Chapter VIII

TN life, as in rivers, there occur occasionally long flat reaches where nothing particular happens. The water moves, the sun shines, but there is nothing much by which to mark either. And it seemed to Lady Beatrice, as she sat one morning in her room, that she had lately been drifting down such a period. First, they had not been up to town this spring; and even Medhurst, if lived in continually for eighteen months, becomes almost ordinary. For her husband was distinctly growing older: he slept more after dinner; he was more unwilling to go away; and the effect had been that except for ten days in August, when they had gone to Scotland with the boys and May, to a rather dreary house, they had done literally nothing except mind their own business at home.

Interiorly too nothing much had happened. There had been the shock of Val's behaviour in Rome at Easter, and there had been a very unpleasant little scene with him one evening after he had come back from Cambridge for the long vacation. She remembered even now how badly she had slept after it. In the morning, however, things had been all right again; Val too had looked as if he hadn't slept much. But nothing whatever had happened, and she had soon lost that feeling of anxiety of which the affair of that disagreeable evening had been a climax. She remembered having recommended Val to go and talk to Father Maple, but was rather relieved now that he had not taken her advice. One never knew what complications might not arise if Roman Catholic priests became too intimate. Certainly she liked Father Maple; he had been up to dine again two or three times during the summer; but there had been no further talk between them on the subject of her son. Besides, Father Maple had been quite wrong in his hints that the arrangement which they had all come to with regard to the Rome affair was hard on Val. On the contrary, it had been admirably successful. No one ever mentioned it; and what a relief that was! Such things were best ignored and, if possible, forgotten.

Well, it was now October, and the flat reach was ending; at least, it was, at any rate, about to turn a gentle corner. On the eighth she, her husband and May were to go to Debenham for a week (where her eldest brother now reigned) for the shooting, leaving Val alone at home. But Val himself was to go to Cambridge on the tenth, and he was already shooting here every day, so she needn't trouble about the boy. On the whole, she was pleased with Val just now: he was receding, that is to say, in her mind from that plane on which she had been anxious about him. Certainly he was very quiet; but young men were quiet sometimes; and he certainly was no trouble. There had been no more such painful scenes between him and his father, as (she had been given to understand) had taken place over two dogs that were righting in the village. He was quiet; he had none of his friends to stay with him; he did not talk much in public, but the air of sulking had quite disappeared now.... He was becoming more like Austin, she thought.

So she pondered, sitting back in her chair, after she had finished interviewing the housekeeper and writing her three or four letters. And then there was a tap, and her husband came in.

" About the keys," he said without introduction. " Masterman had better keep them, I suppose."

She knew him well in this mood. It soon passed; but it was a little trying while it lasted; for it manifested itself in a strenuous sense of responsibility and in what a less tactful wife would have called " fussing " to his face. She knew what he meant.

He was referring to the fact that they were going away the day after to-morrow, and that certain precious and almost symbolical keys had to be placed in safe keeping. They were the keys of such things as the small plate-safe — the safe, that is, where were preserved certain pieces of silver connected vaguely with Charles II and the First Pretender — the glass case in the library, where were such things as a pair of buckles worn by George II, a fan of Queen Anne's, a pair of stockings reputed to have been worn by Elizabeth, together with a number of miniatures, enamelled keys, snuff-boxes and silver coins; and, lastly and chiefly, the " muniment-room," in the south wing on the first floor. It was in this muniment-room that the almost priceless papers of the estate were kept, together with the relics referred to in the first chapter of this book — relics which even now must not be named for fear of incredulity.

' Yes, dear, I suppose so/' she said. " Doesn't he generally have them when we're away? "

" My dear, you forget," fussed the General, with an air of solemnity. '' These keys are always kept by a member of the family if anyone is here." He eyed her reproachfully.

She remembered then. It was a detail of the tremendous Medd etiquette, more rigid than that of any Royalty, that prevailed here wherever the

" Family " was concerned. She felt a little ashamed of her remissness.

" Val will be here till the tenth," she said, " and I think Austin comes down in the morning to shoot, doesn't he?"

" You think then I can safely leave them with Val? " he asked, as one deciding eternal issues.

" I think the poor boy would be rather hurt if you didn't," she said. " That is, if he remembers."

" Very good," said the General, with the air of one who yields generously against his better judgment, and hurried out of the room again.

