Chapter X (5)

"That's the regiment that Harry was to have gone into," said Jane. "His father and grandfather belonged to it."

"Did they?" said Sidney. "Some of Noel's people were in it too. It sounds all right, but as a matter of fact Noel was a schoolmaster when the war broke out. He's the son of our vicar at home. When the war is over he is going to be a schoolmaster again. So you see how it is."

In her general ignorance of the world outside the immediate parish of Royd, Jane didn't quite see how it was. She asked kindly after Noel Chancellor and was given a pleasing impression of a handsome athletic young man, who had played cricket for Marlborough and Oxford and Notts, and had been happily engaged at a health resort on the East Coast of Kent, when the war broke out, in teaching thirty or so delightful boys under the age of fourteen to play cricket as it ought to be played, and to wrestle with the elements of Greek and Latin in their spare time.

"Considering that all the people who think themselves somebody send their children to be educated in schools like Noel was in," said Sidney. "I should have thought a person like me would have been just the touch that was wanted to make it still more of a success. But of course mother doesn't see it in that light. It's all very trying."

Jane's affectionate heart went out to this tale of crossed love, the first that had ever come within her ken outside the pages of her father's novels, which she read dutifully but without much interest. She thought it quite natural that Lady Avalon should want Sidney to marry Harry, as both of them had titles, but did not say this for fear of being laughed at. She wanted to be a real help and comfort to her new friend.

"I am sure it will come all right in the end," she said. "Perhaps when we tell Harry he will be able to do something."

*CHAPTER XXII*

*THE RETURN*

Harry came home a few days after Lady Avalon and Sidney had come to Royd, and two days before they had been going away. But they were persuaded, without much difficulty, to stay a little longer. At least, Lady Avalon accepted Lady Brent's invitation to prolong their visit, and informed Sidney that she had done so. "You see how it is," said Sidney to Jane, with whom she was now fast friends, much to the maturing of Jane's behaviour, but not to the spoiling of her, as her parents gratefully remarked.

"She's a thoroughly nice unaffected girl," said Grant, "and she'll be a nice friend for Jane, especially if what we think is going to happen does happen."

"I'm not sure she's not putting ideas into Jane's head," said Miss Minster. "I know they have secrets together, and I've a sort of notion that they're on the eternal subject of love."

"Well," said Grant, "girls will talk about love, I suppose, and if they talk nicely I don't know that there's much harm done."

"Jane ought to have learnt how to talk nicely about love by this time," said Miss Minster, with obvious reference. "I think Lady Sidney is all right really, or I should perhaps advise you both differently. Whether she's going to set her cap at Harry or not I don't know, and I don't suppose Jane would tell me if I asked her. But I'm pretty sure that they have discussed it."

Mrs. Grant listened to this without remark, but was a little disturbed at the idea of Jane having secrets which she would not impart to Miss Minster. Would she impart them to her? It would mark a stage if Jane were not ready to tell her everything.

She was considering the advisability of approaching Jane on the matter when Jane approached her. "I've got a secret with Sidney, mother," she said, in her abrupt but open way. "It's something she's told me about herself. She says she'd rather I didn't tell you just yet, if you don't mind, but she doesn't mind my telling you that there is a secret. You don't mind, do you?"

"What a lot of 'minds'!" said Mrs. Grant. "No, darling, I don't mind at all, unless it's something that you think you ought to tell me."

"Oh, no, it's nothing of that sort," said Jane. "It's something about herself which she doesn't want people to know yet. I'm going to tell it to Harry when he comes home, so that we can all three enjoy ourselves together."

Mrs. Grant, with the idea in her head that Sidney had confided to Jane that she retained a tender memory of Harry which might become more tender still, was a little surprised at this way of putting it; but it did not take her long to understand the truth when Jane had left her. She smiled and kept her own counsel, and liked Sidney all the better; for she must have known that if Jane told her that there was a secret she would guess what the secret was, little as Jane might suspect it.

Harry sent a wire in the morning to say that he was coming by a train that would arrive in the late afternoon. Only Mrs. Brent drove to the station to meet him, but they were all waiting for him in front of the Castle, the Grants inclusive, and there was scarcely a villager who was not somewhere on the road, or in the more public parts of the park to see him drive by.

His smiling excitement at this greeting from old friends--the only friends he had had up till two years before--made him seem at first exactly what he had been. But there was none of the little group at the Castle, except Lady Avalon and Sidney, who had not the impression, after the first greeting, of his having become much older. His fair boy's beauty had developed into the sunburnt hardness of a man. He was extraordinarily handsome in his smart khaki kit, but he looked years older than his age, which was not much over nineteen; and his speech and manner had altered. It would be another eighteen months before he would be legally his own master and the master of his ancient Castle, and all that went with it; but he seemed to have come into the house as its master, and to give it a meaning that it had never had while it had been ruled by a woman.

