The service at Redmarley Church was "medium high." It boasted an organist and a surpliced choir, and the choir intoned the responses. "The old Vicar," as Mr Molyneux liked to be called, was musical, and saw to it that the Sunday services were melodiously and well rendered. Very rarely was there a week-day service. The villagers would have regarded them in the light of a dangerous innovation; yet, notwithstanding the lack of daily services, the church stood open from sunrise to sunset always, and though very few people ever entered it during the week, they would have been most indignant had it ever been shut.
The church was too big for the village: it was built early in the fourteenth century when the Manor House was a monastery, and at a time when Redmarley was the religious centre for half a dozen outlying villages that now had churches of their own. Therefore, it was never full, and even if every soul in the village had made a point of going to divine service at the same time, it would still have appeared but sparsely attended.
Miss Gallup's seat, with a red cushion and red footstools and everything handsome about it, was about half-way up the aisle on the left.
On the right, one behind the other, were two long oaken pews next the chancel steps belonging to the Manor House. In the one, there were three young women, obviously servants; the front one was empty.
Eloquent began to wish he had not come.
People bustled and creaked and pattered up the aisle after their several fashions. The organist started the voluntary, and the choir came in.
The congregation stood up, when suddenly his aunt gave Eloquent's elbow a jerk, and whispered: "There's Mr Grantly and Miss Mary."
As if he didn't know!
Just the same leisurely, unconscious, strolling walk that got over the ground so much more quickly than one would have thought.
She had changed her clothes and looked, he noted it with positive relief, much more Sundayish. In fact, her costume (Eloquent used this dreadful word) now compared quite favourably with those of the other young ladies of his acquaintance. Not that she in the least resembled them. Not a bit. Her things were ever so much plainer, but Eloquent's eagle eye, trained to acute observation by his long service in the outfitting line, grasped at once that plain as was the dark blue coat and skirt, it was uncommonly well made. She wore blue fox furs, too, hat and stole and muff all matching, and her hair was tied twice with dark blue ribbon, at the nape of the neck and about half-way down.
Yes, M. B. Ffolliot was very tidy indeed. Behind her followed a youth ridiculously like her in feature, but he was half a head taller. He walked with quick, short steps, and had a very flat back and square shoulders. His appearance, even allowing for the high seriousness of an outfitter's point of view, was eminently satisfactory. There was no fleck or speck of fluff or dust or mud abouthisclothes. He was, Eloquent decided grimly, a "knut" of the nuttiest flavour; from the top of his exceedingly smooth head to his admirable grey spats and well-shaped boots, a thoroughly well-dressed young man.
"Shop, indeed!" thought Eloquent. "He's never seen the wrong side of a counter in his life."
"Rend your hearts and not your garments," so the Vicar adjured the congregation in his agreeable monotone, and the service began.
Eloquent could see Mary's back between the heads of two maids: her hair shone burnished and bright in the lamplight. Just before the psalms she turned and whispered to her brother, and he caught a glimpse of her profile for the space of three seconds.
When the psalms ended, the "knut" came out into the aisle, mounted the steps leading to the lectern, and started to read the first lesson.
"Woe to thee that spoilest and thou wast not spoiled," Grantly Ffolliot began in a voice of thunder. The congregation lifted startled heads, and looked considerably surprised. Grantly was nervous. He read very fast, and so loud that Mary was moved to cover her ears with her hands; and Eloquent saw her and sympathised.
Now here was a matter in which he could give young Ffolliot points and a beating. He longed passionately to stand up at that brass bird and read the Bible to the people of Redmarley; to one person in particular. He knew exactly the pitch of voice necessary to fill a building of that size.
"He that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from the holding of bribes. . . ."
How curiously applicable certain of Isaiah's exhortations are to the present day, thought Eloquent. . . . The "knut" had somewhat subdued his voice, and even he could not spoil the music and the majesty of the words, "a place of broad rivers and streams wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby." Two more verses, and the first lesson was ended, and Grantly Ffolliot, flushed but supremely thankful, made his way back to his seat.
Eloquent registered a vow.
The vicar himself read the second lesson, and the meditations of the assembled worshippers were undisturbed.
The vicar always preached for exactly ten minutes. He took an old-fashioned hour-glass up into the pulpit with him, and when it ran out he concluded his discourse. Redmarley folk highly approved this ritual. When stray parsons came to preach, especially if they were dignitaries of the church, a body could never tell what they might be at, and the suspense was wearing. Why, the Dean of Garchester had been known to keep on for half an hour.
The Redmarley worshippers rarely slept. It wasn't worth while. Instead, they kept a wary eye upon the hour-glass. They trusted to their vicar's honour, and he rarely failed them. As the last grains of sand ran out he turned to the east, and most people were back home and sitting down to supper by eight o'clock.
Miss Gallup never hurried out of church. She thought it unseemly. Therefore, it came to pass that Eloquent was still standing in his place as Mary Ffolliot and her brother came down the aisle. Mary looked him full in the face as she passed, and smiled frankly at him with friendly recognition.
The "knut" had gone on ahead.
Eloquent gave no answering smile. For one thing, he had never for one moment expected her to take the slightest notice of him, and the fact that she had done so raised a perfect tumult of unexpected and inexplicable emotion.
The hot blood rushed to his face, and there was a singing in his ears. He turned right round and stared down the aisle at her retreating form, and was only roused to a sense of mundane things by a violent poke in the small of his back, and his aunt's voice buzzing in an irritated whisper: "Go on, my boy, do you want to stop here all night?"
"Mr Grantly read very nice, didn't he?"
Miss Gallup remarked complacently, as they were walking home.
"To tell you the truth, Aunt Susan, I thought he read very badly: he bellowed so, and was absolutely wanting in expression."
"Poor young gentleman," Miss Gallup said tolerantly. "Last time he read, back in summer it was, he did read so soft like, no one could hear a word he said, and I know they all went on at him something dreadful, so this time I suppose he thought as theyshouldhear him."
"Do you think," Eloquent asked diffidently, "that Mr Molyneux would like me to read the lessons some Sunday when I'm down here?"
Miss Gallup stopped short.
"Well, now," she exclaimed, "to think of you suggestin' that, an' I was just wonderin' at that very minute whether if I was to ask you—you'd snap my head off, you being chapel and all."
Eloquent longed to say that he was not so wrapped up in chapel as all that, but long habits of self-restraint stood him in good stead. Where possible votes were concerned it did not do to speak the thought of the moment, so he merely remarked indifferently that he'd be "pleased to be of any assistance."
