Nightfall Part 6

She no longer doubted Lawrence Hyde's subtlety. "'He's constantly in pain and he scarcely ever complains."

"Oh? I didn't know one suffered, with paralysis."

"He has racking neuritis in his shoulders and back."

"That's bad. I'm afraid he can't be much up to entertaining visitors. Does he hate having me here?"

"No! oh no! I know he sometimes seems a little odd," said poor Laura, wishing her guest were less clear-sighted: and yet before he came she had been hoping that Lawrence would divine the less obvious aspects of the situation, and perhaps, since a man can do more with a man like Bernard than any woman can, succeed in easing it. "But can you wonder? Struck down like this at five and twenty! and he never was keen on indoor interests--sport and his profession were all he cared about. Please, Lawrence, make allowances for him--he had been looking forward so much to your coming here! A man's society always does him good, and you know how few men there are in this country: we have only the vicar, and the doctor, and Jack Bendish and people who stay at the Castle. And if you only realized how different he was with you from what he is with most people, you would be flattered! He won't let any one touch him as a rule, except Barry, whom he treats like a machine. But he was quite grateful to you--he seemed to lean on you."

"Did he?"

She had made Lawrence feel uncomfortable again in the region of the heart, but he was deliberately stifling pity, as five years ago, in a Peruvian fonda, he had subdued his filial tenderness and grief. He was not callous: if he had had the earlier cable he would have sailed for home without delay. But since Andrew Hyde was dead and would never know whether his son wept for him or not, Lawrence set himself to repress not only tears but the fount of human feeling that fed them. He had dabbled enough in psychology to know that natural emotions, if not indulged, may only be driven down under the surface, there to work havoc among the roots of nerve life. Lawrence however had no nerves and no fear of Nemesis, and no inclination to sacrifice himself for Bernard, and he determined, if Wanhope continued to inspire these oppressive sensations to send himself a telegram calling him away.

He changed the subject. "It's a long while since I've heard stockdoves cooing. And, yes, that's a nightingale. Oh, you jolly little beggar!" His face fell into boyish creases when he smiled. "Do you remember the nightingales at Farringay? Laura-- may I say it?--while rusticating in Arden you haven't forgotten certain talents you used to possess. The dress is delightful, but where the masterhand appears is in the way it's worn. That carries me back to Auteull."

"Nonsense!" said Laura, changing her attitude, but not visibly displeased.

"Oh I shan't say don't move" Lawrence murmured. "The slippers also. . . . Are there many trout in this river, I wonder? Hallo!

there's a big fellow rubbing along by that black stone! Must weigh a cool pound and a half. I suppose the angling rights go with the property?"

"You can fish all day long if you like: the water is ours, both sides of it, as far south as the mill above Wharton and a good half-mile upstream. The banks are kept clear on principle, though none of us ever touch a line. The Castle people come over now and then: Jack Bendish is keen, and he says our sport is better than theirs because they fish theirs down too much.

Val put some stock in this spring."

"Val?"

"You seem to fit in so naturally," Laura smiled, "that I forget you've only just come. Val is Bernard's agent, and I ought not to have omitted him from our list of country neighbours, but he's like one of the family. Bernard wants you, to meet him because he was near you in the war. But I don't know that you'll have much in common: Val was very junior to you, and he's not keen on talking about it in any case. So many men have that shrinking.

Have you, I wonder?"

"I'm afraid I don't take impressions easily. Didn't your friend enjoy it?"

"He had no chance. He had only six or seven weeks at the front; he was barely nineteen, poor boy, when he was invalided out.

That was why Bernard offered him the agency--he was delighted to lend a helping hand to one of his old brother officers."

"Wounded?"

"Yes, he had his right arm smashed by a revolver bullet. Then rheumatic fever set in, and the trouble went to the heart, and he was very ill for a long time. I don't suppose he ever has been so strong as he was before. What made it so sad was the splendid way he had just distinguished himself," Laura continued. She gave a little sketch of the rescue of Dale, far more vivid than Val had ever given to his family. "Perhaps you can imagine what a fuss Chilmark made over its solitary hero! We're still proud of him. Val is always in request at local shows: he appears on the platform looking very shy and bored. Poor boy! I believe he sometimes wishes he had never won that embarrassing decoration."

"What's his name?"

"Val Stafford. Why--do you remember him?"

"Er--yes, I do," said Lawrence. He took out his cigar case and turned from Laura to light a cigar. "I knew a lot of the Dorchesters. . . Amiable-looking, fair boy, wasn't he?"

"Middle height, and rather sunburnt. But that description fits such dozens! However, I'm taking you up to tea there this afternoon, if the prospect doesn't bore you, so you'll be able to judge for yourself. He has a young sister who threatens to be very pretty. Are you still interested in pretty girls, M. le capitaine?"

