Her Majesty's Minister

“Ah!” cried Edith joyously. “Yes, capital! Let us go abroad next winter, to the Riviera, or somewhere where it’s warm. It would be delightful to escape all the rain and cold, and eat one’s Christmas dinner in the sunshine. You know the South, Gerald? What place do you recommend?”

“Well,” I said, “any place along the Riviera except, perhaps, Monte Carlo.”

“Monte Carlo!” echoed Aunt Hetty. “That wicked place! I hope I shall never see it. Mr Harbur told us in his sermon the other Sunday about the frightful gambling there, and how people hanged themselves on the trees in the garden. Please don’t talk of such places, Edith.”

“But, aunt, there are many beautiful resorts in the neighbourhood,” her niece protested. “All along the coast there are towns where the English go to avoid the winter, such as Cannes, Nice, Mentone, and San Remo.”

“Well,” responded Miss Foskett with some asperity, “we need not discuss in August what we shall do in December. Ryburgh is quite pleasant enough for me. When I was your age I employed my time with embroidery and wool-work, and never troubled my head about foreign travel. But nowadays,” she added with a sigh, “I really don’t know what young people are coming to.”

“We’ve advanced with the times, and they’ve emancipated women in England,” responded Edith mischievously, glancing merrily across at me.

Miss Foskett drew herself up primly, and declared that she hoped her niece would never become one of “those dreadful creatures who ape the manners of men;” to which my love replied that liberty of action was the source of all happiness.

Fearing that this beginning might end in a heated argument, I managed to turn the conversation into a different channel.

“If all we read in the newspapers is true, it would seem,” observed Aunt Hetty presently, “that you diplomatists have a most difficult task in Paris.”

“All is not true,” I laughed. “Much of what you read exists only in the minds of those imaginative gentlemen called Paris correspondents.”

“I suppose,” remarked Edith, smiling, “that it is impossible for either a diplomatist or a journalist to tell the truth always.”

“Truth, no doubt, is all very well in its place, and now and then in diplomacy, but only a sparing use should be made of it as a rule,” I answered. “But there should be no waste. Only those should be allowed to handle it who can use it with discretion, and who will ladle it out with caution.”

“Mr Ingram, I am surprised!” interrupted Miss Foskett, scandalised.

“It is our creed,” I went on, “that truth should be always spoken in a dead or foreign language, no home-truths being for a moment tolerated. Now think what a happy land this England of ours would be if only we were not so wedded to the bare, cold truth! Suppose for its own good purposes our Government has thought right to make a hasty dash for the back seats in the international scrimmage, and to adhere to them with all the tenacity of a limpet, why, for all that, should the Opposition journals blurt out the fact for our humiliation, when by a few deft scratches of the pen the leader-writer might easily make us believe that no back seat had ever in any circumstances been occupied by Britain, and that the nose of the lion had never been pulled out of any hole into which it had once been inserted? The itch for truth is, judged from a diplomatists point of view, responsible for the ruin of our policy towards our enemies.”

“Shocking, Mr Ingram! I’m surprised to find that you hold such views,” said Miss Foskett in a soured tone; while Edith laughed merrily, declaring that she fully agreed with my argument, much to her aunt’s discomfiture.

The old lady loved the harsh truth as propounded by the precisionist.

And so the dinner proceeded, each of us vying with the other to dispel Aunt Hetty’s deep-seated prejudices and narrow-minded views of the world and its ways.

Coffee was served in the drawing-room, where Edith went to the piano and sang in her sweet contralto several of my favourite songs, after which, at an early hour, as was usual with the household at Ryburgh, we all retired.

To sleep so quickly after dinner was to me impossible; therefore, on gaining my room, I lit a cigar, and, taking a novel from my bag, sat reading. The book proved interesting; and time had passed unnoticed, until of a sudden my attention was attracted by the sound of low voices. I listened, glancing at the clock, and noticed that it was nearly two in the morning.

A suspicion of burglars at once flashed across my mind. I blew out my candles, so as not to attract attention, noiselessly opened the wooden shutters before my window, and cautiously gazed out. The lawn, garden, and wide sweep of country beyond lay bathed in the bright moonlight, and at first I distinguished no one. Peering down, however, until I could see the path running in the shadow just below my window, I distinguished two figures with hands clasped, as though in parting. I looked again, scarce believing my own eyes. But I was not mistaken. One figure was that of a woman, her dark cloak open at the throat, revealing her white dress beneath; while the other was the tall dark figure of a man in a long black overcoat, the collar of which was turned up as though to conceal his features. Even though they stood together in the dark shadow, the astounding truth was plain to me. The woman who had kept that midnight assignation was Edith Austin, my well-beloved.

