At first she did not, so entirely ignorant was she of such things, attach any meaning at all to the empty saddle. For all she knew, horses without riders might roam the wilds of the country, adding greatly to its dangers, as a matter of recognised habit. But when she had recovered from her shock, some connection between what she had just seen and something she had read or heard of or seen in a picture formed itself in her mind, and it occurred to her that probably the horse had got rid of its rider, and there might conceivably have been an unpleasant accident. Then she made a further rapid and brilliant induction, and came to the conclusion that a riderless horse which made his way home to his stable at Kencote had probably set out from Kencote with some one on his back, and, as his saddle had no pommels, that either the Squire or Dick or Humphrey had been thrown. She knew nothing about grooms and second horses, and narrowed her convictions still further by the recollection of Dick's having ridden a grey. The riderless horse was brown—it was really a bright bay, but it was brown to her. Therefore either the Squire or Humphrey must have been thrown from his horse in the hunting-field, and from scraps of recollection of old novels in which hunting scenes had occurred the outcome of such accidents presented itself to her alarmed mind as probably fatal.
She stood at the door after having rung the bell—it did not occur to her to open it and walk in—a prey to the liveliest fears, and when she had waited for some time and rung again and then waited some time more, she was not at all relieved by the face of the servant who opened it to her. "The horse!" she said quickly. "Whose horse?"
"I'm afraid it's Mr. Clinton's, miss," said the man. "Mrs. Clinton and the young ladies are in the morning-room and nobody's told 'em yet. We don't know what to do."
It was not the grave and decorous butler who had answered the bell, but the same young footman who had omitted to see to the smoking-room fire a week or so before, or Miss Phipp would not have had the unpleasant duty thrust upon her of breaking the news to Mrs. Clinton. But she accepted it at once, and went straight into the morning-room, where Mrs. Clinton, still in her furs, and Miss Dexter and the twins were drinking tea.
"Oh, Miss Phipp, I do hope you are better," said Mrs. Clinton. "Sit down and have some tea and tell me how you have been getting on."
"May I speak to you for a moment?" said Miss Phipp, standing at the door, and Mrs. Clinton rose from her seat and came out into the hall with her, where some of the servants were beginning to collect. Their scared faces did not reassure her, and she put her hand to her heart as she turned to Miss Phipp for an explanation.
"I saw Mr. Clinton's horse galloping across the park," said Miss Phipp. "I am afraid he must have had an accident."
Mrs. Clinton showed no further signs of weakness, but asked at once for Porter, the butler; and when it was explained to her that he was in his cottage in the park, but had been sent for, she asked for Probyn, the head coachman, who came pushing through the group by the service door as she spoke. He had already done what she would have ordered, sent out grooms on horseback, and got a carriage ready to go to any point on the receipt of further news.
"Then there is nothing more to do," said Mrs. Clinton after a moment's consideration, "and we must wait. Send Garnett to me upstairs."
She asked a few more questions and then made a step towards the staircase, but turned again towards the morning-room. "I must tell the children," she said. "Please come in and have some tea."
Miss Phipp followed her, in admiration of her calm self-control. Mrs. Clinton said, "I am afraid your father has had a fall, as Bay Laurel has come back to the stable without him. But he has fallen before and not hurt himself, so there is no need to be frightened. I am just going upstairs for a minute and then I will come down again."
The twins looked at one another and at their two elders with frightened eyes. "Bay Laurel was father's second horse," said Joan. "He rode Kenilworth this morning and we passed him coming home, so it can't have been the groom."
Nancy got up from her chair. "Oh, I wish mother would come down," she said.
"Sit down, dear," said Miss Dexter. "Your mother told you not to be frightened."
But Nancy went to the window, and Joan followed her. They drew aside the curtains and looked out on the park, lying still and empty in the now fading light. "Isn't that something near the gate?" asked Joan. "No, it is only a tree. Bay Laurel is as quiet as any horse in the stable, Nancy. He must have fallen at a fence."
"I should have thought he would have stood until father got up," said Nancy.
"It looks as if he had been too much hurt to get up," said Joan, and then began to cry.
Miss Dexter came over to them and drew the curtains again firmly. "Don't make a fuss," she said, "or you will make your mother anxious. Pull yourselves together and come and sit down. Joan, give Miss Phipp some tea."
Joan did as she was told, still crying softly. Nancy said, "Father has never had a bad fall, and he has been hunting all his life. He knows how to take a toss. Don't be a fool, Joan. I expect it will be all right."
"Don't talk like that," said Miss Phipp sharply, her nerves on edge, "and, Joan, stop crying at once."
Upon which Joan cried the more. "I'm sure he's badly hurt," she said, "and he's lying out in the c-cold, or they'll b-bring him home on a shutter."
Mrs. Clinton came in, looking much the same as usual, except that she was paler. She sat down at the tea-table and said, "Don't cry, Joan dear. Probyn says that there are no signs of Bay Laurel's having come down, so it was probably not a bad fall, and I expect father will be home soon."
But Joan knew too much to be comforted in this way, and her imagination was working. She threw herself on her mother and sobbed, "If f-father had fallen and B-bay Laurel hadn't, he'd have kept hold of the reins, unless he was too b-badly hurt."
Mrs. Clinton said nothing, but drew her to her, and they sat, for the most part in silence, and waited, for a long time.
Presently Joan, who had been sitting with her head on Mrs. Clinton's shoulder, started up and said, "There! there! I heard wheels." Then she began to sob uncontrollably.
Mrs. Clinton got up. The sound of wheels was now plain outside. Joan clung to her, and cried, "Oh, don't go, mother. You don't know what you may see. Oh, please don't go."
Her cries frightened the rest. They heard the clang of the heavy bell in the back regions and voices and steps in the hall outside. None of them knew what would be brought into it. Even Mrs. Clinton was paralysed in her movements for a moment, and did not know what to do with the terrified child clinging to her. The door opened and Joan shrieked. Then the Squire walked into the room with his hat on and his arm bound up in a black sling over his red coat. "Hulloa! What's this?" he exclaimed in a voice not quite so strong as ordinary. "Nothing to make a fuss about. I took a nasty toss, and I've broken my collar-bone."
The breaking of a collar-bone is not a very serious matter. Men have been known to suffer the mishap and continue for a time the activity that brought it about without being any the worse. But to a man of the Squire's age and weight the shock he had sustained was not altogether a light one, and when he had reassured his anxious family as to his comparatively perfect safety, he retired to his bed and kept to it for a few days. It was the first time in his life that such a thing had happened to him, and he did not take kindly to the confinement. But it was eased of some of its rigour, after the first day, during which he suffered from a slight fever, by his making his big bedroom an audience chamber, in the manner of a bygone age, and most people in the house, as well as a good many from outside it, were bidden to sit with him and entertain him in turn.
Amongst the most welcome of his visitors was Virginia, for it was she who had, by good fortune, released him from what might have been a far worse predicament than was indicated by the slight damage he had sustained, and although she would have done what she had for any other member of the hunt, still, she had done it, and his gratitude to her had the effect of removing from his mind the last vestiges of the prejudice he had nursed against her, which in its latest stages had been far weaker than he knew. What had happened was as follows.
