The Dust of Conflict

Miss Wayne, she decided, was at least very like the woman Appleby had pictured to her; but she was difficult to understand, for Violet seldom displayed her feelings, and her cold serenity baffled the observer. Tony Palliser, of whom she had contrived to see a good deal, was an easier and less interesting study. Nettie was naively witty, and could assume American mannerisms with excellent effect when she chose while Tony was fond of being amused, and Violet Wayne apparently devoid of any small jealousy. Thus he spent a good deal of time hanging about Miss Harding, and would have been painfully astonished had he discovered what she thought of him. Languid good nature and the faculty of idling time away very gracefully did not appeal to her, for even pleasure is pursued with grim strenuousness in her country. He was, she fancied, just such a man as the one Appleby had sacrificed himself for; but she surmised that there were a good many men of that kind in England, and Appleby had told his story in a fashion that made the identification of the scene and the persons concerned in it difficult. Nettie felt also that should conviction be forced upon her she would still have to decide what her course would be.

She felt for Appleby a quiet esteem and a kindliness which just stopped short of tenderness. She was an American, and could hold her own with most men in the art of flirtation, but she was also capable of a camaraderie that was characterized by frank sincerity and untainted by any affectation of love-making for one of the opposite sex. That being so, she felt it was incumbent upon her to discharge the obligation she owed him if opportunity afforded, though she knew that the indiscreet meddler not infrequently involves in disaster those she would benefit. By and by there was a step behind her, and she saw Hester Earle regarding her with a twinkle in her eyes.

“If there had been anybody else to see you – Tony Palliser, for example – one could almost have fancied you had assumed that becomingly pensive pose,” she said. “You would make a picture of ingenuous contemplation.”

Nettie laughed. “Well,” she said, “I feel very like a torpedo. Anyway, I didn’t put it on, though I’m open to admit that there’s quite a trace of the peacock about me.”

“That is evidently American hyperbole,” said Hester. “Talk English, Nettie. I don’t understand.”

She seated herself on the mossy wall close by, and noticed that her companion was meditatively watching two figures approaching by a path through a wheatfield. They were just recognizable as Tony and Violet Wayne, and were evidently unaware of being observed, for the man stooped, and, plucking what appeared to be a poppy from among the corn, offered it to his companion. The pair stopped a moment, and the man seemed to be desirous of fastening it in the girl’s dress.

“The peacock,” said Nettie in the drawl she assumed only when it suited her, “is easy. They’re vain, you know, and I wouldn’t figure it was worth while to spread out my best tail before men like Tony Palliser. I’m quite fond of being looked at, too.”

“One would fancy you could scarcely find fault with him on that account,” said Hester dryly. “But the torpedo?”

“That’s a little harder. I suppose you never felt as if you were full of explosives, and could go off when you wanted and scatter destruction around. A torpedo doesn’t appear a very terrible thing, you know. It’s nice and round and shiny. I’ve seen one. Julian showed it me.”

“Nobody goes off in England – at least not among the people we care to mix with,” said Hester. “We send those who seem inclined to behave in that fashion out to the colonies or America. People appear to rather like explosions there.”

“Still, you must get a little shake up now and then. Did nothing startling and unexpected ever happen at Northrop?”

Hester Earle was English, and proud of the decorous tranquillity of the life she led. “No,” she said. “That is, nothing really worth mentioning. Where did you get charged with explosives, Nettie?”

Nettie felt that one of the stoutest threads she had laid her fingers upon had snapped in a most unexpected manner, but she had observed the British character, and was not quite convinced. It was, she reflected, after all a question of what Hester Earle considered worthy of mention.

“In Cuba,” she said. “Now, I was worrying about something, and because you are one of those quiet persons who think a good deal I’d like your opinion. Suppose you or somebody else had a friend who was in trouble through other people’s fault, and would not say a word to clear himself, and you found how you could make things straight for him? The answer to that seems easy, but it gets complicated by the fact that to do it you would have to stir up no end of mud and startle quite a few nice easy-going people.”

“Speaking generally, I should leave the mud alone, and feel that the friend knew best. After all, he may have been to blame.”

