"Well, old fellow, I think you might."
It was Bobby Trench who spoke, in a voice of injured pleading.
Humphrey laughed. "My dear chap," he said, "I would, like a shot; but, to be perfectly honest with you, you haven't succeeded in commending yourself to the Governor, and, after all, it's his house and not mine."
They were driving to a meet of hounds. Humphrey had so far taken to heart his father's criticisms upon his metropolitan mode of life that he had let his flat for the winter and taken a hunting box in Northamptonshire, at which Bobby Trench was a frequent visitor. He was being asked by his friend to repeat the invitation he had given him some years before, to stay at Kencote for some country balls, and he was kindly but firmly resisting the request.
"I suppose you know what I want to go there for?"
"Well, I can form a rough guess. As far as I'm concerned, I should welcome the idea; but I won't disguise it from you that the Governor wouldn't."
"Well, hang it! I may have trod on his corns—though I certainly never meant to, and I like him and all that—but you can't say that I'm not all right. I'm an only son, and all that sort of thing. I don't see how he could expect to get anybody better."
"Do you really mean business, Bobby?"
"Yes, I do; if I can hit it off with her. She's bowled me over. She's as pretty as paint, and as bright and clever as they make 'em. Sweet-tempered and kind-hearted too; and I like that about a girl. She was as nice as possible to my old Governor; took a lot of trouble about him. He thinks the world of her. I tell you, he'd be as pleased as Punch."
"Have you said anything to him?"
"No, not yet. To tell you the truth—I'm a modest fellow, though I'm not always given the credit for it—I'm not in the least certain whether she'll see it in the same light as I do. I dare say that's what's brought it on, you know. They've been after me for years—it's only natural, I suppose—but what these old dowagers, and lots of the young women themselves too, don't seem to understand is that a man doesn'tlikebeing run after. It puts him off. That's human nature. Well, I needn't tellyouthat it's me that's got to do all the running this time; and it's a pleasant change. I suppose she's never said anything to you about me, has she?"
Humphrey laughed. He remembered a few of the things that Joan had said to him about his friend.
"She looks on you as a stupendous joke so far," he said. "Still, she's hardly more than a kid."
"Oh, I know. Tell you the truth, when I first felt myself drawn that way, I said, 'No, Robert. Plenty of time yet. If you feel the same in a couple of years' time, you can let yourself go.' But I don't know. Some other fellow might come along; and I'm not fool enough to think I've made such an impression that I can afford to keep away and let my hand play itself. No, what I want is to get my chance; I know now what I'm going to do with it, and I tell you I'm keener than I've ever been about anything in my life. Look here, Humphrey, you've got to get me down to Kencote somehow after Christmas. I never see her anywhere else. You ought not to keep those girls shut up as you do, you know."
"Ikeep them shut up! You talk as if I were the head of my respected family. Well, look here. If it has really gone as far as you say it has, you'd better write to the Governor. I tell you plainly, he doesn't think much ofyou; but he's an old friend of your father's, and he'd probably be no more averse to seeing one of his daughters marry a future peer than anybody else would. It wouldn't go all the way with him, but it would go some of the way."
"No, thanks. That's not my way of doing things. I want to be loved for myself. If he did take to the idea, it wouldn't do me any good to be shoved forward in that sort of light. Besides, to tell you the truth, I don't believe I should be half so keen if I was asked down with that idea."
"Oh, well!" said Humphrey with a spurt of offence. "If that's how you feel about it——! I don't care a damn about your peerage, and all that sort of thing; I was only thinking it might help you over a fence with the Governor. My young sister is good enough for any fellow."
"I know that. I should consider myself jolly lucky if she took me. You needn't get shirty. It's just because she is the girl I want that I'm not going to lose any of the fun of winning off my own bat."
"I'll see what I can do," said Humphrey, after further conversation. "But if you go to Rome you've got to do as Rome does. You know what my Governor is; and he's got a perfect right to run his own show as it suits him, and not as it suits other people. As far as I'm concerned, I've come to feel that Kencote is a precious sight nicer house to go to than a great many. It's different, and the others are all just the same. You've got to keep to the rules, but if you do you have a very good time. It's a pleasant rest."
"Oh, I know. I feel just the same as you about it. It reminds you of the days of your childhood, and your mother's knee, and all that sort of thing. Besides, they do you top-hole; I will say that. I'm old enough to appreciate it now; of course, five or six years ago I dare say I did think it a bit dull, and I may have shown it, though I never meant to rub your old Governor up the wrong way. Still, it will be quite different now. I'll teach in the Sunday school if he wants me to."
"If you go, you must observe strict punctuality as to meals, and you must do without games on Sunday, and bally-ragging generally. That's about all, and it isn't so very desperate."
"Not a bit; and with your sister there it will be like heaven. Oh, you've got to get me asked, Humphrey."
"I'll do what I can. By the by, don't say a word about the Amberley business at Kencote. He doesn't like that mentioned."
"Doesn't he? Righto! It was the way your young sister showed up in that that clinched it with me. She was topping. Looked as pretty as a picture, and never let them rattle her once. They took her off the moment she'd given her evidence, and I never got the chance of a word with her. I've actually never seen her since, and that's a couple of months ago now. Well, here we are. I'm going to enjoy myself to-day."
Humphrey used his own discretion as to disclosing something of the state of his friend's affections when he and Susan went down to Kencote for Christmas.
"Look here, father, I've got something rather interesting to tell you. Bobby Trench—oh, I know you don't like him, but you'll find him much improved—wants to pay his addresses to Joan."
"What!" The Squire's expression was a mixture of disgust and incredulity.
"It would be a very good match for her. They've been chasing him for years. He'll come in for all that money of Lady Sophia's, you know, as well as everything else."
"Oh, a good match!" exclaimed the Squire impatiently. "I wouldn't have him about the place if he was the heir to a dukedom. And Joan is hardly more than a child. Time enough for all that in three or four years. And when the time comes I hope it will bring somebody as unlike Master Trench as possible."
Humphrey was rather dashed at this reception of his news. He was not quite so unaffected by Bobby Trench's place in the world and his prospective wealth as he had declared himself to be. To see one of his sisters married thus had struck him more and more as being desirable, and he had thought that his father would take much the same view, after a first expression of surprise and independence.
"I know he annoyed you when he came here before," he said. "I told him that, and said I wasn't surprised at it."
"Well, I'm not sorry you told him that. I should have told him so myself pretty plainly if he hadn't been a guest in my house. What had he got to say to it?"
"He said he was sorry he had offended you. But it was a good many years ago, and he was a fool in those days."
"He's a fool now," said the Squire. "When he came over here last summer, and let us in for all that infernal annoyance, which I shan't forgive him readily, he was just as impudent and superior as ever. A young cub like that—not that he's so very young now, but he's a cub all the same—seems to think that because a man chooses to live on his own property, and do his duty by the country, every smart gad-about with a handle to his name has got a right to look down upon him. There were Clintons at Kencote whenhisparticular Trenches were pettifogging tradesmen in Yorkshire, and centuries before that. I don't deny that Sedbergh's title is a respectable one, as these things go nowadays, but to talk as if I ought to think myself honoured because a son of his wants to marry a daughter of mine is pure nonsense. Does Sedbergh know anything about this?"
