“You are not to be trusted a bit. What were you doing?”
But Courtier smiled grimly over the head of Ann, in silence.
At this, almost the first time she had ever yet encountered a distinct rebuff, Barbara quivered, as though she had been touched lightly with a whip. Her lips closed firmly, her eyes began to dance. “Very well, my dear,” she thought. But presently stealing a look at him, she became aware of such a queer expression on his face, that she forgot she was offended.
“Is anything wrong, Mr. Courtier?”
“Yes, Lady Barbara, something is very wrong – that miserable mean thing, the human tongue.”
Barbara had an intuitive knowledge of how to handle things, a kind of moral sangfroid, drawn in from the faces she had watched, the talk she had heard, from her youth up. She trusted those intuitions, and letting her eyes conspire with his over Ann’s brown hair, she said:
“Anything to do with Mrs. N – ?” Seeing “Yes” in his eyes, she added quickly: “And M – ?”
Courtier nodded.
“I thought that was coming. Let them babble! Who cares?”
She caught an approving glance, and the word, “Good!”
But the car had drawn up at Bucklandbury Station.
The little grey figure of Lady Casterley, coming out of the station doorway, showed but slight sign of her long travel. She stopped to take the car in, from chauffeur to Courtier.
“Well, Frith! – Mr. Courtier, is it? I know your book, and I don’t approve of you; you’re a dangerous man – How do you do? I must have those two bags. The cart can bring the rest… Randle, get up in front, and don’t get dusty. Ann!” But Ann was already beside the chauffeur, having long planned this improvement. “H’m! So you’ve hurt your leg, sir? Keep still! We can sit three… Now, my dear, I can kiss you! You’ve grown!”
Lady Casterley’s kiss, once received, was never forgotten; neither perhaps was Barbara’s. Yet they were different. For, in the case of Lady Casterley, the old eyes, bright and investigating, could be seen deciding the exact spot for the lips to touch; then the face with its firm chin was darted forward; the lips paused a second, as though to make quite certain, then suddenly dug hard and dry into the middle of the cheek, quavered for the fraction of a second as if trying to remember to be soft, and were relaxed like the elastic of a catapult. And in the case of Barbara, first a sort of light came into her eyes, then her chin tilted a little, then her lips pouted a little, her body quivered, as if it were getting a size larger, her hair breathed, there was a small sweet sound; it was over.
Thus kissing her grandmother, Barbara resumed her seat, and looked at Courtier. ‘Sitting three’ as they were, he was touching her, and it seemed to her somehow that he did not mind.
The wind had risen, blowing from the West, and sunshine was flying on it. The call of the cuckoos – a little sharpened – followed the swift-travelling car. And that essential sweetness of the moor, born of the heather roots and the South-West wind, was stealing out from under the young ferns.
With her thin nostrils distended to this scent, Lady Casterley bore a distinct resemblance to a small, fine game-bird.
“You smell nice down here,” she said. “Now, Mr. Courtier, before I forget – who is this Mrs. Lees Noel that I hear so much of?”
At that question, Barbara could not help sliding her eyes round. How would he stand up to Granny? It was the moment to see what he was made of. Granny was terrific!
“A very charming woman, Lady Casterley.”
“No doubt; but I am tired of hearing that. What is her story?”
“Has she one?”
“Ha!” said Lady Casterley.
Ever so slightly Barbara let her arm press against Courtiers. It was so delicious to hear Granny getting no forwarder.
“I may take it she has a past, then?”
“Not from me, Lady Casterley.”
Again Barbara gave him that imperceptible and flattering touch.
“Well, this is all very mysterious. I shall find out for myself. You know her, my dear. You must take me to see her.”
“Dear Granny! If people hadn’t pasts, they wouldn’t have futures.”
Lady Casterley let her little claw-like hand descend on her grand-daughter’s thigh.
“Don’t talk nonsense, and don’t stretch like that!” she said; “you’re too large already…”
At dinner that night they were all in possession of the news. Sir William had been informed by the local agent at Staverton, where Lord Harbinger’s speech had suffered from some rude interruptions. The Hon. Geoffrey Winlow; having sent his wife on, had flown over in his biplane from Winkleigh, and brought a copy of ‘the rag’ with him. The one member of the small house-party who had not heard the report before dinner was Lord Dennis Fitz-Harold, Lady Casterley’s brother.
Little, of course, was said. But after the ladies had withdrawn, Harbinger, with that plain-spoken spontaneity which was so unexpected, perhaps a little intentionally so, in connection with his almost classically formed face, uttered words to the effect that, if they did not fundamentally kick that rumour, it was all up with Miltoun. Really this was serious! And the beggars knew it, and they were going to work it. And Miltoun had gone up to Town, no one knew what for. It was the devil of a mess!
In all the conversation of this young man there was that peculiar brand of voice, which seems ever rebutting an accusation of being serious – a brand of voice and manner warranted against anything save ridicule; and in the face of ridicule apt to disappear. The words, just a little satirically spoken: “What is, my dear young man?” stopped him at once.
Looking for the complement and counterpart of Lady Casterley, one would perhaps have singled out her brother. All her abrupt decision was negated in his profound, ironical urbanity. His voice and look and manner were like his velvet coat, which had here and there a whitish sheen, as if it had been touched by moonlight. His hair too had that sheen. His very delicate features were framed in a white beard and moustache of Elizabethan shape. His eyes, hazel and still clear, looked out very straight, with a certain dry kindliness. His face, though unweathered and unseamed, and much too fine and thin in texture, had a curious affinity to the faces of old sailors or fishermen who have lived a simple, practical life in the light of an overmastering tradition. It was the face of a man with a very set creed, and inclined to be satiric towards innovations, examined by him and rejected full fifty years ago. One felt that a brain not devoid either of subtlety or aesthetic quality had long given up all attempts to interfere with conduct; that all shrewdness of speculation had given place to shrewdness of practical judgment based on very definite experience. Owing to lack of advertising power, natural to one so conscious of his dignity as to have lost all care for it, and to his devotion to a certain lady, only closed by death, his life had been lived, as it were, in shadow. Still, he possessed a peculiar influence in Society, because it was known to be impossible to get him to look at things in a complicated way. He was regarded rather as a last resort, however. “Bad as that? Well, there’s old Fitz-Harold! Try him! He won’t advise you, but he’ll say something.”
And in the heart of that irreverent young man, Harbinger, there stirred a sort of misgiving. Had he expressed himself too freely? Had he said anything too thick? He had forgotten the old boy! Stirring Bertie up with his foot, he murmured “Forgot you didn’t know, sir. Bertie will explain.”
Thus called on, Bertie, opening his lips a very little way, and fixing his half-closed eyes on his great-uncle, explained. There was a lady at the cottage – a nice woman – Mr. Courtier knew her – old Miltoun went there sometimes – rather late the other evening – these devils were making the most of it – suggesting