"Immensely." Hyde lay back on one arm, smoking rather fast. "I see no immediate prospect of my being bored, thanks. Rather fun running into Stafford again after all these years! I shall love a chat over old times." He raised his black eyes, and Laura started. Was it her fancy, or a trick of the sunlight, that conjured up in them that sparkle of smiling cruelty, gone before she could fix it? "You say he doesn't care to talk about his military exploits? He always was a modest youth, I should love to see him on a recruiting platform. Wait till I get him to myself, he won't be shy with me. Did you tell him I was coming?"

"I told his sister Isabel, who probably told him. I haven't seen him since, he hasn't happened to come in; I suppose the hay harvest has kept him extra busy--Dear me! why, there he is!"

In the field across the stream a young man on horseback had come into view. Catching sight of Laura he slipped across a low boundary wall, his brown mare, a thoroughbred, changing her feet in a ladylike way on the worn stones, and trotted down to the riverbank, raising his cap.

"Coming in to lunch, Val?" Laura called across the water.

"Thank you very much, I'm afraid I shan't have time."

"But you haven't been in since Sunday!" Laura's accent was reproachful. "Why are you forsaking us? We need you more than the farm does!"

Val's pleasant laugh was the avoidance of an answer. "So sorry!

But I can't come in now, Laura: I have to go over to Countisford to talk to Bishop about the new tractor, and I want to get back by teatime. Isabel tells me you're bringing Captain Hyde up to see us." He raised his cap again, smiling directly at Lawrence, who returned the salute with such gay good humour that Laura was able to dismiss that first fleeting impression from her mind.

So this was Val Stafford, was it? And a very personable fellow too! Hyde had not foreseen that ten years would work as great a change in Val as in himself, or greater.

"I was going to call on you in due form, sir, but my young sister hasn't left me the chance. You haven't forgotten me, have you?"

"No, I remember you most distinctly. Delighted to meet you again."

"Thank you. The pleasure is mutual. Now I must push on or I shall be late."

"He can use his arm, then," said Lawrence, as Val rode away, jumping his mare over a fence into the road. "Shaves himself and all that, I suppose? He rides well."

"A great deal too well! and rides to hounds too, but he ought not to do it, and I'm always scolding him. He can't straighten his right arm, and has very little power in it. He was badly thrown last winter, but directly he got up he was out again on Kitty."

"Living up to his reputation." Lawrence flicked the ash from his cigar. "I should have known him anywhere by his eyes."

"He has kept very young, hasn't he? An uneventful life without much anxiety does keep people young," philosophized Laura. "I feel like a mother to him. But you'll see more of him this afternoon."

"So I shall," said Lawrence, "if he isn't detained at Countisford."

CHAPTER V

The reason why Lawrence found Isabel scrubbing Mrs. Drury's floor was that Dorrie's pretty, sluttish little mother had been whisked off to the Cottage Hospital with appendicitis an hour earlier. She was in great distress about Dorrie when Isabel, coming in with the parish magazine, offered to stay while Drury went to fetch an aunt from Winterbourne Stoke. When Drury drove up in a borrowed farm cart, Isabel without expecting or receiving many thanks dragged her bicycle to the top of the glen and pelted off across the moor. Her Sunbeam was worn and old, so old that it had a fixed wheel, but what was that to Isabel? She put her feet up and rattled down the hill, first on the turf and then on the road, in a happy reliance on her one serviceable brake.

Her father was locked in his study writing a sermon: Isabel however tumbled in by the window. She sidled up to Mr. Stafford, sat on his knee, and wound one arm round his neck. "Jim darling," she murmured in his ear, "have you any money?"

"Isabel," said Mr. Stafford, "how often have I told you that I will not be interrupted in the middle of my morning's work? You come in like a whirlwind, with holes in your stockings--"

Isabel giggled suddenly. "Never mind, darling, I'll help you with your sermon. Whereabouts are you? Oh!--'I need not tell you, my friends, the story we all know so well'--Jim, that's what my tutor calls 'Redundancy and repetition.' You know quite well you're going to tell us every word of it. Darling take its little pen and cross it out--so--with its own nasty little cross-nibbed J--"

"What do you mean by saying you want money," Mr. Stafford hurriedly changed the subject, "and how much do you want? The butcher's bill came to half a sovereign this week, and I must keep five shillings to take to old Hewitt--"

"I want pounds and pounds."

"My dear!" said Mr. Stafford aghast. He took off his spectacles to polish them, and then as he put them on again, "If it's for that Appleton boy I really can't allow it. There's nothing whatever wrong with him but laziness"

"It isn't for Appleton. It's for me myself." Isabel sat up straight, a little flushed. "I'm growing up. Isn't it a nuisance? I want a new dress! I did think I could carry on till the winter, but I can't. Could you let me have enough to buy one ready-made? Chapman's have one in their window that would fit me pretty well. It's rather dear, but somehow when I make my own they never come right. And Rowsley says I look like a scarecrow, and even Val's been telling me to put my hair up!"

Chapter end