"And I give you great honour too, Edward. You have taken the burden and the shame on yourself when a word would have removed it."
"Not only on myself, Nina. You share it. We all share it; our poor little Joan more heavily than any of us."
"I cannot but think that Joan will win her happiness in time. He would not be what he is if he allowed this to keep him from her. The talk will die down. No one will blame her—can blame her—even now, when it is at its loudest. We must wait in patience for what will come. Dear Joan will be all the happier when her trial is over, and the stronger. She is bearing it bravely. I am proud of my girl."
The Squire lay for a long time silent. Then he said, "Well, we have thought it out together, my dear. I can face what must come now. We face it together. We live on quietly here, as we have always lived. I ask no one, from now, to stand and deliver. I do my duty amongst my neighbours, and those dependent on me, and they think of me what they please. You who know me, love and trust me, and that shall be enough. We have our quiet home, and our children, and their children, and the friends who have stood by us. And we have our religion—our God, Who has helped us, and will help us. We have our burden too, but He will make it light for us. I feel at peace about it now, Nina—almost happy. I think I shall sleep to-night. Good night, Nina. God bless you. May God bless you, my dear wife!"
The Squire had slept late. Mrs. Clinton had stood by his bed when the breakfast gong had sounded, and looked down upon his face, older without a doubt than it had been a month before, more lined and furrowed, less firm of flesh, less ruddy of skin, but peaceful now, in its deep slumber. She had touched with her hand, lightly and tenderly, his grey head, and then gone downstairs to take the place which he had so seldom missed taking during all the years of their married life.
He got up at once when he awoke, shocked at finding himself so late. The horses had gone back to the stables when he went into his dressing-room, but he stood for a moment or two looking out over the park, and then opened the window. Unconsciously he was taking stock of his surroundings once more, breathing in with the mild autumn air that sense both of space and retirement which was the note of his much-loved home. It was his once more, to enjoy and to take pride in. Lately it had seemed not to be his at all.
Mrs. Clinton sat with him over his late breakfast. He had hardly begun it when Dick came in.
"Well, my boy," said the Squire cheerfully. "Sorry I couldn't see you last night. I was done up. I'm all right now, ready for anything. Your dear mother and I have talked it all over. There's nothing to be done but bide our time. It will pass over."
There was a distinct change in his attitude towards his eldest son. He was accustomed to greet his other sons with that fatherly, "Well, my boy!" but not Dick. Dick had the master-head. He never presumed on it to set up authority where it would be hurtful to his father's self-complacency, but he was accustomed to rule, none the less, and the Squire to rely on him to decide in every difficulty. But now he had decided for himself. Dick was his much-admired and trusted son, but not, in this matter, his director, nor even his adviser.
"He got the better of you, I suppose," said Dick, seating himself at the table.
"I suppose he did. I don't know. Is that how you would put it, Nina?"
"Your father saw," said Mrs. Clinton, "when it came to the point, that it meant, if he was to clear himself, he must heap all the blame upon Susan, and in a lesser degree on Humphrey. If he had done that he must have satisfied Lord Cheviot. But he would not do it."
"Rather rough on Joan," said Dick with a slight frown.
"I have told Joan everything," said Mrs. Clinton, "and she sees it as we do. She is content to wait."
"Read that," said the Squire, taking the fateful letter from his pocket. "That is what we have to face. I didn't see my way to deny it, so I left his Lordship to attend to the affairs of the nation."
"But it isn't true!" said Dick, when he had read it. "It looks like the truth, but it isn't. You could have denied every word of it, except the first statement—about Susan."
The Squire looked at his wife with a smile. "Dick sees it at once," he said. "It took you and me half the night to get at it, Nina; and I should never have got at it by myself. Well, it isn't true, Dick, as far as it puts blame on me which I don't deserve. But it's true about Susan. I couldn't tell him the story; so I came away."
"And he will tell Inverell that he showed you this letter and you could make no reply to it."
"Yes, I suppose so."
Dick looked deeply disturbed. "I wish I had been there," he said.
"If you had been there, Dick," said Mrs. Clinton, "I think you would have done just the same as your father did. Have you ever faced the necessity of bringing the charge against Susan with your own lips? I don't think you could do it, if it came to the point."
