Part 20

Certainly he must lunch in her company, but Lydia had a vague idea that he generally went out by himself in the afternoons. And she was obliged to admit, with a certain inward appreciation for her own discernment, that Mr. Codd, evidently a practical, matter-of-fact man, whose chief idea was sport, and whose life had been passed largely in the wilds, could hardly have very much in common with cultivated, expensive little Lady Honoret and her artistic circle of friends.

From these considerations it was easy to pass to a friendly feeling, almost amounting to a sense of responsibility, for Mr. Codd’s unoccupied morning hours.

Lydia was not very busy, and Mr. Codd was always ready to talk. For all his quietness of manner, he was a gregarious soul. Lydia had once entered the study, after a protracted absence, and found him in friendly intercourse with William, the footman.

Quite evidently, Mr. Codd was lonely.

Lydia asked him one or two questions about his travels and he gave her some very interesting information, in a manner that somehow reminded her a little of Uncle George, and then, in return as it were for her interest in his concerns, Mr. Codd asked Lydia about her own work.

Had she been long with his old friend Sir Rupert?

Lydia explained that she had not.

Mr. Codd said that Sir Rupert might be a little taciturn, perhaps, but that was only manner--a heart of gold. In fact, a rough diamond, Mr. Codd called him, oddly selecting the very expression by which Sir Rupert had described _him_, before his arrival.

“Our little friend, Lady Honoret, now,” said Mr. Codd, smiling, “is quite different--most warm-hearted and enthusiastic.”

Lydia assented, explaining that to Lady Honoret’s kindness she really owed her present position, and the success of her novel.

“Just like her!” Mr. Codd declared enthusiastically. “But still; we mustn’t forget that it gives her real pleasure to discover genuine new talent, and, besides, no doubt you’ve done many little things to help her--perhaps almost as a daughter might have done?”

Lydia could not help liking the expression, although she knew that it overstated the case. Almost as a daughter! Where were Miss Forster’s pretensions now?

“Oh, I’ve not had the chance of doing much,” she said modestly, “though of course I’d like to.”

But she added, lest Mr. Codd should suppose her inability to be of use to Lady Honoret greater than it really was:

“Of course, I’ve always been very fond of figures, and I can do accounts easily. Sometimes I’ve helped Lady Honoret that way.”

“Very rare to find a young lady who is really good at accounts,” said Mr. Codd respectfully, almost as Mr. Monteagle Almond might have spoken. “Quite a faculty apart. I suppose you’ve mastered accountancy pretty thoroughly?”

Lydia told him, while he listened with great interest and attention, of her experience at Madame Elena’s shop.

“Ah, yes! Of course, after that Lady Honoret’s straightforward little accounts must seem to you like child’s play!”

Lydia laughed a little, secretly amused at the singularly inappropriate adjective that he had selected for describing Lady Honoret’s system of dealing with her expenditure, but she did not say anything.

Mr. Codd twirled his grey moustache, and declared that it was a shame to waste her time by talking, but if he might say so, it was a surprising relief to find a young lady who had other ideas in her head than dressing up, or going to the play.

Lydia remembered Margoliouth, but, after all, she thought that she had changed a great deal since those days. In fact, she must have done so, since she could attract men like Mr. Clement Damerel, and even Mr. Codd himself.

The liking that he evinced for her conversation was so unmistakable that Lydia began to allow herself to place possible interpretations upon it.

She was not attracted by Mr. Codd as she was by Clement Damerel, the only man who had yet touched her imagination in any romantic sense. But Mr. Codd--some instinct that she could not doubt assured her of it--belonged, for all his polished manners, and his old friendship with Sir Rupert and his extensive travels, to the classification roughly described by Lydia as her own “sort,” although he might be, and probably was, a rich man. Clement Damerel, the young London parson, and certainly not rich at all, was different. He might be attracted by Lydia, but an indefinable gulf separated the worlds to which they respectively belonged.

It was entirely characteristic of Lydia’s eminently practical outlook upon life that she should attach an importance to Mr. Codd’s mild attentions which she had absolutely denied to her own perfectly-recognized inclination towards the good-looking, diffident young clergyman.

