Lady Good-for-Nothing Part 28

"Why, what's the matter?" The girl, scenting danger, faced it.

She swung herself down from the saddle-crutch, picked up her skirt, and taking Madcap's rein close beside the curb, walked slowly up to the verandah. "Have they been bullying you, dear?" she asked in a low quiet voice.

"They have come all this way to see us--Lady Caroline Vyell, and Miss Diana; yes, and Mrs. Captain Vyell--'Mrs. Harry,' as d.i.c.ky calls her.

They have ferreted us out, somehow--and the questions they have been asking! I think, dear--I really think--that in your place I should walk Madcap round to her stable and run indoors for a tidy-up before facing them. A minute or two to prepare yourself--I can easily make your excuses."

"And a moment since you were calling me to come and deliver you!"

answered Ruth, still advancing. "Present me, please."

Little Miss Quiney, turning and running ahead, stammered some words to Lady Caroline, who paid no heed to them or to her but kept her eyegla.s.s lifted and fixed upon Ruth. Miss Diana stood a pace behind her mother's shoulder; Mrs. Harry, after a glance at the girl, turned and made pretence to busy herself with the coffee-table.

"So _you_ are the young woman!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lady Caroline.

"Am I?" said Ruth quietly, and after a profound curtsy turned sideways to the mare. "A lump of sugar, Tatty, if you please. . . . I thank you, ma'am--" as Mrs. Harry, antic.i.p.ating Miss Quiney, stepped forward with a piece held between the sugar-tongs. "And I think she even deserves a second, for clearing the yard gate."

She fed the gentle creature and dismissed her. "Now trot around to your stall and ask one of the boys to unsaddle you!" She stood for ten seconds, may be, watching as the mare with a fling of the head trotted off obediently. Then she turned again and met Mrs. Harry's eyes with a frank smile.

"It is the truth," she said. "We cleared the gate. Come, please, and admire--"

Mrs. Harry, in spite of herself, stepped down from the verandah and followed. The others stood as they were, planted in stiff disapproval.

The girl led Mrs. Harry to the corner of the wood pile. "Admire!" she repeated, pointing with her riding-switch; and then, still keeping the gesture, she sank her voice and asked quickly, "Why are you here?

You have a good face, not like the others. Tell me."

"Lady Caroline--" stammered Mrs. Harry, taken at unawares. "She has a right, naturally, to concern herself--"

"Does _he_ know?"

"Sir Oliver? No--I believe not. . . . You see, the Vyells are a great family, and 'family' to them is a tremendous affair--a religion almost.

Whatever touches one touches all; especially when that one happens to be the head of his house."

"Is that how Captain Vyell--how your husband--feels it?--No, please keep looking towards the gate. I mean no harm by these questions, and you will not mind answering them, I hope? It gives me just a little more chance of fair play."

"To tell you the truth," said Mrs. Harry, pretending to study the jump, "I looked at you because I could not help it. You are an extraordinarily beautiful woman."

"Thank you," answered Ruth. "But about 'Captain Harry,' as we call him?

I suppose he, as next of kin, is most concerned of all?"

"He did not tell me about you, if that is what you mean; or rather he told me nothing until I questioned him. Then he owned that there was such a person, and that he had seen you. But he does not even know of this visit; he imagines that Lady Caroline is taking me for a pleasure trip, just to view the country."

Ruth turned towards the house. "You will tell him, of course," she said gravely, "when you return to the s.h.i.+p."

"I--I suppose I shall," confessed Mrs. Harry, and added, "There's one thing. You may suppose that, as his wife, I am as much concerned as any--perhaps more than these others. But I don't want you to think that I suggested hunting you up."

"I do not think anything of the sort. In fact I am sure you did not."

"Thank you."

Ruth had a mind to ask "Who, then, had brought them?" but refrained.

She had guessed, and pretty surely.

"Well," she said with half a laugh, "you have been good and given me time to recover. It's heavy odds, you see, and--and I have not been trained for it, exactly. But I feel better. Shall we go back and face them?"

"One moment, again!" Mrs. Harry's kindly face hung out signals of distress. "It's heavy odds, as you say. Everything's against you.

But the Lord knows I'm a well-meaning woman, and I'd hate to be unjust.

If only I could be sure--if only you would tell me--"

Ruth stood still and faced her.

"Look in my eyes."

Mrs. Harry looked and was convinced. "But you love him," she murmured; "and he--"

"Ah, ma'am," said Ruth, "I answer you one question, and you would ask me another!"

Chapter XII.

LADY CAROLINE.

She walked back to the verandah.

"I understand," she said, "that Lady Caroline wishes a word with me."

With a slight bow she led the way through a low window that opened upon the Corderys' best parlour, through that apartment, and across a pa.s.sage to the door of a smaller room lined with shelves--formerly a stillroom or store-chamber for home-made wines, cordials, preserves, but now converted into a boudoir for her use. Its one window looked out upon the farmyard, now in shadow, and a farther doorway led to the dairy.

It stood open, and beyond it the eye travelled down a vista of cool slate flags and polished cream-pans.

On the threshold Ruth stood aside to let Lady Caroline enter; followed, and closed the door; stepped across and closed the door of the dairy.

Lady Caroline meanwhile found a seat, and, lifting her eyegla.s.s, studied at long range the library disposed upon the store shelves.

"We had best be quite frank," said she, as Ruth came back and stood before her.

"If you please."

"Of course it is all very scandalous and--er--nauseating, though I dare say you are unable to see it in that light. I merely mention it in justice to myself, lest you should mistake me as underrating or even condoning Sir Oliver's conduct. You will guess, at any rate, how it must shock my daughter."

"Yes," said Ruth; and added, "Why did you bring her?"

The girl's att.i.tude--erect before her, patient, but unflinching--had already gone some way to discompose Lady Caroline. This straight question fairly disconcerted her; the worse because she could not quarrel with the tone of it.

"I wish," she answered, "my Diana to face the facts of life, ugly though they may be." As if aware that this hardly carried conviction--for, despite herself, something in Ruth began to impress her--she s.h.i.+fted ground and went on, "But we will not discuss my daughter, please.

The point is, this state of things cannot continue. It may be hard for you--I am trying to take your view of it--but what may pa.s.s in a young man of blood cannot be permitted when he succeeds to a t.i.tle and the-- er--heads.h.i.+p of his family. It becomes then his duty to give that family clean heirs. I put it plainly?"

Ruth bent her head for a.s.sent.

"Oliver Vyell, as no doubt you know, has already been mixed up in one entanglement, and has a child for reminder."