CHAPTER II

MIDNIGHT MOVEMENTS

"HOW do you do?" a precise voice said.

It was not needful to announce Mr. Thomas Dugdale. He was as much at home in the house as its proper inmates. If a door were open, he walked in; if not, the butler opened it, but did not venture to treat him like a caller.

The greeting was meant for Colin. He never said, "How do you do?" to the others, since they met too often.

He was elderly, composed, critical, daintily neat every inch of him, from the smooth well-cut hair and the shaven face to the immaculate shoes, which never, on the muddiest day, became soiled. Extreme exactitude, inside and out, was his main characteristic. He lived alone in a small house on the estate, built by a former owner for his mother-in-law. Mr. Dugdale might have found a home with his widowed daughter, on a neighbouring property, but he preferred "freedom."

Dinner over, Colin usurped most of the talk, till Mr. Dugdale appeared.

Mrs. Keith looked often from one to the other of "her boys," as she called them, trying to impress upon both that neither was more to her than the other. They, man-like, would have taken the fact for granted. She could not let it alone. If she said "Dear Colin," she dragged in a "Dear Giles" within two minutes. If she laid an affectionate hand on Giles' shoulder, she gave a like caress to Colin. The balancing of affection became irksome, and Mr. Dugdale's entrance made a not unwelcome diversion.

"Tired of travelling?" he suggested. "Three years—enough for the most voracious appetite. What is to be the next step?"

"Settle down at home," Giles replied for him.

"Well—for a while. Give folks time to turn round." He took off the far-sighted glasses with which he had surveyed Colin, put them away, and with dainty finger-tips adjusted his near-sighted pince-nez, pulling forth a letter.

"Something to interest you here. A response to my letter. Signs of yielding, too. It takes the old lady six weeks to evolve an answer."

Mrs. Keith saw the writing. "Mrs. Wyverne!" she exclaimed.

Colin showed interest. "How about Phyllys?" he asked. "Something was said lately about getting her to visit us."

"Mrs. Wyverne ought to consent. Giles will be in that neighbourhood, and he means to try persuasion—not asking leave beforehand."

"Going to storm the fortress?" suggested Colin, with one of his noiseless laughs. "Mind you don't capture by mistake the ogress!"

"Not likely! Barbara must be a person to whom distance lends enchantment," remarked Giles.

"We have nothing to do with Miss Pringle. It is Phyllys whom we want. Certainly not Barbara!" Mrs. Keith knitted her brows.

Mr. Dugdale began to fold up his letter in disgust. "Barbara Pringle is an excellent person of her kind," he said stiffly. "Well-meaning and conscientious. Most people are well-meaning. But the bane of womanhood is to be always in the right. Barbara Pringle is always in the right. She never makes a mistake. Therefore she is monotonous and uninteresting."

"Let us devoutly hope that Phyllys sometimes blunders," laughed Colin. He saw the vanishing letter, and added, "But you were going to read us something."

"Nothing! Nothing!" Mr. Dugdale waved the subject aside with his hand. "Merely a passing idea. Barbara Pringle has usurped its place. Inadvertently I interrupted somebody—or somebody interrupted me. In either case, I apologise."

Glances were exchanged. Mr. Dugdale crossed his legs, and contemplated an empty fireplace.

"The Infinitely Little!" he mused. "It may be masculine; but it is more commonly feminine. Woman, when she is small, is very small indeed. When last I had the pleasure of seeing Barbara Pringle, I should have described her as an excellent example of the Infinitely Little. Good, no doubt; but narrow—painfully narrow. A woman whose whole Universe might be packed into an egg-shell."

"Think what her life has been," suggested Colin. "Forty years in a Yorkshire burrow."

"Narrowness is a matter of mental make, not of circumstances."

"No doubt; but circumstances tell upon one's mental make. A plant, whatever its make, can't develop without light and air. Miss Pringle has had neither."

"If she had, she could not have made use of them."

"And the family aim is to rescue Phyllys from a like fate. Giles should be equal to the old lady, even backed by the redoubtable Barbara."

"Barbara Pringle is a woman not easily managed."

"Ten years since you saw her," said Mrs. Keith.

Mr. Dugdale put his finger-tips together, and entered on a discussion of dates. He proved, to his own satisfaction, that not ten years, but precisely nine and a half, had elapsed since the date of his visit to the Yorkshire village, where lived old Mrs. Wyverne and her pair of grand-daughters. Then he stood up, his eyes bent upon Colin.

"Sorry—no. Can't stay longer. Busy; and so are you." He was still chafing under his supposed slight. "Ta-ta, everybody. Whom on earth has Colin grown like?"