Dick rose and went to the window. "We could not deny it if they brought us to the point," he said. "No; but that is different."
He thought for a moment, swinging the tassel of the blind. "It seems to me," he said, "to have come to the point where Humphrey ought to speak—ought to be sent for.Wecan't do it. No; perhaps you are right; until we are pushed to a point where we shall have to do it. But he could; and it ought to be done. Why should father be made to suffer these indignities? Why should poor little Joan lose her happiness in this way? I'm not sure that it isn't our duty to speak out, even now, however much we should dislike having to."
"I can't see it in that way, Dick," said the Squire. "As I said to you once before, Susan was one of us. We should have had to share her disgrace, as a family, if she had been alive; and a very terrible disgrace it would have been, though we might have been shown to be free of blame ourselves. We can't cut ourselves off from her now she is dead. To put it on the lowest ground, it wouldn't do us any good. Nobody would respect us more for it. They would say that we could keep silence about it to save our own skins, but put it all on to her directly it became known. I wouldn't mind what they said, if I didn't feel the same myself. I am not going to mind for the future what anybody says. Let them say what they like. We know that we have done nothing wrong—or very little—and that must be enough for us."
Dick returned to the letter in his hand. "They want us to go for them," he said. "Cheviot must have seen that."
"He did," said the Squire. "I told him I should consider what was to be done."
"Have you considered it?" Dick looked at him as if ready to hear a decision, not to advise on one.
"Your mother and I think we had better take no steps, for the reason I have already given."
"It's plain enough what it means," said Dick. "They want the story out. They think they will gain, even though it also comes out that she asked you for money. We put too much faith in that weapon. She would give the same reasons that she gave to you. They would sound plausible enough. They have chosen their ground well. I thought they would have spread lies, which we couldn't have proved to be lies, without taking action. I've no doubt that Colne thinks this is the truth, and finds it serves their purpose best. It has certainly served it here."
"For the time," said Mrs. Clinton.
"Well, say you take no notice of this. Are they going to stop at this? On these lines they can force us to take action, sooner or later, if that is what they want. We ought to be prepared for it."
"We must take each occasion as it comes," said the Squire.
"I think that Humphrey ought to be written to. I don't think it will be possible to avoid taking action, if they press us. We can stand this. We don't know that we shall be able to stand the next move, or the one after. It is he who has got us into this—he, even more than poor Susan, as it turns out. He ought to come home and face it with us. You ought to write to him by this mail, father; or I will, if you like."
"Wait a little, Dick," said the Squire. "I must think it out. Your mother and I must think it out together."
He was glad enough, a few days later, that Humphrey had not been written to by that mail. For there was a letter from him, from Australia. It was written from the Union Club in Sydney, and ran as follows:
MY DEAR FATHER,
I did not write to you by the last mail, because there was something I wanted to say, and was not quite ready. On the voyage out here I thought constantly of what had happened at home before Susan's death, and asked myself if there was anything I could do in the way of reparation. The money part of it we settled together before I left England; but I think there is something else that I ought to do. Supposing the story were to come out in some way, and I were out of England, it might be very awkward for you. Mrs. Amberley would be sure to hear of it, and she would be sure to come down on you. You might not feel inclined to tell the whole story, to clear yourself of any complicity in what I did, and it might be weeks or months before you could get at me.
So I have put down exactly what happened, in the form of an affidavit, which I am sending you under another cover. You can keep it by you, to use if the occasion should ever arise. I am not at all sure that if Mrs. Amberley ever comes back to England and makes any attempt to reinstate herself, it ought not to be sent to her; but I cannot bring myself to ask you to do that. I only say that if you think it ought to be done, I shall accept your decision. I should do again what I did to save Susan, and of course it would be great pain to me to have her name brought forward now; but she was so sincerely sorry for what she had done before she died, that I believe she would have been glad for me to take any steps to put the wrong right as far as possible. But, as I say, it is too hard to make up my mind to take what I suppose would be the only step that could really put everything right as far as we are concerned. You might tell mother and Dick about it now, and I will leave it in your hands.