Mr. Codd’s visit continued for a whole fortnight, and appeared likely to extend even beyond it. He explained to Lydia that he had no relations in England now, and but few friends, and so Sir Rupert had kindly bidden him make the house at Lexham Gardens his headquarters.

Perhaps it was because he wished his old friend to feel himself at home that Sir Rupert took so little pains to entertain him, Lydia reflected, but she did not feel that such a consideration would in any way account for the extreme brusqueness of the Jewish financier’s manner from time to time.

“Stop that damned foolery!” Lydia overheard him growl, when Mr. Codd had made an innocent and friendly allusion to some adventure shared in the past upon the West Coast of Africa.

Mr. Codd remained smiling and unperturbed, but he said to Lydia soon afterwards that he was afraid the City was a strenuous place, and told upon the nerves of many.

“Our poor friend, now--I daresay you notice a little irritability. Of course, meaningless--he merely lets himself go with those who are quite certain not to misunderstand him--but there’s a certain _tension_ about him that I don’t quite like. It looks to me very much like over-strained nerves--probably from overwork. I don’t like it,” said Mr. Codd emphatically.

Lydia did not like it either.

Sir Rupert’s nerves, Lady Honoret’s flightiness, even Mr. Codd’s bland, observant presence, all combined to create an atmosphere of which Lydia became, more and more, uneasily conscious.

She was oddly reminded of the uncomfortable weight hanging in the air, the general sense of electricity, experienced on the sea-shore at home just before the breaking of a heavy thunderstorm.

“_Shamrock can smell the thunder about._”

Grandpapa had been wont to claim such prescience for his favourite.

Regardless of the inelegance of the simile, Lydia felt inwardly as though she, too, could smell the thunder about.

In a phrase much affected by Aunt Evelyn, she realized that “things were getting on her nerves.”

She had less work to do for Sir Rupert than ever before. If he chanced to return early he generally said to her:

“You can leave all that, Miss Raymond. I’ll look at the letters--just let me have the room for half an hour or so.”

This was Sir Rupert’s fashion of intimating that Lydia should leave the study. He himself remained there, fiercely picking at his teeth and emitting that harsh, downward snort.

Mr. Codd remained also, and once, as she left the room, Lydia heard him say very soothingly:

“Well, a few days more will see the end of it. We’ve got pretty nearly all we want.”

That was the very day, Lydia remembered afterwards, that emerging into the hall, she met Lady Honoret, coming in all alone from some expedition that had left her with a white face and glittering eyes behind the thick veil she was wearing.

“Oh, you startled me!” she said shrilly, at the sudden sight of Lydia. “Is Sir Rupert there?”

“He’s just come in. He’s in the study with Mr. Codd.”

“I don’t know what he wants with that awful man,” said Lady Honoret pettishly. “He’s never had anyone to stay before--though I’m only too, too thankful for anything that’ll put him in a good humour. But does this Codd c’eature mean to stay here for ever?”

With the recollection clearly in her mind of the words that she had just overheard, to which she had definitely attached the implication that Mr. Codd’s visit was drawing to a term, Lydia nevertheless obeyed some obscure instinct entirely unintelligible to herself, and only answered:

“I don’t know.”

Afterwards she could not understand why she had done so, and the discomfort, unusual to her, of finding complexities in her own conduct to which she held no clue, added to Lydia’s unease.

It was less than two days later that enlightenment came to her.

She arrived at Lexham Gardens as usual, to have the front door opened for her with an instantaneous alacrity that was in itself a hint of deviation from the normal.

Not only William, but two maids were in the hall, hovering about the foot of the stairs with white, excited-looking faces.

Lydia wanted to ask, “What is the matter?” but disliked the idea of questioning the gaping servants, and prepared to go silently upstairs to the study on the first floor.

“Better not go up just yet, miss, if I were you,” said William, the footman.

“Why not?” Lydia asked quickly.

“There’s her Ladyship in the study with Sir Rupert,” hesitated the man.

“Of course I’m going in,” said Lydia quietly. Her heart was beating violently with some apprehension that she could not define, but not for worlds would she have taken place amongst the hovering, whispering crew of waiting domestics.

