Chapter Ten.

If Lord Saxham had been, in his heart, disappointed that he could not induce Isobel to cajole her lover away from his post, he was too much a gentleman to go back on his word. Besides, he recognised that in this instance the girl was right, and he wrong, that she had displayed a nobility of spirit which was lacking in himself and his daughter.

He had given his consent to the engagement without imposing conditions, and he could not in honour take that consent back. In addition, he could not but feel a whole-hearted admiration for a woman who could sacrifice her own feelings, not to mention her own interests, in such an unselfish fashion.

The immediate result of the brief visit to Ticehurst Park was the despatch of a paragraph to the various papers announcing the engagement of Mr Guy Rossett, second son of the Earl of Saxham, to Miss Clandon, daughter of General Clandon.

When father and daughter arrived at their modest home in Eastbourne, the news was public property. Letters of congratulation came by every post from the numerous friends and acquaintances whom they had made during their long sojourn in the town.

Isobel could now openly wear that beautiful ring which hitherto she had only dared to look upon in secret—that expensive ring which, as a matter of fact, had been purchased from money supplied by the obliging Mr Jackson. For, at the actual moment when the General had given his consent to the engagement, Guy had been extremely hard up.

So now all was plain sailing. Isobel was very proud of her lover, naturally very delighted at her adoption into the Saxham family. But, as there is no happiness without alloy, the knowledge of that lover’s danger weighed terribly upon her spirits, and caused her to shed many bitter tears.

Her little world which congratulated and fussed around her, of course, knew nothing of this. To the girls of her own age, girls moving in respectable but middle-class circles, who knew nothing of the aristocracy except through the fashionable papers, she was greatly to be envied.

There was one amongst the numerous letters of congratulations which had touched her very deeply. It was written by her cousin, Maurice Farquhar. It was couched in rather stiff, sometimes stilted phraseology, but sincerity was in every line. And, if Maurice was a bit priggish and old-fashioned, he was always a gentleman.

He had made no allusion to his own disappointed hopes. He had congratulated her heartily on her engagement, expressed his conviction that she would adorn any station to which she was called. And the letter had concluded with these words.

“I know the danger that is threatening your fiancé. Moreno has promised to let me know if I can help him. I do not fancy it will ever be in my power to render any valuable assistance; our paths in life do not seem to meet anywhere. Still, if the time does come, I shall do my best, from my own cousinly affection for you.”

It was put frankly but gracefully. He did not care twopence for Guy Rossett. It was not to be expected that he would. But he would be a friend to Rossett, because he still loved Isobel. She laid down the letter with a little sigh. So short a time as two years ago, Maurice might have satisfied her maiden dreams, she was not quite sure. She was so wrapped in the present that she could hardly see the past in its proper proportions. Anyway, she could reckon on her cousin in the future as a true and loyal friend.

Her heart was very much with Guy in that dangerous post at Madrid, her thoughts ever. One night when the two were sitting alone in the General’s cosy little den, a little cry escaped her.

“Somehow, I seem to hate Eastbourne! It is very ungrateful, considering how happy I have been here. But I do so long to be near Guy.”

The General was very moved by that pathetic cry. He stirred uneasily in his chair.

“Of course you wish it, my darling. I daresay Lady Mary wishes the same. But, if you were both there, neither of you could do him the least good, nor avert any danger that is threatening him.”

“Oh, I recognise that,” said Isobel, wiping the tears from her eyes. “It is the suspense that is so horrible. If one were near, one might know something of what is going on.”

The General thought for a moment or two before he spoke. He had indulged every whim, forestalled every wish of his dear wife. He had done the same with his daughter since the day when he had found himself a widower, and they had been all in all to each other.

He smiled a little sadly. “I am afraid we old men become a sad burden on our dutiful children, exact too much from them,” he said presently. “Lady Mary would love to be near Guy, and she cannot leave her father. And you, my poor little girl, are in the same plight.”

Isobel laid her soft cheek against his. “Oh, Daddy, dearest Daddy, it is not very kind to say that. However great my love for Guy, it can never supersede my love for you.”

