The Obstacle Race - Ethel May Dell (mobi reader android TXT) 📗

dismay. There was even behind their serenity the faint glint of a smile. "I think that is putting it rather strongly," she said. "But I really don't know you yet. I am not in a position to judge--even if I wished to do so."
Fielding sat for a moment or two quite rigid, as if on the verge of springing to his feet and leaving her. Then with amazing suddenness he broke into a laugh, and the tension was past.
"By Jove, I like you for that!" he said. "You did it jolly well. You've got pluck, and you know how to keep your temper. You'll have to forgive me, Miss Moore. We're going to be friends after this."
There was something very winning about this overture, and Juliet was not proof against it. He was evidently of those who consider that an apology condones any offence, and, though she was far from agreeing with him on this point, it was not in her to be churlish.
She smiled at him without speaking.
"Sure you're not angry with me?" urged the Squire.
She nodded. "Yes, quite sure. Won't you go on where you left off?"
"Where did I leave off?" He frowned. "Oh yes, you asked for details. Well, what do you want to know? My wife always breakfasts in bed, so she wouldn't want you before ten. But you'd live with us of course. I'd see that they made you comfortable."
"If my duties did not begin before ten, there would be no need for that," pointed out Juliet.
He looked at her in surprise. "Of course you'd live with us! You can't want to stay here!"
"But why not?" said Juliet. "They are very kind to me. I am very happy here."
"Oh, nonsense!" said the squire. "You couldn't do that. I believe you're afraid I want to make a slave of you."
"No, I am not afraid of that," said Juliet. "But go on, if you don't mind! What happens after ten o'clock?"
"Well, she opens her letters," said the squire. "Tells you what wants answering and how to answer it. P'raps you read the papers to her for a bit before she gets up, and so on."
"Does that take the whole morning?" asked Juliet.
"No. She's down about twelve. Sometimes she goes for a ride then, if she feels like it. Or she walks about the grounds, or drives out in the dog-cart. She's very keen on horses. Then either she goes out to lunch or someone lunches with us. And after that she's off in the car for a fifty-mile run--or a hundred if the mood takes her. She's never quiet--except when she's in bed. That's what I want you for. I want you to keep her quiet."
"Oh!" said Juliet.
This was shedding a new light upon the matter. She looked at him somewhat dubiously.
"Come! I know you can," he said. "You've been through the treadmill. You know all about it and it doesn't attract you. This infernal chase after excitement--it's like a spreading fever. There's no peace for anyone now-a-days. I want you to stop it. You've got that sort of influence. I sensed it directly I saw you. You've got that priceless possession--a quiet spirit. She wouldn't go tearing over the country racing and gambling and then card-playing far into the night if you were there to pull her up. She'd be ashamed--with anyone like you looking on."
"Would she?" said Juliet. "I wonder. And how do you know that that sort of thing doesn't attract me?"
"Of course I know it. You carry it in your face. You're a woman--not a dancing marionette. You wouldn't despise a woman's duties because they interfered with pleasure. You were made in a different mould. Anyone can see that."
Juliet was smiling a little. "I can't claim to be anything very great," she said. "But certainly, I was never very fond of cards."
"Of course you weren't. You've too much sense to do anything to excess. Now look here, Miss Moore! You're coming, aren't you? You'll give the thing a trial. I promise you, you shan't be bullied or overworked. It's such an opportunity, for my wife really has taken a fancy to you. And she can be quite decent to anyone when she likes. You can bring the dog along," continued the squire. "You can have your own sitting-room--your own maid, if you want one. You can come and go as you choose. No one will interfere with you. All I want you to do is to put the brake on my wife, make her take an interest in her home, make her take life seriously. She's not at all strong. She doesn't give herself a chance. Unless I fetch in a doctor and practically keep her in bed by main force she never gets any decent rest. Why, she's hardly ever in her room before two in the morning. It's almost a form of madness with her, this ceaseless round. I can't prevent it. I'm a busy man myself." He suddenly got to his feet with a jerk and stood looking down at her with sombre eyes. "I'm a busy man," he repeated. "I have my ambitions, and I work for them. I work hard. But the one thing I want more than anything else on earth is a son to succeed me. And if I can't have that--there's nothing else that counts."
He spoke with bitter vehemence, beating restlessly against his heel with his whip. But Juliet still sat silent, looking out before her at the golden pink of the apple-trees in the sunset light with grave quiet eyes.
He went on morosely, egotistically, "I don't know what I've done that I shouldn't have what practically every labourer on my estate has got. I may not have been absolutely impeccable in my youth. I've never yet met a man who was--with the single exception of Dick Green who hasn't much temptation to be anything else. But I've lived straight on the whole. I've played the game--or tried to. And yet--after five years of marriage--I'm still without an heir, and likely to remain so, as far as I can see. She says I'm mad on that point." He spoke resentfully. "But after all, it's what I married for. I don't see why I should be cheated out of the one thing I want most, do you?"