"It's generally decided that I am like nobody," remarked the object of his scrutiny. "Not the mater, in any case."

"'I' should have said Colin was like everybody in turn," Mrs. Keith observed.

Mr. Dugdale, with wrinkled brows, pursued his quest.

"Can't imagine," he repeated. "It is a definite resemblance." He frowned anew, standing deep in thought. "I have it! That old portrait in oils, which used to hang here—I never could understand why it was banished to the gallery! It's one of the best things in the house!"

Mrs. Keith went into peals of laughter. She held her handkerchief to her lips, overpowered with merriment. Colin laughed sympathetically in his silent fashion, while the set gravity of Giles' features deepened.

"My 'dear' Mr. Dugdale! You really are 'too' comical! The idea of likening Colin to that ancient fogey! Young, was he?—Yes, I dare say he was—two hundred years ago! But it's too rich!—too funny!" Her laughter filled the room. She was not often noisy, but for once she let herself go.

"Oh, very well. Good-night. In future I shall keep my opinions to myself!" And Mr. Dugdale walked off, affronted. He could stand anything better than ridicule.

Giles went with him to the door, and on his return Mrs. Keith's merriment had subsided.

Colin was saying—

"I have reverted lately to my old love—sculpture."

There was a movement of annoyance. "I hope you are not going to take that up again!"

"If I have the gift, why not use it?" asked Colin, in level tones.

"You have not. It is a mere fancy."

"A fancy that has survived twenty years."

"You will never succeed." Her manner showed displeasure.

"But at least he can try," put in Giles.

"It will be utter waste of time."

"That was not the opinion of an expert. He said there was no doubt about my having the gift—if I could work hard enough."

"You won't. You will never keep up anything long."

The words brought a shadow to both faces, more especially to that of Giles.

"If you wish to find work, pray take up something worth doing." She was greatly in earnest, and the red spot in either cheek began to burn.

"This is worth doing, if Colin wishes it," said Giles gravely. He counted her opposition unkind.

The subject was dropped, but Mrs. Keith's face fell into a haggard set. She went to bed early, Colin retiring also, and Giles retreated to his private den beyond the billiard-room. Since he managed his own estate, without an agent, he was sufficiently busy. Papers had to be examined, letters had to be written; and this was his time of quiet.

More than two hours had gone by, when a consciousness came over him of something or somebody moving.

The servants would be gone to bed, since it was past midnight. He went out and listened, standing in a narrow passage, which at some distance to the left joined the central hall; and the whole house seemed to be in darkness, in absolute repose. But as he waited, he heard again that suggestion of a sound—hardly a creak—and then he saw a needle of light falling athwart one corner of the hall.

He took an unlighted candle and a box of matches, and groped his way thither; but the slender ray had vanished.

Again he listened, and could detect nothing. Mrs. Keith or one of the maids might be about: but what puzzled him was that the needle of light had seemed to travel from the long corridor on the first floor, known as the "gallery," its position and slant being in no other way explainable.

Not wishing to disturb sleepers by stumbling about in the dark, he lighted his candle and went upstairs. Mrs. Keith's room was fast shut; so was Colin's. He turned to the gallery, where a double row of old pictures, portraits and landscapes, adorned one wall, the other being broken by windows.

Another glimmer ahead. The gallery ran round two sides of the house, and this ray came from beyond the corner. He went faster, but on rounding the corner he saw nothing. If anybody had been there, the person must have gone through a door to the back staircase.

Thither also went Giles. He descended the back stairs, which ended on a part of the ground-floor divided by a swing-door from the main hall. Still no one was visible. He pushed the door open and passed through, to find himself in darkness. He could discover no presence except his own. Going once more up the front stairs, to make assurance doubly sure, he saw a light below Mrs. Keith's door, and tapped. She kept him waiting a good two minutes, then opened and faced him in surprise—her hair falling over a dressing-gown flung hurriedly on.

"Giles! Is anything wrong?"

"Some one is about, and I wanted to know if you had left your room."

"I! I was in bed, almost asleep—but I heard a step, and I lighted my candle. Then it was not 'your' step? Not thieves, I hope!" with frightened eyes.

"More likely one of the maids. Probably you heard my steps; but somebody else was on the move."

"I'll speak to the maids to-morrow. They have no business to be about so late. You are 'sure' it is not a thief—" her breath quickening.

"No need to feel anxious. I'm not going to bed yet, and I shall take a look at all the fastenings."

He said good-night, and went the round, but found no door or window unbolted.