Success
their carriages. He passed near his father once or twice and noticed
the round wet mark on his white waistcoat, where a tear had fallen.
Mr. Annarly was shaking hands with the departing guests; he did not
know above half of them even by sight, and it was easy to perceive
it now. He looked rather bewildered and melancholy; there were two
long lines running vertically down his full face, giving it an almost
comically depressed expression. He shook hands warmly with the people
he did know, and pressed the one or two of his old friends who were
there to stay a little and come and have a whisky and soda with him.
He glanced in the direction of the little room at the back as he said
it, as if he thought, rather wistfully as well as hospitably, of its
furniture-crowded seclusion.
But no one accepted his invitation, the old friends were carried away
by their wives or daughters—the last of them went.
Constance began taking off her long gloves; Mrs. Annarly thought of the
caterers’ men and orders to be given; Mr. Annarly stood looking down
the confetti-strewn path, the vertical lines deeper on his face, his
white waistcoat creased by the droop of his figure.
Michael touched his arm. “Can’t we get a whisky and soda, sir?” he
said. “I haven’t had time to get anything to eat since breakfast, and I
expect you haven’t had much either.”
CHAPTER X
The Carsons rebuilt the east wing of Redstoke that winter. It had
been destroyed by fire in the last owner’s time, and only patched
up, the house being really large enough without it. But to rebuild
it to the original design had always been a fancy of Lady Sibyl’s;
and that year she was able to indulge it, owing to the fact that she
rather unexpectedly inherited money. The actual building went on
while she was wintering in Egypt; but it was done by the time she was
back in the early spring, and ready for her to devote herself to the
considerations of decorations and the choice of furniture. To choose
these satisfactorily was not very easy: the old plans had been followed
accurately, with the result that some of the rooms, by their shape,
style, and lighting, demanded furniture and fittings of a date and sort
not easy to get.
But Lady Sibyl, who had the advantage not possessed by many of knowing
what she wanted, and also being able to pay for it, fortunately found
the right person to help her. In the autumn someone, on behalf of a
Robert Barmister, had written offering to sell her an iron chest of
Dutch workmanship. And when the purchase had been arranged, and the
chest, a rather finer specimen than the one at Redstoke, had been
approved, the same person (by order of Robert Barmister) had offered,
if at any time she wanted a special piece of furniture or similar
article matched, found, or procured, to undertake the work. She
recalled this when she began to go into the decorating and furnishing
of the east wing. Being in town, she wrote and requested Robert
Barmister to call upon her, at the same time giving him an indication
of the nature of her requirements. He replied that he would wait upon
her when and where she wished, but suggested she might possibly find it
more satisfactory to come to him, as there was a likelihood he could at
once show her some of the things she wanted.
She came and spent an interesting hour seeing rare and beautiful things
in an environment which appealed to her sense of fitness, exhibited
under Barmister’s orders by one (Josiah Foregood) not unsuited to the
work and surroundings—so well suited, that she felt it would have
sorted even better with the long, old rooms and his gentle, dignified
courtesy had he been dressed in snuff-coloured coat and knee-breeches.
She appreciated him much, and talked to him a good deal, though the
business of the interview was carried on by his master: each in a
different way pleased her. She would like to have had several things
she saw that day, the dolphin mantelpiece and the dim, painted ceiling
of the office among them. Neither of these two was obtainable; the
one because it was not for sale, the other because it would not move.
But other things that she admired were; and she selected several, and
gave orders for others to be obtained, and for drawings of yet others,
discussed and described, to be made and submitted to her. She was a
customer after Robert Barmister’s heart: a person of means and taste,
able to really appreciate the best of what was good, and ready to pay
for it without cavilling about the price. One to please Josiah too. He
felt things would have a good home with her, and be suitably placed as
background to a grace and elegance which was worthy of them.
Among the articles discussed was a certain oak panelling. The one
room in the old wing at Redstoke which had not been entirely burnt
was panelled in oak. The woodwork had been much damaged by fire: some
entirely destroyed, and the remainder a good deal injured; but what
remained was of such fine workmanship, and so uncommon a design that
Lady Sibyl was anxious to have it repaired and fitted to the new room,
if it were possible to replace the missing panels with anything which
at all matched. Barmister assured her this should be quite possible,
and undertook to go into the matter. Accordingly, the old panelling,
which had been carefully removed at the time of the building, was sent
to him for repair, with exact measurements of the new room, so that he
might know what more would be required; and after examination, he had
the work put in hand.
