Nancy breathed a deep sigh. "It's all your fault, Joan," she said. "You don't know how to treat a man. You must never blurt things out that you want. You must remember women are a subject race."
"But you won't mind our asking father, Dick, will you?" pleaded Joan.
Dick gave his ultimatum. "You'd better give up the idea," he said. "And remember what I told you about being on the make. You're nice kids, but you want keeping in order. I hope the new lady will do it."
"I hope she will," said Nancy; "but she's got a hard row to hoe. I can't help feeling a little sorry for her."
Aunt Laura had taken up her abode in a little old house on the village street, with a square, brick-walled garden behind it. The agent had occupied it before the death of Aunt Ellen, but had now removed to a farm which was in hand.
They found the old lady sitting by the fire in her parlour, knitting. She was frail and shrunken, and looked as if she might not long survive her transplantation. Mrs. Clinton or the twins came to see her every day, but a visit from the Squire or one of his sons, and especially Dick, was an honour which never failed mildly to excite her. She was now in a flurry, and told the elderly maid who had shown her visitors in to bring wine and cake, in the fashion of an earlier day. The men of the family never refused this entertainment, either because they were averse to wounding Aunt Laura's susceptibilities, or because they liked it.
"Well, I hope you've made yourself pretty comfortable, Aunt Laura," said Dick in a loud, clear voice, for the old lady was rather deaf, although she did not like to acknowledge it. He was looking round the room as he spoke. Its panelled walls were painted light green, and were hung with coloured prints. A recessed cupboard was full of beautiful old china; but there was nothing else of much value in the room, which was furnished with a Victorian drawing-room suite and a round rosewood table. The old lady had a pretty modern French table by her side with conveniences for her work and her books. She had also her old cottage piano, with a front of fluted red silk, upon which she sometimes played. A canary hung in the window, which faced south and let in, between the curtains, a stream of wintry sunshine.
"It is a bright little house," said Aunt Laura. "I sometimes wish that your dear Aunt Ellen had spent the last few years of her life here after your dear Aunt Anne died. The dower-house was a very dear home to us, and we were greatly attached to it, but in the winter it was dark, and this is much more cheerful. It is cold to-day, and I am sitting over the fire, as you see. But I often sit by the window and see the people going by. You could not do that in the dower-house, for nobody did go by."
"Did you bring all the furniture you wanted to make you comfortable, Aunt Laura?" asked Dick.
Aunt Laura looked up over her spectacles. "I am quite comfortable, I thank you, Dick," she replied, "although I have not got quite used to things yet. It is not to be expected that I should, all at once, at my age, and after having lived with the same things round me for close upon forty years. But your dear father has been kindness itself, as he always is, and allowed me to have all my bedroom furniture brought here, so that in my room upstairs I feel quite at home. And for the downstairs rooms he told me that any pictures or china and so forth that I had a fancy for I might have, and I hope I have not taken advantage of his generosity. I shall not want the things for very long, and they are being well taken care of. He did not want me to take any of the furniture, as he said this house was furnished already, but he wanted me to feel at home here."
Dick seemed to consider for a moment. "If there's anything special you want in the way of furniture, Aunt Laura," he said, "anything you've got attached to and like to use, we'll see if we can't get it brought down for you."
"Well, of course, I got attached to it all," replied Aunt Laura. "But I can't expect to have it all, and what is here will do for me very well. Hannah is making some pretty loose chintz covers for the chairs and sofa in this room, which will give it a more home-like appearance. I do not like the carpet, which is much worn, as you see, and was never a very good one, but I have half formed a plan of going over to Bathgate when the spring comes and seeing if I can get one something after the pattern of that in the morning-room at the dower-house, which your aunts and I used much to admire. It was old and somewhat faded, but its colours were well blended, and I have heard that it was brought straight from Persia, where they have always made excellent carpets, for my grandfather, who was in business in the city of London. He would be your great-great-grandfather, and they used to call him 'Merchant Jack,' even after he succeeded to Kencote."
If Dick had known the true value of the carpet in question he might not have offered to have it sent down for Aunt Laura's use, but he immediately did so, and the old lady's gratitude ought sufficiently to have rewarded him. "Now is there anything else, Aunt Laura?" he asked.
"Well, as you are so extremely kind, Dick," she said, "—and I hope your dear father will not mind, or think that I have been grasping, which I should not like after all his generosity—I think if I might have the use of the old bureau upon which your aunts and I used to write our letters and in which we used to keep our few business papers—for there was a very good lock—not that there was any necessity to lock things up at the dower-house, for everything was under Hannah's charge, and, although she is apt to be a little flighty in her dress, and your dear Aunt Ellen sometimes rebuked her for that, but always kindly, she was quite reliable, andanythingmight have been left about in perfect safety.—As I was saying, if I might have the use of the old bureau for as long as I live—I should not want it longer—I do not think I should regret anything, except of course that your dear aunts are all gone now, and I am the last of them left."
Dick had prepared himself, during the foregoing speech, to promise, immediately it came to an end, that Aunt Laura should have the old bureau, although it was a very fine specimen of Dutch marquetry, and the piece of furniture that had struck him as the most desirable of all he had just seen in the dower-house. "Oh, of course, Aunt Laura," he said. "You shall have the bureau and the carpet sent down this afternoon. Then you'll feel quite at home, eh?"
"Well, perhaps not this afternoon, Dick," replied Aunt Laura. "It might upset the house for Sunday to make a change, and I should not be quite ready to superintend it. But on Monday, or even Tuesday—I am not particular—I could make ready. There is no immediate hurry. It is enough for me to know that I am to have the things here, and I shall think upon them with very great pleasure. I'm sure I cannot thank you enough, dear Dick, for your kindness. It is of a piece with all the rest. Why, I do not believe you have yet seen my beautiful table. Children dear, see here! Is it not convenient? I can place my favourite book here by my side, and when I am tired of reading, without moving from my seat, I can lay it down, and there is my work ready for me underneath, and in this pocket, as you see, are all sorts of conveniences, such as scissors, little tape-measure in the form of a silver pig, and so on; and here an ivory paper-knife. It is indeed a handsome present, is it not?"
"It's lovely, Aunt Laura," said Joan. "Who did it come from?"
"On Thursday," replied Aunt Laura. "Thursday morning. No, I am telling you a story. It was Thursday afternoon, for Hannah was just about to bring in the tea."
"Who gave it you, Aunt Laura?" asked Joan again.
"Did I not tell you?" said Aunt Laura. "It was dear Humphrey. He sent it down from London. He came in to see me when he was last at Kencote and described to me such a table as this, which I admit Ididsay I should like to possess, but certainly with no idea that he would purchase one for me. But there! all you dear boys and girls are full of kind thoughts for your old aunt, and I am sure it makes me very happy in my loss of your dear Aunt Ellen to think I have so much left to be thankful for."
When the twins were in their bedroom getting ready for luncheon Joan said, "I wonder why Humphrey is so attentive all of a sudden to Aunt Laura."
"There's more in it than meets the eye," said Nancy. "Did you notice how surprised Dick looked when she said Humphrey gave it her? And then he frowned."
