Chapter X (6)

"Now you're talking sense yourself for a change. Here's Mrs. Brent coming. Don't leave me alone with her. It's an awful welter of red tape and incompetence where I've just come from, but I don't want her as a healing process till I feel a little stronger."

But the Grants had to be going very shortly, and Mrs. Brent was not to be denied.

Her first address to Wilbraham, however, was not on the subject of her grievances. "Oh, I forgot to tell you when I wrote," she said. "You know that artist--Bastian--who came down here two summers ago?"

"Yes," said Wilbraham, with his heart in his mouth.

"Well, I've found out that he married a great friend of mine--oh, years ago, but I hadn't forgotten her. She died, poor girl, but of course the daughter who was with Mr. Bastian here was hers. I wish I'd known. I'd have gone to see them."

"You wouldn't have wanted to bring that time up, would you?" said Wilbraham, scarcely knowing what to say.

She was all bristles at once. "I think I was very badly treated about all that," she said. "I'd nothing whatever to be ashamed of in what I came from, and all the time it was made to look as if I had. I half believed it myself, but now I know better. Every one of my family is doing well. They're not in the position I'm in, of course, but there's no need to be ashamed of any of them. In fact, I've made up my mind to introduce Harry to his relations on my side of the family. I'm going to ask him to take me up to London before he goes back. Then he'll see for himself."

"Do you think you're wise?" said Wilbraham, relieved at having got away from the subject of the Bastians.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "What's the objection?"

"Well, you say they're not equal to you. They may be very good sort of people; I dare say they are; but what's the sense of dragging them in at this time of the day--after twenty years--to mark the difference?"

"What difference?"

"Well, the difference between them and Lady Brent."

"Lady Brent! How can you talk like that? It's just that I'm so mad with Lady Brent that I----"

"I know it is. All you can think of is to score off her. You're not thinking of Harry; you're not even thinking of yourself. What are you going to get, out of going back on everything you've stood for for the last twenty years? Harry thinks of you as belonging to Royd, in the same sort of way as Lady Brent does. Why should he have ever thought of you as anything different? Now you're proposing to show him the difference. You say yourself they _are_ different. You're going to show him the difference between Lady Brent and them. Which is likely to come out of it best? I don't know; I'm asking you."

"Oh, you're just trying to aggravate me," she said. "You always were like that. I don't know why I talk to you at all."

"Well, if you've finished, I think I'll go in. I want a peaceful time as long as I'm here. You're the only person who doesn't seem to be comfortable and happy. I'd rather be with those of them who are."

"I'm not at all happy. I'm just miserable. Harry doesn't love me any more, and I don't know what to do about it."

They had come to the bowling alley where Wilbraham had thought out his difficulties two summers before. She sank down on to the seat and cried.

Wilbraham felt very sorry for her, but determined to prevent her from making mischief if he could. "Look here," he said, "I don't think it really much matters whether you introduce Harry to your people or not. He's grown up now, and all that idea of keeping things from him is over. Do what you like about it. Lady Brent won't try to stop you; I'm pretty certain of that. She has given up trying to direct his life. Why can't you?"

Her sobs increased. "I'm his mother," she said. "I've had so little of him. I can't give him up now."

"You had him during the whole of his childhood, more than most mothers have their sons. Lady Brent may have been a bit jealous of you; I dare say she was; she's got her weaknesses like all the rest of us. But she didn't try to get him away from you. I was here most of the time, and I could see that plainly enough. You know it too. You'll be much happier about things if you try to be fair to her, as she's tried to be fair to you."

"Oh, of course it's her you're thinking of all the time. I don't come in at all."

"Yes, you do come in. I'm trying to help you to get things straight. The fact is your nose has been put out of joint by this girl who's here. It isn't Lady Brent at all, though you heap it all back on her. You can't expect a boy of Harry's age to go about tied to his mother's apron strings, when there's somebody young for him to play with. You like the girl all right, don't you?"

She had dried her eyes and sat leaning forward in an attitude of picturesque misery. "It doesn't seem to matter whether I like her or not," she said. "Harry won't talk to me about her. If he told me he was in love with her I should do my best to sympathize with him. I want to be everything to my son."

"Of course you do; and of course you can't be. If he hasn't told you he's in love with her, it's because he isn't. For goodness' sake let him be happy while he's here, and in his own way. He'll be going back soon enough, and you won't want him to think of his holiday spoiled by your complaints. You're selfish, you know. It's yourself you're thinking of all the time, not him. You used not to be like that."

"Oh, well," she said, rising, "I suppose I must put up with it. It's the common lot of mothers. I shan't talk about it any more, to you or anybody."