A stout fox had been turned out of Hartover Copse within a few minutes of the hounds being put into it, and had made off straight across country with a business-like determination that seemed to show that he knew exactly where safety lay and was going to lose no time in making for it.
The Squire, old in his knowledge of the ways of a fox and the lie of the South Meadshire country, had posted himself hard by the point where the fox broke covert, and was one of the first away. For fifteen minutes it was straight hard going, leaving little chance for those who had not secured a good start to make up their distance, and none at all for those who were following on wheels and hoped by taking short cuts to come up with the hounds again at some point or other. When the score or so who were in front obtained a minute of breathing space, while the hounds, which had been running so straight that they overran the line where the fox had turned hard by Gorsey Common, five miles from Kencote, were casting about to recover the scent, there was little of the main field to be seen. The Squire, with joy and exhilaration in his breast, reined up and looked behind him. They had come down a long slope and up another, and in all the mile-wide valley across which they had ridden there were not more than a dozen others to be seen, and some of them very far away. But amongst them were Virginia and Dick, who were even now breasting the grassy, gorsey slope, at the top of which he sat on his horse. Taken unawares, he could not but admire Virginia's slim, graceful figure, swaying so lightly to every move of the mare under her, and he had ready some words to call out to her when she should reach him.
But before that happened the deep note of Corsican, the oldest and wisest hound in the South Meadshire pack, and the thrilling chorus which immediately answered it, warned him that the hounds had found what they had been looking for, and immediately he was off again, with all thought of those behind him forgotten, and nothing in his mind but that baying dappled stream that was leading him, now as fast as before, straight across a country as well grassed as any in the Shires.
Right through the middle of it too; and when he had galloped across half a dozen wide meadows, and Kenilworth had landed him, without the least little vestige of hesitation or clumsiness, on the other side of a stiffish bullfinch, his heart went up in a pæan of gratitude to whatever power directs these matters, at the thought that he had taken chances and had his second horse sent on to Beeston Holt, which lay midway between Kencote and Trensham Woods, to which he now began greatly to hope that this brave fox was leading them.
Only once before, during all the long years in which he had hunted over this country, had such a thing happened. The line between Kencote and Trensham, a distance of twenty-five miles at least, pierced lengthwise this stretch of low-lying grazing country, which, intersected by a brook or two, by stout fences of post and rail, and thick hedges which had no need of barbed wire to aid their defence, was like the fairway of a golf-course, perfect while you were on it, but beset with hazards on either side. Only the most determined of foxes would keep to it for the whole distance. There was Pailthorpe Spinney to the left, before you got to the first brook, and no stopping of earths there could prevent Master Reynard from poking his nose amongst them to try, if he were so minded. And although he could always be bustled out again, it was unlikely that, having once turned aside, he would take to the grass again. He might make for Greenash Wood across heavy ploughs, or for Spilling, where thick orchards made it impossible to follow the hounds, and you had to take one or two wide circuits.
But this fox had already scorned the delusive shelter of Pailthorpe Spinney, and if he was not bending all his attention on the Trensham Woods, where he probably would find safety, if he got there in time, he was at least bound to lead them over grass for another four miles, to where, at Beeston Holt, he might possibly decide to turn aside and cross the river and the railway and try for the first of a long chain of coverts which circled round towards Blaythorn. In that case the best of the day would be over, but if they could keep him on the move there would be something to look forward to before they ran into him, and the run would still be a memorable one. Yes, he was most likely to do that. It was too much to hope for that that glorious day of five-and-thirty years before would be repeated, when the high-stomached ancestor of countless good Meadshire foxes had travelled straight as an arrow, scorning all lesser chances of safety, for the high deep woods of Trensham, and the Squire, not long since married, and in the very flower of his tireless youthful vigour, mounted on his great horse Merrydew, with no change, had kept with the hounds all the way and shaken off master, huntsman, whips, and all, when they ran into him at last within two fields of safety.
And yet!—there was that quick determined start, the sudden turn on Gorsey Common, which meant contempt of the line pointing to the coverts at Mountfield, the passing of Pailthorpe Spinney, and now this direct, rattling run across brook and fence and hedge down the very middle of the grasslands. It might happen—the run of a lifetime repeated. His only fear now was that his second horse would not be up at Beeston Holt in time, for there wasn't a horse in the country or in the wide world which could carry his weight through to Trensham at the pace hounds were running.
Beeston Holt lay on the bank of the river with the railway beyond it. It was a straggling village, facing a stretch of common land, and there was a wide space in front of its chief inn, where the Squire expected to see his second horse waiting for him, if his groom had reached the point. The hounds swept across the common no farther than a couple of hundred yards away, going as strong as ever, and even the time lost in riding that distance away from their line and changing horses might lose him the good place he had hitherto kept.
But there was no horse waiting for him, and with angry despair settling down on him he sat and saw the hounds disappear out of sight and the few who still kept with or near them following at ever-increasing intervals. Dick was one of them. He was riding Roland, the best horse, not a weight carrier, in the Kencote stables, who was quite capable of carrying him to the end of the great run that now seemed certain; for the fox had not turned aside towards the nearer coverts and must have had Trensham in his cunning mind since he had first set out. Dick waved a hand to him as he galloped past. There was no sign of Virginia; on such an occasion as this women, even the best beloved, must look after themselves.
The Squire fussed and fumed, and Kenilworth, his blood thoroughly up, could hardly be held, so anxious was he to go on with what he had begun. In another second he would have let him have his way, but just as he was about to do so he saw his man coming up the road, controlling as best he could the antics of his horse, which had got wind somehow of the passing of the hounds, in spite of the silence in which they were now running. The Squire beckoned him to hurry his pace and as he came up jumped off Kenilworth and on to Bay Laurel with all the activity he might have shown on that memorable run of five-and-thirty years before, and was off on to the turf in a twinkling. But not before he had seen, out of the corner of his eye, Virginia, sailing gaily along on her black mare, just behind him.
In a moment he had forgotten her; Bay Laurel was as fresh as if he had just left his stable, for the groom had brought him along steadily according to instructions, the fulfilment of which, however, had been like to have cost him his place. The Squire felt the spring and lift of the powerful frame under him, as, keeping him well in hand, and riding as if he had been five stone lighter and had not forsaken the hunting saddle for weeks past, he pounded the short, springy turf and sent it flying now and again far behind him. There was a brook to take just beyond the village, wide enough to have given him at his age occasion for thought if it had come earlier in the day, and set him casting about in his mind for the whereabouts of the nearest bridge. But he went straight at it, and Bay Laurel took it like a skimming swallow. Then came a five-barred gate—the only way from one field into another, unless valuable time was to be wasted—and the Squire had not jumped a five-barred gate since he had ridden thirteen stone. But he jumped it now, and felt a fierce joy, as he galloped across the meadow grass, at the surging up in him of his vanished youth, and all the fierce delights that such days as this had brought him in years gone by. He was as good as ever. His luck was in. There must be some check before long, and a check, however short, would bring him within sight of them.