"No. But Bobby says that he'll be as pleased as possible. He took a great fancy to Joan. He said she had been better brought up than any girl he knew."
"Yes, he told me that himself, and I dare say it's true. I've brought up my children to fear God and behave themselves properly. If he'd done the same, or his idiot of a wife, I don't know that I should have objected to the idea. But your 'Bobby' Trench isn't what his father was at his age, and not likely to be. I suppose he hasn't had the impudence to say anything to Joan yet?"
"Oh no. She doesn't know anything about it. In fact, he's not in the least sure about his chances with her. He only wants an opportunity of what I believe is called preferring his suit."
"Well, then, he won't get it. I don't care about the arrangement, and you can tell him so, if you like—from me."
With this the Squire strode out of the room, leaving Humphrey not so convinced that Bobby Trench would not be given his opportunity as might have seemed likely.
The Squire spoke to his wife about it. What nonsense was this about something between Joan and that young Trench? Surely a girl of Joan's age might be doing something better than giving encouragement to every crack-brained young fool to make free with her name! That's what came of letting her run about all over the place, and in all sorts of company, instead of keeping her quietly at home, as girls of that age ought to be kept. When the proper time came he should have no objection to seeing her suitably married. No doubt some nice young fellow would come forward, whom they could welcome into the family, just as Jim Graham had come forward for Cicely. In the meantime Joan had better be kept from making herself too cheap. She seemed to think she could do anything she liked, now that she had done with her governess. If he heard any more of it, the governess should come back, and Joan and Nancy should go into the school-room again.
Mrs. Clinton always had the advantage of time to think, when surprises of this sort were sprung upon her. When his speech came to an end she looked up at him and said, "I am sure that Joan has not done or said anything that you could blame her for, Edward. She does not like Mr. Trench. I do not like him either, and I know you don't. What is it you have heard?"
"Oh, I don't say that Joan is to blame. I don't know. No, I don't think she is. Sedbergh took to her, and said that she had been very well brought up. He told me that himself, and it is quite true. I've no fault to find with Joan in this respect. She and Nancy are good girls enough, though troublesome sometimes. They will grow out of that. She doesn't know anything about this, and I don't want it mentioned to her. Young Trench has been talking to Humphrey. He wants to come here and pay his addresses to Joan. That's what it comes to. I told Humphrey I wouldn't have it, and there's an end of it."
"I am glad of that, Edward. I don't think he would have any chance with Joan, and I should be sorry if it were otherwise."
"Well, as to that, Joan needn't be encouraged to think that she's got the whole world to pick and choose from. If this young Trench was the man his father was, it would be a very satisfactory arrangement. I don't deny that. He is the only son; and I shouldn't be entitled to expect a better marriage for a girl of mine, if position and money and all that sort of thing were everything."
"Oh, but they are not, are they?" said Mrs. Clinton. "They would not count at all if the man to whom they belonged were not what you could wish him to be."
"Well, I don't know that I should welcome a son-in-law who had no position and no money. I've a right to expect a daughter of mine to marry into the position in which she has been brought up. I wouldn't actually demand more than that. Cicely did it, and I was quite satisfied. Still, I shouldn't turn up my nose at a better match, and there's no doubt that this young Trench, if he were all right, would be an excellent match."
"But he is not, is he? You have always objected to him."
"I can't say I know anything actually against him. I certainly shouldn't want to see more of him than I could help for my own sake. What is ityouobject to in him?"
"Much the same as you do, Edward. I dislike the sort of life he and those about him live. It is a different sort of life from that which we have encouraged any of our children to look forward to. I should be sorry to see Joan thrown into it."
"Oh, thrown into it! Nobody is going to throw her into it. I have said quite plainly that I don't like the idea. I may be old-fashioned—I dare say I am—but I'm not the sort of man to lose my head with pride because the heir to a peerage wants to marry my daughter."
Mrs. Clinton looked down and said nothing, but her heart was rather heavy.
"Joan hasn't said anything about him, has she? Nothing to show that she is aware that he—what shall I say—admires her?"
"She has made fun of him constantly," said Mrs. Clinton. "I am glad that you have refused to have Mr. Trench here. If he came, and paid court to her, I cannot believe that she would have anything to say to him. Nothing would come of it, except irritation and annoyance to you, and pain to me, and very possibly to Joan."
The Squire left her and took his news to Dick. "Your mother has taken a strong prejudice against him," he said. "As far as I'm aware he has never done anything to deserve it, but women are like that. They take an idea into their heads and nothing will get it out."
"Well, you've never shown any strong partiality for him yourself, that I know of," said Dick. "I don't care much about him, but he's a harmless sort of idiot. I always thought you were a bit rough on him."
"Did you? Well, perhaps I am. I must say that he did annoy me infernally when he came here before, and if he comes here again it will be on the distinct understanding that he follows the rules of the house and behaves himself. Kencote isn't Brummels, and never will be as long as I'm alive. That has got to be made quite plain."
"Do you want him to marry Joan, then?"
"Want it? No, I don't want it. Why should I want anything of the sort? I'm not in the position of having to say 'thank you' to the first man who comes along and wants to marry one of my daughters. They'll marry well enough when the time comes. Still, this young fellow is the son of one of my oldest friends, and I've never heard that there's actually anything against him; have you?"
"No more than what's on the surface. If he married Joan, I shouldn't want to live hand in glove with him."
"You wouldn't object to the marriage if it came about?"
Dick did not reply at once.
"It would be a good enough match from the worldly point of view," said the Squire.
Dick looked up quickly. "I'm the wrong man to come to for that point of view," he said. "I didn't marry from it myself; nor did you."
The Squire digested this. "It's different for men," he said, with a shade of unwillingness. "You've got to take it into account with women."
"I'm not going to advise either one way or the other," said Dick. "If Joan likes that sort of fellow, she's welcome to him; if she doesn't, I shan't blame her."
"You think it's a matter for her to decide?"
"It isn't a matter for me to decide."
"She can't very well decide unless she sees him."
"Then let her see him, if you're satisfied with him yourself. He's not my fancy; but he may be hers, for all I can tell."
The Squire went back to his wife and told her that Dick didn't care for Bobby Trench any more than he did himself, but had never heard anything against him. He didn't see any reason against his seeing Joan. She could decide for herself. Nobody would bring any pressure to bear on her. That wasn't the way things were done in these days. But Lord Sedbergh was one of his oldest friends, and wouldn't like it if he heard that they had refused to have his son in the house. He shouldn't like it himself. Young Trench had better be asked to Kencote with the rest, for these balls that were coming on after Christmas. If he showed that he had anything in him, well and good. If not, he needn't be asked again, and no harm would be done.
"I will write to Mr. Trench," said Mrs. Clinton. "But I am sorry that you have decided to ask him here."
The Squire went away vaguely dissatisfied with himself, but took comfort in the thought that women didn't understand these things.
"My sweet old Joan, tell me all about it."
Joan buried her fair head in Virginia's skirts and burst into tears. She was sitting on the rug in front of the fire by Virginia's side, in the gloaming.
Virginia put her slim hand on to her shoulder, and caressed her lightly. "It's too bad," she said gently, with her soft, hardly distinguishable American intonation.
"I'm such a fool," said Joan. "I don't know what I want. I don't want anything."
She dried her eyes, but still kept her head on Virginia's knee, and put up her hand to give Virginia's a little squeeze. It was comforting to be with her, looking into the fire.
"It's about John Spence, isn't it, dear?" Virginia asked.
"I'm a fool," said Joan again. "I don't like him as much as I used to."
"Is that why you're a fool?" asked Virginia with a little laugh.
"No," said Joan seriously. "For caring about things changing, because one is grown up. I used to think it would be nothing but bliss to be grown up. Now I wish Nancy and I were little girls again. We used to be very happy together. We always talked about everything, it didn't matter what it was."
"And now you don't. You don't talk about John Spence."
Joan's tears flowed afresh. "I don't want to talk about it, Virginia," she said. "I am sure you would never understand what I feel. Whatever I said you would think I meant something else; and I don't a bit. I don't mind his liking Nancy best. I don't want him to like me more than he does."
"Oh, my darling girl! I think I understand it all better than you do yourself. You are unhappy, and you don't know why."
"Then tell me why."
"Well, to begin with, you are just a little jealous."
"Oh, Virginia! And you said you understood!"
"You are jealous, just as you would be if Dick were suddenly to show that he liked Nancy better than you."
"We used to have such fun together, all three of us. It never entered the heads of either of us to think which he liked the best. He liked us both just the same. Why couldn't it go on like that? I've done nothing. It was after I came back from that horrid Brummels. He didn't like my going there—not that it had anything to do with him. He was just like father about it, and tried to make out that it had altered me. It hadn't altered me at all. I was just the same as I had always been. It was he that had altered."
"Can't you see, little girl, that it couldn't always go on as it used to?"
"Why not?"
"How can a man fall in love with two girls at once? He must choose one of them, or neither."
"I didn't want him to fall in love with me," said Joan quickly. "I am not in love with him. That's why it's so difficult to say anything. If I'm unhappy, it looks as if I must be."
"Not to me, dearest Joan. But you can be jealous about people without being in love with them. You know, darling, I think John Spence was almost bound to fall in love with one of you almost directly you grew up. I should have been very much surprised if he hadn't. But I could never tell which it would be. It was just as it happened to turn out. He came here when you were away, and that just turned the scale. After that it couldn't possibly be as it had been before, when you were both children; not even if you had behaved well about it."
"What!" exclaimed Joan, sitting up sharply.
Virginia smiled, and drew her back to her. "You haven't been kind to Nancy, you know," she said.
Joan did not resist her, but said rather stiffly, "It's she who hasn't been kind to me."
"How?"
"She has said nothing to me. I don't know even what she thinks about it all. If you say I am jealous, that is what I am jealous about. I don't even know that heisin love with her; and if he is, whether she knows it. She actsexactlyas we always used to with him, and as I did, until I saw he didn't want me to."
"And then you became offended, and rather ostentatiously left them together whenever he came on the scene."
"Well, if he wanted Nancy, and didn't want me, I wasn't going to push myself forward."
"Poor John Spence!" said Virginia. "He is very disturbed about you. I think he is very much in love with Nancy. It has become plain even to my obtuse old Dick now. But he might so easily have been very much in love with you, instead, that it troubles his dear simple candid old soul to think you have so changed. As far as he is concerned, he would like nothing better than to be on the old terms with you. He wouldn't like you any the less because he likes Nancy more."
"It is Nancy I am thinking of," said Joan after a pause. "She always has been just a little hard, and she is hard without a doubt now. Fancy, Virginia—somebody being in love with her, and showing it, and her never saying one single word to me about it! Talking about anything else, but never about the only thing that she must be thinking about!"
"Don't you think she may be thinking you just a little hard? Fancy—somebody being in love with her, and showing it, and Joan not saying a word to her about it! Talking about anything else, but never the one thing!"
Joan put her handkerchief to her eyes. "If it hadn't begun as it did I should have done everything I could to please her," she said. "I should have been just as interested and perhaps excited about it, for her sake, as she could have been herself. She could have told me everything she was feeling, and now she tells me nothing. I suppose when he has proposed to her, if he does, she will tell me, just as she might tell me if anybody had asked her the time; and then she will ask me what I am going to wear. Oh, everything ought to be different between us just now."
"Yes, it ought," said Virginia. "Dear Joan, you and Nancy mustn't go on like this. I don't think Nancy is hard; I am sure she isn't in this case. She must be feeling it—not to be able to talk to you."
"If I thought that!"
"Darling, you know her so well—almost as well as you know yourself. Can't you see that it must be so? Can't you make it easy for her to talk to you? It would do away with your own unhappiness. It is that that you are really unhappy about. Life is changing all about you. You are a child no longer, and you have nothing to put in the place of what you are losing. You are feeling lonely, and out of it all. Isn't that it?"
"Yes, I suppose that is it. It used to be so jolly only a very short time ago—when Frank was home in the summer. Now Kencote doesn't seem like the same place. I should like to go away."
"You wouldn't feel the change so much if you and Nancy were what you have always been to each other. Joan dear, it is for you to take the first step. Show Nancy that you, of all people, are the most pleased at the happiness that is coming to her. I am quite sure she will respond."
Joan's tears came again. "I don't think she wants me now," she said. "She has somebody else, and I have nobody. At least, I have you—and mother. But Nancy and I have been almost like one person."
"She does want you, Joan. She must want you, just as much as you want her. But she won't say so unless you give her the chance."
"Dear old Nancy!" said Joan softly. "I have been rather a pig to her. But I won't be any more."
There was a long silence. Then Joan said, "There is something else, Virginia. Why has Bobby Trench been asked to come here to-morrow?"
Virginia laughed, after a momentary pause. "I expect he asked himself," she said. "Hasn't he shown himself to be a great admirer of yours, Joan?"
"Oh!" said Joan without a smile. "I have never shown myself to be a great admirer of his. Virginia, I can't understand it. I know mother wrote to him. I asked her why, and she said Humphrey had wanted him asked, and father had said that he might be. She didn't seem to want to talk about him, and I could see that she didn't like him, and was sorry to have to ask him. It is father I don't understand. He has almost foamed at the mouth whenever Bobby Trench's name has been mentioned, and you know what a frightful fuss he made when I went to Brummels, and when Bobby Trench came here about that Amberley affair. He said he shouldn't be let in if he came again."
"Well, my dear, you know what your father is. He could no more act inhospitably to anybody than——"
"Oh, Virginia, that's nonsense. He was quite rude to him when he came. Besides, it's a different thing altogether,askinghim to come. He needn't have done that. Why did he do it?"
