“I don’t know how she did it,” Unice was continuing, “but she managed to recover that serene face of hers, and behaved quite as if nothing untoward had occurred.”
“I can see her doing it,” groaned Denzell with feeling.
“But, dash it,” cut in Osmond, “she could not have supposed that you would be fooled by it after all that.”
“No, and I said so,” agreed his wife. “But for all the good I got by it, I might as well have spared my breath.”
“And she would say nothing about this Chaceley business?”
“My love, I had not the heart to bring it up after what she had told me. I tried to express my sympathies at least, but she would have none of it. She said that I should not mind it because she should not have said as much.”
“But she did,” Denzell put in, “and it is typical of her that she should clam up just at the point when you had made a breakthrough. I love her desperately, but I could willingly shake her when she does that.”
“For shame, Denzell. It is clear enough now why she cannot confide in anyone.”
“Yes, but I am not anyone. And as for this absurdity that she has no heart — I wish I might have her alone with me for five minutes, and we should see that.”
Osmond grinned at him. “Rising to the challenge, eh, Hawk?”
Denzell slumped back, sighing. “I wish I might. Unice, did she say nothing else at all?”
Unice shook her head. “She would keep repeating that I should not heed her since she was not herself, and then she invited me to remain to meet with her brother and Mama when they returned from the Rooms.”
A quick frown entered Denzell’s eyes. “So he’s back, is he?”
Osmond cocked an eyebrow. “That sounds grim, Hawk. What’s the poor fellow done to you?”
“Nothing,” came the short reply. “And yet…”
“He has been here once or twice since Christmas, Denzell,” Unice said, puzzled. “What of it?”
“What of it? Do you imagine I am coxcomb enough to believe that these haggard looks you have described are to be set solely to my account?”
“No one believes that, Hawk,” soothed Osmond. “Obviously can’t be so, if what Unice tells us is the truth. But why should you think the brother’s presence means anything?”
“Because she was agitated by his presence at Christmas. It was the first time I saw her control waver in company. There is something in the wind, I am sure of it.”
This certainty grew upon him when Verena failed to put in an appearance anywhere in company either that evening, or at Sunday service in the King Charles Chapel, even though both her brother and mother were present. When she was again absent on Monday, while the company walked on the Pantiles in the morning, Unice, urged thereto by her house guest, paid her respects to Mrs Peverill and enquired after her daughter.
“The story is,” she reported to Denzell, “that Verena is feeling a trifle down pin with the gaiety of the season.”
“Fiddle!”
“Why, so I think,” agreed Unice. “And Mrs Peverill herself is displaying a degree of nervousness.”
“What about the brother?” Denzell asked, frowning.
“Are you at that again?” demanded Osmond. “Why don’t you go and talk to the fellow, then?”
“I might just do that.”
“I know,” exclaimed Unice. “You can find out from him whether Verena intends to go on this expedition to the High Rocks tomorrow.”
The Master of Ceremonies, Mr Tyson, with his usual enthusiasm, had arranged a picnic to the High Rocks which the majority of Wellsians were anticipating with eagerness.
“Is that tomorrow?”
“According to Mrs Felpham,” put in Osmond. “Dashed female has never ceased running around asking everyone if they intend to go. You can ask her if Verena is going.”
