Mr Bevan, since his visit to Highgate, dreamed often at nights of monstrous asparagus beds, and his friends and acquaintances noticed that he seemed distrait.
The fact was the mind of this orderly and precise individual had received a shock; his world of thought had tilted somewhat, owing to a slight shifting of the poles, and regions hitherto in darkness were touched with sun.
Go where he would a voice pursued him, turn where he would, a face. Wild impulses to jump into a cab and drive to "The Laurels," Highgate, as swiftly as cab could take him were subdued and conquered. Perhaps it would be happier for some of us if we used less reason in steering our way through life. Impulsive people are often sneered at, yet,[Pg 195] I dare say that an impulse acted upon will as often make a man's life as mar it.
Mr Bevan was not an impulsive man. It was not for some days after his visit to "The Laurels" that he carried out his determination to stop the action once for all. He did not return to "The Laurels." He was engaged and a man of honour, and as such he determined to fly from temptation. Accordingly one bright morning he despatched a wire intimating his arrival by the 3.50 at Ditchingham, having sent which he flung himself into a hansom and drove to Charing Cross, followed by another hansom containing Strutt, two portmanteaux, a hunting kit-bag and a bundle of fishing-rods. An extraordinary accident happened to the train he travelled by; it arrived at Paddock Wood only three minutes late, making up for this deficiency, however, by crawling into Ditchingham at 4.10.
On the Ditchingham platform stood two girls. One tall, pale, and decidedly good-looking despite the pince-nez she wore; the other short and rather stout, and rather pretty.
The tall girl was Miss Pursehouse; the short was Lulu Morgan, Miss Pursehouse's companion, an American.
[Pg 196]
Pamela Pursehouse at this stage of her career was verging on thirty, the only daughter of the late John Pursehouse of Birmingham, and an orphan. She was exceedingly rich.
Some months ago she had met Bevan on board Sir Charles Napier's yacht; they had spent a fortnight cruising about the Balearic Islands and the Riff coast of Morocco, had been sea-sick together, and bored together, and finally had, one moonlight night, become engaged. It was a cold-blooded affair despite the moonlight, and they harboured no illusions one of the other, and no doubts.
Pamela had a mind of her own. She had attended classes at Mason's College and had quite a knowledge of Natural History; she also had an interest in the ways of the working classes, and had written a paper to prove that, with economy, a man, his wife and five children, could live on an income of eleven shillings a week, and put by sixpence for a rainy day; to disprove which she was eternally helping the cottagers round about with doles of tea on a liberal scale, coal in the winter, and wine in sickness. When the rainy day came she supplied the sixpence, which ought to have been in the savings bank, for she was a girl[Pg 197] who found her heart when she forgot her head.
At Marseilles Lady Napier, Pamela, Lulu, and Charles Bevan had left the yacht and travelled together to Paris; there, after a couple of days, he had departed for London to look after his affairs. Pamela had remained in Paris, where, through Lady Napier, she had the entrée of the best society, and had met many people, including the Lamberts. She had indeed only returned to England a short time ago.
Outside the station stood a governess cart and the omnibus of the hotel. Into the governess cart bundled the lovers and Lulu, into the omnibus Strutt and the luggage. Pamela took the reins and the hog-maned pony started.
"Hot, isn't it?" said Charles, tilting his hat over his eyes, and envying Strutt in the cool shelter of the omnibus.
"Think so?" said Pamela. "It's July, you know. Why do men dress always in summer in such heavy clothes? Seems to me women are much more sensible in the matter of dress. Now if you were dressed as I am, instead of in that Harris tweed, you wouldn't feel the heat at all."
[Pg 198]
Charles tried to imagine himself in a chip hat and lilac cotton gown, and failed.
"You must have been fried in that train," said Lulu, staring at him with a pair of large blue eyes, eyes that never seemed to shut.
"Pretty nearly," answered Charles, and the conversation languished.
Rookhurst stands on a hill; it is a village composed of gentlemen's houses. Country "seats" radiate from it to a distance of some three miles. Three acres and a house constitute a "seat."
The conservatism of the old Japanese aristocracy pales when considered beside the conservatism of Rookhurst. In this microcosm there are as many circles as in the Inferno of Dante, and the circles are nearly as painful to contemplate.
When Pamela Pursehouse rented "The Roost" and took up residence there she came unknown and untrumpeted. The parson and several curious old ladies called upon her, but the seat-holders held aloof, she was not received. Mrs D'Arcy-Jones—Rookhurst is full of people with double-barrelled names, those double-barrelled names in which the[Pg 199] second barrel is of inferior metal—Mrs D'Arcy-Jones discovered that Pamela's father was of Birmingham. Mrs D'Arcy-Johnson found out that he was in trade, and Mrs D'Arcy Somebody-else that her mother's maiden name was Jenkins. There was much turning up of noses when poor Pamela's name was mentioned, till one fine day when all the turned-up noses were suddenly turned down by the arrival at "The Roost" of the Duchess of Aviedale, her footman, her maid, her dog, and her companion. Then there was a rush. People flung decency to the winds in their haste to know the tradesman's daughter and incidentally get a lick at the Duchess's boots. But to all callers Pamela was not at home; she had even the rudeness not to return their visits.
The snobs, beaten back, retired, feeling very much like damaged goods, and Pamela was left in peace. Her aunt, Miss Jenkins, a sweet-faced and perfectly inane old lady, lived with her and kept house, and Pamela, protected by her wing, had all sorts of extraordinary people to visit her. Sandyman, M.P., the Labour representative, came down for a week-end once, and smoked shag tobacco[Pg 200] in the dining-room and wandered about the village on Sunday in a Keir-Hardy cap; he also attended the tin chapel, had a quart of beer at the village pub, and did other disgraceful things which were all duly reported and set down to Pamela's account in the D'Arcy-Jones-Johnson notebook.
Pamela liked men, that is to say, men who were original and interesting; yet she had engaged herself to the most unoriginal man in England: a fact for which there is no accounting, save on the hypothesis that she was a woman.
The governess cart having climbed a long, long hill, the hog-maned pony took to himself wings, and presently, in a cloud of dust, halted.
"The Roost," though a fairly large house, did not boast a carriage-drive. A gate in a high hedge led to a path through a rose-garden which was worth all the carriage-drives in existence.
"We have several people staying with us, did I tell you?" said Pamela as she led the way. "Hamilton-Cox, the man who wrote the 'Pillar of Salt,' and Wilson—Professor Wilson of Oxford, and—but come on, and I'll introduce ............