“No,” said Nettie. “The man I was thinking of never did a mean thing in his life.”

“Then you can ask Violet Wayne. She is even quieter than I am, and I believe she thinks a good deal.”

Tony and his companion joined them then, and Violet took her place beside Nettie, while the man sat down on the smooth strip of turf that sloped to the sunken tennis lawn.

“You seem to have been discussing something serious,” he said.

“Yes,” said Hester. “Nettie has been comparing herself with a torpedo, and wished to know whether it would be desirable for her to go off or not. I recommended her to submit the case to Violet. Hadn’t you better begin, Nettie? You rather like an audience.”

Nettie was seldom abashed, and the position appealed to her. She had only vague surmises to go upon, and one of the clues had snapped, but the rest might hold, while such an opportunity of discovering the sentiments of the woman who might prove to be most involved could scarcely occur again. It was accordingly with a little thrill of excitement she put the question a trifle more concisely than she had done to Hester, and though she smiled at the others, watched Tony closely. He was certainly astonished, though the case was so outlined that it could scarcely be identified with his own; but his indolent carelessness stood him in good stead, and he sat still, listening with no great show of interest until Nettie concluded.

“Of course, what I have told you concerns somebody in Cuba and not England,” she said. “Now, the point is, would it be better to leave the people alone who seem quite content with everything as it is? One of them would be hurt considerably if the truth came out!”

There was a little silence, and once more Violet Wayne was sensible of the vague apprehension which had troubled her more frequently of late, but she met Nettie’s inquiring glance with steady eyes.

“Still, I think it would be better for that person to know the truth,” she said.

“I am not quite sure,” said Hester reflectively. “We will surmise that he or she is happy in the deception, and it would last all her life. In that case would it be a kindness to undeceive her?”

“I think so. If, as you seem to assume, the person were a woman she would probably discover the truth herself. Deceptions seldom continue, and if the awakening must come it would come better sooner than later.”

Nettie was watching Tony, who lay now endeavoring to pluck a daisy out of the turf. The task seemed to occupy all his attention. “You haven’t decided yet?” she said.

Tony assumed an attitude of languid reflection, though it was evident to Nettie that his fingers, stained a little with the soil, were not quite steady. He may have realized this, for he rubbed them in the grass with slow deliberation.

“Well,” he said, “it seems to me that if one is dreaming something very nice it would be better to let him sleep as long as possible, and a blunder to waken him to unpleasant realities. There’s another point, too. You seem to have overlooked the person who did the wrong.”

“I don’t think I mentioned that there was one!”

“Still, you led us to believe that wrong had been done. That, of course, implies that somebody must have perpetrated it, and I expect you will think me warranted in assuming it was a man. Well, you see, he mayn’t have meant to do any harm at all, and be sincerely sorry. Wouldn’t he deserve a little consideration? People are forced into doing a thing they don’t want to now and then.”

Nettie watched him thoughtfully. Tony’s face was indifferent, but she fancied that he, at least, desired to convince himself.

“Tony’s question is unnecessary,” said Violet Wayne. “If the man were sincerely sorry there would be an end of the difficulty. He would put it straight by making reparation.”

“He might find it difficult,” said Hester.

Tony seemed to wince, and once more turned his attention to the daisy, but when the rest sat silent he glanced at Violet.

“I rather think we are getting away from the point, but since you seem to expect it I’ll take up that man’s brief,” he said. “Well, we will assume that he is a well-intentioned person who has only slipped up once, and is trying to make up for what he has done. Now, if he were left alone, such a man might go straight all the rest of his life.”

“That’s specious, but distinctly unorthodox,” said Hester. “Who had those beautifully illuminated tables of the law put up in Northrop church, Tony?”

Nettie laughed to conceal her interest. “But John P. Robinson, he says they didn’t know everything down in Judee. That’s latter day American, but it’s what a good many people seem to think. Please go on, Mr. Palliser.”

“I can’t go very far. Still, we’ll try to picture such a man giving liberally where it’s wanted, going straight, and doing what good he can all round. We’ll say the lives of other people who believe in him are bound up in his, and their happiness depends upon his holding their confidence. Now, would it be a kindness to anybody to bring everything down crashing about his head?”

