with Daphne. In all else she found him perfectly amenable. He
permitted her without protest to overhaul his wardrobe, and submitted
meekly to a scathing lecture upon the negligence apparent in the
perforated condition of some of his garments and the extravagance
evinced by the multiplicity of others. In short, Daphne adopted
Juggernaut, as only a young and heart-whole girl can whose experience
of men so far has been purely domestic. She felt like his mother. To
her he was a child of the largest possible growth, who, not having
enjoyed such advantages as she had all her life bestowed upon the rest
of the flock, must needs be treated with twofold energy and special
consideration. He was her Benjamin, she felt.
* * * * *
Juggernaut was to depart to-morrow. His socks were darned. Items of
his wardrobe, hitherto anonymous, were neatly marked with his
initials. His very pocket-handkerchiefs were numbered.
"You are sending me back to work thoroughly overhauled and refitted,"
he said to Daphne, as she displayed, not without pride, his renovated
garments laid out upon the spare bed. "I feel like a cruiser coming
out of dry dock."
"Well, don't get your things in that state again," said Daphne
severely--"that's all! Who looks after them?"
"My man."
"He ought to be ashamed of himself, then. By the way, there is a dress
waistcoat of yours with two buttons off. Can I _trust_ you, now, to
get them put on again, or had I better keep the waistcoat until I can
get buttons to match?"
"You are very good," said Juggernaut, bowing before the storm.
"That's settled, then. Where shall I send it to?"
Juggernaut thought, and finally gave the address of a club in Pall
Mall.
"Club--do you live in a _club_?" inquired Daphne, with a woman's
instinctive dislike for such a monastic and impregnable type of
domicile.
"Sometimes. It saves trouble, you see," said Juggernaut
apologetically. "My house in town is shut at present. I spend a good
deal of time in the north."
"Where do you live when you are in the north?" inquired Daphne, with
the healthy curiosity of her age and sex.
"I have another house there," admitted Juggernaut reluctantly. "It is
called Belton."
"How many houses have you got altogether?" asked Daphne, in the
persuasive tones of a schoolmaster urging a reticent culprit to make a
clean breast of it and get it over like a man.
"I have a little place in the Highlands," said Juggernaut humbly--
Daphne rolled her brown eyes up to the ceiling.
--"But it is the merest shooting-box," he added, as if pleading for a
light sentence.
"Is that all?"
"Yes--on my honour!"
"And--you live in a _club_!"
Then came the verdict--the inevitable verdict.
"What you want," said Daphne, regarding the impassive features of the
prisoner at the bar, "is a wife. It's not too late, really," she
added, smiling kindly upon him. "Of course, you think now at your age
that you could never get used to it, but you could."
"Do you think any girl would marry a man practically in his dotage?"
inquired Juggernaut respectfully.
"Not a girl, perhaps," admitted Daphne, "but somebody sensible and
good. I'll tell you what--don't you know any nice widows? A widow
would suit you top-hole. She would be used to men already, which would
help her a lot, poor thing! Then, she would probably let you down more
easily than an old maid. She would know, for instance, that it's
perfectly hopeless to get a man to keep his room tidy, or to stop
leaving his slippers about on the dining-room hearthrug, or dropping
matches and ash on the floor. Do marry a widow, Sir John! Don't you
know of any?"
Sir John smiled grimly.
"I will consult my visiting-list," he said; "but I won't promise
anything. In spite of the apparent docility of my character, there are
just one or two things which I prefer to do in my own way."
"Still, I don't despair of you," said Daphne. "Old Martin down in the
village married only the other day, and he was seventy-two. Nearly
bedridden, in fact," she added encouragingly.
That evening after supper the Rectory children sat round the table
engaged in card games of a heating and complicated nature, Miss
Vereker as usual doubling the parts of croupier and referee. The guest
and the Rector were smoking in the study.
Suddenly the door of the dining-room opened, and Brian Vereker
appeared.
"Daphne, my daughter," he said, "can you leave these desperadoes for a
while and join us in the study?"
"All right, Dad. Ally, you had better be dealer. Nicky, if you cheat
while I am away you know the penalty! Come with me, Dawks. So long,
everybody. Back directly!"
But she was wrong. Game succeeded game: the time slipped by unheeded
by all except Nicky and Tony, who, because it was past their hour for
going to bed, noted its flight with special and personal relish; and
it was not until the almost tearful Cilly had been rendered an old
maid for the fourth consecutive time that the family realised that it
was nearly half-past ten and Daphne had not returned.