As she reached the first landing the door of the study flew open, and Lady Honoret came out.

Her little dark face was distorted by violent weeping and by an emotion which Lydia, with an abrupt, physical pang, recognized as sheer terror.

She put out her hand involuntarily as Lady Honoret dashed past her, and then turned back with a stifled, hunted exclamation at the sight of the servants below.

“Milady!” gasped a frightened voice from above, and Lydia looked up and saw Lady Honoret’s own maid, a smart, ugly little Frenchwoman, halfway down the second flight of stairs.

Lady Honoret stumbled upstairs with a sort of rush, and the woman led her away.

Almost simultaneously Sir Rupert’s voice shouted from inside the study:

“_Shut_ that door, will you?” and Lydia, finding herself shaking all over, and not knowing what else to do, went into the study and shut the door behind her.

Sir Rupert and Mr. Codd stood side by side on the hearth-rug, the little Jew with a face like parchment and hands tearing nervously at a silk handkerchief, and Mr. Codd suave and imperturbable.

At the sight of Lydia, however, he came forward and pulled a chair towards her.

“Sit down,” he said benevolently. “You saw...? It’s been a shock, of course.”

“But what _is_ it?” Lydia wailed, feeling bewildered.

“_What is it?_” sneered Sir Rupert. “I suppose you haven’t been in my lady’s counsels all the time, helping her to deceive me with her accounts, and what-all, have you?”

The room reeled round Lydia, and she heard as from an immense distance the remonstrating voice of Mr. Codd:

“Sir Rupert! I have already assured you----”

Could all this be about the accounts, and the money Lady Honoret had spent? Lydia asked herself wildly.

“Be quiet, you fellow!” Sir Rupert was bellowing at Mr. Codd. “You’ve done _your_ part. I don’t want to hear any more from you.”

“I make allowances, Sir Rupert,” said Mr. Codd with dignity, “for the shock you have sustained. But really--your manner to this young lady, to say nothing of myself----”

Sir Rupert drew a shaking hand across his face.

He said nothing, but his habitual, sudden snort seemed designed to express a return to calm.

Mr. Codd turned to Lydia.

“Sir Rupert will hardly require you to-day. This has come as a complete blow to you, I see.”

“But what _is_ it?” Lydia asked again.

Mr. Codd glanced at the financier, as though the words served to corroborate some statement of his own.

“Miss Raymond, have you had no idea of what has been going on in this house?” Sir Rupert demanded suddenly.

“I don’t understand,” Lydia said blankly.

“Do you know why Mr. Codd is here?”

“You asked him to stay.”

“Asked him to stay! What do you suppose I asked him for?”

Mr. Codd interposed again.

“I assure you, Sir Rupert, that no one in this house has had the faintest idea of the purpose for which I have been here--yourself excepted. Secrecy was essential to our scheme, and this young lady was completely duped. It would be strange indeed,” said Mr. Codd, with a slight, superior laugh, “if a private inquiry agent of my experience were to betray himself like a mere tyro.”

A private inquiry agent....

Lydia had seen in the papers the advertisements of firms offering to supply the services of such....

Mr. Codd, Sir Rupert’s old friend, who had hunted big game with him in West Africa, a private inquiry agent---- But, of course, the West African reminiscences were only part of a necessary pose--he wasn’t a friend at all, but a paid spy. Then who...?

Wave after wave of sick enlightenment broke over Lydia.

“Has Lady Honoret----” she began, hardly knowing what she said.

“You scarcely understand, even yet,” said Mr. Codd compassionately, and yet with an underlying streak of satisfaction in his voice, as though at the entire success of his disguise. “It’s like this, Miss Raymond. Sir Rupert here had to find out--to put the matter in a nutshell--whether he had adequate grounds on which to file a petition for a divorce. He very wisely put the matter into the hands of a most eminent firm, which I have the honour to represent.”

Lydia, like many another girl of her age and standing, seldom read a newspaper. She had been taught that “divorce” was a shocking word, not mentioned among decent people. The occasional gossip at the boarding-house, arising from paragraphs in so-called “society papers,” constituted the nearest view that she had ever had of the ugly phenomenon.