A sudden memory born of his long past experience came to him. In a field or two he would come to a footpath which led across stiles through what had then been a peninsula of plough-land sticking out into the pastures. The old mid-Victorian fox had stuck to the grass and gone round the heavy land in a wide circle. If the Edwardian fox should take the same line, that footpath would cut off half a mile, and he made up his mind to follow it.
Ah! There it was—the path across the crest of the field, the stile, and, beyond the hedge to the left, the dark plough ribbons and the footway running down them. He jumped the stile and cantered carefully down the narrow path, well content to go slow for the advantage to be gained. Bay Laurel hopped over another stile and they were on grass again and galloping freely, still keeping to the line of the scarcely discernible field path. They topped a short rise, and the Squire just caught sight of the hounds topping another away to the right. His heart gave another bound of gratitude. He would be up with them yet. There was the next stile and he knew the line to take. He was already in front of some of those who had passed him waiting before the inn.
But his time had come. The last stile was flanked by a high thick fence, on the other side of which, although he could not see it, was a ditch wider and deeper than ordinary. There was nothing formidable about the stile itself; it was no higher than the two Bay Laurel had just hopped over in his stride, but looked rather more dilapidated. Just as the horse was rising to it, he saw that the ditch on the other side ran right along and was crossed by a plank, and although the horse saw it too and was preparing for it, he instinctively checked him, and then saw that it was too late. Bay Laurel blundered into the rotten woodwork, and the Squire pitched forward over his shoulder, and the next moment had rolled into the ditch with the stile, but fortunately not the horse, on top of him.
The ditch was newly dug and nearly dry, or he might have been drowned, for he was wedged closely in and could hardly stir. Bay Laurel had jammed the timbers down upon him, and without waiting to consider the damage he had done was now off in the wake of the hounds, which he also had seen topping the distant rise. The Squire was left alone, powerless to extricate himself, in the remote stillness of the fields.
He had heard a crack, different somehow from the crack of the timbers, as he fell, but did not at first connect it with broken bones of his own. It was not until he realised that his left arm and shoulder were lying under a beam in a very strange and uncomfortable position, and tried to move them, that he knew what had happened to him and began to feel any pain. Then he felt, suddenly, a good deal, not only in his shoulder, but in his side, upon which a corner of the stile was pressing, and thought he had broken every bone in his body.
The pain and the shock and the loneliness frightened him. Unless help came he was likely to die at the bottom of this ditch, and he had a moment of blind terror before he lifted up his voice and called for help most lustily.
There was an instant answer. Virginia, who had followed his lead across the plough, at some little distance, because she knew he would not like her riding in his pocket, came through the gap, and drew rein by his side. She was off her horse in a moment and trying her hardest to lift the heavy timbers off him. But she only succeeded in shifting their weight from one part of his body to another, and under his agonised expostulations soon desisted. She stood up, white and terror-stricken, the reins of her mare over her arm, and cried, "Oh, I must get the weight off you, and then I will go for help."
Then she tried again, and did succeed in easing him a trifle, whereupon he fainted, but soon came to again, to find her with her hat full of water sprinkling his forehead. "I'm all right now for a bit," he said. "Go and get somebody. Can you mount?"
"Yes, if you don't look," she said.
She led her horse a little way out into the field, threw herself across the saddle, and scrambled up somehow. Then she set off at a gallop towards the chimneys of a farm peeping above a grove of trees a quarter of a mile away.
The Squire lay still, and looked up into the sky. Except for the aching in his neck he was now free from pain, and having tested by movement all the muscles of his body, was relieved to find that he had got off rather lightly after all. It was an awkward, and rather an absurd predicament to be in, but with the certainty of getting free very shortly, he was not overmuch disposed to grumble at it. Virginia's appearance had been providential, and she had been as concerned for him as he was for himself. The stile was an old and very solid one, and had come down on himen masse. It was doubtful whether a man could have done more with it, single-handed, than she had done, and a man might not have thought of loosening his stock and fetching water when he had fainted. He had never fainted before. It was a curious, not wholly unpleasant, sensation. He allowed his thoughts to dwell on it, idly, as he lay still, staring up at the sky, not now in great discomfort.
He became aware of something soft under his head. When he had first fallen into the ditch he had lain with his head in the mud and had had to raise it to see what he could now see comfortably. His right arm had been disengaged, and he put up his hand to feel what it was that was beneath him. He felt warm silk and the smooth hardness of Melton cloth, and then he remembered that Virginia had looked rather curious as to her attire when he had come to himself after his little fainting fit. She had taken off her jacket and propped up his head with it. At that discovery he arrived definitely at the point of liking her.
It was not long before he heard her calling to him, and then the trot of her horse across the grass. "They are coming in a moment," she cried out as she rode up to him; "two men from the farm, and they will get you free in no time."
He looked at her a little curiously, and she blushed as she met his gaze. When a woman has taken off the coat of her riding habit she has begun to undress, and whatever comes next to it is not meant for the public gaze. But she had not cared about that. If she had he would not have been lying with a pillow under his head and she looked down upon him, so to speak, in her shirt sleeves.
"Put on your coat before they come," said the Squire. "I'm all right now; and thank you."
The two farm labourers who came running up the meadow made short work of pulling the stile off him, and Virginia helped him to rise and to climb out of the ditch. He stood on the grass stiff, and rather dazed, with his left arm hanging uselessly, and she supported him for a moment, until he said, "I'm all right now. I'll walk over to the farm, and perhaps they'll lend me something to take me home in."
"The farmer has gone for the doctor," she said, "and they are going to send a pony carriage up for you. See, I've brought a rug for you to sit on till they come."
She spread it on the ground, and he sat down heavily, giving an exclamation of pain as he jarred the broken bone. Virginia knelt beside him and put the handkerchief she had already damped to his brow. But he hitched himself away from her. He did not want the men, now staring at him with bovine concern, to see him dependent on a woman. "Don't bother any more," he said. "I'm all right now."
She got him to the farm, the doctor, who happened to be in the village, bound up his arm, a fly was procured, and he set off for home, Virginia, who had left her horse at the farm, by his side. By the time they had gone, half-way, his accident now being known, a neighbour's motor-car was sent to meet him, and in it they performed the rest of the journey. But he refused to allow Virginia to send a telegram. "It'll only upset 'em," he said, "and there's nothing the matter with me now."
And that was why he arrived in on his wife and daughters and himself brought the news that there was nothing to make a fuss about.
It may be imagined that the high favour in which Virginia was now held was extremely gratifying to Dick. "I knew you could do it if you tried," he said, smiling down on her, his arm round her shoulder, "and, by Jove, you've done it to some tune. He wouldn't have any one else now for a daughter-in-law, if I were to offer him his pick of the royal princesses of Europe."
"He's an old dear," said Virginia. "You didn't give me in the least a true picture of his character."
Dick laughed. He could afford to let this feminine charge go by. "He wants me to talk business with him this evening, after dinner," he said. "But he wants to talk to you again first, in spite of the fact, that he's been talking to you nearly all day. Mind you keep calm, my girl. We're not going to throw up our job yet awhile. If he wants us here he'll have to wait for us."