"That's right," said Wilbraham, as they strolled towards the house. "And don't make complaints to Harry, either. It's not the way to get what you want from him. Of course you know that really, as well as I do. Only it's difficult, isn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know," she said. With the end of her emotion she seemed to have entered a mood almost of indifference. "If I've stood what I have all these years, and kept myself under as I have, I suppose I can go on doing it. It's coming down here that has upset me. I've been happy enough in London. Of course I've wanted to hear about Harry, but he's promised me now that he'll write to me regularly. I shall be better off, in a way, than I've ever been. I'm _somebody_ there, you see. Here I'm nobody. I shan't stay here a moment longer than Harry does. I hate the place now. Why have you never been to see me in London?"

"I don't know that you've ever asked me. Where do you live?"

She told him. She was sharing a flat with an old friend, a woman who had been on the stage with her, had had an unhappy married life, but had got on in her profession.

"Margaret Creedy?" said Wilbraham. "I've seen her act. She's very good."

"Yes, you wouldn't have thought she began in the chorus, would you? She never had much voice, which was perhaps just as well for her, or she'd have been in musical comedy still. She doesn't like it remembered, and of course I don't want it known either; but we often talk over old times. It was from her, by the by, that I heard about Mrs. Bastian. She married a gentleman, like I did; but he'd come down in the world. Bastian isn't his real name, you know.".

"What is his real name?"

"I don't know. I meant to find out about him, and go and see what the girl is like. You never told me much about her, but if she's like her mother she ought to be very pretty."

"She is very pretty, but----"

"Oh, you mean I ought not to let them know who I was, as they've been here. Perhaps I shan't. I don't want to give _her_ any handles against me."

"By _her_ I suppose you mean Lady Brent. Everything comes back to her. You'll think better of all that some day. I wish you'd think better of it now. Royd would be a less prickly house to live in."

"Oh, I shall behave myself, never you fear," she said as she left him.

He thought it probable that she would. He had made an impression on her, though she was not of the sort that would acknowledge it. She was evidently making her own life, and even if she had dropped all pretence of war work, for which she had gone to London, it was not a life that would let the name of Brent down, as he had rather feared. Margaret Creedy was an actress of some distinction, and would be very careful not to jeopardize the social position she had won for herself. And Mrs. Brent, for all her independent talk, was guided by a sense of her own importance in the world. Probably the joint establishment was as rigidly respectable as any in London.

As for possible complications with the Bastians, Wilbraham could do nothing. If the revelation came in that way, it must come, and for himself he didn't care when it came. He was tired of all the secrecy, and thought too that Harry was wrong in keeping his secret; or, at any rate, right or wrong in being unwilling to disclose it himself, that it would be better for him if it were known.

He was inclined to dread the talk that he saw coming with Lady Brent. He badly wanted a recreative rest himself, and hated the idea of exercising his brain in steering clear of admissions to her, hated also the idea of deceiving her by doing so, when all the time he was in sympathy with her in her doubts and disappointments. What was done was done. Harry was what he was, and if she had made any mistake in his upbringing, which he did not admit, it would do no good now to dwell on it with regret. Harry was working it all out for himself, and as far as Wilbraham could see, was not making such a bad job of it. He would tell her that, when she began to discuss him, and cut the conversation as short as he conveniently could. Then he would be free to enjoy himself, in the company of the people he liked best in the world, and in the place which seemed to him, coming back to it, a haven of peace and beauty.

But apparently that was all that Lady Brent wanted of him. She told him that Harry seemed much more his old self now that he had been home a week or more, and that she was glad that there was young companionship for him, and beyond that she did not discuss him at all.

So Wilbraham enjoyed his two days at Royd, and went back to his work greatly refreshed, and with most of his doubts about Harry set at rest. He might be longing for Viola all the time, as he had said he was, but he managed to hide it effectually and seemed to be enjoying his holiday as much as anybody.

*CHAPTER XXV*

*MRS. BRENT KNOWS*

Royd Castle was empty, except for the servants, for the first time for twenty years. Everybody had gone away, including Lady Brent, who, however, was not very far off, for she was only visiting Lady Avalon for a few days at Poldaven.

To the Grants, left to themselves, after the unusual amount of society they had lately enjoyed, there was a sense of emptiness, though their own summer life was in full swing, and the Vicar had a bright new idea for a novel, which was keeping his thoughts happily employed. There were to be a young man and two girls, and nobody was to know which of the girls the young man was really in love with until the last chapter.

"Of course I got the idea from those three," he told his wife, "although it couldn't be exactly like them. Harry and Sidney might be, but the second girl would have to be older than Jane, but still rather young. She would be a sort of confidante of the other two, who would be inclined to fall in love with one another. Then she would gradually find that she was in love with the young man herself. I should make it rather pathetic, but not overdo it, of course. She would keep her feelings to herself, out of loyalty to her friend. I haven't quite worked it out yet, but the reality would come in a flash. The young man would find that it was she he was in love with. I shouldn't be able to leave the other girl in the air. There might be somebody else for her. It will come all right, now my brain has begun to work on it. I should have to make her very charming, so that it would seem as if the man _must_ be in love with her."