"I expect Dick thinks Humphrey is too extravagant. It must have been an expensive table. And I know Humphrey has debts, because he asked me to open a tailor's bill that came for him and tell him the 'demnition total,' as he was afraid to do it himself. It was more than a hundred pounds, and he said, 'I wish that was the only one, but if it was I couldn't pay it.'"
"Poor old Humphrey!" said Nancy. "I say, Joan, do you think he is making up to Aunt Laura, so that she will pay his bills for him?"
"What a beastly thing to say, Nancy!" replied Joan. "Of course, none of the boys would do a thing like that. Besides, Aunt Laura hasn't got any money."
"No, I don't suppose so," said Nancy reflectively. "I expect father gives her an allowance, poor old darling!"
But Aunt Laura had money. She had the thirty-six thousand pounds which her father had left to her and her sisters, and she had, besides, the savings of all six ladies through a considerable number of years.
The Squire had a touch of rheumatism, and was annoyed about it, but also inclined to give Providence due credit for so visiting him, if he must be visited at all, at a time of hard frost. "If I coddle myself up to-day and perhaps to-morrow," he said over the luncheon table, "I shall be able to hunt all right on Monday, if the frost breaks. I suppose you wouldn't care to go over those Deepdene Farm figures this afternoon, Dick, eh?"
"We might have an hour with them before dinner," replied Dick. "I thought of riding over to Mountfield to see Jim this afternoon. I want a little exercise."
"I don't know whether you will find Jim in," said Mrs. Clinton. "Muriel, and I think Mrs. Graham, are coming over here this afternoon."
"I'll take my chance," said Dick.
The twins saw him off from the hall door. He rode a tall bay horse, which danced with impatience on the hard gravel of the drive as he looked him over, drawing on his gloves.
"Dear old Cicero! doesn't he look a beauty?" said Nancy. "What was his figure, Dick?"
"You will never be able to get on him," said Joan. "Shall I bring a chair?"
But Dick was up and cantering over the crisp grass of the park, managing his nervous powerful mount as if he and the horse were of one frame and as if nothing could separate them.
"He does look jolly," said Joan admiringly.
"He's a good man on a horse," acquiesced Nancy.
"All the boys are. So they ought to be. They think about nothing else."
"You know, I think Dick is just the sort of man a girl might fall in love with," said Joan. "He's very good-looking, and he has just that sort of way with him, as if he didn't care for anybody."
"I expect lots of girls have fallen in love with him. The question is whether he is ever going to fall in love with them. I'm inclined to think he's turning it over in his mind. I dare say you were blinded by all that business at the dower-house this morning. I wasn't. You mark my word, Joan, Dick is going to get married."
"I shouldn't wonder. He's grown softer somehow. See how interested he was in the kitchen. Who do you think it is, Nancy?"
"My dear! Don't you know that? It's Grace Ettien. Didn't you notice what a fuss father made of her when she last come over? Took her all round, and almostgaveher the place. He doesn't treat girls like that as a rule."
"You didn't say so at the time."
"No; but I've put two and two together since. You see if I'm not right. By this time next year the dower-house will be occupied by Captain and Lady Grace Clinton—and oh, Joan! perhaps there'll be another baby in the family!"
The ecstasy of the twins at this prospect was broken into by Miss Bird, who appeared behind them in the doorway and promised them their deaths of cold if they did not come indoorsat once.
In the meantime Dick was trotting along the hard country lanes, between the silent silvered winter woods and the frozen fields, always with an eye about him to see what things of fur and feather might share with him the winter solitude, what was doing in the hard-bound soil, and what in the clear spaces of the air. He had the eye of the countryman, trained from boyhood to observe and assimilate. He had lived for years the life of court and camp, had adapted himself as readily to the turmoil of London gaieties as to regimental duties in other stations at home and abroad, or to months of campaigning in Egypt and South Africa. He had skimmed the cream of all such experiences as had come in his way, but here in the depths of the English country, just here where his ancestors had lived for generation after generation, were placed the foundations of his life. Here he was at home, as nowhere else in the world. All the rest was mere accident of time and place, of no account as compared with this one spot of English soil. Here alone he was based and firmly rooted.
Mountfield lay about four miles from Kencote, and the two estates marched, although the one was small as compared with the other. Two years before, Jim Graham, the owner of Mountfield, had married Cicely Clinton, and his only sister just before that had married Walter Clinton, the doctor of Melbury Park, where the Squire was so averse to looking for an heir. So the Clintons and the Grahams were bound together by close ties, and there was much coming and going between the two houses.
Cicely's carriage was before the door as Dick rode up, and she herself came out as he dismounted. She looked very pretty in her thick furs, young and fresh, and matronly at the same time.
"Oh, Dick, I'm so glad to see you," she said. "Have you come to see Jim? I'm afraid he's gone over to Bathgate, and won't be back for some time."
"H'm! That's a bore," said Dick. "You're going over to Kencote, aren't you, Siskin?"
"Yes. I'm going to fetch Mrs. Graham and drive her over. But do come in for a minute or two."
"Oughtn't to keep the horses long in this weather," said Dick. "Drive 'em about for a few minutes, Carter. I'll just come in and throw my eye over the babies, Siskin."
Cicely's face brightened. She led the way into her morning-room, and turned to kiss her brother, her hands on his shoulders. "Dear old Dick!" she said. "Do you really want to see the babies?"
"Of course I do," he replied. "You've given us the taste for them over at Kencote. The Twankies foam at the mouth with pleasure whenever the babies are mentioned, and even the governor looks as if a light were switched on in his face when anything is said about them."
Cicely rang the bell. "He is a doting grandfather," she said, with a smile. "I would take them over this afternoon, but it's too cold."
"Nice room, this!" said Dick, looking round him. "Are you glad to be settled down in the country again, Sis?"
"Yes. Awfully glad," she said. "I hated London, really. At least, I liked meeting the people, but you can only feel at home in the country."
"There was a time," said Dick.
She blushed. "Oh, don't talk about that, Dick," she said, in some distress. "I was all wrong. I didn't know what I wanted. I know now. I want just this, and Jim, and the babies. I was overjoyed when our two years in London were up, and Jim said we could come back here if we kept quiet and lived carefully. Here they are—the darlings!"
The tiny morsels of lace and silk-clad humanity—Dick, the boy, Nina, the baby girl—who were brought into the room in charge of a staid elderly smiling nurse, looked as happy babies ought to look—as if they belonged to the house and the house belonged to them. Dick took up his namesake and godson in his arms and his keen face softened. "He's getting a great little man," he said. "When are you going to cut his hair, Cicely?"
Cicely scouted the idea. "Men are always in such a hurry," she said. "Dick, you ought to marry and have babies of your own."
"Ah, well! perhaps I shall some day," said Dick. "Now I must be pushing on, and you oughtn't to keep the horses waiting, Sis. Good-bye, little chap."
"Aren't you coming back to Kencote?" Cicely asked.
"Not just yet. Going to hack a few more miles. I haven't been on a horse for three weeks."
So Cicely got into her carriage and Dick's horse was brought round, and they went off in different directions.
Cicely picked up her mother-in-law at her house just outside the park. Mrs. Graham was waiting for her at her garden gate, in company with a deerhound, a spaniel, and an Irish terrier. She had on a coat and skirt of thick tweed, and a cloth hat with a cock's feather.
"I suppose there won't be a tea-party," she said, as she got into the carriage. "I did intend to put on smart clothes, but I found I couldn't be bothered when the time came. They must take me in my rags or not at all.Youlook smart enough, my girl."
"If I had your figure," said Cicely, "I should never want to wear anything but country clothes."
"Ah! now that's very nice of you," said Mrs. Graham. "I do wear well for fifty-three, and I'm not going to deny it. My face is a bit battered, of course. I must expect that, riding and tramping about in all weathers. But I'm as fit as if I were thirty years younger, and I don't know what more you can ask of life—unless it's to have your own people round you instead of a pack of molly-coddles."
Cicely laughed. Jim Graham had let Mountfield for two years after their marriage to a rich and childless couple, who spent most of their time in working at embroidery, and motoring about the country in a closed-in car, for neither of which pursuits Mrs. Graham had found it in her heart to forgive them.
"Well,they'regone," she said. "And thank goodness for it. I should have let the Lodge and gone away myself if they had stayed here any longer. Cumberers of the ground, I call them, and what they wanted with a country house beats me. But you never know who you're going to get for neighbours nowadays. By the by, have you heard that old Parson Marsh has let Blaythorn Rectory for the hunting season?"
Blaythorn was about three miles from Mountfield, on the opposite side to Kencote. Cicely had not heard this piece of news.
"Yes," said Mrs. Graham, "and to a lady of title, my dear—Lady George Dubec—no less. I haven't the ghost of an idea who she is. But no doubt your father will know. He is a regular walking peerage—knows who everybody is and whom everybody has married to the third and fourth generation. What accommodation poor old Parson Marsh has for hunters I don't know. I should think the lady must have been done in the eye. And as for the house—the last time I was in it it smelt so of dogs and tobacco-smoke that even I couldn't put up with it, and Lord knows I'm not particular."
"Where is Mr. Marsh going to live?" asked Cicely.
"Oh, I believe he has sacked his curate on the strength of it, and has taken his rooms. I don't know why he should have wanted a curate at all, except that he's so bone-idle, and I'm sure he can't afford one. He owes Joynes the butcher over forty pounds. But, good gracious, Cicely, don't encourage me to gossip. I'm getting a regular old hag. It's the influence of your late tenants, my dear. Theylovedvillage tittle-tattle, and I had to join in with it whenever we met, because there was nothing else in the wide world I could talk to them about. The worst of it is I was acquiring quite a taste for scandal. But I've turned over a new leaf. So has old Marsh I suppose, and is going to pay up all his debts. I wish him well over his difficulties."
With such sprightly talk did Mrs. Graham pass away the time till they reached Kencote, when she began all over again with Mrs. Clinton as audience. Cicely had gone upstairs to see the twins and Miss Bird, and Mrs. Graham asked point-blank that Mr. Clinton might be informed of her arrival. "I have lots to tell him," she said, "and I want to ask him some questions besides."
Mrs. Clinton rang the bell, without saying anything, and a footman was sent with a message to the Squire, who presently came in, bluff and hearty, but walking with a slight list.
"Ah, Mrs. Graham!" he said as he shook hands. "Come to cheer us up with a little gossip—what? But where are the grandchildren?"
"Dear me! I forgot to ask," said Mrs. Graham. "I suppose it is too cold for them. But I've brought the dogs, Mr. Clinton."
"Oh, the dogs!" said the Squire, with his loud laugh. "No dogs inthishouse."
"I know," said Mrs. Graham. "And it's such a mistake. Kencote is the only country house I know where there isn't a dog indoors. I never feel that it's properly inhabited."
"It was swarming with them in my grandfather's time," said the Squire, "and I dare say would be now if that mongrel hadn't gone for Dick when he was a little fellow. Always kept 'em outside since. Outside is the place for a dog."
"I don't agree with you," said Mrs. Graham. "And it isn't like a sportsman to say so. However, we needn't quarrel about that. Who is Lady George Dubec, Mr. Clinton?"
"Lady George Dubec?" repeated the Squire. "I suppose she's the wife—or the widow rather—of George Dubec, the Duke of Queenstown's brother, and a pretty good rascalhewas. Got killed in a railway accident in America two or three years ago, and it was the best thing that could have happened to him. Wish they'd kill off a few more like him. I didn't know he was married. Why do you ask?"
"She has taken Blaythorn Rectory to hunt from. She came down yesterday or the day before."
"Blaythorn Rectory! To hunt from!'" exclaimed the Squire. "Well, that's the most extraordinary thing! Are there any stables there? I never heard of Marsh keeping anything but an old pony, and the whole place must be in the depths of dilapidation."
"Well, I don't know. But there she is. And you don't knowwhoshe is. I thought you knew who everybody was, Mr. Clinton."
"Wait a minute," said the Squire, and he went over to a table where there were books of reference. "No, there's no marriage here," he said, turning over the pages of one of them, "except his first marriage thirty years ago. Poor Lady Bertha Grange that was, and he drove her into her grave within five years. The fellow was a brute and a blackleg. I was at school with him, and he was sacked. And I was at Cambridge with him and he was sent down, for some disgraceful business, I forget what. Then he was in the Guards, and had to clear out of the service within a year for some precious shady racing transaction. The fellow had every possible chance, and hecouldn'trun straight. He went abroad after that, but used to turn up occasionally. Nobody would have anything to do with him. I believe he settled down in America, if he could ever be said to settle down anywhere. I know he was in some scandalous divorce case. One used to hear his name come up occasionally, and always in an unsavoury sort of way. He was a wrong 'un, through and through, but a good-looking blackguard in his young days, and women used to stick up for him."
"Well, he seems to be better out of the world than in it," said Mrs. Graham. "But what about his widow? You say she isn't down there."
"No, but this book is out of date. I've got a later one in my room. I'll send for it."
The new book gave the information required. Lord George Dubec had married five years before Miss Virginia Vanreden, of Philadelphia.
"Oh, an American!" said Mrs. Graham. "Well, I suppose I must go and call on her. Even if I don't like her I shall be doing my duty to my neighbours in providing them with gossip. Not that I like gossip—I detest it. Still, one must findsomething to talk about. Shall you call on her, Mrs. Clinton?"
The Squire answered. "Oh, I think not," he said. "I don't like hunting—er! hum! ha!"
"You don't like hunting women," said Mrs. Graham imperturbably. "I know you don't, Mr. Clinton. That's another point between us. But we're very good friends all the same."
