The Man Who Did the Right Thing: A Romance

Silchester was turning out so distressingly Christian and so little Pompeian and Pagan)--he agreed at any rate to look into the matter. The letter was sent to Lucy, and she came, now quite restored to health. She found in Maud the selfless friend and good adviser she had long needed. All she begged and prayed of Roger was that he might leave her at Farleigh for a time and not frighten her and upset her nerves by requiring of her the going out into smart Society, where she was ever on the twitter for fear of being questioned as to her birth and bringing-up and the circumstances of her life in Africa. Roger rather ruefully consented. Maud would gradually cure her of her nerves and her rusticity. Meantime he would now tackle Sibyl. Sibyl had taken no notice of his card and call; but about three weeks afterwards had written to Maud, picturing herself as having now emerged from a swoon of grief and being ready to see Roger for a _few_ minutes if he would _promise_ to move gently and speak in a level voice, as _the least thing_ upset her. Pressed to be more definite, she consented to see him--and him only--at Engledene on a certain Wednesday afternoon at three o'clock. He found her in a little boudoir, which was draped with pleated lavender-mauve cashmere and shaded to a dim light. She was dressed in black, not having as yet the hardihood to discard widows' weeds, still less some diaphanous, filmy _coiffe_, some ghost of a widow's cap. Queen Victoria was still a great power in Society and kept Peeresses in order. If you were too daring you might be banned at Court and then where would your social and political influence be? "Wheel up, or better still _lift_ up--I can't bear the _slightest_ jar, just now--that small armchair, Roger--the purple velvet one--and put it near enough for me to hear and speak without effort; but not _too_ near, because I notice you have a very powerful aura. I've only just learnt about auras, and I realize now _what_ a difference they make!..." "All right," said Roger, obeying these instructions, "but what's an aura? Is it the smell of my Harris tweeds, or do you doubt my having had a bath this morning?" "Don't be so perfectly horrid ... and coarse.... You never _used_ to be coarse, whatever you were--I suppose it comes from marrying a farmer's daughter; but for the matter of that, what am _I_? My poor dear dad is trying hard to be a farmer after spending his best years in the Army. I didn't mean anything much about your 'aura,' except, I suppose, that as I'm only recently widowed all my relations with men-visitors should be a little frigid. But I'm simply talking nonsense to gain time, to remember what I wanted to say to you." (A pause.) ... "Roger! Your _dreadful_ letter from that Gouging place, coming just on top of poor Francis's death, _knocked me over_. The doctors put it all down to Francis, of course ... I don't deny that his death _did_ upset me.... But I'd been expecting _that_ any time within the last six months.... The doctors told me _definitely_ last winter his heart was very unsound and that he must not over-exert himself in any way or be contraried or argued with.... _That_ was why I gave up the orange-velvet curtains and general redecoration of the dining-room at 6A, Carlton House Terrace--which is dingy beyond belief. I shall do it now.... It's too early for tea ... won't you smoke?" (Roger: "Thank you.") "Well, there's everything on that little table.... No. Not those ones; they've got the wee-est flavour of opium.... Obliged to do _something_ for my nerves.... Well, now, about your Gouging letter.... I mean about your marriage.... My _dear_ Roger! _What_ a _gaffe_! I mean, how _could_ you?" "Could I what?" "_Ruin_ your hopes and mine?" "Well, I did hope to marry Lucy ... for at least six months before the knot was tied.... Ever since her husband's death. So _my_ hopes were fulfilled. And as to you, I never prevented you from marrying Lord S. So where the ruin comes in, I can't see." "Oh," wailed Sibyl, "_why_ beat about the bush? You must have known that I always hoped if anything happened to poor Francis--and anything _might_ well have done so--after all, you or I might be in a railway accident or break our necks out hunting. In such case you _must_ have known I _counted_ on you ... I mean, on our being happy _at last_.... Don't interrupt! ... And just think! Francis loved me awfully. I really _was perfectly sweet_ to him and did my duty to him _in every way_. His gratitude for that boy ... for a direct heir! ... Well, after Clithy was born he made his will! ... Don't be silly ... and don't joke about things I regard almost as sacred.... I mean _Francis_ re-made his will; and left me sole guardian of the boy and sole trustee, sole _everything_; and mistress for my life of Engledene, and of 6A, till Clithy came of age ... and a jointure of L10,000 a year to keep them up. Clithy has also the Silchester house which is let and which I intend to _keep_ let till he comes of age, the moors in Scotland _and_ the shooting lodge. Of course he has the reversionary rights of _everything_ after my death. And equally of course he has fifteen thousand a year, which I control till he is twenty-one or until he marries.... "Just _think_ what I could have done for you, out of all this--if you'd _waited_! If _only_ you'd waited!..." (buries her face in the mauve silk cushions and cries a little or pretends to). (Roger fidgets on his chair. An exquisite little purple Sevres clock on the white mantelpiece ticks ... ticks ... ticks.) _Roger_: "Look here, Sibyl. You're altogether on the wrong tack, believe me. You might have married me in '86. I was quite ready then and fancied myself in love with you. But if you had we mightn't have got on. My seven hundred a year would have been nowhere to