"You mustn't make it too like Harry and Sidney," said Mrs. Grant.

"Oh, I should be careful about that, though their way with each other has been very attractive to watch. They're so frank, and so completely friendly--a very delightful pair of young people I call them. It would be much more effective to have young lovers behaving like that to one another than the usual sort of love affair that one meets with in fiction. The odd thing about it, though, is that they have parted now and nothing has come of it all."

Mrs. Grant laughed. "Perhaps it's because they weren't lovers after all," she said, "and were so frank and friendly with each other because they weren't. You must be careful about that, David."

But he would not admit that Harry and Sidney weren't in love with one another. It was clear for everybody to see. Of course Harry was rather an exceptional young man. That was plain from the way he had come back to Royd as if he were master there already. There was tremendous strength of character in him, and even Lady Brent recognized it, and did not seek to direct him in any way. It was very likely that he had made up his mind that it would not be right to engage himself to Sidney until the war was over. But it was also likely that they had an understanding between themselves. It could hardly be otherwise.

"He has certainly altered," said Mrs. Grant. "He goes his own way as one would hardly have expected of him in some respects. I don't know why he should have wanted to be with Mr. Wilbraham for a week before he went to France. Poor Mrs. Brent was rather sad about it, especially when he wrote to say that he was not coming down again."

"And now she's gone posting up to London to get hold of him. I've no patience with Mrs. Brent. She has greatly deteriorated. Well, I must be getting on with my work. I shall very soon be ready to make a start on the first chapter."

Jane had been very subdued in demeanour since Sidney and Harry had both departed, and frequently sought her mother's company. She came to her this morning, when her lessons were done, and sat with her in the garden as she worked.

"Did father say that there was going to be a great attack on the Germans soon?" she asked, after a little desultory conversation.

"It has been expected for some time. I suppose it can't be long before it comes now."

"I suppose that's why Harry's leave has been cut short. Will there be a great many of our people killed, mother?"

"I'm afraid so, dear."

"Harry might be," said Jane. "He's very brave."

"You mustn't let yourself dwell on that, darling. He has been spared so far."

"Did you know he had been wounded?"

Mrs. Grant looked at her in surprise. "Not seriously," she said.

"Sidney and I both think he was, though he wouldn't tell us, and said we weren't to talk about it. Have you noticed he always keeps his sleeve buttoned when he's playing tennis?"

Mrs. Grant hadn't noticed particularly, but said that she remembered now that he did.

"Well, he's got an awful great scar in his arm. We saw it once by accident. A Turk did it with a bayonet. When we found out, he did tell us a little, and about the time he was in hospital. He told us about an orderly who had been frightfully good to him, and said he saved his life when he was very ill, by nursing him all the time. He liked to talk about him; his name was Tom Weller. Sidney thought he couldn't have been so ill just from a wound in the arm, and then he said he'd had a little shell wound in the body, but he wouldn't tell us any more. We think it must have been a serious one. We found out afterwards that he didn't go to hospital for his bayonet wound at all."

Mrs. Grant was conscious of a feeling of surprise and some discomfort. She knew that Harry was not likely to fail in any of a young man's courageous work, and yet she had thought of him as having got off lightly, except in the hardships of a trooper's life. And that he had never mentioned even the actions in which he had been wounded seemed so to accentuate the division that he had made between himself and those who loved him. He might have died and they would have known nothing. Apparently he had been very near to death. She wondered whether Jane had any theory to account for his unusual reticence about himself.

"I'm very glad Lady Brent will hear about him now," she said. "It's dreadful to think what might have happened when they couldn't have got to him."

"Well, they couldn't, anyhow, when he was in Egypt. He says it was much better that they shouldn't have been anxious about him, and as it turned out there was no need to have been anxious. I must say I'm rather glad we didn't know, though it's horrid to think of our enjoying ourselves at home when Harry was nearly dying. Sidney and I both told him that we wanted to know everything about him now, and he promised to."

"To write to you?"

"Yes; or to let us have a message. You see we're real friends, mother dear. We've had a lovely time together and enjoyed ourselves frightfully; but it hasn't been quite all enjoying ourselves. Sidney and I both know that Harry dreads things. I don't mean being wounded, or anything like that. But everything is so different for him. What we both got to know was that he wanted it to be like it used to be here as much as ever it could be. That's why he won't talk about the war. We could make him forget it; so we were sometimes more lively than we really felt. I'm sure I don't feel at all lively now."

Her mother stole a glance at her, as she sat with a calm face looking out in front of her.