It was not too late for tea, which provided an opportunity for everybody of getting used to the new Harry, as they sat on the terrace and made play with their cups and conversation. There were adjustments to be made, and the necessity for them to be covered up. Harry talked freely to everybody. His manner was perfect with his grandmother, to whom he showed deference, while she, of course, behaved with her usual calm and let nothing appear of all that she was thinking. Mrs. Brent kept her eyes on him all the time, and had an air almost of bewilderment. She did not try to assert herself, but accepted gratefully the notice he gave her from time to time. Lady Avalon was the only person present who asked him questions about his experiences, but it soon became evident that he had nothing to tell that was personal to himself. He answered the questions, but with a slight change in the frank manner of his speech when they touched upon his own experiences apart from the operations in which he had taken part. His mother told Mrs. Grant afterwards that he had said to her during the drive that he wanted to forget everything that had happened since he had left home--at least he didn't want to talk about it. They had yet to learn how far his experiences had changed him, and to gather whether or no they were such as to have left a painful mark upon his life; but he would give them no help in coming to their conclusions. His life in the ranks was to remain as it had been, a sealed book to them.

With Sidney Harry was friendly, but no more. They talked a little of their childhood, and laughed over some of their memories, but it was not, apparently, to be the basis of any special degree of intimacy between them. Sidney retired a little into her shell after a time, and watched.

Harry was more like his old self with Jane than with anybody. Beyond a single remark about her growth he had not shown himself aware of any change in her. He seemed to want to take up their friendship at exactly the place where it had stopped. He asked her many questions about Pobbles, and said he would write to him. His manner towards her was that of a grown man to a child whom he loves. Even Lady Avalon did not mistake it for anything else, for she told Lady Brent afterwards that it was rather extraordinary that he should not see that Jane was already growing into a very pretty girl, with the implication that the fact might dawn upon him as time went on.

Jane herself showed a high but modest pride in the value he put upon her. "Now you see what he's like," she told Sidney. "When we three can be together and enjoy ourselves--well, we shall enjoy ourselves. I consider that Harry is about the nicest friend that anybody can have. He doesn't forget you when he's away."

"He hasn't forgotten _you_," said Sidney. "I'm beginning to wonder whether I shan't be a little in the way."

Jane showed surprise at this, and Sidney laughed and said: "Darling old thing you are! You don't know what you're worth; but you will in a year or two. Anyhow, I'm not jealous of you, and I like Harry for remembering his old friends and not wanting to drop them for new ones. Of course I knew him before you did, but not as he is now. He's older than I should have thought, and I think he looks rather sad. You've got to cheer him up, and if I'm wanted to help I shall be quite ready."

"Of course you'll be wanted to help," said Jane. "You'll be seeing more of him, for one thing, as you will be staying in the house. I suppose you won't mind my being his _chief_ friend though, if you like somebody else better."

"I should be a horrid sort of creature if I did," said Sidney. "You won't suffer from me when you're not here."

Harry and Sidney strolled together in the garden after dinner, with the full concurrence of their elders, except possibly of Mrs. Brent, who had not yet recovered from her air of slight bewilderment, and was quieter than she had been for the last few days.

They talked about Jane, and for the first time Harry seemed to regard Sidney with interest. Hitherto he had been merely friendly with her on the surface, as with one who was there but didn't matter much. "Oh, yes, we're real friends," she said, with her free and pleasant smile. "I suppose you can only see that she's a child, but I've never treated her like one. I began like that because girls of that age love being talked to as if they were grown up, but I very soon found out what a lot there was in her. If she's a child in some ways still, as of course she is, it makes her all the more fascinating. She's one in a thousand. She'll make all the difference to me down here, if I can get hold of her sometimes."

"She's a real person," Harry said. "If you and she have made friends it will be jolly for all three of us. We can all be friends together."

"That's what Jane wants," said Sidney. "She's devoted to you, and I believe she's also devoted to me, though not so much so. We can go and get hold of her to-morrow morning, can't we? She has a holiday on Saturday."

"Oh yes. I'm very glad you want to. I was half afraid you might think she was too young for you."

"I suppose you mean that you were half afraid you'd have to dance attendance on me, when you'd rather have been with Jane; but you see you need fear nothing of that sort."

They looked at one another. There was just light enough to catch an expression of face. Then they both laughed, and became friends from that moment.

"We'd settled that Jane was to tell you," said Sidney, "but I think I might as well do it myself. I'm engaged to somebody, but the engagement is not smiled upon. In fact it isn't recognized at all, and can't be spoken of. But Jane and I thought that if you knew of it it would make things more comfortable all round for us three."

