"I don't think I've ever really liked her," said Audrey to herself.

What Nick said to herself is lost to history.

CHAPTER XXVII

IN THE GARDEN

The next morning, after a night spent chiefly in thought, Audrey issued forth rather early. Indeed she was probably the first person afoot in the house of the Spatts, the parlour-maid entering the hall just as Audrey had managed to open the front door. As the parlour-maid was obviously not yet in that fullness and spruceness of attire which parlour-maids affect when performing their mission in life, Audrey decided to offer no remark, explanatory or otherwise, and pa.s.sed into the garden with nonchalance as though her invariable habit when staying in strange houses was to get up before anybody else and spy out the whole property while the helpless hosts were yet in bed and asleep.

Now it was a magnificent morning: no wind, no cloud, and the sun rising over the sea; not a trace of the previous evening's weather. Audrey had not been in the leafy street more than a moment when she forgot that she was tired and short of sleep, and also very worried by affairs both private and public. Her body responded to the sun, and her mind also. She felt almost magically healthy, strong and mettlesome, and, further, she began to feel happy; she rather blamed herself for this tendency to feel happy, calling herself heedless and indifferent. She did not understand what it is to be young. She had risen partly because of the futility of bed, but more because of a desire to inspect again her own part of the world after the unprecedented absence from it.

Frinton was within the borders of her own part of the world, and, though she now regarded it with the condescending eyes of a Parisian and Londoner, she found pleasure in looking upon it and in recognising old landmarks and recent innovations. She saw, on the Greensward separating the promenade from the beach, that a rustic seat had been elaborately built by the Council round the great trunk of the only tree in Frinton; and she decided that there had been questionable changes since her time. And in this way she went on. However, the splendour and reality of the sun, making such an overwhelming contrast with the insubstantial phenomena of the gloomy night, prevented undue cerebral activity. She reflected that Frinton on a dark night and Frinton on a bright morning were not like the same place, and she left it at that, and gazed at the facade of the Excelsior Hotel, wondering for an instant why she should be interested in it, and then looking swiftly away.

She had to glance at all the shops, though none of them was open except the dairy-shop; and in the shopping street, which had a sunrise at one end and the railway station at the other, she lit on the new palatial garage.

"My car may be in there," she thought.

After the manner of most car-owners on tour, she had allowed the chauffeur to disappear with the car in the evening where he listed, confident that the next morning he and it would reappear cleansed and in good running order.

The car was in the garage, almost solitary on a floor of asphalt under a gla.s.s roof. An untidy youth, with the end of a cigarette clinging to his upper lip in a way to suggest that it had clung there throughout the night and was the last vestige of a jollification, seemed to be dragging a length of hose from a hydrant towards the car, the while his eyes rested on a large notice: "Smoking absolutely prohibited. By order."

Then from the other extremity of the garage came a jaunty, dapper, quasi-martial figure, in a new grey uniform, with a peaked grey cap, bright brown leggings, and bright brown boots to match--the whole highly brushed, polished, smooth and glittering. This being pulled out of his pocket a superb pair of kid gloves, then a silver cigarette-case, and then a silver match-box, and he ignited a cigarette--the unrivalled, wondrous first cigarette of the day--casting down the match with a large, free gesture. At sight of him the untidy youth grew more active.

"Look 'ere," said the being to the youth, "what the 'ell time did I tell you to have that car cleaned by, and you not begun it!"

Pointing to the clock, he lounged magnificently to and fro, spreading smoke around the intimidated and now industrious youth. The next second he caught sight of Audrey, and transformed himself instantaneously into what she had hitherto imagined a chauffeur always was; but in those few moments she had learnt that the essence of a chauffeur is G.o.dlike, and that he toils not, neither does he swab.

"Good morning, madam," in a soft, courtly voice.

"Good morning."

"Were you wanting the car, madam?"

She was not, but the suggestion gave her an idea.

"Can we take it as it is?"

"Yes, madam. I'll just look at the petrol gauge ... But ... I haven't had my breakfast, madam."

"What time do you have it?"

"Well, madam, when you have yours."

"That's all right, then. You've got hours yet. I want you to take me to Flank Hall."

"Flank Hall, madam?" His tone expressed the fact that his mind was a blank as to Flank Hall.

As soon as Audrey had comprehended that the situation of Flank Hall was not necessarily known to every chauffeur in England, and that a stay of one night in Frinton might not have been enough to familiarise this particular one with the geography of the entire district, she replied that she would direct him.

They were held up by a train at the railway crossing, and a milk-cart and a young pedestrian were also held up. When Audrey identified the pedestrian she wished momentarily that she had not set out on the expedition. Then she said to herself that really it did not matter, and why should she be afraid... etc., etc. The pedestrian was Musa. In French they greeted each other stiffly, like distant acquaintances, and the train thundered past.

"I was taking the air, simply, Madame," said Musa, with his ingenuous shy smile.