My heart stood still.

Chapter Nineteen

Whispered Words

The revelation held me rigid. I stood there, peering down, watching their movements, and straining my ears to catch the whispered words. As I feared to open the window lest the noise should attract them, I could do no more than remain a spectator of Edith’s perfidy. To me it seemed as though she had been walking with him, and he had accompanied her back to the house. As he held her hand, he was bending, whispering some earnest words into her ear. She did not attempt to withdraw; indeed, it was apparent that she was not unwilling. The conclusion to be made was that they were lovers.

Reader, can you imagine my feelings at this astounding discovery? Only six hours before we had stood beside the river, and she had vowed that for no man save myself had she any place in her heart; yet with my own eyes I was watching her while she believed me sleeping in calm ignorance of her movements. That she had been walking with him was apparent, because of the shawl she wore wrapped about her head; while the fact that the stranger carried a stout stick showed that he had walked, or was about to walk, a considerable distance. Because his hat was drawn over his brow and his coat collar turned up, I could not see his features. To me, as he stood there, he appeared to be slightly round-shouldered, but, nevertheless, a strongly built fellow, seemingly rather above the average height.

How long she had been absent from the house I could not tell. Her light step across the lawn had not attracted my attention. Only his low, gruff voice on their return had caused me to listen. There was a French window near where they were standing, and it was evident that by means of this she had secretly left the house.

Across the moon there drifted a strip of fleecy cloud, hiding the lawn and garden for a few moments; then suddenly all became brilliant again, and, looking down, I saw that she had moved, and was unconsciously in the full white light. I caught sight of her countenance, so that her identity became undeniable. He was urging her to speak, but she remained silent. Again and again he whispered into her ear, but she shook her head. At last she spoke. I heard what she said, for I had contrived to raise the sash an inch or two.

“Very well, I promise,” she said. “He leaves to-morrow.”

“And you will not fail?” asked the gruff voice of her clandestine companion.

“No. Adieu!”

And as I watched I saw his dark figure striding away in the full moonlight across the lawn. He did not glance back, but went straight over to the belt of elms on the left, and a few minutes later was lost to view, while the woman I loved had apparently re-entered the house by the dining-room window, and was creeping silently to her room.

The one thought that gripped my heart and froze my senses was that Edith was false to me. She had a lover whom she met at dead of night and with whom she had a perfect understanding. She had made him a promise, the fulfilment of which was to take place when I had left. Had such things been told to me I would not have believed them, but I had seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears. The truth was too terribly plain. Edith, the one woman in the world whom I had believed to be pure, honest, and upright, was false to me. I saw it all as I reclosed the shutters, relit the candles in their old silver sconces, and paced that ancient bed-chamber. The reason of her attempt to evade me and to withdraw her promise of marriage was only too apparent. She, the woman whom I loved and in whom I had put all my faith, had a lover.

As I reflected upon our conversation of that afternoon I saw in her uneasiness and her responses a self-condemnation. She dreaded lest I should discover the secret within her breast – the secret that, after all, she did not love me. The dark silhouette of that man standing forth in the brilliant light of the moon was photographed indelibly upon my memory. His outline struck me as that of a man of shabby attire, and I felt certain the hat drawn down upon his face was battered and worn. Indeed, I had a distinct conviction that he was some low-born lout from the neighbourhood – a conviction aroused, I think, by her announcement that I was to leave on the morrow. She would have freedom of action then, I reflected bitterly. And her promise? What, I wondered, had she promised? The fellow had evidently been persuading her until she had at last given him her pledge. His gait was that of a man who knew the place well, the swinging step of one used to walking easily in rough places. His stick, too, was a rough ash, such as a town-bred lover would never carry, while his voice had, I felt certain, just a tinge of the Norfolk accent in it. That they should meet at dead of night in that clandestine manner was surely sufficiently suspicious, but those words I had overheard sounded ever in my ears as I paced from end to end of that old room with its sombre, almost funereal, hangings.

A great bitterness fell upon my heart. The woman whom I really loved had played me false; and yet, when I reflected, I could not help admitting that perhaps, after all, I deserved this punishment. I had wavered from her and gone back to my old love, it was true. But I loved Edith well and truly, whatever might have been the fascination of the smart, gesticulating, foreign beauty. She was mine in heart and mine alone.

All my belief in woman’s affection or devotion had, in that instant, been dispelled. The truth had fallen upon me as a crushing blow, which staggered me, wrecking all my hopes and plans for the future.