Harry asked her questions and showed a friendly sympathy towards her love affair. But the idea of it seemed to make him rather sad too, and Sidney did not make the mistake of thinking that his sadness was due to any disappointment created by what she had told him. Indeed her information had cleared the air, which held more of friendliness and companionship in it than before, as if he were relieved at having it quite understood that he would not be expected to make love to her, but short of that would give her all the friendship that she wanted, and be glad to take in return all that she had to give to him.

She had a good deal to give him. That baby's friendship which seemed to have meant nothing to him had kept him alive in her heart. He was not quite like other men to her. Something of his childhood lingered about him, though he had advanced so far on the hard road of manhood, and but for her memories of him would have seemed to her much older than his years. She felt the desire to encourage in him those gleams of boyish laughter and irresponsibility which had once or twice shone out through the half-weary indifference of his attitude. She thought that he must have been through a harsh disillusioning experience, and was too tired in spirit to accept all at once the freedom of his release. Her own lover, who was some years older than Harry, had told her that it needed a good deal of resolution and self-hardening to go through the ranks, and that sometimes only the remembrance of her had kept him up to it. She thought she knew more than other girls were likely to know what it must have meant to Harry, who did not seem even to want to speak of it. The maternal instinct which is in all women drew her to sympathy with him. She and Jane between them would get rid of that sadness and tiredness that lay over him. If Jane was too young, and she too occupied with somebody else to give him the consolation that would quickly heal such wounds as he was suffering from, he would still, surely, respond to their affection, and forget his troubles. She must not talk too much about her own happiness. That seemed to depress him, kind as he was about it. Of course it was love he wanted, though he might not know it. It was a pity that Jane was not a few years older, or that she herself was the only unmarried one of all her sisters. She did not suppose that there was anybody else in these parts, from what she remembered of them, who would be good enough for Harry. But perhaps it was just as well. She and he and Jane would enjoy themselves together, and show the world, if the world happened to take notice and be interested, that a man and two girls could be the best of friends with no question of love affecting their intercourse.

Perhaps that evening they might have got further into intimacy, but Harry had still something to do before he could feel himself free to take his enjoyment in the youthful companionship that had been so fortunately provided for him.

"I'm very glad you're to be here for a bit," he said. "There aren't many young people about and it would have been a bit dull for me, though I should have tried my best to keep it from my mother and grandmother. I think I must go in and have a talk with Granny now, if you don't mind. I haven't seen her alone since I came back."

But apparently Mrs. Brent had decided that there was to be no talk between those two alone, as long as she could prevent it. Lady Avalon and Sidney said good night soon after ten o'clock, and when they had gone Mrs. Brent said: "Come out for a little with me, Harry dear. It's quite warm, and I don't even want a wrap. If you're tired, as I expect you are, you can go straight to bed when we've just had a little stroll."

Lady Brent sat like a sphinx. Harry said: "All right, mother. But I'm not tired. We'll go out for ten minutes and then I'll have a little talk with Granny."

Directly they were in the garden, Mrs. Brent said in a querulous tone: "Why should you want to have a talk with her? She took you away from me a lot when you were a child, but now it's different. She ought not to have any more authority over you than I have."

Harry laughed at her. "Authority!" he echoed. "I don't feel like anybody having much authority over me now, little mother." He spoke tenderly, but there was a hint of impatience in his tone, which she detected.

"I'm sure I don't want to direct you in any way," she said. "I only want to feel that you're mine now that you've grown up, and not hers. Nobody in the world loves you as much as I do. I suppose you'll marry some day, and I shan't grumble at that when the time comes. But until then I want to feel that you and I are all in all to one another."

He answered only her reference to his grandmother. "You're my mother," he said. "In one way you've always been more to me than Granny. But I owe her a good deal, and I mustn't forget it. I haven't done much for her since I went away. Now that I've got what I wanted, and have come back again, I want to make up for that--to both of you."

"It was very cruel of you to cut yourself off from us as you did, Harry," she said. "You needn't have done it. Even she wouldn't have prevented you doing what you wanted to do, when once you'd done it."

"We needn't talk about that," he said, decisively. "It's all over now. It's what I want to tell her. You must let me have a little talk with her when we go in, please, mother."

"You mean you want me to go to bed while you sit and talk to her alone. Why should you want that? Why shouldn't I be there too?"

"Well, because you're not friendly to her, and I want to be--poor old Granny! I suppose you've never got on well together. I used to feel it, though I didn't think about it much. I think you both tried to keep it from me. I'd much rather you tried to get rid of that feeling, mother dear. It makes me unhappy, and you can't hide it from me any longer. After all, Royd is her home. I'm rather sorry you left it. I liked to think of it with you and her here, just as it used to be."

