Perhaps the War Office (whose ways were ever weird and unaccountable) had forbidden the General to take part in such a village-pump demonstration.

Perhaps Lady Laleham had insisted on her husband coming down like a uniformed Lord Lieutenant on the fold.

Perhaps the hero himself was laid up with measles.
With the lightest heart I drove to Wellings Park.

Marigold, straight as a ramrod, sitting in front by the chauffeur.

As soon as Pardoe, the butler, had brought out my chair and Marigold had settled me in it, Sir Anthony, very red and flustered, appeared and, shaking me nervously by the hand, said without preliminary greeting: "Come into the library." He, I think, had come from the morning room on the right of the hall.
The library was on the left.