The Summons Part 56

It was the first time he had ever heard her use his Christian name.

"I should like to be kinder, if you'll let me," he said. "I am not blind. I was in the supper-room when you and Harry were there. It was for him that you had kept all the last dances free. And you are here, breaking your heart. Why?"

Joan shook her head. A little sob broke from her against her will. But this matter was between her and Harry Luttrell. She sought no counsel from any other.

"Then I am very grieved for both of you," said Hillyard. Joan made a movement as if she were about to rise. "Will you wait just a moment?"

Martin asked.

He guessed that some hint of Stella Croyle's story had reached the girl's ears. He understood that she would be hurt, and affronted; that she would feel herself suddenly steeped in vulgarities; and that she would visit her resentment sharply upon her lover, and upon herself at the same time. And all this was true. But Martin was not sure of it. He meant to tread warily, lest if he stumbled, the harm should be the more complete.

"I have known Harry Luttrell a long while," he said. "No woman ever reached his heart until he came home from France this summer. No woman I believe, could have reached it--not even you, Joan, I believe, if you had met him a year ago. He was possessed by one great shame and one great longing--shame that the regiment with which he and his father were bound up, had once disgraced itself--longing for the day to come when it would recover its prestige. Those two emotions burnt in him like white flames. I believe no other could have lived beside them."

Joan would not speak, but she concentrated all her senses to listen. A phrase which Stella Croyle had used--Harry had feared to become "the slovenly soldier"--began to take on its meaning.

"On the Somme the shame was wiped out. Led by such men as Harry--well, you know what happened. Harry Luttrell came home freed at last from an overwhelming obsession. He looked about him with different eyes, and there you were! It seems to me a thing perfectly ordained, as so few things are. I brought him down here just for a pleasant week in the country--without another thought beyond that. All this week I have been coming to think of myself as an unconscious agent, who just at the right time is made to do the right thing. Here was the first possible moment for Harry Luttrell--and there you were in the path--just as if you without knowing it, had been set there to wait until he came over the fields to you."

He turned to her and took her hand in his. He had his sympathies for Stella Croyle, but her hopes held no positive promise of happiness for either her or Harry Luttrell--a mere flash and splutter of pa.s.sion at the best, with all sorts of sordid disadvantages to follow, quarrels, the scorn of his equals, the loss of position, the check to advancement in his profession. Here, on the other hand, was the fitting match.

"It would be a great pity," he said gently, "if anything were now to interfere."

He stood up and after a moment Joan rose to her feet. There was a tender smile upon her lips and her eyes were s.h.i.+ning. She laid a hand upon his arm.

"I shall have to get you a wife, Martin," she said, midway between laughter and tears. "It wouldn't be fair on us if you were to escape."

This was her way of thanking him.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE LONG SLEEP

The amazing incident which cut so sharply into these tangled lives occurred the next morning at Rackham Park. Some of the house party straggled down to a late breakfast, others did not descend at all. Harry Luttrell joined Millie Splay upon the stairs and stopped her before she entered the breakfast-room.

"I should like to slip away this morning, Lady Splay," he said. "My servant is packing now."

Millie Splay looked at him in dismay.

"Oh, I am so sorry," she said. "I was hoping that this morning you and Joan would have something to say to me."

"I did too," replied Harry with a wry smile. "But Joan turned me down with a bang last night."

Lady Splay plumped herself down on a chair in the hall.

"Oh, she is the most exasperating girl!" she cried. "Are you sure that you didn't misunderstand her?"

"Quite."

Lady Splay sat for a little while with her cheek propped upon her hand and her brows drawn together in a perplexity.

"It's very strange," she said at length. "For Joan meant you to ask her to marry you. She has been deliberately showing you that you weren't indifferent to her. Joan would never have done that if she hadn't meant you to ask her; or if she hadn't meant to accept you." She rose with a gesture of despair.

"I give it up. But oh, how I'd love to smack her!" and with that unrealisable desire burning furiously in her breast, Lady Splay marched into the breakfast-room. Dennis Brown and Jupp were already in their white flannels at the table. Miranda ran down into the room a moment afterwards.

"Joan's the lazy one," she said, looking round the table. She had got to bed at half-past four and looked as fresh as if she had slept the clock round. "What are you going to eat, Colonel Luttrell?"

Luttrell was standing by her at the side table, and as they inspected the dishes they were joined by Mr. Albany Todd.

"You were going it last night," Jupp called to him, with a note of respect in his voice. "For a top-weight you're the hottest thing I have seen in years. Stay another week in our academic company, and we shall discover so many excellent qualities in you that we shall be calling you Toddles."

"And then in the winter, I suppose, we'll go jumping together," said Mr.

Albany Todd.

Like many another round and heavy man, Mr. Albany Todd was an exceptionally smooth dancer. His first dance on the night before he had owed to the consideration of his hostess. Sheer merit had filled the rest of his programme; and he sat down to breakfast now in a high good humour. Sir Chichester stumped into the room when the serious part of the meal was over, and all the newspapers already taken. He sat down in front of his kidney and bacon and grunted.

"Any news in _The Times_, Mr. Albany Todd?"

"No! No!" replied Mr. Albany Todd in an abstracted voice, with his head buried between the pages. "Would you like it, Sir Chichester?"

He showed no intention of handing it over; and Sir Chichester replied with as much indifference as he could a.s.sume,

"Oh, there's no hurry."

"No, we have all the morning, haven't we?" said Mr. Albany Todd pleasantly.

Sir Chichester ate some breakfast and drank some tea. "No news in your paper is there, Dennis, my boy?" he asked carelessly.

"Oh, isn't there just?" cried Dennis Brown. "Oppifex and Hampstead Darling are both running in the two-thirty at Windsor."

Sir Chichester grunted again.

"Racing! It's wonderful, Mr. Albany Todd, that you haven't got the disease during the week. There's a racing microbe at Rackham."

"But I am not so sure that I have escaped," returned Mr. Albany Todd. "I am tempted to go jumping in the winter."

"You must keep your old Lords out if you do," Harold Jupp urged earnestly. "Bring in your Dukes and your Marquises, and we poor men are all up the spout."

Thus they rattled on about the breakfast table; cigarettes were lighted, Miranda pushed back her chair; in a minute the room would be deserted.

But Millie Splay uttered a little cry of horror, so sharp and startling that it froze each person into a sudden immobility. She dropped the newspaper upon her knees. Her hands flew to her face and covered it.

"What's the matter, Millie?" cried Sir Chichester, starting up in alarm.

He hurried round the table. Some stab of physical pain had caused Millie's cry--he shared that conviction with every one else in the room.

But Millie lifted her head quickly.

"Oh, it's intolerable!" she exclaimed. "Chichester, look at this!" She thrust the paper feverishly into his hands. Sir Chichester smoothed its crumpled leaves as he stood beside her.

"Ah, the _Harpoon_," he said, his fear quite allayed. He knew his wife to have a somewhat thinner skin than himself. "You are exaggerating no doubt, my dear. The _Harpoon_ is a good paper and quite friendly."