As far as all that was concerned Lady Adela flung it aside. She must attend to Lady Carloes, she must give to her the version of Frank Breton's arrival that her mother would wish her to give. But what _was_ that version? And _was_ her mother really to be depended upon?

At so terrible a flash of disloyalty Lady Adela coloured.--Why were things so difficult this afternoon? And why had she ever gone to that picture-gallery?

Lady Carloes had, however, not yet arrived at Frank Breton. She never paid a visit anywhere without tabulating carefully in her mind the things that she must know before leaving the house. Her theory was that she was really very old indeed, and couldn't possibly live much longer, and that no moment therefore must be wasted. The more news that she could give and receive before her ultimate departure, the more value would her life have in retrospect.

She never went definitely into the exact worth that all the gossip that she collected might have for anybody or anything; as with any other collection it was pursuit rather than acquisition that fired the blood.

At the back of her old mind was a perfect lumber-room of muddle and confusion--dusty gossip, cobwebs of scandal, windows thick with grime and tightly closed. There was no time left now to do anything to that.

Meanwhile every day something was purchased or exchanged; muddle there might be, but, thank G.o.d, n.o.body knew it.

"You must be very busy about the ball, my dear."

"Yes--it means a great deal of work. It's so long since we've had anything here, but Norris is invaluable. You don't find servants like that nowadays."

"No, my dear, you don't. But, of course, it will go off splendidly.

We're all so anxious that Rachel shall have a good time. It's the least we can do for your mother."

At the mention of Rachel Lady Adela's thoughts straightened for a second; _that_ was where the confusion lay. It had been Rachel's att.i.tude to the portrait that had caused Lady Adela's own momentary disloyalty. Of course Rachel hated her grandmother. Lady Adela made a little sound with her fingers, a sound like the clicking of needles.

"As far as Rachel is concerned n.o.body can tell possibly how she's going to take it all. I don't pretend to understand her."

Lady Carloes found this interesting--she bent forward a little. "We're all greatly excited about her. You've kept her away from all of us and one hears such different accounts of her. And of course her success is most important--as things are just now."

Lady Adela answered, "I can tell you nothing. She isn't in the least like any of us, and I don't suppose for a moment that she'll listen to anybody. She made a friend of May Eversley in Munich, and I don't think that was the best thing for her. But you know--I've talked about this to you before."

Not only had Lady Adela talked; all of them had done so. In the Beaminster camp this appearance that Rachel was about to make was of the last importance. There were enemies, redoubtable enemies, in the field.

Rachel Beaminster's bow to the world was for the very reason that all the world was watching, a responsibility for them all.

But there were many rumours. Rachel was not to be relied upon--she hated her grandmother, she was strange and foreign and morose. Lady Carloes was not happy about it, and Lady Adela's att.i.tude now was anything but rea.s.suring.

John Beaminster came in. Lady Carloes liked him because he was good-tempered and injudicious. He told her a number of things that n.o.body else ever told her, and he had so simple a mind that extracting news from it was as easy as taking plums from a pudding. He did not come over to them at once, but stood laughing with Lord Crewner and his brother. He would come, however, in a moment, so Lady Carloes made a last hurried plunge at her friend.

"What's this I hear, my dear, about Frank Breton?"

"Yes, it's perfectly true. He's come back, and has taken rooms quite near here. He wrote to mother----"

Lady Carloes took this in with a gulp of delight. "My dear Adela! What did he say?"

"Oh! a very rude letter. He told mother that he knew that she would like him to be near at hand and that they ought to let bygones be bygones, and that he was sure that she would be glad to hear that he was a reformed character. Of course he hates all of us."

"What will you all do?"

"Oh! Nothing, of course. We gave him up long ago. By a tiresome coincidence he's taken rooms in the same house as my secretary, Miss Rand. I would send her away if she weren't simply invaluable. But it gives him a kind of a link with us."

"Monty Carfax saw him yesterday. He's lost his left arm, Monty says, and looks more of an adventurer than ever. So tiresome for your mother, my dear."

Then, as Lord John began to break away from the group at the fireplace and move towards them----

"Roddy Seddon told me he might look in this afternoon.... Your mother's so devoted to him. He seems to understand her so well."

The two ladies faced one another. Their eyes crossed. Lady Carloes murmured, "Such a splendid fellow!" then, as Lord John's cheerful laugh broke upon them----

"Isn't Rachel coming down?" she asked.

II

Lady Adela left her brother and Lady Carloes together and crossed over to the group at the fireplace. Of all her brothers, she liked Richard best. He seemed to her to be precisely all that a Beaminster should be: she liked his appearance--his fine domed forehead, his grey hair, his long rather melancholy face, his austere and orderly figure.