He stopped, and glanced with a curious half-veiled appeal in his eyes at Violet, but she shook her head, and the gravity Nettie had once or twice wondered at crept into her face. It showed perfect in its contour and modelling under the big hat, but its clear pallor was more noticeable just then, and it seemed to Nettie very cold. Then she smiled faintly.

“It is a very old question. Can a man be pardoned and retain the offence? Still, I think it was answered decisively,” she said.

Tony said nothing, and, as none of the others appeared inclined to talk, the stillness of the afternoon made itself felt. The pale yellow sunshine lay hot upon the lawn, and the soft murmur of the river came up across the corn, which, broken by dusky woodlands steeped in slumbrous shadow and meadow no longer green, rolled back in waves of ruddy bronze into the valley. Beyond it the hillsides, narrowing in, faded blurred and dim into the hazy distance. Still, the eyes of Tony and Violet Wayne were fixed upon the raw blotch of brickwork rising against the green woods above a flashing pool of the river. The rushy meadows and barren hillside environing it were now worth the best plough land on the Northrop estate, and, as both of those who looked at them remembered then, they had been intended as Appleby’s inheritance.

It was Hester who broke the silence. “Your question has been answered, Nettie,” she said. “It is decided that the person who did the wrong is the one to right it; and now we’ll change the topic. The entertainment we had at Darsley was, as you know, an immense success, so great, indeed, that as we still want money we have decided to have another.”

“Still, it seems to me you can’t consistently inflict any more tickets on the Darsley tradesmen,” said Tony, who appeared desirous of concealing his relief. “The fact is, I was rather sorry for one or two of them. Rawley told me he had to buy at least two half-crown tickets from each of his leading supporters. I don’t think it would be decent to bleed them any more.”

Hester laughed. “That difficulty has been provided for, and I told everybody that I sent tickets to that it would be conducive to success if when they broached the subject they paid their bills. This time we intend to put the screw on our friends. You see, it is some time since we had any little relaxation among ourselves.”

“A concert isn’t really very amusing,” said Tony. “Anyway, not when you have to sing at it.”

“That depends. This one will be; and since it isn’t exactly a concert it will have the virtue of novelty. We intend to hold it here by moonlight and limelight on the lawn. The tickets will be invitation ones at half-a-guinea.”

“Where will you get your limelights from? I believe that kind of thing costs a good deal,” said Tony.

“I don’t know. The privilege of being allowed to supply them has been allotted to Mr. Anthony Palliser. He is also put down for a song.”

Tony made a gesture of resignation. “It will most likely rain.”

“Still, the tickets will have been sold, and if it does rain the people who can’t get into the big billiard room can sit out in couples in the hall, which will probably please them just as well. We, however, mean to have it outside if we can. We want the limelights for the tableaux and costume dancing.”

“Who have you got to dance?” said Tony with evident concern.

“Miss Clavier – the young woman who pleased everybody that night at Darsley. The vicar doesn’t mind. Have you very strong objections to skirt dancing, Tony?”

“No,” said Tony slowly, and Nettie fancied his voice was a trifle strained. “Of course I haven’t. Still, you must not depend too much on me. I mean I’ll get the limelights, and buy as many tickets as can be reasonably expected of me, but whether I’ll be there or not is another affair. I have to go up to London now and then, you see.”

The last was so evidently an inspiration that Hester laughed as she glanced at him. “We will contrive to fix a night that will suit you,” she said. “I fancy you had better submit quietly, Tony.”

Tony murmured something which was not wholly flattering to the promoters of such entertainments, and when he and Violet Wayne took their leave Hester glanced at Nettie.

“I wonder why Tony is anxious not to meet Miss Clavier again,” she said.

As it happened, Nettie was asking herself the same question, but she decided that there was nothing to be gained by mentioning it.

“The girl who dances! You think he didn’t want to meet her?” she said.

“Of course! He showed it. Everybody can tell what Tony is thinking. He is almost painfully transparent.”

“Well,” said Nettie slowly, “I don’t quite know. I have come across other men like him and found that they take one in. You fancy you can look right through them, and yet you see very little of what is inside them.”