Virginia went up with Mrs. Clinton to the big room, in the big bed of which the Squire was sitting propped up with pillows, in a camel's-hair dressing-gown, the seams of which had been slit up and tied again over his bound-down arm.
"Ah, here you are," he said in his usual hearty tone. "Nina, I want a word or two with Virginia. She'll call you when she goes."
Mrs. Clinton took her dismissal and Virginia her seat in a low chair by the bed, facing him.
"Look here," he said; "no good beating about the bush any longer. We're very good friends now, and I hope we shall remain so all our lives. But there's no good disguising that we've been at cross-purposes, and I want all that put right now. Let's look facts in the face. It was more my fault than yours, I dare say, but there have been faults on both sides, and we shan't gain anything by pretending that we've all behaved as we ought to have done."
"You're quite right," said Virginia, smiling at him. "I'll listen to anything you have to say, and you might begin by telling me where my fault has been."
"Eh! what!" exclaimed the Squire. "Well, I suppose you won't deny that you came down here to steal a march on me?"
"I wanted to know you," said Virginia sweetly. "I knew I should love you if I did. And I was quite right. I do know you now, and I do love you, better than any other man, except Dick."
The Squire thought this a very pretty speech, and, as it came from a very pretty woman, its effect on him was beneficial. "Well, you have taken a liking to me," he said, "and I have taken a liking to you. So we're quits, and it's a pity both of us didn't do it before, for I tell you frankly I have made certain promises which I shouldn't have made if I had felt about you as I do now, and I don't quite see how I can get out of them."
"You mean about money?" said Virginia. "Dear Mr. Clinton, please don't worry any more about that. Dick and I have got over whatever disappointment we may have felt about it—Inever felt any at all except for his sake—long ago. He has been lucky in getting this job, and we shall be as comfortable as possible."
"This job!" repeated the Squire, with much distaste of the word. "Dick oughtn't to be wanting a job at all, and he won't be wanting one now. He must give it up."
"I don't think he will do that at once," said Virginia. "He will consider himself bound, for a time at least, to Mr. Spence. However, that needn't worry you. We shall hope to be here a good deal, if you want us, and later on we may be able to be here, or hereabouts, altogether, if you still want us."
"Of course I want you," said the Squire. "I've wanted Dick all along, in the place to which he belongs; I've never felt comfortable about Humphrey taking his place, and as for my Lady Susan, I shall be very pleased to welcome her as a daughter-in-law, but, if you want the truth, my dear, you're worth six of her, and ifyoucan't live here, well, I won't haveher, and that's flat. I'll keep the place empty."
"Oh, but surely!" exclaimed Virginia. "You've promised, haven't you? Humphrey told me it was arranged that he should live in the dower-house when he was married."
"He did, did he? Seems to me Master Humphrey is counting his chickens before they are hatched. No, I never promised. I never promised him anything. At least, I believe I did promise him a certain allowance, which is to be increased from another quarter. But beyond that nothing was said definitely."
"No, but it was implied. Oh, Mr. Clinton, please don't make us the cause of disappointment to others. We don't want it. We shall be very well off as it is. We don't want any more, really we don't. Dick has a fine position, handsomely paid, and I have money of my own too, you know, and a good deal of it."
For the first time the Squire frowned. "I suppose you have," he said shortly. "But to tell you the plain truth, I don't like the quarter it comes from, and I very much doubt if Dick does either."
"I don't much, either," said Virginia, smiling to herself.
"I'm glad of that, at any rate. No, you're loyal enough to Dick. You'll be able to forget the past; it hasn't soiled you. That's what I was afraid of, and I see I was wrong. Still, this money—it's stuck in my throat as much as anything."
"Well, then," said Virginia, "it need not stick in your throat any longer. I know what you think as to where it came from. Dick thought the same, and it stuck in his throat too, till I told him the truth. Now I'll tell it to you. It's my own money, every cent of it, and it came to me after—after my husband died. I have nothing that comes from him. I wouldn't keep it if I had. I'm an heiress, Mr. Clinton—not a very heavily gilded one, it's true, and the money my uncle left me was made out of pork-packing, which is a dreadful thing to talk about in this house. Still, you must forget that. Only the capital sum comes from pork, and it's all invested in nice clean things like railways."
The Squire stared at her during this recital as if fascinated. The moment was almost too solemn for words. "Well, my dear," he said after a short pause, "you lifted one weight from me yesterday, and now you've lifted another, and a bigger one. Go away, and leave me to think about it."
He thought about it for some time after she had left him, propped up on his pillows, his mind growing ever lighter. In the midst of all his perversities, his dislike of the thought of his son living, in part, on money that had come from "that blackguard" had been an honourable and unselfish feeling, and the removal of the fear swept away with it every other trace of his long-nurtured objections to Virginia as a wife for Dick. Now all he desired was that Dick should return to his honoured place at Kencote, and all should be as it had been before, with only the addition of Virginia's charming presence to complete the happiness of the tie. He did not think at all about Humphrey, nor of the new interests on which, a week or so before, he had been anxious to pin his anticipations.
But Humphrey had to be thought of, all the same. Mrs. Clinton, coming into his room, said that Humphrey would like to come and see him and have a talk, and asked if he felt well enough to talk to him.
"Oh, well enough? Yes," he said. "Never felt better in my life. I've a good mind to get up for dinner. Nina, Virginia has just told me something that I wish I had known before. It has pleased me beyond measure."
He imparted to her Virginia's disclosure, and she expressed herself pleased too, wondering a little at the ways of men about money, that potent disturber of lives.
"That removes every difficulty," he said. "And I'm very glad of it, for Dick's sake. I don't know how much it is and I haven't asked her, but she must be pretty well off. Dick won't need it, but it's always useful."
"It will make it easier to do what you promised for Humphrey," said Mrs. Clinton.
"For Humphrey?" he echoed. "Oh yes. Fifteen hundred a year is a pretty big allowance for a younger son. He's a lucky fellow, Master Humphrey. Did you say he wanted to see me? Well, send him up."
Humphrey came in, and stood by his father's bedside.
"Well, my boy!" said the Squire pleasantly.
"Picking up all right, I hope?" said Humphrey. "Might have been a nasty business."
"Sit down," said the Squire. "I've just heard a thing that has pleased me amazingly. Funny how one gets an idea into one's head when there's no foundation for it!" Then he told Humphrey about Virginia's money.
Humphrey had not much to say in answer to the information, but sat thinking.
"Well, now," said the Squire, with the air of one turning from thoughts of pleasure to thoughts of business. "Of course, all this makes a difference. Dick and I have had a row—you may put it like that if you please—and we've made it up. He'll come back here, I hope, and settle down, and things will be as they were before. I don't think you're cut out for a country life altogether, and dare say you won't be sorry for the change. So it will suit us all pretty well, taking one thing with another, eh?"
Humphrey said nothing for a moment. Then he asked shortly, "Do you mean that I'm not to have the dower-house, after all?"
"Have the dower-house?" repeated the Squire, as if that were the last thing that had ever crossed his mind. "When did I ever say that you were to have the dower-house? It isn't mine to give you. It goes with the property—to Dick eventually; you know that perfectly well."