"Well, darling," she said, "you'll have Harry home on leave again. I'm sure both you and Sidney have done a lot for him since he's been home this time. There was a sort of strain on him at first which wasn't there afterwards."

"Did you notice that? I'm very glad. Of course Sidney did more than I did. She was with him more, and she's older. But they were both very sweet to me. I think I did help. I love them both. I love Sidney. I wish----"

She broke off abruptly. "I think I can guess what Sidney's secret is," said her mother, after a pause. "I think she meant me to, you know, when she told you you could tell me that there was a secret."

Jane looked at her eagerly. "I don't suppose she really meant me not to tell you," she said.

"If I've found it out for myself, she wouldn't mind you talking about it. I shouldn't mention it to anybody else. I thought, when you told me, that perhaps she was in love with somebody, and that was why you and she and Harry could all be friends together so happily."

Jane breathed a sigh of relief. "Yes, that's it exactly," she said. "How clever you are, mother! I'm glad you knew. His name is Noel Chancellor. I've seen his photograph. He is very good-looking, but of course not so good-looking as Harry. I can't help thinking that if she'd never seen him she would be in love with Harry."

"Perhaps. But it doesn't always come like that. And he's not in love with her, you see, though there's nobody else, for him."

"No, he isn't." Jane spoke very decisively. "She's such a dear that I did think once that he might have been a little, although he knew about Noel, without being able to help it. But he's not the least little bit. I don't know how I know that, but I do."

"I suppose you know that they think he is, at the Castle."

"Oh, yes. And Lady Avalon will be annoyed when she finds out. But we can't help that."

Mrs. Grant smiled. She loved that "we" that came into Jane's speech. "What about Lady Brent?" she said. "You were such friends with Lady Brent before Harry came home."

"I am still. Of course she wouldn't say anything to me about that. I'm not quite sure that she does expect it. At any rate, I know she was glad for me to be with them. She knew all right that we were helping Harry. Lady Brent sees a lot, though she doesn't talk much."

Mrs. Grant found food for thought in this, and shared it later with Miss Minster. Neither of them had ever been able to make up their minds finally about Lady Brent.

"Supposing she doesn't really expect anything to come of it!" she said. "I'm inclined to trust Jane when she thinks that she doesn't."

"I've liked her much better since she took Jane into her confidence," said Miss Minster. "I'm sorry for her now. I think she lays her plans deeply and then has to sit and do nothing while she sees them fail. But it needs a lot of self-restraint to sit and do nothing. Yes, I'm sorry for her."

"You think Jane is right then?"

"I don't know. Lady Brent would look farther than most people. She wouldn't need to look much farther than I do in this. What I think is that Harry isn't ready for it yet, and won't be till the war is over. When that oppression is removed from him I think he's quite likely to fall in love with Lady Sidney. That's what I think, and I shouldn't wonder if Lady Brent thought the same. Then it wouldn't make her quite so superhuman as she appears. She'd just be waiting."

This view could not be combated without disclosures. As far as it affected Lady Brent it seemed to be the best explanation of her attitude. "Anyhow she's a wonderful woman," said Mrs. Grant, "and I also like her better than I did, although I never disliked her."

"The person I don't like so well," said Miss Minster, "is Mrs. Brent. I hope we've seen the last of her here for the present."

But they had not, for almost immediately she had spoken a telegram was brought in from Mrs. Brent, announcing her arrival that afternoon, and asking Mrs. Grant to take her in, as there was nobody at the Castle. She also asked Mrs. Grant to meet her at Burport, which seemed to indicate that she had something of importance to disclose to her.

She looked scared and unhappy as she greeted her friend on the platform. "I hope you didn't mind my asking you to put me up," she said. "I believe she's coming back to-morrow, and I wanted to have a long talk with you first."

By "she" Mrs. Grant understood her to refer to Lady Brent, whom she seldom referred to in any other way. "I'm very glad to have you," she said. "I hope nothing is wrong. Have you seen Harry?"

"I'll tell you when we get into the carriage."

When they were settled and driving away, she said: "Have I seen Harry? I think you'll be surprised when I tell you how and where I've seen him. I've never had such a shock in my life. I don't know what to do about it. I had to come straight down to see her. She must deal with it. I can't; it's beyond me. I only hope it won't be beyond her. I must tell you all from the beginning."

She entered into a long explanation of how she had written to Harry at Wilbraham's flat where he was staying. He had come to see her, and had been kind but had seemed annoyed with her for coming up to London when he had not expected it. He had told her that he was very much engaged, and could not see much of her before he went abroad. He had not vouchsafed any account of how he was engaged, but had come to see her once again, in the morning, but had refused to stay to lunch or to make any engagement for the evening. She spoke with some resentment, and not as she had ever spoken about Harry before. It was as if she felt more annoyed at being neglected than sorry at not having him with her.