"Of course," said Nicky, wagging her head triumphantly, "we all know
what _that_ means!"
And for once in her small, scheming, prying life, she was right.
CHAPTER SEVEN.
THE MATCH IS STRUCK.
Daphne sat rather dizzily by her father's side, holding his hand
tightly and gazing straight before her. A sudden turn, and lo! before
her lay a great break in the road. She had arrived at one of life's
jumping-off places. No wonder she gripped her father's hand.
Now, for a young girl to consent to a marriage with a man considerably
older than herself, a man whom she hardly knows and does not love, is
rightly regarded as a most unromantic proceeding; and since romance is
the sugar of this rather acrid existence of ours, we are almost
unanimous in discouraging such alliances. And yet there are two sides
to the question. A loveless marriage may lead to the ruin of two
lives: on the other hand, it introduces into the proceedings an
element of business and common-sense all too rare in such enterprises.
It is true that the newly united pair dream no dreams and see no
visions. Each comes to the other devoid of glamour or false pretences.
But if a couple find marriage feasible under such circumstances, the
chances are that they are of a type which stands in no need of that
highly intoxicating stimulant, Passion. They are simply people who
realise at the outset, instead of later on, that life is a campaign
and not a picnic; and each sees in the other not so much an idol or a
plaything as a trusty ally. For such, mutual respect cannot but spring
into being, and will in all likelihood grow into mutual love; and
mutual love which matures from such beginnings as these is ten
thousand times more to be desired than the frothy headachy stuff which
we quaff in such reckless magnums in our thirsty youth.
On the other hand, marriages made on earth (as opposed to what are
popularly regarded as the celestial variety) can and often do lead to
shipwreck. Granted. Still, marriage is a leap in the dark in any case,
and humdrum philosophers must at least be excused for suggesting that
one may as well endeavour to illuminate this hazardous feat of agility
by the help of the Torch of Reason as not. But of course no one ever
agrees with such suggestions. Romance and Sentiment cry, "Never!
Shame! Monstrous!" And most of us very humanly, naturally, and rightly
associate ourselves in the most cordial manner with the opinions of
this old-established and orthodox firm.
We left Daphne gazing into the study fire, with a silent man on either
side of her and Mr Dawks' head upon her knee. She looked perfectly
composed, but something was rocking and trembling within her.
It is certainly disconcerting, even for the most self-possessed of
maidens, to realise, suddenly and without warning, that there are
deeper things than the domestic affections. It is still more
disconcerting when an individual whom Nature might with perfect
propriety have appointed your father, and whom you with feminine
perversity have adopted as a son, suddenly kicks over the traces and
suggests as a compromise that he should occupy the intermediate
position of husband.
Brian Vereker sat smiling, happy and confident. The fact that Sir John
Carr was forty-two and Daphne barely twenty had not occurred to him.
All he realised was that the little boy who had been his fag at
school, who had lit his fire and made his toast in return for
occasional help with caesuras and quadratic equations, had grown up
into a man, and desired to marry his daughter. The whole thing seemed
so natural, so appropriate. He glowed with humble pride that
Providence should so interest itself in his little household. He
beamed upon the young people.
Suddenly Daphne turned to him, and released her hold on his hand.
"Dad, will you leave us for a little?" she said. "I want to talk to
Sir John."
The Rector rose.
"By all means," he said. "Now I come to think of it, the presence of a
third party is not essential to a proposal of marriage. I am _de
trop_! I shall be upstairs."
He laughed boyishly, and left them.
When the door closed Daphne turned to her suitor.
"So you want me for your wife?" she said, with the air of one opening
a debate.
"I do," said Juggernaut. It was the first time he had spoken since she
entered the room.
"And you went and saw Dad about it," continued Daphne, rather
unexpectedly.
"Yes. As I understood you were not of age, I asked his permission to
speak to you. He rather took the words out of my mouth by calling you
in and telling you himself."
"I'm glad to hear you say that," said Daphne. "I thought at first the
thing was being arranged over my head, and that I wasn't to be
consulted at all. But you _were_ going to ask me properly, weren't
you? We prefer that, you know." She spoke for her sex.
Juggernaut nodded.