"Of course," Miss Gallup continued, as she walked on, "there's no knowing whether, with the election coming on and all, the vicar might think it quite suitable, though he's generally glad to get any one to read as will."
"Surely," Eloquent said severely, "he does not carry his political views into his religious life, to the extent of boycotting those who do not agree with him."
"It's his church," Miss Gallup rejoined stoutly; "no one can read in it without 'tis his wish."
"My dear aunt, you surely don't imagine that I want to read the lessons at Redmarley except as a matter of kindness . . . assistance to Mr Molyneux. What other reason can I have?"
"Well," said Miss Gallup, shrewdly, "it might be that you wanted to show how well you could do it . . ." she paused.
Eloquent blushed in the darkness.
"And with an election coming on, you never know what motives folks has," she continued. "But it's my belief Mr Molyneux'd be pleased as Punch. He's all for friendliness, he is. I know who wouldn't be pleased, though——"
"Who is that?" asked Eloquent, as his aunt had stopped, evidently waiting to be questioned.
"Why, Mr Ffolliot; he don't take much part in politics, but he thinks Redmarley belongs to him, and he'd be mighty astonished if you was to get up and read in the parish church, and him not been told anything about it."
"I shall certainly call on Mr Molyneux tomorrow," said Eloquent.
Hilary Ffolliot, squire of Redmarley in the county of Garsetshire, did not appreciate the blessings heaped upon him by providence in the shape of so numerous a family, and from their very earliest years manifested a strong determination that no child of his should be spoilt through any injudicious slackening of discipline.
His rules and regulations were as the sands of the sea for number, and as they all tended in the same direction, namely, to the effacement of his lively and ubiquitous offspring, it is hardly surprising that such a large and healthy family found it difficult, not to say impossible, to attain to his ideal of the whole duty of children. And although a desire not to transgress his code regarding silence and decorum in such parts of the house as were within ear-shot of his study was strong in the children, knowing how swift and sure was the retribution overtaking such offenders—yet, however willing the spirit, the flesh was weak, and succumbed to temptations to jump whole flights of stairs, to slide down bannisters, arriving with a sounding thump at the bottom, and occasionally to bang the schoolroom door in the faces of the pursuing brethren.
Thus it was that strangers ringing the front-door bell at the Manor House were, on being admitted, faced by large cards on the opposite wall bearing such devices as, "Be sure you shut the door quietly," "Do not speak loudly," "Go round to the back if possible." And it is told of one timid guest, that on reading the aforesaid directions (which, by the way, were only supposed to apply to the children) he incontinently fled before the astonished butler could stop him; and, as directed, meekly rang the back-door bell, some five minutes afterwards.
Mr Ffolliot suffered from nerves. He was by temperament quite unfitted to be either a country squire or the father of a large family. Above all, was he singularly unable to bear with equanimity the strain upon his income such a large family entailed. He liked his comforts about him, he was by nature of a contemplative and aesthetically studious turn, and saw no good reason why his learned leisure should suffer interruption, or his delicate susceptibilities be ruffled by such incongruities as the loud voices and inharmonious movements of a set of thoughtless children.
The village was small and well-to-do, his duties as a landowner sat lightly upon him, and he was very awe-inspiring, didactic, and distant in his dealings with the surrounding neighbours. He had a fine taste in old prints and old port, and every spring his health necessitated a somewhat lengthened stay in an "oasis" which he had "discovered," so he said, in the south of France, where he communed with nature, and manifested a nice appreciation of the artistic efforts of his host's most excellent cook.
In fact, the matter of intercourse with outsiders was largely left to the discretion of his wife; and whoever had much to do with Mrs Ffolliot (and most people wanted as much as they could get) spent a good deal of time in the society of the children. And to the children—what was she not to those children?
For them "mother" signified everything that was kind, and gay, and gracious, and above all, understanding. Other people might be stupid, and attaint with evil intention accidents, which while certainly unfortunate in their results, were wholly unpremeditated, but mother always gave the offender the benefit of the doubt, and not infrequently by her charms of person and persuasive arts of conversation, so effectually turned away the wrath of the injured one (generally a farmer), that no hint of the escapade reached Mr Ffolliot's ears.
For the fact is that being somewhat tightly kept at home, the young Ffolliots were more than something of a nuisance when they went abroad; and as several of them generally were abroad, in their train did mischief and destruction follow.
For three hundred years there had been Ffolliots at Redmarley; of the last three owners two were married and childless, and the one immediately preceding Mr Hilary Ffolliot was a bachelor. But the fact that the Manor had not for over a hundred years descended from father to son, in no way affected the love each reigning Ffolliot felt for it.
There was something about Redmarley that seized the imagination and the affection of the dwellers there. The little grey stone village that lay so lovingly along the banks of the Marle was so enduring, so valorous in its sturdy indifference to time; in the way its gabled cottages under their overhanging eaves faced summer sun and winter rains, and instead of crumbling away seemed but to stand the firmer and more dignified in their cheery eld.
The Ffolliots were good landlords. No leaking roofs or defective walls were complained of at Redmarley. Never was Ffolliot yet who had not realised the unique quality of the village, and done his best to maintain it. It never grew, rarely was a house to let, and the jerry builder was an unknown evil. It was a healthy village, too, set high in the clean Cotswold air. Big farms surrounded it, the nearest railway line was three miles off, and the nearest station almost seven.
Of course there was poverty and a good deal of rheumatism among the older inhabitants, but on the whole the periodic outbursts of industrial discontent and unrest that convulsed other parts of England seemed to pass Redmarley by.
Had the Manor stood empty or the vicar been a poor man with a large family, doubtless things would have been uncomfortable enough to stir the villagers out of their habitual philosophic acceptance of the "rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate" as an inevitable and immutable law. But they couldn't actively dislike either squire or parson, and although the agricultural labourer is slow of speech he is not lacking in shrewdness, and those at Redmarley realised that things would be much worse than they were if Squire and Parson were suddenly eliminated.
Hilary Ffolliot liked the rôle of landed proprietor in the abstract. He would not have let the Manor and lived elsewhere for the world. He went regularly to church on Sunday morning, though it bored him extremely, because, like Major Pendennis, he thought that "when a gentleman issur ses terreshe must give an example to the country people." Had he been starving he would not have sold a single rood of Redmarley land to assuage his hunger. Similarly he would himself have done without a great many things rather than let any of his people go hungry. But it was only because they werehispeople, part of the state and circumstance of Redmarley. He didn't care for them a bit as individuals. Any intercourse with the peasantry was irksome to him. Dialect afflicted him. He had nothing to say to them, and they were stricken dumb in his awe-inspiring presence. He was well content to have few personal dealings with those, who, in his own mind, he thought of as his "retainers." He left everything of that sort to his wife.