Mrs. Grant sat silent, and she entered on another long explanation about the Bastians, and her early friendship with Bastian's wife. Then Mrs. Grant began to be extremely interested.

"What possessed me to find out all about them just at this time, and go to see the girl, I can't think," she said. "I think it was Providence leading me. I'd forgotten all about Mrs. Clark, the woman they lodge with, being Mrs. Ivimey's sister, and fortunately--or unfortunately--she didn't open the door to me. The maid said she was in, but had a young gentleman with her. She looked rather knowing as she said it, and I thought it would be amusing to see what the young gentleman was like. You can imagine what I felt when she showed me into the room and I found Harry there."

She looked as if she expected an exclamation of surprise at this climax; but Mrs. Grant had already been prepared for it by her rigmarole. "That explains a great deal," she said. "I suppose they had met here."

"Yes, two years ago, when Harry was a boy--hardly more than a child. Could you believe it of him, and keeping it secret all that time, and ever since?"

"What happened?" asked Mrs. Grant, adjusting her thoughts to many things.

"They were sitting side by side on the sofa. I never had such a shock in my life. I could only stand there and stare. She jumped up, of course. I hadn't given my name, and she didn't even know who I was. Harry looked very black, and stood up too. It was as if a sword was piercing my heart to see my son look at me like that."

She paused for a moment. It occurred to Mrs. Grant that she had rehearsed her tale beforehand, and that phrase had come to her as an effective one. It did not seem to represent what she was actually feeling, though it may have represented what she thought she ought to feel.

"I could only gasp out, 'Harry! You here!' He said, 'Yes, mother!' Then he took hold of the girl's hand, and said, 'This is Viola. We have loved each other for a long time.' That was absolutely all he said, and she said nothing, but just looked at me, as if she was frightened, as I dare say she was."

"Oh, I hope you----"

She did not continue. Mrs. Brent would tell her what she had done.

She did not tell her at once, and Mrs. Grant's heart sank as she expatiated further on what she had felt. "The very thing," she said, "that we'd all sacrificed ourselves to prevent, during the whole of Harry's boyhood. I was absolutely _stunned_. There they stood hand in hand in front of me, and waited for me to say something. And what _could_ I say? Harry--my boy! And a girl like that! Oh, I shall never get over it. And I can't think what _she'll_ say, though there's one thing--she can't blame me for it."

Mrs. Grant had been thinking rapidly. She had heard about Viola from Mrs. Ivimey. Her impression of her had been of a very young and beautiful girl, of whom nice things were said naturally. It needed some little effort of imagination to connect her with Harry, and certainly it was rather surprising that Harry, of all people, should have cherished that kind of secret. But the picture of the pair of them standing there hand in hand waiting for the speech which she dreaded to be told had not come rose before her. "Oh, he couldn't have gone on loving her for two whole years unless she was sweet and good," she said.

Mrs. Brent bridled in offence. "That didn't come in when _I_ was married," she said. "She's no better than I was. Her mother wasn't brought up as I had been, though there was nothing against her. It simply can't be allowed. _I_ can't do anything. Harry won't listen to me. This girl has taken him away from me. Of course it's all explained now--why he was so different to me when he came home--oh, and why he didn't write, and everything. He wrote to her. He _is_ different. She's made him so. He isn't like my son any more. I'm only thankful that it didn't happen, or at least I didn't know about it, while I was living down here."

It seemed probable that she was congratulating herself that the whole of her interests in life were no longer bound up in Harry. This was no very comforting thought to Mrs. Grant. "I wish you'd tell me how it ended," she said.

"It ended in Harry being very unkind to me," she said, with the first signs of real emotion. "He said that if I had taken the girl as my daughter--as if I could have done that!--all the difficulties would have been ended. As it was he would not see me again before he went to France. Young people are very cruel. I'm his mother who have been everything to him, and now I'm nothing. I came away and left him there. It's all over for me. I've lost my son, and this girl who isn't fit for him has got him. But I don't think she'll be allowed to keep him. I shall see her to-morrow. She won't be pleased at the end of all her plotting and scheming. But I shall be surprised if she doesn't think of _something_ that will put an end to it."

*CHAPTER XXVI*

*LADY BRENT SPEAKS*

"Yes," said Lady Brent, "I will certainly do something."

Mrs. Brent had told her story. Lady Brent had come home from Poldaven earlier than she had expected. She had gone up to the Castle and found her, somewhat to her surprise, in her business room. Surrounded by that ancient magnificence she had seemed even more aloof and forbidding than on the last time Mrs. Brent had interviewed her there. But this time she had felt herself supported by a sense of conciliation in herself. The fact that after all her struggles and resentments against her mother-in-law she was now, in the crisis of affairs, putting herself in her hands, appealing to her for help, and a decision where she could do nothing herself, would surely soften her. From this interview she at least had nothing to fear for herself.