"Oh, of course, of course," said the Squire. "Nearly put my foot in it that time, Mrs. Graham, eh? Ha! ha! Well, with such old friends one can afford to make a mistake or two. No, I think we'll leave Lady George Dubec alone. She won't be here long, and I've no wish to be mixed up with anybody belonging to George Dubec—alive or dead. I had the utmost contempt for the fellow. Besides, I don't like Americans, and any woman who would have married him after the life he'd led ... well, she may be all right, but I don't want to know her—that's all. Ishouldlike to know, though, how she got hold of Blaythorn Rectory, of all places, or why she has come to Meadshire to hunt. The country pleasesusall right, and we're quite content with our sport, but we're not generally honoured by strangers in that way."
"I dare say I can find out all about it," said Mrs. Graham. "And when I do I'll let you know."
Cicely was sitting on the great roomy shabby sofa in the schoolroom, with a twin on either side of her, and Miss Bird upright in the corner, alternately tatting feverishly a pattern of lace thread and dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief. For the subject of conversation was her approaching departure, and, as she said, with all the kindness that had been showered on her and the affection that she felt she never would lose, it was no use pretending that she was glad she was going away, for she was not, but, on the contrary, very sorry.
"Nancy and I are going to write to her once a week regularly," said Joan. "We did think of writing every day at first, but we probably shouldn't keep it up."
"The spirit is willing, but the flesh might be weak," said Nancy. "And there's no sense in overdoing things. Anyhow, we have promised that we will never love Miss Prim half as much as we love our darling Starling, and she is pleased at that, aren't you, Starling darling?"
"Of course I am pleased to be loved," replied Miss Bird; "but indeed, Nancy, I should not like you to set yourself against your new governess on my account; it is not necessary and you can love one person without visiting it on another and I do not like you to call her Miss Prim."
"She is sure to be," said Nancy elliptically. "We must call her something, and that's as good a name as any till we see what she is like."
"If you don't treat her respectfully she won't stay," said Cicely.
"We haven't treated Starling respectfully, butshehas stayed all right," said Joan. "I suppose you know we are going to have lessons besides, Sis—drawing, and music, and deportment, and all sorts of things."
"Oh, we're going to be well finished off while we're about it," said Nancy. "We shall be ready to fillanyposition, from the highest to the lowest."
"We shall be the ornament of every drawing-room to which we are introduced," said Joan. "I think we're worth polishing off handsomely, don't you, Sis? Have you noticed how awfully pretty we're getting?"
"Now that is a thing," broke in Miss Bird, "that no well-brought-up girl ought to say of herself, Joan."
"But, Starling darling, it's true, and you can't deny it," replied Joan. "We must tell the truth, mustn't we?"
"The new booking-clerk at the station casts admiring glances at us," said Nancy. "At first it made us uncomfortable; we thought we must have smuts on our noses. But at last we tumbled to it. Cicely, we are loved, not only for our worth, but our beauty."
"You are a couple of donkeys," said Cicely, laughing. "Well, I'm glad you're going to apply yourselves to learning, although it's a dreadful thing to be losing our dear old Starling. Kencote will be quite changed."
"There are many changes coming about at Kencote," said Nancy. "Joan and I can feel them in the air. We'll let you know when there's anything more to tell you, Cicely."
"Thank you very much," said Cicely. "I think I had better go downstairs now."
The twins went with her, and on the stairs Cicely said, "I didn't like to say it before Starling, but I think you're awfully lucky children, to be going to be taught things.Inever was. I do hope you'll take advantage of it."
"Oh, Idohope we shall," said Joan. "It is such a chance for us. We feel that."
"Deeply," acquiesced Nancy. "If we don't we shall never forgive ourselves—never."
Dick, when he had left Mountfield, trotted on at a slightly faster pace than he had hitherto come, in the direction of Blaythorn, and did not draw rein until he came to that rectory concerning whose occupancy his relations and connections were so exercised. It was a dull house, with a short, weed-grown drive behind a rather shabby brick wall and an overgrown shrubbery, on the outskirts of the village. He got off his horse and rang the bell, which was presently answered by a smart parlourmaid, who gave him a discreet smile of welcome, and whisked off at his request, with a flourish of petticoats, to fetch a groom from the stableyard hard by. Then she showed him into the drawing-room, where two women were sitting by the fire, one of whom rose to greet him with an exclamation of pleasure, while the other gathered up her work deliberately and prepared to leave the room.
Lady George Dubec was a tall, slender woman in the early thirties, or possibly only in the late twenties. Her face was a little worn, but her eyes were deep and lustrous, and her features delicate. When she smiled she was beautiful. Her dark hair was elaborately braided; her slim figure looked well in a black gown of soft folds. She had thin, almost transparent hands, covered with jewels. She moved gracefully, and her voice was low, but clear and musical, with only the suspicion of an un-English intonation.
"Oh, Dick, what a godsend you are," she said as she gave him both her hands. "Toby and I were wondering how on earth we were going to get through the rest of the afternoon and evening."
"I wasn't wondering at all," said the other lady, who had now also risen and shaken hands with the visitor. "I knew you would come. So did Virginia, really. We were talking about you. I will now retire to another apartment and leave you alone."
"Indeed you'll do no such thing," said Virginia Dubec, taking her by the shoulders and pushing her back into her chair. "We will have the lights and tea—although it is early—and a talk of three together. We're all friends, and you're not going to sit alone."
"Of course not," said Dick. "A nice sort of state you'd work yourself up into against me! I know you, Miss Dexter."
She took her seat again and unrolled her work. She was short and rather plain, with sandy-coloured hair and square-tipped fingers. She had not smiled since Dick had entered the room.
"Oh, I don't deny that I'm jealous," she said. "I've had her to myself for three years, and you have come and stolen her away from me. But it's a harmless sort of jealousy. It doesn't make me object to you. It only makes me wonder sometimes."
"What do you wonder?" asked Dick, standing up before the fire and looking down at her with a glance that immediately transferred itself to her companion, on whom his eyes rested with an expression that had a hint of hunger in it.
Virginia answered for her. "She wonders what there is in a man for a woman to cling to—and especially aftermyexperience. She thinks a woman's friendship ought to be enough.Shewants no other. We talk over these things together, but we don't quarrel. She knows that I shall always love her, don't you, Toby?"
"Perhaps I do, perhaps I don't," said Miss Dexter. "But we needn't discuss these matters before Captain Dick. I'll ring for the lights and the tea."
Dick breathed an inaudible sigh of relief. He was not at home in the discussions of abstract questions. "How do you find yourself here, Virginia?" he asked, looking round him. "You have made this room very jolly, anyhow."
"That's what Mr. Marsh said, in his own particular way," she said, with a smile. "He said, 'If I'd known a woman could do this sort of thing to a house, I'd have married a wife years ago.'"
"And of course Virginia immediately suggested he should marry me," said Miss Dexter. "She is so generous with her belongings."
"It made us very good friends," said Lady George. "A joke of that sort always does. We shall carry it on till the end of my tenancy, and then he will propose to Toby. You'll see, Dick."
"I shouldn't blame him," said Dick. "The stables aren't so very bad, are they?"
"Oh, Wilson says they'll do. But I wish you had been able to get me a brighter house, Dick. It is rather depressing, in spite of all my furbishing and knick-knacks."