I have made up my mind to stay out here for a year or two, and possibly for good. I like the country, and I like the people. I have made a good many friends already, especially here in Sydney. I am staying in this club, and it is like being amongst one's friends at home, except that everybody seems to have something to do. I have been up country, and I like that better still. In a month or so I am going on to a sheep station to learn the job, and if I find it suits me I shall ask you to help me buy one of my own. One gets a great deal of open-air life, and the work is interesting, and not too arduous. I mean that one could get down here, and to the other cities, and go home on a visit every few years. I shouldn't know what to do in England now, and I'm tired of doing nothing. Here I should have plenty to do, and could forget a good deal of the past, which has been so painful to all of us.
Give my love to mother, and all of them. I will write to her by the next mail.
Your affectionate son,HUMPHREY.
The paper to which Humphrey had referred was in a long envelope among the Squire's other letters. He opened it, and read a plain, straightforward account of everything that had happened within Humphrey's knowledge.
"I went to my father on May 29th," part of it ran, "and asked him to pay this sum to Gotch. When he refused, I told him under a promise of secrecy of my wife's action, and told him that a concession to Gotch would have the indirect effect of keeping this from being known, and save himself and my family, as well as my wife, from the disgrace of an exposure. He told me that if that was the only way in which silence could be kept, matters must take their course, and refused to do anything. I then went to my sister-in-law, Mrs. Richard Clinton, and persuaded her to let Gotch have the money, which she did, knowing nothing of why I wanted it paid to him....
"My father advised me to tell Lord Sedbergh of what had happened, or to allow him to tell him, and if possible to get him to accept the price of the necklace that had been stolen....
"Just before her death, my wife asked me to do what I could to put right the wrong that she had done, and I sign this account of what she told me, and of what happened afterwards within my knowledge, in the firm belief that she would have wished me to do it...."
So there was the exoneration of the Squire, of everything that he had done, in his hands, to use as he pleased.
His thoughts were tender towards the son who had given him so much trouble, but now seemed to be in such a fair way of making up for the mistakes of his past life. As he sat and thought about him, it was not, at first, the relief that he had so honourably sent, little knowing how pat to the occasion it would come, that filled his thoughts, but the decision that Humphrey had come to with regard to his own future.
It seemed to the Squire an eminently right one. Humphrey was going on to the land, on which every man, according to his view, had the best chance of making the most of his life, and escaping the perils that beset the town-dweller. That it was in that great new country, where the land meant so much more even than it did in England, where there were still fields to conquer, still room in the great pastoral or agricultural armies, that Humphrey was going to make himself a place, was an added fitness. He would be entering on a new life in a new land. He was young yet. He would forget the past, but he would not forget the lessons he had learnt from it. He might even marry again; the Squire's vision broadened to embrace a new branch of the Clinton tree, to flourish in years to come on the fertile soil of that Britain overseas. Life on the land—it was the same in essence wherever it was lived, healthy, useful, and honourable. Thank God that Humphrey had embraced it! Thank God for one Clinton more to live it, in honour and well-being!
When he came to consider the document that Humphrey had put into his hands, he could not quite make up his mind what to do with it. He thought he would go down to the Dower House and consult Dick; but went to find his wife instead.
"I am glad that Humphrey has done this," she said, "very glad indeed. I think it is plain what use he thinks should be made of it, although he cannot bring himself to say so."
"You think that it ought to be sent to Mrs. Amberley?"
"I think that if that is done, and you write and tell him so, he will recognise that it was that feeling that directed him to write it. It will be full restitution. No need for us to balance her guilt and her punishment. She was wronged there, whether she was actually punished for it or not. Poor Susan's last cry to me was, 'If I could only do something to put it right before I die!' This will put it right, as far as any sin can be put right. It has been the one thing lacking. And it comes from Humphrey—from her, through Humphrey."
"I will send a copy to her lawyers," said the Squire, "through mine. She will make what use she likes of it. We have to face her making a use of it that will hurt us. She may publish it in the papers. There would be nothing to prevent her."
Mrs. Clinton looked serious.