But the stiff face and the silence with which she listened to the story brought a sense of discomfort. Mrs. Brent ended on a note more appealing than she had intended to use. "He won't listen to me," she said, "but I'm sure he would to you. Can't you do something?"

lady Brent moved in her chair for the first time. "Yes," she said, with a frown, and in a voice that did nothing to remove the discomfort. "I will certainly do something. I will go up to London this evening."

"By the night train," said Mrs. Brent. "Shall I come with you?"

"I think you had better stop here. You have done enough mischief already."

"Mischief! I? What do you mean?" She was surprised and greatly offended, but also a little frightened.

Lady Brent leant towards her accusingly. "He won't do anything for you, you say. Why should he, when you treat him as you do? A vain selfish fool, thinking of yourself all the time and your own mean little pleasures and dignities! Serve you right if you've lost his love for the rest of your life."

All Mrs. Brent's resentments flared up. Lady Brent had been conciliatory towards her of late, with an evident desire to avoid conflict, and she had taken advantage of it and lost some of her awe of her; she had thought of herself almost as having the upper hand, and had come to this interview prepared to treat with her amicably and be generous in making some admissions. But she wanted a row, did she? Very well then, she should have it. All her Cockney fighting spirit was aroused. She had years of oppression to resent and to revenge. She was not under her thumb now, to be browbeaten and kept in her place. She leapt to the opportunity of striking and wounding.

"That's what you'd like," she said, "for me to lose his love. You've tried to take him away from me all his life up till now, and you haven't been able to do it. Now you'll make use of this, somehow, to get your way. But you won't do it. If he won't listen to me, he won't listen to you. I'm a fool, you say. Yes, I was a fool to come to you and think you could do anything. You've worked and worked to have your own way, and now it's ended like this. You'll suffer for it. You'll suffer for it more than I shall."

Lady Brent listened to this, leaning back in her chair again. When she spoke her voice was even, but her face was white and her hands lying in her lap trembled ever so little. If Mrs. Brent's fury had not blinded her, she might have noticed these signs and taken warning from them, for they had never been shown before, even in the sharpest encounters between them.

"Whatever suffering there is to be," said the low decisive voice, "I shall no doubt feel more than you. You're a very poor creature, and as long as you have something in life to amuse you you won't suffer much through others. I've tried to make the best of you, for Harry's sake. You've had your chance with him--a better chance than you could ever have had but for me. Sometimes I've thought it had succeeded to have you here, when I've wished with all my heart that you could be away. But the test has come now, and you've failed. Yes, you've failed, much more than you know. You're upset in your foolish way now, but you think I have only to step in and do something, and it will be put right for you again. It will never be put right."

Mrs. Brent had tried to break in once or twice in the course of this speech, but the level voice had gone on till the end, and the eyes fixed upon her had never wavered. She realized that nothing would be spared her, that whatever dislike and hostility she might choose to express in her anger would be met by a feeling at least as strong, which would find expression now, after being kept under for years, with a force in comparison with which her own powers of attack were as nothing. Already she was affected by it. She glimpsed hatred of her behind the steady utterance. She had talked freely of her own hatred, but it was a terrifying thing to feel it returned.

"I don't know what you're thinking about," she said, half sulkily. "I'd nothing to do with his meeting this girl. I did know her mother, as it happened, but hadn't any idea that it was her mother. It isn't through me any more than through you that he's got himself mixed up with people like that."

"That's all that you can see in it, is it? People like that! You think this girl is like you were, when my poor Harry came across you. I loved my son, far more than you have it in you to love yours, but I know he was weak and foolish; and he was fitly mated. This Harry isn't weak and foolish. Do you think he'd be likely to do what his father did? Is that all you know of him after all these years?"

She tried to control herself. "You may say what you like about me," she said, in a voice that trembled a little. "I know you hate me and always have, for marrying your son, and still more for being Harry's mother. But say what you like, Harry is doing exactly what his father did. Why should you take it for granted that this girl is any different to what I was? It's just your spite against me. You haven't seen her."

"No, but you have."

That hit her like a blow in the face. Always battering at the gates of her mind, to which she had never given it entrance, was the thought that Viola was surprisingly different from herself, surprisingly unlike what she would have expected her mother's daughter to be, though in feature she resembled her.

Still it was true that Lady Brent had not seen her, and could not know. "Her mother was an actress, no better than I was," she said, "--not so good in many ways. Her father is a scene-painter in a theatre, and drinks too. My father was a good man, though he may not have been what you'd call a gentleman. That's what all your wonderful bringing up of Harry has led to. If he'd been brought up more naturally, and not everything and everybody sacrificed to keep him shut up down here, it's very unlikely that this would have happened."