I tossed my things heedlessly into my bag, in readiness for early departure in the morning. I had been a fool, I knew. I was ever a fool where women were concerned. In the old days in Brussels my affection for Yolande had been strong and impetuous, burning with all the ardour of a first love; yet the awakening had come, and I had tardily discovered that she had played me false. And in Edith’s case, although I entertained towards her such a real and deep affection as a man only extends to a woman once in his lifetime, unfaithfulness had once again been my reward.

I flung away my cigar. My agony of heart was too acute to be accurately described in words. You, my reader, who may have experienced the sudden breaking of your most cherished idol, can only rightly understand the chagrin, the intense bitterness, the spiritual desolation of that night watch.

My candles were as nearly as possible burnt out. At length I took my hat, and, creeping noiselessly downstairs, passed through the dining-room, and let myself out by the window which Edith had entered. The first grey of dawn was spreading, and a sudden desire for fresh air had seized me. I felt stifled in that old room with its gloomy furniture and hangings. With the cool wind of early morning fanning my heated temples, I struck straight across the lawn in the direction taken by the mysterious lover. For some distance I traversed the boundary of the grounds, until I discovered a break in the oak fence, and, passing through it, found myself out upon the broad, undulating meadows which stretched away to the Beacon Hill and the tiny hamlet of Toftrees, noted for its ancient hall and quaint church steeple. Heedless of where my footsteps led me, I went straight on, my mind full of the discovery I had made, my heart overflowing. Away to my left, from behind the low dark hills, the sky became flushed with the crimson light of dawn; but all was still save the distant crowing of a cock and the howl of a dog in the far distance. Behind me the bell of Ryburgh church solemnly chimed the hour, followed by other bells at greater distances. Then all was quiet again save for the soft rustling of the trees. The morning air was delicious, with a sweet fragrance everywhere.

Suddenly, leaping a fence, I found myself upon the old coach-road that ran over the hills to Lynn, and continued along it without thought of distance or destination. I passed a carter with his team, and he wished me good-morning. His words aroused me, and I saw that I was nearing an unfamiliar village.

“What place is this?” I inquired.

“It’s Harpley, sir.”

I thanked him and went my way. I had never heard of the place before; but as I entered it the first rays of sunlight shot across the hills, and it certainly looked picturesque and typically English in the light of the dawn. I must have walked fully eight miles, and, being tired and thirsty, I noticed at the entrance of the village a small inn, upon which was the sign The Houghton Arms. The door stood open, and a burly man, evidently the landlord, was busy chopping wood in an outhouse at the side.

“Nice mornin’, sir,” he observed, looking up at me, probably astonished to see anyone who was not a labourer astir at such an early hour.

I returned his greeting, and inquired whether it was too early for a cup of tea and a rest.

“Not at all, sir,” he answered, laying down his axe and conducting me within.

The place, in common with all village hostelries, smelt strongly of the combined fumes of shag and stale beer. Village innkeepers have a habit of polishing their well-seasoned furniture with sour beer; hence the odour, which, to the patrons of such places, seems appetising. The perfume is to them as the hors d’oeuvre.

The man, having shown me into a little parlour behind the tap-room, called loudly to “Jenny,” who turned out to be his wife. After this I had not long to wait before a pot of tea and a couple of poached eggs were at my disposal.

They were a homely pair, these two, full of local chatter. Harpley, the man informed me, was nine and a half miles from Great Ryburgh, and I saw by his manner that he was much exercised in his mind to know whence I had come and the reason for my being about at such an hour. The rural busybody was extremely inquisitive, but I did not permit his bucolic diplomacy to triumph. While I drank the tea and ate the eggs the landlord stood leaning against the door-lintel with his arms folded, garrulously displaying his Norfolk brogue. He evidently regarded me as one of those summer visitors from London who stay at the farmhouses, where hypocrisy terms them “paying guests,” and I allowed him to adhere to his opinion. I learned from him that at six o’clock there was a train from Massingham station, half a mile away, which would convey me direct to Fakenham. This I resolved to take, for I could then return to Miss Foskett’s by a quarter to seven. A map of the county was hanging on the wall, and I had risen to look at the spot to which the landlord was pointing, when a footstep sounded in the narrow passage, and, turning, I caught sight of the dark figure of a man making his way out. The hat, the black overcoat, the figure, all were familiar. His head was turned away from me, so that I could not see his features, but in an instant I recognised him.

He was Edith’s mysterious lover!

Chapter Twenty