"Well, we'll risk that," said the Squire. "I think it would be a wicked thing to do; but she's a wicked woman. I haven't changed my mind about that, at any rate. We can only take the right course, and put up with the consequences."
"I think you would be justified," said Mrs. Clinton, "in saying, when you write to your lawyers, that she may use this document to clear herself, in any way she pleases, and that you will take no steps if she uses it privately; but that if she publishes it, you will publish the fact that she asked you for money, and her letter to Dick. I think she will not publish it. She can clear herself of so little. It is only as a weapon that she has been able to make use of her discovery. In spite of that letter of Lord Colne's, she must have used it to create the impression that she was innocent of everything. By publishing this, she will fasten on herself the guilt of what she was actually punished for, and remind the world of it. She would gain nothing; and if the fact of her having come to you for money is published as well, she will lose."
"My dear," said the Squire, "I think you have the clearest head of all of us. No, they won't let her use it in any way that can hurt us, for she will hurt herself as well. This is the end of it, thank God; and the talk will die down."
That afternoon the Squire sat in his room. Mrs. Clinton and Joan were driving. He had been out with a gun, with Dick, had come in and changed his boots, and was just beginning to nod, as he sat before the fire, with the "Times" on his knee.
The door was opened, and Lord Inverell was announced.
The young man, tall, fair, and open-faced, came forward with a smile. "Mr. Clinton," he said, as the door was shut behind him, "I hope you will give me a welcome. I have seen my uncle, and heard what he had to say. Now I have come to say what I want to say myself, and I hope you will listen to it."
The Squire was somewhat overcome. The memory of his interview with Lord Cheviot still rankled.
The young man took the seat to which he was motioned. He still smiled. He had a very frank and pleasing expression of face, and was handsome besides, with his crisp hair, that curled as much as it was permitted to, his grey eyes, and white, even teeth. "Mr. Clinton," he said, "I have come to ask you for Joan. Will you give her to me?"
The Squire experienced a strong and agreeable feeling of everything having come right all at once. It was so strong that it was almost too much for him. He hardly knew what he was saying as he stammered: "You want my little Joan? She's the last one I have left."
"I know. I should have taken her from you before. But I waited, after Mrs. Clinton's letter. I wish I hadn't. But I didn't know for some time why it had been written. When I did know, I waited a little longer; and then my uncle heard—what I wanted, you know—and talked to me. He has a way with him—my uncle, Mr. Clinton. When he says a thing, you are inclined to give in to him—at first."
His smile was inviting here. "He told you to wait a little longer, I suppose," said the Squire.
"Yes, that was it. He kept me hanging on. There couldn't be any hurry, he said. Then he seems to have written letters. He is rather fond of writing letters; they'll go into his biography by and by, you know. But not the one he wrote to Colne.Ididn't ask him to write that. I wish he hadn't."
"The answer he got was a very awkward one for me," said the Squire. "I couldn't deal with it at the time to Lord Cheviot's satisfaction. Fortunately, I can now."
"I'm glad of that, Mr. Clinton. But it's not necessary, as far as I am concerned, you know. Still, I shouldn't object to your squaring my uncle, if you can, without putting yourself out. I don't want to quarrel with him, if it can be helped."
"Why have you come here, after what he told you?"
"Because I made him tell me everything. Rather a triumph for me, that! He told me that you had said you had been through a horrible time, and hadn't done anything that you were sorry for. I said, 'Thanks, uncle, that's good enough for me. There are a lot of stories going about, and you can believe which of them you like. I choose to believe the one that Joan's father tells, and I'm off there this afternoon. Wish me luck!'"
"He let you come, without any further discussion?"
"Oh no; not a bit. That was three or four days ago. He argued with me. I said, 'Well, what do you want me to do?' He said, 'Find out what truth there is in this story, before you go any further. There'ssometruth in it.' Then a bright idea struck me. I said, 'Old Sedbergh ought to know something about it. Will it satisfy you if I go to him?'"
"Ah! I never thought of that. Did it satisfy him?"