"Isn't Lord Sedbergh an old friend of his?"
"Virginia, I believe you are in the conspiracy against me. IhateBobby Trench, and when he comes here I won't have a thing to say to him. If father wants him here, he can look after him himself. I couldn't believe it when it first came into my head; but father said something to me, after he had looked at me once or twice in an odd sort of way, almost as if I were a person he didn't know."
"What did he say to you?"
"Oh, something abouthim, I forget what now. And when I said what an idiot I thought he was, he was quite annoyed, and said I ought not to talk about people in that way. Howcanfather be so changeable? He treats us as if nobody had any sense but himself, and lays down the law; and then, even in a question in which you agree with him, you find that all his sound and fury means nothing at all, and he has turned completely round."
"Well, my dear, we are not all the same. Your father speaks very strongly whatever is in his mind at the moment, and if he has cause to change his mind he is just as strong on the other side. It was so with me, you know well enough. He wouldn't hear a word in my favour; and now he likes me almost as much as Dick does. You have to dig down deeper than his speech to find what is fixed in him."
"I don't believe that anything is fixed. Anyone would have said that he had arealdislike to Brummels, and all that goes with it. I am sure he made fuss enough when I went there, and has gone on making it ever since; and Bobby Trench summed it all up for him. He wouldn't have this and he wouldn't have that; and Kencote, and the way we live here, was the only sort of life that anybody ought to live. Oh,youknow it all by heart. And then, just as one is beginning to think there is something in it, and that wehavebeen very happy living quietly here, one finds thathe, of all people, wants something else."
"What does he want?"
"What does he want forme? Does he want Bobby Trench, Virginia? There! You don't say anything. Youarein the conspiracy. Iwon't. Nothing will make me."
"My dear child, there is no conspiracy. And if there were, I shouldn't be in it.Idon't want Bobby Trench for you; I want somebody much better. But I don't want anybody, yet awhile. I want to keep you."
"Doesn't mother want to keep me? Doesshewant Bobby Trench for me?"
"No, I am quite sure she doesn't."
"Then what is it all about? Oh, I am very unhappy, Virginia. I want to talk it all over with Nancy; but I can't now. It is just as if everything were falling away from me. Nobody cares. A little time ago I should have gone to mother if I had hurt my finger. I feel all alone. Why does father want to bring Bobby Trench worrying me, of all the people in the world?"
"Dearest Joan, you are making too much of it. You talk as if you were going to be forced into something you don't like."
"That is just what I feel is happening. It isn't like Kencote; not like anything I have known. Oh, I wish I were a little girl again."
"My dear, put it like this; somebody is bound to want you, sooner or later. I suppose somebody wants you now. He moves mountains to get at you, and find out whether you wanthim. You don't, and that is all there is to say about it."
"It might be," said Joan, "if it weren't that father is one of the mountains. He is one that is very easily shifted. Oh, I'm not a child any longer. I do know something about the world. I do know quite well that if he were not who he is, father would not have him near the place. Money and rank—those are what he really cares about, though he pretends to despise them—in anybody else. What is the good of belonging to an old and proud family, as we do, if you can't be just a little prouder than the rest?"
"Well, my dear, as a product of a country where those things don't count for much, I am bound to say that I think it isn't much good. People are what their characters and surroundings make them."
"Father wouldn't say that. He would say that blood counted for a lot. I am quite sure he would say that people like us had a finer sense of honour than people who are nobodies by birth. I don't think he comes out of the test very well. I think if anything were to happen to him where his birth and his position wouldn't help him, his honour wouldn't be finer than anybody else's. If he were to lose all his money, for instance—I think he would feel that more than anything in the world. He would be stripped of almost everything. No-one would know him."
"Oh, Joan darling, you mustn't say things like that. It isn't like you."
Poor Joan, her mind at unrest, her first glimpse of the world outside the sheltered garden of her childhood showing her only the chill loneliness of its battling crowds, was not in a mood to insist upon her discoveries.
"It does make me feel rather bitter," she said through her tears. "But I don't want to be."
As she and Nancy were dressing for dinner, she said lightly, but with a strained look in her eyes, "The conquering Bobby Trench will be here by this time to-morrow. Nancy, you are not to go leaving me alone with him."
Nancy looked up at her sharply, but her face was hidden, and she did not see the look in it, the look which hoped for a warm return to their old habit of discussing everything and everybody together.
"I suppose you would like me to take him off your hands so that you can devote yourself to John Spence?" she said.
If Joan was ready to mention names, she was ready too. Her meaning was not so unkind as her words; but how was Joan, ready to smart at a touch, to know that?
She could not speak for a moment. Then she said with a quiver, "I don't want to devote myself to him. He likes you best."
Nancy heard the quiver, and it moved her; but not enough to soothe the soreness she felt against Joan. Joan might be ready now, unwillingly, to accept the fact that John Spence liked Nancy best; but she had stood out against it for a long time, and had not taken the discovery in the way that Nancy was convinced she would have taken it herself, if Joan had been the preferred.
"If he does, it is your fault," she said. "I've not tried to make him. I have only been just the same as I always was; and you have been quite different."
There was nothing in this speech that would have struck Joan as unkind a few months before. But the tension was too great now to bear of the old outspokenness between them. How could Virginia say that Nancy wasn't hard? She only wanted to make friends, but Nancy wanted to quarrel. But she would not be hard in return.
"Perhaps I have been rather a pig," she said. "I haven't meant to be; and I shan't be any more."
Nancy was conquered. The tears came into her own eyes. All that Virginia said of her was true. She had been aching for the old intimacy with Joan, more than ever now that such wonderful things were happening to her, and she had to keep them uncomfortably locked up in her own breast.
But Nancy would never cry if she could possibly stop herself. It was a point of honour with her, which Joan, with whom tears came more readily, had always understood. If they were to get back on to the old ground, signs of emotion on Joan's part would properly be met by a dry carelessness on hers.
"Well, youhavebeen rather a pig," she said, ready to fall on Joan's neck, and give way to her own feelings without restraint, when the proprieties had once been observed. "But if you're not going to be any more, I'll forgive you."
Joan was too troubled to recognise this speech as a prelude to complete capitulation. She had gone as far as she could, and thought that Nancy was repulsing her. She now burst into open tears, into which wounded pride entered as much as wounded affection. "You're a beast," she cried, using the free language of their childhood. "I don't want you to forgive me. I've done nothing to be forgiven for. I only thought you might want to be friends again. But if you don't, I don't either. I shan't try again."
Nancy wavered for a moment. Then the memory of her own grievances rushed back upon her, and she shrugged her shoulders. "All right," she said. "If you're satisfied, I'm sure I am. I should have been quite ready to be friends, but it's impossible with you as you are now. I should leave off crying if I were you. You won't be fit to be seen."
Humphrey and Susan arrived at Kencote on a waft of good fortune. A widowed aunt of Susan's, a lady of unaccountable actions, from whom it had never been safe to expect anything, whether good or bad, had died and left her niece a "little place."