It was only for a moment or two that she allowed herself to remain amused. She could see her husband bustling off in his knickerbockers to reveal to Val the responsibility that would rest on him for two days; and then return to his study to complete his other arrangements for the day after to-morrow; his interview with Masterman, his anxious turning out of drawers.... Then the purple glory of the Medd pride came, down on her once more and enveloped her in its rather stifling splendour.

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She was wrong, however, in one detail. Her husband did not go to Val's room, but summoned him instead in a stately manner, through Masterman, downstairs to the library.

It is difficult to describe the exact state of mind of this old man towards his younger son, since his emotions were so massive and huge as to defy analysis. Two vast principles faced one another within him — principles before which the merely domestic affections and tendernesses crouched like ants before a mountain-range — and those two principles were Family Pride and Disgrace. These two things stood out dominant; and seven months had not yet reconciled them. Val was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh — a Medd, in fact; and Val had outraged his birth. However, the General's interior arrangements do not matter much.... Practically, he treated Val now with a cold courtesy; he never found fault with him (in fact, Val gave him no excuse, and his father was, at any rate., objectively just); and he spoke to him as seldom as he could. He respected the Medd, if he could not admire the Valentine. He was conscious now that he was going to perform an act of great generosity.

" About these keys," he said when the boy came in. " I shall give them into your charge when we go away; and you must hand them to Austin when he comes down on the tenth."

" Very well."

" Look at them. Here they are, these three." (He handed them across the table on either side of which the two were standing. ) " They are labelled;

so you will know them again — the small plate-chest, marked 'P.C.'; the glass case in the hall, marked 'G.C.'; and the muniment-room, marked ' M.R.' You understand? "

" Yes."

The General solemnly moistened his lips.

" Very well. I keep them here as a rule, you see." (He indicated a drawer in the table.) " Masterman will have the keys of the house, as usual. But these three I leave in your charge. You understand? "

" Yes."

The General paused.... (Yes, he had better say it. Perhaps Val did not quite realise the responsibility.)

" I am doing this, my boy; but not every father would do it under the circumstances.... You understand, eh? "

He saw a very faint flush come up on the boy's face.

• Yes, father; I quite understand. Thank you very much."

" Very well. That's all, my boy."

When Val had gone again the General carefully put the keys back in their place, on the little hook that he had had placed in the drawer for their express accommodation, and forgot to lock it up. But he felt glad, on the whole, that he had decided to confer this honour on the boy. Not many fathers, he thought, would have done it.... And then he was not sure whether he had not been a little weak; and he stood staring out at the cedar, breathing audibly through his nose, as his manner was when in deep thought.

There was an abundance of things to do always when the Family left home for a few days; drawers to be locked up, papers to be put away; dispatchboxes, which did not contain anything in particular, to be moved from the window-seat to the little cupboard behind the sofa. Then there were interviews with old Masterman — mysterious conversations about certain bins in the cellar; interviews with Mr. Watson, the head coachman, as to the use of the horses and their proper exercise; interviews with Mr. Kindersley, the head keeper, as to any shootingparties that the boys might be allowed to hold.

So the General could not stand still and breathe through his nose for long; for Austin was coming down on the tenth with Tom Meredith and another man; and Mr. Kindersley was in waiting to receive exact instructions as to which coverts were to be shot. It was a pity, thought the General, that they couldn't come down a day or two earlier; then Val might have shot with them too. But Austin, it seemed, was unable to get away before the day on which Val left for Cambridge; and, after all, Val had had several days already out with the partridges; and a boy still at Cambridge mustn't expect to have everything his own way.

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The departure on the morning of the eighth was tremendous.

The Family was going to drive; and the men and the maids were to take the luggage and go round by train. Debenham was not more than fifteen miles by road, and not less than twenty-six by rail, exclusive of the drive at either end. Mrs. Bentham had gone the night before, as an independent and honoured guest, to stay with the Debenham housekeeper for her annual visit.

About nine o'clock, therefore, the wagonette and the luggage-cart drew up at the south porch, and a tremendous scene of activity began. First, great trunks shaped like arks began to appear, interspersed with mysterious bandbox-shaped pieces of luggage, sheaves of umbrellas, two gun-cases, and three or four portmanteaux.

Then, as May saw from her window, Masterman appeared, in rigid black as usual, directing with waves of the hand two persons in green-baize aprons in the placing of those articles in their proper positions — first in the luggage-cart, till it appeared imminent that the stout brown horse would presently be lifted from the ground by his girth and suspended in air (May, in a neat travelling costume, watched, fascinated), and then in the front seat of the wagonette.