"He had to say that it would. So I went. I couldn't get hold of the old man till this morning. But when I did, he looked at me in a funny, kind sort of way, and said, 'If you can get Joan Clinton for your wife, you'll be the luckiest young man in the world. Go and get her. There's no reason why you shouldn't. I know what I'm saying.' Well, that put the lid on, Mr. Clinton. I sent a note to my uncle; I'd promised to do that before I came; and here I am."
The Squire breathed a deep sigh of relief. "You have come at the right time," he said, "and I am very glad you have come as you have—knowing nothing more than you do. It's a thing that I shall think of with pleasure all my life. But, as I told your uncle, I wouldn't ask you here as long as my name was under a cloud. Perhaps the name of Clinton will be under a cloud some little time longer. But, thank God, the cloud no longer rests on this house. I can tell you everything that has happened, feeling that I am wronging nobody. I couldn't have told Lord Cheviot, and I couldn't have toldyouyesterday. Read this. It is a paper I received from my son, Humphrey, from Australia, this morning."
"I'm satisfied for myself," he said. "Can I tell my uncle what's in it?"
"You can tell anyone you like," said the Squire.
As he was reading it, the door opened and Joan came in, in her furs. It was beginning to get dusk. When she saw that there was somebody with her father, she would have withdrawn. When she saw who it was, her hand went to her heart; but her lover turned and saw her at that moment.
A little later he confessed, with a happy laugh, that he had brought down a bag, and left it at the station. The Squire went out of the room to procure somebody to fetch it, which he could very well have done by ringing the bell.
We began with the train, and will end with the train. It was the material link by which Kencote, standing as it had done through so many centuries remote and aside from the turmoil of life, had been drawn into the centre of troublous events. It had brought Joan home from her fateful visit to Brummels, Humphrey to tell his terrible story, Susan to her sad resting-place, Mrs. Amberley to demand satisfaction and threaten vengeance, and latterly the young lover whose coming had brought joy in place of sorrow.
Now it was to bring, within a few days, enough guests to fill all the spare rooms of Kencote for Joan's wedding; and it was bringing, this afternoon, one of the most valued of them all.
This was Miss Bird, affectionately known to the Clinton family as "the old starling," who had first taught Dick his letters nearly forty years before, and had gone on teaching letters, and other things, to all the young Clintons in turn, until the twins had reached the ripe age of fifteen, six years before. Then she had left, much regretted, partly because the twins had to be "finished," and she could not undertake suitably to finish them, partly because duty had called her from the spacious comforts of Kencote to share the narrow home of a widowed sister.
The twins were at the station to meet her—tall, beautiful, stately young women to the outward eye, but, for this occasion, children again at heart, and mischievous children at that.
"Oh, what fun it is!" said Nancy, with a shiver of pleasure, as the train came into the station. "I don't feel a day older than fourteen. There she is, Joan—the sweet old lamb!"
It must be confessed that the years had robbed Miss Bird of such sweetness as she may at one time have presented to the impartial view. She was a diminutive, somewhat withered, elderly woman, but still sprightly in speech and movement, and of breathless volubility.
She flung herself out of the carriage, almost before it had come to a standstill, and was enveloped in a warm, not to say undignified embrace by both the twins at once.
"Oh, my darlings," she cried, flinging to the winds all the stops in the language, "to see you both standing there just as it used to be though one married and the other going to be and such agrandmarriage too as sweet as ever my bonnet Nancy darling and everything the same here but a new station-master I see oh it istoomuch."
Joan and Nancy marched her out of the station to the carriage, all three laughing and talking at once, and made her sit between them, which was just possible, as she took up very little room.
She wiped away an unaffected tear, and broke out again.
"This is one of the happiest days of my life and to think ofmebeing an honoured guest and amongst all the lords and ladies I hope I shall know how to behave myself and one of the first you wrote to darling Joan as you said and Mr. Clinton saying whoever else was left outImust be asked and how is dear Mrs. Clinton well I hope I'm sure the kindness I have received in this house I never can forget and never shall forget darling Nancy my bonnet."
"Isn't she too sweet for words, Joan?" said Nancy. "She hasn't altered a bit. Starling darling, you are the most priceless treasure. We didn't value you nearly enough when we had you with us."