Shaking all over, she burst into tears that were an actual physical relief.

“Do you mean to tell me that you had no idea at all of her ladyship’s little games?” said Sir Rupert, almost threateningly. “I thought you were as thick as thieves.”

“No!” cried Lydia, wildly repudiating she knew not what.

“You’ve seen that dam’ fellow Cassela hanging about?”

Lydia nodded her head, barely understanding the implication.

“I told you so, Sir Rupert,” Mr. Codd said. “I was certain that Miss Raymond could know nothing. But we shall have plenty of witnesses without her.”

The word “witnesses,” associated in a vague, muddled way in Lydia’s mind with the barely-apprehended horrors of the police court, filled her with panic.

“I don’t know anything about it,” she gasped, and rose to her feet. “Let me go.”

“Not so fast,” said Sir Rupert with sudden, renewed suspicion. “How am I to know that you aren’t concealing valuable evidence? I tell you, I’m going to see this thing through if I have to drag the lot of you through the Courts to do it.”

Mr. Codd shook his head, and put a fearless hand on the Jew’s trembling shoulder.

“Now, now, Sir Rupert. This is most natural, but you’re frightening the young lady. When the proper time comes, she will conceal nothing that is necessary for the pursuit of justice--but I assure you that last night’s testimony will--will do the trick, in vulgar parlance. We have more than enough evidence to institute proceedings at once, as I have told you already.”

Lydia wrenched at the door handle and found herself, she scarcely knew how, out of the room, with its echo of horrible words.

Shaking from head to foot, she went downstairs.

What had happened was no longer incomprehensible to her, but her ignorance inspired her with terrible fears as to the results to herself of the cataclysm.

Could they put her into a witness-box--perhaps try her for having falsified Lady Honoret’s accounts?

The innate provincialism in Lydia rose up and turned her almost sick with the thought of a publicity that must shame her so unutterably in the eyes of her relations--Aunt Beryl, the Senthovens, Uncle George, Mr. Monteagle Almond--all of them. Their names rushed to her mind in a chaotic bewilderment of horror.

With a new, sudden pang in the midst of so much that stabbed, Lydia remembered old Mr. Palmer, and his kindly, hesitating inquiries as to the “tone” of the household where Lydia had chosen to work.

After all, then, he had known best!

It seemed to her shaken perceptions almost a natural continuation of the thought that she should hear a voice speaking to her in the hall, connected with all the infinitely distant and regretted peace of her Devonshire visit.

“Something has happened--can I do anything?”

She saw Clement Damerel, and realized with distraught, passionate gratitude that the solicitude in his kind, anxious face was for herself.

Crying and sobbing in an abandonment such as she had never known, even in the days of her already self-controlled childhood, Lydia pushed him into the empty drawing-room, out of the way of the prying servants.

“It’s frightful--frightful!” she sobbed. “There’s been a detective and I never knew, and Sir Rupert is going to divorce Lady Honoret, and he thinks I know about it and can be a witness. Don’t let me--take me away--help me, _somehow_!”

“Oh, you poor child!” said Clement Damerel, and he put Lydia into an arm-chair, and knelt down on one knee beside her.

XX

Never could Lydia forget the nightmare horror of the hours that followed. The only comfort to be found--but it was a very substantial one--was in Mr. Damerel’s kindness--almost tenderness.

It was he who took her away from Lexham Gardens in a cab, and drove with her to the boarding-house, where he saw Miss Nettleship himself, and explained that Miss Raymond had had a great shock, and ought to stay quietly in her own room for a day or two, if it could be managed without too much trouble, and not be worried to talk to anyone.

“That’ll be quite all right, I quite understand how it is,” Miss Nettleship repeated, certainly without any grounds for the last assertion, but evidently with the kindest intentions, and her hand clasping Lydia’s, while her round brown eyes were fixed anxiously upon Mr. Damerel’s face.

She was very kind to Lydia, and came and sat with her that evening, and Lydia, completely unnerved, told her the whole story.

