province.
Henderson’s murderers escaped through lack of evidence until the outrages of 1925, when they were arrested for their participation in the assassination of the Sirdar, and confessed to the crime they had committed nearly two years previously. They were sentenced to death and hanged. Thus was Henderson avenged.
CHAPTER TWO
Bound in Morocco
Although his duties kept Sir Leonard Wallace in London most of the year, he spent every available moment at his estate close to Lyndhurst in the New Forest. In fact during certain summer months he lived there, travelling daily to the metropolis by car, and returning in the evening.
His country residence is a small but beautiful Tudor house set in an old world garden, with a farm attached, and encircled by the majestic trees of England’s most noble forest. Both Sir Leonard and Lady Wallace loved the place, and if it had been possible would have resided permanently there. London held little attraction for them and, though they were to be seen at most functions during the season, and entertained liberally themselves, their hearts were in the New Forest.
Lady Wallace loves flowers, and is never happier than when pottering about the garden herself, while her little son Adrian has inherited her love for beautiful things and, if possible, will always escape from his governess whenever he catches sight of his motherwearing her old gardening gloves, and preparing to assist the gardener in his daily warfare against slugs, green flies, and all the other pests sent to try the horticulturist. Sir Leonard is also very fond of flowers but, as he admits himself, cultivating them does not appeal to him. He prefers to see other people doing the work, and admire the result.
‘You see, Molly,’ he observed one day a few weeks after his return from Egypt, as they lounged on the terrace, ‘gardening is all very well for the young and innocent. What do you think your precious flowers would feel like if a hoary old sinner like myself messed them about? Besides, the real art of gardening is to sit and watch things grow.’
She laughed.
‘How would you expect them to grow,’ she asked, ‘if they were not cultivated?’
‘Of course someone must do the cultivating,’ he admitted, ‘but the real artist is he who sits and appreciates.’
‘Thank you,’ she murmured sarcastically, her eyes twinkling with merriment. ‘You’re a fraud, Leonard,’ she went on; ‘a lazy old fraud.’
‘I confess it, but it’s humiliating to be unmasked by one’s wife.’
She laughed again in that attractive way of hers, and lay back in her chair, her hands behind her head, in an attitude he loved. Never tired of admiring her, he watched her now. Lady Wallace is as clever as she is sweet, as accomplished as she is charming. Her beauty is not only physical, it is mental as well, and that is perhaps why she is as popular with her own sex as with the other. It would be impossible to dislike her, impossible to think lightly of her. Her glorious chestnut hair, falling in natural waves round her head, her deep blue eyes, retroussé nose, perfectly shaped scarlet lips, andclear complexion are too well known to require description. She and her husband adore each other and jointly worship Adrian. In this twentieth century of broken marriages, divorce, unrequited love, Sir Leonard and Lady Wallace have proved that the perfect state of connubial happiness is still possible.
Wallace had given himself a well-earned holiday and, for a week, had been engaged in proving, at least so he said, that it is possible to reach an ideal state of indolence. For the time being a deep, blissful peace had entered Molly’s heart, a glad relief from that feeling of anxiety which always pervaded her when he was actively engaged on those dangerous duties which so often took him away from her. Though often she felt that he undertook ventures which might have been left to others, nevertheless she would not have thought of attempting
Henderson’s murderers escaped through lack of evidence until the outrages of 1925, when they were arrested for their participation in the assassination of the Sirdar, and confessed to the crime they had committed nearly two years previously. They were sentenced to death and hanged. Thus was Henderson avenged.
CHAPTER TWO
Bound in Morocco
Although his duties kept Sir Leonard Wallace in London most of the year, he spent every available moment at his estate close to Lyndhurst in the New Forest. In fact during certain summer months he lived there, travelling daily to the metropolis by car, and returning in the evening.
His country residence is a small but beautiful Tudor house set in an old world garden, with a farm attached, and encircled by the majestic trees of England’s most noble forest. Both Sir Leonard and Lady Wallace loved the place, and if it had been possible would have resided permanently there. London held little attraction for them and, though they were to be seen at most functions during the season, and entertained liberally themselves, their hearts were in the New Forest.
Lady Wallace loves flowers, and is never happier than when pottering about the garden herself, while her little son Adrian has inherited her love for beautiful things and, if possible, will always escape from his governess whenever he catches sight of his motherwearing her old gardening gloves, and preparing to assist the gardener in his daily warfare against slugs, green flies, and all the other pests sent to try the horticulturist. Sir Leonard is also very fond of flowers but, as he admits himself, cultivating them does not appeal to him. He prefers to see other people doing the work, and admire the result.
‘You see, Molly,’ he observed one day a few weeks after his return from Egypt, as they lounged on the terrace, ‘gardening is all very well for the young and innocent. What do you think your precious flowers would feel like if a hoary old sinner like myself messed them about? Besides, the real art of gardening is to sit and watch things grow.’
She laughed.
‘How would you expect them to grow,’ she asked, ‘if they were not cultivated?’
‘Of course someone must do the cultivating,’ he admitted, ‘but the real artist is he who sits and appreciates.’
‘Thank you,’ she murmured sarcastically, her eyes twinkling with merriment. ‘You’re a fraud, Leonard,’ she went on; ‘a lazy old fraud.’
‘I confess it, but it’s humiliating to be unmasked by one’s wife.’
She laughed again in that attractive way of hers, and lay back in her chair, her hands behind her head, in an attitude he loved. Never tired of admiring her, he watched her now. Lady Wallace is as clever as she is sweet, as accomplished as she is charming. Her beauty is not only physical, it is mental as well, and that is perhaps why she is as popular with her own sex as with the other. It would be impossible to dislike her, impossible to think lightly of her. Her glorious chestnut hair, falling in natural waves round her head, her deep blue eyes, retroussé nose, perfectly shaped scarlet lips, andclear complexion are too well known to require description. She and her husband adore each other and jointly worship Adrian. In this twentieth century of broken marriages, divorce, unrequited love, Sir Leonard and Lady Wallace have proved that the perfect state of connubial happiness is still possible.
Wallace had given himself a well-earned holiday and, for a week, had been engaged in proving, at least so he said, that it is possible to reach an ideal state of indolence. For the time being a deep, blissful peace had entered Molly’s heart, a glad relief from that feeling of anxiety which always pervaded her when he was actively engaged on those dangerous duties which so often took him away from her. Though often she felt that he undertook ventures which might have been left to others, nevertheless she would not have thought of attempting
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