"Take it in my car," said Audrey with a sudden resolve. "In one hour at the latest we shall have returned."

She had a great deal to say to him and a great deal to listen to, and there could not possibly be any occasion equal to the present, which was ideal.

He got in; the chauffeur manoeuvred to oust the milk-cart from its rightful precedence, the gates opened, and the car swung at gathering speed into the well-remembered road to Moze. And the two pa.s.sengers said nothing to each other of the slightest import. Musa's escape from Paris was between them; the unimaginable episode at the Spatts was between them; the sleepless night was between them. (And had she not saved him by her presence of mind from the murderous hand of Mr. Ziegler?) They had a million things to impart. And yet naught was uttered save a few ba.n.a.lities about the weather and about the healthfulness of being up early. They were bashful, constrained, altogether too young and inexperienced. They wanted to behave in the grand, social, easeful manner of a celebrated public performer and an heiress worth ten million francs. And they could only succeed in being a boy and a girl. The chauffeur alone, at from thirty to forty miles an hour, was worthy of himself and his high vocation. Both the pa.s.sengers regretted that they had left their beds. Happily the car laughed at the alleged distance between Frinton and Moze. In a few minutes, as it seemed, with but one false turning, due to the impetuosity of the chauffeur, the vehicle drew up before the gates of Flank Hall. Audrey had avoided the village of Moze. The pa.s.sengers descended.

"This is my house," Audrey murmured.

The gates were shut but not locked. They creaked as Audrey pushed against them. The drive was covered with a soft film of green, as though it were gradually being entombed in the past. The young roses, however, belonged emphatically to the present. Dewdrops hung from them like jewels, and their odour filled the air. Audrey turned off the main drive towards the garden front of the house, which had always been the aspect that she preferred, and at the same moment she saw the house windows and the thrilling perspective of Mozewater. One of the windows was open. She was glad, because this proved that the perfect Aguilar, gardener and caretaker, was after all imperfect. It was his crusty perfection that had ever set Audrey, and others, against Aguilar. But he had gone to bed and forgotten a window--and it was the French window. While, in her suddenly revived character of a harsh Ess.e.x inhabitant, she was thinking of some sarcastic word to say to Aguilar about the window, another window slowly opened from within, and Aguilar's head became visible. Once more he had exasperatingly proved his perfection. He had not gone to bed and forgotten a window. But he had risen with exemplary earliness to give air to the house.

"'d mornin', miss," mumbled the unsmiling Aguilar, impa.s.sively, as though Audrey had never been away from Moze.

"Well, Aguilar."

"I didn't expect ye so early, miss."

"But how could you be expecting me at all?"

"Miss Ingate come home yesterday. She said you couldn't be far off, miss."

"Not Miss ... _Mrs._--Moncreiff," said Audrey firmly.

"I beg your pardon, madam," Aguilar responded with absolute imperturbability. "She never said nothing about that."

And he proceeded mechanically to the next window.

The yard-dog began to bark. Audrey, ignoring Musa, went round the shrubbery towards the kennel. The chained dog continued to bark, furiously, until Audrey was within six feet of him, and then he crouched and squirmed and gave low whines and his tail wagged with extreme rapidity. Audrey bent down, trembling.... She could scarcely see.... There was something about the green film on the drive, about the look of the house, about the sheeted drawing-room glimpsed through the open window, about the view of Mozewater...! She felt acutely and painfully sorry for, and yet envious of, the young girl in a plain blue frock who used to haunt the house and the garden, and who had somehow made the house and the garden holy for evermore by her unhappiness and her longings.... Audrey was crying.... She heard a step and stood upright. It was Musa's step.

"I have never seen you so exquisite," said Musa in a murmur subdued and yet enthusiastic. All his faculties seemed to be dwelling reflectively upon her with pa.s.sionate appreciation.

They had at last begun to talk, really--he in French, and she partly in French and partly in English. It was her tears, or perhaps her gesture in trying to master them, that had loosed their tongues. The ancient dog was forgotten, and could not understand why. Audrey was excusably startled by Musa's words and tone, and by the sudden change in his att.i.tude. She thought that his personal distinction at the moment was different from and superior to any other in her experience. She had a comfortable feeling of condescension towards Nick and towards Jane Foley. And at the same time she blamed Musa, perceiving that as usual he was behaving like a child who cannot grasp the great fact that life is very serious.

"Yes," she said. "That's all very fine, that is. You pretend this, that, and the other. But why are you here? Why aren't you at work in Paris?

You've got the chance of a lifetime, and instead of staying at home and practising hard and preparing yourself, you come gadding over to England simply because there's a bit of money in your pocket!"

She was very young, and in the splendour of the magnificent morning she looked the emblem of simplicity; but in her heart she was his mother, his sole fount of wisdom and energy and shrewdness.

Pain showed in his sensitive features, and then appeal, and then a hot determination.

"I came because I could not work," he said.

"Because you couldn't work? Why couldn't you work?" There was no yielding in her hard voice.