give you surroundings like this...." (And he looks round the boudoir "done" in white, lavender, mauve and purple, with its exquisite bits of furniture, its velvet-covered armchair and Charles II day-bed, and pillow covers of mauve silk; and looked also at the sinuous figure of the woman coiled on the day-bed in her filmy black dress, with her face half buried in the silk cushions, and one disconsolate arm lying listlessly along her side, and at the magnificent rings of emeralds and diamonds on the pink fingers.) "You were _quite_ right: you could _never_ have stood the strain of Africa. I'll tell you by and bye some of the things Lucy and I went through." (At this hint of comradeship with Lucy, the little black velvet shoes gave angry thumps on the frame of the day-bed.) "I know," continues Roger, "you used to throw out mysterious hints after you were married that I might wait till some far-off date when you were free; I mean after Lord Silchester was dead. But what decent man would have taken you at your word? Why, Silchester might well be alive now. He did not die of old age...." _Sibyl_ (in a muffled voice): "N-no; he ... he ... didn't. He--overrated his strength. He--he--oh, _how_ can I tell you? He was so anxious to play a great part in public affairs ... but he had lost all his energy...." (Sitting up with flushed cheeks--damnably good-looking, Roger feels.) "_Well_! What can I do for you? You've failed _me_. But I suppose you've come here to ask me to help you in some way. Men don't generally waste their time on afternoon calls without a motive. What is it? I've got no influence anywhere since Francis died" (a sob). "So it's no good asking _me_ to write to Lord Wiltshire or to Spavins. I hear you are out of favour at the F.O. It's not _my_ fault, is it? It's all due to your gallivanting after missionaries' wives...." (Roger looks sullen.) ... "Heigh ho! I expect with all this crying and tousling among cushions, to hide I _was_ crying from your cynical eyes, I'd better go into my room and bathe my face before the butler brings in the tea.... _There!_ you can pull up two of the blinds--when I am gone--my eyes are so red--and you can look at some of my new books till I come in to make the tea. You mustn't _dream_ of going before we've had tea and finished our talk." "I suppose," said Sibyl a quarter of an hour later when they were discussing tea and tea-cake and pate-de-foie sandwiches and assorted cakelets, "what you really came to ask was would I present this Lucy-pucy of yours at Court. But, my _dear_, I shall be in mourning for a year, and the Queen----" "_Lord_ no! Such a thing never entered my head. It would scare Lucy into fits. I hope before next season comes round I shall be back in Africa--or somewhere. So far as I connected Lucy with this visit I might have intended to ask you to let me bring her here one day, and for you to be kind to her ... not frighten her, as you very well could do, pretending all the time to be her best friend...." _Sibyl_: "Well: I'll tell you what you shall do. You must remember I'm in mourning, of course.... We always have to think of what the servants will say.... And--ah! Did I tell you? Aunt Christabel is here. I sent her out the longest drive I could think of, so that we might have our afternoon alone; still, she's staying here till I emerge from the deepest of my mourning.... By the bye she's _horrified_ at your marriage, just as she used to be horrified at the idea of your marrying _me_.... Well, bring your Lucy over one day at the end of July and I'll just have a look at her. And then, in the autumn--say October--you and she, and of course if you like to have them, Maurice and Geoffrey too, could come here for the shooting. _Of course_ I shan't have a regular party; but somebody must come and shoot the pheasants. The Queen couldn't object to that. I've asked a man--I did before Francis's death--to come. You might like to meet him: a Sir Willowby Patterne.... Dare say you've heard of him?" _Roger_: "I've heard no _good_ of him...." "Oh, what tittle-tattlers and scandal-mongers you men are! I think he's so amusing, and every one says he's a splendid shot.... However, we will make up just a _tiny_ party and you and Lucy shall entertain for me. I shall purposely be very little seen and shall give out my cousins have come over to help me with my guests.... And, _Roger_! If I am to help you you must help _me_. The doctor says I positively _must_ take up my riding again unless I am to drift into being an invalid. Couldn't you--sometimes--whilst you're down in this part of the world--come over and ride with me? I can 'mount' you. You could ride poor Francis's cob ... not showy but very steady." "I will, when I come back from town," said Roger, and took his departure, not at all dissatisfied with his afternoon. Two days afterwards he thought it might be prudent to see how things were going at the Foreign Office. So he went up to town, changed into town togs at Hankey's (where their flat was becoming a white elephant, owing to Lucy's dislike to London, so he arranged to give it up), and betook himself to Downing Street, and asked to see Mr. Bennet Molyneux. "Mr. Bennet Molyneux," he was presently told, "is very sorry, sir, but he is much engaged this morning; would you go into the Department and see one of the young gentlemen there?" The Department was a large, long room with a cubby-hole at its further end for the accommodation of the senior clerk, a sort of school prefect who had to keep order among the high-spirited juniors and therefore required to work a little apart from them. When Brentham entered the main room, announced by the office messenger, he recognized two friends of yore and several new, ingenuous faces. There also emerged from the cubby hole a man whom he had known as a junior three years previously: