CHAPTER XXX.

THE PLOT

In the dreary weeks which followed, while Sibell waited for her home to be prepared, she often stayed at a small private hotel in Cork Street, where she had lived in the London Season with her hunchbacked guardian, old Routh.

She had engaged as companion a girl named Edith Pearman, who, on leaving Cheltenham, had become a governess in a private school at Scarborough, and welcomed her old school-friend’s proposition. A well-educated girl of a somewhat severe, angular exterior, she wore horn-rimmed glasses, as a school-mistress should, yet, at heart, she was a most cheerful, laughing optimist, and, having learnt all about her friend’s bitter disappointment, consoled her.

Meanwhile, Gussie Gretton, prompted by Lady Wyndcliffe of course, was constant in the renewal of his attentions. He came round to Cork Street daily to take her out in his car for one or two runs to places, where they lunched and chatted, but all with little satisfaction to the ardent lover. Sibell was, of course, entirely ignorant of the vile compact which her go-ahead aunt had made, and simply regarded the elegant man’s desire to please as the natural outcome of his responsibility for Otway’s parting from her.

For a young doctor, fresh from hospital, to obtain even a foothold in his profession is indeed hard enough to-day. The old and out-of-date general practitioners, who have made enough to retire upon, are mostly snappy and crusty; if his young partner is a few minutes late for “surgery” he will not fail to snarl at him.

But Brinsley had been through the mill as house surgeon at an infirmary, and had actually secured a corner house with a red lamp, as every general practitioner longs for, and had very soon, by his merry disposition and kindness to the poor, acquired quite a good practice among the good people of that London suburb, Golder’s Green.

Yet, in a single night, all his love for Sibell had been blotted out, and well it might have been in such circumstances. Poor Sibell remained disillusioned and dispirited, with one determination only--to discover the secret of that evil influence which pervaded the house wherein the guests of Cardinal Wolsey had often been entertained in those long-ago days of the full glories of Hampton Court Palace.

More than once, accompanied by her new companion, Edith, she drove down to the Guest House in a hired car, and went over the place, here and there directing the furnishers, who were busily at work. The work occupied her distracted mind.

The long drawing-room, so dull, stately, and full of a bygone atmosphere, had assumed an entirely modern aspect, with its white-bordered panels of old-rose brocade, and a rich Wilton carpet to match. Some of the best pieces of old furniture were there--the fifteenth-century credence, which Bond Street dealers had begged her to sell; the old oaken cupboard with long, wrought-iron hinges, where, upon its top, an Elizabethan helmet, deeply rusted, had been placed.

When first she entered to inspect the spacious apartment, with its long windows, she expressed delight at its transformation. In one corner stood that heavy old velvet-covered armchair of the Florentine Renaissance, into which Mr. Gray, the auctioneer, had sunk, half-insensible, when he collapsed so suddenly.

A strong smell of fresh enamel and varnish pervaded everything, each room having been redecorated and refurnished out of all recognition. Some of the old leaded diamond panes of the ancient windows had been replaced by sheets of plate glass, and on every hand there were modern conveniences--electric lights cunningly concealed in heavy white cornices, and hot-water radiators were in all the bedrooms.

As on that day she went with Edith over the place, the foreman of the furnishing house said to her, after descending from the upper floor:

“The only thing that has not been touched is the wine-cellar, Miss Dare. At Mr. Gray’s orders it has not been opened, for he has the key. He said he would consult you before any alteration is made there.”

“Yes. I will see him about it when I come to live here,” replied the girl, expressing the greatest satisfaction as to the up-to-date scheme of furnishing.

“I fear some things may appear incongruous,” said the pleasant-faced man in a black overcoat. “There are several really priceless old pieces here, mixed up with quite modern stuff--an arrangement of which a connoisseur might not approve. But we understood, Miss Dare, that what you had put aside in storage was to be used.”

“Most certainly. The house is mine,” she laughed. “It is not the house of a connoisseur.”

On her return to Cork Street she found a telephone message from her aunt awaiting her, saying that she was calling at six o’clock.

Almost punctually she arrived, and, bursting into the room in her usual impetuous way, she exclaimed:

“Oh, my dear Sibell, I’ve to-day discovered where Ashe is to be found! If you write to him to Hammond’s Registry, Goodge Street, Tottenham Court Road, the letter will find him. I’d write at once, dear, if I were you.”

Sibell promised she would, whereupon Lady Wyndcliffe said:

“You’re going to the new house on Monday week, aren’t you? Poor Gordon will be awfully lonely without you.”

“Oh, I hope to see him as my guest very often, auntie--and you also,” she declared. “I’ve just been down to Hampton Court, and the place is quite transformed--so bright and artistic. You must really come and see it.”

“I fear I can’t, dear. I’m so sorry. As you know, I’ve closed West Halkin Street while Wyndcliffe is away, and I’m going to Scotland to-morrow to visit the McKays at Dalry. But I do hope you’ll be very happy, notwithstanding that you have not chosen Gussie as a husband.”

“I might change my mind,” laughed the girl saucily. “Who knows?”

“Well, dear, I heartily hope you will, for a life alone in that house is surely no existence for you.”

And, having applied her lipstick before the mirror and rearranged her hat, she shook hands and left, saying as she went out:

“Now, mind that you write to Ashe to-night or you may lose him!”