His Lordship gave no further sign beyond repeating that if that fellow was the sort of fellow Mrs. Tietjens said he was, her Ladyship would properly curl his whiskers. And in face of that Sylvia simply had to make a concession to the extent of saying that she did not see why Helen Lowther could not visit a show cottage that was known, apparently, over half America. And perhaps buy some old sticks.
His Lordship removed his gaze from the distant hills and turned a long, cool, rather impertinent glance on her. He said:
“Ah, if it’s only that…” and nothing more. And, at that, she chanced it again:
“If,” she said slowly too, “you think Helen Lowther is in need of protection I don’t mind if I go down and look after her myself!”
The General, who had tried several interjections, now exclaimed:
“Surely you wouldn’t meet that fellow!”… And that rather spoilt it.
For Fittleworth could take the opportunity to leave her to do what he was at liberty to regard as the directions of her natural protector. Otherwise he must have said something to give away his attitude. So she had to give away more of her own with the words:
“Christopher is not down here. He has taken an aeroplane to York — to save Groby Great Tree. Your man Speeding saw him when he went to get your saddle. Getting into a plane.” She added: “But he’s too late. Mrs. de Bray Pape had a letter yesterday to say the tree had been cut down. At her orders!”
Fittleworth said: “Good God!” Nothing more!
The General regarded him as one fearing to be struck by lightning. Campion had already told her over and over again that Fittleworth would rage like a town bull at the bare idea that the tenant of a furnished house should interfere with its owner’s timber…. But Fittleworth merely continued to look away, communing with the handle of his crop. That called, Sylvia knew for another concession and she said:
“Now, Mrs. de Bray Pape has got cold feet. Horribly cold feet. That’s why she’s down there. She’s got the idea that Mark may have her put in prison!” She added further:
“She wanted to take my boy, Michael, with her to intercede. As the heir he has some right to a view!”
And from those speeches of hers Sylvia had the measure of her dread of that silent man. She was more tired than she thought and the idea of India more attractive.
At that point Fittleworth exclaimed:
“Damn it all, I’ve got to settle the hash of that fellow Gunning!”
He turned his horse’s head along the road and beckoned the General towards him with his crop-handle. The General gazed back at her appealingly, but Sylvia knew that she had to stop there and await Fittleworth’s verdict from the General’s lips. She wasn’t even to have any duel of
She clenched her fingers on her crop and looked towards Gunning…. If she was going to be asked by the Countess through old Campion to pack up, bag and baggage, and leave the house she would at least get what she could out of that fellow whom she had never yet managed to approach.
The horses of the General and Fittleworth, relieved to be out of the neighbourhood of Sylvia’s chestnut, minced friendlily along the road, the mare liking her companion.
“This fellow Gunning,” his Lordship began… He continued with great animation:
“About these gates… You are aware that my estate carpenter repairs….”
Those were the last words she heard and she imagined Fittleworth continuing for a long time about his bothering gates in order to put the General quite off his guard — and no doubt for the sake of manners. Then he would drop in some shot that would be terrible to the old General. He might even cross-question him as to facts, with sly, side questions, looking away over the country.
For that she cared very little. She did not pretend to be a historian: she entertained rather than instructed. And she had conceded enough to Fittleworth. Or perhaps it was to Cammie. Cammie was a great, fat, good-natured dark thing with pockets under her liquid eyes. But she had a will. And by telling Fittleworth that she had not incited Helen Lowther and the two others to make an incursion into the Tietjens’ household Sylvia was aware that she had made an important concession.
She hadn’t intended to weaken. It had happened. She had intended to chance conveying the idea that she wanted to worry Christopher and his companion into leaving that country.
The heavy man with the three horses approached slowly, with the air of a small army in the narrow road. He was grubby and unbuttoned, but he regarded her intently with eyes a little bloodshot. He said from a distance something that she did not altogether understand. It was about her chestnut. He was asking her to back that ’ere chestnut’s tail into the hedge. She was not used to being spoken to by the lower classes. She kept her horse along the road. In that way the fellow could not pass. She knew what was the matter. Her chestnut would lash out at Gunning’s charges if they got near its stern. In the hunting season it wore a large “K” on its tail.
Nevertheless the fellow must be a good man with horses; otherwise he would not be perched on one with the stirrups crossed over the saddle in front of him and lead two others. She did not know that she would care to do that herself nowadays; there had been a time when she would have. She had intended to slip down from the chestnut and hand it over to Gunning. Once she was down on the road he could not very well refuse. But she felt disinclined to cock her leg over the saddle. He looked like a fellow who could refuse.
He refused. She had asked him to hold her horse whilst she went down and spoke to his master. He had made no motion towards doing so; he had continued to stare fixedly at her. She had said:
“You’re Captain Tietjens’ servant, aren’t you? I’m his wife. Staying with Lord Fittleworth!”
He had made no answer and no movement except to draw the back of his right hand across his left nostril — for lack of a handkerchief. He said something incomprehensible — but not conciliatory. Then he began a longer speech. That she understood. It was to the effect that he had been thirty years, boy and man with his Lordship and the rest of his time with the Cahptn. He also pointed out that there was a hitching post and chain by the gate there. But he did not advise her to hitch to it. The chestnut would kick to flinders any cart that came along the road. And the mere idea of the chestnut lashing out and injuring itself caused her to shudder; she was a good horsewoman.
The conversation went with long pauses. She was in no hurry; she would have to wait till Campion or Fittleworth came back — with the verdict, probably. The fellow, when he used short sentences, was incomprehensible because of his dialect. When he spoke longer she got a word or two out of it.
It troubled her a little, now, that Edith Ethel might be coming along the road. Practically she had promised to meet her at that spot and at about that moment, Edith Ethel proposing to sell her love-letters to Christopher — or through him…. The night before she had told Fittleworth that Christopher had bought the place below her with money he had from Lady Macmaster because Lady Macmaster had been his mistress. Fittleworth had boggled at that… it had been at that moment that he had gone rather stiff to her.
As a matter of fact Christopher had bought that place out of a windfall. Years before — even before she had married him — he had had a legacy from an aunt and in his visionary way had invested it in some Colonial — very likely Canadian — property or invention or tramway concession because he considered that some remote place, owing to its geographical position on some road — was going to grow. Apparently during the war it had grown and the completely forgotten investment had paid nine and sixpence in the pound. Out of the blue. It could not be helped. With a monetary record of vision-ariness and generosity such as Christopher had behind him, some chickens must now and then come home — some visionary investment turn out sound, some debtor turn honest. She understood even that some colonel who had died on Armistice night and to whom Christopher had lent a good sum in hundreds had turned honest. At any rate his executors had written to ask her for Chris-topher’s address with a view to making payments. She hadn’t at the time known Christopher’s address, but no doubt they had got it from the War Office or somewhere.
No doubt with windfalls like those he had kept afloat, for she did not believe the old-furniture business as much as paid its way. She had heard through Mrs. Cramp that the American partner had embezzled most of the money that should have gone to Christopher. You should not do business with Americans. Christopher, it is true, had years ago — during the war — predicted an American invasion — as he always predicted everything. He had indeed said that if you wanted to have money you must get it from where money was going to; in other words, if you wanted to sell, you must prepare to sell what was wanted. And they wanted old furniture more than anything else. She didn’t mind. She was already beginning a little campaign with Mrs. de Bray Pape to make her re-furnish Groby — to make her export all the clumsy eighteen-forty mahogany that the great house contained, to Sante Fe or