"Now my pet that is not a thing to say," said Miss Bird, "two dearer and more affectionate children you might roam the world over and never find troublesome sometimes I do not say you were not but never really naughty no one could say it and now grown up quite and one a married woman it doesn't seem possible."
"I was very hurt that you didn't come to my wedding," said Nancy. "I know why it is. Joan is going to be a Countess, and I am only plain Mrs."
"The idea of such a thing," said Miss Bird in horror, "never so much as entered my head how can you say it Nancy I'm sure if Joan had been going to marry a crossing-sweeper not that I don't think she would adornanyposition and much more suitable as it is I should have comejustthe same and you know quite well why I couldn't come to your wedding Nancy and almost cried my eyes out but an infectious illness you would not have liked to be brought you should not say such things."
"I'll forgive you," said Nancy, "if you promise to love John. He is here, you know. But we wouldn't let anybody come to the station with us. We wanted you to ourselves."
"Pets!" said Miss Bird affectionately.
"Ronald is here too, but I wouldn't let him come either," said Joan.
"What is he like tell me about him," said Miss Bird.
Joan cast a quick glance at Nancy, over the rather disordered bonnet. It was the look that had meant in their childhood, "Let's have her on."
"He is most awfullygood," she said in rather an apologetic voice. "Starling dear, I wanted to say something to you before you saw him. You don't think—if you love anybody very much, and they are really good—it matters about their looks, do you?"
"Oh, but I consider himmosthandsome," said Miss Bird, "my sister gave me that illustrated paper with his photograph and yours in a full page to each I wrote and told you so and pleased and proud I was to have it and over my mantelpiece it is hanging now."
"Yes, I know you wrote, darling, and it was very sweet of you. I couldn't bring myself to answer your letter. You know paperswillmake mistakes sometimes."
"What do you mean what mistake?" asked Miss Bird. "It said plainly beneath the photographs 'The Earl of Inverell' and 'Miss Joan Clinton.'"
"Yes, I know it did, and it was me all right. Oh, Starling darling, can't you guess? Ronald is very good and very sweet, and I love him dearly; but——"
"But he is no beauty," said Nancy. "You can't expect us both to marry handsome men."
"I shouldn't call himscrubby, exactly, should you, Nancy?" enquired Joan.
"Not to his face," replied Nancy.
Joan gave a little gurgle, which she turned into a cough. "Starling darling, you don't mind beards in a young man, do you?" she asked.
"Oh, you will get him to shave that off," said Nancy, "after you are married. I shouldn't worry about that. And I don't think averyslight squint really matters. You can always call it a cast in the eye, and some people like it."
"You see, Starling darling, I wanted you to be prepared," said Joan. "I couldn't let you see him without saying something first, when you thought he was that good-looking young man in the picture. He is much better, really, and his looks don't putmeoff in the least. I don't think about them. But if I hadn't told you, you might have been so surprised that you would have said something that would have hurt his feelings."
"As if I should or could," exclaimed Miss Bird indignantly, "there was no occasion to say a single word Joan and a good kind heart isfarbetter than good looks as I have often told you you do me a great injustice."
"I knew she wouldn't really mind, Nancy," said Joan. "But I am glad to have warned her. She will get used to the beard."
"And the cast in the eye," added Nancy.
"Indeed," said Miss Bird, "I should never notice such things a beard is a sign of manly vigour your father has a beard."
"Ah, but it isn't a beard like father's," said Joan. "It is more tufty and fluffy. I suppose you thought that young man in the pictureveryhandsome, didn't you, Starling darling?"
"Indeed no such thing," said Miss Bird, "I said to my sister and she will bear witness good-looking yes butnota match in looks for my darling Joan and glad I am now that I said it."
Joan burst into a laugh, and embraced her warmly. "Oh, you're too sweet and precious for words," she said. "ThatwasRonald, and I shall tell him you don't think he is very handsome."
"What a donkey you are, Joan!" said Nancy. "Why didn't you let her meet him in the hall?"