The General patted her head fondly. “Ah, my dear, the curse of a small family; we have always been all too much to each other.” Then he spoke briskly; he waited to make her happier than she was.

“I see no reason, though, why we could not go to Madrid together. We could do it by easy stages, and, by gad, Madrid would be a change. I am very fond of Eastbourne, but we have had a good bit of it. I think I will go and see our old Doctor Jones to-morrow.”

But Isobel would not hear of it. Her father had suffered from heart affection in his youth. During the last five years it had become very acute. He must live a quiet, well-ordered life, avoid any undue exertion. His daughter had gathered from Dr Jones that the General’s life held by a very frail thread. The summons might come at any moment.

Nevertheless, General Clandon was round at the doctor’s door by ten o’clock the next morning. He was bent upon falling in with Isobel’s desire.

The doctor stared at him. He had always been summoned to the General’s house; not half a dozen times had his patient come to him.

“What’s up?” he inquired tersely. “The heart not troubling you more than usual, I hope?”

To look at General Clandon, as he stood in the surgery, a fine upstanding figure of a man, you would have said he was free from all human ailments. Nobody could have guessed that he carried in that stalwart frame the seeds of a mortal disease that, at any moment, might lay him low.

“No, no more than usual. But yes, I think the palpitations are a little more frequent the last week or two.”

“Let me run the rule over you.” Doctor Jones produced his stethoscope. “Why didn’t you send for me before?”

“Just a moment, my good old friend, before you begin. Isobel particularly wants to go to Spain for reasons you can guess—her fiancé’s there. I can’t let her go without me, unless I could lay my hands upon a suitable chaperon. I want you to tell me if you will give me permission to go with her myself. I should take the journey in easy stages, of course.”

There was a very wistful look in the old man’s eyes as he uttered the last words; it seemed as if he were pleading for permission to gratify his daughter’s wish.

“Isobel, of course, won’t hear of it, after what you have told me; she did not know I was coming here. But if you could give your sanction, it would make us both very happy,” he added hastily, as he began to unbutton his coat.

Jones had been an army doctor, and he was very sympathetic. It was very pathetic, this poor old father with almost two feet in the grave, begging a little further respite from death.

“I will see what we can do, as soon as I have examined you,” he said kindly. “If it is humanly possible for you to go, I will let you go, for Isobel’s sake.”

The examination was a searching and lengthy one. When it was finished, Doctor Jones laid down his stethoscope with a little sigh.

“My dear General, it is impossible. You are a brave man, you have faced death more than once on the battlefield, and you have always asked me to tell you the truth. If you undertake that voyage, you are committing suicide.”

“You don’t give me very long then?” asked the General quietly. The doctor shrugged his shoulders and turned his head away. He could not quite put it in words.

“You have had some extra excitement lately? Great inroads have been made since I last examined you.”

“Yes,” answered General Clandon quietly, “there has been a good deal of excitement lately.”

It was true. The uncertain position of Isobel as regards her engagement, the hurried visit to Ticehurst Park, the danger overhanging Guy Rossett had agitated him very much.

He returned home very crestfallen. He had hoped against hope for the doctor’s favourable verdict. He had longed to be able to say to her: “It is all right, I will take you to Spain myself.”

But in the face of those grave words it was impossible to say it. It would be no benefit to her to take her out, and die before they got to the end of the journey.

Isobel met him in the hall of their pretty little home, half villa, half cottage.

“Why, where in the world have you been?” she cried, “running away at this early hour of the morning?”

They lived such an intimate and domestic life, that it was almost a point of honour to give notice of each other’s movements.

The General was a bad dissembler. He blurted it all out at once.

“To tell you the truth, I wanted to take you out to Spain. I went round to see Jones, to learn what he said about it. He forbids it.”

She looked at him anxiously. Yes, he seemed to have aged even the last week. A spasm of reproach shot through her that she had not been quicker to notice his failing health. Guy had usurped her thoughts too much.

“But I don’t think it will be difficult to arrange. I can soon get hold of some female dragon, some elderly chaperon who will take you.”