"You think that, do you, in your loving wisdom? You had the boy always before you, and saw what he was growing into. So did I, and I trusted him. You couldn't."

"I don't mind your sneers. At any rate, on the first opportunity he does what any other boy might do. He meets a girl and falls in love with her, and keeps it from us all the time he's meeting her, and afterwards."

"Keeps it from you, I suppose you mean."

"Keeps it from all of us, I said. Did you know any more than I did that he had met this girl down here?"

"Of course I knew."

She could only sit and stare, with her mouth a little open. Whatever she may have thought of, it had never been this.

Lady Brent did not treat her disclosure as a triumph to be dwelt upon. "How could I help knowing?" she went on. "I loved Harry. Nothing could have happened in his life to alter it that I shouldn't have noticed. When I saw that something had happened I waited until it came to me what it was."

"You knew, and you let it go on!" The revelation had taken all the sting out of her. She was more interested than offended.

"Didn't I tell you that I trusted Harry? I knew what he was, if you didn't. I should have known if he had taken a wrong turning in life, and then I should have tried to influence him. When I did know what had happened I knew well enough that he hadn't taken a wrong turning, by the way he bore himself. You couldn't see that. You can't even see it now."

Mrs. Brent's surprise was still strong enough to swamp her resentment at wounding speeches. "Why didn't you do anything afterwards, when he went away?" she asked. "You did do something. You got Sidney Pawle down here. You hoped that she and Harry would fall in love with one another. I know that. You thought they had. I know that too. I think you're making yourself out cleverer than you are, though I don't deny you were clever, if you found out what nobody else did."

"It matters very little to me," said Lady Brent, "what you deny or what you accept. You've made yourself nothing and you are nothing. I believe that this girl Harry loves is worthy of him, or he wouldn't have gone on loving her. But they were both very young. It might have died out of itself. I didn't know whether it had or not. I might have found out, but I wouldn't take any steps to do that. And even if the girl is worthy of him, there are objections otherwise. You have named them yourself. There are no such objections to Sidney Pawle. I should have been glad if Harry's first attachment had worn itself out and he could have married her. Yes, I did hope that they might have fallen in love with one another. You are right there. You are quite wrong in saying that I thought they had. You may have thought so, who knew so little of Harry. I knew very soon that there was something in the way."

Mrs. Brent was beaten. Even resentment no longer moved her. She wanted to ward off further blows, and to propitiate. "When you go up to London, shall you tell Harry that we are ready to recognize his engagement to this Viola Bastian?" she asked.

Lady Brent seemed to take breath. She had given her explanation as to one with whom she might have been talking on equal terms. But there was still punishment to be dealt out, the smouldering fire of years of dislike and contempt, which had been banked up so as only now and then to show a flicker, but now could be allowed to burst into scorching flame.

"Why should I tell you what I mean to do?" she said, with fierce scorn. "Stay where you are till I've put right what you hadn't the sense or the heart to do; and don't meddle. Then you can go where you like and do what you like; only not here. For years I've had to live with you, and bear with your ignorance and vanity and folly, and keep you from going back on what you'd set your hand to of your own free will. I've defended you from your silly selfish self, so that your own son shouldn't see what a thing of naught you were. You've had your chance up to the last moment. Directly it depends upon yourself you can only strike the son you say you love in his tenderest place, and then come snivelling to me to mend the damage you've done. You want me to put myself on your side, and treat him as you did. Be very sure that I shall treat him in no way as you have done. I've stood aside all these years, so as not to take what was owing to you, as I might well have done if I'd lifted a little finger. Now I'll take whatever I've earned. Mend your own broken pieces if you can. I'll do nothing to help you. Live your own useless selfish life. You shall have money for it. But live it away from here. You told me once, in one of your foolish discontented fits, that this house was like a prison to you. You're free of your prison. Go; and do what you like with your liberty."

She rose suddenly, and went out. Mrs. Brent sat for a time where she was, with a white frightened face. Then she went out of the room too, and out of the house, weeping silently. She would not stay there another minute. She would not run the risk of meeting that terrible woman again, who had treated her so wickedly. She would never see her again, and as for taking money from her--she would work her fingers to the bone before she would touch a penny. She went down to the Vicarage, where she poured out her outraged feelings to Mrs. Grant, and gained some consolation from her. A strong cup of tea also did much to comfort her, and after that she went to bed with a headache. Exhausted by the emotions of the day she slept throughout the night, which Lady Brent spent sitting upright in a railway carriage, her endless thoughts running to the steady beat of the train.

