“No, but in the immediate vicinity,” he replied. “I am visiting relations — remote, but one should never ignore even the dullest members of one’s family, should one? Particularly when they reside precisely where one most wishes to be!” She cast a quick look up at him, and saw his thin lips curl into a smile which put such innocents as the Kilverleys upon their guard.
“Just so!” he said, answering the enquiry in her eyes. “You have a great deal of good sense, Lady Lynton, and you are perfectly right in your assumption.”
“I don’t know that,” she responded bluntly. “You’ll forgive me if I speak too plainly, my lord, but it looks to me as if you was dangling after Miss Oversley!”
“Yes, and at my age too!” he murmured. “I learn on the highest authority that I am generally held to be indulging a fit of gallantry — senile, I fear.”
“Well, that’s nonsense, but it’s not to be wondered at that no one should think it more than a flirtation, for there must be twenty years between you, my lord!”
“Rather more,” he confessed wryly, ushering her out into the garden. “But I’m not, I do assure you, senile, ma’am!”
“No, but, myself, I should never have thought — However, it’s no business of mine!”
“No? You disappoint me!”
“I don’t know why I should,” she replied defensively.
“No, no, don’t fence with me! I’m persuaded we understand one another very well. You would naturally be glad to see Miss Oversley married: I have every intention of obliging you in the matter!”
She paused at the entrance to the rose-garden, to look frowningly up at him. “Why do you tell me so?” she demanded.
“Well, do you know, I like you, Lady Lynton,” he replied. “You compelled both my respect and my gratitude upon the occasion of our first meeting. An awkward — one might almost say a disastrous situation, rendered trivial by your admirable presence of mind then, and later by conduct as magnanimous as it was shrewd.”
“Oh, fiddle!” she said roughly, flushing, and walking on into the rose-garden.
He laughed, and followed her. “If you like! But you must allow me to be grateful — and to pay my debts, if you please! You were a little dismayed, were you not, when you saw who had come to visit you? I fancy you thought me positively beef-witted to have lent myself to the expedition. But I am not at all beef-witted. I am reasonably certain, ma’am, that neither you nor I have anything to fear in regarding our loved ones’ meetings with complaisance.”
“You are the strangest creature!” she exclaimed. “How can you wish to marry Julia, if you know she loves Lynton? You do know it, don’t you?”
“But of course! I have been her most sympathetic confidant — perfectly sincerely, too. One remembers one’s own first love — with a tiny pang, and such infinite thankfulness! I shan’t grudge Julia her deliciously nostalgic memories, or be so abominably gross as to suggest to her that her touching little romance was no more real than a fairy story. She won’t indulge them often: only when something has occurred to put her into the hips! And then, poor darling, she will quite forget having made the painful discovery that Lynton really bears very little resemblance to the Prince Charming of her imagination — a creation I find slightly nauseating — but pray don’t tell her that I said so!”
She smiled, but said impatiently: “Oh, Julia knows nothing about Lynton! I don’t understand her — never did! I’m sure I hope you may, but it has always seemed to me that she’s one who would break her heart over a sparrow she found dead in the gutter as easily as she’s done over Lynton. I don’t doubt she’ll recover soon enough, for it’s my belief she hoaxed herself into love with Adam, the way I’ve seen her hoax herself into a high fever, often and often!” She stopped, clipping her lips together, and, after an infinitesimal pause, changed the subject.
He made no attempt to bring her back to it, but talked amusingly to her on a number of idle topics until their stroll through various gardens brought them back to the house again. Voices led them past it to the chapel rains, where they found the rest of the party. Julia was seated on a fallen block of masonry, her frivolous parasol tilted to protect her complexion from the sun, her gaze fixed in melancholy wonder on Adam, who was standing a few paces away, talking to Mr Kilverley. Miss Kilverley was wandering about the ruins, and occasionally calling out appreciative comments as she discovered a fragment of dog-tooth, or a lichened tomb. Mr Kilverley seemed to have become surprisingly loquacious, and when Jenny and Rockhill drew within earshot such overheard phrases as ten coombs to the acre, and improved rotation, informed them that Mr Kilverley’s knowledge was not confined to horses and hounds: he was an enthusiastic agriculturist.
“Ah, the poor little one!” exclaimed Rockhill, under his breath. “Own, Lady Lynton, that it is a picture to wring compassion from a heart of stone!”
Julia turned her head, as she heard the approaching footsteps, and smiled. Her smile was always lovely, and just now it held real pleasure, and more than a suggestion of relief. Her soft eyes were raised to Rockhill’s face as he went towards her, and when he held out his hand she put one of hers into it, and rose, allowing him to lead her a little away. As they walked slowly round the ruins, Julia’s hand in Rockhill’s arm, she sighed, and said: “It is so beautiful, isn’t it? Such reflections as these crumbling stones give rise to! I saw it once by moonlight — so still, so mysterious, brooding in silence over the past! How is it possible to look upon these ruins, and to think only that they make a capital ground for playing at hide-and-seek?”
His eyes lit with amusement, but he replied suitably.
After a disconsolate pause, she said: “That’s what Charlie says about them, but I didn’t think to hear Adam ...” She did not finish the sentence, but sighed again, and said instead: “I suppose, being married to Jenny — She is so prosaic! Very kind, and very good, of course, but — oh, I wish she would not change Adam! He was never used to talk so!”
“Perhaps,” suggested his lordship tactfully, “he was merely setting young Kilverley at his ease.”
“Yes, perhaps — But to call Orlando Deveril a chuckle-head — !”
“That,” agreed his lordship, “was certainly very bad, but one must remember that Lynton is a military man, and may regard conduct which to us appears in the highest degree noble with rather different eyes.”
They walked slowly on while she digested this. “Rockhill!” she said suddenly. “What is a coomb?”
“I believe,” he replied cautiously, “that it is some sort of a measure — but pray don’t ask me what sort, for I haven’t the most distant guess!”
“I think it has something to do with wheat,” she said.
“I shouldn’t wonder at it at all if you are right: it sounds as if it would have something to do with wheat.”
She looked up into his face at that, laughter brimming in her eyes. “Oh, Rockhill, you are so absurd — and such a comfort to me! I believe you do know: you have farms too, have you not?”
“Several, I fancy, but I am ashamed to confess that I’ve never concerned myself with their management.”
“You have an agent, like Papa — though Papa does concern himself a little. Not as Adam does! Helping the reapers! Must he do so? It is very dreadful! I had thought, when he married Jenny, he would have a great fortune.”
He smiled at the trouble in her face. “But it is not at all dreadful, little blossom! Didn’t you hear Lady Lynton say that it was his notion of enjoyment? I don’t doubt it: it’s in his blood. Choice, not necessity, takes him out into the fields, I promise you. Coke of Norfolk does the same, and, for anything I know, a dozen others. I’m prepared to wager that before he is much older Lynton will have joined the ranks of the noble farmers — the Russells, the Keppels, Rockingham, Egremont — oh, don’t look dismayed! It is most creditable, besides becoming so fashionable that those of us who think it a dead bore will soon find ourselves quite outmoded.”