It was the same with the children. He looked upon them as a concession to Marjory's liking for that sort of thing: and by "that sort of thing" he meant his wife's enthusiastic interest in her fellow-creatures.
To be sure he was pleased that there should be no question as to a direct heir . . . but . . . six of them was really rather a nuisance. Children were like peasantry, inclined to be awkward and uncouth, crude in thought and word and deed; apt to be sticky unless fresh from the hands of nurse; in summer nearly always hot, frequently dirty, and certainly always noisy, with, moreover, a distinct leaning towards low company and a plainly manifest discomfort in his own.
He was proud of them because they were Ffolliots, and because they were tall and straight and handsome (how wisely he had chosen their mother!), and he supposed that some day, when they became more civilised, he would be able to take some pleasure in their society. Even the two eldest, Grantly and Mary, wearied him. He could never seem to find any topic of mutual interest, except Redmarley itself, and then they always introduced irrelevant matter relating to the inhabitants that he had no desire to hear.
Had Marjory, his wife, grown plain and anxious during her twenty years of married life, it is probable she would have bored him too. But she kept her hold upon him because she was not only the most beautiful woman he knew, but she satisfied his artistic sensibilities all round. She was full of individuality and quick-witted decision. Long ago she had made up her mind that it was quite impossible to alter him, but she was equally assured as to her perfect right to differ from him in every possible way. He quite fell in with this view of the situation; so long as he was allowed unchallenged to be as stiff and stand-off and unapproachable as he pleased, he was well content that she should be extraordinarily sympathetic, gracious, and gay. It pleased him that the "retainers" should adore her and come to her in their troubles and difficulties; that she should be constantly surrounded by her children; that she should be in great request at every social gathering in the county.
Did it happen that his need of her clashed with the children's, and that just then she considered theirs was the stronger claim, he was annoyed; but apart from that he approved of her devotion to them. Somebody must look after the children; and it was not in his line.
So many things were not in his line.
One day, early in their married life, with unusual want of tact,Marjory had asked him what his line was.
The question surprised and distressed him, it was so difficult to answer. However, the retort courteous came easily to Mr Ffolliot, and raising her hand to his lips, he replied, "To provide a sufficiently beautiful setting for you, my dear, that is mymétierat present." And Marjory, who had spent a long, hot morning in superintending the removal of books, busts, and pictures to the room that, for the future, was to be his study, the room that till then had been her drawing-room, felt an unregenerate desire to slap him with the hand he had just kissed.
Mr Ffolliot believed that he could best develop the ultimate highest that was in him if his surroundings were entirely harmonious. Therefore had he selected the sunniest, largest room on the entrance floor for his own study. It had a lovely view of the river.
The oak wainscotting and shelves were removed there piece by piece from the old library at the back, which faced north and had rather an uninteresting outlook towards the woods. This rather gloomy chamber he caused to be newly panelled with wood enamelled white, and presented it to his wife for her own use with a "God bless you, my darling, I hope you may have many happy hours here."
Her drawing-room was the only room in Redmarley that Marjory Ffolliot thoroughly disliked, and she never sat there if she could help it.
On that Sunday afternoon when Eloquent thought fit to visit his aunt, Mr Ffolliot had left his writing-table and was standing in one of the great windows that he might look out and, with the delicate appreciation of the connoisseur, savour the crimson beauties of the winter sunset.
As he gazed he mentally applauded the pageant of colour provided for his enjoyment, and then he perceived two figures standing not fifty yards from his window.
One he recognised at once as his daughter, and for a moment he included her in his beatitude at the prospect presented to his view. Yes; Mary was undoubtedly pleasing to the eye, she was growing very like his wife, and for that resemblance, like the Ancient Mariner, "he blessed her unaware."
But when he became fully cognisant of the other figure, his feeling wholly changed. He screwed his eyeglass firmly into his eye and glared at the couple.
Who on earth was this muddy, rather plebeian-looking person with whom Mary was conversing on apparently friendly and familiar terms? He suddenly realised with an irritated sense of rapidly approaching complications that Mary was nearly grown up.
In another minute the young man was walking down the drive alone, and his daughter had vanished.
He gave her time to take off her boots, then he sent for her.
He sat down at his writing-table and awaited her, feeling intensely annoyed.
How dared that mud-bespattered young man speak to her?
How could Mary be so wanting in dignity as to reply?
What was Marjory about to allow it?
Those children had far too much latitude.
He was in that frame of mind which, during the middle ages, resulted in the immurement of such disturbing daughters in the topmost turrets of their fathers' castles.
Mary came in, shut the door softly, and waited just inside it to say nervously:
"You sent for me, father?"
"Come here," said Mr Ffolliot.
Mary crossed the big room and stood at the other side of the knee-hole table facing him.
"I sent for you," Mr Ffolliot began slowly, and paused. Angry as he was, he found a moment in which to feel satisfaction at her pure colouring . . . "to make enquiries" he continued, "as to your late companion. Who is that exceedingly muddy person with whom you were talking in the front drive a few minutes ago?"
Yes; her colouring was certainly admirable. A good healthy blush sweeping over the white forehead till it reached the pretty growth of hair round the temples and dying away as rapidly as it had arisen, was quite a forgivable weakness in a young girl.
"I believe," said Mary cautiously, "that he is Mr Gallup, the newLiberal candidate."
"Did he tell you so?"
"No, father. He told me his name, but it was Grantly who thought he was that one."
"And may I ask what reason Mr Gallup had for imparting his name to you—did no one introduce him?"
"No, father."
"Well, how did the man come to speak to you?" Mr Ffolliot demanded, irritably. "You must see that the matter requires explanation."
"He was lost," Mary said mournfully, "and so I showed him the way."
"Lost," Mr Ffolliot repeated scornfully; "lost in Redmarley!"
"No, father, in the wood."
"And what was he doing in our woods, pray?"
"He had tried to come by a short-cut and got muddled and he fell down, and I couldn't pass by without speaking, could I . . . he might have broken his leg or something."
"What were you doing in the woods alone? I have told you repeatedly that I will not have you scouring the country by yourself. You have plenty of brothers, let one of them accompany you."
"I wasn't exactly alone," Mary pleaded; "Parker was with me."
"Mary," Mr Ffolliot said solemnly, "has it ever occurred to you that you are very nearly eighteen years old?"
"Yes, father."
