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Updated: June 17, 2025
On the little table before Lucy lay two telegrams: one signed "Geoffrey" announced that he would reach Bettws station by twelve, and the "Fisherman's Rest" about half an hour later. The other announced the arrival of Lord Buntingford by the evening train. Lord Buntingford's visit had been arranged two or three days before; and Mrs. Friend wished it well over.
She was a well-paid and perfectly healthy person; and there was no reason, in Lord Buntingford's view, why she should not enjoy life. All the same, she was very efficient and made him comfortable. He would have raised her wages to preposterous heights to keep her. "Is everything ready for the two ladies, Mrs. Mawson?" "Everything, my Lord. We are expecting the pony-cart directly."
Don't you remember you promised to show me those drawings before dinner and may Geoffrey come, too?" A sudden look of reluctance and impatience crossed Buntingford's face. Helena perceived it at once, and drew back. But Buntingford said immediately: "Oh, certainly. In half an hour, I'll have the portfolios ready." He walked away.
She laid her own hand soothingly on Mrs. Friend's. "Of course I'll tell you. I really don't mean to be nasty to you. But all the same I warn you that it's no good trying to stop me, when I've made up my mind. Well, now, for Donald. I know, of course, what Cousin Philip means. Donald ran away with the wife of a friend of his of Buntingford's, I mean three or four weeks ago." Mrs. Friend gasped.
It all grew clear to Lucy Helena's gradual capture, and the innocence, the unconsciousness, of her captor. Her own shrewdness, nevertheless, put the same question as Buntingford's conscience. Could he ever have been quite sure of his freedom? Yet he had taken the risks of a free man. But she could not, she did not blame him.
"Do you think Buntingford's going to marry Lady Cynthia?" asked Peter suddenly. Horne laughed. "That's not my guess, at present," he said after a moment. As he spoke, a boat on the lake came into the track of the searchlight, and the two persons in it were clearly visible Buntingford rowing, and Helena, in the stern.
"The doctor will soon be here," she whispered to Buntingford. The light of the lamp roused the woman. She made a sign to Miss Alcott to lift her a little. "Not much," said the Rector's sister in Buntingford's ear. "It's the heart that's wrong." Together they raised her just a little. Miss Alcott put a fan into Buntingford's hands, and opened the windows wider.
"You you won't get any joy of him!" she said, still staring at him. "He's not like other children he's afflicted. It was a bad doctor when I was confined up in the hills near Lucca. The child was injured. There's nothing wrong with him but his brain." A flickering light in Buntingford's face sank. "And you want to get rid of him?" "He's so much trouble," she said peevishly.
Of course, it is partly the restlessness of the condition." Cynthia's eyes travelled to the upper window above the study. Buntingford's wife lay there! It seemed to her that the little room held all the secrets of Buntingford's past. The dying woman knew them, and she alone. A new jealousy entered into Cynthia a despairing sense of the irrevocable. Helena was forgotten.
Miss Helena said she wanted something to draw, and a quiet place. I must say she looked pretty knocked up! I suppose by the dance?" His sharp greenish eyes perused Cynthia's countenance. She made no reply. His remark did not interest a preoccupied woman. Yet she did not fail to remember, with a curious pleasure, that there was no mention of Helena in Buntingford's letter.
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