If the Brigade of Guards had marched into the hall just then to command me to the Tower I'd not have heard them. I picked her up bodily, tingling at the feel of her, and without a word spoken carried her into the bedroom, and tumbled her there and then. It was superb, for I was half-drunk with excitement and longing, and when it was over I simply lay there, listening to her prattle a thousand questions, clasping her to me, kissing every inch of her, and answering God knows what. How long we spent there I can't imagine, but it was a long, golden afternoon, and ended only when the maid tapped on the door to say that my father was home again, and demanding to see me.
So we must get dressed, and straighten ourselves, giggling like naughty children, and when Elspeth had herself in order the maid came tapping again to say that my father was growing impatient. Just to show that heroes weren't to be hurried, I caught my darling up again, and in spite of her muffled squeals of protest, mounted her once more, without the formality of undressing. Then we went down. It should have been a splendid evening, with the family welcoming the prodigal Achilles, but it wasn't. My father had aged in two years; his face was redder and his belly bigger, and his hair was quite white at the temples. He was civil enough, damned me for a young rascal, and said he was proud of me: the whole town had been talking over the reports from India, and Ellenborough's eulogies for myself and Sale and Havelock were all over the place. But his jollity soon wore off, and he drank a good deal too much at dinner, and fell into a silence at last.
I could see then there was something wrong, although I didn't pay him much heed.
Judy dined with us, and I gathered she was now entirely one of the household, which was bad news. I didn't care for her any better now than I had two years before, after our quarrel, and I made it pretty plain. It seemed rather steep of my father to keep his dolly at home with my wife there, and treat them as equals, and I decided to speak to him about it. But Judy was cool and civil, too, and I gathered she was ready to keep the peace if I did.
Not that I minded her or my father much. I was all over Elspeth, revelling in the dreamy way she listened to my talk - I had forgotten what a ninny she was, but it had its compensations. She sat wide-eyed at my adventures, and I don't suppose anyone else got a word in edgeways all through the meal. I just bathed myself in that simple, dazzling smile of hers and persuaded her of what a wonderful husband she had. And later, when we went to bed, I persuaded her more so.
It was then, though, that the first little hint of something odd in her behaviour crossed my mind. She had dropped off to sleep, and I was lying there exhausted, listening to her breathing, and feeling somehow dissatisfied - which was strange, considering. Then it came to me, this little doubt, and I dismissed it, and then it came back.
I had had plenty of experience with women, as you know, and can judge them in bed as well as anyone, I reckon. And it seemed to me, however hard I pushed the thought away, that Elspeth was not as she had been before I went away. I've often said that she only came to life when she was at grips with a man - well, she had been willing enough in the few hours of my homecoming, I couldn't deny, but there hadn't been any of the rapturous passion on her part that I remembered.
These are fine things, and difficult to explain - oh, she was active enough at the time, and content enough afterwards, but she was easier about it all, somehow. If it had been Fetnab or Josette, I wouldn't have noticed, I dare say; it was their work as well as their play. But I had a different emotion about Elspeth, and it told me there was something missing. It was just a shadow, and when I woke next morning I had forgotten it. If I hadn't, the morning's events would have driven it from my mind. I came down late, and cornered my father in his study before he could slip out to his club. He was sitting with his feet along the couch, preparing for the rigours of the day with a glass of brandy, and looking liverish, but I plunged right in, and told him my thoughts about Judy.
"Things have changed," says I, "and we can't have her seen about the place nowadays." You'll gather that two years among the Afghans had changed my attitude to parental discipline; I wasn't so easy to cow as I had been. "Oh, aye," says he, "and how have things changed?"
"You'll find," I told him, "that I'm known about the town henceforth.
What with India and so on. We'll be more in the public eye now, and folk will talk. It won't do for Elspeth, for one thing." "Elspeth likes her," says he.
"Does she, though? Well, that's no matter. It ain't what Elspeth likes that counts, but what the town likes. And they won't like us if we keep this . . . this pet pussy in the house."
"My, we're grown very nice." He sneered and took a good pull at his brandy. I could see the flush of temper on his face, and wondered why he hadn't lost it yet. "I didn't know India bred such fine sensibilities," he went on. "Quite the reverse, I'd have thought."
"Oh, look, father, it won't do and you know it. Send her up to Leicestershire if you want, or give her a maison of her own - but she can't stay here."
He looked at me a long while. "By God, maybe I've been wrong about you all along. I know you're a wastrel, but I never thought you had the stuff to be brave - in spite of all the tales from India. Perhaps you have, or perhaps it's just insolence. Anyway, you're on the wrong scent, boy. As I said, Elspeth likes her - and if she don't want her away, then she stays."
"In God's name, what does it matter what Elspeth likes? She'll do as I tell her."
"I doubt it," says he.
"What's that?"
He put down his glass, wiped his lips, and said:
"You won't like it, Harry, but here it is. Who pays the piper calls the tune. And your Elspeth and her damned family have been calling the tune this year past. Hold on, now. Let me finish. You'll have plenty to say, no doubt, but it'll wait."
I could only stare at him, not understanding.
"We're in Queer Street, Harry. I hardly know how, myself, but there it is. I suppose I've been running pretty fast, all my life, and not taking much account of how the money went - what are lawyers for, eh? I took some bad tumbles on the turf, never heeded the expenses of this place, or Leicestershire, didn't stint any way at all - but it was the damned railway shares that really did the trick. Oh, there are fortunes being made out of 'em - the right ones. I picked the wrong ones. A year ago I was a ruined man, up to my neck with the Jews, ready to be sold up. I didn't write to you about it - what was the point? This house ain't mine, nor our place in Leicestershire; it's hers - or it will be, when old Morrison goes. God rot and damn him, it can't be too soon."
He jumped up and walked about, finally stopping before the fireplace.
"He met the bill, for his daughter's sake. Oh, you should have seen it! More canting, head-wagging hypocrisy than I've seen in years in Parliament, even! He had the effrontery to stand in my own hall, by God, and tell me it was a judgement on him for letting his daughter marry beneath herself! Beneath herself, d'ye hear? And I had to listen to him, and keep myself from flooring the old swine! What could I do? I was the poor relation; I still am. He's still paying the bills - through the simpering nitwit you married. He lets her have what she wants, and there you are!" "But if he's settled an allowance on her ..." "He's settled nothing! She asks him, and he provides. Damned if I would if I was him - but, there, perhaps he thinks it worth while. He seems to dote on her, and I'll say this for the chit, she's not stingy. But she's the pay-mistress, Harry, my son, and you'd best not forget it. You're a kept man, d'you see, so it don't become you, or me, to say who'll come and who'll go. And since your Elspeth is astonishingly liberal-minded -