"Well, that being the case, don't you think that decorum in your conduct, more dignity and formality in your manner are a concession you owe to your family. You know as well as I do that a young girl in your position does not converse haphazard with any stranger that she happens to find prone in the woods. It's not done, Mary, and what is more,Iwill not have it. This impertinent young counter-jumper probably was only too ready to seize upon any excuse to address you. You should have given him the information he asked and walked on."
"But we were going the same way," Mary objected; "it seemed so snobby to walk on, besides . . ." again that glorious blush, "he didn't speak to me first, I spoke to him."
Mr Ffolliot sighed. "Remember," he said solemnly, "that should you see him again you do not know that young man. . . ."
Silence on the part of Mary. Deep thought on the brow of Mr Ffolliot.
"To-morrow," he said at last, "you may do up your hair."
"Oh, father, mayn't I do it up to-night before church. I should love to, do let me."
"No, my child, to-morrow is more suitable."
Mary did not ask why. None of the children except the Kitten ever questioned any of Mr Ffolliot's decisions . . . to him.
"Have you done with me, father?" Mary asked. "I think it must be tea-time."
"Yes, Mary, you may go, but remember, nothing of this sort must ever occur again; it has distressed and annoyed me."
"I'm sorry, father, I didn't think . . ."
"You never do," said Mr Ffolliot, "that is what I complain of."
Thus it came about that Mr Ffolliot was himself directly responsible for the friendly smile which greeted Eloquent as Mary passed him in the aisle of Redmarley church that evening.
She had not been allowed to put up her hair that evening. She was not a grown-up lady yet.
Therefore would she grin at whomsoever she pleased.
The Kitten was born on a Whitsunday morning about eight o'clock. Mr Ffolliot went himself to announce the news to Ger, who was sitting in his high chair eating bread and milk at nursery breakfast. Ger was all alone with Thirza, the under-nurse, and he was thunderstruck to see his father at such an unusual hour, above all, in such an unusual place as his nursery.
"Ger," said Mr Ffolliot, quite genially for him, "you've got a new little sister."
Ger regarded his father solemnly with large, mournful eyes, then said aggrievedly, "Well,Ican't help it."
Mr Ffolliot laughed. "You don't seem overjoyed," he remarked.
"Are you sorry, father?" Ger asked anxiously.
"Sorry," Mr Ffolliot repeated, "of course not; why should you think I'm sorry?"
"Well, you see," said Ger, "it makes another of us."
Mr Ffolliot ignored this remark. He moved towards the door. At the door he paused; "You may," he said graciously, "go and see your little sister in an hour or two; mother said so."
As the door was closed behind him, Thirza sat down again with a sort of gasp. "Whatever did you mean, my dear, talking to Squire like that?" she demanded shrilly.
"Like what?" asked Ger.
"Sayin' as it wasn't your fault, and seemin' so down about it all. Why, you ought to be glad there's a dear little new baby, and you such an affectionate child an' all."
"It makes another of us," Ger persisted, and Thirza gave him up as an enigma.
In due time he went to the dressing-room off the big spare bedroom, and there sat the kind, comfortable lady he knew as "mother's nurse" (Ger had not seen her as often as the others, but still she came from time to time "just to see how they were all getting on," and he liked her). There she sat on a small rocking-chair with a bundle on her knee.
"Come, my darling, and see your little sister," she cried cheerfully.
Ger advanced. She opened the head flannel and displayed a small, dark head, and a red, puckered countenance.
"When will she be able to see?" asked Ger.
As if in answer the baby opened a pair of large dark eyes and stared fixedly at the round, earnest face bent above her.
"See, bless you!" mother's nurse exclaimed, "see! why, she isn't a kitten. She can see right enough. Look how she's taking you in. She has stared about from the minute she was born, as if she'd been here before and was looking round to see that things were all the same. She's the living image of Squire."
"I think she's rather like a kitten," Ger persisted, "but I'm glad she can see. I think she likes me rather."
And that was how the Kitten got her name.
She was not a Grantly. She was all Ffolliot, and she was the only one of the children absolutely fearless in the presence of her father.
Small and dark and delicately made, with quick-sighted falcon-coloured eyes that nothing escaped. Unlike her big, healthy brethren, she was never in the slightest degree shy or clumsy, and she cared not a single groat for anyone or anything in the whole wide world so long as she got her own way. And this, being a member of the Ffolliot family, she did not get nearly as often as she would have liked. But she understood her father as did none of the others, and she could "get round him" in a fashion that filled those others with astonished admiration.
She also considerably astonished Mr Ffolliot, for from the very first she was familiar, and familiarity on the part of his children he neither encouraged nor desired. Moreover, she was ubiquitous and elusive. No army of nurses could restrain the Kitten in her peregrinations. She could speak distinctly, run, and run fast, when she was little over a year old, and she possessed a singularly enquiring mind. She was demonstrative but not affectionate; she was enchanting, and stony-hearted was the creature who could resist her. She liked an audience, and she loved to "tell" things. To this end she would sit on your knee and lay one small but determined hand upon your cheek to turn your face towards her, so that she could make sure you were attending. She kept the small hand there, soft and light, a fairy-like caress, unless your attention wandered. If this happened, a sharp little pinch quickly diverted your thoughts into the proper channel. As she pinched you, the Kitten dropped her eyes so that you noticed how long and black were her eyelashes. Then, having punished you, she raised her eyes to yours with so seraphic an expression that you thought of "large-eyed cherubim" and entirely forgot that she had pinched you at all, unless next day as you looked in the glass you happened to notice a little blue mark on your cheek. The Kitten could pinch hard.
She was Ger's greatest joy and his unceasing anxiety. From the very first he had constituted himself her guide, philosopher . . . and slave. Yet the dictatorial little lady found out very early in the day, that in certain things she had to conform to her indulgent brother's standards, the family standards; and though she might be all Ffolliot in certain matters, the Grantly ethics were too strong for her. That Ger should love her, that he should be always kind and protective and unselfish she took as a matter of course; but she wanted him to admire her too, and ready as he was to oblige her in most things, she found that here he was strangely firm. If she told tales or complained of people, or persisted in tiresome teasing when asked politely to desist, Ger withdrew the light of his countenance, and the Kitten was uncomfortable.
To tell tales, or complain, or try to get another into trouble for any reason whatsoever was forbidden. The others had each in their turn accepted this doctrine as they accepted day and night, the sun and moon and stars. The Kitten had to be taught these things, and Ger it was who saw to it that she learned them.
There was a law in the family that if any member of it, after enduring for a space a certain line of conduct from another, said, "Pleasestop it," that person had to stop, or nemesis, by no means leaden-footed, overtook the offender. It took quite a long time to get it into the Kitten's head that it was a law.
