The Vision of Desire
transformed the harsh lines of his face and which seemed to have so little
in common with his habitual brusqueness.
"I've been behaving like a boor, haven't I?" he admitted. "Forgive me. And
can't we be friends? After all, I've some sort of claim. I pulled you out
of Lac Léman--or rather, prevented your tumbling into it, you know."
He spoke with a curious persuasive charm. There was something almost
boyishly disarming about his manner. It was as though for a moment a
prickly, ungracious husk had dropped away, revealing the real man within.
He held out his hand, and as Ann laid hers within it she felt her spirits
rising unaccountably.
"I hope you'll like it here," he pursued. He glanced round with a
discontented expression. "Does the cottage furniture satisfy you? Is it
what you like?"
"It's perfectly charming," she replied whole-heartedly. "I love
old-fashioned things."
"Well, if there's anything you'd like altered or want sending down, you
must let me know. There are stacks of stuff up at Heronsmere."
"You've already sent down the one thing to complete my happiness," she
answered, smiling. "That jolly little pony."
"Oh, Dick Turpin. Do you like him?"
"Is that his name? Yes, I like him immensely. Thank you so much for sending
him." She paused, then added rather shyly: "I always seem to be thanking
you for something, don't I? First for rescuing my bag at the Kursaal, then
for rescuing me, and now for Dick Turpin!"
"You can't do without a cob"--briefly. "Do you ride?"
She nodded.
"Yes. I thought of riding him sometimes. Does he ride all right?"
"Oh, he's quiet enough. But if you want to hunt next winter, you must let
me mount you." His glance rested on her slim, boyish contours. "I've a
little thoroughbred mare up at Heronsmere--Redwing, she's called--who would
carry you perfectly."
"Oh, I couldn't--you mustn't--" she began with some embarrassment.
"Nonsense!" He interrupted her brusquely. "What are you going to do down
here if you don't ride and drive? Lovell will have his work. But you
won't."
"I'm proposing to keep chickens," announced Ann. "I'm not in the least an
idle person. You lose the habit if you've earned your own living for
several years," she added, with a touch of amusement.
"Have you done that?"
She assented.
"Of course I have. You can't live on air, you know, and as my father didn't
leave us much else, Robin and I both had to work."
He regarded her with brooding eyes. She was so gay and cheery about it all
that, against his will, his thoughts were driven back amongst old memories,
recalling another woman he had known who had chosen to escape from poverty
by a different road from the clean, straight one of hard work. She had
funked the sharp corners of life, that other, in a way in which this girl
with the clear, brown-gold eyes that met the World so squarely would never
funk them.
Before he could formulate any answer there came the sound of the house-door
opening and closing. He rose hastily from his chair.
"Ah! That must be your brother!" he exclaimed, a note of what sounded
almost like relief in his voice. He seemed glad of the distraction, and
shook hands cordially with Robin when he came in.
"I'm sorry I was out," began the latter. But Coventry cut short his
apologies.
"Don't apologise," he said. "It has given Miss Lovell and myself the
opportunity of renewing our acquaintance."
Robin looked from one to the other in surprise.
"Have you met before, then?" he asked.
Ann explained.
"At Montricheux," she replied. "Mr. Coventry saved me from a watery grave
on the night of the Venetian Fête there."
"From nothing more dangerous than a wetting, actually," interpolated
Coventry in his abrupt way.
"Well, even that's something to be thankful for," returned Robin, smiling.
"Will you smoke?"
He offered his cigarette-case, and the two men lit up.
"I've just been over to see Farmer Sparkes," he continued. "He's put in a
list as long as your arm of repairs he wants doing."
Coventry laughed good-humouredly.
"I suppose they'll all be sticking me for alterations and repairs now I've
come back," he said. "What's the use of a landlord unless you can squeeze
something out of him?"
"I'm afraid there is a bit of that attitude about most tenants," admitted
Robin. "I expect the new owner of the Priory will get let in for the same
thing. One or two of the Priory cottages want doing up, it's true."
"Have you seen her yet, Robin?" inquired Ann quickly, with feminine
curiosity.
"Mrs. Hilyard, do you mean? No, I didn't come across her this morning."
"_Who_ did you say?" asked Coventry.
Something in the quality of his voice brought Ann's eyes swiftly to his
face. All the geniality had gone out of it. It was set and stern, and there
was an odd watchfulness in the glance he levelled at Robin as he spoke.
"Mrs. Hilyard--the new owner of the Priory," explained Robin. "She arrived
yesterday."
"Hilyard?" repeated Coventry. "Some one told me the name was Hilton. You
don't know what Hilyard she is, I suppose?"
"No, I don't know anything about her. But Hilyard's a fairly common name."
"Yes, I suppose it's fairly common," agreed Coventry slowly.
As though to dismiss the topic, he returned to the matter of the repairs
required on Sparkes' farm, and for a few minutes the two men were engrossed
in details connected with the management of the estate. But Ann noticed
that Coventry seemed curiously abstracted. He allowed his cigarette to
smoulder between his fingers till it went out beneath their pressure, and
presently, bringing the discussion with Robin to a sudden close, he got up
to go. He tendered his farewell somewhat abruptly, mounted his horse, which
had been standing tethered to the gateway by its bridle, and rode away at a
hand-gallop.
Ann made no comment at the time, as Robin seemed rather preoccupied with
estate matters, but over dinner in the evening she broached the subject
upon which she had been exercising her mind at intervals throughout the
day.
