CHAPTER III

GODFREY SPEAKS

IT was spring at last. The winter had been a cold and late one; now with a rush of warm bright weather every tree and bush was waking into life. Adrienne, with her hands full of daffodils, was filling great bowls upon the wide window-sills.

She was always down in the morning long before her uncles, and had been out in the garden rifling the beds beneath the windows of their golden treasures.

Softly singing to herself as she arranged the flowers to her liking, she did not hear the entrance of the General or of Drake with the postbag.

"Here, Adrienne, you take the cake! Five, as I'm a sinner, a budget of circulars for Derrick, and the usual execrable bills for me!"

General Chesterton was practically well again, but he had not been allowed to hunt in spite of his agonized entreaties. His doctor warned him that the slightest strain put upon his injured leg might mean weeks of confinement again to his room. So he made the best of it, and occupied himself by superintending the young gardener, and arranging with him the order in which the vegetable garden was to be sown.

Occasionally he would shout for Adrienne to come and help him over some knotty point. She never failed him.

Now, she held out her hands for her letters.

"I shall never get too old to love the post," she said. "It's the one thing that prevents monotony: one from Phemie—a recipe I wanted—one from my dressmaker, one from May Edginton who's in Venice, a bill from the library, and—"

She paused, holding a letter in her hand and scrutinizing it closely.

"Now I wonder," she went on, "who writes to me in such a small black dashing hand. Postmark—London. It's from a man, I'm sure."

"Women are the rummiest lot," observed the General, looking at her; "why waste wonder and time in turning a letter over and over before you open it?"

Adrienne did not hear him. She had slowly opened her letter, and was now deep in its contents. Then she looked up and sighed:

"It's very extraordinary. I felt something would happen to-day, something unexpected, and now this has come."

She handed her letter over to the General, who took it, and with a frowning brow read as follows:—

"DEAR MISS CHESTERTON,—

"Your aunt, my stepmother, badly wants you. Why not give her the pleasure of your society if even for a few weeks? I expect by this time that the circumstances which prevented your going to her a month ago have changed.

"I shall be returning to France on the 18th of this month and we could travel over together.

"Perhaps I could run down and persuade you to do this kindness for an invalid relative. Could you put me up for a night if I did so?

"Will this next Thursday suit you? I expect my stepmother's brothers will be glad to hear the latest account of her.

"Yours sincerely—

"GUY DE BEAUDESSERT."

"Plague take the fellow," spluttered the General; "why has he thrust his finger into the pie? Cecily is determined to take you from us. Here, Derrick, I'll pass it on to you. For consummate cheek give me an American!"

"But he isn't that exactly," protested Adrienne. "He isn't French. His letter tells you that. He has lived in America more than in any other country."

The Admiral read the letter through, and then looked inquiringly at his niece.

"I shall have to go," she said quietly; "but only for a short visit. I shall make that quite clear."

"I think you will, my dear, and we must put up this young man. After all, he is a connection of ours. Thursday is the day after to-morrow. You had better write at once to him."

Adrienne laughed her happy ringing laugh.

"I don't like the feeling of coercion in this visit. He writes so dictatorially."

"He's a nasty, masterful fellow," said the General viciously. "I'll give him a piece of mind when I see him. I remember when he came over to us some years ago. He stood up to me and tried to batten me to the ground over some international question. I told him then that age and experience had some weight in the world, though he didn't appear to think so."

"I don't see how I can go off on the 18th. That is Thursday week," said Adrienne thoughtfully; "I have several engagements, and I've promised Lady Talbot to take the flower-stall at her Bazaar in Lufton on the 19th. Besides, if I go, I prefer to go alone to travelling with him. I might go on the 21st."

"It's utter rot your going at all," growled the General. "Cecily is an octopus! She'll lay hold of you and keep you. But we can wire for you to come back. Either Derrick or I will be alarmingly ill. Both sides can play that game."

"Oh, I shall come back right enough," said Adrienne reassuringly; and then she turned her attention to the breakfast table and purposely talked of other things.

"I promised Godfrey to walk out to Claphanger's Farm this morning," she said. "That dear old Mrs. Viner is very ill, and asked if I would come to see her."

"Take her a bottle of port," said the Admiral; "she mothered us when we were boys. She left us when we went to school, and brought up young Godfrey from his birth."

"Yes, he's devoted to her. I believe she is ninety this month."

An hour later Sir Godfrey appeared. He and Adrienne set off together, tramped through the village, then crossed three or four fields and finally climbed on to the moor. Both of them loved walking for walking's sake, and there was no lack of conversation between them.

Adrienne told him of the letter which she had received.

"I know you think I shall be right to go, don't you?"

"I think it's an opportunity."

"Oh, Godfrey, your opportunities! Do you ever lose yours, I wonder, as I do?"

"Often," he said, smiling. "And then I have regrets and remorse, accordingly."

"I'm perfectly certain you never go against your conscience. Sometimes I wish you were more human!"

He looked a little startled.

"But that's what I work to be," he said; "surely to fill up breaches and gaps, and lend a hand to any needing help, is not inhuman?"

"I'd like to see you do a really selfish thing for once in your life," said Adrienne impetuously.