She had an extraordinarily loud and piercing cry when she was angry—a cry that penetrated to the sacred study itself, no matter where she might be in the house.
One day when she was about three years old she was so naughty, so disobedient, so entirely unmanageable at nursery tea, that Nana, the long-suffering, fairly lost her temper. The Kitten placed the final stone on a pillar of wrongdoing by drawing patterns on the tablecloth with a long line of golden syrup dropped from a blob she had secured on her small finger, and Nana gave the chubby hand belonging to the finger a good hard smack. The Kitten opened her mouth and gave vent to a yell almost demoniacal in its volume and intensity.
Mr Ffolliot, reading theQuarterly Reviewin dignified seclusion, heard it in his study, was convinced that his youngest child was being tortured by the others, and hastened hot-foot to the nursery.
Ger had his fingers in his ears. Nana, flushed and angry, stirred her tea pretending that she didn't hear; Thirza murmured pacific and wholly useless nothings. At her father's sudden and wholly unexpected appearance, accompanied as it was by the swift uprising of both the nurses, the Kitten stopped her clamorous vociferation, and with bunches of tears still hanging on her lashes smiled radiantly at the Squire, announcing with a wave of her sticky little hand.
"'At's fahver."
"What," Mr Ffolliot demanded angrily, "what in heaven's name has been done to that child to make her shriek like that? What happened?"
"Miss Kitten, sir," Nana said slowly, "has not been very good at tea this afternoon."
"But what made her shriek like that?" Mr Ffolliot continued—"a more alarming cry I never heard."
"She smacked me," said the Kitten, glowering at Nana, "she 'urted me"; and at that moment she met Ger's eyes.
The Kitten turned very red.
"Who smacked you?" asked Mr Ffolliot unwisely.
Ger stared at the Kitten, and the Kitten wriggled in her chair.
"Say whatyoudid," muttered Ger, still holding his small sister in compelling gaze.
Nana smiled. She had started with Grantly, and knew the family.
"Fahver," said the Kitten in her most seductive tones, "take me," and she held out her arms.
Mr Ffolliot succumbed. He went round to his youngest daughter and lifted her out of her high chair, only to put her down with exceeding haste a moment later.
"The child is all over some horrible sticky substance," he cried, irritably.
"'At was it," said the Kitten.
Mr Ffolliot fled to wash his hands and change his coat. Nana and Thirza sat down again. Ger shook his head at his small sister. "Youarea rotter," he said, sadly.
The Kitten began to cry again, but this time she cried quite softly, and Nana, in spite of the libations of golden syrup, took her upon her knee to comfort her.
Every evening the children went down to the hall to play with their mother, and when their grandparents were there things were more than usually festive. Ganpie never seemed to mind how many children swarmed over him—in fact, he rather seemed to like it; and Grannie assuredly knew more entrancing games than anyone else in the world.
One Christmas Eve, just after tea, the whole family, including Mr Ffolliot, were gathered in the hall. Fusby had just taken the tray, the General was sitting by the fire with Ger on his knee, the Kitten sat on the opposite side of the hearth on her father's, while the rest of the young people indulged in surreptitious "ragging." Uz and Buz, by some mischance, charged into a heavy oaken post crowned by a large palm, with such force that they knocked it over, and the big flower-pot missed their grandfather and Ger by a hair's breadth.
When the universal consternation had subsided, the scattered earth been swept up, and the twins had been suitably reprimanded, the Kitten scrambled down from her father's knee, and trotted across to her grandmother, was duly taken up, and with small insistant hand turned her Grannie's face towards her.
"Which would you rather?" she asked in her high clear voice, "thatGanpie had been killed or Ger?"
Mrs Grantly shuddered—"Baby, don't suggest such dreadful things," she exclaimed.
"But which would you rather?" the Kitten persisted. "You're all saying 'another inch and it would have killed one of zem'—which one would you rather?"
But Mrs Grantly flatly refused to state her preference, and the Kitten was clearly disappointed.
That night she added an additional clause to her prayers: "Thank you, God dear, for not letting the flower-pot kill Ganpie or Ger, and I'm sure Grannie's very much obliged too."
At her prayers the Kitten always knelt bolt upright with her hands tightly clasped under her chin, her nightgown draped in graceful folds about her—a most reverent and saintly little figure, except that she had from the very first firmly refused to shut her eyes.
She was fond of adding a sort of P.S. to her regular prayers, and enjoyed its effect upon her mother, who made a point of, herself, attending the orisons of her two youngest children. One evening when Mrs Ffolliot had been reading her a rather pathetic story of a motherless child, the Kitten added this petition, "Please, God, take care of all the little girls wiv no mummies."
Mrs Ffolliot was touched and related the story afterwards to Uz andBuz, who grinned sceptically.
Next night, when the Kitten had been very naughty, and Mrs Ffolliot had punished her, she repeated her prayers with the greatest unction, and when she reached the usual postscript, fixed her eyes sternly on her mother's face as she prayed fervently, "And please, dear God, take great care of the poor little girls whathavegot mummies."
A mystically minded friend of Mrs Ffolliot's had talked a good deal of guardian angels to Ger and the Kitten. Ger welcomed the belief with enthusiasm. It appealed at once to his friendly nature, and the thought of an angel, "a dear and great angel," all for himself, specially concerned about him, and there always, though invisible save to the eye of faith, was a most pleasing conception.
Not that it would have pleased Ger unless he had been assured that everyone else had one too. And he forthwith constructed a theory that when people got tired of doing nothing in heaven they came back again and looked after folks down here.
His views of the angel's actual attributes would much have astonished his mother's friend had he expressed them. But Ger said nothing, and quietly constructed an angel after his own heart, who was in point of fact an angelic sort of soldier servant, never in the way, but always there and helpful if wanted.
He could not conceive of any servant who was not also a friend, and having received much kindness from soldiers in the ranks he fixed upon that type as the most agreeable for a guardian angel. And although he greatly admired the two framed pictures of angels the lady had given them to hang in the nursery—Guercino's Angel and Carpaccio's "Tobias and the angels"—his own particular angel was quite differently clad, and was called "Spinks" after a horse gunner he had dearly loved, who was now in India.
The Kitten, far less impressionable, and extremely cautious, was pleased with the idea when it was first mooted, and discussed the question exhaustively with Ger, deciding that her angel had large wings like the one with the child in the picture.
"Does it stay with me in the night-nursery all night?" she enquired.
"'He,' not 'it,'" Ger corrected; "but perhaps yours is a 'she.'"
"I won't have a she," the Kitten said decidedly, for even at four years old she had already learnt that her own sex had small patience with her vagaries.
"You'll have to have what's sent you," Ger said solemnly.