"Oh yes, I know that," said Humphrey, with some impatience. "I meant, have it to live in. That's what was arranged, and I told Susan so, and Lady Aldeburgh."
"Then I think you were in a bit of a hurry," said the Squire. "I told you I should settle nothing till Dick's marriage."
Humphrey found it difficult to keep his temper. "If you'll excuse my saying so," he said, with a slight tremor in his voice, "we've been talking of nothing else for weeks past, and as to what part I was to take in the management of the place. I'd every right to tell them that at Thatchover."
"Well, perhaps you had," assented the Squire tolerantly. "And I don't go so far as to say that you can't live there for a bit either. I want Dick and Virginia to live there, and I tell you so plainly, and I shall do all I can to persuade him to. But he may think he's bound to this fellow, Spence, for six months or so, and if you get married in time, and care to occupy the house for a bit and keep it warm for him, well, you'll be very welcome. But, on the whole, I think you'd be wiser to settle down where you're going to stay. With the very handsome allowance I'm going to make you, and what old Aunt Laura has promised to add to it, and whatever Susan brings you, though I dare say that won't be much, you'll be exceptionally well off, and can live pretty well where you like."
Humphrey choked down his anger. "What about Partisham?" he asked, but it was an unwise question, for whatever definite arrangement the Squire had had in his mind and allowed to be talked about, Partisham had not come into it, although it was true that he had let it be seen what was in his mind.
"Do you mean to say you want me to leave Partisham away from Dick, and give it to you?" he asked.
"I want you to keep to your promises," replied Humphrey doggedly. "You've been feeding me up for the last month with all sorts of statements as to what you were going to do for me; then you suddenly make it up with Dick, and want to kick me out altogether, and expect me to take it all without a word, and consider myself lucky. I call it grossly unfair. I haven't only myself to think of. You even want to chuck the arrangement that you say I'd a perfect right, relying on what you said, to tell Susan about."
"I think you're most infernally ungrateful," said the Squire angrily. "Point me out another younger son in England who is given two thousand a year to set up house on."
"That doesn't all come from you," said Humphrey, "and there are plenty of younger sons whose fathers are as rich as you who would get that. Besides, that isn't the point. If that's all you'd said you'd do for me, I'd have said thank you and cut my coat according to my cloth. But you know quite well it isn't all. The dower-house was a definite understanding at any rate, and if you didn't mean that Partisham was to come to me eventually, and Checquers come either to me or go to Walter, then your words don't mean anything at all."
The accusation had too much truth in it even for the Squire to contradict it altogether. "Partisham is likely to be one of the best bits of the whole estate," he said. "In ten years' time half of it will be building land, and even with these wicked taxes, it will be a very valuable piece of property. It isn't likely, now Dick has come to reason, that I'm going to leave it away from him, and you oughtn't to expect it."
"Now Dick has come to reason!" repeated Humphrey bitterly. "Dick stands exactly where he's always stood. It's you who've changed your mind, and you expect me to fall in and take it smiling. I say again, it's grossly unfair."
"That's not the way to talk to me," said the Squire hotly. "You're forgetting yourself. If you're not precious careful you won't get the money I'd put aside for you, let alone anything else."
Humphrey got up from his chair. "I'd better go," he said. "If your word means nothing at all, I may as well break off my engagement. I thought it was good enough to get married on," and he left the room.
The Squire lay and fumed. A pretty return he was getting for all he had promised to do for Humphrey! Was ever such ingratitude? His mind dwelt wholly on the very handsome provision that was to be made for his immediate marriage, and he grew more and more indignant as he asked himself, again and yet again, what younger son of a plain country gentleman could possibly expect more. At last he rang his bell and told his servant to ask Captain Clinton to come to him.
But before Dick arrived Mrs. Clinton came in again, and to her he unburdened himself of some of his indignation at Humphrey's ingratitude.
She heard him without comment, and then said slowly, "I think Humphrey and Susan ought to have the dower-house, Edward."
"What!" exclaimed the Squire. "Turn Dick out of the place that has always been his, and put a younger son into it! You say I ought to do that, Nina? What can you be thinking of?"
"HasDick's place always been his, Edward?" she asked, with her calm eyes on his.
"What do you mean?" he snapped at her; and then went on quickly in his loud, blustering tone, "Dick and I fell out, it's true, and if he had married without my sanction I should have acted in a way I'm not going to act now. I've come round—I don't deny I've come round—to be in favour of his marriage, and I'm not going to make him suffer for the misunderstanding."
At this point Dick came into the room, and the Squire said, "Well, I'll talk to you later, Nina. I want to get things settled up with Dick now."
But Dick looked at her kindly. "Mother may as well stay and take a hand in the discussion," he said. "We owe it to her that we're all friends again, and I think she's got a better head than any of us."
"Your mother was just saying," said the Squire, "that I ought to let Humphrey and Susan have the dower-house. I'm not going to do anything of the sort. Therewasa sort of an understanding that they should live there when I thought you and I weren't coming together again. I had to makesomearrangements. But even if I didn't want you there, I don't know that I should consent to it now. Humphrey has taken up a most extraordinary attitude, and I'm very much annoyed with him. He's going to be most handsomely treated, more handsomely than he could ever have expected. Yet he's just been up here and flung out of the room in a rage because I won't promise to leave him Partisham, if you please."
"Leave him what?" asked Dick.
"Partisham; and all the land that came in with it; and Checquers too. No, I'm wrong; I'm instructed to leave that to Walter. I say it's a scandalous position for a son to take up. I'm not an old man, and I hope I've got a good many years to live yet, and I'm to have my sons quarrelling already about what I'm to do with my property after I'm dead."
"I suppose he saw his chance when I was out of favour," said Dick, "and is wild because what he hoped for didn't come off. What did you actually promise to do for him?"
"I promised to make him an allowance of fifteen hundred a year, and I'm prepared to keep my word, of course."
"Well, that's pretty good to begin with."
"But, good gracious me, that isn't all of what he's going to have. Old Aunt Laura is going to give him another five hundred, and she's consulted me about leaving him the bulk of her money when she goes."
"Aunt Laura! Five hundred a year!" exclaimed Dick, in utter surprise. "Can she do it?"
The Squire gave a short laugh. "I might have known that the old ladies had saved a good deal," he said, "but I never thought much about it. At any rate that's a definite offer from her—the allowance, I mean. Whether I let her make a will almost entirely in his favour, is another matter; and if he doesn't behave himself I shall do all I can to stop it."
"He must have been pretty clever in getting round her," said Dick. "I know he's been working hard at it. Rather a dirty trick, to my mind—working on an old woman for her money. Still, different people have different ideas. Did you promise him the dower-house?"
The Squire began humming and hahing, and Mrs. Clinton broke in. "It was a very definite understanding," she said. "I must take Humphrey's part there. It was understood that he should give up the Foreign Office as soon as possible, and settle down here to help look after the property."
"Ifthings had been as we then feared they would be," said the Squire. "That was always understood."
