The Country Gentleman (29 page)

Mr. Dolphim bowed, accepted Mr. Highet’s cape and top-hat, and Mrs. Highet’s bonnet and pelisse, then blandly announced, “Lord Ensley is waiting for you in the drawing-room, ma’am, with Mrs. Insel. There is also a letter for you from him which arrived just after you went out this morning.”

He indicated a note in a silver tray on a beaufet behind him. Anne glanced at it, recognised Ensley’s familiar hand, thought of him not ten yards from her, and changed colour. Her cheeks, which had been pink with fresh air and good humour, went white. Her eyes hardened till they were as stony as the jade they resembled in hue. “I am not at home to Lord Ensley,” she said quietly. “Pray
tell him so.” She was acutely aware of Mr. Highet standing a few steps behind her. “And return his letter to him when he goes,” she added deliberately.

Impassively, Dolphim bowed again, took the letter, and went up the stairs. Anne turned to Mr. Highet.. Her cheeks were still very pale, and she held herself extremely straight. “I think I shall go up to my room, sir,” she said. “I shall order a collation set out for you if you like.”

“Thank you, no.” Henry Highet watched her attentively as he went on, “I am not hungry.”

Anne nodded and was about to turn away when he asked impulsively,

“You are not denying him because I am here?”

She shook her head. Without looking at him, and in a very low tone indeed, “As you may have guessed, my friendship with Lord Ensley is finished,” she said. “Not in any rancour”—she did not wish him to think Ensley had cast her aside or insulted her—“but finished.” Still without looking up, “If you will excuse me…” she murmured, and hurried away lest she linger too long and run into Ensley in his way out.

She was glad she had told Mr. Highet. It was an aspect of her life that had disturbed him and she liked him too well to wish him distress. Of course their marriage would not be affected by the change in any material way.

For his part, Mr. Highet felt as if a yoke of iron had been lifted from his shoulders. He was surprised he did not float to the ceiling, but merely stood looking after his wife’s hastening back with an expression of mingled speculation and joy.

Some minutes later, descending in Dolphim’s businesslike wake, Lord Ensley discovered Highet still standing in
the hall. In accents of sheer loathing, “Highet,” he muttered, nodding curtly.

Mr. Highet returned the greeting.

A silence set in. Then, while Dolphim went to fetch his coat and stick, “You poor fool,” Ensley suddenly spat out. “Do you imagine you can make her happy?”

“Have you?” Mr. Highet pleasantly countered.

Dolphim returning, this civil colloquy was perforce cut unnaturally short. Lord Ensley stalked angrily out to the street, Mr. Highet floated to his room, and Dolphim hurried down to the kitchen to tell his wife the gladsome news. Maria (who had heard Anne’s message to Ensley) knocked on her door some minutes later to offer comfort if comfort was needed. She discovered Anne swallowing lavender drops, a little pale, but showing no other signs of discomfiture. She invited Maria in, sat her down in a comfortable arm-chair, and said very stiffly indeed,

“You will be relieved to know I have finished things with Ensley.”

“Oh, Anne! I am sure you have done very right! Ensley was never—”

“Pray do not tell me your opinion of him,” Anne broke in. “I know it already. In truth, I cannot bear just now to speak of him further. I don’t want to. I mean to lie down now; but will you drive out with me this afternoon? I should be grateful for your company.”

Not for the first time, Mrs. Insel silently deplored the deep, proud reserve that prevented Anne from opening her heart when she was hurt and taking real comfort from her friends. But what was that, compared to the news that Ensley was out of her life? Her heart strangely light for one dressed in the deepest mourning, Maria obligingly
declared herself ready for any excursion and removed herself from the room.

She had been working some filagree while she waited with Ensley and now returned to the drawing-room to fetch it, intending to take it away and work for an hour in her sitting-room. But she found there Mr. Highet, who sat frowning at a newspaper in a deep chair by a long window. He looked up upon her entrance, his brow clearing, and begged her to stay and talk with him for a moment or two.

Mrs. Insel stayed. Though she had kept very much to herself in the last few days, the news of her husband’s death had come to her almost as the breaking of a spell. After the initial shock, she was gradually starting to feel at ease again for the first time almost since her marriage. The change had already begun to show in her spare frame, which seemed less severe and narrow than formerly. Her face too was losing its habitual tension, and her actions their nervousness. The alteration did not escape Mr. Highet’s attention. He thought of it now, as he gazed quietly at her for some moments before speaking.