Michael had a certain amount of drawing to do in connection with the
work. Nan also was called into council. Her father wanted her opinion
as to how far it was desirable to supplement the Redstoke panelling
with other somewhat dissimilar, though of the same date, and how
closely the new, when any was necessary, should copy the old. They both
spent some time planning and piecing out this chief ornament for Lady
Sibyl’s new boudoir. They did not speak of her; they never did, they
had hardly really mentioned her name, even when she came to Soho—when
neither saw her. They did not speak of her now; only of the work. If
one of them mentally saw her in the panelled room when it should be
done, with the low light of a wood fire flickering over her and the
background, he said nothing about it. He would never see it really.
It would be for another that the fire would bring the beauty of her
colouring from the shadows; for another that her voice would thrill
with the remembered note of sympathy as she talked intimately in the
twilight. In the face of such things there is nothing to be said.
And Nan, whatever she thought, said nothing. Merciful people who say
nothing.
But when the supplementary panelling was complete, and the whole ready
to put in place, she was obliged to say something. This was in April,
about the time of Rosalind Annarly’s wedding.
It had been arranged that Josiah should go to Redstoke to see the
woodwork put up; not to do anything himself—he was no practical
carpenter or cabinet-maker—but to superintend those who did, and see
that they did not damage or remove any of the precious carving. But the
day before he should have gone he was taken ill with influenza. Really
ill, with a bad attack; no mild one would have kept him from work. Nan
knew that when she left home to go to the wedding.
She was obliged to leave Soho before one o’clock so as to reach
Hurstbury in time. Michael had left even earlier, and would return
later. She determined to go to Bayswater as soon as she got back and
hear how Josiah was, and what were the chances of his being able to
travel to Redstoke to-morrow. Owing to Mr. Cordover’s bringing her to
town in his car she was able to do this both more quickly and more
comfortably than she expected, and to return home in fair time.
Michael was already back when she came in. The Annarlys had not
insisted on his staying to dine; the Whartons and one or two others
were coming, and the party was complete without him. No doubt they
would have been pleased if he had stayed, but they had not expected or
said anything about it. So he had come back, and was at work on the
patent drawings when Nan came in with news of Josiah.
“I’m afraid he’s rather bad,” she said, unpinning her hat.
Michael said he was sorry, and inquired details.
She gave what she had learned in a brief interview with Miss Janet;
then went to the window, ruffling her hair, pressed down by the weighty
millinery.
“He won’t be able to go to-morrow,” she said, expressing what they were
both thinking.
“No,” Michael said, without glancing up from his drawing, “I suppose
not.”
She stood looking out a minute, back to him. Someone must go to see
the panelling put up to-morrow; in the absence of Josiah, it should
naturally devolve on Michael. Barmister knew of no reason against it,
and would not easily admit one: none had ever been specifically spoken
of between them either.
“I can do it, if you like,” she offered, rather as if the subject had
been discussed aloud, instead of thought of in silence. “As Josiah
can’t, if you were not here, I probably should; and as it is, I can
induce father to send me in preference to you. I can go, if you
like—but,” she turned half round, “I think almost it would be better
not.”
Michael’s pencil ceased a moment. “No,” he agreed, “of course not,” and
the pencil went on as before.
She watched him a moment. She knew he was not really drawing, only
imperceptibly touching lines already made; and she knew also that,
though he had agreed with her as if it were some unimportant thing, it
was really otherwise. Yet she did not withdraw her words; she had a
feeling it were better he should go. Not because she could not do what
was wanted, and would not have infinitely preferred doing it to sending
him, nor yet because her father could not be induced by her to quite
approve of her doing so; she could not have given her reason, only she
felt in herself that it were better—better for him to go.
“Will you?” she said.
“Of course,” he answered; “there’s nothing else to be done.”
The next day he went to Redstoke.
It was seven months since the evening when he dined there; seven months
since he had come into personal touch with any of the people, or the
interests of that life. Above all things, he hoped not to come into
personal touch with them now. Not that he was ashamed of his present
work and situation; he would as soon have met Carson while among
Barmister’s workmen as any other way; but infinitely sooner not have
met him at all. He did not want to meet anyone belonging to that time,
neither friend nor foe. He had done with that life: he could never
go back to it; even if such an impossibility happened as that he was
reinstated at Galhardy’s, with all cleared up, and everything on the
best of footings; still he could not truly go back. Something had gone
from him in the past months—or come to him—it could never be the same
again; he realised it when he went to Redstoke.
Lady Sibyl was in London. There was only a housekeeper to be consulted
with, should consultation be necessary, which was unlikely. She was
a person Michael had never seen in the old days. The butler, who had
been there when he used to come to and fro, had gone; his place was
filled by another. The gardeners at work among the flower-beds no doubt
were the same, but they probably did not know him by sight then, and
certainly did not recognise him now. No one recognised him; no one
inquired his name. He was merely the furniture people’s man come to see
to the putting up of the panelling; a person who came with the workmen,
and disappeared again when they did.
Things went smoothly on the first day; there was no interruption of any