CHAPTER XXVII

LUNCH AT PERLEY HATCH

"_Shall I not one day remember thy bower, One day when all days are one day to me?

Thinking, 'I stirred not, and yet had the power!'

Yearning, 'Ah, G.o.d, if again it might be!'_"--D. G. Rossetti.

"You're not the sort to bet on, Percy," remarked Joey Ferris. "What have you been filling me up with? You came home here, saying you could put me wise about the Gaunt marriage, and that the whole thing was going phut, and she wasn't coming back to him!"

"Well!"

"Well, you're off the rails this time, old man. She came home on Wednesday, and this morning I had a note from her to say she would call for me in the car this afternoon, and take me over to Omberleigh to tea."

"Jove though!" Ferris stood stock still in his astonishment. "You're kidding, Joey?"

"Wish I may die," was the chaste rejoinder.

Ferris turned things rapidly over in his mind. "Did you go?" he asked at length.

"Go? I should think so. She is as well as ever she was in her life--laughing and talking, as different from the timid little crushed thing she was, as you are different from Gaunt! While she was away, he has had her own sitting-room all done up for her, and my word! he has done it in style. You never saw anything so cla.s.sy; it's like the little boudoir at the Chase; and she says he never bought a thing, except the carpet and curtains. The furniture and china was all in the house, put away, and they've got enough left to furnish the dining-room as well. My, it'll be a nice place by the time she's done with it."

"Joey, I give you my word, that on Sat.u.r.day she was in bed, delirious, and her mother sat up all night with her."

"That might be. Look how Bill's temperature runs up if he gets a bit of a chill! She was all right by Wednesday, and now she's as fit as a fiddle. Seems so keen about things too. Got a great idea of going over the mine. I thought we might have 'em both to lunch next week, and take them round after."

"Good idea. But have you forgotten that Rosenberg will be staying here?"

"Not me. That doesn't make a bit of difference. She was talking about him as easily as you might talk about me. Tell you what, Percy, you've got the wrong sow by the ear this time."

"If there's been a mistake, it was Rosenberg's, not mine," said Ferris.

"You may bet on that. Seems to me he's about put himself in the cart."

"Why, how? What do you mean?"

Ferris laughed. "He insisted on laying me fifty sovereigns to one that she never went back to Gaunt. I told him he didn't know O.G. as well as I do."

"Pooh! He didn't know Virgie, much more likely. She's still water, is that little lady."

"Huh? You don't mean she's not straight?"

"Not much. She's the straightest goer I ever came across. But she doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve."

"I don't know where she keeps it then," said Percy, with a grin. "You don't suppose old Gaunt's got it, do you?"

"Couldn't tell you that, but one thing I _can_ say for certain. It doesn't belong to young Rosenberg."

"Are you sure, Joey?"

"Yes," said she simply.

"I can go pretty near the truth of it, I expect," she added presently.

"Rosenberg tried to make mischief, and it hasn't come off."

"He told me Gaunt was cruel to her--actually tortured her," said Percy, in a lowered voice. "Said she let it out in her delirium."

"Go and tell that to the next one," scorned his wife. "If it's true, then being tortured agrees with her."

"You can't deny she was very ill when she first came here."

"Yes, but that was none of Gaunt's doing. That was because she had been starving herself and doing all the housework for the best part of two years."

"Well, I'll have to try and explain matters to Rosenberg when he comes next week," said Percy, quite meek and crestfallen.

At Omberleigh meanwhile, since the moment when Virgie grasped the position, things had been going on fairly well. By degrees, a footing of friendly acquaintanceship had been established, which was sustained without difficulty on the woman's part. The man, however, was less satisfied. He went about each day with the knowledge that, if he was not quick about accomplishing some sort of suicide which should be obviously accidental, his own control might fail him at any moment, and the present state of tantalising half-and-half would become impossible to maintain.