In the satisfaction induced by this acquisition, which seemed to endorse, almost supernaturally, his own oft-tendered advice, the Squire looked upon his daughter-in-law with new eyes. Her faults were forgotten; she was no longer, at best, a mere ornamental luxury of a wife, at worst a too expensive one; she had brought land into the family, or, at any rate—for there was very little land—property. She took her stand, in a small way, with those heiresses with whom the Clintons had from time to time allied themselves, not infrequently to the permanent enhancement of the rooted Kencote dignity, and occasionally to the swelling of one of the buds of the prolific Clinton tree into the proud state of a branch. This had happened, many generations before, in the case of the ancestor from whom Susan, a born Clinton, had herself sprung, and had helped to the nurture of that particular branch so effectively that its umbrage was more conspicuous than that of the parent stem itself.
What Susan now brought would hardly have that effect. Looked at rigorously in the mouth, her gift-horse might even have received a cool welcome in some stables. There was the house, situated on the borders of the New Forest, charmingly enough, photographed as a pleasant, two-storied, creeper-decked villa suitable for the occupation of a lady of high rank and not more than adequate means. And there were gardens, paddocks, and a few acres of half-tamed forest, not more than twenty or five and twenty in all. There were also the contents of the house, faded carpets, crowded knick-knacks, Berlin wool-work, theological library, crayon drawings, and all. But there was no money. That had been left to old servants, to "Societies," and to the support of otherwise homeless cats and dogs, whose sad friendless state this old lady had had much at heart.
"It will want a great deal of doing up," Lady Susan said. "The papers are too hideous for words, there's no sign of a bathroom, and the outbuildings are tumbling to pieces."
Nevertheless she seemed to be in high spirits over her legacy, and the Squire, shutting his eyes to the state of the wallpapers and the outbuildings, and remembering only the acreage, congratulated her, and himself, warmly on the heritage.
"My dear girl," he said, "it is a great piece of luck. Youarelucky, you know, you and Humphrey. He could never have expected the life interest of practically the whole of old Aunt Laura's money, and now this has come just to point out the way in which you ought to enjoy your good fortune. The place produces nothing—well, that can't be helped. At any rate you live rent free, with your foot on your own little piece of ground; and you throw over all that nonsense which by this time I should think you're getting heartily sick and tired of."
There was hint of interrogation in the tone of the last sentence, and it was responded to in a way to bring the Squire into still closer approving accord with his daughter-in-law.
"Oh yes. We are both tired of it. We are going to get rid of the flat directly Denny Croft is ready for us. I am going to turn into a regular countrywoman. I shall wear thick boots, and keep chickens. We are going to economise too. We shall only keep three horses and a pony. And Humphrey says he shall drink a great deal of beer. We are going to like ourselves tremendously in the country."
The Squire told Mrs. Clinton that nothing had pleased him better for a long time than the way Susan was taking up with the idea of country life. "It is the best thing in the world," he said. "It has made a different woman of her already. She is brighter and steadier at the same time. It proves what I have always said, that that London life, if you go on living it year after year, is simply another name for boredom. Who would have thought a year or two ago that Susan would have been satisfied with anything else? Yet here she is, overjoyed at the idea of escaping from it. Nina, I can't help thinking that the finger of Providence is to be seen here. The property is nothing much, after all—just a little bit of land to give them a hold on things. But if it hadn't come, I doubt if they would have made the change. I think we ought to be very thankful that things are ordered for us in the way they are."
Humphrey, accepting Dick's congratulations on Susan's legacy, expressed himself moderately satisfied. "It's not going to make millionaires of us," he said. "In fact, it will be a pretty tight squeeze to get the place made habitable. The old lady might have left something to go with it, instead of muddling away everything quite uselessly as she did. It would have made all the difference to us. Still, it has shoved us into making the change, and I'm glad of it."
"I should think you would be able to amuse yourself there all right," said Dick. "You'll save three hundred a year over your rent, for one thing. But I don't know—if you get into the way of going up to London constantly, you'll soon mop that up."
"Oh, I know. I'm not going to. I don't say we're going to bury ourselves there entirely, but we shall stick to it pretty well. And when we do go up to town we can put up with Susan's people, or somewhere."
"Yes. If you'll take a word of warning, it's quite possible you may find it a bit slow after the novelty has worn off. I don't myself, because I've got what amounts to a job here. But you won't have; and you were always keener on town pleasures than I was. You'll have to watch it a bit after the first month or two."
"Oh, my dear fellow, I've got all that in my mind. One has to do one or the other; one can't do both; or, at least, most of us can't. I tell you, I've had a sickener of the other. It isn't good enough. This will be a change, and I want a change."
More seemed to be coming, and Dick waited for it to come, after saying rather perfunctorily, "Susan seems to like the idea too."
"I'm glad to say she does," said Humphrey; "more than I should have thought she would. Of course, she's excited at having the place left to her, and she's going to have no end of fun over rigging it up. I shall have to be careful how I go, there. It's a new toy; and my experience is that new toys are apt to run you into a lot of money. Still, I've warned her about that, and told her that when we go to Denny Croft we stop there; and she says she doesn't want anything better. I tell you, it's a weight off my mind to find her ready to take a sensible view of things."
Still Dick waited for more.
"Weoughtto have been able to do all right," said Humphrey, after a slight pause. "I don't like giving up London, and that's a fact. I can amuse myself in the country all right, couldn't do without it altogether—I'm not a born townsman, like some fellows—but I prefer it to go to, not to live in. But I'm ready to do anything and go anywhere, to get rid of the beastly burden of things. That's why I welcome the change."
"You won't find it such an unpleasant change."
"As things are, it will be the greatest relief. And yet other people manage to get on, and do everything we have done, on less than we have."
"Well, you've neither of you got what you might call a passion for economy."
"I believe I'm getting it," said Humphrey with a laugh. "I've begun to keep accounts. When I looked into things a year or two ago, and the Governor squared us up, I told Susan that it mustn't happen again. I made estimates and got her to agree with them."
"It is the only way, if you want to know what you're spending. I do it as a matter of principle. Besides, you get more for your money. The difficulty is to keep to your estimates, I suppose, if you've been spending too much."
"I've kept to mine—the personal ones, I mean. But I don't know how it is—Susan doesn't seem to be able to."
"Well, then, you've got to make her," said Dick firmly. He had no love for his sister-in-law, and was prepared to resist on his father's behalf the further demands which he thought he saw coming. "After all, it's mostly your money, and it's for you to say how it shall be spent."
Humphrey, understanding quite well the source of this decisive speech, flushed. "I'm not in debt," he said shortly.
"Oh!" Dick was rather taken aback.
"I suppose when you've once played the fool, everybody you talk to about money thinks you must be trying to get something out of them. I believe the Governor has an idea in his head that I'm coming to him shortly with another tale of woe. If you get an opportunity, you might disabuse his mind of it. I don't say I don't owe a bill or two, but they are nothing to count."
