many people, Miss Percival? How many people? Why, seven, of course? What else could it be? And where's the fish to come from for seven people? And what about maids and valets? Does he count up the likes of them? He's not Mr. Ingram if he does. Not he! Nor his father before him. And what's Frodsham going to do about carriage-room for seven—and the servants as well—and the luggage, and all? Dogs, very likely, dogs and cats, and parrots. Who knows? I've seen 'em bring scritch-owls and hawks on their wrists before now. Oh, they'll do anything, some of 'em—anything to be looked at. That's what it is; they want looking at. And I'd look at 'em if I had my way!”
Mrs. Benson, shining with indignant heat, had to be pacified. She required much tact, the exercise of a low and musical voice. It cooed upon her like a dove's. Miss Percival used her hands, too, and in the end had one of them on Mrs. Benson's shoulder. The charm worked. Dinner should be cooked for five or six; Frodsham should meet the seven-four from London with the omnibus and luggage-cart. There would be no dogs at this time of year. Parrots were urged upon her again, but tentatively. She chuckled them away, musically, with real relish for the picture. She was sure there would be no parrots. Now she must see about the bedrooms—but Mrs. Benson peered round into her glowing face.
“And what about your supper, Miss Percival? It's just upon ready. And there's a sweet-bread.”
Miss Percival almost caressed the ridiculous good soul. Her arm remained about her shoulder, her hand touched it. “How nice of you! I'll go and get ready at once. Then I'll see what rooms we had better have. Wasn't it lucky we did the drawing-rooms last week?”
Gloom gathered again. Mrs. Benson thought that some people didn't deserve their luck. It was clear to whom she referred; certainly not to Miss Percival, for instance. But the young lady, with really extraordinary simplicity, replied that surely Mr. Ingram deserved credit for having well-chosen his ministers. “Yourself,” she said, “for the kitchen, and me for the hall.” She exploded this little bomb with some heightening of colour.
Mrs. Benson, glancing at her sideways, observed the blush, and was scared. She blinked. Miss Percival's blush deepened.
In the awkward pause that ensued the friendly hand was about to be removed, when Mrs. Benson, with an effort which did honour to her resources, said, “We all have our troubles, Miss Percival, else we shouldn't be here, as the Bible says. The good Book! Well for them as read therein. Now, only this afternoon Mr. Menzies was talking to me about things at large, and he says, 'Mrs. Benson, what's to be done with Struan Glyde?' quite sudden. So I says, 'And what should be done with such a one, Mr. Menzies, but wallop him?' and he shakes his head and says, 'He's on the catarampus, ma'am—in one of his black fits. Tells me to go my way and let him alone; then turns his back.' Now, what about such troubles as that, Miss Percival?”
Miss Percival looked serious, but not especially interested. Her eyes looked before her, but seemed not to see anything. She asked, “What did Mr. Menzies say to him next?” but if she was interested it was not in that matter.
Mrs. Benson brandished her voice. “Ha, you may well ask me. 'No, my man,' he says, 'but 'tis you that must go mine while I'm head-gardener at Wanless,' he says. That's what Mr. Menzies told him, the elderly man that he is—and now look at this. Young Glyde turns his back upon him, with no more notice taken than you or I would have of a flea on the arm. Insolence, that is. Downright insolence of an elderly man. Ah,” said Mrs. Benson with tightening lips, “if you come to troubles!”
Miss Percival's tone was sympathetic, if her eyes were still sightless. “Really! I'm very sorry. I'll see Mr. Menzies about it to-morrow, and of course I'll talk to Struan. He is difficult—it's very tiresome of him. I saw him this afternoon but had no notion of all this. I can't think how it is. Nerves, I suppose. He's a human creature, you see, as well as a gardener.”
Mrs. Benson was incapable of seeing such a possible combination: her explanation was simpler. Human! She scorned him. “Bad blood,” she said with energy; “bad, black, gypsy blood. He'll be murdering one of us in her bed in a day or two. You see if he don't.”
Miss Percival did not deny the suggestion. She considered it rather—its effect, its effectiveness. “Struan is tiresome, of course,” she said, “but I do think he has tried to restrain himself lately. He promised me he would.” She turned her full gaze suddenly upon Mrs. Benson, and almost disarmed that lady. “I like him, you know. He's very nice to me.”
Mrs. Benson gasped, but recovered just in time to resume the dark oracles in her keeping. “Ah,” she said, “he would be. If you can call it nice—”
“He's wonderful in the garden,” Miss Percival calmly continued. “Even Menzies admits it. He'll work all day. He's never tired.”
“Nor's a tiger,” the cook snapped. “Nor's a tom-cat.”
Miss Percival looked pitifully at her and smiled. “Poor Struan—you don't like him. I'll see him to-night. I have an influence, I think.”
Mrs. Benson touched the hand that lay within her reach, which had lately been upon her shoulder. “Don't, my dear, don't,” she said.
“Why not?” asked the lady with her lifted brows. “Why shouldn't I?”
“Influence! The likes of him!—Gypsy blood at midnight—soft-voiced, murderous—”
She gave no coherent answer, but smiled always, then leaned forward and stroked Mrs. Benson upon her personable cheek. “Dear old thing, let me do as I like. It's much better for everybody,” she presently said.
II
It had clouded over after sunset: there was no moon visible, but an irradiance was omnipresent, and showed the muffled yew-tree walks, and the greater trees colossal, mountains overshadowing the land. Here and there, as you went, glimmered daffodils, like the Pleiades half-veiled, and long files of crocuses burned like waning fires.
Miss Percival, at about nine o'clock, came gently down one of these alleys, with a scarf over her head and shoulders. She looked like a nymph in Tanagra. And as if she knew where she was going, exactly, she walked gently but unfalteringly between the linked crocus-beacons to where the alley broadened into a bay of cut yews, to where ghostly white seats and a dim sun-dial seemed disposed as for a scene in a comedy. The leaden statue of a skipping faun would have been made out in a recess if you had known it was there. And as she entered the place a figure seated there, with elbows on knees and chin between his palms, looked up, listening, watching intently, then rose and waited.
“Struan,” said Miss Percival comfortably, “are you there?”
“I'm here,” she was answered.
Thereupon she came easily forward and stood near him. She was in white from top to toe; he could see the clean outline of her head and neck, denned by the hooding scarf. He had not as yet taken off his hat, but now, as she stood there silent, he slowly removed it. Still there was nothing said. Miss Percival was very deliberate.
Presently she spoke. “You didn't tell me this afternoon that you'd had a bother with Mr. Menzies. Why didn't you tell me?”
“Why should I tell you?” The words seemed wrung from him. “Why should you care?”
“Of course I care,” she said. “You know that I care. Why didn't you tell me? … But I know why you didn't.”
“You do not.” He denied her hotly.
“Oh, but I do. Because you were ashamed.”
“It was not. I'm not ashamed. He's an old fool. He thinks he can teach me my business. Melons! Plants! Why, I'm one of them. What can he teach me?”
“He's a very good gardener,” Miss Percival began, but the rest was drowned.
“Gardener—he!