"I'm doing one now," he responded quickly. "I have a big pile of correspondence on my writing-table waiting to be tackled, and I've let it go hang, because I wanted a walk with you."

Adrienne laughed lightly.

Then he asked, with some interest in his tone: "And does this fellow who's written to you live at the Château?"

"No, I think not. He comes and goes, and spends most of his time when there at a farm near. I don't know him at all. I have never seen him."

"Is he a married man?"

"I don't think so. He may be. I really don't know. He has made over the Château to my aunt. I know that. I believe he's a wanderer by nature. He loves travelling."

There was silence for a moment, then Godfrey said: "Adrienne, when will you let me speak to you seriously?"

"Oh, Godfrey, please—not yet—I don't like to say never, but I want nothing to spoil our pleasant friendship. I don't want you to break it into a thousand pieces!"

"I've been waiting about two years since I last spoke to you."

There was a hint of patient resignation in his tone. Adrienne laid her hand softly on his coat-sleeve. "I should so love to see you become engaged to some nice girl," she said. "You ought to marry and have a home of your own."

He shook his head, but did not speak.

For a few moments they walked on in silence, then Adrienne broke it:

"Look here, Godfrey. Let us have it out. It will be best. Do you know what I think about you? You like grooves. You think, because we have grown up together, that we're meant to spend our lives together. You're accustomed to go about with me, and we're good chums, and we confide in each other, and so you think you want me altogether; and in spite of what you say, and what you think you feel, I don't believe you've got the right sort of love in your heart for me, and I'm perfectly certain I have not got it for you."

Godfrey was so taken aback that he stood still and stared at her.

"What kind of love are you looking for?" he asked her a little breathlessly.

Adrienne looked a little shamefaced and confused; then she plucked up her courage, for she was nothing if she was not courageous.

"I'm going to probe deeply," she said; "and if I hurt you, it's only for your good. I know some girls are satisfied, as they may well be, by a good man's quiet unemotional affection—well—love, as you would say. But I'm not like that. I want to be carried off my feet, thrilled; I want to feel that I care for nothing and nobody in the wide world but the one who is beside me. That I would follow him to suffering or to death with the greatest possible joy. Now do I feel that for you, and do you truthfully feel that for me?"

"You're so intense!" said Godfrey, flushing under his tanned skin. "I'm not excitable by temperament; but I think my love would wear better and endure longer than those passionate heroics."

"I dare say they sound childish to you," said Adrienne quietly, "but I am made that way. I cannot help it. I must be intense. I must feel to the bottom of my heart, when realities come into my life. I'm afraid, Godfrey, I've a turbulent soul, and I welcome storms rather than stagnation."

"Would life with me be stagnation?" asked Godfrey. "I thought you were a contented soul. You enjoy your quiet life with your uncles."

"I do—I do—And that is why I would not exchange it for another similar one. Marriage means a big, mysterious thing to me."

"You put me in the same category as your good uncles. Do you know you are being rather cruel to me this morning?"

Adrienne sighed.

"I don't mean to be, but I feel I should like things to be quite settled between us, and not, I fear, as you wish. I want you as a friend, a good comrade; but I can give you nothing more than faithful friendship, Godfrey, and I am more certain of it now than two years ago, when you first spoke to me."

"Is this your final and determined decision?" Godfrey asked slowly and gravely.

"Yes, I am afraid it is."

And, to her annoyance, great tears rose to her eyes.

Godfrey gave her a fleeting glance. Then he braced himself.

"I am not going to make you sad upon such a lovely morning," he said. "I will accept your answer like a man, and won't bother you any more. Let us talk of other things. We won't let our friendship go; and if you want help at any time, you know that I'll do my utmost for you."

"You're too good for me, and that's the fact," said Adrienne ruefully; "but I do believe that the day will come when you will feel glad that my answer is what it is. And I'm sure there's another much nicer girl than I, who will make you happy."

He did not reply, and as they were now nearing the farm they began to talk of the nurse who had been with both the Chestertons and Sutherlands for the greater part of her life.

No one would have thought, as they sat a little later by the old woman's bed, that there had been such a momentous conversation between them.

Adrienne was always at her best when with the village folk. Godfrey's gaze was sombre, his eyes rarely left her face, but he showed no discomposure as he talked and even laughed with his old nurse.

And then suddenly she turned to him:

"Well, sir, when are you going to take yourself a wife? 'Tis what we all expect from you."

"You must wait a bit, Nannie; wives are not to be picked up so easily."

"You mean you're not so easily pleased?"

"We'll leave it at that."

He refused to be drawn, but Adrienne felt and looked very uncomfortable.

As they rose to go away, the old woman said:

"'Tis good of you to come and see me. It's the weary waitin' that tries me so sorely. If the Lord called me quickly, 'twould be so much easier; I know I've got to go; and every day brings it nearer, but I feel at times like David:

"'Oh, that I had wings like a dove! For then would I fly away, and be at rest.'"

"You are being called very gently, Nannie. Pillow your head on this: 'Underneath are the Everlasting Arms,' and rest down here as a foretaste of what is before you."

