She pushed back her short white hair.
“I wish you wouldn’t mention God. … If we’d had a son—”
“We haven’t,” he said shortly.
“But if we had, could he—”
“My dear, why do you speak of him when he was never born or even conceived, for that matter? We settled that long ago.”
“You still think it was my fault!”
He knocked the ash out of his pipe. “Damn this thing — it won’t draw.”
She continued, her voice slightly belligerent. “You know, Richard, it was never settled that I was the one at fault. It was very unkind of you not to be willing to go and have yourself examined.”
He turned on her. “Now why do you bring that up again? It’s absurd — at our age. And I — there was no reason to think that I — besides, I suggested that we adopt a child.”
She moved away from him. “You know very well that adopted children can’t inherit. It has to be your issue.”
“Male issue,” he retorted. “It could have been an adopted daughter. Fact is”—he was working at his pipe again, cleaning it with a bit of stick he plucked from a shrub—“fact is, I’ve thought once or twice of adopting Kate.”
“Kate? Ah, that’s why you say she’s not like a maid!”
“It’s too late now, I suppose.”
“Much too late,” she said with decision.
They heard at this moment the halting clatter of the old car. Kate was coming back. The car turned into the gate at the end of the driveway and stopped.
“The damned thing has stalled,” Sir Richard said anxiously. He waited, watching while Kate stepped down from the high old vehicle. Four men followed her, all in dark suits and carrying briefcases.
“Good God,” Sir Richard muttered.
“Richard,” Lady Mary said under her breath. “I feel faint—”
“Nonsense! Keep a stiff upper lip, my dear. The American has brought his minions. But I wish Webster were here.”
He went forward, his tall lean frame erect. “Good morning, which one of you is Mr. John Blayne?”
“None of them, Sir Richard,” Kate said. The wind was blowing her curly hair about her face and she looked vexed. “He’s coming by motorcar.”
The men came forward one by one and Sir Richard felt his hand wrenched four times. Lady Mary stood behind him, her hands safely clasped. The youngest one spoke brightly, a trim fellow with sandy hair in a crew cut.
“Mr. Blayne left London right after breakfast, sir. He’s driving himself.”
“He’ll probably lose his way, which he does at the drop of a hat,” a second young man said briskly.
Sir Richard looked from one to the other. They were all alike, all clean and dapper with hair in crew cuts, all alarmingly healthy and efficient-looking.
“Mr. Blayne,” said the third quietly, “is always stopping to look at cathedrals and such. Probably he’ll get here tomorrow at the earliest.”
“Shall we get started?” the fourth asked Sir Richard.
“Started?” Sir Richard repeated.
“Yes, on the castle. That’s why we’re here. Mr. Blayne doesn’t like us to waste any time.”
They were interrupted by Wells, jogging in a trot from behind the yews and gasping for breath. “He’s lost, sir!” he cried in a thin shriek.
“Control yourself, Wells,” Sir Richard said sternly. “Stop running. Breathe deeply twice and then speak like a rational creature.”
“Really, Wells,” Lady Mary supplemented. “You’ll have an apoplexy and then what’ll we do? So inconsiderate of you!”
“Grandfather, how can you?” Kate said reproachfully. She went to him and reaching him, she brushed back a stray wisp of his white hair. “Stop now — there’s a dear! Do what Sir Richard says. Breathe — that’s right — once again … Now — tell us who’s lost?”
“His car’s — still here — he’s gone,” Wells gasped.
“Whose car?”
“The American.”
The young men exchanged looks. “Is the car a dark green?” one of them inquired.
“It is,” Wells said.
The young man turned to his comrades. “It’s him.”
“Think of him getting here like that, ahead of the train! And over these winding roads.”
“He drives like crazy, if he doesn’t see a cathedral.”
Sir Richard held up his hand for silence. Instinctively they obeyed. “Do you mean to say,” he inquired slowly, “do you mean to say that the — the fellow who arrived here ahead of the lot of you is Mr. John P. Blayne?”
“Who else?” one of the young men replied.
“But he’s lost,” Lady Mary put in.
“Nonsense,” Sir Richard said with decision. “We must find him. We’ll all scatter. At the end of half an hour we’ll meet in the great hall and compare notes if we haven’t found him.”
“But what does he look like?” Kate demanded.
“Like nobody I have ever seen before,” Wells groaned.
“Oh, come now,” a young man objected. “He’s a typical American — tall, brown hair, blue eyes—”
“Brown eyes,” a second young man said.
“Well, eyes, anyway — wearing a gray suit — wasn’t it gray, fellows? No? Well, anyway a suit. Probably a red tie.”
“And I told him to stay at the service door,” Wells moaned. “ ‘Can’t I get out and look about a bit?’ he asks. ‘No!’ I tell him. ‘You stay where you are, if you please, young chap, until I get my orders!’ When I went back, he’d gone, clean as a whistle. I shouted for him and heard nothing but the bird in the big oak tree that mocks me when I call the kitchen cat.”
Kate turned to Sir Richard with an air of pretty authority. “Sir Richard, dear, you and Lady Mary must go and sit down in the hall and wait for us. Grandfather, you make them a cup of tea and drink one yourself in the pantry. The rest of us—” her dark eyes swept over the four young men—“the rest of us will find him. And mind you don’t trample the flower beds, you young chaps, and don’t break the yew branches to look through. The great hall’s inside the great door here when you return, and stay there, if you please. Don’t go wandering about inside the castle until I come back.”
“Yes, ma’am,” a young man said.
“Yes, ma’am—yes, ma’am — just as you say, ma’am.”
They filed away making great pretense of obedience and Wells turned unsteadily and disappeared into the great door.
Lady Mary went to Kate and touched her cheek with a light kiss. “Thank you, my dear!”
“Ah, what would we do without you?” Sir Richard muttered. His head was pounding again in beats of pain.
“Come with me, my dears,” Kate said in her richly comforting voice.
She stepped between them, and with an arm of each she led them toward the hall, talking all the while.
“I’m very cross, you know — this American, how dare he make such a disturbance? I asked the other chaps why he hadn’t come on the train with them properly as he said he would and they just shrugged their shoulders.”
She shrugged her shoulders elaborately to illustrate, glancing up to Sir Richard on her right then to Lady Mary on her left. They were not smiling as she meant them to, so she went on with determined cheerfulness.
“The stories they told me about him! He drives a motor like a devil, won’t have a chauffeur, they said — but he’ll stop for hours in some old cathedral and they don’t know where he is.” Kate tossed her head. “And to think that I got up an hour earlier than I needed to this morning to have the castle looking nice! All that cleaning and dusting, though why I want to make a good impression on him when it’s to sell the castle—” Suddenly she had lost her tone of gay defiance. “Oh dear, oh dear, I do love this old place!” she said wistfully.