It was a strange homecoming, he thought suddenly. Stranger even than when, rather more than six years ago, he had travelled down to Craven with his aunt and the shy silent girl whom fate and John Locke had made his ward. Was she also thinking of that time and wishing that a kinder future had been reserved for her? Was she shrinking from his coming, deploring the day he had ever crossed her path? It was unlikely that she could feel otherwise toward him. He had done nothing to make her happy, everything to make her unhappy. With a stifled groan he leant forward and buried his face in his hands, loathing himself. How would she meet him? Suppose she refused to resume the equivocal relationship that had been fraught with so much misery, refused to surrender the greater freedom she had enjoyed during his absence, claimed the right to live her own life apart from him. It would be only natural for her to do so. And morally he would have no right to refuse her. He had forfeited that. And in any case it was not a question of his allowing or refusing anything, it was a question solely of her happiness and her wishes.
Darkness had fallen when the train drew up with a jerk and he stepped out on to the little platform. It was a cheerless night and the wind tore at him as he peered through the gloom and the driving rain, wondering whether anybody had come to meet him. Then he made out Peters’ sturdy familiar figure standing under the feeble light of a flickering lamp. Craven hurried toward him with a smile softening his face. His life had been made up of journeys, it seemed to him suddenly, and always at the end of them was Peters waiting for him, Peters who stuck to the job he himself shirked, Peters who stood loyally by an employer he must in his heart despise, Peters whose boots he was not fit to clean.
The two men met quietly, as if weeks not years had elapsed since they had parted on the same little platform.
“Beastly night,” grumbled the agent, though his indifference to bad weather was notorious, “must feel it cold after the tropics. I brought a man to help Yoshio with your kit. Wait a minute while I see that it’s all right.” He started off briskly, and with the uncomfortable embarrassment he always felt when Peters chose to emphasise their relative positions, Craven strode after him and grabbed him back with an iron hand.
“There isn’t any need,” he said gruffly. “I wish you wouldn’t always behave as if you were a kind of upper servant, Peter. It’s dam’ nonsense. Yoshio is quite capable of looking after the kit, there’s very little in any case. I left the bulk of it in Algiers, it wasn’t worth bringing along. There are only the gun cases and a couple of bags. We haven’t much more than what we stand up in.”
Peters acquiesced good-temperedly and led the way to the closed car that was waiting at the station entrance. As the motor started Craven turned to him eagerly, with the question that had been on his lips for the last ten minutes.
“How is Gillian?”
Peters shot a sidelong glance at him.
“Couldn’t say,” he said shortly; “she didn’t mention her health when she wrote last—but then she never does.”
“When she wrote—” echoed Craven, and his voice was dull with disappointment; “isn’t she at the Towers? I missed my mail at Algiers—some mistake of a fool of a clerk. I haven’t had any home news for nearly a year.”
“She is still in Paris,” replied Peters dryly, and to Craven his tone sounded faintly accusing. He frowned and stared out into the darkness for a few minutes without speaking, wondering how much Peters knew. He had disapproved of the African expedition, stating his opinion frankly when Craven had discussed it with him, and it was obvious that since then his views had undergone no change. Craven understood perfectly what those views were and in what light he must appear to him. He could not excuse himself, could give no explanation. He doubted very much whether Peters would understand if he did explain—his moral code was too simple, his sense of right and wrong too fine to comprehend or to countenance suicide. Craven also felt sure that had he been aware of the circumstances Peters would not have hesitated to oppose his marriage. Why hadn’t he told Peters the whole beastly story when he returned from Japan? Peters had never failed a Craven, he would not have failed him then. He stifled a bitter sigh of useless regret and turned again to his companion.
“Then I take it the Towers is shut up. Are you giving me a bed at the Hermitage?” he asked quietly.
“No. I have kept the house open so that it might be ready if at any time your wife suddenly decided to come home. I imagined that would be your wish.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” said Craven hurriedly, “you did quite right.” Then he glanced about him and frowned again thoughtfully. “Isn’t this the Daimler Gillian took to France with her—surely that is Phillipe driving?” he asked abruptly, peering through the window at the chauffeur’s back illuminated by the electric lamp in the roof of the car.
“She sent it back a few months afterwards—said she had no need for it,” replied Peters. “I kept Phillipe on because he was a better mechanic than the other man. There was no need for two.”
Craven refrained from comment and relapsed into silence, which was unbroken until they reached the house.
During dinner the conversation was mainly of Africa and the scientific success of the mission, and of local events, topics that could safely be discussed in the hearing of Forbes and the footmen. From time to time Craven glanced about the big room with tightened lips. It seemed chill and empty for lack of the slight girlish figure whose presence had brought sunshine into the great house. If she chose never to return! It was unthinkable that he could live in it alone, it would be haunted by memories, he would see her in every room. And yet the thought of leaving it again hurt him. He had never known until he had gone to Africa with no intention of returning how dear the place was to him. He had suddenly realised that he was a Craven of Craven, and all that it meant. But without Gillian it was valueless. A shrine without a treasure. An empty symbol that would stand for nothing. Her personality had stamped itself on the house, even yet her influence lingered in the huge formal dining room where he sat. It had been her whim when they were alone to banish the large table that seemed so preposterously big for two people and substitute a small round one which was more intimate, and across which it was possible to talk with greater ease. Forbes was a man of fixed ideas and devoted to his mistress. Though absent her wishes were faithfully carried out. Mrs. Craven had decreed that for less than four people the family board was an archaic and cumbersome piece of furniture, consequently tonight the little round table was there, and brought home to Craven even more vividly the sense of her absence. It seemed almost a desecration to see Peters sitting opposite in her place. He grew impatient of the lengthy and ceremonious meal the old butler was superintending with such evident enjoyment, and gradually he became more silent and heedless, responding mechanically and often inaptly to Peters’ flow of conversation. He wished now he had obeyed the impulse that had come to him in Algiers to go straight to Paris. By now he would have seen her, have learned his fate, and the whole miserable business would have been settled one way or the other. He could not wonder that she had elected to remain abroad. He had put her in a horrible position. By lingering in Africa after the return of the rest of the mission he had made her an object of idle curiosity and speculation. He had left her as the elder Barry Craven had left his mother, to the mercy of gossip-mongers and to the pity and compassion of her friends which, though even unexpressed, she must have felt and resented. He glanced at the portrait of the beautiful sad woman in the panel over the mantelpiece and a dull red crept over his face. It was well that his mother had died before she realised how completely the idolised son was to follow in the footsteps of the husband who had broken her heart. It was a tradition in the family. From one motive or another the Cravens had consistently been pitiless to their womenkind. And he, the last of them, had gone the way of all the others. A greater shame and bitterness than he had yet felt came to him, and a passionate longing to undo what he had done. And what was left for him to do was so pitifully little. But he would do it without further delay, he would start for Paris the next day. Even the few hours of waiting seemed almost unbearable. The thought occurred to him to motor to London that night to catch the morning boat train from Victoria, but a glance at his watch convinced him of the impossibility of the idea. Owing to the delay of the train it had been nine o’clock before he reached the Towers. It was ten now. Another hour would be wasted before Phillipe and the car would be ready for the long run. And it was a wicked night to take a man out, the strain of driving under such conditions at top speed through the darkness would be tremendous. Reluctantly he abandoned the project. There was nothing for it but to wait until the morning.