Yet, for a strong, energetic, experienced man to kill himself in such a manner that n.o.body should suspect him of having done so was harder than he had foreseen. He turned over plan after plan in his mind, only to reject them all. He began to despair of ever accomplishing his purpose convincingly, as long as he stayed in England. The idea of taking Virginia to Switzerland suggested itself. There it would be comparatively simple. He would only have to leave her in a comfortable hotel, taking care that she had plenty of money, and go rambling on a mountain side alone, hurling himself down any precipice which looked sufficiently steep to make a thorough job of it.

Against this was the fact that it was growing late in the season for Switzerland, and most of the mountain hotels would be closed. The mere circ.u.mstance of his selecting Switzerland for a late autumn holiday might look suspicious in the light of after events.

To do the thing intentionally, which was by far the easiest plan, was, from his point of view, out of the question, because of the implied slur upon his widow. If a newly married man commits suicide, he may leave a hundred explanations, a.s.suring his wife of his happiness with her, but they will impose upon n.o.body. He was determined not to expose his beloved to the evil tongues of rumour; yet he felt he must shortly take some definite action or go mad.

In this frame of mind he heard with interest that Gerald was coming to stay at Perley Hatch. So far, he had had no chance to gather anything of Virginia's feeling for him. Two or three times he had tried to ask, but voice and courage failed him. In his male density, he imagined that he would not be able to see the two together without coming to a conclusion. He urged the acceptance of Joey's invitation. Virginia's health, since her return, gave no cause for anxiety, and she was eager to explore the cave.

It was in a mood of great depression that he set out with her upon the day fixed. He was uncertain of everything--of her feeling, of his own intentions, of Gerald's worth. The existing state of things, difficult though it might be, was perilously sweet. There were hours when he told himself that he was an utter fool, and that his present att.i.tude was a quixotry which bordered upon madness; yet there seemed no way to end it. Every day of the footing upon which he and his wife now stood made it more irrelevant, as it were, for him to turn from luke-warm companion into ardent lover ... and when he tried to face what would be his feeling if she rejected him, as she might--or worse still if, as was more likely, she submitted to his love without returning it--he felt that he simply did not dare risk it.

Virginia was quick to note his depression. The variability of his spirits nowadays was more noticeable than he supposed. Sometimes her light-hearted nonsense would beguile him into something like hilarity.

These moments were usually, as she was well aware, followed by a corresponding withdrawal. She built all her hopes upon them, however, for it seemed to her that in the period of reaction he never slipped back quite so far into the realms of distance. It was an approach, though a very gradual one. Like a rising tide, each wave fell back; but, all the same, the flood mounted.

She chatted gaily as she sat beside him in the car, talking of the matters which engrossed her--the garden and the house; also of an invitation to the Chase to dine, which had lately been accepted. He could not perceive that she manifested the least consciousness of being on the way to meet her lover.

When they walked together into Joey's drawing-room, he was not so certain. Rosenberg, in spite of self-command, betrayed a very obvious embarra.s.sment. If her feeling were doubtful, his was not. Her mere presence in the room seemed to set him a-quiver.

Gaunt shook hands with him more easily, less grudgingly than on the former occasion of their meeting. This surprised Gerald somewhat. He had gone from that meeting straight to the address given him by Joey, had seen Virginia, established an intimate footing of friendship, taken her about in his car, and done other things which a newly made husband would be most apt to resent. Yet Gaunt's greeting was almost kindly.

This disturbed Gerald. There must be one of two reasons for it. Either he was so sure of his wife that he could afford to ignore other men, or he knew more than he pretended to, and was on the watch, eager to take his adversary off guard.

These thoughts produced considerable constraint in the young man's manner to Virgie, whose gentle sweetness was much the same as usual.

"You made a surprisingly quick convalescence," he remarked, thinking how delicious she was in her tailor suit of silver corduroy.

"Yes," she said. "I was sure you would be pleased to know that I was not nearly so ill as mamma thought me. She was alarmed because I was feverish, but it soon went off. I am quite splendidly well now. This air suits me--doesn't it, Osbert?"

"It really seems to," he replied, ready to worship her for calling him so naturally into the conversation. "Motoring, too, agrees with you. I feel very grateful to you, Rosenberg, for giving her some runs down in Suss.e.x, though I wish you could have avoided the drenching."