“That is where we disagree. My argument is that, where your happiness is concerned, I don’t matter.”
Maud rested her chin on her hand, and stared out into the velvet darkness.
“You ought to have been my brother instead of Percy,” she said at last. “What chums we should have been! And how simple that would have made everything!”
“The best thing for you to do is to regard me as an honorary brother. That will make everything simple.”
“It’s easy to talk like that … No, it isn’t. It’s horribly hard. I know exactly how difficult it is for you to talk as you have been doing—to try to make me feel better by pretending the whole trouble is just a trifle … It’s strange … We have only met really for a few minutes at a time, and three weeks ago I didn’t know there was such a person as you, but somehow I seem to know everything you’re thinking. I’ve never felt like that before with any man … Even Geoffrey… He always puzzled me….”
She broke off. The corncrake began to call again out in the distance.
“I wish I knew what to do,” she said with a catch in her voice.
“I’ll tell you in two words what to do. The whole thing is absurdly simple. You love this man and he loves you, and all that kept you apart before was the fact that he could not afford to marry you. Now that he is rich, there is no obstacle at all. I simply won’t let you look on me and my feelings as an obstacle. Rule me out altogether. Your father’s mistake has made the situation a little more complicated than it need have been, but that can easily be remedied. Imitate the excellent example of Reggie Byng. He was in a position where it would have been embarrassing to announce what he intended to do, so he very sensibly went quietly off and did it and left everybody to find out after it was done. I’m bound to say I never looked on Reggie as a master mind, but, when it came to find a way out of embarrassing situations, one has to admit he had the right idea. Do what he did!”
Maud started. She half rose from the stone seat. George could hear the quick intake of her breath.
“You mean—run away?”
“Exactly. Run away!”
An automobile swung round the corner of the castle from the direction of the garage, and drew up, purring, at the steps. There was a flood of light and the sound of voices, as the great door opened. Maud rose.
“People are leaving,” she said. “I didn’t know it was so late.” She stood irresolutely. “I suppose I ought to go in and say good-bye. But I don’t think I can.”
“Stay where you are. Nobody will see you.”
More automobiles arrived. The quiet of the night was shattered by the noise of their engines. Maud sat down again.
“I suppose they will think it very odd of me not being there.”
“Never mind what people think. Reggie Byng didn’t.”
Maud’s foot traced circles on the dry turf.
“What a lovely night,” she said. “There’s no dew at all.”
The automobiles snorted, tooted, back-fired, and passed away. Their clamour died in the distance, leaving the night a thing of peace and magic once more. The door of the castle closed with a bang.
“I suppose I ought to be going in now,” said Maud.
“I suppose so. And I ought to be there, too, politely making my farewells. But something seems to tell me that Lady Caroline and your brother will be quite ready to dispense with the formalities. I shall go home.”
They faced each other in the darkness.
“Would you really do that?” asked Maud. “Run away, I mean, and get married in London.”
“It’s the only thing to do.”
“But … can one get married as quickly as that?”
“At a registrar’s? Nothing simpler. You should have seen Reggie Byng’s wedding. It was over before one realized it had started. A snuffy little man in a black coat with a cold in his head asked a few questions, wrote a few words, and the thing was done.”
“That sounds rather … dreadful.”
“Reggie didn’t seem to think so.”
“Unromantic, I mean…. Prosaic.”
“You would supply the romance.”
“Of course, one ought to be sensible. It is just the same as a regular wedding.”
“In effects, absolutely.”
They moved up the terrace together. On the gravel drive by the steps they paused.
“I’ll do it!” said Maud.
George had to make an effort before he could reply. For all his sane and convincing arguments, he could not check a pang at this definite acceptance of them. He had begun to appreciate now the strain under which he had been speaking.
“You must,” he said. “Well … good-bye.”
There was light on the drive. He could see her face. Her eyes were troubled.
“What will you do?” she asked.
“Do?”
“I mean, are you going to stay on in your cottage?”
“No, I hardly think I could do that. I shall go back to London tomorrow, and stay at the Carlton for a few days. Then I shall sail for America. There are a couple of pieces I’ve got to do for the Fall. I ought to be starting on them.”
Maud looked away.
“You’ve got your work,” she said almost inaudibly.
George understood her.
“Yes, I’ve got my work.”
“I’m glad.”
She held out her hand.
“You’ve been very wonderful… Right from the beginning … You’ve been … oh, what’s the use of me saying anything?”
“I’ve had my reward. I’ve known you. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“My best friend.”
“Pals?”
“Pals!”
They shook hands.
Chapter 25
“I was never so upset in my life!” said Lady Caroline.
She had been saying the same thing and many other things for the past five minutes. Until the departure of the last guest she had kept an icy command of herself and shown an unruffled front to the world. She had even contrived to smile. But now, with the final automobile whirring homewards, she had thrown off the mask. The very furniture of Lord Marshmoreton’s study seemed to shrink, seared by the flame of her wrath. As for Lord Marshmoreton himself, he looked quite shrivelled.
It had not been an easy matter to bring her erring brother to bay. The hunt had been in progress full ten minutes before she and Lord Belpher finally cornered the poor wretch. His plea, through the keyhole of the locked door, that he was working on the family history and could not be disturbed, was ignored; and now he was face to face with the avengers.
“I cannot understand it,” continued Lady Caroline. “You know that for months we have all been straining every nerve to break off this horrible entanglement, and, just as we had begun to hope that something might be done, you announce the engagement in the most public manner. I think you must be out of your mind. I can hardly believe even now that this appalling thing has happened. I am hoping that I shall wake up and find it is all a nightmare. How you can have done such a thing, I cannot understand.”
“Quite!” said Lord Belpher.
If Lady Caroline was upset, there are no words in the language that will adequately describe the emotions of Percy.
From the very start of this lamentable episode in high life, Percy had been in the forefront of the battle. It was Percy who had had his best hat smitten from his head in the full view of all Piccadilly. It was Percy who had suffered arrest and imprisonment in the cause. It was Percy who had been crippled for days owing to his zeal in tracking Maud across country. And now all his sufferings were in vain. He had been betrayed by his own father.
There was, so the historians of the Middle West tell us, a man of Chicago named Young, who once, when his nerves were unstrung, put his mother (unseen) in the chopping-machine, and canned her and labelled her “Tongue”. It is enough to say that the glance of disapproval which Percy cast upon his father at this juncture would have been unduly severe if cast by the Young offspring upon their parent at the moment of confession.