"I'm sorry if I misunderstood you. I've had some experience of keeping within limits, and if I can lend you a hand over getting your house put into order without wasting money, I shall be glad to do so. In fact, if you want a hundred or two towards it, I dare say I can manage to let you have it. Pleased to."
"Thanks, Dick, it's awfully good of you." Humphrey was moved by this offer. Dick was generous with money, but knew its value. An offer of this sort from him meant more than was betokened by the matter-of-fact tone in which it was made. "As a loan, it might help me over a corner, for I've nothing in hand. But I shall keep things down for a year or two, and take the cost of doing up the place into account."
"Right you are, old chap. We'll go into it, and I'll let you know what I can do."
"Thanks. It will make things a good deal easier. I'm a reformed character. I hate not seeing my way, now."
The phrase struck Dick agreeably. It was what, with his cool robust sense, he regarded as the one thing necessary, if life was to be ordered on a satisfactory basis. He would have had no anxiety about money if his own income had been cut down to a pittance. He would have done without anything rather than forestall it by a week. He had expressed himself freely about Humphrey's insane blindness, as it seemed to him, in this respect; but now he seemed to have learnt his lesson, and Dick's feelings warmed towards him.
"How has it gone wrong?" he asked, with more interest than he had shown hitherto.
"It hasn't gone particularly wrong, lately. But we never seem to have a bob in hand; and it has meant doing without every sort of thing that one used to have as a matter of course."
"Oh, come now! Only the two of you! You ought not to have to go without much."
"I can only tell you that I've come to thinking twice before I take a taxi, and I've given up smoking cigars. It has to begin somewhere; but nothing seems to make any difference. Susan's housekeeping! But what can I do? I put it at so much; I asked people about it, and they said it was ample. But she seems to want double as much as anybody else for whatever she does. She says itmustcost more because we chucked dining at restaurants, except occasionally. I don't know what it is. Money simply flows away in London, and you get nothing for it. I chucked a couple of clubs at the beginning of this year. Seems to me I've got to chuck everything if I'm to keep straight. And that's just what I'm going to do. It's been easier since we went up to Northamptonshire, although even there you'd think we inhabited a mansion by the housekeeping bills, instead of a little dog's hole of a place just big enough to hold us. Still, the main expense there is outside, and I've got that in hand."
"She must spend a tremendous lot on clothes."
"Well, to do her justice, she's clever at that, and I haven't had any trouble with her beastly dressmakers and milliners since that time two years ago. They were the devil then, of course. She has got hold of some cheap woman who turns her out extraordinarily well for very little. I wish she'd tackle other things as she does that. No, I'm not going to put all the blame on Susan. I really believe she's doing her best; but she doesn't seem to have it in her, except about her clothes. Anyhow, she's ready to do anything, and it shows that she's as worried about what has gone on, in her way, as I am, that she's so keen to go and live at Denny Croft. She's going to garden, and all the rest of it, and she swears she'll keep to half her dress allowance and put the rest into doing up the house."
"That's the way to go about it," said Dick. "She certainly does seem much keener on it than I should have thought she would have been. Virginia says so too. Let's hope it will last."
"It's going to," said Humphrey. "I'll see to that."
Dick told Virginia something of the conversation between himself and Humphrey, and what he had offered to do for him.
"Oh, Dick!" she cried, "make him a present of it. You must have lots laid by. We haven't been spending nearly up to our income."
"It's what I meant," he said, smiling at her quick generosity. "But I don't think I will—not until later."
"Oh, why not? I can spare it, if you can't."
"I can spare it. But it won't do him any harm to save a bit. When he offers to pay me back, I shall tell him he can keep it. Go a bust with it, if he likes. He's tackling the situation well. I'm pleased about it. He does like his London pleasures, and he's quite ready to give them up."
"So is Susan, isn't she? She seems a different creature. As if a load were lifted off her mind."
"I'm not so sure about Susan. My idea is that Humphrey will have to keep her to it. It will give him something to do. The trouble with him is that he has always been at a loose end. All the rest of us have got our jobs. It will be his job to keep his expenditure down, and look after Susan. I've always thought she was a rotter, and I don't trust her simply because, as Humphrey says himself, she's got a new toy to play with."
"Oh, I think she means it. I like her better than I did. She sees her faults. Nobody who can do that is worthless. I'm sure she is not worthless."
Dick pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger. He was still in love with this slim sweet candid creature, whose great eyes were lustrous with the flame of her eager spirit. "Nobody is worthless in your eyes," he said. "You could even find excuses for Rachel Amberley."
A shadow fell across her bright face. "Poor woman!" she said. "Oh, poor, poor woman! Here we are, all of us together, happy at Christmas-time; and she——! Oh, Dick—'for all prisoners and captives'! I thought of her in church this morning. The loneliness—the cold! I think we ought to pray to be forgiven, as well as she."
Dick kissed her gently. "You don't want to think too much about her," he said. "She's paying the price."
"This is where we are going to shoot to-morrow. We've kept this side entirely until now. We ought to do pretty well."
Bobby Trench, muffled up to the cigar he was smoking, sat by the side of Dick, who was driving the big omnibus back from the West Meadshire Hunt Ball. The two fine horses, making nothing of the load behind them, trotted rhythmically homewards. Heavy rain had ceased, and the moon peeping through scudding clouds shone on pools of water lying on the muddy road. The yellow lamp-rays tinged the wide strips of turf bordering the roadway, and lit up successive tree trunks, posted sentinel-like, behind the oak fences.
Bobby Trench had chosen to sit outside, with Dick and Frank. His evening had been disappointing. He had arrived at Kencote in time for dinner, prepared to make himself pleasant all round, which he seemed to have succeeded in doing to everybody except Joan, who had held somewhat coldly aloof, although he had kept strictly to his predetermined plan of treating her with cool friendliness until the ball should give him opportunities of carefully graded tenderness. But the ball had given him no opportunities, or none that Joan would allow him to take advantage of. She had snubbed him, had shown herself, indeed, determined to find occasions for snubbing him; for he was agile in skipping out of the way of such occasions, but she had pursued his skippings and dealt her strokes in spite of them. She had primly refused him more than two dances, and had refused to go in to supper with him. His anticipated pleasure having thus resolved itself into puzzled pain, Bobby Trench had declared himself for tobacco and the night air, and left Joan to her reflections inside, barbing them, as he handed her in, with a careless example of his own peculiar humour, which was founded on the basis of a cheery and always ready loquacity.
Snubs, or attempted snubs, received with no diminution of self-assurance or good-temper, at both of which they may be supposed to be aimed, are apt to recoil on those who administer them; and Joan, taking refuge between the comforting skirts of Virginia and Miss Dexter, was already reproaching herself for her treatment of one who had given her no cause for it except his presence, and whose persistent cheerfulness under persecution was a shining lesson to ill-temper. She was feeling miserable enough, in all conscience, and need not have beaten down the last sparks of enjoyment that she might have gained from the bright movement, hitherto eagerly anticipated, by setting herself to a task so little productive of satisfaction.