"Only Dad rushed in and spoiled it--eh?"
"That is correct," said Juggernaut.
"Well, begin now," said Daphne calmly. "A girl doesn't like to be
done out of a proposal. It would be something to tell the kids about
afterwards, anyhow."
Juggernaut became conscious of a distinctly more lenient attitude
towards the Rector's precipitancy.
"Now that you know," he began, "a formal proposal would sound rather
dull and superfluous, wouldn't it?"
"Perhaps you are right," said Daphne, half regretfully. "Dad has
spoiled it for me, after all!"
Presently--
"I wonder _why_ you want to marry me," she mused, fondling Mr Dawks'
ears. "I suppose you have come to the conclusion that it is time you
had some one to look after all those houses and servants of yours. Is
that it?"
Juggernaut regarded her curiously for a moment.
"Perhaps," he said.
"You are not in love with me, of course," continued the practical Miss
Vereker, ticking off the unassailable features of the case. "At least,
I suppose not--I don't see how you possibly could be. It's rather hard
for me to tell, though, because I don't quite know the meaning of the
word. I love Dad and the boys, and Cilly, and Nicky, and Mr
Dawks--_don't_ I, Dawks, dear?--and I would do _anything_ to save them
pain or unhappiness. But I suppose that's not the sort of love that
people call love. It seems to have been left out of my composition,
or perhaps it hasn't cropped up yet. Now Cilly--I am her exact
opposite--Cilly is always in love with some man or other. By the way,
she told me last night when I went to dry her hair that she had just
fallen in love with you, so evidently you aren't too old after all!
Would it do as well if you married Cilly?" Daphne inquired
tentatively.
"I'm afraid not," said Juggernaut.
"Well, perhaps you are right. Cilly's a darling, but she is very young
yet," agreed the time-worn Miss Vereker. "But"--she broke off
short--"it seems to me that I am doing most of the talking. Would you
care to address the meeting--say a few words? I think I should like to
hear a bit of that proposal after all. So far, all I know is that you
want to marry me. And _that_ I got from Dad. Now--I'm listening!"
Daphne leaned back in her big chair and smiled upon her suitor quite
maternally. There was something pathetic in her childish freedom from
embarrassment or constraint under circumstances which usually test the
_sang-froid_ of man and maid alike. Perhaps Sir John was struck by
this, for his eyes suddenly softened and the lines about his mouth
relaxed.
"You needn't say you love me, or anything like that, if you don't,"
supplemented Daphne. "I shall understand."
Sir John's eyes resumed their normal appearance.
"As you seem to prefer to keep matters on a strictly business
footing," he said, "I will come to the point at once. If you will
marry me I think I can make you tolerably happy and comfortable. I am
a prosperous man, I suppose, and as my wife you would find a certain
social position awaiting you. Any desires of yours in the way of
houses, clothes, jewels, and so on, you could always gratify, within
limits, at will. I mention these things, not because I think they will
influence your decision--I should not want you for a wife if I thought
they would--but because I feel that every woman is entitled to a plain
statement of fact about the man who wishes to marry her. Too often,
under the delusion that the sheer romance of a love-affair wipes all
mundane considerations off the slate, she puts up with the wildest of
fictions. However, I may point out to you that acceptance of my
worldly goods would enable you to carry out certain schemes that I
know lie very near your heart. You could send Ally to the University.
You could have Cilly finished, or whatever the expression is, and
bring her out yourself. And you could pay for a curate for your
father. You can have all the money you want for these enterprises by
asking for it; or if you prefer something more definite I would settle
an annual sum upon you--say a thousand a-year."
A thousand a-year! Daphne closed her eyes giddily. Before her arose a
vision of a renovated Rectory--a sort of dimity Palace Beautiful--with
an enlarged kitchen-boiler, new carpets, and an extra servant. She saw
her father bending happily over his sermon while a muscular young
Christian tramped round the parish. She saw Ally winning first classes
at Cambridge, and Cilly taking London drawing-rooms by storm. Her
pulse quickened. But Juggernaut was still speaking.
"On the other hand, I ought to warn you that I am a hard man--at
least, I believe that is my reputation--with somewhat rigid notions on
the subject of _quid_ and _quo_. I would endeavour to supply my wife
with every adjunct to her happiness; but--I should expect her in
return to stand by my side and do her duty as my wife so long as we
both lived. They say of me that I never make a mistake in choosing a
lieutenant. Well, the instinct which has served me so often in that
respect is prompting me now; and it is because I see in you a woman
who would stand by her husband as a matter of duty alone, quite apart
from"--he hesitated--"from inclination, that I ask you to marry me."