Mrs. Clinton was silent, and Dick said, rather unwillingly, "You'd better let him have the dower-house—say for two years. I can't throw Spence over now, and I can't do my best for him under that."
The Squire expostulated loudly. He wanted Dick and Virginia near him. He was getting on in years. He might be in his grave in two years' time. But Dick remained firm. "I don't want to rake up old scores," he said. "But you mustn't forget that until a week or so ago you were going to cut me off with a shilling. I had to find a job, and I was precious lucky to get this one. I owe something to the fellow who gave it to me."
"I think you do," Mrs. Clinton said before the Squire could speak; "and, Edward, I think you must remember, in justice to Humphrey, that what applies to Dick applies to him too. You took a certain course, very strongly, and both Dick and Humphrey acted on it."
"I don't want to hear any more about Humphrey," said the Squire. "I don't want him in the dower-house, nor Susan either."
"Well, you must settle that with him," said Dick. "I dare say he'll be quite ready to make a bargain with you. He seems rather good at it. He hasn't concerned himself much with my side of the question, and I'm not going to stick up for his, especially as he comes off so well, anyhow."
That was practically the end of the discussion, and the Squire was left lamenting the frowardness of human nature.
When Dick went downstairs again he said to Virginia, "Put on your hat and let's go and have tea with old Aunt Laura." She went obediently upstairs, and presently they were walking down the drive together in the gathering dusk.
"Is everything going to be all right?" Virginia asked him. "Are we quite forgiven, and is our own to be restored to us?"
"I don't think we shall have much difficulty in getting all we're entitled to," replied Dick.
Virginia put her arm into his. "It's nearly dark and nobody's about," she said in apology. "Dear Dick, it is nice to be here on these terms. I do really feel that I belong to you, now—and to Kencote."
Dick pressed her hand to his side. "I nearly had to give up Kencote to get you," he said. "Now I've got youandKencote, and I've nothing left to ask for. My experience in life is that you generally get all you want if you go to work in a straightforward way."
"Then your experience in life is a very fortunate one," replied Virginia. "I've never had what I wanted before, although I think I've been fairly straightforward. But I've got it now, dear Dick, andIwon't ask for anything further, either. I feel very happy and comfortable, and if we weren't near the lodge I should lift up my voice in song."
Aunt Laura was, it is needless to say, both flattered and genuinely pleased at their visit, for this modest old lady liked company, but was diffident of her own powers of attracting it. "This is the nicest thing that could have happened," she said, when she had settled down in close proximity to her tea-table. "The dear children came in this morning with their new governess—a very competent person, I should say, though not quite so respectful in her manner as Miss Bird used to be—not that she was in any wayrude, I don't mean that, but Miss Bird was always cheerful and bright, and yet knew her place; and Humphrey paid me a visit this afternoon; so I said to myself as I sat down to tea, 'I have had two very pleasant visits to-day and can hardly hope for a third. I must drink my tea by myself.' However, here you both are, and I am very pleased indeed to see you, very pleased indeed. Your dear father is none the worse since I last had word, I hope, Dick?"
"He's as well as can be, and talks about getting up for dinner," replied Dick.
"Oh, indeed, he must not do that," said Aunt Laura earnestly. "It would be the greatest mistake. He has such courage and vitality that he cannot realise what a terrible shock he has undergone. His only chance, if he is to escape all ill effects from it, is to keep as quiet as possible for a long time yet. I am sure when I think of whatmighthave happened to him, if you, my dear, had not been, so mercifully, on the spot, I go cold all over. Indeed, his escape was, in the highest sense of the word, providential, and I am sure we are all deeply grateful for it, and can lift up our hearts in thanksgiving. Humphrey told me the whole story, in the most graphic way, and while it made me shudder it also made me rejoice, that you were there, my dear, to give such ready assistance. He made much of it."
"That was very kind of him," said Virginia. "But it was nothing to make much of. I only went for help. And I've been well rewarded, you know. Mr. Clinton didn't like me much before, and now he likes me very much indeed. That makes me very happy."
"Of course it does," said Aunt Laura kindly. "Edward is a man whose good opinion is worth having, for he does not give it without reason, but, once given, it can be depended on. Well, as I say, it is very good of you to come and see me. I'm sure the kind and thoughtful way in which I am treated by one and all is highly gratifying. You have not met Susan Clinton, I think, dear Humphrey's bride that is to be? She also visited me frequently while she was at Kencote, and Humphrey comes to see me every day. Since you are unable to live here, Dick, I am very glad that we shall have him and his wife in our old home. I shall be very glad to see the dear place lived in again, for I spent many happy years of my life there."
"Has he settled how he's going to arrange the rooms?" asked Dick, in a tone that made Virginia look at him, although Aunt Laura noticed nothing unusual in the question.
"Yes, he has talked a good deal about it," she said, "and I have given him advice upon the matter, some of which he thinks it quite likely that he will take."
"I hear you've been very generous to him, Aunt Laura," Dick said.
"Oh, but there was no need for him to have said anything to you about that," said Aunt Laura. "I wanted to help him to marry the girl he loved, and it was quite true that a girl of her rank—not that her branch of the family is better than ours, but they have rank and we have not, although I have no doubt that wecouldhave had it if we had wished—would expect rather more in her marriage than other girls, and I told Humphrey that I quite understood that, as he seemed rather low about his prospects. I didn't want your dear father to have all the burden, and he has responded wonderfully to my offer. I am only glad that it was possible for me to help Humphrey in his desire, and that it should be possible for me to do so without doingyouor any of the others an injustice, Dick; for I know you are well provided for, and will not grudge your brother his share of good things."
"I don't grudge him anything that he's entitled to have," replied Dick. "Now I want you to tell Virginia about Kencote in the old days, when my great-grandfather was alive. She wants to hear all about Kencote that she can."
Aunt Laura was nothing loath, and poured forth a gentle stream of reminiscence until it was time for Dick and Virginia to go.
As they let themselves out of the house and walked down the dark village street, Dick said, "Humphrey ought to be kicked. Fancy sponging on that simple old woman! and getting her to leave the bulk of her money to him, and away from the rest of us; because that's what it means. I'll have it out with him as soon as I get home."
"Oh, my dear!" said Virginia. "Money, money, money! What does it matter to us? We shall have plenty."
"We shouldn't have had plenty, or anything like it, if he'd had his way. It isn't only old Aunt Laura he's been working on. He's taken advantage of my being out of favour to get the governor to consider leaving the best part of the property to him. He was actually at it this afternoon. He tried to get a definite promise out of him to leave him Partisham, which will be worth all the rest put together some day."
"But, Dick dear! you knew all that. It was your father's own decision. You told me so."
"Humphrey had no right to take advantage of his threats to work against me. That's what he's been doing. It wasn't like the governor. I can see a good deal more daylight now. I thought I'd only got his obstinacy to fight against. Now I see I've had an enemy at court, who's been playing the sneak all along."
"I don't think so," Virginia said boldly. "Humphrey isn't bad. He has been very nice to me. He told me he was glad that all this quarrelling was at an end."
"I dare say he did," said Dick, unsoftened. "Now he sees that we can't be kept out of it any longer he'd like to curry favour."