"Now that istoobad Joan 'n' Nancy," said Miss Bird, quite in her old style of reproof, "a little piece of fun I can understand but you might have made itmostawkward for me Joan my bonnet well there I suppose I must say nothing more youwillhave your joke and neither of you have altered at all you are very naughty girls and I was just going to say if you did not behave I should tell Mrs. Clinton pets I love you more than ever."
Miss Bird was almost overcome with emotion when she arrived at the house. The story was immediately told against her, and provoked laughter, especially from the Squire, who said, "The young monkeys! They want husbands to keep them in order, both of them. 'Pon my word, with you here, Miss Bird, I feel inclined to pack them off to the schoolroom, to get them out of the way. It makes me feel young again to see you here, Miss Bird. You seem to belong to Kencote, and I'm very pleased to see you here again, very pleased indeed."
Miss Bird's heart was full, as she was taken up to her old bedroom by Joan and Nancy. Such a welcome! And from the Squire too, of whom she had always stood much in awe, but to whom she looked up as the type and perfection of manhood!
But how he had aged! When she was left alone, she looked out on to the spring green of the park, and the daffodils growing under the trees, and thought of how many years it was since she had first looked out on to that familiar scene, and how unchanged it was, although the children she had taught, and loved, had all grown up, and most of them were married. She thought of herself as a young, timid girl, for the first time away from her home, and of the Squire as a splendid young man, bluff and hearty even then. She had spent the best part of her life at Kencote, and had slept more nights in this room than in any other. Kencote had been her home, and she had grown old in it. If the Squire, who had always been so vigorous that the years had passed over him imperceptibly, was also at last growing old, it was in the place he loved above all others. She liked to think of him and dear Mrs. Clinton still living here, she hoped for many years to come, with nothing changed about them, but only an added peace and quietness, to suit the evening of their lives.
Later in the evening, before dinner, the Squire paid a long-deferred visit to his cellars. The house would soon be filled from top to bottom with guests, and he wished to put the best he had before them, or before such of them as could appreciate it; also to take stock generally of the supply of wines in ordinary use, which he did regularly, but had not done for many months past. He was accompanied by his old butler with the cellar-book, and a footman with a candle, and spent nearly an hour among the bins and cobwebs.
At the end of the inspection, some slight trouble arose. The old butler had been fetching up claret which the Squire had intended should be kept for a time. He did not drink claret himself, and had not noticed the change.
"If we had used the other lot up you ought to have come and told me, Porter," he said. "I never meant this wine to be used every day. You come down here without a with-your-leave or a by-your-leave, and act as if you were master. You've been with me for a number of years, and have come to think you can do what you like. But you can't. I won't have it, Porter."
He marched off between the bins, and up the cellar steps. The old butler looked after him with a smile on his face, of which the attendant footman mistook the source, remarking, "He do give it you, don't he?"
"They're the best words I've had from him for a long time," said the old man. "He's got back to himself again."
But if the Squire had got back to himself, it was not entirely to his old habits. It had never before been Mrs. Clinton's custom to sit with him in his room, as he now liked her to do, and as she did that evening, while the younger members of the party, including Miss Bird, were disporting themselves in the billiard-room.
"This will be the last of it, Nina," he was saying. "When Frank marries it won't be from this house. They call it a quiet wedding, but, 'pon my word, I don't know how we could very well have found room for any more than are coming. I'm rather dreading it in a way, Nina. I feel I'm getting too old for all this bustle."
"We shall be very quiet when it is all over," said Mrs. Clinton.
"Yes, my dear," he said. "You and I will be quiet together for the rest of our lives. We shall have our children with us often, and our grandchildren; but for the most of the time we shall just be by ourselves. We've had a long life together, my dear. We've had a great deal of happiness in it, and have been through some very deep trouble. But the skies are clear now, and, please God, they'll keep clear. Nina, my dear, we've got a great deal to thank Him for."
THE END
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE HOUSE OF MERRILEESEXTON MANORTHE ELDEST SONTHE SQUIRE'S DAUGHTERTHE HONOUR OF THE CLINTONSTHE GREATEST OF THESETHE OLD ORDER CHANGETHWATERMEADSUPSIDONIAABINGTON ABBEYTHE GRAFTONSRICHARD BALDOCKTHE CLINTONS AND OTHERS