"My dear girl, it was absolutely the only one within reach. We don't let houses for hunting hereabouts. You wait till you see the dower-house. I was there this morning, and really I'd no idea what a jolly little place it is. With the few alterations I'm going to make, and all the jolly old furniture, it will be a topping place. You'll fall in love with it, Virginia."
She sighed. "There are some fences to take before we land up there," she said. "I'm rather frightened about it all, Dick. When will your mother come and see me? Have you told her I am here yet?"
"No," he said shortly. "I shall tell them this evening."
Miss Dexter dropped her work in her lap with a gesture of impatience, and looked up at him. "Whyhaven't you told them?" she asked. "Are you ashamed of her?"
Dick's face flushed and his lips tightened. "That isn't a proper question to ask, Miss Dexter," he said. "I know what I'm about, and so does Virginia."
"My dear Toby, for goodness' sake don't make him angry," said Lady George. "I'm frightened of him when he looks like that."
Dick forced a smile. "My father is a good sort, but he wants managing," he said. "I'll state the case quite plainly once more, as Miss Dexter sees fit to question my action."
"Oh, good gracious!" put in that lady, "I'm not worth all these heavy guns."
"Toby! Toby!" expostulated her friend.
The maid came in at that moment with a lamp and stayed to draw curtains and light candles. Dick dislodged himself from his stand in front of the fire and took a chair, but left it to the two women to carry on a desultory conversation until they were left alone again. Then he rose once more. "Look here," he said. "We've got to have this out once for all. I'm not going to be twitted for my actions, Miss Dexter."
"Well, please have it out," she said. "I'm listening."
"You are the most tiresome creature in the world," said Lady George.
"I don't want to say anything to hurt you, Virginia," Dick went on, "but the name you bear would set my father against you—violently."
"Oh, my dear Dick!" she said, "you don't hurt me in the least, but why go into all that? We understand each other. Toby, I feel as if I could beat you."
"Well," said Dick. "I won't say any more about that, but you have got to remember it. But there are prejudices to get over besides. He wants me to make the usual sort of marriage with a—oh, you know the sort of female child fellows like me are supposed to marry—his mind is running on it now, and he actually tackled me about it last night. He's got the young person all ready—that's the sort of man he is—my cousin, Grace Ettien. I said, No, thank you, and I told him I didn't want to marry a youngster—wouldn't, anyway. It's no good beating about the bush, Virginia—until he sees you—untilhe sees you, mind—you don't fill the bill."
"That's a pleasant way of putting it," said Miss Dexter.
"I won't have another word," said Lady George decisively. "You two are just annoying each other. Dick, my dear, I think it's just sweet of you to put all your faith in that seeing of me. I adore you for it. It eases all my spiritual aches and pains. Toby, you irritating creature, can't you see how lovely it is of him? If he were all wrong about having me come down here, I shouldn't care. He has done it because he believes in his heart of hearts that his people have only got to set eyes on me and all their objections will vanish into thin air."
"I don't say that quite—I don't know," said Dick.
"Well, you needn't go and spoil it," said Miss Dexter. "I was just going to say that it did make up for a good deal."
"Look here, Miss Dexter," said Dick. "If I were to go and tell my father straight off that I am going to marry Virginia he would be all over bristles at once. All the things that don't matter a hang beside what she is, and what every one can see she is who knows her, would be brought up, and he'd put himself into a frantic state about it. He wouldn't let me bring her to Kencote; he'd fight blindly with every weapon he could use. I'm heir to a fine property, and I'm as well off as I need be, even while my father is alive, as long as I don't set myself against all his dislikes and prejudices. If I do, he can make me a poor man, and he'd do it. He'd do anything by which he thought he could get his way. I shouldn't even be able to marry, unless I lived on my wife's money, which I won't do."
"No, you're too proud for that," said Miss Dexter.
"Put it how you like. I won't do it. I'll take all a wife can give me except money. That I'll give. If there were no other way, I'd break down his opposition. I know how to treat him, and I could do it; but it would take time; I should cut myself off from Kencote until I had brought him under, and Virginia's name would be bandied about here, in the place where we are going to live all our lives, in a way that would affect us always, and in a way I won't subject her to. He'd do that, although he might be sorry for having done it afterwards, and I don't think I should be able to put up with it. We might quarrel in such a way that we shouldn't be able to come together again, and the harm would be done. As I say, if there were no other way I would run the risk. But there is another way, and I'm taking it. You asked me a foolish question just now—if I was ashamed of Virginia. It is because I am so far from being ashamed of her—because I'm so proud of her—that I asked her to come down here, where he can get to know her before he has any idea that I'm going to marry her.Shecan make her way, and make him forget all the rest. Now, what have you got against that? Let's have it plainly."
"Dear Dick!" said Virginia softly. "I have had many compliments paid me, but that is the best of all. Answer him, Toby, and don't keep up this tiresome irritation any longer. It spoils everything."
"Well, I'll give in," said Miss Dexter. "But in my inmost soul I'm against all this policy, and if your father isn't quite blind, Captain Dick, he will see through it, and you will be worse off than before."
"My father can't see through anything," said Dick. "Besides, there's nothing to see through. I shouldn't mind telling him—in fact, Ishalltell him—that it was I who advised Virginia to come down here. He knows I have heaps of friends all over the place that he doesn't know of. Virginia is one of them, for the present."
"I hope everything will turn out well," said Miss Dexter after a slight pause. "I won't say I think you're right, but I'll say you may be, and I hope you are. And I won't worry you with any more doubts."
Virginia Dubec rose from her chair impulsively and kissed her. "My darling old Toby!" she said. "You are very annoying at times, but I couldn't do without you."
After tea Miss Dexter went out of the room, and they did not try to stop her. When they were left alone Dick held Virginia in his arms and looked into her eyes. "What have you done to me," he asked her, with a smile, "after all these years?"
"Am I really the first, Dick?" she asked him.
"You are the first, Virginia—and the only one. You have changed everything. I have always thought I had everything I wanted. Now I know I've had nothing."
"And I have had nothing, either," she said. "Every morning I wake up wondering what has happened to me. And when I remember I begin to sing. To think that at my age, and after my bitter experience,thisshould come to me! Oh, Dick, you don't know how much I love you."
"I know how much I loveyou," he said. "If there were no other way I would give up Kencote and everything else for you. I love you enough for that, Virginia, and the things I would give up for you are the only things I have valued so far. But we won't give up anything, my girl. My good old obstinate old father will fall at your feet when he knows you."
"Will he, Dick?"
"Ihave fallen at your feet, Virginia, and I'm rather like my father, although I think I can see a bit further into things, and I have a little more control over my feelings—and my speech."
They had sat down side by side on a sofa, and Dick was holding her slender hand in his brown one.
"I used to think you had so much control over yourself that it would be impossible ever to get anything out of you," she said. "You are so frightfully and terrifyingly English."
He laughed. "That gnat-like friend of yours has the power to make me explain myself," he said. "I've never tried to talk over any one to my side as I do her. I have always taken my own way and let people think what they like."
