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Both women talked without lowering their voices in the slightest degree, and with that complete indifference to the proximity of a stranger sometimes exhibited by a certain arrogant type.
Jean, realising that it was her father’s friends who were under discussion, and finding herself forced into the position of an unwilling auditor, felt wretchedly uncomfortable. She wished fervently that she could in some way arrest the conversation. Yet it was clearly as impossible for her to lean forward and say: “You are talking about the people I am on my way to visit,” as it would have been for her to put her fingers in her ears. So far nothing had been said to which she could actually object. Her feeling was chiefly the offspring of a supersensitive fear that she might learn from the lips of these two gossiping women, one of whom was apparently intimately acquainted with the private history of the Tormarin family, some little fact or detail which Lady Anne might not care for her future guest to know. Apart from this fear, it would hardly have been compatible with human nature—certainly not feminine human nature—if she had not felt pricked to considerable personal interest in the topic under discussion.
“Oh, it was a fool business,” the first woman rejoined, settling down to supply the details of the story with an air of rapacious satisfaction which reminded Jean of nothing so much as of a dog with a bone. “Nesta Freyne was a typical Italian—though her father was English, I believe—all blazing, passionate eyes and blazing, passionate emotion, you know; then there was another man—and there was Blaise Tormarin! You can imagine the consequences for yourself. Blaise has his full share of the Tormarin temper—and a Tormarin in a temper is like a devil with the bit between his teeth. There were violent quarrels and finally the girl bolted, presumably with the other man. Then, later, Lady Anne heard that she had died abroad somewhere. The funny thing is that it seemed to cut Tormarin up rather badly. He’s gloomed about the world ever since, so I suppose he must have been pretty deeply in love with her before the crash came. I never saw her, but I’ve been told she was diabolically pretty.”
The other woman laughed, dismissing the tragedy of the little tale with a shallow tinkle of mirth.
“Oh, well, I’ve only met Blaise Tormarin once, but I should say he was not the type to relish being thrown over for another man!” She peered short-sightedly at the grilled fish on her plate, poking at it discontentedly with her fork. “I never think they cook their fish decently here, do you?” she complained.
And, with that, both women shelved the affairs of Blaise Tormarin and concentrated upon the variety of culinary sins from which even expensive hotel chefs are not necessarily exempt.
Jean had no time to bestow upon the information which had been thus thrust upon her until she had effected the transport of herself and her belongings from the hotel to Waterloo Station, but when this had been satisfactorily accomplished and she found herself comfortably settled in a corner seat of the Plymouth express, her thoughts reverted to her newly acquired knowledge.
It added a bit of definite outline to the very slight and shadowy picture she had been able to form of her future environment—a picture roughly sketched in her mind from the few hints dropped by her father.
She wondered a little why Glyn should have omitted all mention of Blaise Tormarin’s love affair and its unhappy sequel, but a moment’s reflection supplied the explanation. Peterson had admitted that it was ten years since he had heard from Lady Anne; presumably, then, the circumstances just recounted in Jean’s hearing had occurred during those years.
Jean felt that the additional knowledge she had gained rather detracted from the prospective pleasure of her visit to Staple. Judging from the comments which she had overheard, her host was likely to prove a somewhat morose and gloomy individual, soured by his unfortunate experience of feminine fidelity.
Thence her thoughts vaulted wildly ahead. Most probably, as a direct consequence, he was a woman-hater and, if so, it was more than possible that he would regard her presence at Staple as an unwarrantable intrusion.
A decided qualm assailed her, deepening quickly into a settled conviction—Jean was nothing if not thorough!—that the real explanation of the delay in Lady Anne’s response to Glyn’s letter had lain in Blaise Tormarin’s objection to the invasion of his home by a strange young woman—an objection Lady Anne had had to overcome, or decide to ignore, before she could answer Glyn’s request in the affirmative.
The idea that she might be an unwelcome guest at Staple filled Jean with lively consternation, and by the time she had accomplished the necessary change of train at Exeter, and found herself being trundled along on the leisurely branch line which conducted her to her ultimate destination, she had succeeded in working herself up into a condition that almost verged upon panic.
“Coombe Ea-vie! Coombe Eavie!”
The sing-song intonation of a depressed-looking porter, first rising from a low note to a higher, then descending in contrary motion abruptly from high to low, was punctuated by the sharper, clipped pronouncement of the stationmaster as he bustled up the length of the platform declaiming: “’Meavie! ’Meavie! ’Meavie!” with a maddeningly insistent repetition that reminded one of a cuckoo in June.
Apparently both stationmaster and porter were too much absorbed in the frenzied strophe and antistrophe effect they were producing to observe that any passenger, handicapped by luggage, contemplated descending from the train—unexpected arrivals were of rare occurrence at Coombe Eavie—and Jean therefore hastened to transfer herself and her hand-baggage to the platform unassisted. A minute later the train ambled on its way again, leaving the stationmaster and the depressed porter grouped in astonished admiration before the numerous trunks and suit-cases, labelled “Peterson,” which the luggage van of the departing train had vomited forth.