckily he was all right. He had a good head, you see; could carry a lot of stuff.