第43章

"Yes, where did you sleep the night before you came here?" Griffiths persisted.

Lessingham shook his head as though oppressed by some distasteful memory.

"But I did not sleep at all," he complained. "It was one of the worst nights which I have ever spent in my life."

Captain Griffiths gathered up his reins.

"Well," he said with clumsy sarcasm, "I am much obliged to you, Mr.

Lessingham, for the straight-forward way in which you have answered my questions. I won't bother you any more just at present. Shall I see you to-morrow night at Mainsail Haul?"

"Lady Cranston has asked me to dine," was the somewhat reserved reply.

His inquisitor nodded and cantered away. Lessingham looked after him until he had disappeared, then he turned his face towards Dreymarsh and walked steadily into the lowering afternoon. Twilight was falling as he reached Mainsail Haul, where he found Philippa entertaining some callers, to whom she promptly introduced him. Lessingham gathered, almost in the first few minutes, that his presence in Dreymarsh was becoming a subject of comment.

"My husband has played bridge with you at the club, I think," a lady by whose side he found himself observed. "You perhaps didn't hear my name - Mrs. Johnson?"

"I congratulate you upon your husband," Lessingham replied. "I remember him perfectly well because he kept his temper when I revoked."

"Dear me!" she exclaimed. "He must have taken a fancy to you, then.

As a rule, they rather complain about him at bridge."

"I formed the impression," Lessingham continued, "that he was rather a better player than the majority of the performers there."

Mrs. Johnson, who was a dark and somewhat forbidding-looking lady, smiled.

"He thinks so, at any rate," she conceded. "Didn't he tell me that you were invalided home from the front?"

Lessingham shook his head.

"I am quite sure that it was not mentioned," he said. "We walked home together as far as the hotel one evening, but we spoke only of the golf and some shooting in the neighbourhood."

Philippa, who had been maneuvering to attract Lessingham's attention, suddenly dropped the cake basket which she was passing. There was a little commotion. Lessingham went down on his hands and knees to help collect the fragments, and she found an opportunity to whisper in his ear.

"Be careful. That woman is a cat. Stay and talk to me. Please don't bother, Mr. Lessingham. Won't you ring the bell instead?" she continued, raising her voice.

Lessingham did as he was asked, and affected not to notice Mrs.

Johnson's inviting smile as he returned. Philippa made room for him by her side.

"Helen and I were talking this afternoon, Mr. Lessingham," she said, "of the days when you and Dick were both in the Magdalen Eleven and both had just a chance of being chosen for the Varsity. You never played, did you?"

He shook his head.

"No such luck. In any case, Richard would have been in well before me. I always maintained that he was the first of our googlie bowlers."

"So you were at Magdalen with Major Felstead?" another caller remarked in mild wonder.

"Mr. Lessingham and my brother were great friends," Philippa explained. "Mr. Lessingham used to come down to shoot in Cheshire."

Lady Cranston's guests were all conscious of a little indefinable disappointment. The gossip concerning this stranger's appearance in Dreymarsh was practically strangled. Mrs. Johnson, however, fired a parting shot as she rose to go.

"You were not in the same regiment as Major Felstead, were you, Mr.

Lessingham?" she asked. "No," he answered calmly.

Philippa was busy with her adieux. Mrs. Johnson remained indomitable.

"What was your regiment, Mr. Lessingham?" she persisted. "You must forgive my seeming inquisitive, but I am so interested in military affairs."

Lessingham bowed courteously.

"I do not remember alluding to my soldiering at all," he said coolly, "but as a matter of fact I am in the Guards."

Mrs. Johnson accepted Philippa's hand and the inevitable. Her good-by to Lessingham was most affable. She walked up the road with the vicar.

"I think, Vicar," she said severely, "that for a small place, Dreymarsh is becoming one of the worst centres of gossip I ever knew.

Every one has been saying all sorts of unkind things about that charming Mr. Lessingham, and there you are - Major Felstead's friend and a Guardsman! Somehow or other, I felt that he belonged to one of the crack regiments. I shall certainly ask him to dinner one night next week."

The vicar nodded benignly. He had the utmost respect for Mrs.

Johnson's cook, and his own standard of social desirability, to which the object of their discussion had attained.

"I should be happy to meet Mr. Lessingham at any time," he pronounced, with ample condescension. I noticed him in church last Sunday morning."