"Oh, what an uncharitable Dick! That's not like you, Dick. We're going to be happy together, aren't we, my own beloved?" She was walking with her hands clasped over his arm.
"I hope so," said Dick.
"Well, then, think of him a little too.Heloves a woman, and wants to be happy with her."
"Oh, love! I don't believe he loves her the least in the world. I know her well enough. She's an insipid clothes-peg. I don't believe he'd look at her if she hadn't got a title. He's like that. I don't know where he gets it from. The governor likes a title too, but not in that rotten way."
"You didn't choose me formytitle, did you?" asked Virginia.
He laughed at her. "Your title will disappear when you marry me," he said. "Mrs. Richard Clinton will have to do for you, my girl, for the present."
"You never told me that," she said. "And I do love being called 'my lady.' Americans do. However, I would rather be Mrs. Richard Clinton than what I am now. But, Dick dear, please don't have a row with Humphrey. Please don't. Let's try and make everybody happy. He must be feeling disappointed, and perhaps angry. We can afford to be generous."
"I'll tell him what I think of him," said Dick.
"Then tell him what you really think of him. He's your brother. You have been friends all your lives. Tell him, if you must, that you don't think he has behaved well. But don't tell him that you think it isn't in his nature to behave well. There's a good deal to be said for him. Let him say it. And, even if there wasn't——"
"Well, I don't think there is. He's behaved in a selfish, underhand way."
"Supposing he has, Dick! Make allowances for him. He's done himself more harm than he's done you. We ought to be sorry for people who have done wrong. That's what I believe Christianity means."
"Oh, well, yes; if they're sorry for it themselves."
"You can make them so; but not by being angry with them. It isn't hard to forgive people when they admit they're in the wrong. It is hard, otherwise, but that doesn't make it any less right to do it. I'm preaching, but we're going to be always together, Dick, and you must put up with a little sermon sometimes."
"You're a sweet saint, Virginia, but what on earth are you asking me to do? Am I to go to Humphrey and say, 'You've acted like a cur, but I forgive you; take all that you can get that has always been looked upon as mine, and let's say no more about it'?"
"Oh, don't talk about the money or the property at all. Let that look after itself. Only remember that you were little boys together, and were very fond of each other, as I'm sure you were; and remember that you have been made happy, and he has been disappointed. That ought to make you kind. And you can be so kind, Dick."
"I believe you think I can be everything that's good."
"I know you can. And it will make me love you even more than I do now, if that's possible, if you make friends with Humphrey, instead of quarrelling with him for good. After all, we're rather tired of quarrels, aren't we?"
"I think we are," said Dick.
He did not see Humphrey alone until the women had gone to bed. He had gone up to his father when they had left the dining-room, and Humphrey had avoided speaking to him, if he could help it, all the evening. Otherwise he had taken his part in the mild gaiety of the conversation and hidden his wounds gallantly. He was going upstairs with his candle when Dick said to him, "Are you coming into the smoking-room?"
He looked at him with a momentary hostility. "Yes, when I've changed my coat," he said.
"Mine's down here," said Dick, turning away.
When his servant had helped him on with his smoking-jacket and gone away, he stood in front of the fire and filled a pipe. He was ready to do Virginia's bidding and make friends with Humphrey, but he disliked the job, and didn't know exactly how he was going to begin. And he was going to speak plainly too. Humphrey had behaved badly, and he was going to tell him so—kindly.
Humphrey came in and lit a cigarette before either of them spoke. As he threw the match into the fire he said, "I suppose you want to have it out."
His tone was not conciliatory. He was both angry and nervous. Dick's brain cleared as if by magic. He had a situation to control.
"Well, I think we ought to have a talk," he said. "Things have been going wrong with me, and now they've come right, and you don't appear to be quite as much rejoiced at it as you might be."
"If you put it like that, I'm not rejoiced at all," said Humphrey, "and I'm not going to pretend to be."
"But you told Virginia you were," Dick put in.
Humphrey was for a moment disconcerted. "I'm glad as far as she's concerned," he said. "She oughtn't to have been treated as she has been, and I've always said so."
"Oh, have you?" commented Dick.
Humphrey flushed angrily. "If you think I've been working against you," he said, "it's quite untrue."
"Well, you've been working for your own hand, and it comes to much the same thing."
"I haven't even been doing that. The governor made me a lot of promises, and I didn't ask him to make one of them."
"What about Partisham?"
"You know as well as I do that he'd definitely made up his mind to leave as much away from you as he could, and that was the chief thing he had to leave away. I didn't ask him to do it, but——"
"It didn't occur to you to ask him not to do it, I suppose? Because it's a pretty stiff thing to do—to leave away most of what keeps up the place."
"No, it didn't occur to me, and it wouldn't have occurred to you if you'd been in my place. I tell you I didn't ask for anything, except for enough to get married on. But when it came to having it chucked at me—well, if you want the plain truth, it happened to suit my book."
"Yes, I dare say it did. And what about Aunt Laura? You've been doing pretty well out of her too, haven't you?"
Humphrey flushed again. "Look here," he said, "I'm not going to talk to you any longer. You stand there sneering because you've got everything you want now, and you think you can amuse yourself by baiting me. I'm going upstairs, and you can do your sneering by yourself. Only I'll tell you this before I go. I'm going to play my hand, and I don't care whether I've got you up against me or not. I consider I've been precious badly treated. I'm encouraged to go and tell the Aldeburghs all sorts of things about what's going to be done for me when I'm married, and I come back and am told coolly that none of it's going to happen at all, and I'm to consider myself d——d lucky to get just enough to live on."
"Well, you're going to have a bit more than enough to live on, and you're welcome to it as far as I'm concerned. And the dower-house too—for a bit."
"Thanks very much. I'm likely to take that on—live in a house by your kind permission and get kicked out the moment you want it for yourself!"
"You won't get kicked out, as you call it, for two years at least. I should think that's good enough."
Humphrey threw a glance at him. He was standing, looking down on the carpet, with his hands in the pockets of his jacket.
"Look here," he said, looking up suddenly. "We've had enough of this. I don't think you've acted straight, and I was bound to say so before I said anything else. And now I've said it, I've said it for the last time. Let's forget all about it. We've been pretty good pals up to now, and there's no reason why we shouldn't go on being good pals up to the end of the chapter."
Humphrey sat down and looked into the fire. "Perhaps I haven't behaved very well," he said slowly. "It's precious easy to behave well when you've got everything you want, as you've always had."
"It may be," said Dick. "Anyhow, you're not going to do so badly now. If you haven't got all you want, you'll have a good slice of it."
There was silence between them for a time, and then Humphrey said, "If you don't want to quarrel, I'm hanged if I do. Only, I must confess I feel a bit sore. The way the governor swings round from one position to another's enough to make anybody sick. You've had a dose of it yourself; you know how you felt before you made it up with him."