Daphne gazed at him. Her heart was bumping gently. There was
something rather fine about this proposed bargain--a compact between a
man and a woman to stand by one another through thick and thin, not
because they liked doing so but because it was playing the game.
Daphne felt proud, too, that this master of men should have adjudged
her--a woman--to be of the true metal. But she was honest to the end.
"You would give all that to have me for your wife," she said.
Sir John bowed his head with grave courtesy.
"I would," he said simply.
"I'm not worth it," said Daphne earnestly. "I am only accustomed to
looking after our little Rectory and the family. I might make a
fearful mess of all your grand houses. Supposing I did? What if I
wasn't up to your mark? How if your friends didn't like me? It would
be too late to send me back," she pointed out, rather piteously.
Sir John's features did not relax.
"I am willing to take the risk," was all he said.
There was a long pause.
"Let me think," said Daphne suddenly and feverishly.
She slipped out of her chair on to the hearthrug, and lay before the
twinkling fire with her arms clasped round the neck of the
ever-faithful Mr Dawks and her face buried in his rough coat. There
was a tense silence, accentuated by the amiable thumping of Dawks'
tail. Sir John Carr sat in his chair like a graven image, looking down
upon the slim lithe figure at his feet. Daphne just then was a sight
to quicken the blood in a man's veins, but Juggernaut never moved.
Perhaps he realised, for all his lack of lover's graces and his harsh
methods of wooing, something of the solemnity of the moment. A child,
without experience, with nothing but her own untutored instincts to
guide her, was standing at her cross-roads. Would she go forward with
the man whose path through life had so suddenly converged on hers, or
fare on alone? And the man--what were his feelings? None could have
told by outward view. He simply waited--sitting very still.
At last Daphne sat up, and shook back her hair from her eyes.
"We'll leave it to Mr Dawks," she said. "Dawks, old boy, shall we _do_
it?"
The house waited in breathless silence for Mr Dawks' casting vote.
That affectionate and responsive arbitrator, hearing himself
addressed, raised his head, licked his mistress's hand, and belaboured
the floor with his tail in a perfect ecstasy of cordiality.
Daphne turned to the man in the chair.
"All right!" she said. "It's a bargain. I'll marry you."
CHAPTER EIGHT.
"MORITURA TE SALUTAT."
On a bright spring afternoon three weeks later the Rectory children
sat huddled together like a cluster of disconsolate starlings upon the
five-barred gate leading into Farmer Preston's big pasture meadow.
It was the eve of Daphne's wedding-day.
To those readers of this narrative who feel inclined to dilate upon
the impropriety of marrying in haste, it may be pointed out that the
bride possessed no money and the bridegroom no relatives. Consequently
there would be no presents, no _trousseau_. The principal incentives
to what Miss Veronica Vereker pithily described as a "circus wedding"
being thus eliminated, the pair were to be married quietly next day in
the little church where Daphne had been christened and confirmed, and
under the shadow of which she had lived all her short life.
As noted above, the bride had no _trousseau_, for her father could not
afford one, and she flatly declined to take a penny from her _fiance_
until he became her husband. The little village dressmaker had turned
out a wedding-dress over which Cilly hourly gloated, divided between
ecstasy and envy; and this, together with an old lace veil in which
her mother had been married, would serve Daphne's needs.
In truth, she had little time to think of herself. She was
relinquishing a throne which she had occupied since she was eleven
years old, and the instruction and admonition of her successor had
occupied her attention ever since the date of her wedding had been
fixed. Keys had to be handed over, recipes confided, and the mysteries
of feminine book-keeping unfolded. There were good-byes to be said to
bedridden old women and tearful cottage children. The bridegroom too,
she felt, had a certain claim upon her attention. He had departed the
morning after Daphne had accepted him, and was now very busy preparing
his house in London for the reception of the future Lady Carr. But he
had spent a good deal of time at the Rectory for all that, coming down
for week-ends and the like; and Daphne, mindful of the duties of a
_fiancee_, devoted herself conscientiously to his entertainment
whenever he appeared.