"I think it is sweet of you to put yourself—and me—right with her, Dick. She has been the best friend that I ever had, except you, dear Dick. She stood by me in the worst days, and put up with untold insults without flinching, so that she could stay with me. Of course, at first, she was terrified lest I should make another mistake. She is like a grim watch-dog over me. But she likes you, and trusts you. You must put up with her little ways."
"Oh, I do, my dear, and I will. She's a good sort."
"Dick, will your mother like me? You have never told me very much about her. I think I feel more nervous about her than about your father."
"You needn't, Virginia. She is one of the best of women. I think she is perhaps a little difficult to know. She is rather silent and keeps her thoughts to herself; but I know we shall have her on our side. She has only to know you. But in any case she wouldn't give us any trouble."
"That sounds rather hard, Dick. Don't you love your mother? I loved mine."
"Of course I do. But she doesn't interfere with us. She never did. It was my father we had to consider, even when we were boys."
"Interfere with you! I don't like the sound of it. Dick, I don't think I will talk to you about your mother. I will wait until I have seen her. You don't help me to know what she is like. I hope I shall get on with her. I shall know soon. Will she be at the meet on Monday, if there is one?"
"No. But my father will. I shall introduce him to you then. I told you he had a foolish prejudice against women hunting, didn't I? It won't be quite the most propitious of times. But we can't help that."
"Well, I won't hunt on Monday, then. I will drive Toby to the meet instead, and follow on wheels."
"H'm. Perhaps it would be better—just at the first go off. And I don't believe you really care as much about hunting as you think you do, Virginia."
She looked into his face with her dark, sweet eyes. "I don't care about anything, except to please you, Dick," she said. "As for hunting—it was the excitement—to keep my mind off. It was the only thing he let me do, over here. I believe he would have liked me to kill myself, and sometimes I used to try to."
He put his hand before her mouth. "You are not to talk about those bad times," he said.
She kissed his hand, and removed it. "I like to, sometimes," she said. "It is such a blessed relief to think of them as quite gone—it is like the cessation of bad neuralgia—just a sense of peace and bliss. Perhaps I didn't really try to kill myself, but certainly I shouldn't have cared if I had. It was not caring that gave me my reputation, I suppose, for I didn't mind where I went or what I did. I do care now. I don't think I should very much mind giving it up altogether."
"Well, you mustn't do that for this winter, at any rate. You shall do what you like afterwards. And as for your reputation, my dear, I'm afraid we are so out of the smart hunting world in South Meadshire that you will find very few of us aware of it. So you needn't run any risks in trying to keep it up."
"Very well, Dick. But I expect when the hounds begin to run I shall forget that I have to be cautious. Yes, I do love it. I don't want to give up hunting. And there won't be much for me to do here outside that, will there?"
"I'm afraid I am condemning you to a dull three months, my poor Virginia. But I want you to get to know the country, and love it, as I do. Kencote means a lot to me. I want it to mean a lot to you too."
"So it shall. I love it already, for your sake, and it seems a wonderful thing to me that you and all the people you have sprung from should have been settled down just in this little spot in the world for all those centuries. Dick dear, I know you are giving up a lot for me. I know, although I wasn't brought up in all these traditions, that your father is right, really, and that it is not a woman like me you ought to choose for your wife."
Dick raised her hand and let it fall with his own. "I have chosen you for my wife, Virginia, out of all the women I have known. I love and honour you, and I wouldn't have you different—not in the smallest particular. No Clinton of Kencote has ever chosen a wife more worthy to bear his name. Let that be enough for you, and don't worry your pretty head about anything, except to make love to my old father when you meet him."
When Dick had ridden away, in the gloaming, and the two women were left to themselves for the long evening, Virginia Dubec said to Miss Dexter, "Toby, tell me the truth; don't you think I am the most fortunate woman in the world?"
"If all goes well," said the other soberly and decisively, "I think you will be happy. But your Dick, Virginia, is the sort of man who will want to rule, and to rule without question. He is very much in love with you now—that is quite plain, although he is one of those men who hold themselves in. But you won't get your way, my dear, when you are married, unless it is his way too—any more than you did before."
"Oh, my own way! What do I care about that? My way shall be his way. I love him and I can trust him. He is a strong man, and tender too. Toby, I adore him. I will do everything in the world that I can to make him happy. He has raised me out of the dust, and given me to myself again. When I am married to him I shall forget all the pain and misery. It's a new life he is giving me, Toby, and the old unhappy life will fall from me and be as if it had never been."
"You are expecting a great deal, Virginia," said Miss Dexter; "I hope some part of it will be realised."
Kencote was three hours' journey from London by a fast train, and it had always been the custom of the sons of the family—those of them whose avocations made it necessary for them at any time to live in town—to come down whenever they pleased, to spend a night or a few nights, without announcing their arrival. Their rooms were there ready for them. Kencote was their home. Dick or Humphrey, and, in the days before he was married, Walter, would often walk into the house unexpectedly and go upstairs and dress without any one but the servants knowing they were there until dinner-time. The Squire liked them to come and go in that way. It seemed to give him, in his retired, bucolic life, a tie with the world. He would always give them a hearty welcome, even if he had to object to something they had done, or had left undone, before they left again.
It was Humphrey who arrived on this Saturday afternoon, reaching Kencote by the half-past four train, and walking up from the station and into the morning-room, for his cup of tea. The Squire's greeting was a shade less hearty than it would have been in the case of his other sons. Humphrey had given him a good deal of trouble in the way of money. It is true that there had never been any big catastrophe, no sudden demand for a large sum to meet a debt of honour, from racing or cards, as fathers were sometimes confronted with by extravagant sons. Humphrey was too cautious to run those sorts of risks. The Squire, perhaps, would have preferred that the demands upon him should have come in that way rather than from the constant, rather cold-blooded exceeding of an allowance which he told himself, and Humphrey, was as large as any younger son had a right to expect, and a good deal larger than most of them got. Humphrey did not deny this. He simply said, whenever he did ask his father for more money, that he had not been able to do on it, but if his father would clear off his debts for him and give him a fresh start, he would try to do on it for the future. He had made the endeavour three times, and each time with less success than before, for the debts had been bigger. And now the Squire was getting angry about it. It had always been the same. Humphrey's debts after he had left Cambridge had been about twice as large as Dick's, although Dick had been Master of the Drag and had had expenses that Humphrey had not. Walter had left Oxford with no debts at all. And since their University days, Humphrey had actually had more money than either of the others, although Dick was the eldest son and a considerable sum had been paid to buy Walter his practice.
Now it was not the Squire's way to bear malice or to let any annoyance rankle when once it had been met and dealt with. In the ordinary course he would have expressed himself very strongly and felt very strongly on the subject when one of Humphrey's periodical crises of debt was disclosed to him, but when he had so relieved his mind he would have paid up and forgotten all about it. He had done so the first time, and even the second, after a rather stronger explosion. It was the third, now nearly two years ago, which had rankled; and the reason was not only that Humphrey, as seemed quite obvious, was living in just such a way as had brought him to exceed his income and get into trouble before, with the consequence that a new crisis and a new demand would probably arise before long. It was so much in the air that the Squire was continually calling the gods to witness thathewas not going to pay any more of Humphrey's debts. But he would not have felt so sore, when he did think about it, if it had not been for Humphrey's attitude towards him in particular, and towards Kencote and all that it represented in general.