At this point May's own maid, resembling a thin duchess in disguise, hurried into May's room and distracted her by apologies for leaving out a pair of gaiters. She seized these and vanished again. When May turned to the window once more the company had grown: Mr. Simpson, the valet, dressed in chocolate-brown, with a black overcoat, black hat, and black stick (not altogether unlike a stage detective), was holding open the door of the wagonette for the ladies to mount; Mrs. Caunt, Lady Beatrice's maid, was in the act of ascending; and one of the persons in green baize, cowering it seemed under Mr. Masterman's denunciating hand, was shifting a trunk from the luggage-cart to the already high-piled front seat of the wagonette. Then Fergusson herself came out, carrying a flat parcel — no doubt the gaiters — modestly shrouded in brown paper....

" What a business it all seems — (Good morning, mother) — What a business it all seems, this going away! "

Lady Beatrice kissed her daughter absent-mindedly. Something of the solemnity seemed to have descended upon her too.

" Caunt's gone," she said. " And I can't find my spotted veil. She didn't leave it here, did she? She's got no head, you know."

She cast a roving glance round the disordered room and limped out again.

But the departure of the luggage and the servants was a comparatively furtive and ignominious affair, considered alongside of the departure of the Family itself.

The first note was struck at breakfast, at which the ladies appeared in hats, and the General in a grey suit, with spats, carrying an overcoat which he had just fetched from the hall, a pair of field-glasses with case and strap complete, and a small leather-covered box which he called his " travelling case." It was understood by the world to contain a flask of spirits, a horn mug, and a brush and comb. All these things had been set out carefully by Mr. Simpson on the hall-table, in readiness for the journey; but it had seemed fit to the General to bring them in to breakfast.

He shook his grey head severely as he set these down on a chair by the door.

" Simpson's losing his head, I fear," he said. " I found these things on the hall-table."

" Perhaps he put them there/' said May audaciously.

The General shook his head again as he went to the sideboard.

" He must have.... Miss Deverell, can I give you a little of this cold bird? "

Three-quarters of an hour later the hoofs of great horses could be heard, and the rolling of wheels; and May, in her hat and cloak, playing with the new Persian kitten in the hall, went to the door to look out, just as the carriage wheeled round and drew up.

Already Masterman was on the steps of the terrace, as if by magic (since he had been in the hall, it seemed, not two minutes before) consulting with Mr. Watson, now enthroned on the box-seat, with the two great black horses in front of him, all a-shine with gloss and black harness and great silver crests, held at the head by a groom. The two seemed to be consulting about the weather.

Then various other persons began to appear.

James, the first footman, who was to drive with them, and, apparently, be company for Mr. Watson coming back, since there was nothing else in the world for him to do at either end of the fifteen miles, hurried through the hall to the library and back again twice, already in his long blue coat. Obviously, from the place he went and returned, and went and returned, the General must have rung with some vehemence. Then round the shrubbery corner by the stable appeared two figures — another groom and the " helper " — mere spectators, however, of the Progress, since they stood and eyed afar off.

Then a housemaid, very much agitated, hurried in.

" Please, miss, her ladyship can't find her spotted veil."

" Tell her ladyship that there are two of mine in the top left-hand drawer of the wardrobe."

" Thank you, miss."

Then Miss Deverell appeared like a shadow, as the clock from the stables struck the appointed hour. She was habited, gloved, veiled, and bonneted with extraordinary precision.

" My dear, you have not your fur boa on."

"It's too warm," said May. "Besides, it's packed."

Miss Deverell winked with both eyes two or three times, and sat down on the edge of a chair.

Then Masterman, who had been comparing his watch with the striking of the stable clock, and verifying the time by an apparent appeal to Mr. Watson, came back to the house, and went in the direction of the library with the air of an assured and privileged intruder. Evidently he was going to warn his master that a quarter-past ten had struck. Then Val appeared, in his knickerbockers, with his hands in his pockets, obviously intending to be dutiful. May remembered that he would be gone back to Cambridge when she returned....