But she did not occupy her thoughts for long with Bobby Trench. She made up her mind that, having shown him that particular attention from him would not be welcome, she might safely return to the chaffing intimacy which had hitherto been the note of their intercourse, and had been quite as efficacious in keeping him at the requisite distance as her recent manner. And having so decided she dismissed him from her mind and wrapped herself round with her unhappiness.
It was dreadful to be going home from a ball, not only with no retrospective pleasure, but with nothing to look forward to in the way of disrobing talk. She and Nancy, since her wrecked attempt at reconciliation, had carried their respective heads in the air, and had hardly spoken to one another, except in the presence of their handmaid, for the purpose of averting comment. And yet she knew that Nancy's happy fate was marching upon her, and reproached herself a thousand times for her inability to cross the gulf between them, and share her sister's doubts and sweet tremors. John Spence had danced with her three times—many times with Nancy—and his manner had been brotherly-kind and protecting, as if to soothe her soreness, which yet he did not seem to have divined. His thoughts had not been much with her, that had been plain—but his quietness and simplicity had comforted her a little, and she had not wanted to talk. She had taken refuge in a plea of headache, and held to it on the homeward drive.
Nobody seemed to want to talk. Something had gone wrong with the lamp inside the carriage, and they were in darkness, except for the faint irradiation of the moon. Mrs. Clinton had driven home earlier, with Sir George and Lady Senhouse and Muriel Clinton, Walter's wife. In the absence of Bobby Trench, the eight of them inside the omnibus were of such family intimacy that there was no necessity for conversation, if private thoughts sufficed, or snatches of slumber. John Spence, the one exception, had no great initiative in conversation at any time, and in the far corner beside Nancy much preferred the silent, ruminative progression through the dark country roads and lanes. Greatly daring, he advanced his large muscular hand under the warm fur billowing down the carriage, and sought for Nancy's. He found it and gave it a squeeze. She returned the squeeze and withdrew her hand. A year before, such a sign of appreciative affection might very well have come from her—or from Joan—instead of from him. Perhaps her ready acceptance of it might mean no more than that her affectionate appreciation was still of the same quality. But the chance of its meaning something more thrilled his big frame, and on it his thoughts fed sweetly in the dark silence.
Virginia was right. He was head over ears in love with Nancy, but he shrank from telling her so. He was years older than she, almost as old as Dick, almost an old bachelor, except that at heart he had kept his simple youthfulness; and his great body, hardened and kept fine by field-sports, was still as responsive to his mind as that of a youth in his glorious twenties. But modesty was a great part of him, and he could not envisage himself as a man likely to gain prizes usually reserved for gallant youth. The fresh, laughing friendliness of the twins, when he had first known them as girls of fifteen, had attracted him delightfully, and he had been surprised to find that the attraction had changed its quality; also, at first, a little incredulous. It was only when he discovered that he thrilled to Nancy's touch and voice, and not to Joan's, that he accepted his fate; and, ever since, he had been tormented with doubts as to whether an avowal of his new feeling would bring him a response, or only destroy the frank confidence with which he still loved to be treated. The poor man sometimes imagined Nancy regarding him in the light of a fun-producing uncle, and felt that it would be sacrilege to her innocence to reveal himself as a lover. If he risked all, he might lose all, and be for ever disgraced in her eyes. He trembled, in his more darksome moods, at the thought. But love was urging him on. The time would soon come when the avuncular character would be more difficult to support than that of a rejected absentee.
Dick pulled up his horses at a gate opening on to a broad grass ride between the trees. A groom got down from behind and opened it.
"We cut off nearly a mile and a half here," Dick said. "But I'm afraid it will be rather soft going after this rain. We'll chance it. There's only one place where we might get stuck."
The horses broke gently into a slow trot, their hoofs and the iron-shod wheels of the heavy carriage making no sound on the thick grass. They went down a long and very easy slope, and then Dick pulled them to a walk through soft ground in the cup of the almost indistinguishable hollow. With a tightening of traces and no more than the stroke of a whip-lash they pulled the omnibus through, leaving sharp ruts behind it, and were once more on springy turf. Just as they were about to quicken into a trot again, Bobby Trench seized Dick's arm. "What's that!" he cried. "Did you hear it?"
"Somebody shouted," said Frank, standing up behind them; and had no sooner spoken when the silence of the woods was sharply broken by a gun-shot.
"Poachers, by Jove!" said Dick. "We shall catch them." He drove quickly on towards the point from which the report had come.
Suddenly there were shouts of men, and another report from a gun; then more shouting, and the cracking of trampled twigs quite near to them.
"The keepers are out. Good boys!" cried Dick, in excitement, reining in his horses.
Frank and Bobby Trench were down and off into the covert. Humphrey, who had been sitting next to the door, had followed them. Dick was for doing the same, but paused irresolute when he had called a groom to take the reins, and swung himself down from his seat. There was a commotion inside the omnibus. The women must be thought of.
Walter stood at the door, calming them. John Spence was on his feet ready to push out, but Nancy had hold of his hand, and Susan Clinton was clinging to him terrified. "All right, I'll stay, but I must get out," he said, torn between his desire to be in the fray, and the appeal, not of Susan's frightened cries, but of Nancy's silent call for protection.
"If you two will stay here, I'll go and see what's happening," said Dick. "It's all right, Virginia; there can't be many of them, and the men are there."
Another shot rang out above the sounds, hard by, of an angry struggle, and was followed by a cry of pain. Dick began to run towards the sound.
The moon now shining brightly made his progress easy. He saw three or four men, locked in a fierce struggle, and thought he recognised Frank as one of them. Then a cry to his right brought him round to see another group in combat. Someone was lying prone on the grass. A few yards from the still figure two others were reeling to and fro, and as he approached went down. The one underneath was wrapped in a long coat, the uppermost was unhampered, a giant figure of a man as he seemed, with a gun in his hands, on the barrels of which a shaft of moonlight glinted. He looked to be striking at the head of the other figure, and a cry for help rose up, urgently.
Dick sprang forward, but caught his foot on a root and fell. As he picked himself up, another figure ran past him with a raised cudgel.
"All right, sir, coming!"
The thick stick went down resoundingly on the ruffian's head, who let go of the gun-barrels, and turned with his arm raised to guard himself.
Dick had him by the neck, and was screwing his knuckles into the throat. He gulped, put hands like vices on to his sleeves, and kicked with a great iron-shod boot. Dick felt his shin peel through his thin trousers, but no pain. In a moment the keeper had thrown himself on to him, he ceased to struggle, and, Dick's fists relaxing their hold, choked out submission. "All right, you got me. You can give over now."
Humphrey rose from the ground, white and shaking, the blood trickling from a wound over his eyebrow. "The brute!" he said. "He'd have killed me. Lucky you came along. Where's Bobby?"
Bobby Trench lay on the dark ground, motionless, his arm stretched at a peculiar angle. As they bent over him, he fluttered an eyelid, then opened both. "Winged me," he said in a faint voice. "Ugh!" Then fainted again.
"He shot at him," said Humphrey. "I was just behind. He got it in the shoulder. Look here; all torn; he'll bleed to death."