"I won't have a lady angel, so there," said the Kitten, "I'll have a man angel."
"I daresay they'll let you," Ger said soothingly. "A great, big, kind man with wings like you said."
"Has yours got wings?" the Kitten demanded.
"I don't think so," said Ger, "he's not that sort; but," he added proudly, "he's got spurs."
"Will it stay in the nurseryallnight?" the Kitten asked again rather nervously.
"Of course that's what he's for, to take care of you, so that you'll feel quite safe and happy."
"Oh," said the Kitten, and her voice betrayed the fact that she found this statement far from reassuring.
She said nothing to her mother, and Mrs Ffolliot heard her say her prayers as usual, kissed her, blessed her, and tucked her in. No sooner, however, had Mrs Ffolliot gone down the passage than the most vigorous yells brought her back to the night-nursery, while both Nana and Thirza hastened there also.
The Kitten was sitting up in bed, wide-eyed and apparently more indignant than frightened.
"Take it away," she exclaimed; "open the window and let it out."
"Let what out?" asked the bewildered Mrs Ffolliot.
"The angel," sobbed the Kitten, "I don't want it, I heard its wings rustling and it disturbed me dreffully—I don't want it, open the window wide."
"The window is open at the top," said Mrs Ffolliot; "but why do you want to get rid of an angel? Surely that's a lovely thing to have in the room."
"No," said the Kitten firmly, "I don't like it, and I don't want it. I don't want no angel I haven't seen. I don't like people in my room when I go to sleep."
Nana and Thirza had melted away, only too thankful not to be called upon to arbitrate in the angel question. Mrs Ffolliot and her small daughter stared at each other in the flickering firelight.
"I'm sure," said Mrs Ffolliot, trying hard to steady her voice, "that no self-respecting angel would stay for a minute with a little girl that didn't want him. You may be certain of that."
"A she might," the Kitten suggested suspiciously.
"No angel would," Mrs Ffolliot said decidedly.
"Do you think," the Kitten asked anxiously, "that there's enough room at the top for it to squeege froo? I can'tbearthose wings rustling."
Mrs Ffolliot switched on the light. "You can see for yourself."
"Thank you, mummy dear, I'll be much happier by myself, really," and the Kitten lay down quite contentedly.
It was the 22nd of December, the younger Ffolliots were gathered in the schoolroom, and Ger was in disgrace.
The twins were back from school, and that afternoon they had unbent sufficiently to take part in a representation of "Sherlock Holmes" in the hall. The whole family, with the exception of the Kitten, had seen the play in the Artillery Theatre at Woolwich during their last visit to grandfather.
It is a play that not only admits of, but necessitates, varied and loud noises.
Everything ought to have gone without a hitch, for earlier in the afternoon Mr Ffolliot had departed in the carriage to take the chair at a lecture in Marlehouse; and a little later Grantly had driven his mother to the station in the dogcart to meet a guest.
Unfortunately the lecture on Carpaccio at the Literary Institute was of unusually short duration, and Mr Ffolliot returned tired and rather cross, just as Ger was enacting the hansom cab accident at the foot of the staircase, by beating a deafening tattoo on the Kitten's bath with a hair-brush.
The twins and the Kitten (who had proved a wrapt and appreciative audience) melted away with Boojum-like stealth the moment the hall door was opened; but Ger, absorbed in the entrancing din he was making, noticed nothing, and his father had to shake him by the shoulders before he would stop.
"I suppose," Ger remarked thoughtfully, "that we must look upon father as a cross."
"He certainlyisjolly cross," Uz murmured. "He should hear the row we kick up at school when we've won a match, and nobody says a syllable."
"But I mean," Ger persisted, wriggling about on his seat as though the problem tormented him, "that if father were as nice as mother we'd be too happy, and it wouldn't be good for us; like the people in Fairy stories, you know, when they're too well off, misfortunes come."
"I don't think," Buz said dryly, "that we have any cause to dread misfortunes on that score. But cheer up, Ger, it'll soon be time for the pater to go abroad, and then nobody will get jawed for six long weeks."
"I shouldn't mind the jawings so much or the punishments," said Ger, after a minute's pause, "if it wasn't for mother. She minds so, she never seems to get used to it. I'm glad she was out this afternoon—though we did want her to see the play—but whatever will she say when I can't go down to meet Reggie with the rest of you? And what'llhethink?"
Ger's voice broke. Punishment had followed hard on the heels of the crime, and banishment to the schoolroom for the rest of the evening was Ger's lot. Had Mr Ffolliot belonged to a previous generation he would probably, when angry, have whacked his sons and whacked them hard. They would infinitely have preferred it. But his fastidious taste revolted from the idea of corporal punishment, and his ingenuity in devising peculiarly disagreeable penalties in expiation of their various offences, was the cause of much tribulation to his indignant offspring.
"Hereismother!" cried Buz, "and she's got Reggie. Come down and see him you others, but for heaven's sake, come quietly."
The Reggie in question was a young Sapper just then stationed atChatham, and a "very favourite cousin."
The Ffolliot children were in the somewhat unusual position of having no uncles and aunts, and no cousins of their own, for the sad reason that both their parents were "onlies." Therefore did they right this omission on the part of providence in their own fashion, by adopting as uncles, aunts, and cousins all pleasant guests.
Reggie wasn't even a second cousin; but his people being mostly in India, he had for many years spent nearly all his holidays, and later on his leave, at Redmarley, and he was very popular with the whole family. Even Mr Ffolliot unbent to a dignified urbanity in his presence. He approved of Reggie, who had passed seventh into Woolwich and first into the Sappers, and Grantly always thanked his lucky stars that he was destined for Field Artillery, and was not expected to follow in Reggie's footsteps in the matter of marks.
Ger worshipped Reggie, and it was with a heart full of bitterness, and eyes charged with hot tears that blurred the firelight into long bands of crimson, that he leant against the schoolroom table, alone, while the others all trooped off on tiptoe into the hall to give rapturous though whispered greeting to their guest.
Reggie did not whisper though; the warning cards had no sort of effect upon him, and the forlorn little figure drooping against the table sprang erect and shook the big drops from his cheeks as he heard his cousin's jolly voice "Where's my friend Ger?"—a murmured explanation—then, "Obadluck! I'll go to him—No don't come with me—not for two minutes."
How Ger blessed him for that forethought! To be found in disgrace was bad enough; but to be seen in tears, and by his whole family! . . .