Her whole face brightened, and when they were walking home Adrienne said:

"Oh, you ought to have gone into the Church, Godfrey. What a delightful rector or vicar you would make! I wish I had your faith and outlook."

"I'm not an eloquent speaker," said Godfrey with a short laugh; "I fancy my sermons would be dry and dull, so I dare say I am best as I am. When do you think you will be off to France?"

"After Lady Talbot's Bazaar takes place. I think I shall go on the 21st."

"I'll look the General up as often as I can. He's the one who will miss you most. The Admiral is so content amongst his books."

"And—and—" hesitated Adrienne, "shall I write and tell you how I get on, or would you rather not hear from me?"

Godfrey looked straight ahead of him with compressed lips.

"We always have corresponded, haven't we? I don't want things altered, Adrienne—not until you do."

Adrienne was silent; but when he left her at her gate and held out his hand, she took it and held it tightly between her own for a moment.

"You're much, much too good for me, Godfrey. Forgive me for not wanting your all. It's shameful of me, but it's just something in me, which I can't control or get over. And I still have the unswerving conviction that there's someone in the world waiting for you, someone much nobler—much better than I."

He shook his head as he turned away, and his walk home, and the thoughts that accompanied it, brought him into his house with gloom in his eyes and deep depression in his soul.

His mother at luncheon watched him anxiously, but was too tactful to ask him any questions.

She knew he had been out with Adrienne, and was pretty certain that she had again refused him.

Lady Sutherland had known for a long time that her son's affections were set upon Adrienne. She also knew that the girl was strangely indifferent to him. And though she was well content that her son should not marry at present, she resented Adrienne's lack of appreciation of his love.

"She will never get a better husband, socially or morally," she thought to herself; "I really hope she will be made to suffer. If Godfrey is not good enough for her, who will be?"

* * * * *

And Adrienne was shedding some miserable tears in her room before she joined her uncles at lunch.

"Why can't I love him? He's so deep and true and steadfast. But I believe if he were less quiet and controlled, if he took me by storm as it were, and showed more heat and intensity, I should yield to him."

She could not afford much time over useless tears. Quickly she bathed her face and went downstairs.

The General thought what good form she was in as she chatted and laughed and joked with him through lunch, but the Admiral always surmised the truth when his niece was unusually animated and his quick eyes detected the signs of trouble in her face.

When lunch was over, the General went off to the smoking-room with his pipe.

Adrienne stood at the window for a moment or two, looking out upon the sunny garden, and the Admiral joined her and, laying a hand on her shoulder, said:

"You're not fretting over going to France, are you, my dear?"

Adrienne slipped her hand into his arm caressingly. "I'm trying not to think about it," she said; "why do you have such sharp eyes, Uncle Derrick?"

"I hate to see you worried," was his quick response.

"It's only—you know the old trouble—Godfrey has been coming to close quarters again, and it's no good—I can't give him what he wants. And I hate making him unhappy."

The Admiral did not speak.

"You want me to marry him, I know," she went on in a low breathless tone; "but I'm terrified of taking such an unalterable step, feeling as I do—or rather not feeling as he deserves I should. Sometimes I think I have no heart. It's cold and dead as far as he is concerned. I don't say I don't like him. I do very much—but I like him as a friend or brother, and nothing more."

"Well, my dear child, don't fret about it. You know your own business best. He's an out-and-out good sort; but if he doesn't appeal to you, don't for goodness' sake force yourself against your instinct. Perhaps it will be just as well for you to be away from him for a bit. Personally I think you see too much of each other."

"I think perhaps we do. But I have really made him understand to-day that I cannot give him the love he ought to have. He won't ask me again, I feel sure."

Then after a moment's silence she said:

"Don't say anything to Uncle Tom, will you? You and I have a few secrets together, and this must be one of them. Now I must go and write to this stepcousin of mine. But he is no relation really, is he? Don't you think his letter rather dictatorial?"

The Admiral smiled.

"He goes straight to the point and keeps to it. He's been very good to Cecily."

Adrienne went to her private sitting-room. It was upstairs next to her bedroom, and was very daintily furnished. Old-fashioned chintz curtains and chintz-covered couch and chairs brightened up the grey walls and the soft grey carpet underfoot. A canary in a cage was singing lustily as she entered the room. A bright fire was in the grate, and big blue and white china bowls of daffodils and narcissus stood on the writing-table and on the wide window-sills.

Adrienne went over to her writing-table by the window and wrote as follows:

"DEAR COUNT DE BEAUDESSERT,—

"Thank you for your letter. We shall be very pleased to see you on Thursday for a few days, when we can do as you suggest—talk things over together. My uncles will be very glad to hear of my aunt. I trust she is fairly well. Will you let us know your train, so that we can send the car to meet you.

"Yours sincerely,

"ADRIENNE CHESTERTON."

"There!" she said a little triumphantly. "That will leave you in doubt as to my intentions, which will be very good for you."

She posted her letter and tried to think of other things. But her anticipated visit to her aunt seemed to hang over her like a heavy cloud.

She always said that she was like a cat, and hated change of any sort, and she was so happy in her home life that she did not want to leave it.