Presently, “I feel as if I have scarcely talked with you since my coming here,” he took up, smiling gently. “I hope you are recovering from the effects of the letter I brought?”

“Indeed, very swiftly.”

“I am glad to hear it. You know,” he went on carefully, “we are sorry to do without you in Cheshire since you left. Mrs. Samuels asked after you the other day, and Mrs. Ross, Farmer Ross’ wife, tells me now you were often used to come by and teach her fancy stitching. She wishes you to come back and finish her lessons. Speaking of
lessons,” he kept a steady watch on her face, “Mr. Mallinger regrets you too, I know.”

He paused. Surely her dark eyes had widened a little at the mention of Mallinger? But she said nothing.

“I worry for Mr. Mallinger,” he finally went on, still carefully studying her reactions. “He has not been happy in recent months, it seems to me. Yet he will not tell me why.”

He paused again, but Maria still kept silent. Her expression clearly showed concern, though, at this report of the schoolmaster. Mr. Highet continued his experiment.

Gloomily, “I am afraid we shall lose him altogether, if things go on at this rate,” he declared.

To his satisfaction, Mrs. Insel started and gave a small gasp.

Smiling faintly, “I mean, that he will quit his post,” he explained, “not that he will die of melancholy.”

She laughed at herself a little and settled back in her chair. Had Mr. Highet merely wished to pass the time of day with her? She had fancied, when he asked her to stay and talk, that he had something particular on his mind. She felt very grateful to him—not only for coming all the way to London to bring her letter, but also for whatever part he had played in extricating Anne from Ensley’s grip. So if he did merely wish to chat (for that was all he had done so far—he could not know Mr. Mallinger meant more to her than Mrs. Samuels), she would willingly do so till the sun set.

“Please tell Mrs. Ross I shall be happy to continue teaching her fancy-work when I visit Fevermere,” she remarked. “I know she hopes to earn some money by it.”

“Ah, you bring me to the reason of my asking you to sit
down,” he answered, confirming her early suspicion. “I wonder…I know you are only just returned to London, yet I somehow have a notion Mrs. Highet could use another change of scene. I should very much like you both to come to Fevermere for Christmas. We should be obliged to leave soon, I fear. But— Would it be good for her, do you think? I ask you as a friend who knows her much longer and better than I.”

Maria considered. She had never believed from the beginning in Mr. Highet’s “business proposal.” If he did not love Anne, he was very fond of her. Either way, she thought—hoped—he had guessed long ago that she herself would do all she could to help them understand one another—that she held herself a friend not only to Anne, but to both of them together. But could Mr. Highet know already of Anne’s break with Ensley? They had been out together this morning. He might have heard her instructions to Dolphim. If so, Maria thought his desire to remove her from London very shrewd. “I am sure it would be,” she told him finally. “And if you put it to her as you have to me—as something that would please you—I imagine she will go very readily.”

“Oh,” he objected, “but I am particularly reluctant to urge her on such grounds. However, if I only suggest it, may I depend upon you to say you favour the idea? That is…Will you like to come?”

“Oh! If it is for Anne’s sake,” Maria replied, as he expected she would. “Only you know, it is no longer at all necessary that I accompany her. Why, you are married! And I shall shortly be receiving a pension.” Shyly, she went on, “I have been thinking it is time for me to find a lodging somewhere on my own.”

“And Mrs. Ross?” he asked humorously; then more soberly, “No, no, this will not answer. Mrs. Highet will never leave you to spend Christmas alone.”

A little reluctantly, Maria admitted the justice of this. “If she asks me, I shall strongly endorse the idea,” she promised at last.

Mr. Highet thanked her, silently congratulated himself on a job of work well done, and closed the interview. He had only one more fence to jump and he decided a headlong assault upon it would be best. He gave his wife the day to rest and recreate herself, then, just before dinner, sent a note up to her room requesting ten minutes alone with her.

She met him in the library, a smallish room (it was the single fault she had to find with the house) whose shelves would never accommodate more than half her books. At the moment, even those shelves were empty: She had been concentrating on other rooms and meant to make this her project during the coming week. But its very unreadiness made it private and therefore convenient for this meeting.

