Contrary to all precedent she did not turn on her quaking sister.

"Where are Fay and Bessie?" she asked.

"Fay is spending the afternoon with the Carters, and Bessie is out somewhere, I don't know where. But I saw her start after luncheon."

"How fortunate! Then you knew he was coming?"

"Yes. I had a telegram from him this morning saying he was in the neighbourhood, and would come over this afternoon."

"Of course you warned Magdalen?"

"Not I. I knew better than that. She has a cold, so I knew she could not go out. So directly I had seen him drive up I came off here. I did not think I was particularly wanted at home. Two is company and three's none."

"Oh, Algernon, what tact! Most men would never have thought of that,"

said Aunt Aggie.

"Have another cup, Algernon," said Lady Blore graciously.

Colonel Bellairs stroked his moustache. He had another cause, a secret one, for self-complacency. At last, after many rebuffs from charming women, thirty years his junior, he was engaged to be married. Should he mention it? Was not this a most propitious moment? Yes? No. Perhaps better not. Another time! The lady had accepted him some weeks ago, but had expressed altruistic doubts as to whether she could play a mother's part to daughters as old as herself, whether in short, much as she craved for their society, _they_ might not feel happier, more independent in a separate establishment, however modest. It was on a sudden impulse of what he called "providing for the girls," that Colonel Bellairs had written to Lord Lossiemouth.

The renewal of his engagement to Magdalen would pave the way to Colonel Bellairs's marriage. He had already decided that Bessie would live with Magdalen, who would take her out. Fay had her jointure. But he had a not unfounded fear that his second nuptials would be regarded with profound disapproval, even with execration, by his sisters.

Magdalen alone knew about it as yet. She had taken the news, which her father had feared would crush her to the earth, very tranquilly. She was a person of more frigid affections than he had supposed. He had already asked her to break the news to Fay and Bessie. Perhaps it would be better to let her break it to his sisters too. If he did it himself they might, at the first moment, say things they might afterwards regret.

Yes, he would leave the announcement to Magdalen.

CHAPTER XXVII

Our chain on silence clanks.

Time leers between, above his twiddling thumbs.

--GEORGE MEREDITH.

Lord Lossiemouth had come into his kingdom. He was rich, but not vulgarly so. He had a great position, and what his artistic nature valued even more, the possession of one of the most beautiful places in England. The Lossiemouth pictures and heirlooms, the historic house with its wonderful gardens--all these were his.

He had at first been quite dazed by the magnitude of his good fortune.

When it came to him it found him somewhat sore and angry at a recent rebuff which had wounded his vanity not a little. But the excitement of his great change of fortune soon healed what little smart remained.

A few months before he succeeded, he had fallen in love, not for the first time by many times, with a woman who seemed to meet his requirements. She was gentle, submissive, pretty, easily led, refined, not an heiress, but by no means penniless.

To his surprise and indignation she had refused him, evidently not without a certain tepid regret. He discovered that the mother had other views for her daughter, and that the daughter, though she inclined towards him, was quite incapable or even desirous of opposing her mother. She was gentleness and pliability itself. These qualities, so admirable in domestic life, have a tendency of which he had not thought before to make their charming owner, if a hitch occurs, subside into becoming another man's wife. If only women could be adamant until they reach the altar, and like wax afterwards.

When everything bitter that could be said at the expense of women had been ably expressed, Lord Lossiemouth withdrew. A month later, when he was making an angry walking tour in Hungary, he learned from an English paper, already many days old, of the two deaths which effected his great change of fortune. He communicated with his lawyer, arranged to return by a certain date, and continued his tour for another month.

On his return he had gone at once to Lossiemouth, which he had visited occasionally as a poor and peppery and not greatly respected relation.

Business of all kinds instantly engulfed him. He was impatient, difficult, _distrait_, slightly pleased with himself at showing so little gratification at his magnificent inheritance.

On the third day he sorted out the letters which looked like personal ones, from among a heap of correspondence, the acc.u.mulation of many weeks.

Quant.i.ties of envelopes were torn open, and the contents thrown aside, begging letters, decently veiled congratulations from "old friends" who had not so far shown any particular desire to make their friendship a joy to him.