Hastily scraping his cheeks with a corner of his dilapidated Norfolk jacket—if you have ever tried to do this you'll know that it is more or less of a test of suppleness—he went slowly to the door, and in another minute was lifted high into the air and shaken violently by a slight, rather plain young man, who bore with the utmost meekness a passionate embrace highly detrimental to his immaculate collar: and the best of it all was, that he was quite unconscious of the fact that Ger had not met him with the others, nor seemed aware of anything unusual beyond the pleasantness of once more sitting in the big slippery leather-covered arm-chair beside the schoolroom fire, while the rest of the family, having given him exactly the two minutes' start he had demanded, came flocking back to sit all over him and shout their news in an excited chorus.
Next morning, while his father was out in the village, Ger ensconced himself in one of the deep-seated windows of the study, as a quiet haven wherein he might wrestle in solitude with the perfect and pluperfect of the verbesse, which he had promised his mother he would repeat to her that morning.
Their governess had gone home for the holidays, but Ger was so backward that his father insisted that he must do a short lesson (with Mrs Ffolliot) every morning. Ger could not read. It was extraordinary how difficult he found it, and how dull it appeared to him, this art that seemed to come by nature to other people; which, once mastered, appeared capable of giving so much pleasure.
It puzzled Ger extremely.
Mrs Ffolliot had, herself, instructed all her sons in the rudiments of the Latin Grammar, and very well and thoroughly she did it, but so pleasantly, that in their minds the declensions and the conjugations were ever vaguely associated with the scent of violets. The reason for this being, that the instructed one invariably squeezed as close as possible to his teacher, and as there were violets at Redmarley nearly all the year round, Mrs Ffolliot always wore a bunch tucked into her waistband.
It was characteristic of the trust the squire had in his wife's training that he had not the slightest objection to the children using the library when he, himself, was not there to be disturbed, being quite certain that as they had promised her not to touch his writing table, the promise would be faithfully kept. Besides, like all true book-lovers, he was generous in the matter of his books, and provided the children treated them with due care and respect, had no objection to their taking them out of the shelves and reading them.
For a long time there was no sound in the room but an occasional whispered, "fui, fuisti, fuit." Presently Grantly and Mary came in to discuss a fancy-dress dance to which they were bidden that evening at a neighbour's; then, in rushed Reggie in coat and hat with a newly arrived parcel in his hand. Ger had seen the railway van come up the drive, but as he had promised his mother not to move until he had mastered his verb, he did not make his presence known to anyone.
Reggie went over to Mr Ffolliot's desk, and seeing a shilling lying on the table seized it and fled from the room. Three minutes later Ger saw him bowling down the drive in the dog-cart, then Mr Ffolliot returned, and Ger, feeling tolerably certain of the "perfect and pluperfect and future perfect," went slowly upstairs to his mother to repeat it.
All went on peacefully and quietly in the schoolroom for the next half hour, when suddenly Grantly and Mary whirled into the room in a state of such excited indignation as took their mother quite five minutes to discover what all the fuss was about. When at last they had been induced to tell their story separately, and not in a chorus almost oratorio-like in its confusion, Mrs Ffolliot discovered to her dismay that they were accused of meddling with a shilling which their father had placed on the book-club collecting card, ready for the collector when she should call.
When shedidcall the shilling was gone, and as Grantly and Mary were known to have been in the study, the squire came to the conclusion that one of them must have knocked against his table and brushed it off, and he gave it out that "unless they found it, and thus repaired the mischief and annoyance their carelessness had caused, he would not allow them to go to the dance that evening!"
He never suspected that any member of his family would take the shilling, but he was ready to believe all things of their clumsiness. In vain did Grantly and Mary protest that they had never been near his desk; the squire might have been Sherlock Holmes himself, so certain was he as to the exactitude of his deductions.
"The card has been pushed from where it was originally placed to the extreme edge of the table; the shilling must have been knocked off, and had doubtless rolled under some article of furniture; let them see to it that it was found; they might hunt there and then if they liked, as he would not require the room for half an hour."
The consciousness of their innocence in no way sustained Grantly and Mary under the appalling prospect of losing the party. They had of course hunted frantically everywhere, but naturally had found no trace of the shilling.
Ger sat quite still during the recital of their wrong's, his face growing paler and paler, and his honest grey eyes wider and wider in the horror of his knowledge. For he knew who had taken the shilling, and he knew also that it was his plain duty to right his innocent brother and sister. But at what a cost! He could not tell of Reggie, and yet it was so unlike Reggie for it was . . . even to himself Ger hardly liked to confess what it was—and he had gone off in such a hurry! To Ger, a shilling seemed a very large sum, his own greatest wealth, amassed after many weeks of hoarding, had once reached five pence halfpenny, nearly all in farthings; and he even found himself conjecturing the sort of monetary difficulty into which Reggie had fallen, and from which a shilling might extricate him. He knew there were such things as "debts," and that the army was "very expensive," for he had heard his grandfather say so. Like many extremely upright people Ger was gentle in his judgments of others. Himself of the most crystalline honesty, he could yet conceive of circumstances wherein a like probity might be hard for somebody else: at all costs poor Reggie must be screened, but it was equally clear to him that his brother and sister must not lose the pleasure long looked-forward-to as the opening joy of the holidays.
Now there was about Ger a certain loyalty and considerateness in his dealings with others, that had earned for him thesobriquetof "Gentleman Ger." He was very proud of the title, and his mother, whom he adored, had done all in her power to foster the feeling ofnoblesse oblige; so Ger felt that here and now a circumstance had arisen which would try what stuff he was made of. The excited talk raged round him like a storm, but after the first he heard none of it. He slipped quietly off his chair, and unnoticed by the group round his mother, left the room and crept down the back staircase. All doubt and questioning was at an end. His duty seemed quite clear to him: he would take the blame of that shilling, Mary and Grantly would go to their party, and Reggie . . . Reggie would not be back till quite late, when he, too, was going to the fancy-dress dance. Reggie need never know anything about it.
By this time he had reached the study door, and stood with his hand upon the handle. And as he waited, screwing his courage to the sticking point, there came into his mind the words of a psalm that he had learned by heart only last Sunday to repeat to his mother. He learned it more easily than usual because he liked it; when she read it to him he found he could remember it, and now, just as a dark room is transiently illumined by the falling together of the fire in sudden flame, there came into Ger's mind the words, "He that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not." He turned the handle and went in.
The squire was sitting in his big armchair in front of the fire readingMarius the Epicurean, and trying to compose his nerves, which still vibrated unpleasantly after all the fuss about the shilling. He had even quoted to himself somewhat testily something about "fugitive things not good to treasure"; but whether he referred to the nimbly disappearing shilling, or to the protestations of Grantly and Mary, was not clear. He generally solaced himself with Pater when perturbed, and he had nearly persuaded himself that he was once more nearly attuned to "perfect tone, fresh and serenely disposed of the Roman Gentleman," when Ger opened the door, and walked over towards him without shutting it—an unpardonable offence at any time.