The girl’s eyes filled with tears. Not for the first time did she appreciate that unselfish parental love, the love that gives everything, and asks so little in return.

She kissed him very tenderly. “No, no, a thousand times no, you kindest of all kind fathers. Until you get well and strong again, I would not leave you for a thousand lovers.”

He patted her hand. He was the most unselfish of men, but it pleased him very much to hear her say that much. The stranger who had come into her life was not going to oust the old father from his place in her heart.

“We have been so much to each other, little girl, since your dear mother died, have we not?” he asked gently.

“More than so much,” she whispered back. “Oh, more than so much. We have been everything to each other.” At that moment even her lover was almost forgotten. A few hours later, she stole out of the house, and called on the doctor.

“My father is worse,” she said impetuously, when she entered the consulting-room.

Doctor Jones looked very grave. “My dear child, he is as bad as he can be. I have warned you before. The end may come at any moment.”

“And yet it only seems yesterday that he was out shooting—of course I know it is months ago—and when he came back, I used to ask him if he was tired, and he always told me he never felt more fit in his life. And a big, strong man in appearance! A few weeks ago he did not look his age.”

“It is frequently the way with this particular disease,” was the doctor’s reply. “They hang on for years, with a sort of spurious energy, and then, all of a sudden, they go—snap.”

“Will he suffer much, do you think?” asked Isobel, bravely keeping back the tears.

“Don’t trouble yourself about that. He will go out like the snuff of a candle. Take my word for it, he will not suffer.”

He accompanied her to the door; he had become very attached to the pair—the charming girl devoted to her father, the elderly man who worshipped his daughter.

“Keep a brave heart, my child. It may come to-night, to-morrow. He is worse than I thought.” And three days after that interview with the kindly doctor the end came.

The housemaid went into his room with his morning cup of tea. The poor old General was lying on his side, his face quite placid. But the girl knew that the pallor on it was the hue of death. She ran sobbing to Isobel’s room.

“Miss, miss! Come at once to the General.” Isobel guessed immediately what that summons meant. She sprang out of bed and went to her father’s room. One glance at the white, placid face confirmed her worst fears. She sent the frightened girl for the doctor. He came, and was able to ease her mind in one respect—her beloved father had died peacefully, without a struggle.

The charming little home which had sheltered her for so many years was a house of mourning. She thought tearfully of his loving kindness, of the many self-sacrifices he had made to give her some small comfort, some little luxury. Even from a devoted husband, would she ever have such a disinterested love as that?—the love that gives all and asks nothing.

But she was a soldier’s daughter, and she braced herself to go through the ordeal, the most trying of all ordeals to affectionate hearts, the removal of the beloved dead.

She first sent a wire to Maurice Farquhar, asking him to come to her. Then she sent another wire to the General’s elder brother, the owner of the small family estates.

In two hours came back her cousin’s answer.

“Am catching an early train.”

The Squire’s answer came back about the same time. “Will be with you to-morrow morning.” And then she thought of a quite new, but very sincere friend. Lady Mary Rossett. She wired to her the sad news. To Guy she wrote a long letter. If she had sent him a wire, he might have rushed over, and neglected his duties. That would have rendered no service to the dead.

Lady Mary arrived first in her car—it was not a very long run from Ticehurst Park to Eastbourne. She explained that she had taken rooms at the “Queen’s” for herself and her maid, and would see Isobel through this trying ordeal.

The two girls clung together. Mary said she would like to look upon the General for the last time. Isobel led her into the darkened chamber, and Mary imprinted a kiss upon the waxen brow.

“He was a most perfect gentleman,” she said. “You will always be proud to remember that you were his daughter.”

“He was the dearest and the best. He was—”

But Isobel could say no more, for fear she should break down.

A few moments after Mary’s arrival came Farquhar, lumbering up from the station in a somewhat antiquated taxi.

Isobel welcomed him warmly. “How good of you, Maurice, to come so soon, and of course you are frightfully busy. I am afraid grief makes one very selfish.”

