Helena. Mrs. Humphry Ward
He wandered restlessly round the room again, stopping every now and then with his hands in his pockets, to look at the books on the shelves. Generally, he did not take in what he was looking at, but in a moment less absent-minded than others, he happened to notice the name of a stately octavo volume just opposite his eyes—
"Davison, on Prophecy."
"Damn Davison!"—he said to himself, with sudden temper. The outburst seemed to clear his mind. He went to the bell and rang it. A thin woman in a black dress appeared, a woman with a depressed and deprecating expression which was often annoying to Lord Buntingford. It represented somehow an appeal to the sentiment of the spectator for which there was really no sufficient ground. Mrs. Mawson was not a widow, in spite of the Mrs. She was a well-paid and perfectly healthy person; and there was no reason, in Lord Buntingford's view, why she should not enjoy life. All the same, she was very efficient and made him comfortable. He would have raised her wages to preposterous heights to keep her.
"Is everything ready for the two ladies, Mrs. Mawson?"
"Everything, my Lord. We are expecting the pony-cart directly."
"And the car has been ordered for Miss Pitstone?"
"Oh, yes, my Lord, long ago."
"Gracious! Isn't that the cart!"
There was certainly a sound of wheels outside. Lord Buntingford hurried to a window which commanded the drive.
"That's her! I must go and meet her."
He went into the hall, reaching the front door just as the pony-cart drew up with a lady in black sitting beside the driver. Mrs. Mawson looked after him. She wondered why his lordship was in such a flurry. "It's this living alone. He isn't used to have women about. And it's a pity he didn't stay on as he was."
Meanwhile the lady in the pony-cart, as she alighted, saw a tall man, of somewhat remarkable appearance, standing on the steps of the porch. Her expectations had been modest; and that she would be welcomed by her employer in person on the doorstep of Beechmark had not been among them. Her face flushed, and a pair of timid eyes met those of Lord Buntingford as they shook hands.
"The train was very late," she explained in a voice of apology.
"They always are," said Lord Buntingford. "Never mind. You are in quite good time. Miss Pitstone hasn't arrived. Norris, take Mrs. Friend's luggage upstairs."
An ancient man-servant appeared. The small and delicately built lady on the step looked at him appealingly.
"I am afraid there is a box besides," she said, like one confessing a crime. "Not a big one—" she added hurriedly. "We had to leave it at the station. The groom left word for it to be brought later."
"Of course. The car will bring it," said Lord Buntingford. "Only one box and those bags?" he asked, smiling. "Why, that's most moderate. Please come in."
And he led the way to the drawing-room. Reassured by his kind voice and manner, Mrs. Friend tripped after him. "What a charming man!" she thought.
It was a common generalization about Lord Buntingford. Mrs. Friend had still—like others—to discover that it did not take one very far.
In the drawing-room, which was hung with French engravings mostly after
Watteau, and boasted a faded Aubusson carpet, a tea-table was set out.
Lord Buntingford, having pushed forward a seat for his guest, went
towards the tea-table, and then thought better of it.
"Perhaps you'll pour out tea—" he said pleasantly. "It'll be your function, I think—and I always forget something."
Mrs. Friend took her seat obediently in front of the tea-table and the Georgian silver upon it, which had a look of age and frailty as though generations of butlers had rubbed it to the bone, and did her best not to show the nervousness she felt. She was very anxious to please her new employer.
"I suppose Miss Pitstone will be here before long?" she ventured, when she had supplied both the master of the house and herself.
"Twenty minutes—" said Lord Buntingford, looking at his watch. "Time enough for me to tell you a little more about her than I expect you know."
And again his smile put her at ease.
She bent forward, clasping her small hands.
"Please do! It would be a great help."
He noticed the delicacy of the hands, and of her slender body. The face attracted him—its small neat features, and brown eyes. Clearly a lady—that was something.
"Well, I shouldn't wonder—if you found her a handful," he said deliberately.
Mrs. Friend laughed—a little nervous laugh.
"Is she—is she very advanced?"
"Uncommonly—I believe. I may as well tell you candidly she didn't want to come here at all. She wanted to go to college. But her mother, who was a favourite cousin of mine, wished it. She died last autumn; and Helena promised her that she would allow me to house her and look after her for two years. But she regards it as a dreadful waste of time."
"I think—in your letter—you said I was to help her—in modern languages—" murmured Mrs. Friend.
Lord Buntingford shrugged his shoulders—
"I have no doubt you could help her in a great many things. Young people, who know her better than I do, say she's very clever. But her mother and she were always wandering about—before the war—for her mother's health. I don't believe she's been properly educated in anything. Of course one can't expect a girl of nineteen to behave like a schoolgirl. If you can induce her to take up some serious reading—Oh, I don't mean anything tremendous!—and to keep up her music—I expect that's all her poor mother would have wanted. When we go up to town you must take her to concerts—the opera—that kind of thing. I dare say it will go all right!" But the tone was one of resignation, rather than certainty.
"I'll do my best—" began Mrs. Friend.
"I'm sure you will. But—well, we'd better be frank with each other.
Helena's very handsome—very self-willed—and a good bit of an heiress.
The difficulty will be—quite candidly—lovers!"
They both laughed. Lord Buntingford took out his cigarette case.
"You don't mind if I smoke?"
"Not at all."
"Won't you have one yourself?" He held out the case. Mrs. Friend did not smoke. But she inwardly compared the gesture and the man with the forbidding figure of the old woman in Lancaster Gate with whom she had just completed two years of solitary imprisonment, and some much-baffled vitality in her began to revive.
Lord Buntingford threw himself back in his arm-chair, and watched the curls of smoke for a short space—apparently in meditation.
"Of course it's no good trying the old kind of thing—strict chaperonage and that sort of business," he said at last. "The modern girl won't stand it."
"No, indeed she won't!" said Mrs. Friend fervently. "I should like to tell you—I've just come from——" She named a university. "I went to see a cousin of mine, who's in one of the colleges there. She's going to teach. She went up just before the war. Then she left to do some war work, and now she's back again. She says nobody knows what to do with the girls. All the old rules have just—gone!" The gesture of the small hand was expressive. "Authority—means nothing. The girls are entering for the sports—just like the men. They want to run the colleges—as they please—and make all the rules themselves."
"Oh, I know—" broke in her companion. "They'll just allow the wretched teachers and professors to teach—what their majesties choose to learn. Otherwise—they run the show."