"Gervais," exclaimed the squire, and his tone was the reverse of serene, "Why are you not in the schoolroom? What on earth do you want?"
Ger went back and shut the door carefully and quietly, and once more crossed the room till he stood directly in front of his father. The squire noted with a little pang of compunction how pale the child was. "What is it?" he said more gently.
"Father, I've come about that shilling. I took it."
"Youtook it," exclaimed the squire in amazement. "Why?"
Here was a poser. Ger was so absolutely unused to lying that he was quite unprepared for any such question as this, so he was silent.
"Why did you take it?" angrily reiterated his father. "And what have you done with it? Answer at once. You know perfectly well that it is a most shocking breach of good manners to ignore a question in this fashion."
"I took it," repeated Ger stupidly, his large grey eyes looking into space beyond his father.
"So I hear," said the squire, growing more and more annoyed. "But why did you take it? and where have you put it?"
"I can't tell you, father," said Ger firmly, and this time he met his father's eyes unflinchingly. To himself he said, "I won't tell more'nonelie for mother's sake."
The squire was dumfoundered by this obstinacy. It was unheard of—absolutely without parallel in his domestic annals—that one of his children should actually flout him! yes! actually flout him with such an answer as this.
"Go and stand over there in that corner," he thundered, "and you shan't move until you can answer my questions, if you stand there for the rest of the day. If you children have nothing else, I am determined that you shall have good manners."
* * * * * *
It was nearly five o'clock, and Ger still stood in the same corner of the study watching the last streak of red fade from the chill January sky. There was no sound in the room save only the soft "plop" of a cinder as it fell on to the tiled hearth. The fire had burned low, and he was very cold. Never in all his life had he gone without his dinner before, and although he was no longer hungry, everything seemed, as he said afterwards, "funny and misty."
The squire had fulfilled his threat. After sending the culprit away to wash his tear-stained face and hands, and to procure a clean handkerchief, he bade him return to stand in the same corner till he should arrive at a proper sense of the respect due to a parent. He had locked the door upon Ger when he went to lunch, and forbade any member of the family, including his wife, to hold any sort of communication with the culprit. Parker the fox-terrier, however, did not obey the squire, and remained in the study with Ger regardless of the fact that the servants' dinner bell had rung, which was also the signal for his own. And to Parker Ger confided the whole story, and very puzzled and unhappy it made him, for he ran between Ger and the door snuffing and whining till the squire came back and turned him out, when he remained upon the mat outside uneasily barking at intervals.
Mrs Ffolliot was almost beside herself with grief and consternation. It was such an inexplicable piece of obstinacy on Ger's part, and he was not usually obstinate.
Grantly and Mary, while relieved that they would still have the opportunity of wearing the dresses which had been the object of so much thought, were really concerned about Ger; it seemed so senseless of him, "why couldn't he say why he wanted the beastly shilling and have done with it?"
The squire himself was very seriously disturbed. He had stormed and raged, he had argued, he had even spoken very kindly and eloquently on the subject of dishonesty, and the necessity there was for full confession before forgiveness could be obtained (this last appeal sorely trying Ger's fortitude), but all to no avail. As the needle points ever to the north, so all the squire's exhortations ended with the same question, to be met with the same answer, growing fainter in tone as the hours wore on, but no less firm in substance. "I can't tell you, father."
Mr Ffolliot could no longer bear the little white-faced figure standing so silently in the corner of the room. He went forth and walked about the garden. He really was a much tried man just then. Only last night Buz, lying in wait for Reggie as he came to bed, had concealed himself in an angle of the staircase, and when his cousin, as he thought, reached his hiding-place, pounced out upon him, blowing out his lighted candle, and exclaiming in a sepulchral voice, "Out, out, damned candle!" (Buz was doingMacbethat school and had a genius for inept, and generally inaccurate quotation)—then flew up the dark staircase two steps at a time fully expecting hot pursuit, but none came. Dead silence, followed by explosive bursts of smothered laughter from Reggie and Grantly who had followed the squire upstairs. It did not comfort Mr Ffolliot at the present moment to reflect that Buz had had to write out the whole scene in which the "germ," as his father called it, of his misquotation occurred. At present his mind was full of Ger, and ever and anon like the refrain of a song, there thrust into his thoughts a sentence he had been reading when the little boy had interrupted him that morning, "and towards such a full and complete life, a life of various yet select sensation, the most direct and effective auxiliary must be, in a word, insight." "Could it be possible?" he asked himself, "that he was in some way lacking in this quality?"
He turned somewhat hastily and went back into the house. Once more Ger heard the key turn in the lock, and his father came in, followed by Fusby, bearing tea upon a tray.
The front door banged, and Ger's heart positively hammered against his ribs, for no one but Reggie ever dared to bang the Manor House front door. In another minute he had come in, and was standing on the hearth-rug beside Mr Ffolliot, bringing with him a savour of frosty freshness into the warm, still room.
"I got through sooner than I expected," said Reggie, in his big cheery voice, "and caught the two twenty-five, so I walked out. I've been to the stables to tell Heaven he needn't drive in for me after all. O tea! That's good,—where's Aunt Marjory? By the way, uncle, I owe you a shilling. A parcel came for me just as I was starting, and there was a shilling to pay on it. I had no change and was in a tearing hurry, so I took one I saw lying on your desk—hope it was all right."
There was a little soft thud in the far corner of the room, as Ger fell forward on his face, worn out by his long watch, and the rapture of this immense relief.
When things grew clear again the room was full of light and he was lying in his mother's arms. Reggie was kneeling beside him trying to force something in a spoon between his lips, something that smelt, so Ger said, "like a shop in Woolwich" and tasted very queer and hot.
"Lap it up, old chap," whispered Reggie, and Ger wondered why he seemed to have lost his voice. "There now, that's all right. You'll be as fit as possible directly," and Reggie scrambled up from his knees and bolted from the room.
Ger sat up and looked at his father who was standing beside him. The lamp shone full on the squire's face, and he, too, like Reggie, seemed to have got a cold in his eyes; but in spite of this peculiarity, there was that in their expression which told Ger that everything was all right again, and that in this instance absolution without confession had been fully and freely granted.
So Ger, from the safe shelter of his mother's arms, explained, "I couldn't tell more'n one lie because of mother, you know, and I thought he wanted it for debts or something. Is those sangwidges anchovy or jam, do you think?"