Barbara returning from her visit to Courtier's deserted rooms, was met at Valleys House with the message: Would she please go at once to Lady Casterley?
When, in obedience, she reached Ravensham, she found her grandmother and Lord-Dennis in the white room. They were standing by one of the tall windows, apparently contemplating the view. They turned indeed at sound of Barbara's approach, but neither of them spoke or nodded. Not having seen her grandfather since before Miltoun's illness, Barbara found it strange to be so treated; she too took her stand silently before the window. A very large wasp was crawling up the pane, then slipping down with a faint buzz.
Suddenly Lady Casterley spoke.
“Kill that thing!”
Lord Dennis drew forth his handkerchief.
“Not with that, Dennis. It will make a mess. Take a paper knife.”
“I was going to put it out,” murmured Lord Dennis.
“Let Barbara with her gloves.”
Barbara moved towards the pane.
“It's a hornet, I think,” she said.
“So he is!” said Lord Dennis, dreamily:
“Nonsense,” murmured Lady Casterley, “it's a common wasp.”
“I know it's a hornet, Granny. The rings are darker.”
Lady Casterley bent down; when she raised herself she had a slipper in her hand.
“Don't irritate him!” cried Barbara, catching her wrist. But Lady Casterley freed her hand.
“I will,” she said, and brought the sole of the slipper down on the insect, so that it dropped on the floor, dead. “He has no business in here.”
And, as if that little incident had happened to three other people, they again stood silently looking through the window.
Then Lady Casterley turned to Barbara.
“Well, have you realized the mischief that you've done?”
“Ann!” murmured Lord Dennis.
“Yes, yes; she is your favourite, but that won't save her. This woman—to her great credit—I say to her great credit—has gone away, so as to put herself out of Eustace's reach, until he has recovered his senses.”
With a sharp-drawn breath Barbara said:
“Oh! poor thing!”
But on Lady Casterley's face had come an almost cruel look.
“Ah!” she said: “Exactly. But, curiously enough, I am thinking of Eustace.” Her little figure was quivering from head to foot: “This will be a lesson to you not to play with fire!”
“Ann!” murmured Lord Dennis again, slipping his arm through Barbara's.
“The world,” went on Lady Casterley, “is a place of facts, not of romantic fancies. You have done more harm than can possibly be repaired. I went to her myself. I was very much moved.' If it hadn't been for your foolish conduct——”
“Ann!” said Lord Dennis once more.
Lady Casterley paused, tapping the floor with her little foot. Barbara's eyes were gleaming.
“Is there anything else you would like to squash, dear?”
“Babs!” murmured Lord Dennis; but, unconsciously pressing his hand against her heart, the girl went on.
“You are lucky to be abusing me to-day—if it had been yesterday——”
At these dark words Lady Casterley turned away, her shoes leaving little dull stains on the polished floor.
Barbara raised to her cheek the fingers which she had been so convulsively embracing. “Don't let her go on, uncle,” she whispered, “not just now!”
“No, no, my dear,” Lord Dennis murmured, “certainly not—it is enough.”
“It has been your sentimental folly,” came Lady Casterley's voice from a far corner, “which has brought this on the boy.”
Responding to the pressure of the hand, back now at her waist, Barbara did not answer; and the sound of the little feet retracing their steps rose in the stillness. Neither of those two at the window turned their heads; once more the feet receded, and again began coming back.
Suddenly Barbara, pointing to the floor, cried:
“Oh! Granny, for Heaven's sake, stand still; haven't you squashed the hornet enough, even if he did come in where he hadn't any business?”
Lady Casterley looked down at the debris of the insect.
“Disgusting!” she said; but when she next spoke it was in a less hard, more querulous voice.
“That man—what was his name—have you got rid of him?”
Barbara went crimson.
“Abuse my friends, and I will go straight home and never speak to you again.”
For a moment Lady Casterley looked almost as if she might strike her granddaughter; then a little sardonic smile broke out on her face.
“A creditable sentiment!” she said.
Letting fall her uncle's hand, Barbara cried:
“In any case, I'd better go. I don't know why you sent for me.”
Lady Casterley answered coldly:
“To let you and your mother know of this woman's most unselfish behaviour; to put you on the 'qui vive' for what Eustace may do now; to give you a chance to make up for your folly. Moreover to warn you against——” she paused.
“Yes?”
“Let me——” interrupted Lord Dennis.
“No, Uncle Dennis, let Granny take her shoe!”
She had withdrawn against the wall, tall, and as it were, formidable, with her head up. Lady Casterley remained silent.
“Have you got it ready?” cried Barbara: “Unfortunately he's flown!”
A voice said:
“Lord Miltoun.”
He had come in quietly and quickly, preceding the announcement, and stood almost touching that little group at the window before they caught sight of him. His face had the rather ghastly look of sunburnt faces from which emotion has driven the blood; and his eyes, always so much the most living part of him, were full of such stabbing anger, that involuntarily they all looked down.
“I want to speak to you alone,” he said to Lady Casterley.
Visibly, for perhaps the first time in her life, that indomitable little figure flinched. Lord Dennis drew Barbara away, but at the door he whispered:
“Stay here quietly, Babs; I don't like the look of this.”
Unnoticed, Barbara remained hovering.
The two voices, low, and so far off in the long white room, were uncannily distinct, emotion charging each word with preternatural power of penetration; and every movement of the speakers had to the girl's excited eyes a weird precision, as of little figures she had once seen at a Paris puppet show. She could hear Miltoun reproaching his grandmother in words terribly dry and bitter. She edged nearer and nearer, till, seeing that they paid no more heed to her than if she were an attendant statue, she had regained her position by the window.
Lady Casterley was speaking.
“I was not going to see you ruined before my eyes, Eustace. I did what I did at very great cost. I did my best for you.”
Barbara saw Miltoun's face transfigured by a dreadful smile—the smile of one defying his torturer with hate. Lady Casterley went on:
“Yes, you stand there looking like a devil. Hate me if you like—but don't betray us, moaning and moping because you can't have the moon. Put on your armour, and go down into the battle. Don't play the coward, boy!”
Miltoun's answer cut like the lash of a whip.
“By God! Be silent!”
And weirdly, there was silence. It was not the brutality of the words, but the sight of force suddenly naked of all disguise—like a fierce dog let for a moment off its chain—which made Barbara utter a little dismayed sound. Lady Casterley had dropped into a chair, trembling. And without a look Miltoun passed her. If their grandmother had fallen dead, Barbara knew he would not have stopped to see. She ran forward, but the old woman waved her away.
“Go after him,” she said, “don't let him go alone.”
And infected by the fear in that wizened voice, Barbara flew.
She caught her brother as he was entering the taxi-cab in which he had come, and without a word slipped in beside him. The driver's face appeared at the window, but Miltoun only motioned with his head, as if to say: Anywhere, away from here!
The thought flashed through Barbara: “If only I can keep him in here with me!”
She leaned out, and said quietly:
“To Nettlefold, in Sussex—never mind your petrol—get more on the road. You can have what fare you like. Quick!”
The man hesitated, looked in her face, and said:
“Very well; miss. By Dorking, ain't it?”
Barbara nodded.
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