"Oh, I couldn't stay here when you had gone. It was too much to ask of anybody. I suppose she'll always be here--at least till you come of age and are master instead of her. Couldn't we go away together--I don't mean now, but after you've been here a little, to London or somewhere--just you and I together? I've had so little of you, Harry, all to myself. All the dull years here, while she has been everything and I have been nothing, I've looked forward to it--to having you to myself for a little, when you were grown up."

She peered into his face, and saw a frown on it; but when he spoke it had cleared, and he spoke very kindly. "I may have to go to London before my leave is up," he said. "But I should want to go alone. And I don't want to be away from Royd more than I can help. You've always belonged to Royd, mother, ever since I can remember. When I'm with you I'd rather be here than anywhere. Please don't spoil it for me by making things difficult with Granny. I think I'll go in to her now. I mustn't keep her up late."

She expostulated, plaintively, as they went towards the house together. She felt that he was slipping from her, and that nothing would be as she had pictured it, but she had not the self-control to spare him her complaints and appeals. He was always kind, but he was firm too, with a man's firmness towards a weak and foolish woman. He had grown immeasurably in mental stature, and his determination impressed itself upon her increasingly. That mention of authority over him with which she had begun now seemed foolish even to her. As they went into the house she said: "Of course I don't want to treat you like a boy any more. I only want to be sure that you don't love anybody better than me. You do love me best, don't you, Harry?"

He bent down and kissed her. "You know I love you, mother," he said. "Now I'll go and talk to Granny. Come and see me when I go to bed--say in half an hour--as you used to."

That comforted her a little, and she went upstairs, while he went into the drawing-room where Lady Brent was still sitting where they had left her.

"Well, Granny dear," he said. "I thought we'd have a little talk. I've got things to tell you."

She laid down her work, and looked at him fondly, sitting in a low chair opposite to her, so young in appearance, as he sat there with his long legs stretched out, but, as she felt, so old in experience, and so different from the boy he had been.

"Please don't think, dear Harry," she said, "that you owe me any explanation of anything. I've had a long time to think it all out, you know. I think I understand most things. Don't you want it treated as if it was all over now, and begin again, much as it was before? If so, I want that too. We've got you at home now, and we want to be all happy together."

His face cleared as he spoke. "It's very good of you to put it like that," he said. "Yes, of course I want it to be as much as possible what it used to be as long as I can be here with you. There's a good deal I want to forget."

"I'm afraid you've been through a very hard time, Harry."

"Not harder than others, Granny. It's not a bad thing to learn what you have to learn in a hard school. Perhaps you learn it all the quicker."

There was a pause before she said: "It has troubled me a good deal--the thought of your going straight from the life you lived here into the ranks. It wasn't that that we'd tried to prepare you for."

"Oh, the ranks!" he said. "You needn't let that worry you, Granny. I'm glad I went into the ranks. I'd rather do it that way than any."

She showed some surprise at this. "I've thought it over and over," she said. "But I've never thought of it in that way. It was the roughness and coarseness I hated for you. Isn't that what you want to forget?"

He was silent for a time, looking down. Then he burst out: "It's learning what the beastliness of life is that I want to forget. That's what I'd never known. I never minded hard work--doing what others do. And I doubt whether I should have been let down so easily with people like myself--on the outside, I mean. No, I was nearer to the men who had lived simpler lives. I understood them better than I should have done the others. And they were good to me too. I don't think I should have wanted to get a commission if I hadn't felt I ought to. I should have been content to go on till the end of it. But now it's all got to begin again. Oh, don't let's talk of it. I've got a month here, where it's quiet and clean and beautiful. Let's forget what's past and what's coming. I never meant to talk of it. I only wanted to tell you what I was going to do, and to thank you for letting me go my own way."

Poor Lady Brent went to bed that night with something new to think about. She could not sleep, and wrote a long letter to Wilbraham in London. "We might have thought of that," she wrote in the course of it. "It wouldn't have been the little hardships that would trouble him. He had prepared himself for all that, with the life out of doors that he had led here. And he would understand the men he was with, because he was friends with everybody about here. I'm sure they must have loved him too, and all the more because he wasn't like them. The others would have expected him to be like them. I am full of trouble about him. It looks to me now as if we had prepared him for nothing, so as to save him pain. Life has come as a shock to him, and he has not got over it yet. But one thing I'm sure of--he must work it out for himself. I shall meddle with him no more. I am not sure that I have not made a great mistake."

*CHAPTER XXIII*

*CONFIDENCES*

Whatever it was that Lady Brent and Lady Avalon had plotted between them, it needed no adjustment of Lady Brent's statement to Wilbraham--that henceforth she should meddle no more in Harry's life--to help or hinder it. They had only to stand aside and perhaps to congratulate one another upon the way their desires were being fulfilled. Only Mrs. Brent went about with a downcast face and air, and but for the kindness Harry showed her might as well have been back in London. She also wrote to Wilbraham, and told him that Harry and Sidney seemed to be falling more and more in love with one another every day.