Dick's self-esteem received nourishment from the recollection that he had not behaved in the same way as Humphrey had, but he did not bring forward the statement in that form. "It was awkward," he admitted. "It made him think of doing things that he'd never thought of doing, and I don't think he'd any right to think of doing. That's why I haven't the slightest hesitation now in taking back whatever he may have made use of to offer to—to, well, let's say to you, as a means of getting his own way. They have always been looked on as coming to me eventually, and if this disturbance hadn't come about nobody would have thought of their being disposed of in any other way. So you're really no worse off than you were before; in fact, you're a good deal better off, and I'm quite agreeable, as far as it rests with me, that you should be. Can't you manage to settle it with yourself that what you're going to have is as much as you could have expected, and give up trying for the rest?"
"I dare say I can manage that feat," said Humphrey, "especially as I suppose I've got to. Still, when you look at it all round, there's a good deal of difference in my expectations and yours. Two thousand a year on the one side, and—well, I don't know what, but say ten thousand a year and a big property on the other."
"Oh, if you're going to kick against the law of primogeniture—!" said Dick. "Question is, would you kick at it if you happened to be the eldest son? If not, you oughtn't to bring it in."
Humphrey was silent. They had been talking quietly. Hostility had gone out of their talk, but friendliness had not yet come in.
Dick seated himself and began again. "Perhaps it isn't for me to say, now that I've got everything I want, but I do say it all the same, because I found it out when I didn't think I was going to have everything I wanted. Money isn't everything. If you have as much as you can live comfortably on, and something to do, you've just as much chance of happiness as the next fellow. 'Specially if you're going to marry the right woman."
"I dare say you're right," said Humphrey. "If you're disappointed of something you can always fall back on philosophy. But it's just because I am going to marry the right woman that I am disappointed. I'd told her all sorts of things, and she was as ready as I was to chuck the fun we've both had in London and other places, and settle down here quietly."
"Well, my dear good chap!" exclaimed Dick. "If you looked upon it in that light, what on earth is there to grumble at if you're free now to live as you like, and anywhere you like? I don't know much about your young woman, but I should imagine she'd rather settle herself in London on a couple of thousand a year, which will give you enough to go about with too, than bury herself down here."
"I don't think you do know much about her," said Humphrey. "I believe the general opinion here is that I'm going to marry her without knowing much about her myself, though what I shall gain by it, considering that she hasn't got asou, isn't quite clear. However, the general opinion happens to be wrong."
Dick felt a little uncomfortable. "She's the one girl in the world for you, eh?" he said lightly.
"That's about what it comes to. I know her mother's a fool; and she suffers by it. But she's quite different herself, and I know what a jolly good sort she is, if others don't."
Dick was touched. Humphrey's "poor thing but mine own" opinion of the girl he was going to marry was so different from the pride he felt in Virginia. "Well, old chap," he said, "we'll do our best to make her feel one of the family. We're not a bad lot, take us all round, and if she wants to, I dare say she'll get to like us. We ought to be able to have some fun together when we all meet. I like her all right—what I've seen of her—and now things have been more or less settled up I should like to see more of her, and so would Virginia. I believe in a family sticking together, even after they begin to marry off, and new-comers ought to get a warm welcome. You've been very decent to Virginia, and she likes you; and I should like to have an opportunity of ingratiating myself with Susan."
Humphrey was conquered by this. "You're a jolly good sort, Dick," he said. "I didn't know you were going to behave like that, or perhaps I wouldn't have behaved as I have done. I'm not proud of myself, exactly, now I look back on it, and if you'll forget all about it, as you said you were ready to do, I'll chuck the whole beastly business, and we'll go back to where we used to be."
"There won't be any difficulty about that, old boy," said Dick. "Peace and goodwill is allIwant, and we may as well have it all round."
The twins were meeting a train, but the train was late. They walked up and down the platform, by the side of which the station-master's arabis and aubrietia, primroses and daffodils, were making a fine show. It was the Thursday before Easter, which Miss Bird was coming to spend at Kencote, Miss Phipp having already departed for a week in lovely Lucerne; and the twins, out of the innumerable trains they had met, had never met one with greater pleasure. They had spent an arduous term with Miss Phipp, with whom they had established relations amicable on the whole, but not marked by the affection they had felt for Miss Bird; and although they had rather liked working hard, they had had enough of it for the present, and enough of Miss Phipp.
"I wish the train would hurry up. I do want to see the sweet old lamb," said Joan. "Let's ask Mr. Belper when it's coming."
The station-master, jovially respectful, told them that she was signalled, and they wouldn't have long to wait.
"But I think you ought to see that your trains are up to time," said Nancy. "Didn't you learn at school that punctuality was a virtue?"
"Ah! I see you want to have one of your jokes with me, miss," said the station-master. "I don't know what it's about, but, bless you, have your laugh. I like to see young ladies enjoying themselves."
"Thank you very much," said Joan. "But there's nothing to laugh at in a train beingalwaysunpunctual. We want very much to see Miss Bird, who is coming, and you keep her on the line somewhere between here and Ganton. You ought to turn over a new leaf, and see that people don't get disappointed like that."
"Well, it isn't my fault, miss, and here she comes," said Mr. Belper, snatching up a metal instrument in shape something between a sceptre and a door-scraper and hurrying up the platform, as the engine fussed up the last incline and snorted itself to rest.
Miss Bird—diminutive, excited, voluble—cast herself out of her carriage and into the arms of the twins, who gave vent to their affection in a series of embraces that left her breathless and crumpled, but blissfully happy. "That will do Joan 'n' Nancy for the present," she said. "Let me get my things out and then we can have a nice long talk. Oh dear to find myself at Kencote again it is almost too good to be true the umbrella on the rack porter and the hat-box my precious pets how you have grown a brown box with 'E.B.' in the van and that is all. How do you do Mr. Belper you see I have come back again once more like a bad penny as they say and how is Mrs. Clinton darlings and your father and all I havesucha lot to hear that I'm sure we shall never leave off talking until I go away again."
"Precious lamb!" said Joan tenderly. "Youwon't leave off talking, and I could listen to you for ever, like the brook. You're such a relief after Pipp."
"We didn't know when we were well off," said Nancy. "We often lie awake at night and cry for you."
They were now walking towards the booking-office. "But surely Miss Phipp isn'tcruelto you my pets Mrs. Clinton would never allow that oh my ticket Mr. Belper now IknowI put it somewhere here it is in my bag and I give up this half and retain the other, good-afternoon ah to see these nice horses again it is like coming home indeed I have not ridden in a private carriage since I left Kencote.Good-afternoon William I see you are still here and promoted to the box one more of the old faces."
Thus expressing her pleasure, Miss Bird got into the carriage and the twins after her, and they drove off.
"Well my pets," she began, "let me take a good look at you many's the time I've longed to set eyes on you, and you have not altered at all just atriflepale I do hope that you have not been workingtoohard."
Joan and Nancy exchanged glances, and then heaved a simultaneous sigh. They acted habitually so much in accord that the acceptance of an idea striking them simultaneously could be indicated by a look. "You were often unkind to us, Starling darling," said Joan plaintively, "although we've quite forgiven you for it; but in your most headstrong moments you were never actually cruel."
"Don't cry, Joan," said Nancy. "We have nearly three weeks' holiday, and with Starling here we shall be able to forget everything, and be as happy as possible."