Presently he came upon a long, closely written letter of several sheets, in a slanting hand, which he was about to dismiss as another begging letter when his eye fell on the signature. Bellows? Bulteel? Buller?

_Bellairs?_

Aunt Aggie's signature was quite illegible. It was an arranged squiggle painfully acquired in youth, which through life had resulted in all kinds of difficulties with tradespeople, and in continual annoyance and inconvenience to herself. Letters and parcels were frequently directed to her as A. Buller, Esq. She could only account for this mistake by the business-like nature of her style and handwriting. She often told her friends that, unless people knew her personally, her letters were generally believed to be a man's.

It had never struck Aunt Aggie that Lord Lossiemouth might possibly, in an interval of fifteen years, have forgotten who _A._ Bellows might be.

But the words "my beloved niece Magdalen" strongly underlined, and the postmark on the envelope, showed him who A. Bellairs was. He thought he remembered an old aunt who lived near Priesthope.

He read the long sentimental effusion and bit his lip.

Ah, me! Was that half-forgotten, dim-in-the-distance boyish love of his to be raked up again now!

He sighed impatiently. Why had Fate parted him and Magdalen? He still regretted her in a way, when he was depressed or hara.s.sed, or disgusted with the world in general; and he was often depressed and hara.s.sed and disgusted.

More letters. What business had people to give him the trouble of reading them? The floor was becoming strewn with his correspondence. The empty fireplace had become a target for crumpled b.a.l.l.s of paper.

A short one in a large, scrambling, illiterate hand with a signature that might mean anything. That tall capital, shaped like a ham, was perhaps a B.

The letter was written on Priesthope notepaper. "_My daughter Magdalen._"

This, then, was from Colonel Bellairs.

It was not such a very bad letter, but it was a deplorably unwise one.

When had Colonel Bellairs ever indited a wise one! But he made his precarious position even less tenable by ignoring the fact that Lord Lossiemouth's fortunes had altered, by a.s.serting that he had had it in his mind to write to this effect the previous Christmas but had not had time. When Colonel Bellairs concocted that sentence he had felt, not without pride, that it covered the ground of his fifteen years' silence, and also showed that Lord Lossiemouth's wealth had nothing to do with his recall. For the letter was a recall.

"Blundering old idiot," said Lord Lossiemouth, but he had become very red.

All kinds of memories were surging up in him; Magdalen's crystal love for him, her indefinable charm, her gaiety, her humility, her shyness, her exquisite beauty.

Life had never brought him anything so marvellous, so enchanting, as that first draught of April pa.s.sion. And he had quenched his thirst at many other cups since then. His lips had been blistered and stained at poisoned brims. Why had that furious old turkey-c.o.c.k parted him and Magdalen! His heart sank for a moment at the remembrance of his first love.

But what was the use! The Magdalen he had loved had ceased to exist. The wand-like figure with its apple-blossom face faded, faded, and in its place rose up the image of the thin, distinguished-looking grey-haired woman who had supplanted that marvel. He had met Magdalen accidentally once or twice in London of late years, and had felt dismayed anger at the change in her, an offended anger not wholly unlike that with which he surveyed himself at his tailors', and inspected at unbecoming angles, through painfully frank mirrors, a thick back and a stout neck and jaw which cruelly misrepresented his fastidious artistic personality.

He returned to his letters.

Three sheets in a firm, upright hand.

"I do not suppose you remember me," it began, "but I intend to recall myself to your memory, which I believe to be none of the best. I am the wife of Sir John Blore, and aunt to Magdalen Bellairs."

He flung the letter down. But this was intolerable, a persecution. And what fools they were _all_ to write. Had Magdalen set them on?

He groaned with sudden self-disgust. What unworthy thought would come to him next? Of course she knew nothing of this.

He looked at the date of each letter carefully. Aunt Aggie's according to her wont had only the day of the week on it, just Tuesday, or it might be Thursday--but Colonel Bellairs's and Lady Blore's were fully dated, and about a fortnight apart. Colonel Bellairs had written last.