“I don’t think there is any cause—any reason to doubt Yoshio’s fidelity. The man is devoted to Barry. His behaviour certainly sounds—curious, but can be attributed I am convinced to over-zealousness. He is an alien in a strange land, cut off from his own natural distractions and amusements, and with time on his hands his devotion to his master takes a more noticeable form than is usual with an ordinary English man-servant. That he designs any harm I cannot believe. He has been with Barry a long time—on the several occasions when he stayed with him at your house in London did you notice anything in his behaviour then similar to the attitude you have observed recently? No? Then I take it that it is due to the same anxiety that we ourselves have felt since Barry’s return. Only in Yoshio’s case it is probably based on definite knowledge, whereas ours is pure conjecture. Barry has undoubtedly been up against something—momentous. Between ourselves we can admit the fact frankly. It is a different man who has come back to us—and we can only carry on and notice nothing. He is trying to forget something. He has worked like a nigger since he came home, slogging away down at the estate office as if he had his bread to earn. He does the work of two men—and he hates it. I see him sometimes, forgetful of his surroundings, staring out of the window, and the look on his face brings a confounded lump into my throat. Thank God he’s young—perhaps in time—” he shrugged and broke off inconclusively, conscious of the futility of platitudes. And they were all he had to offer. There was no suggestion he could make, nothing he could do. It was repetition of history, again he had to stand by and watch suffering he was powerless to aid, powerless to relieve. The mother first and now the son—it would seem almost as if he had failed both. The sense of helplessness was bitter and his face was drawn with pain as he stared dumbly at the window against which the storm was beating with renewed violence. The sight of the angry elements brought almost a feeling of relief; it would be something that he could contend with and overcome, something that would go towards mitigating the galling sense of impotence that chafed him. He felt the room suddenly stifling, he wanted the cold sting of the rain against his face, the roar of the wind in the trees above his head. Abruptly he buttoned his jacket in preparation for departure. Miss Craven pulled herself together. She laid a detaining hand on his arm. “Peter,” she said slowly, “do you think that Barry’s trouble has any connection with—my brother? The change of pictures in the dining-room—it was so strange. He said it was a reparation. Do you think Barry—found out something in Japan?”
Peter shook his head. “God knows,” he said gruffly. For a moment there was silence, then with a sigh Miss Craven moved towards a bell.
“You’ll stay for tea?”
“Thanks, no. I’ve got a man coming over, I’ll have to go. Give my love to Gillian and tell her I shall not, forgive her soon for deserting me this morning. Has she lost that nasty cough yet?”
“Almost. I didn’t want her to go to the Horringfords, but she promised to be careful.” Miss Craven paused, then:
“What did we do without Gillian, Peter?” she said with an odd little laugh.
“‘You’ve got me guessing,’ as Atherton says. She’s a witch, bless her!” he replied, holding out his hands. Miss Craven took them and held them for a moment.
“You’re the best pal I ever had, Peter,” she said unsteadily, “and you’ve given all your life to us Cravens.”
The sudden gripping of his hands was painful, then he bent his head and unexpectedly put his lips to the fingers he held so closely.
“I’m always here—when you want me,” he said huskily, and was gone.
Miss Craven stood still looking after him with a curious smile.
“Thank God for Peter,” she said fervently, and went back to her station by the window. It was considerably darker than before, but for some distance the double avenue leading to the stables was visible. As she watched, playing absently with the blind-cord, her mind dwelt on the long connection between Peter Peters and her family. Thirty years—the best of his life. And in exchange sorrow and an undying memory. The woman he loved had chosen not him but handsome inconsequent Barry Craven and, for her choice, had reaped misery and loneliness. And because he had known that inevitably a day would come when she would need assistance and support he had sunk his own feelings and retained his post. Her brief happiness had been hard to watch—the subsequent long years of her desertion a protracted torture. He had raged at his own helplessness. And ignorant of his love and the motive that kept him at Craven Towers she had come to lean on him and refer all to him. But for his care the Craven properties would have been ruined, and the Craven interests neglected beyond repair.
For some time before her sister-in-law’s death Miss Craven had known, as only a woman can know, but now for the first time she had heard from his lips a half-confession of the love that he had guarded jealously for thirty years.
The unusual tears that to-day seemed so curiously near the surface rose despite her and she blinked the moisture from her eyes with a feeling of irritated shame.
Then a figure, almost indistinguishable in the gloom, coming from the stables, caught her eye and she gave a sharp sigh of relief.
He was walking slowly, his hands deep in his pockets, his shoulders hunched against the storm of wind and rain that beat on his broad back. His movements suggested intense weariness, yet nearing the house his step lagged even more as if, despite physical fatigue and the inclement weather, he was rather forcing himself to return than showing a natural desire for shelter.
There was in his tread a heaviness that contrasted forcibly with the elasticity that had formerly been characteristic. As he passed close by the window where Miss Craven was standing she saw that he was splashed from head to foot. She thought with sudden compassion of the horse that he had ridden. She had been in the stables only a few weeks before when he had handed over another jaded mud-caked brute trembling in every limb and showing signs of merciless riding to the old head groom who had maintained a stony silence as was his duty but whose grim face was eloquent of all he might not say. It was so unlike Barry to be inconsiderate, toward animals he had been always peculiarly tender-hearted.
She hurried out to the hall, almost cannoning with a little dark-clad figure who gave way with a deep Oriental reverence. “Master very wet,” he murmured, and vanished.
“There’s some sense in him,” she muttered grudgingly. And quite suddenly a wholly unexpected sympathy dawned for the inscrutable Japanese whom she had hitherto disliked. But she had no time to dwell on her unaccountable change of feeling for through the glass of the inner door she saw Craven in the vestibule struggling stiffly to rid himself of a dripping mackintosh. It had been no protection for the driving rain had penetrated freely, and as he fumbled at the buttons with slow cold fingers the water ran off him in little trickling streams on to the mat.