Wilbraham met her in London very early in the morning and took her to her hotel. "Harry went off yesterday," he told her. "I sent your telegram on to him, but there has been no answer yet. There may be one to my rooms this morning. But it doesn't very much matter, does it, as long as he knows that you are going to see Viola?"

"If he should be killed!" she said. It was the thought that the iron wheels had dinned into her brain all through the night. She could not help giving it utterance; but she said immediately, "Oh, we mustn't think of that. You have arranged that I am to see the girl this afternoon?"

"Yes, I will take you there. You'll rest during the day, won't you? You must be very tired."

He stole a look at her. She was looking as if the long journey had tried her severely. He had never thought of her as getting old, but now he did.

"Yes, I will rest," she said. "There is nothing else to do. Do you know I haven't been in London for twenty years?"

She was looking out of the window of the taxi-cab, at the London streets beginning to fill up with the day's traffic. She wanted a respite. The innumerable questions he had to ask of her must wait.

He breakfasted with her in her private sitting-room, where they could talk afterwards, if she was so minded, before he went off to his work. She came to it refreshed, and was ready for him when they were alone together.

"Tell me about the girl," she said. "I know she must be good and sweet, and I know that she has helped Harry through his difficult time."

"I can't tell you more than that," he said, "except that she's beautiful, and exactly what you'd want her to be, except perhaps in the matter of her birth. I don't say anything against her upbringing, as it has left her what she is. But you seem to know everything about her already. I've known you for a good many years, but you're always full of surprises. The greatest you've ever given me is when you wired that you'd always known. You must have thought of me as a pretty large size in fools during some of the conversations we used to have. How did you find out, and when?"

She smiled at him. "I think you might have guessed that I knew," she said, "when I let you come to London to find out about Harry, and to get a message to him. I didn't particularly want you to know then, because, to tell you the truth, I did rather hope that it wouldn't continue. I saw that it had done him no harm, but it still might have been nothing more than a pretty boy and girl love-making. Then I shouldn't have wanted him to know that I had surprised his secret."

"No," he said. "You showed infinite wisdom, as you always do. But tell me how you knew."

"Something had happened to Harry. I think I must have guessed it the very first time he met her, or at least when he found out he loved her, and I think that must have been the first time he met her, or why shouldn't he have told us? I was always on the lookout for changes in him, and you see I knew the signs of this change. Harry is much more like my dear husband was, when he was young, than he is like his father. It was only that kind of love that could have made him so happy and so silent and so absorbed. Oh, I knew very soon, and of course I put two and two together, and knew who it was. Afterwards, little pieces of evidence came to me, but I didn't try to seek them, and I didn't need them. Nobody guessed they had met. Nobody knew at Royd, except me--and you."

He laughed ruefully, and told her how and when he had found out. "Perhaps you guessed even before I did," he said. "Were you annoyed with me for keeping it to myself?"

"I knew that you would have told me, if I had given you any encouragement. I didn't want you to tell me. I knew too that you had seen her and must have thought of her as I think now. If you hadn't I think you would have told me anyhow."

He breathed a sigh of relief. "That's off my mind then," he said. "I didn't like keeping anything from you. And I've told Harry more than once that he had nothing to fear from you."

"He couldn't believe that, I suppose. He might have thought that I would behave as Charlotte--that light fool--has behaved."

"You had Harry's letter before you saw her?"

"Yes, but the post is very late at Poldaven. I went home at once, and saw her. On my way to Royd I thought how I could bring some of the truth home to her. I think I made an impression."

Her voice was as quiet as before, but something in its tone caused him to look up. "You didn't spare her, I suppose," he said.

"No, I didn't spare her. I think I was cruel. I know I meant to be. But she's not worth troubling oneself about. Anger is a debasing passion, and I'm not sure that mine was altogether righteous anger. I wanted to make an end of her. I hope for the future I shall need to see very little of her."

He looked grave. "Can't you forgive her, if things go right now?" he asked.

"Oh, forgive her! If I know anything of her--and I ought to by this time--she'll never forgive me. She'll hate me to her dying day, and I care no more than if she loved me. What is the love of a poor thing like that worth? She loved Harry, and what does that amount to?"

"She did love him, though. She did give her life up to him, in the only way she could have done. It wasn't in her to make herself happy living as she did--as we all did--at Royd. But she stuck to it for nearly twenty years."

"Oh, yes. I kept her to that. I was fair to her; I gave her her chance. It would have been an immense relief if she had gone away. If I hadn't been fair to her I could have got rid of her easily enough. She would have gone, and she would never have known that she hadn't gone of her own accord."

He laughed at that. "I think there were times when you nearly allowed yourself to drive her away," he said. "Of course I don't defend what she did. She had a great chance with Harry, and she lost it. But it is hard, I suppose, for mothers to lose their sons after they have been so much to them. There is some excuse for her."