The Collected Works of P. C. Wren: Complete Beau Geste Series, Novels & Short Stories. P. C. Wren
Burdon! How are you?" said Lawrence.
"Why, Mr. George, sir!" replied the old man, who had known Lawrence for thirty years, coming forward and looking unwontedly human.
"This is a real pleasure, sir."
It was--a real five-pound note too, when the visitor, a perfect gent, departed. Quite a source of income Mr. Lawrence had been, ever since Henry Burdon had been under-footman in the service of her ladyship's father.
"Her Ladyship is at the Bower, sir, if you'd like to come straight out," he continued, knowing that the visitor was a very old friend indeed, and always welcome. "I will announce you."
Burdon led the way.
"How is Lady Brandon?" enquired Lawrence, impelled to unwonted loquacity by his nervousness.
"She enjoys very good health, sir--considering," replied the butler.
"Considering what?" asked Lawrence.
"Everythink, sir," was the non-committal reply.
The visitor smiled to himself. A good servant, this.
"And how is his Reverence?" he continued.
"Queer, sir, very. And gets queerer, poor gentleman," was the answer.
Lawrence expressed regret at this bad news concerning the chaplain, as the Reverend Maurice Ffolliot was always called in that house.
"Is Mr. Michael here?" he asked.
"No, sir, he ain't. Nor none of the other young gentlemen," was the reply. Was there anything unusual in the old man's tone? . . .
Emerging from the shrubbery, crossing a rose-garden, some lawn-tennis courts, and a daisy-pied stretch of cedar-studded sward, the pair entered a wood, followed a path beneath enormous elms and beeches, and came out on to a square of velvet turf.
On two sides, the left and rear, rose the great old trees of a thickly forested hill; on the right, the grey old house; and from the front of this open space the hillside fell away to the famous view.
By wicker table and hammock-stand, a lady reclined in a chaise longue. She was reading a book and her back was towards Lawrence, whose heart missed a beat and hastened to make up for the omission by a redoubled speed.
The butler coughed at the right distance and upon the right note, and, as Lady Brandon turned, announced the visitor, hovered, placed a wicker chair, and faded from the scene.
"George!" said Lady Brandon, in her soft deep contralto, with a pleased brightening of her wide grey eyes and flash of beautiful teeth. But she did not flush nor pale, and there was no quickening of her breathing. It was upon the man that these symptoms were produced by the meeting, although it was a meeting anticipated by him, unexpected by her.
"Patricia!" he said, and extended both hands. She took them frankly and Lawrence kissed them both, with a curiously gentle and reverent manner, an exhibition of a George Lawrence unknown to other people.
"Well, my dear!" he said, and looked long at the unlined, if mature, determined, clever face before him--that of a woman of forty years, of strong character and of aristocratic breeding.
"Yes," he continued.
"Yes 'what,' George?" asked Lady Brandon.
"Yes. You are positively as young and as beautiful as ever," he replied--but with no air of gallantry and compliment, and rather as a sober statement of ascertained fact.
"And you as foolish, George. . . . Sit down--and tell me why you have disobeyed me and come here before your wedding. . . . Or--or--are you married, George?" was the smiling reply.
"No, Patricia, I am not married," said Lawrence, relinquishing her hands slowly. "And I have disobeyed you, and come here again without bringing a wife, because I hoped you might be in need of my help. . . . I mean, I feared you might be in trouble and in need of help, and hoped that I might be able to give it."
Lady Brandon fixed a penetrating gaze on Lawrence's face--neither startled nor alarmed, he felt, but keen and, possibly, to be described as wary, or at least watchful.
"Trouble? In need of help, George? How?" she asked, and whatever of wariness or watchfulness had peeped from her eyes retired, and her face became a beautiful mask, showing no more than reposeful and faintly-amused interest.
"Well--it is a longish story," said Lawrence. "But I need not inflict it on you if you'll tell me if Beau Geste is all right and--er--the 'Blue Water'--er--safe and sound and--er--all that, you know."
"What?" ejaculated his hearer sharply.
There was no possible doubt now, as to the significance of the look on Lady Brandon's face. It certainly could be called one of alarm, and her direct gaze was distinctly watchful and wary. Had not she also paled very slightly? Undoubtedly she frowned faintly as she asked:
"What are you talking about, George?"
"Beau Geste, and the 'Blue Water,' Patricia," replied Lawrence. "If I appear to be talking through my hat, I am not really, and will produce reason for my wild-but-not-wicked words," he laughed. "There is method in my madness, dear."
"There's madness in your method," replied Lady Brandon a trifle tartly, and added: "Have you seen Michael, then? Or what? Tell me!"
"No. I have not seen him--but . . ."
"Then what are you talking about? What do you know?" she interrupted, speaking hurriedly, a very sure sign that she was greatly perturbed.
"I don't know anything, Patricia, and I'm asking you, because I have, most extraordinarily, come into possession of a document that purports to be a confession by Beau that he stole the 'Blue Water,'" began Lawrence.
"Then it was . . ." whispered Lady Brandon.
"Was what, Patricia?" asked Lawrence.
"Go on, dear," she replied hastily. "How and where did you get this confession? Tell me quickly."
"As I said, it's a long story," replied Lawrence. "It was found by de Beaujolais at a place called Zinderneuf in the French Soudan, in the hand of a dead man . . ."
"Not Michael!" interrupted Lady Brandon.
"No--a Frenchman. An adjudant in charge of a fort that had been attacked by Arabs . . ."
"Our Henri de Beaujolais?" interrupted Lady Brandon, again. "Who was at school with you? . . . Rose Cary's son?"
"Yes. He found it in this dead officer's hand . . ." replied Lawrence.
"Er--has the sapphire been stolen, Patricia, and--er--excuse the silly question--is this Beau's writing?" and he thrust his hand into the inner pocket of his jacket.
"But of course it isn't," he continued as he produced an envelope and extracted a stained and dirty piece of paper.
Lady Brandon took the latter and looked at it, her face hard, enigmatical, a puzzled frown marring the smoothness of her forehead, her firm shapely mouth more tightly compressed than usual.
She read the document and then looked out into the distance, down the coombe, and across the green and smiling plain, as though communing with herself and deciding how to answer.
"Tell me the whole story from beginning to end, George," she said at length, "if it takes you the week-end. But tell me this quickly. Do you know anything more than you have told me, about either Michael or the 'Blue Water'?"
"I know nothing whatever, my dear," was the reply, and the speaker thought he saw a look of relief, or a lessening of the look of alarm on his hearer's face, "but what I have told you. You know as much as I do now--except the details, of course."
George Lawrence noted that Lady Brandon had neither admitted nor denied that the sapphire had been stolen, had neither admitted nor denied that the handwriting was that of her nephew.
Obviously and undoubtedly