We went in to luncheon, a hearty British meal of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, and we talked of the work on which Roy was engaged.
“I want to spare dear Roy all the labour I can,” said Mrs. Driffield, “and I’ve been gathering together as much of the material as I could myself. Of course it’s been rather painful, but it’s been very interesting, too. I came across a lot of old photographs that I must show you.”
After luncheon we went into the drawing room and I noticed again with what perfect tact Mrs. Driffield had arranged it. It suited the widow of a distinguished man of letters almost more than it had suited the wife. Those chintzes, those bowls of pot-pourri, those Dresden china figures—there was about them a faint air of regret; they seemed to reflect pensively upon a past of distinction. I could have wished on this chilly day that there were a fire in the grate, but the English are a hardy as well as a conservative race; and it is not difficult for them to maintain their principles at the cost of the discomfort of others. I doubted whether Mrs. Driffield would have conceived the possibility of lighting a fire before the first of October. She asked me whether I had lately seen the lady who had brought me to lunch with the Driffields, and I surmised from her faint acerbity that since the death of her eminent husband the great and fashionable had shown a distinct tendency to take no further notice of her. We were just settling down to talk about the defunct; Roy and Mrs. Driffield were putting artful questions to incite me to disclose my recollections and I was gathering my wits about me so that I should not in an unguarded moment let slip anything that I had made up my mind to keep to myself; when suddenly the trim parlour-maid brought in two cards on a small salver.
“Two gentlemen in a car, mum, and they say, could they look at the house and garden?”
“What a bore!” cried Mrs. Driffield, but with astonishing alacrity. “Isn’t it funny I should have been speaking just now about the people who want to see the house? I never have a moment’s peace.”
“Well, why don’t you say you’re sorry you can’t see them?” said Roy, with what I thought a certain cattiness.
“Oh, I couldn’t do that. Edward wouldn’t have liked me to.” She looked at the cards. “I haven’t got my glasses on me.”
She handed them to me, and on one I read “Henry Beard MacDougal, University of Virginia”; and in pencil was written: “Assistant professor in English Literature.” The other was “Jean-Paul Underhill” and there was at the bottom an address in New York.
“Americans,” said Mrs. Driffield. “Say I shall be very pleased if they’ll come in.”
Presently the maid ushered the strangers in. They were both tall young men and broad-shouldered, with heavy, clean-shaven, swarthy faces, and handsome eyes; they both wore horn-rimmed spectacles and they both had thick black hair combed straight back from their foreheads. They both wore English suits that were evidently brand new; they were both slightly embarrassed, but verbose and extremely civil. They explained that they were making a literary tour of England and, being admirers of Edward Driffield, had taken the liberty of stopping off on their way to Rye to visit Henry James’s house in the hope that they would be permitted to see a spot sanctified by so many associations. The reference to Rye did not go down very well with Mrs. Driffield.
“I believe they have some very good links there,” she said.
She introduced the Americans to Roy and me. I was filled with admiration for the way in which Roy rose to the occasion. It appeared that he had lectured before the University of Virginia and had stayed with a distinguished member of the faculty. It had been an unforgettable experience. He did not know whether he had been more impressed by the lavish hospitality with which those charming Virginians had entertained him or by their intelligent interest in art and literature. He asked how So and So was, and So and So; he had made lifelong friends there, and it looked as though everyone he had met was good and kind and clever. Soon the young professor was telling Roy how much he liked his books, and Roy was modestly telling him what in this one and the other his aim had been and how conscious he was that he had come far short of achieving it. Mrs. Driffield listened with smiling sympathy, but I had a feeling that her smile was growing a trifle strained. It may be that Roy had too, for he suddenly broke off.
“But you don’t want me to bore you with my stuff,” he said in his loud hearty way. “I’m only here because Mrs. Driffield has entrusted to me the great honour of writing Edward Driffield’s Life.”
This of course interested the visitors very much.
“It’s some job, believe me,” said Roy, playfully American. “Fortunately I have the assistance of Mrs. Driffield, who was not only a perfect wife, but an admirable amanuensis and secretary; the materials she has placed at my disposal are so amazingly full that really little remains for me to do but take advantage of her industry and her—her affectionate zeal.”
Mrs. Driffield looked down demurely at the carpet and the two young Americans turned on her their large dark eyes in which you could read their sympathy, their interest, and their respect. After a little more conversation— partly literary but also about golf, for the visitors admitted that they hoped to get a round or two at Rye, and here again Roy was on the spot, for he told them to look out for such and such a bunker and when they came to London hoped they would play with him at Sunningdale; after this, I say, Mrs. Driffield got up and offered to show them Edward’s study and bedroom, and of course the garden. Roy rose to his feet, evidently bent on accompanying them, but Mrs. Driffield gave him a little smile; it was pleasant but firm.
“Don’t you bother to come, Roy,” she said. “I’ll take them round. You stay here and talk to Mr. Ashenden.”
“Oh, all right. Of course.”
The strangers bade us farewell and Roy and I settled down again in the chintz armchairs.
“Jolly room this is,” said Roy.
“Very.”
“Amy had to work hard to get it. You know the old man bought this house two or three years before they were married. She tried to make him sell it, but he wouldn’t. He was very obstinate in some ways. You see, it belonged to a certain Miss Wolfe, whose bailiff his father was, and he said that when he was a little boy his one idea was to own it himself and now he’d got it he was going to keep it. One would have thought the last thing he’d want to do was to live in a place where everyone knew all about his origins and everything. Once poor Amy very nearly engaged a housemaid before she discovered she was Edward’s great-niece. When Amy came here the house was furnished from attic to cellar in the best Tottenham Court Road manner; you know the sort of thing, Turkey carpets and mahogany sideboards, and a plush-covered suite in the drawing room, and modern marquetry. It was his idea of how a gentleman’s house should be furnished. Amy says it was simply awful. He wouldn’t let her change a thing and she had to go to work with the greatest care; she says she simply couldn’t have lived in it and she was determined to have things right, so she had to change things one by one so that he didn’t pay any attention. She told me the hardest job she had was with his writing desk. I don’t know whether you’ve noticed the one there is in
