After a rather wild college career, it had been his fancy to roam for about two years on the Continent, and on his return, his father, with whom he was not on the best of terms, conveniently died, leaving him possessor of about twenty thousand pounds. By this time he had, however, sown his wild oats, and instead of spending his money as most young men of his age would have done, he invested it, and now lived a careless, indolent existence, travelling where he pleased, and getting as much enjoyment out of life as was possible. He was about my own age – twenty-eight, well set-up, smart-looking, with rather aquiline features, dark hair, and a pair of merry eyes that were an index to a contented mind.
“Didn’t expect me, I suppose, old fellow?” he exclaimed breezily, when we met. “I found after you’d left this morning that I was compelled to come up to town, and having nothing to do for an hour or so, it occurred to me that we might lunch together.”
“I thought you intended to pull up as far as ‘The Nook,’” I said, laughing.
“So I did, but I received a wire calling me to town on some rather urgent business. Where shall we lunch?”
In descending the stairs and turning into Downing Street we discussed the merits of various restaurants, and finally decided upon a small, old-fashioned, unpretentious, but well-known place a few doors from Charing Cross, in the direction of Whitehall, known as “The Ship.” Here we ate our meal, spent an hour together, and then parted, he leaving to return to Shepperton, I to finish my work and rejoin him later at our riparian cottage.
On my return to the Foreign Office the Earl had, I found, just come in, and I handed him the secret document which some day, sooner or later, would control the destiny of an empire.
“This has, of course, not been out of your possession, Deedes?” inquired his Lordship, looking keenly at me with his grey eyes, as he stood before the open door of the great safe.
“Not for a single instant,” I replied.
“Good. I trust you,” he said, carefully placing the sealed envelope in a pigeon-hole to itself, and closing the door with a loud clang, locked it.
“I think,” he said, his ascetic features relaxing into a self-satisfied smile, “I think we have once again checkmated our enemies, and swiftly too. The whole thing has been arranged and concluded within a week, thanks to the clever diplomacy of Emden at Berlin.”
“And to your own forethought,” I added, laughing.
“No, no. To Emden all credit is due, none to me, none,” he answered modestly; then, turning, he gave me some instructions, and a few minutes later put on his hat and left for home. At four o’clock I also left, and driving to Waterloo, caught my train to Shepperton, where I found Dudley Ogle awaiting me. Ours was a pretty cottage. Facing the river, it was covered with creepers, sweet-smelling jasmine and roses, with a rustic porch in front, and a large old-world garden around. Life was delightful there after the stuffiness of London chambers, and as we both had with us our men, in addition to Mrs Franks, my trusty housekeeper, we were prevented from being troubled by the minor worries of life.
“Hulloa, old chap!” cried Dudley, hastily rousing himself from a lazy attitude on the couch in our sitting-room as I entered. “Stifling hot, isn’t it? There’s a wire from the Laings. They want us to dine with them to-night. Going?”
I hesitated, and my reluctance did not escape him.
“Isn’t Ella’s company sufficient inducement?” he asked chaffingly.
“Going? Of course I am,” I answered quickly, glancing at my watch. “We have a full hour before dressing. Let’s go for a row. It’ll improve our appetites.”
Within a few minutes I had exchanged the frock coat of officialdom for flannels, and very soon we were pulling upstream towards a delightful backwater that was our goal. As we rowed, the silence being broken only by the sound of the oars in the row-locks, I calmly reviewed the situation. Why the Laings invited me that night puzzled me. Truth to tell, I loved Ella Laing with all the strength of my being, and had foolishly believed she reciprocated my affection until two nights ago, when I had called at the house near Staines, where she lived with her mother during the summer months. I had discovered her in the garden walking in lover-like attitude with Andrew Beck, a retired silk manufacturer, who had lived in France so long that he had become something of a cosmopolitan, and who had lately entered Parliament at a bye-election as representative of West Rutlandshire. I confess to having conceived an instinctive dislike to this man from the very first moment we had been introduced by a mutual friend in the Lobby of the House of Commons, for he was a parvenu of the most pronounced type, while his grey, beetling brows and flat, broad nose gave his face an expression anything but pleasing.
Nevertheless he walked jauntily, spoke loudly in bluff good-natured tones, gave excellent dinners, and, strangely enough, was voted a good fellow wherever he went. Yet there was an ostentatiousness about his actions that was sickening; his arrogant, self-assertive manner was, to me, extremely distasteful. The discovery that he was endeavouring to supplant me in Ella’s affections filled my cup of indignation to the full.
I had left the garden unobserved on that fateful night, returned at once to our riverside cottage, and written her an angry letter, charging her in plain terms with having played me false. In reply, next morning she sent by the gardener a long letter full of mild reproach, in which she asserted that she had no thought of love for anyone beside myself, and that I had entirely misconstrued her relations with Mr Beck. “Strange, indeed, it is that you, of all men, should declare that I love him,” she wrote. “Love! If you knew all, you would neither write nor utter that sacred word to me; and even though you are the only man for whom I have a thought, it may, after all, be best if we never again meet. You say you cannot trust me further. Well, I can only reply that my future happiness is in your hands. I am yours.”
Deeply had I pondered over this curious, half-hysterical, half-reproachful letter, re-reading it many many times, and becoming more and more puzzled over its vague, mysterious meaning. On several occasions I had been upon the point of calling and questioning her, but had refrained. Now, however, this formal invitation to dine had come no doubt through Ella, and I saw in it her desire to personally explain away my jealousy. So I accepted.
Chapter Two
“The Nook.”
When, a couple of hours later, we entered Mrs Laing’s garden, the first person we encountered was the man I hated, Andrew Beck, in his ill-fitting dress clothes and broad, crumpled shirt-front, with its great diamond solitaire, lounging in a wicker chair at the river’s brink, smoking, and in solitude enjoying the glorious sunset that, reflecting upon the water, transformed it into a stream of rippling gold. “The Nook,” as Mrs Laing’s house was called, was a charming old place facing the river at a little distance above Staines Bridge – long, low, completely covered with ivy and surrounded by a wide sweep of lawn that sloped down to the water’s edge, and a belt of old elms beneath the cool shade of which I had spent many delightfully lazy afternoons by the side of my well-beloved.
“Ah! Deedes,” exclaimed Beck, gaily, rising as we approached, “I was waiting for somebody to come. The ladies haven’t come down yet.”
“Have you seen them?” I asked.
“Not yet,” he replied; then turning to my friend Dudley, he began chaffing him about a young and wealthy widow he had rowed up to Windsor in our boat a few days before.
“We saw you, my boy. We saw you?” he laughed. “You were talking so confidentially as you passed, that Ella remarked that you were contemplating stepping into the dead man’s shoes.”
“No, no,” Dudley retorted good-humouredly. “No widows for me. She was merely left under my care for an hour or so, and I had to do the amicable. It’s really too bad of you all to jump to such rash conclusions.”
At that instant a soft, musical voice behind me uttered my name, and, turning, I met Ella, with a light wrap thrown about her shoulders, coming forward to me with outstretched hand. “Ah! Geoffrey, how are you?” she cried gaily, with joy in her brilliant, sparkling eyes. Then, as our hands clasped, she added in an undertone, “I knew you would come; I knew you