Juliet's eyes came up to his, slowly, somewhat reluctantly. "I'm afraid I haven't much sympathy with you," she said.
"You haven't?" he looked amazed.
"No." She paused a moment. "It was a pity you told me. You see, a woman doesn't care to be married--just for that."
"And what do you suppose she married me for?" he demanded indignantly. "Do you think she was in love with me--a man thirty years older than herself? Oh, I assure you, there were never any illusions on that score! I had a good deal to offer her, and she jumped at it."
Juliet gave a slight shiver, and abruptly his manner changed.
"I'm sorry. Put my foot in it again, have I? You'll have to forgive me, please. No, I shouldn't have told you. But you've got such a kind look about you--as if you'd understand."
She was touched in spite of herself. She got up quickly and faced him. "What I can't understand," she said, a ring of deep feeling in her voice, "is how anyone can possibly barter their happiness, their self-respect, all that is most worth having, for this world's goods, this world's ambitions, and expect to come out of it anything but losers. Oh, I know it's done every day. People fight and scramble--yes, and grovel in the mud--for what they think is gold; and when they've got it, it's only the basest alloy. Some of them never find it out. Others do--and break their hearts."
He stared at her. "You speak as one who knows."
"I do know," she said. "Since I've been here, had time to think, I've realized it more and more. This dreadful fight for front places, for prosperity--this rooted, individual selfishness--the hopeless materialism of it all--the ultimate ruin--." She broke off. "You'll take me for a street ranter if I go on. But it's rather piteous to see people straining and agonizing after what, after all, can never bring them any comfort."
"But that's just what I was saying," he protested.
Her frank eyes looked straight into his. "But you're doing it yourself all the same," she said. "You're playing for your own hand all the time and so you're a loser and always will be. It's the chief rule of the game." She smiled faintly. "Please forgive me for telling you so, but I've only just found it out for myself; so I had to tell someone."
"You're rather a wonderful young woman," said the squire, still staring.
She shook her head. "Oh, no, I'm not. I've just begun to use my brains, that's all. They're nothing at all out of the ordinary, really."
He laughed. "Well, you've given me a pretty straight one anyway. Have you got a home anywhere--any home people?"
"None that count," said Juliet.
"Been more or less of a looker-on all your life, eh?" he suggested.
"More or less," smiled Juliet.
He held out his hand to her abruptly. "Look here! You're coming, aren't you?"
"I don't know," said Juliet.
"Well, make up your mind quick!" He held her hand, looking at her. "What's the objection? Tell me?"
She freed her hand gently but with decision. "I can't tell you entirely. You must let me think. For one thing, I want more freedom of action than I should have as an inmate of your house. I want to come and go as I like. I've never really done that before, and I'm just beginning to enjoy it."
"That's a selfish reason," said the squire, with a sudden boyish grin at her.
She coloured slightly. "No, it isn't--or not wholly."
"All right, it isn't. I unsay it. But that reason won't exist as far as you are concerned. You will come and go exactly as you like always. No one will question you."
"You're very kind," said Juliet.
He bowed to her ceremoniously. "That's the first really nice thing you have said to me. I must make a note of it. Now would you like my wife to call upon you? If so, I'll send her round to-morrow at twelve."
"If she would care to come," said Juliet.
"Of course she would. She shall come then--and you'll talk things over, and come to an understanding. That's settled, is it? Good-bye!"
He turned to go, pausing at the gate to throw her another smiling farewell. She had not thought that gloomy, black browed countenance could look so genial. There was something curiously elusive, almost haunting, about his smile.
"Columbus!" said Juliet. "I'm not sure that he's a very nice man, but there's something about him--something I can't quite place--that makes me wonder if I've met him somewhere before. Would you like to go and live at the Court, Columbus?"
Columbus leaned against her knee in sentimental silence. He evidently did not care where he went so long as he was with the object of his whole-souled devotion.
She stooped and kissed him between the eyes. "Dear doggie!" she murmured. "I wonder--are we happier--here?"


CHAPTER VIII
MRS. FIELDING

When the great high-powered car from Shale Court stopped at the gate of the blacksmith's cottage on the following morning Mrs. Rickett, who was feeding her young chicks in the yard outside the forge, was thrown into a state of wild agitation. Everyone in Little Shale stood in awe of the squire's wife.
She went nervously to enquire what was wanted, and met the chauffeur at the gate.
"It's all right, Mrs. Rickett. Don't fluster yourself!" he said. "It's Miss Moore we're after. Go and