“The trouble is that there is nothing in Tony except good nature,” said Hester.

Nettie appeared reflective, and once more expressed herself in the same fashion. “I don’t quite know. Still, I hope you are right,” she said. “You see, I’m quite fond of Violet Wayne.”

XIX – POSITIVE PROOF

HESTER EARLE’S entertainment promised to prove as successful as the other had been, for a clear moon hung low above the hillside when Tony drove Violet Wayne and her mother to Low Wood down the Northrop valley. The night was pleasantly warm, and the murmur of the river which slid in and out of the mist wisps in the hollow beneath the white road rose faintly musical out of the silence. Beyond the long hedgerows the stubble lay steeped in silvery light save where the long shadows lay black as ebony in the wake of the gleaming sheaves. A smell of honeysuckle drifted out from the blackness of a coppice they flitted through, and Tony turned with a little laugh to the girl beside him, while the clip-clop of the hoofs rang amidst the trees.

“I wonder if you and I are thinking of the same thing,” he said. “It happened just about this hour a year ago, and it was such another night.”

His voice had a faint thrill in it, and Violet laughed softly as she glanced at her left hand.

“You were horribly nervous that evening, Tony,” she said. “I don’t think I ever mentioned it, but when you put the ring on it scarred my finger. That might have had a significance with superstitious people.”

Tony glanced over his shoulder, and saw that Mrs. Wayne, who sat behind them, was apparently interested in something her companion was saying.

“I think that was quite natural,” he said lightly. “You see, the situation was disconcertingly novel to me.”

“So you told me!” said the girl with a little laugh. “If I remember, you laid some stress upon the fact. It was also a proof of my credulity that I believed you.”

It was one of Tony’s disadvantages that he was now and then unduly sensitive, for the deception he had been guilty of on the night in question was by comparison trifling. Still, he remembered with unpleasant distinctness another incident of a somewhat similar description, in which it was a little brooch that figured and not an engagement ring, and the red lips he had stooped to were not those of Violet Wayne. Tony could recall their tempting curve, and the gleam in the dark eyes that met his own, as well as the little lodge garden that was very still and shady that drowsy afternoon. It was perhaps the memory of it which made him flick the horse viciously with the whip. Then he felt that his companion’s eyes were fixed upon him.

“The brute is afraid of shadows,” he said.

Violet turned her eyes on him, and there was a curious little smile in them. “I wonder if the complaint is infectious. He goes steadily with me,” she said. “Tony, you haven’t the hands you had.”

Tony flushed visibly, for the moonlight was on his face now they had left the copse behind, and he remembered what had passed between him and the girl in a room at Northrop the night Godfrey Palliser died.

“Well,” he said a trifle dryly, “if you are right it’s due to worry, which, as everybody knows, never did agree with me. While agricultural property brings in what it does just now, keeping everything straight at Northrop isn’t quite so easy as some folks seem to fancy.”

“Still, the sale of that land to the electrical company and the ground rent you are getting from the other concern should simplify it,” said the girl.

“You can’t quite understand these affairs”; and Tony, who raised the whip, let it drop again.

Violet once more looked at him steadily, and her voice was low as she said, “If they were explained to me I think I could, but we will let that pass. What you said a little while ago reminds me of the weeks that followed the night you put that ring on. You had more cause for anxiety – and yet we had no cares then.”

“No,” said Tony. “I will remember those weeks while I live. Nothing could take them away from me.”

“And now there is a difference! A little shadow that dims the brightness. Tony, you feel it, too?”

The man, who did not answer, laid both hands on the reins, for, and he recognized the significance of it, they swung round a bend of the road into sight of Appleby’s inheritance just then. A pile of harsh brickwork rose in front of them, jarring upon the harmonies of the night; there was a ringing of hammers, and their eyes were dazzled by the glare of a great light under which a swarm of bent black figures were toiling. The horse broke into a gallop, the dog-cart jolted furiously, and for five anxious minutes Tony, who set his lips, dragged at the reins. Then, as the startled beast was forced into a trot again, he laughed petulantly.