"Of course it's hard on me," she wrote. "But it's what mothers are made for, I suppose. You do everything for your children and sink yourself entirely, and then some girl steps in and takes it all from you. However, I'm not going to show her that I feel it. She's got the better of me once more. The girl doesn't take the slightest trouble about me--doesn't think I'm worth it, I suppose--and for myself I don't care about her. But she is the right sort of girl for Harry to marry, or at any rate to fall in love with. Whatever I am, I'm fair, and I can see that. I should hate anybody who would take him away from me, so it might just as well be her as anybody. They're happy together, and Harry is more like his old self. I'm sure they've not said anything to one another yet. They take Jane Grant with them whenever they can get hold of her, and they wouldn't want to do that if it had gone very far with them. The moment they want to go off by themselves I shall know what to expect, and I'll let you know, but I hope you'll be down here before then. We are very glad you are coming. Harry often talks about you. How I wish it was all like it used to be! But it never will be again."

Harry and Sidney rode together, and Harry found a horse for Jane and taught her to ride. Lady Avalon had a car at Royd and sometimes they motored over to Poldaven, where everything was now ready for the reception of a family of distinction. But Lady Avalon had gone back to London, and Sidney stayed on at Royd. There was no talk of her going away.

Jane could not be always with them. She had been let off afternoon lessons, by special request, but had to occupy herself with them in the mornings.

One hot morning Harry and Sidney motored over to Poldaven Castle. It was an old stone house, not very big, which stood on a boldly jutting cliff with the sea on three sides of it. There was generally some wind hereabouts, and there was a strong fresh wind this morning, though among the woods of Royd it was close and still.

They went down to a little sheltered garden below the house. It had been partly hollowed out of the rock, and was partly rock-strewn grass and gorse and fern tamed into some semblance of ordered ground, but not too much to take from the charm of its wildness. Steps cut in the rock led down to it from above, and steps had been made from it to the sea, which lay fifty or sixty feet below. They sat on a stone bench overlooking the heaving emerald mass of the sea, and the waves breaking in a high tide against the cliffs and the huge scattered rocks that littered the shore.

They were very good friends now, these two. It was Jane who had brought them together, for she greatly admired both of them, and would not be content until they admired one another. So they laughed at her and affected a wondering awe at each other's perfections when they were in her presence; and when they were alone together they sometimes kept up the game, to prevent themselves falling into sadness over their private troubles.

They were both a little sad now, as they sat on the sun-warmed rock and looked out on the surge of the waves. Nature was so bright and fresh and happy, and seemed to be inviting a mood to respond to her own. She could put on this air of perpetual laughing youthfulness, though age-old and subject to moods very different. It seemed ungracious not to laugh and be happy with her.

"It's lovely here," Sidney said. "If only things would go right! You're the most perfect person in the world, Harry. I ought to be quite happy being here with you, but I want somebody else. I'm wanting him rather badly just at present."

"Well, you're everything you ought to be, but I want somebody else too," he said.

He rose impulsively and leant against the wall of the little terrace with one arm resting on it, and looked down at her. "I've thought I'd tell you for some time," he said. "I want to tell somebody. I can't tell Jane; she's too young. But you're in the same boat as I am; you'll understand. And we're friends too, aren't we?--always have been."

She had appeared startled at his announcement, but her face was soft as he finished. "Oh, yes, we're friends," she said. "I'm so glad you've told me, Harry. Do you know I've wondered sometimes whether there was somebody. You so often look--well, you look like I feel. You're enjoying yourself, but there's somebody you're thinking of all the time who isn't there. Do tell me about it."

He told her about his meeting with Viola on the moor, and how they had seen one another constantly afterwards and loved one another. Sidney's eyes were kind as she listened, but there was a little frown of puzzlement on her face. It was to be supposed that she wanted to "place" this lovely girl who had come to Harry as a revelation when he had been only a boy, and whom he adored still. He had told her nothing about her so far, except that her father was an artist and they had been holiday-making at Royd. There were many questions she wanted to ask.

"Have you got a photograph of her, Harry?" was the first that she asked. She wanted to satisfy herself that he was not idealizing somebody not worthy of him.

Half unwillingly he took his case out of his pocket, and Viola's photograph out of it. "It isn't as beautiful as she is," he said, "but it's like her in some ways."

Sidney took the card and looked at it for a long time. It was of Viola as Harry had first known her, young and sweet and untroubled.

"She's very lovely," she said, slowly. Then she looked up at him with a smile. "I'm so glad, Harry. I shouldn't like to think of you in love with somebody who wasn't like that. But I think she'd have to be, for you to fall in love with her. Have you seen her since?"

