"I hope you will not think what I am saying interfering,--perhaps I
might not have spoken, but that your father alluded to--to it at
breakfast. It is your engagement I mean."
Jack drew himself up, and she went on hurriedly--"Pray do not think I am
asking questions from curiosity. But sometimes pecuniary difficulties
cause a great deal of unhappiness and--and I thought I would venture to
say that if this were the case--"
"It is not, indeed."
"Ah!" She looked at him with wistful disappointment. "Then I must not
say any more. It has always seemed to me a most grievous thing, that
money should unnecessarily play such an important part in these matters,
and I should have been very sorry if it had been allowed to do so with
you."
Jack was touched--it was impossible not to feel that she was speaking
from her heart--though he was no less stiffly determined to accept
nothing at her hands. Nevertheless, she brightened at his tone, for he
spoke warmly:
"I am exceedingly obliged to you. Money has not made any difficulty
here. And as to my working harder than I have done, it is more from
shame for past idleness than from ambition for the future, I am afraid."
"Jack," said his father, coming in at the door with a little girl
clinging to each hand, "will you ride over to Whitcote this morning?"
"Whitcote? Yes," said Jack, wondering; for Sir John seldom made these
early expeditions.
"Hastings wants me to look at the schools. There's a new Vicar coming
in, and things have to be put straight. Time, too."
"Jack," said little May, possessing herself of his hand, "tell us about
Cartouche. Does he _always_ jump out of the window when you go back?"
"And does he beg? Carlo begs," this from Effie. "Poor Cartouche!" said
Jack, "I'm afraid he is wanting in all accomplishments."
"Accomplishments means music and drawing," said May, with a stare.
"Dogs don't do their scales."
"Don't tease, children," said Lady Ibbetson. It was one of the things
in which she and her step-son were at cross-purposes, for he was fond of
children, and she always nervously afraid that they annoyed him. She
carried them away now unwillingly, looking back and calling to Jack that
he had promised to come into the school-room.
It was not until they were close on Whitcote that he asked his father
who the new Vicar was.
"He's called Penington, I hear," said Sir John, pulling up his cob to
look at a field of springing wheat. "Don't know the name, but Hastings
speaks uncommonly well of him."
"I met a man of that name in Rome. He had a sister with him."
"That's he. Hastings said he had gone abroad for two or three months'
rest before beginning work again. And I dare say he would have a
sister. I hear he's a likely man to many. There's the Vicarage: you
can see the chimneys; it's been uncommonly improved and made into really
a nice place. Hallo, here comes Miss Ward. You recollect the Miss
Wards, cousins of Mrs Hastings, and living in that little cottage half
a mile on?"
A kindly, intelligent faced woman greeted them. "Sir John, you are the
very person I wished to see. _Do_ you know of a horse?"
"Another horse, Miss Ward?"
"Another! I should think so. That last great thing wouldn't go at all.
How d'ye do, Mr Ibbetson? I didn't see it was you. But really, Sir
John, we are in a pretty condition; reduced to the butcher's mare to
take, us to the station, and when we want to cut a dash among our
neighbours, to the most extraordinary affair from Hedsworth. Do be
neighbourly and look in at our stables. You'll find three waiting to be
looked at, and they've all something against them. One has curby hocks,
I know--whatever that may mean."
"It means a strong objection."
"Well, the other alternatives are age and nobility of appearance, and
youth and snobbishness. I am inclined to youth; the habit of requiring
to be shot is very serious."
"I'll give my opinion at any rate," said Sir John laughing, "and so
shall Jack. By the way, he has just come from Rome, and seems to have
met your Mr Penington there--"
"Has he, really? Mr Penington is our other subject just now; he and
the horses form a sort of conversational see-saw. Very charming, is he
not, Mr Ibbetson? But you need not tell me if he is not, for we all
agree in placing him on a pinnacle of merit, in order that we may have
the excitement of gradually deposing him. Otherwise, I might whisper to
you that we are already--just a little--hurt."
"Why?"
"Well, we considered--and justly, I think--that coming here unmarried,
we had a right to the excitement of choosing him a wife. But in a
letter from his sister to Mrs Hastings, who is, you know, her old
friend, she seems to hint that he is taking it on his own shoulders."
"Oh, ho! Any names mentioned? Perhaps Jack may know her, too."
"No, no, not so bad as that. Still it is bad, I own. You'll look at
those horses then, won't you?"
"To be sure. How was it you weren't at the Grange on Friday?"
"I was making up my accounts. I always think that is only a decent
tribute to the departing year. Remember me to Lady Ibbetson, and do try
to consider that horse a treasure."
Sir John, who liked the Wards, went on talking of the way women were
taken in about horses, Jack meanwhile riding along without hearing many
of his father's words. So it had come to this, for he could not doubt
that Phillis was the one to whom Miss Penington alluded. There was the
pretty Vicarage to his left, standing picturesquely among trees, a
pleasant homelike place, such as he could well imagine she would love.
He thought of her, brought there by that man, going in and out of the
gate on her kindly errands, waiting, perhaps, in the porch to welcome
him--Well, what could he say? He had had his chance and had thrown it
away. Since he had loved her, he had understood very clearly what she
had found wanting in his love before. Now it seemed to him as if it had
been an insult. He felt no hope. He had had his chance and had thrown
it away.