Miss Nettleship confined all her comments to pitying ejaculations on Lydia’s behalf. Poor dear! how dreadful for her to be mixed up in such a thing--and how _abominable_ of that Sir Rupert Honoret to pretend that he thought she knew anything about it! She had been most dignified and brave, Miss Nettleship was sure, while that horrible man was insulting her--and how right to trust that kind, gentleman-like young clergyman and tell him all about it!

Miss Nettleship’s championship and her praise of Lydia’s discretion made Lydia feel much more composed, if only by presenting to her a new aspect of the case. At first she had only been conscious that she might yet find herself held partly responsible for wicked Lady Honoret’s minor peccadilloes at least, and inclined to reproach herself bitterly for not having listened to old Mr. Palmer’s advice.

Now she saw that it was possible for her adventure to be viewed as that of an innocent victim, placed in a most difficult and dramatic position through no fault of her own.

In the eyes of Mr. Clement Damerel and Miss Nettleship, she was the heroine of the situation.

Lydia had adjusted herself to this rôle without difficulty when, two days later, Aunt Beryl made an unexpected appearance.

“Maria Nettleship wrote to me, dearie. You mustn’t be vexed with her, but she really felt the responsibility too much for her, and that Mr. Damerel the clergyman advised it. You’ll come home and have a good rest, now, won’t you?”

Lydia could really see no alternative.

Without a salary, it would be Aunt Beryl and Uncle George who would be paying her expenses at the boarding-house, and she realized for the first time that neither from the Honoret establishment, nor from Madame Elena--infuriated at the manner of Lydia’s departure from the shop--was she likely to receive a reference that would enable her easily to obtain another post. Moreover, she still felt that it would be almost intolerable to hear the affair at Lexham Gardens discussed, as it must be, by all the boarders.

Lydia agreed to go back with Aunt Beryl to Regency Terrace.

It was understood that Miss Nettleship would convey to the boarders that recent events had caused Lydia to leave the service of Sir Rupert Honoret with every credit to herself, and that her aunt had taken her home for a much-needed rest.

Clement Damerel came to say good-bye to her at a time when Aunt Beryl, to Lydia’s secret relief, was out.

Lydia, much less self-confident than usual, asked nervously whether any further developments had taken place at Lexham Gardens.

“I have seen Mr. Codd again, and he assures me that there is nothing for you to be afraid of. I practically got a definite assurance from him that there would be no question of your name appearing in the case. Of course, he was cautious, as those people must be, I suppose, but I think you can set your mind at rest. In any case, if there _is_ any idea of calling you as a witness, he has promised to let me know in good time. And I will do everything--anything--to shield you from anything so painful,” said Mr. Damerel with agitation. “I think influence could be brought to bear----”

“Thank you very, very much,” said Lydia.

She felt shaken and tired, and almost childishly grateful for his championship.

“Will you let me know how you are, and--and--your plans later on?” asked the young man gently.

“When I know myself, I will write to you,” said Lydia rather mournfully. “I feel as though I’d failed--and I did want to do some work, and do credit to my aunt and uncle and perhaps be of a little help to them.”

Clement Damerel would not let her despond.

She had been splendidly brave, and proved herself to be a most efficient worker, and other opportunities would come to her hand. The sense of failure was only a natural reaction after the shock she had undergone. There might--Clement Damerel hesitated--he felt sure there _would_ be--opportunities undreamed-of for the exercise of her splendid gifts. Might he write to her from time to time? Perhaps he could put work in her way----

Lydia thanked him again, and gave him the Regency Terrace address.

“Good-bye, and let me know if there is anything--_anything_----” said Clement Damerel, and went away after wringing her hand.

As Lydia recovered her poise of mind, she was not unaware of a private wish that he had told her rather more as to what had happened at Lexham Gardens after her summary departure, and taken it less for granted that her only preoccupation was that she should be spared the possibility of an appearance in Court.

After all, it was an exciting affair, and likely to prove notorious to a high degree.

If one _had_ to be so closely connected with the scene of action, it seemed foolish not to know more than other people of the steps that had led to the cataclysm.

Lydia came to this point of view by degrees, partly ashamed of herself for so coming, and yet urged on to it by Aunt Evelyn’s perfectly shameless absorption in every detail that she could extract from her niece bearing upon the forthcoming scandal.