Yes, he had seen her two or three times before he had been sent abroad, and he had been with her since he had come back, before he had come to Royd. She was in London, working in a government office. He was going to London for a few days before his leave was up, and would see her again after that before he went to France.

He spoke as if he was troubled about it, and she knew why. But there was a lot to learn about it yet. And there was something about the beginnings of this love affair that she could not quite reconcile with her knowledge of Harry.

"Of course you're both frightfully young," she said. "Noel and I are of an age to get married if they'd let us, but I suppose you could hardly expect them to think that you were. But mightn't they accept your engagement, and let her be here with you?"

He came and sat on the seat beside her again. "Of course we shall be married some day," he said. "But we never thought about that, or about what you call an engagement--I mean we didn't think of it in the way that older people would. We were just happy loving each other."

"Oh, I know," she said. "It's a lovely time that--perhaps the best of all. But afterwards you come down to the earth a little. I suppose it has been like that with you, hasn't it? There are one's people to be considered, and what they are likely to think about it. I suppose nobody knows--at Royd."

"Wilbraham does--my tutor, you know. Nobody else does."

She showed surprise at this. "Did he find out you were seeing her?" she asked.

He stirred uneasily. He did not answer her question directly. "I don't suppose you'd realize quite how it was with me here, before I went away," he said. "They'd kept me shut up. I was happy enough, but I knew absolutely nothing about the world. From what I've learnt since, I know it must look as if we had met surreptitiously. Perhaps we did, and yet it wasn't like that either. It was the most natural thing in the world for us to be together as we were. At first I even thought of telling my mother about it. I don't know now when it first dawned upon me that they wouldn't have approved--or why. I shouldn't have cared much if they had known. But it was such a beautiful secret between Viola and me; I didn't want it to be spoiled by other--older people--coming in."

"Mr. Wilbraham knew," she said.

"He'd seen her. He knew what she was like. He's a dear old thing--full of understanding and sympathy. I don't know why he didn't tell Granny. I didn't ask him not to. I wouldn't have done that; that would have looked as if I had done something I was ashamed of. I've had an idea since that he had some sort of feeling that we were two men together, and it wasn't for us to be directed in our affairs by a woman. Something like that. Granny has always been very much at the head of things here."

"Yes, I see," she said. "But now you're older, Harry; and it has lasted? That sort of love, when you're _very_ young, doesn't _always_ last, you know. Wouldn't Lady Brent accept it now? It would be so lovely if she could come here, and you could be happy with her as long as you're in England. You wouldn't have to go away to London to see her then."

There was silence for a time, except for the noise of the waves on the rocks, and the plaintive cry of the gulls wheeling above them. Harry sat looking on the rocky floor, Sidney out to sea.

"I've had to decide such a lot of things for myself lately," he said. "I'd decided not to do that."

She thought his tone sounded as if he were wavering about his decision. She did not look at him, but said: "With Noel and me it's a very ordinary sort of difficulty. He's not what they'd call a good match. But I suppose they won't hold out if we show that we mean to have our own way. If they do, well, I shall wait till I'm twenty-one and marry him--just like that. But, of course, it would make a lot of difference if they smiled on us now, instead of keeping us apart. The real reason why we've come down here is because if he comes home on leave I should see him, and they don't want me to; and partly, I suppose, because they think you and I might get to like each other, now we're both grown up. Why can't they let us be happy in our own way--the older people? They've done what they wanted, or if they haven't they're probably rather sorry for it now. I should be very glad if Noel were in the sort of position that my sisters' husbands are. But I shouldn't love him any better for it. It's love that counts."

"Yes, of course," said Harry. "Well, both you and I are going to get what we want by and by. I suppose we shall have to wait about the same time for it. But you never know what's going to happen to you in these days. If I were to get killed, I should have missed something I ought to have had. You'd say it wouldn't make much difference to me, but I don't look at it like that; and anyhow it would make a difference to Viola, all her life."

Her eyes had filled with tears. "It just doesn't do to think about that," she said, "or to talk about it."

He looked at her quickly, and put his hand on hers as it lay on the stone between them. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to be a brute. We take it like that, you know; it doesn't make any difference to us. Nobody worries about it. But, of course it's different for you."

She dried her eyes. "It won't happen to Noel or you," she said. "We shall all four of us be happy by and by. But why shouldn't you be happy now, Harry? Is it necessary that you should keep it a secret still?"

The troubled look returned to his face. "I'm different from other men," he said. "Everything was spared me when I was young. I've had to learn everything since I grew up, and it isn't a pleasant world to learn in now. But whatever I have to do I must do now on my own responsibility. I should have to ask for Viola to come here. I couldn't do that. When she comes here, she'll come of her own right--the right that I shall give her."