But now the end of all things was imminent. To-morrow the management
of the Rectory would pass into the hands of the dubious and
inexperienced Cilly.
Meanwhile the Rectory children continued to sit disconsolately upon
the gate. They were waiting for Daphne, who had promised to spend her
last afternoon with them. Sir John, who was now staying at Kirkley
Abbey,--to the mingled apprehension and exhilaration of the chief
bridesmaid Lord Kirkley had offered to act as best man,--was to come
over that afternoon, but only to see the Rector on matters connected
with settlements and other unromantic adjuncts to the married state.
The gate proving unsuitable for prolonged session, the family
abandoned their gregarious attitude and disposed of themselves in more
comfortable fashion. Ally, home on two days' special leave from
school, lay basking in the sun. Cilly sprawled on the grass with her
back against a tree trunk, her brow puckered with the gradual
realisation of coming responsibility. Stiffy, simple soul, with his
knees clasped beneath his chin, sorrowfully contemplated to-morrow's
bereavement. Master Anthony Cuthbert, perched on a log with a switch
in his hand, was conducting an unseen orchestra. Nicky, soulless and
flippant as ever, speculated at large upon her sister's future.
"It'll be pretty hot for Daph living down there at first," she mused.
A joke lasted Nicky a long time: the humorous fiction that the
bride-elect would to-morrow be carried off to reside permanently in
the infernal regions was still as a savoury bakemeat to her palate.
"Of course, Polly"--this was her abbreviation for Apollyon, adopted as
soon as that gentleman had ascended from the grade of familiar friend
to that of prospective relative--"will be glad to get back to his own
fireside, but Daph will feel it a bit, I should think. Perhaps he will
let her use a screen to begin with!... I wonder what housekeeping will
be like. I suppose the cook will have horns and a tail, and all the
food will be devilled. I should like to see Daph ordering dinner.
'Good morning, Diabolo!' 'Good morning, miss! What would you like for
dinner to-night?' 'Well, Diabolo, what have you _got_?' 'There's a
nice tender sinner came in this morning, miss. You might have a few of
his ribs; or would you prefer him served up grilled, with brimstone
sauce? And I suppose you would like devils-on-horseback for a
savoury.' 'That will do _very_ nicely, Diabolo. Oh, I forgot! It's
possible that the Lucifers will drop in. Perhaps we'd better have
yesterday's moneylender cold on the side-board in case there isn't
enough to go round. And we must have something special to'--Ally, what
do people drink in Hades?"
"Dunno," said Ally drowsily; "molten lead, I should think."
"Only the _lower_ classes, dear," said Nicky witheringly. "I am
talking about the best people."
"Sulphuric acid?" suggested Ally, who was beginning to study chemistry
at school.
"That will do," said Nicky, and returned to her dialogue. "'Diabolo,
will you tell the butler to put a barrel--no, a _vat_--of sulphuric
acid on ice. You know what the Lucifers are, when'--hallo, here's Daph
at last!"
The bride-elect approached, swinging her garden-hat in her hand, and
followed by Mr Dawks.
"Well, family," she said, "I'm yours for the rest of the day. What
shall we do?"
"Where is John?" inquired Ally. (John, it may be explained, was the
name by which the family, with the exception of Nicky, had decided to
address their future brother-in-law.)
"In the study with Dad."
"Has he arranged about having the five o'clock train stopped to-morrow
afternoon?" inquired the careful Stiffy.
"No. We are going in a motor all the way to London," said Daphne.
"Jack was keeping it as a surprise for me. It's a new one, a----"
"All the way to _where_?" inquired that economical humourist, Miss
Veronica Vereker.
"London."
"H'm! Yes, I _have_ heard it called that, now I come to think of it,"
conceded Nicky; "but it seems a waste of a good car, especially if
it's a new one. Unless it's made of some special--Stiffy, what's the
name of that stuff that won't burn?"
"Asbestos?"
"That's it--asbestos. I didn't expect to see you drive off down the
road, somehow," continued Nicky in a somewhat injured voice, "just
like an ordinary couple. I thought Polly would stamp his foot on the
lawn, and a chasm would yawn at your feet, and in you'd both pop, and
you would be gone for ever, like--Ally, who were those two people in
the Latin book you had for a holiday task?"
"What you want, Nicky," responded Mr Aloysuis Vereker, "is chloroform.
Do you mean Pluto and Proserpine?"