Set in Silver. C. N. Williamson
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said he was surprised as well as pleased to get her telegram on arriving at Marseilles, and it was very good of her to come to Paris and meet him. She said not at all, it was no trouble, but a pleasure, or rather it would be, if it weren't for the sad reason that brought her.
"Why, is anybody dead?" asked Sir Lionel, looking as if he were running over a list in his head, but couldn't call up a name which concerned him personally.
"There's been a thinning off among old friends lately, I'm sorry to say; I've told you about most of them, I think, in postscripts," replied Mrs. Norton. "But it wasn't their loss, poor dears, which brought me over. It was the fire."
"What fire?" her brother wanted to know.
"Why, your fire. Surely you must have seen about it in to-day's London papers?"
"To-day's London papers won't get to Marseilles till to-morrow, and I haven't been long enough in Paris to see one yet," explained Sir Lionel. "Have I had a serious fire, and what has been burnt?" He spoke as coolly as if it were the question of a mutton chop.
"Part of the house," returned Mrs. Norton, not even trying to break it to him.
"I hope not the old part," said he.
"No, it is the new wing. But that seemed to me such a pity. Such a beautiful bathroom, hot and cold, spray and shower, quite destroyed; and a noble linen closet, heated throughout with pipes, and fully stocked."
"The bathroom may have been early Pullman, and the linen closet late German Lloyd, my dear Emily; but the rest of the house is Tudor, and can't be replaced," said Sir Lionel; and I was sure, as he looked down at his sister, of a thing I'd already suspected: that he has a sense of humour. That's a modern improvement with which you wouldn't expect a dragon to be fitted; but I begin to see that this is an elaborate and complicated Dragon. Some people are Pharisees about their sense of humour, and keep harping on it till you wish it were a live wire and would electrocute them. He would rather be ashamed of his, I fancy, and yet it must have amused him, and made him feel good chums with himself, away out in Bengal.
Mrs. Norton said that Warings had very handsome Tudor dining-rooms in one or two of their model houses, so nothing was irrevocable nowadays; but she was pleased, if he was, that only the modern wing was injured. It had happened yesterday morning, just too late for the newspapers, which must have annoyed the editors; and she had felt that it would be best to undertake the journey to Paris, and consult about plans, as it might make a difference (here she glanced at me); but she hadn't mentioned the fire when wiring, because things seemed worse in telegrams, and besides, it would have been a useless expense. No doubt it had been stupid of her, but she had fancied he would certainly see it in the paper, with all details, and therefore guess why she was meeting him.
"We have nowhere to take Miss Lethbridge," said she, "since Graylees Castle will be overrun with workmen for some time to come. I didn't know but you might feel it would be best, after all, for us to put her again in charge of her old schoolmistress for a few weeks."
If hair could really rise, mine would have instantly cast out every hairpin, as if they were so many evil spirits, and have stood out all around my head like Strumpelpeter's. Yet there was nothing I could say. If I were mistress of a dozen languages, I should have had to be speechless in every one. But I saw Sir Lionel looking at me, and I hastily gave him a silent treatment with my eyes. It had the most satisfactory effect.
"No, I don't think we will take her back to Madame de Maluet's," said he. "Madame may have made other plans for the holiday season. Perhaps she is going away."
"I'm sure she is," said I. "She is going to visit her mother-in-law's aunt."
Sir Lionel was still looking at me, lost in thought. (I forget if I mentioned that he has nice eyes? I haven't time to look back and see if I did, now. I'm scribbling as fast as I can. We shall soon land, and I want to post this at Dover, if I can get an English stamp "off" someone, as "Sissy" Williams, our only British neighbour, says.)
"How would you like a motor-car trip?" Sir Lionel asked abruptly.
The relief from suspense was almost too great, and I nearly jumped down his throat, so, after all, it would have been my own fault if the Dragon had eaten me. "I should adore it!" I said.
"My dear!" protested Mrs. Norton, indulgently. "One adores Heavenly Beings."
"I'm not sure a motor-car isn't a heavenly being," said I, "though perhaps without capitals."
The Dragon smiled, but she looked awfully shocked, and no doubt blamed Madame de Maluet.
"I've a forty-horse Mercédès promised to be ready on my arrival," said Sir Lionel, still reflective. "You know, Emily, the little twelve-horse-power car I had sent out to East Bengal was a Mercédès. If I could drive her, I can drive a bigger car. Everybody says it's easier. And young Nick has learned to be a first-rate mechanic."
I suppose young Nick must be the Dragon's pet name for the bronze image. What fun that he should be a chauffeur! Fancy an Indian Idol squatted on the front seat of an up-to-date automobile. But when you come to think of it, there have been other gods in cars. I only hope, if I'm to be behind him, this one won't behave like Juggernaut. He wears almost too many clothes, for he is the type that would look over-dressed in a bangle.
"We might have an eight or ten weeks' run about England," the Dragon went on, "while things are being made straight at Graylees. It would be good to see something of the blessed old island again before settling down."
"One would think you were quite pleased at the fire, Lionel," remarked his sister, who evidently believes it wrong to look on the bright side of things, and right to expect the worst—like an undertaker calling for a client before he's dead.
"What is, is," returned he. "We may as well make the best of it. You wouldn't mind a motor tour, would you, Emily?"
"I would go if it were my duty, and you desired it," she said, looking as if she ought to be on stained glass, with half a halo, "only I am hardly young enough to consider motoring as a pleasure."
"There aren't many years between us," replied her brother, too polite to say whether he were in front or behind, "but I confess I do regard it as a pleasure."
"A man is different," she admitted.
Thank goodness, he is!
Then they talked more about the fire, which, it seems, happened through something being wrong with a flue, in a room where Mrs. N. had told a servant to build a fire on account of dampness. It must be a wonderful old place from what they both let drop. (I told you in another letter how Sir Lionel had inherited it, about the same time as his title, or a little later. The estate, though, comes from the mother's side, and her people were from Warwickshire.) His cool British way of saying and taking things is a good deal on the surface, I think. He would have hated us to see it, but I'm sure he worked himself up to quite a pitch of joyful excitement over the idea of the motor trip, as it developed in his mind. And it is splendid, isn't it, darling?
You know how sorry you were we hadn't been more economical, and made our money last long enough to travel in England, instead of having to stop short after a splash in London. Now I'm going to see bits in spite of all, until I'm "called away," and I'll try my best, in letters, to make you see what I do. Ellaline wouldn't have enjoyed such a tour, for she hates the country, or any place where it isn't suitable to wear high heels and picture hats. But I—oh, I! Twenty dragons on the same seat of the car with me couldn't prevent my revelling in it—though it may be cut short for me at any minute. As for Mrs. Norton——
But the stewardess has just said we shall be in, in five minutes. I had to come down to the ladies' cabin with Mrs. N. Now I haven't time to tell you any more, except that they both (Sir L. and his sister, I mean) wanted to get to England as soon as possible. I know she was disappointed not to fling her brother's ward back to Madame de Maluet, and probably wouldn't have come over to Paris if she hadn't hoped to bring it off; but she resigns herself to things easily when a man says they're best. It was Sir Lionel who wanted particularly