"But if you were to tell them about her, Harry----"

"Yes, that's what I've thought of doing. But I can't do that either. They might accept her, but if they didn't--it's like it is with you. They want something else."

She sighed. "I'm glad you've told me, at any rate," she said. "It puts _everything_ right now. You know about me and I know about you. I suppose Jane doesn't know?"

"No. And we mustn't tell her. I wish I could, but it wouldn't be fair on her. She'll be the first person I shall tell on that happy day when I can tell everybody."

*CHAPTER XXIV*

*HOLIDAY*

Wilbraham came down to Royd for a week-end visit. It was all he could spare from his arduous duties. He was thinner than he had been, but seemed to have flourished under the severe course of work to which he had submitted himself. He seemed harder and more self-reliant. Lady Brent saw at the first glance that his old temptation had not troubled him, or if it had troubled him that he had got the better of it.

Harry drove a dogcart to the station to meet him. The greeting was warm between them. Wilbraham looked him up and down. "I can't say they've smartened you up," he said, "because you didn't want it. But they've turned you into a soldier. I hope you haven't forgotten all your classics."

Harry laughed, but made no reply. When they had driven out of the little town and were on the long lonely country road, he said: "I wanted to see you first. Of course you'll be talking me over with Granny. There are some things I don't want said."

"If you mean about Viola," said Wilbraham after a pause. "I've kept my own counsel--and yours--for nearly two years. I've never been quite sure that I was right to do it. I believe it might have been better for you if Lady Brent had known. But at any rate, I have kept silence, and it isn't my affair now. It's yours. I quite recognize that."

"Have you seen her?"

"Viola? Since you came home, you mean. You know that I saw her occasionally before. Yes, I've seen her. Of course she wants you. You're going up next week, aren't you? Have you arranged that here?"

"Not yet. I told mother that I should be going to London, but I haven't said when yet."

"They won't like it, I suppose. You won't give them any reason for going. They'll think you just want to get away from here to amuse yourself as other young men do who are home on leave."

"I'm afraid they must think what they like. I hate all this secrecy--and deception. I won't deceive them more than I can help. They must let me go my own way, and not ask questions. But it's deception all the same. Why did you let me in for it?"

"Let you in for it? _I_ let you in for it! What on earth do you mean, Harry?"

"Not you chiefly. But you were in it. You kept me knowing nothing. Supposing it hadn't been Viola I fell in love with! Oh, I've learnt a lot since you and I met last. I know what men are, and I'm not different from others at bottom, though there's miles between me and them in some ways. It's Viola I owe everything to--not Granny or mother or you. I don't know how I should have lived through it if it hadn't been for her. I should have lost everything that I was." He spoke more slowly. "Viola is everything in the world to me," he said, "everything in this world or the next. I want you to understand that. I loved her before, but I love her a thousand times more, now that I know. All this--Royd, and Granny and mother--everything that it all meant to me, is nothing to me now, apart from her. Whatever there is that's real in it--I can't explain it, but it's as if she'd have to give it back to me before I can make it anything again. If you can see that, then you may be able to help a little. Viola is to come first in everything, but until it's all straightened out I want Granny--and mother--to be as little troubled about me as possible. Make it look natural to them, my going to London; don't let them think that I'm tired of them, or of Royd. I'm not, only it's all very little to me beside Viola."

"I think you're unjust to us," said Wilbraham. "Say we hadn't prepared you for what you've been through--what nobody could have foreseen."

"Oh, it would have been just the same if I'd gone straight to Sandhurst--perhaps worse--if I hadn't known Viola."

"Well, that's where you're unjust. It was only Viola--or somebody like her--that you could have fallen in love with, as you did. We'd done that for you."

Harry thought this over. Wilbraham breathed more freely the longer his silence lasted. He recognized with gratitude that old sense of fairness and reasonableness which had never been absent in his dealings with Harry. "It's what you have to think of when you feel inclined to blame your grandmother," he said.

"I don't think I'm inclined to blame her," Harry answered to this. "I'm very sorry for her. That's why I want to let her down as easily as I can. Afterwards everything will be right for her, and she'll see--she's quite wise enough--that it was right that I should take my life into my own hands. That's what I'm going to do. I had to do it once before."

"She accepted that, you know."

"Yes, in a wonderful way, I think. And she'll accept Viola. But not now. I should have to ask her for Viola, and I'm not going to do that. Besides, she's got other ideas in her head for me."

"Lady Sidney, I suppose you mean. From what your mother has written, you seem to want her to think that her wishes are being carried out."