Dick set up a shout. The wood was still now of the louder clamour. The mimic battle was over.
Gotch, the keeper, had secured their captive with a rope. He took it calmly; even good-humouredly. "'Aven't done for 'im, 'ave I, Governor?" he called out.
"Hold your tongue, you swine!" said Gotch, hitting him on the mouth, at which he expostulated mildly, as at an unreasonable act. "All right, mate; you got me. It's a lifer if I done for him. I on'y wanted to know."
Bobby Trench, lying in bed, the seams of his pyjama jacket cut and ribboned at the left arm and shoulder to accommodate the bandages, was an interesting figure. He had gone through his time of fever and fiery pain, his probings and dressings; now, but for occasional discomfort, and a languorous but convalescent weakness, he was himself again, and prepared to take up his affairs at the point at which they had been interrupted by what had befallen him.
The nurse, moving capably about the large, airy, chintz-bedecked room, in her trim livery, was besieged for news of the household. Tall, handsome, and still young, she was on very good terms with her patient. Regarded as a "case," he did her credit; and she couldn't help liking him, as she wrote to her relations.
"Look here, Sarah Gamp, you're a deceitful woman. You're keeping them all away from me; you know you are. I'm as fit as a fiddle, or shall be in about five minutes; and I want to see company."
The nurse permitted herself a smile. "You're to be kept quiet for a day or two. Doctor's orders."
"Doctor's orders! Walter Clinton! What sort of a Bob Sawyer is he, to give orders? You know much more about things than he does, don't you now? You want to keep me to yourself, that's what it is."
"Indeed, you're very ungrateful. Dr. Clinton is a rising man in the profession. There isn't a doctor in London could have done better for you."
"You think so, Mrs. Gamp?"
"Yes, I do. It was lucky for you that he was there when you were shot."
"Yes, that was a piece of luck, wasn't it? He had a busy night of it. I say, who has been asking for me?"
"Oh, everybody, of course. You will have plenty of visitors when you are well enough to receive them."
"I'm well enough now. You're trying to keep me to yourself, Sarah. There's a sort of fatal fascination about me that no good-looking woman can resist? I say, do the doctors make love to you in the hospital?"
"I think you are getting light-headed. You have talked quite enough for the present. Would you like some jelly?"
"I should like some strawberries and cream and a pint of champagne. Look here, tell me about the doctors. Are there any good-looking fellows amongst them?"
The conversation was interrupted at this point by the arrival of Walter Clinton, whose knickerbockered homespuns only served to heighten the effect of his cool professional manner.
"Well, nurse, how's your patient?"
"Going on well, doctor; but you must please tell him that he must keep quiet for the present. He wants to see everybody in the house."
Walter took his seat by the bed and felt his patient's pulse. "You can see people to-morrow," he said, as he pocketed his watch. "You're doing all right. Better have one more day to yourself, though. You've had a narrow squeak."
"I know. Mrs. Gamp says that if it hadn't been for you, I should have snuffed out. She revels in gore. I don't think she's the woman for her job."
"Don't you believe what he says, doctor. He's full of his nonsense."
"How's Humphrey?" asked Bobby.
"Oh, he's all right. He got off with a scalp wound. Poor old Dick had his shin laid bare. I've got him on my hands. But we're well out of it. That was a brute of a fellow. And there were two others; tough customers, all of them. If we hadn't come along they might have got the better of our fellows. They've quodded them. The Governor went over to Petty Sessions to-day. By the by, he'd like to see you when you're ready."
"I'm ready now. Ask him to step up."
"To-morrow—if you get a good night."
"What are they all doing downstairs?"
"Slacking, and playing with my kiddies. They all sent messages to you."
"They must have got a pretty good shock. You turned them out of the bus, didn't you? I don't remember much of what happened."
"Yes, but I'd sent one of the grooms on to get some more carriages. They didn't have to wait long. They're all right. Joan got a bit of a chill, and is seedy."
"I suppose she was—upset about it all? Pretty funking to see a fellow brought along in the state I was in!"
"Oh, they all took it very well. Susan was the worst, but of course Humphrey looked worse than he really was—luckily."
Bobby Trench, an incurable optimist, allowed himself the solace of imagining that Joan's indisposition had been brought on by her agitation on his account, which it well might have been without undue partiality on her part. For after waiting for minutes that had seemed like hours, while the fight was going on in the wood, and being forsaken by Walter, who had left them in answer to Dick's shouts for help, they had been turned out of the omnibus, so that the bleeding, senseless figure of Bobby Trench might be laid there for Walter to examine and bind up. Humphrey had also needed attention, and Susan had been frightened almost into hysterics by his appearance. They had walked for half a mile in satin shoes, mostly over grass wringing wet, until the carriages from Kencote had picked them up; and after the fatigue of the ball and in her state of low spirits, it was small wonder that Joan should have succumbed to her experiences.
But her indisposition had caused some lessening of the tension between herself and Nancy, who, possibly supported by the tender attentions of John Spence, had escaped all ill effect from the excitements of the night. Their differences were ignored. There had been no real reconciliation, but the events in which they had participated had formed a skin over the wounds that each had dealt the other, and they could behave with some approach to former freedom.
Bobby Trench's first unofficial visitor was the Squire, as was only fitting. Mrs. Clinton had been with him constantly until the arrival of the nurse, but he had then been delirious, and had not known her, and she had not entered his room since.
The Squire came in, bringing with him a breath of the now frosty outer air, but treading Agag-like on complimentary slippers.
"Well, sir," was his hearty greeting, tuned to suitable lowness of pitch, "this is a pretty business to have brought you into! Lucky it wasn't worse, eh? I told them on the Bench to-day that you were the first in the field. There were many enquiries after you; and we've got those blackguards safely by the leg. You've got everything you want, I hope. Nurse looking after you well?"
"You wouldn't think it to look at her, but she's a bully, Mr. Clinton. If you get ill you send for somebody else."
The Squire, after a glance at the nurse's demurely smiling face, checked a laugh at the witticism. "Keep up your spirits," he said. "That's capital. You'll soon be out of the wood if you take it cheerfully. We shall make a lot of you when you come downstairs. You did well; and I've written to tell your father so."
Bobby Trench felt that a few torn muscles and splintered bones were a small price to pay for this approving geniality. On his arrival, the Squire seemed to have swung back from the acquiescent mood in which he had caused his former aversion to be invited to Kencote, and had greeted him with a manner not much more conciliatory than he had previously shown him. Bobby Trench, on reflection, had attributed his invitation to Humphrey's having imparted as much of his confidence as would secure it; and, in view of his acknowledged eligibility, had expected a rather warmer welcome than he had received, either from his host or hostess. It had seemed to him that he would have other obstacles to surmount, in order to win Joan, than those which she might be inclined to put between herself and him of her own accord. It was therefore gratifying to find the face of his host thus turned towards him, and would have been worth a substantial reduction in the sentence to be presently passed upon his assailant, if he had had the computing of his punishment.