Mr. Standfast by John Buchan (mystery books to read .TXT) 📕

Very humbly and quietly, like a man walking through a cathedral, I went down the hill to the Manor lodge, and came to a door in an old redbrick façade, smothered in magnolias which smelt like hot lemons in the June dusk. The car from the inn had brought on my baggage, and presently I was dressing in a room which looked out on a water-garden. For the first time for more than a year I put on a starched shirt and a dinner-jacket, and as I dressed I could have sung from pure lightheartedness. I was in for some arduous job, and sometime that evening in that place I should get my marching orders. Someone would arrive⁠—perhaps Bullivant⁠—and read me the riddle. But whatever it was, I was ready for it, for my whole being had found a new purpose. Living in the trenches, you are apt to get your horizon narrowed down to the front line of enemy barbed wire on one side and the nearest rest billets on the other. But now I seemed to see beyond the fog to a happy country.

High-pitched voices greeted my ears as I came down the broad staircase, voices which scarcely accorded with the panelled walls and the austere family portraits; and when I found my hostesses in the hall I thought their looks still less in keeping with the house. Both ladies were on the wrong side of forty, but their dress was that of young girls. Miss Doria Wymondham was tall and thin with a mass of nondescript pale hair confined by a black velvet fillet. Miss Claire Wymondham was shorter and plumper and had done her best by ill-applied cosmetics to make herself look like a foreign demimondaine. They greeted me with the friendly casualness which I had long ago discovered was the right English manner towards your guests; as if they had just strolled in and billeted themselves, and you were quite glad to see them but mustn’t be asked to trouble yourself further. The next second they were cooing like pigeons round a picture which a young man was holding up in the lamplight.

He was a tallish, lean fellow of round about thirty years, wearing grey flannels and shoes dusty from the country roads. His thin face was sallow as if from living indoors, and he had rather more hair on his head than most of us. In the glow of the lamp his features were very clear, and I examined them with interest, for, remember, I was expecting a stranger to give me orders. He had a long, rather strong chin and an obstinate mouth with peevish lines about its corners. But the remarkable feature was his eyes. I can best describe them by saying that they looked hot⁠—not fierce or angry, but so restless that they seemed to ache physically and to want sponging with cold water.

They finished their talk about the picture⁠—which was couched in a jargon of which I did not understand one word⁠—and Miss Doria turned to me and the young man.

“My cousin Launcelot Wake⁠—Mr. Brand.”

We nodded stiffly and Mr. Wake’s hand went up to smooth his hair in a self-conscious gesture.

“Has Barnard announced dinner? By the way, where is Mary?”

“She came in five minutes ago and I sent her to change,” said Miss Claire. “I won’t have her spoiling the evening with that horrid uniform. She may masquerade as she likes out-of-doors, but this house is for civilized people.”

The butler appeared and mumbled something. “Come along,” cried Miss Doria, “for I’m sure you are starving, Mr. Brand. And Launcelot has bicycled ten miles.”

The dining-room was very unlike the hall. The panelling had been stripped off, and the walls and ceiling were covered with a dead-black satiny paper on which hung the most monstrous pictures in large dull-gold frames. I could only see them dimly, but they seemed to be a mere riot of ugly colour. The young man nodded towards them. “I see you have got the Degousses hung at last,” he said.

“How exquisite they are!” cried Miss Claire. “How subtle and candid and brave! Doria and I warm our souls at their flame.”

Some aromatic wood had been burned in the room, and there was a queer sickly scent about. Everything in that place was strained and uneasy and abnormal⁠—the candle shades on the table, the mass of faked china fruit in the centre dish, the gaudy hangings and the nightmarish walls. But the food was magnificent. It was the best dinner I had eaten since 1914.

“Tell me, Mr. Brand,” said Miss Doria, her long white face propped on a much-beringed hand. “You are one of us? You are in revolt against this crazy war?”

“Why, yes,” I said, remembering my part. “I think a little common sense would settle it right away.”

“With a little common sense it would never have started,” said Mr. Wake.

“Launcelot’s a C.O., you know,” said Miss Doria.

I did not know, for he did not look any kind of soldier⁠ ⁠… I was just about to ask him what he commanded, when I remembered that the letters stood also for “Conscientious Objector,” and stopped in time.

At that moment someone slipped into the vacant seat on my right hand. I turned and saw the V.A.D. girl who had brought tea to Blaikie that afternoon at the hospital.

“He was exempted by his Department,” the lady went on, “for he’s a Civil Servant, and so he never had a chance of testifying in court, but no one has done better work for our cause. He is on the committee of the L.D.A., and questions have been asked about him in Parliament.”

The man was not quite comfortable at this biography. He glanced nervously at me and was going to begin some kind of explanation, when Miss Doria cut him short. “Remember our rule, Launcelot. No turgid war controversy within these walls.”

I agreed with her. The war had seemed closely knit to the Summer landscape for all its peace, and to the noble old