“You are a little fanciful, Violet,” he said. “I have not been quite up to my usual form lately, and singing at these confounded concerts worries me. Hester will keep me busy, too, and I shall scarcely get a moment near you.”

Now Violet Wayne was seldom troubled by trifling jealousies, but she was a little anxious about Tony, and watched him as she said, “Your duties seemed to consist in entertaining Miss Clavier on the last occasion!”

The color showed in Tony’s forehead, but it was the vague apprehension in his face that astonished his companion, who noticed the sudden tightening of his fingers on the reins. Still, the only answer she caught was an indistinct “Confound the woman!”

Violet made no comment, for she had noticed already that the anxieties Tony had evidently decided on concealing from her were affecting his temper, and when five minutes later they rattled up the Low Wood avenue there was no longer any opportunity for questions. Tony had contrived to arrive just as the entertainment was commencing, and Hester Earle promptly despatched him to the performers’ room.

The long windows were wide open, and the soft night air flowed in with the faint scent of flowers, and a murmur of voices from the specially invited audience Miss Earle had bestowed in the tennis green, which was sunk a few feet on one side below the level of the sweep of lawn. Tennis was not a game she was fond of, and she had pacified the gardener by placing the chair legs on boards. Tony could see the shadowy mass of humanity showing black against a dazzling glare, for the big oxyhydrogen lights he had provided were then blazing in front of the proscenium, which had been extemporized on the verge of the higher level. The path that led to it wound along the edge of a tall shrubbery where colored lights blinked here and there amidst the dusky leaves.

He was never certain afterwards as to whom he talked with or what he said, though he surmised that his observations had not been especially apposite, for some of those about him appeared a trifle astonished, and two of them laughed. Tony was somewhat apt to lose his head when brought face to face with a difficulty, and the fact that Lucy Davidson was sitting a few yards away disconcerted him. A glance at his programme showed him that she was to figure in two pieces of mimicry instead of dancing, and she was dressed simply and tastefully, but while the room was crowded there were only two very young men in her vicinity, and that fact with something in their laughter seemed to differentiate their companion from the rest of the company. Tony, however, fancied that they were favored with scanty encouragement from the girl. She looked at him once, but Tony turned his head away, and it was not until he was about to go out that he felt himself compelled to speak to her.

“The others will take a lead from you, and those young asses are only making the thing more unpleasant for the girl,” said a man he was talking to.

Tony said nothing. He could think of no excuse, but remembering what Violet had mentioned he shrank from the encounter. The good-natured committee-man’s meaning had been perfectly plain to him, and he knew that he could save the girl the unpleasantness of being met with chilly aloofness or undue familiarity. His disposition was also a kindly one, and the decision that she must be left to fight her own battles caused him a little flush of confusion. As it happened, she saw it, and a portentous sparkle showed in her dark eyes. Tony noticed this, and remembered that weak complaisance had once placed him under the thumb of keeper Davidson. He did not mean to repeat the blunder, and his fears made him slightly venomous.

“I think you have met Mr. Anthony Palliser already, Miss Clavier,” said his companion.

Tony knew that every eye in the room was upon him, and that his words would not be lost, but he felt he could not afford to be gracious, and while he hesitated the girl rose up and made him a little curtsey with quiet ironical insolence.

“I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Palliser – once or twice,” she said in a voice that was intended to reach the rest.

Tony stood still a moment fingering his watch chain, and looking down at her with something his masculine companion had never seen there before in his face. It almost suggested vindictive cruelty, but he murmured a conventional word or two that was scarcely audible, and passed on with the slightest of inclinations. There was also a little silence when he went out, and the color faded a trifle in Miss Clavier’s face, leaving her cheeks alone red, while a gleam that implied a good deal crept into her eyes.

Tony, however, sang brilliantly when his turn came a few minutes later. He had at last made a decided stand, and felt a trifle exhilarated by the novelty of it. Still, he was without stability, and it was much against his wishes that, wandering about between the songs after spending some time with Nettie Harding, he met Miss Clavier again. He had just seated himself upon the sloping bank of turf not far from the stage when he became aware that a seat above him was occupied, and glancing round at a sound saw the girl looking down on him. Then he would have turned away, but she stopped him with a little derisive laugh.