CHAPTER XXXIV
Some Letters and a Telegram
Mrs. Sydney Beaton sat reading a letter. By her, in a bassinette, was a baby; every now and then, half unconsciously, she would move the bassinette to and fro, as if to make sure that the baby should go on sleeping. At a little distance two children were playing, a boy and a girl; sometimes the boy called the girl Violet, and she called him Sydney. It was a glorious day; the clear champagne-like air of New South Wales in spring time.
Mrs. Beaton was at home, and a lovely home it seemed to be; a pretty picture of happiness and health its mistress would have made. Though, plainly, she was troubled by the letter. Although it had only arrived that morning, she knew its contents almost by heart, yet she read it again; when she had read it she let it lie upon her knee, while, with something wistful in her glance, she seemed to be looking at some picture which the eye of her imagination conjured up before her. Then, with the faintest little sigh, she took up other letters that were lying on her lap, and glanced through them. Then she reverted to that picture of her imagination; and she sighed again, and this time it was obviously a sigh.
As if conscience-stricken, as if guilty of at least some impropriety, she rose abruptly from her seat, and, with a startled air, looked round her, the letters bundled together in her hand. All at once firm footsteps came hurrying towards her. Turning, a tall, upright, sinewy, wiry man, without an ounce of superfluous flesh about him, his face and neck and hands bronzed by the sun, greeted her with hands outstretched.
"Sydney!" she cried, "you're earlier than I expected. I was coming over to meet you."
"Yes, I came by the earlier train. Hullo, you people!"
The boy and the girl had come rushing to him with boisterous glee. He picked them up, one on either arm; they were full of questions which had to be answered, and news which required his instant attention. It was some minutes before husband and wife were alone together.
"What made you come by the earlier train without letting me know? I can see there was something."
Her quick eyes were skilled in reading the signs of the weather on her husband's face; she could see that on it there was something like a cloud, though no larger than a man's hand.
"Yes," he said, "you are right, there was; I've had a telegram from home. I've been turning it over in my mind as I came along."
"That's rather odd, because this morning I had quite a packet of English letters. Just look at them. From whom is your telegram?"
"From Carr and Phillips, the Aversham lawyers. George is dead."
"Your brother-dead! Sydney! When did he die?"
"The telegram says-here it is-'Your brother, Sir George Beaton, died suddenly this morning. Letter follows.' That's all, except their name; it's rather a facer. I haven't seen George for-"
He paused, as if searching in his mind for an exact date.
"It's more than seven years since we left England."
"Yes, nearly eight years. You remember, we were talking about it only the other day. More than once lately I've had a feeling that I should like to see him again; and now he's gone. He wasn't exactly the most affectionate of brothers, though I dare say he would have said the same of me; but he was all I had; the last Beaton of them all."
"What will become of Adisham?"
"It's mine, since he never married; that's another facer; the old house is mine, and it will be our Sydney's when I'm gone. The whole property, such as it is, goes to the next male heir; under the old entail women don't count. No feminine thing has ever had Adisham, or ever will."
"It seems as if this were going to be a day of coincidences, one of those days on which if it rains it pours. You've had news-and such news, and I've had letters-such letters, from home. There's one from Nuthurst."
"From your uncle?"
"Yes, from uncle. It's the sweetest letter. I can see him sitting down to write it, at his big table in the justice room, with his eyes, as it were, across the sea, trying with all his might not to put a word on paper which could hurt."
"He wants you to go home?"
"He doesn't say so. In every word he has written I can read what is in his mind; he feels that there are reasons which might make it difficult for me to go, and he doesn't want to hurt me by asking me to do what I mightn't be able to; he thinks it might hurt me to have to refuse. But, Sydney, all through his letter, although he doesn't know it, he's telling me that he is a very old man, and he's crying out for me to come-before he goes."
"Does he speak of me?"
"Does he! He speaks more of you than of me, and he's full of the children. His body is in England, but his spirit is with us in New South Wales. If he weren't such an old man, and so little of a traveller, I'm sure he would come to us; he would have come long ago."
"I wonder what it would feel like to go back to England on a visit?"
"I wonder? I hardly dare to."
"Vi! Is it so bad with you as that?"
"Oh, Sydney, if you only knew how I'd love to go-with you and with the children. Why, the children never have seen England."
"That's certainly a fact."
He was regarding her with something quizzical in his eyes.
"Just think of it! Though they pray for the dear homeland every night in their prayers, and for the friends who are at home."
"Are there any friends at home? Do you think any of them would speak to us-to me?"
"Why, Sydney, what a goose you are! They'd be tumbling over each other to get a chance."
"Would they? I shouldn't want them to do that, if only from the point of view of dignity, to say nothing of their getting hurt."
"Just think of the letters I'm always having, and which you get; just look at this heap! There's another from Major Reith; he says that if we won't go to him, the next long leave he gets he'll come here."
"We might bring him back with us."
"And there's one from Margaret, Countess of Cantyre; she's longing to make your acquaintance."
"Is she?" His tone was more than a trifle dry.
"You know she is! Only in her last letter she said she never would believe you were a real creature till she'd met you in the flesh; she has heard all sorts of tales about you; you've been the hero of all kinds of wonderful stories, but she's never seen you once. She has the impertinence to say in this very letter that she is still convinced that you're only a person out of a novel, a mere fiction; and that, though I pretend that you're my husband, she never will believe it till you tell her so, in person, to her face. What do you think of that?"
"Vi, I think I'll wire to Carr and Phillips."
"Haven't you sent an answer to their telegram?"
"No, that's it; that's one reason why I came by the earlier train; I wanted to see you first, to know what answer I was to send."
"I see."
In her voice, although she spoke so quietly, there was a tremor, a catching of her breath, a suspicion of eagerness; all these things in those two little words, which probably did not go unnoticed.
"It's a matter on which I wished to consult you before I did anything; so much may hinge on the reply I send. The question is, what steamer could we catch?"
"Sydney!" His name burst from her rather than was uttered; her whole face was lighted up.
"When could you be ready?"
"Why-when could I be ready? Why-Sydney, I haven't thought; what a question to spring on one; as though-as though one could decide upon a thing like that, without a moment's notice."
"I have been talking to Draycott, and he says that if we were to go by the next boat-"
"The next boat!"
She seemed to be springing out of her shoes.
"And were to stay in England, say, a year-"
"Stay in England-say, a year!"
"Everything would go on all right here, and he'd look after things. The question is, could you and the children be ready for the next boat?"
"When does it go?"
"In ten days. I don't want to hustle you; if you want time for consideration-why, take it."
"Of course I don't want time for consideration, you absurd creature; of course we can be ready."
"You think so?"
"I don't think, I'm sure-silly!"
"I don't want to have you worried or hustled-"
"Sydney, if you don't take care-!"
"Then, before it comes to threats, I may as well send a wire to them to let them know we're coming, and to the steamship people to secure our berths. I happen to know that there's a nice suite vacant, just the very thing we want; and, as regards the telegrams, I may mention that I've both forms in my pocket-already written out."
"Sydney-you-darling wretch!"