"Robin, did you notice Mr. Coventry's expression when you mentioned Mrs.
Hilyard?"
Robin looked up doubtfully from one of Maria's beautifully grilled cutlets.
"His expression? No, I don't think I was looking at him particularly. He
thought she was called Hilton, or something, didn't he?"
Ann went off into a small gale of laughter.
"Does a man ever notice anything unless it's right under his nose?" she
demanded dramatically of the universe at large. "My dear," she went on,
"his face altered the instant you mentioned Mrs. Hilyard's name."
"Well, but why should it?" demanded Robin, still at sea.
"I think," she pronounced oracularly, "that _a_ Mrs. Hilyard must have
played a rather important part in Mr. Coventry's life at one time or
another."
"Well, it's no business of ours if she did," responded Robin
unsympathetically.
"No. But it would be queer if the Mrs. Hilyard who's bought the Priory
happened to be the other Mrs. Hilyard--the one Mr. Coventry knew before."
"We've no grounds for assuming that he ever knew a Mrs. Hilyard at all, and
if he did--as I said before, it's no business of ours."
There never was a real woman yet who failed to be intrigued by the
suggestion of a romance lying dormant in the past life of a man of her
acquaintance, and Ann was far too essentially feminine to pretend that her
interest was not piqued.
"No, of course it's no business of ours," she agreed. "But still, one may
take an intelligent interest in one's fellow beings, I suppose."
"It depends upon circumstances," replied Robin. "I'm here as Coventry's
agent, and my employer's private affairs are no concern of mine."
There was just a suspicion of the "elder brother" in his manner--only a
suspicion, but it was quite sufficient to arouse all the latent contrariety
of woman which Ann possessed.
"Well, Mrs. Hilyard isn't your employer," she retorted. "So I've a perfect
right to feel interested in her."
"But not in her relation to Mr. Coventry," maintained Robin seriously.
The corners of Ann's mouth curled up in a mutinous smile, and her eyes
danced.
"My dear Robin, you can't insulate a woman as you can an electric wire--at
least, not if she has any pretensions to good looks."
"No, I suppose you can't," he admitted, smiling back unwillingly. "More's
the pity, sometimes!"
There, for the moment, the subject dropped, but the imp of mischief still
flickered defiantly in the golden-brown eyes, and when, after dinner was
over, Maria brought in the coffee, Ann threw out a tentative remark which
instantly achieved its nefarious purpose of loosening the springs of
Maria's garrulity.
"They be telling up a tale in the village about the new lady as has taken
the Priory," began Maria conversationally.
Ann sugared her coffee with an air of detachment, and watched Robin
fidgeting out of the tail of her eye.
"You shouldn't listen to gossip, Maria," she reprimanded primly.
"Well, miss, 'tis true folks say you shouldn't believe all you hear, and
'tis early days to speak, seeing she's scarcely into her house yet, as you
may say."
"You give me an uncomfortable feeling that she spent the night on the
doorstep," observed Ann.
"Oh, no, miss," replied Maria, matter-of-factly. "She slept in her bed all
right last night. But maybe, for all that, it's true what folks are
saying," she added darkly. "I'd run out of sugar, so I just stepped round
to the grocer this evening after tea, and he told me 'twas all the tale in
the village that this Mrs. Hilyard isn't a widow at all, and some of them
think she's no better than she should be."
An ejaculation of annoyance broke from Robin.
"The tittle-tattle in these twopenny-halfpenny villages is almost past
believing!" he exclaimed angrily. "Here's an absolute new-comer arrives in
the district, and they've begun taking away the poor woman's character
already."
"Well, sir, of course I'm only speaking what I hear," replied Maria, who,
with all her good points--and they were many--had the true West Country
relish for any titbit of gossip, whether with or without foundation. "Let's
hope 'tisn't true. But they say her clothes do be good enough for the
highest lady in the land. Mrs. Thorowgood--her that's been helping up to
the Priory all day--called in on her way home just to pass the time of day
with me. It seems Mrs. Hilyard has arranged she shall wash for her, and she
was taking a few of her things home with her for to wash to-morrow. And she
told me her own self, did Mrs. Thorowgood, that the lace on them be so fine
as spider's web."
Ann endeavoured to conceal her mirth and reply with becoming gravity.
"Maria, dear, if a disreputable character is considered inseparable from
pretty undies in Silverquay, I'm afraid I shall get as bad a reputation as
Mrs. Hilyard," she suggested meekly.
"You, miss?" Maria's loyalty rose in wrathful protest. "And who _should_
have good things if 'tisn't you, I'd like to know? 'Twouldn't be fitting
for any Miss Lovell of Lovell Court to have things that wasn't of the very
best. And as to telling up little old tales--there'll be no tales told
about you, nor Mr. Robin neither, so long as I'm in Silverquay. I'll see to
that!"
Thoroughly devoted, illogical, and belligerent, Maria picked up the coffee
tray and stalked out of the room, leaving Ann and Robin convulsed with
laughter.
CHAPTER XI
THE LADY FROM THE PRIORY
Bang! The noise of the explosion reverberated through the clear summer air,
and Ann, returning home from the village by way of a short cut through the
woods, smiled to herself as she heard it. She knew that sound--the staccato
percussion of a burst tyre--only too well.
The main road ran parallel with the woods, and, impelled by a friendly