She came downstairs in a round dress of jaconet muslin with a dark blue
gros de Naples
spencer. To her surprise, Mr. Highet was not dressed to go out, but showed every sign of intending to dine in Mount Street that evening.

“And Lord Alvanley?” she quizzed him, sitting down upon a small settee. “Is he to ask for Mr. Highet’s company in vain?”

Mr. Highet solemnly bowed, then joined her on the settee. “Lord Alvanley has hobbled along in life so far now without me that I rather suspect he can dispense with me altogether,” he said drily. “If it does not too much
discompose you, I should prefer to dine with you. I am the more eager to do so,” he added, “as I expect to depart for Cheshire the day after to-morrow.”

If the genuine disappointment he saw in her face gratified him, he did not manifest his pleasure in any way. On the contrary, he wore his most sombre look while she replied,

“Must you go indeed? It seems as if you have only just come. I thought you were rather enjoying London!”

Seriously, “More than I ever have before,” he said. “Still, I should be very sorry to pass Christmas here, apart from my people. You will excuse me if I say that London seems to me a very sad place to spend the holydays.”

A little ruffled (for she still felt he laid all the failings of the Metropolis at her door) she answered, “I suppose it depends upon what one has been used to. I myself have passed several Christmases in town without, I think, suffering any ill effects. Nothing fatal, anyhow. Yet I will agree with you so far as to say that a country Christmas has much to offer. Indeed, Maria and I had thought to join a party at Lord Bambrick’s seat, in Devonshire. However”—she did not falter, but her tone was considerably sharper as she finished—“there are others in the party I particularly wish to avoid.”

“But then—this suits my purpose admirably,” Mr. Highet rejoined, “for I wished to suggest to you that it might greatly benefit Mrs. Insel, in this time of her bereavement, to pass Christmas at Fevermere.” With a hint of something she could only call slyness in his tone, he went on, “I have the oddest idea a visit there is just what would suit her. Don’t ask me to explain it”—here he gave
her a look that was positively arch! Mr. Highet!—“I just fancy that it would. What do you think?”

Could he have learned Mr. Mallinger’s secret? She dimly remembered him to have said something odd about the schoolmaster’s spirits on the night of her dinner party—only she had been so distracted by Ensley and Juliana that she hardly heard it. It was possible, of course, that Mallinger himself had confided in him. Anne longed to ask, but felt she could not without betraying Maria. At all events, the notion of taking her up to Cheshire was an excellent one. After a moment she said so.

“Then it is decided,” he answered, standing. “You will come with me. That is— Will
you
mind coming? We shan’t have much of a house party, though my brother and his family will be there, and a few old friends.”

Embarrassed by the degree to which the prospect actually relieved her—for how on earth would she and Maria spend Christmas, if not with Ensley and their friends?—she replied carelessly, “Oh, since it is for Maria’s sake, I am happy to do it.” Hearing the ungraciousness of this, she added with downcast eyes and an awkwardness as unusual in her as Mr. Highet’s slyness had been in him, “That is, I shall like it very much. Only— You will not mind it yourself?”

“You know when you left I told you I should always be happy to see you back. I believe I mentioned Christmas particularly.” He spoke gently, standing before her while she still sat. When she looked up to thank him he seemed quite to tower over her. She saw a sort of mildness in his sleepy-lidded eyes, and a softness in his features which at first she took for affection. But then he added, more gently than ever, “Perhaps the change of air will do you good as well,” and she thought:

“He pities me! Again! He knows I have lost Ensley and feels sorry for me.” More miserable than angry, she jumped abruptly to her feet and said indifferently, “Perhaps. At all events, I have a great deal to do if we are to leave with you. For one thing, I must persuade Maria.” She moved past him briskly, turned to give a cool bow, noted they would dine at eight, and (before he could say anything) quitted the room.

“
What
a pleasure,
what
a surprise!” After she had quite done encasing her son in her prodigious embrace, Mrs. Archibald Highet turned to her daughter-in-law. Her strong nose and wrinkled cheeks pink with cold—for she had come out of the house to meet the carriage—she shook Anne’s hand heartily, booming, “Here for Christmas, quite as if you was really family! Such a treat—! Step inside!”