Apparently an impasse! And Mr. Naylor did not seem to assist matters by asking whether Miss Wall had kept a constant eye on the Agony Column. Mrs. Naylor took up her knitting and switched off to another topic.
"Dr. Arkroyd's friend, Delia dear! What a charming girl she looks!"
"Friend, Anna? I didn't know that! A patient, I understand, anyhow. She's taking Valentine's beef juice. Of course they do give that in drink cases, but I should be sorry to think – "
"Drugs, more likely," Mr. Naylor suavely interposed. Then he rose from his chair and began to pace slowly up and down the long room, looking at his beautiful pictures, his beautiful china, his beautiful chairs, all the beautiful things that were his. His family took no notice of this roving up and down; it was a habit, and was tacitly accepted as meaning that he had – for the moment – had enough of the company, and even of his own sallies at its expense.
"I've asked Dr. Arkroyd to bring her over – Miss Walford, I mean – the first day it's fine enough for tennis," Mrs. Naylor pursued. There was a hard court at Old Place, so that winter did not stop the game entirely.
"What a name, too!"
"Walford? It's quite a good name, Delia."
"No, no, Anna! Beaumaroy, of course." Miss Wall was back at the larger problem.
"There's Alec's voice – he and the General are back from their golf. Ring for another teapot, Gertie dear."
The door opened; not Alec but the General came in, and closed the door carefully behind him; it was obviously an act of precaution and not merely a normal exercise of good manners. Then he walked up to his hostess and said, "It's not my fault, Anna. Alec would do it, though I shook my head at him, behind the fellow's back."
"What do you mean, General?" cried the hostess. Mr. Naylor, for his part, stopped roving.
The door again! "Come in, Mr. Beaumaroy – here's tea."
Mr. Beaumaroy obediently entered, in the wake of Captain Alec Naylor, who duly presented him to Mrs. Naylor, adding that Beaumaroy had been kind enough to make the fourth in a game with the General, the Rector of Sprotsfield, and himself. "And he and the parson were too tough a nut for us, weren't they, sir?" he added to the General.
Besides being an excellent officer and a capital fellow, Alec Naylor was also reputed to be one of the handsomest men in the Service; six feet three, very straight, very fair, with features as regular as any romantic hero of them all, and eyes as blue. The honourable limp that at present marked his movements would, it was hoped, pass away. Even his own family were often surprised into a new admiration of his physical perfections, remarking, one to the other, how Alec took the shine out of every other man in the room.
There was no shine – no external obvious shine – to take out of Mr. Beaumaroy – Miss Wall's puzzling, unaccounted-for Mr. Beaumaroy. The light showed him now more clearly than when Mary Arkroyd met him on the heath road, but perhaps thereby did him no service. His features, though irregular, were not ugly or insignificant, but he wore a rather battered aspect; there were deep lines running from the corners of his mouth, and crowsfeet had started under the grey eyes which, in their turn, looked more sceptical than ardent, rather mocking than eager. Yet when he smiled, his face became not merely pleasant, but confidentially pleasant; he seemed to smile especially to and for the person to whom he was talking; and his voice was notably agreeable, soft and clear – the voice of a high-bred man, but not exactly of a high-bred Englishman. There was no accent definite enough to be called foreign, certainly not to be assigned to any particular race; but there was an exotic touch about his manner of speech suggesting that, even if not that of a foreigner, it was shaped and coloured by the inflexions of foreign tongues. The hue of his plentiful and curly hair, indistinguishable to Mary and Cynthia, now stood revealed as neither black, nor red, nor auburn, nor brown, nor golden, but just – and rather surprisingly – a plain yellow, the colour of a cowslip or thereabouts. Altogether rather a rum-looking fellow! This had been Alec Naylor's first remark when the Rector of Sprotsfield pointed him out, as a possible fourth, at the golf club, and the rough justice of the description could not be denied. He, like Alec, bore his scars; the little finger of his right hand was amputated down to the knuckle.
Yet, after all this description – in particularity, if not otherwise, worthy of a classic novelist – the thing still remains that most struck observers. Mr. Hector Beaumaroy had an adorable candour of manner. He answered questions with innocent readiness and pellucid sincerity. It would be impossible to think him guilty of a lie; ungenerous to suspect so much as a suppression of the truth. Even Mr. Naylor, hardened by five-and-thirty years' experience of what sailors will blandly swear to in collision cases, was struck with the open candour of his bearing.
"Yes," he said. "Yes, Miss Wall, that's right, we go to town every Wednesday. No particular reason why it should be Wednesday, but old gentlemen somehow do better – don't you think so? – with method and regular habits."
"I'm sure you know what's best for Mr. Saffron," said Delia. "You've known him a long time, haven't you?"
Mr. Naylor drew a little nearer and listened. The General had put himself into the corner – a remote corner of the room – and sat there with an uneasy and rather glowering aspect.
"Oh, no, no!" answered Beaumaroy. "A matter of weeks only. But the dear old fellow seemed to take to me – a friend put us in touch originally. I seem to be able to do just what he wants."
"I hope your friend is not really ill – not seriously?" This time the question was Mrs. Naylor's, not Miss Delia's.
"His health is really not so bad, but" – he gave a glance round the company, as though inviting their understanding – "he insists that he's not the man he was."
"Absurd!" smiled Naylor. "Not much older than I am, is he?"
"Only just turned seventy, I believe. But the idea's very persistent."
"Hypochondria!" snapped Miss Delia.
"Not altogether. I'm afraid there is a little real heart trouble. Dr. Irechester – "
"Oh, with Dr. Irechester, dear Mr. Beaumaroy, you're all right!"
Again Beaumaroy's glance – that glance of innocent appeal – ranged over the company (except the General, out of its reach). He seemed troubled and embarrassed.
"A most accomplished man, evidently, and a friend of yours, of course. But – well, there it is – a mere fancy, of course, but unhappily my old friend doesn't take to him. He – he thinks that he's rather inquisitorial. A doctor's duty, I suppose – "
"Irechester's a sound man, a very sound man," said Mr. Naylor. "And, after all, one can ask almost any question if one does it tactfully – can't one, Miss Wall?"
"As a matter of fact, he's only seen Mr. Saffron twice – he had a little chill. But his manner, unfortunately, rather – er – alarmed – "
Gertie Naylor, with the directness of youth, propounded a solution of the difficulty. "If you don't like Dr. Irechester – "
"Oh, it's not I who – "
"Why not have Mary?" Gertie made her suggestion eagerly. She was very fond of Mary, who, from the height of age, wisdom, and professional dignity, had stooped to offer her an equal friendship.
"She means Dr. Mary Arkroyd," Mrs. Naylor explained.
"Yes, I know, Mrs. Naylor – I know about Dr. Arkroyd. In fact, I know her by sight. But – "
"Perhaps you don't believe in women doctors?" Alec suggested.
"It's not that. I've no prejudices. But the responsibility is on me, and I know very little of her; and – well, to change one's doctor – it's rather invidious – "
"Oh, as to that, Irechester's a sensible man; he's got as much work as he wants, and as much money too. He won't resent an old man's fancy."
"Well, I'd never thought