He had to perfection that reserve, that kind benignancy that a Beaminster ought to have; whenever Lady Adela questioned the foundations upon which the stability of her life depended he rea.s.sured her. Without saying anything at all, he gravely comforted her. That is what a Beaminster ought to do.

She knew, as she saw him standing there by the fire, that _he_ would never doubt his mother. To him she would always be splendid and magnificent, and with what determination would he expel from him any base attacks on that loyalty! Lady Adela thought that power to expel resolutely and firmly everything that attacked the settled a.s.surance of one's mind the finest thing in the world.

Lord Crewner was a thin, handsome man of any age at all over forty and under sixty. He was polished and brushed and scrubbed to such an extent that he looked like an advertis.e.m.e.nt of some fine old English firm that produced, at great cost and with wonderful completeness, Fine old English gentlemen. He believed in not thinking about things very much, because thinking let in Radicals and diseases and the poor, and made one uncomfortable. He loved the London that he knew, a London bounded by Sloane Square, the Marble Arch, Trafalgar Square and Westminster.

He was a bachelor, but might have married Lady Adela had the d.u.c.h.ess not refused to hear of Lady Adela leaving her; he adored the d.u.c.h.ess, although he was scarcely ever allowed to see her because he bored her.

He always lowered his voice a little when talking to women, and heightened it a little when talking to men; to his valet he spoke in the voice that Nature had given him.

Lady Adela was rea.s.sured as she came towards them. Although she did not especially desire to marry Lord Crewner, the thought that he might, had affairs been differently arranged, have asked her, placed him, in her eyes, apart from other men. At any rate these two were comfortable to her, and, for a moment, she was able to dismiss Rachel and Frank Breton from her mind.

They talked easily beside the fireplace. The voices of Lady Carloes and Lord John, the pleasant murmur of the fire, the ticking clocks, all helped that lazy swaying of time and s.p.a.ce about one, that happy rea.s.surance that as the world had been so would it continue ever to be, and that the old emotions and the old experiences and the old opinions would always hold their own against all invasion and decay.

Lord Richard talked of Chippendale and some wonderful Lowestoft, Lord Crewner talked of Madeira and Lady Masters' new house; Lady Adela listened and was soothed.

Upon them all broke a voice:

"Sir Roderick Seddon, my lady."

There stood in the doorway the freshest, the most beaming of young men.

He was tall and broad; his face was of a red-brick colour, and his dark London clothes, although they were well cut and handsome enough, were obviously only worn to please a necessary convention. His hair was light brown and cut close to his head, and his body had the healthy st.u.r.diness of someone whose every muscle was in proper training.

He came forward to the group at the fireplace with the walk of a man accustomed to s.p.a.ce and air and freedom; his smiling face was so genial and good-humoured that the whole room seemed to break away a little from its decorous and shining propriety. They were all pleased to see him.

Lady Carloes and Lord John came over and joined the group, and they stood all about him talking and laughing.

Roddy Seddon was the only young man whom the d.u.c.h.ess permitted, and people said that that was because he was the only young man who had never shown any fear of her. The knowledge of this fact gave him in Lady Adela's eyes a curious interest. She beheld him always rather as she would have beheld anyone who had learnt an abstruse language that no one else had ever mastered or some traveller who was reputed to have said or done the most extraordinary things in some savage country. How _could_ he? What talisman had he discovered that protected him? And then, swiftly on that, came the curious thought that she herself was glad that she had her terror, that she was proud, in some strange, inverted way, that any Beaminster could have the effect upon anyone that her mother had upon her.

But Roddy Seddon had another especial interest for her, for it was Roddy, all the Beaminsters had decided, who was to marry Rachel. Roddy was, in every way, the right person; not very wealthy, perhaps, but he had one nice place in Suss.e.x, and Rachel would not, herself, be a pauper.

Roddy would never let the Beaminsters down; he hated all these new invaders as strongly as any Beaminster could. He hated this mixing of the cla.s.ses, this perpetual urging of the working man to think.

"Lots of our fellows," Lady Adela had heard him say, "get along without thinkin'--why not the other fellers?"

She felt now that a conversation with Roddy would complete the soothing process that Lord Crewner and her brother had begun. He would finally rea.s.sure her.

She had no difficulty in securing him. Lady Carloes sat by the fire and talked to Lord Crewner, and the nondescript, and the two brothers departed.

When Roddy had drunk his tea, she led him away to the farther part of the long dim room, and there by that more distant fireplace the two of them sat, shadowy against the leaping light, their faces and their hands white and sharp and definite.

"Who else is dinin' on Thursday?"