May's feelings towards Val went in moods, like layers in a Neapolitan ice. She had been sincerely and deeply shocked that a brother of hers could have behaved as he had in Rome; yet, on the other side, duels were wicked. Again, she was both a Medd and a girl: as a Medd she resented the outrage to the family honour; as a girl she was extremely fond of her brother, who had bowled to her on the lawn so often and taken her birds'-nesting. Again, she was as fundamentally unimaginative as her mother. Sentiment took the place of imagination on the top; and this lack of imagination sometimes made her feel unduly hard on Val; and sometimes obscured the malice of his crime. The result of the whole was that she had certainly drifted a good way apart from Val during these last months; since a boy is naturally intolerant of capriciousness, and May had seemed to Val distinctly capricious. There had been moments when he had leapt, so to speak, at her in kindly moods; established, as he thought, an understanding one evening; and the next morning had found her with the blinds drawn down over her friendliness and a fagade of cold dignity presented to him. Besides, he could not altogether forget that nightmare of a journey back to England, when the two girls had nestled together apart and looked at him with something very like repulsion....

" You'll be there by twelve," said Val, leaning up against a sofa, still with his hands in his pockets.

" Not if father dawdles much longer, we shan't/' said May ungrammatically.

Then Masterman hurried by again from the library with the same air of agitation as James had worn. Evidently, in spite of the preparations having been begun two days before, they were not yet complete. As he vanished Lady Beatrice rustled in, on her stick.

"Where's your father?"

" I don't think he's quite ready," said May. " James and Masterman seem hunting for something."

Lady Beatrice rustled out again.

" You'll be gone when we get back again," observed May after a silence, for want of a better remark.

" Yes," said Val.

He wandered to the side-table and began to look at the Graphic, replacing his hands in his pockets as he turned each page.

It was instructive to see how his hands came out and his figure instinctively straightened, as there suddenly loomed from the direction of the library the form of the General, arrayed as for an exploring expedition, and moving rapidly and impressively. On his head was his tall grey felt hat, shaped like a cake; over his grey suit a darker grey great-coat, slung with straps; white spats over his chestnutcoloured boots; in his gloved hands on one side a little sheaf of sticks and implements, on the other his " travelling case." He moved rapidly, and there went with him a smell of tweeds and an air of importance.

" Come along, come along/' he cried to his daughter. " We're ten minutes late."

Then began the last whirl of the departure, resembling the passing of a tidal wave.

His wife swept along behind him, coming surprisingly fast, with a housemaid plucking at her dress en route. Masterman reappeared from a totally different direction from that in which he had vanished. May sprang up and plunged into the stream by her mother's side. James flew through a side door, with his long tails clapping behind him;

the faces of two female servants peeped over the edge of the music-gallery; and Mrs. Markham, the housekeeper, in black silk, was observed to be standing with her hands folded together, at the head of the staircase, as if about to take part in a liturgy.

The travellers were packed in at last in the great landau. Miss Deverell was already there, sitting upright in her proper place on the far side. (She had disappeared from the hall, presumably, soon after her single remark to May; but no one had seen her go.) Beside her now sat Lady Beatrice; opposite Lady Beatrice, May; and opposite Miss Deverell, the General. Masterman shut the door and James climbed to his seat.

" Good-bye, my boy, good-bye," cried the General, waving a gloved hand to Val, who had drifted out behind the surge and was standing now hatless at the head of the steps. " Now we're ready at last."

Lady Beatrice kissed her hand at the boy. ( She was ashamed that she had forgotten to say good-bye; but the rush had really been too great.) May nodded and smiled.

" Good-bye, Val."

" All right, Masterman."

There was a stir of the carriage. The great black horses started a little as Mr. Watson's whip drew gently across their flanks, jingled their bits, and moved off. The groom and the helper vanished behind the shrubbery, as they were not in full dress; female faces appeared at windows. Masterman bowed twice, bending at the small of his back.

And so the Progress began, and the Medd Family left its Country Seat.

Half-way up the hill, when the General had done enquiring after his field-glasses, which had slipped round to the small of his back, May looked back at the house.

There it lay, in its solemn splendour and beauty, indescribably lovely, far more an essential of the landscape than the oaks and beeches grouped to show it off; its two wings held out like welcoming arms, its twisted chimneys sending up skeins of delicate grey against the clear October morning sky, its great central block majestic and dominating, rising above the broad flagged terrace and the steps; and there by the doorway, surmounted with carving, stood a tiny, grey, hatless figure in knickerbockers, still looking after them. Masterman had gone; the faces in the windows had disappeared; the shrubbery was deserted. There remained Val for a moment or two.

She looked at her mother. Her mother was pulling the rug straight.

She looked at Miss Deverell. Miss Deverell appeared to be closing her eyes for sleep.

She looked at her father. Her father was straightening the strap of his glasses.

And as she looked back again at the terrace as the carriage topped the hill, she saw the grey knickerbockered figure go back into the house.

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