“I don’t think you were ever very selfish, Isobel,” replied Farquhar in his grave, quiet tones. “I am, as you say, frightfully busy, but I have handed over all my briefs to a friend, and I am going to see you through all this sad business. I suppose you have wired to the Head of the Family?”

Isobel’s lip curled a little. “Yes, I have wired to the Head of the Family. I have got his answer. He is coming down to-morrow. My true friends are here to-day, yourself, and Lady Mary Rossett. By the way, how remiss of me not to have introduced you.”

Lady Mary rose, and held out her hand to the rising young barrister.

“But, dear Isobel, we have met before, on that well-remembered evening at the Savoy. You will no doubt recollect, Mr Farquhar, you were dining with a very dark-complexioned gentleman, evidently a foreigner.”

“Of course, I remember perfectly. The man who was my guest is my old friend Andres Moreno, a very capable journalist.”

Lady Mary looked approvingly at the grave young barrister. Her heart was, of course, buried in the grave of the young Guardsman, but she felt a pleasurable thrill in this new acquaintance. There was something in his sedate demeanour that appealed to her practical and well-ordered nature—a nature that was apt occasionally to be disturbed by tempestuous and romantic moods.

“Where are you putting up?” asked Lady Mary casually.

“At the ‘Queen’s,’” answered Farquhar.

“Oh, so am I. I have taken a suite of rooms for myself and maid, while I am looking after dear Isobel. But it will be a little bit dull. Are you dining in the general room?”

“I certainly shall—unless—” Farquhar looked towards Isobel.

Poor Isobel looked very distressed. “You are both such darlings,” she said, in her candid, impulsive way. “I should like to put you both up, to ask you to stay. But I shall be such poor company for you.”

They both understood. The bereaved girl wanted to be left alone with her dead, for that day at least. She welcomed their sympathy, but they could not mourn with her whole-hearted mourning.

Farquhar and Lady Mary drove back in the car to the “Queen’s.” Farquhar suggested tea. Lady Mary accepted the invitation willingly. There was something about this serious young barrister that attracted her.

Over the teacups they chatted.

“Tell me, are you going to be Lord Chancellor some day? You have plenty of time.”

It was Lady Mary who put the question. Farquhar caught the spirit of her gay humour.

“Oh, no, nothing so stupendous as that. In my wildest dreams, I have never aspired to be anything higher than Solicitor or Attorney-General. I shall probably end by being a police magistrate, and cultivate a reputation for saying smart things.”

“Oh, but I shall be quite disappointed in you if you don’t become Lord Chancellor,” persisted Lady Mary, in her most girlish vein. “How dreadfully ancient we shall both be when you reach that exalted position. And then, think of your wife, she will be the first female subject in the kingdom. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s wife doesn’t count at all, although the Archbishop goes before you. Isn’t it comical?”

Farquhar fell in with her humorous mood. They had come from the house of mourning, but the poor old General had been very little to them. It was Isobel who stirred a generous chord of sympathy in their hearts. And Isobel was young, she had a lover, and she would recover shortly. The young do not mourn for ever after the old. Such is the inexorable law of nature.

They met again at dinner. The good understanding, begun at tea, was further cemented.

“You are going to be a sort of relation, in addition to being at least Attorney-General, or a police magistrate, or something of that sort,” said Lady Mary at the conclusion of the meal. “Do you shoot?”

“I can account for a few,” replied Farquhar, in his usual modest and cautious manner.

“Then you must come to Ticehurst Park in the autumn. I shall send you the invitation.”

“And your friends will be welcomed by Lord Saxham?”

Lady Mary smiled quite a brilliant smile. “I may tell you in confidence that my dear old father is as wax in my hands. Are you satisfied with that?”

Yes, Farquhar felt quite satisfied. But he thought of the grief-stricken girl keeping her lonely vigil in that quiet home, and his heart was very sore for her.

Still the world went on, and here was a very charming woman, not perhaps quite so youthful as Isobel, who was showing very plainly that she had taken an interest in him. The world was a very pleasant place.