The fact was that Humphrey, from the serene heights of his career as a very smart young man about town, patronised them. It is to be supposed that he could not help it, that it was an attitude which he would have corrected if he had been aware of it, for it was quite certain that, when once his father became aware of it, it would not help him in any plan he might have to make for further pecuniary assistance. The Squire merely had a feeling of irritation against Humphrey, which slumbered while he was away and always became sharper during his somewhat rare visits to Kencote. It was not yet formulated, but was nearer to getting to a head every time they came together. The young man, if he had had an adviser, might have been told that if he acted in such a way as to bring it to a head, it would be time for him to look out.
Humphrey walked into the morning-room with a cool air, as if he had come from another room in the house instead of from London. He was the only one of all the Clintons who was dark. He was not so good-looking as Dick, but he was well set up, and his clothes were always the perfect expression of the requirements of the moment. So were Dick's, but Dick wore old clothes sometimes, Humphrey never. He was a young man of the highest fashion, whenever and wherever he appeared.
The Squire was standing in front of the fire, as his habit was, Mrs. Clinton sitting behind her tea-table and Mrs. Graham near her. The twins were on the sofa on either side of Cicely. Humphrey kissed his mother, shook hands with his father and Mrs. Graham, and sat down by his sisters. "The frost is going to break," he said.
"Is it?" said the Squire. "Well, that's the best news you could have brought. Look here, we were talking of Lady George Dubec. Do you know anything about her?"
"Virginia Dubec?" said Humphrey. "She is a very beautiful lady."
"Well, but who is she? Whowasshe? An American they say. Is she all right?"
"She was an actress. Musical comedy, or something of the sort. But that was some years ago. Old George Dubec married her in New York, and led her an awful life. She used to hunt with the Quorn. Went like a bird, and didn't care how she went or where she went. People used to say she wanted to break her neck and get away from George Dubec. But Dick knows her better than I do. He'll tell you all about her."
Mrs. Clinton looked up from the teacups, Mrs. Graham arched her brows and her mouth twitched, the twins caught the sense of surprise and gazed open-eyed at their father.
"Dick knows her!" exclaimed the Squire. "Then why on earth——! Does he know she has settled down here?"
"Hasshe settled down here?" asked Humphrey. "Where has she settled, and what for?"
"Taken old Marsh's rectory at Blaythorn," said Mrs. Graham. "Going to hunt with the South Meadshire."
"That seems an odd proceeding for one of the brightest ornaments of the Shires," said Humphrey.
The Squire knit his heavy brows. "We can show her very good sport," he said, "if that's what she wants. But I should like to know why she came here, all the same."
"There's more in this than meets the eye," said Nancy, very unwisely, for she and Joan were instantly sent out of the room.
"What are you children doing here?" asked the Squire sharply. "Why aren't you with Miss Bird? Run along now; you've got lessons to do, or something."
"We don't have lessons on Saturday. Can't we stay with Cicely, father?" asked Joan.
"I must be going directly," said Cicely, rising. "But I'll come with you and pay a last farewell to the dear old Starling."
So the three of them retired, and directly they got out of the room Joan fell upon Nancy. "What an idiot you are!" she said. "If you had kept quiet we should have heard everything. When you get hold of a new speech you must always be poking it in. We've had enough of 'There's more in this than meets the eye.' I wish you'd get hold of a new one."
"I own it was foolish of me," said Nancy. "I'm at the mercy of a phrase. Still, it was quite true. We know who Dick is in love with now. Of course he got her down here. Humphrey said she was very beautiful."
"You are not to talk like that, children," said Cicely. "You know nothing about these things."
"Darling!" said Joan, squeezing her arm. "Don't be so frightfully grown-up. We are not children any longer, and we know a good deal more than you think."
"We are a force to be reckoned with now," said Nancy, "and it's no use trying to keep family secrets from us, sending us out of the room, and all that. It's too transparent, and makes us talk all the more."
There was a pause in the morning-room when the three sisters had left. Humphrey's quick brain was adjusting many things. He knew Dick admired Virginia Dubec, although it had not hitherto occurred to him that that admiration betokened anything serious. He suspected also, that since somebody must have suggested to the lady that she should spend a season hunting in Meadshire instead of in Leicestershire, that somebody was probably Dick. But if his brother had not seen fit to disclose that fact at Kencote, not even the fact of his acquaintanceship with Lady George Dubec, it was not for him to do so. Therefore, when his father asked him whether Dick knew that she had come to Blaythorn, and why she had come, he said, "I don't know in the least. He'll tell you if you ask him."
The Squire bent his brows on him. "You said he knew her very well."
"I didn't say he knew her very well. I said he knew her better than I did. Lots of people know her. She goes about everywhere in London."
"She was an actress, you say?"
"Well, that's what I've heard. It may not be true."
"It is true," said Mrs. Graham. "Virginia Vanreden. I remember quite well now. I saw her when I was in New York with my husband ten years ago. And a lovely creature she was. I shall go and call on her at once."
The Squire frowned again. "What sort of an actress was she?" he asked. "Was she a chorus girl?"
"It was a play calledThe Flower of Florida," replied Mrs. Graham, "a very silly play with catchy music, only it didn't catch me, because I hate music, and I was bored to tears. No, she wasn't a chorus girl, and she wasn't the Flower of Florida either—I remember the Flower, an exuberant lady with gold teeth, who seemed to be very popular, but I should have said she was past her job. This girl danced—oh, I remember her very well; she was the best of the bunch, and the Flower grinned at her with her teeth and scowled at her with her eyes while she was performing. When we got back to New York on our way home she had caught on, and all the richly gilded youth was crowding to see her. The Flower had departed, mad with jealousy."
"A dancing girl!" said the Squire. "Of course! Just the sort that George Dubec would have married. Well, you may call on her if you like, Mrs. Graham, but——"
"Oh, I shall," said Mrs. Graham. "Perhaps she will dance for me. I liked her immensely. She was certainly beautiful, and I like beauty. She was quite young too. She can't be very old now."
"What I want to know is what brings her to Blaythorn," said the Squire, which closed the discussion, for Cicely's carriage was announced at that moment, and the welfare of the Mountfield horses being of paramount importance it was not many minutes before she and Mrs. Graham had driven away.
Dick returned shortly after six o'clock, and when he had changed his clothes, came into the library where his father was sitting at his big writing-table looking over papers, his gold-rimmed glasses perched on his straight nose.
"Oh, here you are," he said, looking over them at his son. "I say, what's this about Lady George Dubec taking the rectory at Blaythorn?"
Dick took a cigarette out of his case and went over to the smoking-table by the fire to get a match. "I've just been to see her," he said; "she's a friend of mine."
"Well, but——" The Squire was puzzled, vaguely uneasy, though he could not have told why. "What on earth has she comeherefor? Who brought her? You didn't, I suppose?"