"Sidney and I understand one another. She knows about Viola. I'm very glad she's here. I couldn't have stayed here without her and little Jane. I suppose the beastly world would say that I'm just amusing myself with a pretty girl, as I can't be with the girl I love. They might even think there's some danger in it. But the world doesn't know love as I know it." He turned to Wilbraham with a smile. "What you did, my friend, you and Granny between you, was to unfit me for the society of men. After being with nobody but men for all this time, I'm glad enough to have two girls as my friends before I go back to it. As for Granny, she's arranged all that for me, as she's used to arrange everything, and if she's disappointed with the outcome of it, I'm afraid it can't be helped. It's just that arranging that I have to make my stand against, with as little bother about it as possible."

"I've said already, and I'll say it again, that you're hard on Lady Brent. I fully believe that if you were to tell her about Viola--now--she'd accept it. Then all the secrecy you say you hate would be over."

"I think it's quite possible that she might. I don't think my mother would. In any case, there'd be questions and difficulties. Viola would be discussed and reckoned up in a way I can't bear to think of. When the time comes I shall bring Viola here and say: 'This is the girl I love, and she loves me, though I'm not worth anything beside her.' Then there'll be no questions and no difficulties, and Viola will take her place here, and we shall be happy for the rest of our lives."

"You mean that she'll take Lady Brent's place here, I suppose. It's no good blinking matters."

Harry laughed at him. "You always were a persistent old thing," he said, "but I'm very glad to see you again. Tell me about Viola, and what she said to you."

Wilbraham found himself, somewhat to his surprise in spite of the preparation he had had, in an atmosphere of serenity, and almost of gaiety. There had been nothing like it in all the years he had lived at Royd Castle. He told himself that unless he had known how it was with Harry he would certainly have thought that the pleasure he obviously took in Sidney's society was leading to something else. The Grants were there when he arrived. It was a little intimate friendly happy party of which no single member seemed to have a care upon his or her shoulders. Only Mrs. Brent seemed rather out of the stream. Wilbraham saw that he would be invited on the first opportunity to listen to the tale of Mrs. Brent's dissatisfaction.

It was Grant, however, to whom he first talked alone, walking in the garden. Grant could see nothing on the horizon but a prospective marriage between Sir Harry Brent and Lady Sidney Pawle, which appeared to him eminently as one that should give satisfaction to all parties concerned.

"Of course they won't want to be married yet awhile," he said, "but we're expecting an engagement any day. I must say that it has all turned out in a most extraordinarily satisfactory way. Supposing the boy had done what his father did! He'd seen nobody here; he might very well have got taken in by somebody who wouldn't have been the right sort of person for him to marry when he cut himself loose. And there was just the chance of this one girl being here when he came home. One is inclined to think of Lady Brent managing everything, but she didn't actually manage that. It just came about."

Wilbraham listened to all this, his own thoughts running all the time. Sidney and Jane and Harry were in another part of the garden, out of sight, but not out of hearing. A burst of laughter punctuated the close of the Vicar's speech. "Wouldn't they want to get away by themselves if it's as you think?" Wilbraham asked.

"Ah, my boy, you don't recognize the march of the great passion," said Grant. "I've loved watching those three together, because it is all going as I should have expected."

"Copy in it," suggested Wilbraham.

"Well, that's your way of putting it. But of course one takes in everything that passes before one's eyes, and if it doesn't come out exactly like it, it's----"

"Near enough to look like it. Well, I suppose you've made a study of it, and all the old women who read your immortal works will shiver down their spines and say, 'It was just like that with me.' But I'd rather take Jane's opinion about it than yours."

"Would you? Well, Jane's having the time of her life. They're awfully nice to her. Of course they're just in the state when it's gratifying to have somebody like Jane with them, who thinks there never was anybody like either of them. They flatter each other through her."

"Oh, that's how it's going to be worked out, is it? The old women will love that. It's a new touch, and they'll wish they'd thought of it for themselves, in time. Did Jane tell you it was like that, or was it your own mighty brain?"

"You're jealous of my success, Wilbraham. But I don't mind your jibes. I don't write for the highbrows like you, and I do touch the hearts of thousands. Jane talks to her mother. I shouldn't expect her to talk to me about it."

"Well, what does Mrs. Grant say? She's got some sense."

"She keeps rather quiet about it. I think she's just thankful that Harry has somebody to keep him bright and cheerful while he's at home. You made a mistake, you know, before, in not letting him have young people to play with."

"He had your two."

"As it happened, yes. But they were only children. Jane is older now, but not old enough, fortunately, to have the danger of complications. Apart altogether from the question of a love affair with Lady Sidney, I believe it's the best thing that could happen for him to have those two with him while he's here. It's an awful welter of blood and horror out there, you know, Wilbraham. None of the young fellows who come home talk much about it, but it doesn't need much imagination to see what a healing process it is for anybody like Harry to spend a few weeks with people like those two girls as his chief companions, in a quiet lovely place like this."