Dick sat down with rather elaborate unconcern in one of the big easy-chairs facing his father, who had turned round sideways in his seat. "I suppose you may say I did bring her, in a way," he said. "She wanted to do a bit of mild hunting somewhere, and I told her she'd better try the South Meadshire."
"But they tell me she's well known with the Quorn and all that sort of thing."
"Now I should like to know who told you that," said Dick to himself, but he did not ask. "She hasn't hunted there for two seasons," he said. "She wanted something a bit quieter. I said I'd see if I could find her a smallish house, and I wrote to Wylie, the agent at Bathgate. Blaythorn Rectory was the only place he could get hold of, and the stables there aren't much."
"I should think not."
"They are better than you'd think, though, and she has only brought three horses."
"Why didn't you tell us you were springing this strange lady upon us?" asked the Squire, as a beginning out of all the questions he wanted to ask.
"I haven't been home for a month," said Dick, "and I'm not much of a correspondent."
"You didn't say anything about it last night, and you didn't say you were going over to see her this afternoon." The Squire's uneasiness was beginning to take shape, and Dick realised with annoyance that he had given it something to feed on.
"I'm sorry," he said. "But we were talking about other things. The poor lady had a brute of a husband—I expect you knew him, didn't you?"
"Oh yes, I knew him. A pretty sort of rascal he was too."
"I've always heard so, though I never met him. He behaved like a swine to her, at any rate, and she's a very charming woman. I think you'll like her, father. I want to ask the mater to go over and see her as soon as she can. She doesn't know any one hereabouts, and it's a bit lonely for her."
He could not keep the note of appeal, rarely heard from him, out of his voice, but it escaped the Squire, who only saw himself at issue with his eldest son—a position he exceedingly disliked.
"Oh, my dear boy!" he said. "A woman that blackguard George Dubec picked up off the music-hall stage! You can't be serious."
"That's not true," said Dick sharply. "Who said she was on the music-hall stage?"
"Well, on the stage, anyhow—dancing on the stage—it's the same thing."
"Who told you that?"
"Humphrey said she had been on the stage, and Mrs. Graham remembered seeing her when she was in America."
"Is Humphrey here?"
"Yes, he came this afternoon. An American dancer, you know, Dick, and a woman who would marry George Dubec—really, you might have thought twice before you brought a person of that sort here; and as for your mother calling on her—that's out of the question. Surely you can see that."
The Squire's tone was conciliatory. He would not have spoken in that way, upon a subject on which he felt strongly, to any one else in the world, and when he had spoken he threw a glance at his son, whose face betokened nothing of all he was thinking at that moment.
Dick did not speak at once. When he did he said quietly, "When I suggested to Lady George, who has been a friend of mine for some time, that she should spend a month or two in this part of the country, I told her that my people would be glad to see her and do what they could for her. It never crossed my mind that you would refuse to acknowledge a friend of mine. It is not my habit to make friends of women I couldn't introduce you or my mother to."
"But, my dear boy!" expostulated the Squire. "A woman who has danced on the stage, the widow of a notorious profligate and swindler—George Dubec was a swindler, and he wasn't received latterly even in men's society—decent men.Iwouldn't have received him, for one."
"You can say what you like about George Dubec," replied Dick. "It was the way he had treated her that made me sorry for her, first of all. Then I found she was a good woman, as well as a very charming one. There isn't a soul who knows her—and lots of people know her—who could have a word to say against her. It isn't generally known that she was on the stage—it was for a very short time—and I wish to goodness Humphrey had minded his own business and kept that to himself. Her father was a planter in the South, and lost everything he had in the war. She had to support her mother, and that was the only way. She was very young. I honour her for what she did."
"Yes, oh yes, that's all right," said the Squire, who was coming more and more to feel that it was all wrong. "But it's no good, Dick. Plenty of people in their different lines of life do things that you can honour them for, as you say, but you don't welcome them to houses like Kencote. We live a quiet enough life here, I know that. We're not one of the modern smart country houses, thank God, and never will be as long as I'm alive. But we're of some account in this part of the world, and have been for generations. And the long and the short of it is, Dick, that if you want to make friends with ladies of that sort, I can't stop you—I don't want to—it's your affair and you're old enough to look after yourself—but I won't have them at Kencote."
Inwardly, Dick was raging, and it needed all his self-control to keep his feelings from showing themselves in his face or in his speech. But he knew that if he did so everything was lost. It had been no vain boast that he had made to Virginia Dubec, that he could manage his father. He had the advantage over him that a man who controls his speech and his temper always has over a man who habitually controls neither. For many years past the Squire, who pictured himself as the wise but undisputed autocrat of his household, had gone to his eldest son for advice upon any matter that bothered him, and had always taken his advice. In questions of estate management he had never taken a step of any importance without consulting Dick, and Dick had been the virtual ruler of the estate, although the Squire did not know it. In his father's eyes Dick was a model son. He had never once had to exercise his paternal authority over him since his schooldays. He knew that Kencote, which was the apple of his own eye, was also the apple of Dick's, and that he would have as worthy a successor as any head of an old-rooted family ever had. In course of years he had come to treat his eldest son with a respect and consideration which he gave to no other being alive. Except that none but an eldest son who was some day to step into his place could have aroused the feelings he had towards him, his attitude towards Dick was what he might have felt towards a brother, almost, it might be said, towards an elder brother.
Now Dick was quite aware of all this, and he knew also that in his last speech his father had crossed a line that had never yet been crossed between them. He had done what he did almost every day of his life with some member or other of his family or household, but had never done with him since he was a child, because he had never given him the opportunity. He called it putting his foot down, and although in reference to other matters Dick had frequently, by the exercise of his peculiar gift of cool tact, caused the taking up again of a foot that was announced to have been put down, and by no means despaired of being able to do so in this instance, he knew that this was not the time to undertake the removal. Something of his moral supremacy had already disappeared if his father could take it into his hands to give an ultimatum against his expressed wishes. There was no knowing how much further it would be damaged if he were encouraged, as he would be by opposition now that he had once delivered himself, to back up his revolt by strong speech. It was what he always fortified himself with either before or after the process of putting his foot down, and Dick had no mind to undergo it.
"Very well," he said quietly. "If you feel like that about it, there's no more to be said. It's damned awkward for me, but I suppose I took too much on myself."
The Squire immediately recrossed the line, on the other side of which only opposition could possibly make him wish to keep his footing. "Oh, well," he said, "of course I don't say—in this instance—what I mean is—well, look here, Dick, I don't say anything one way or the other. I'll say this, my boy, you've never given me the slightest trouble, and we've always seen eye to eye in pretty well everything, and where we haven't at first you have always come to see that I was right in the end—eh? Better let me think the question over—what? I don't want you to feel you can't ask your friends to this house, which will be your own some day."
"I can hardly help feeling that, can I?" said Dick, with a short laugh.
"Eh? Well, I must think it over, and talk it over with your mother. You'd better think it over too, old boy. I can't help thinking you'll feel you haven't been very wise. We're Clintons of Kencote, you know. We owe something to ourselves."
But Dick could stand no more. "All right," he said, rising. "I think I'll go up and have a bath before dinner. I'm a bit stiff."