Produced by Al Haines
THE ELDEST SON
BY
ARCHIBALD MARSHALL
Author of "Exton Manor"
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1919
COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
Published September, 1911
To
KATHLEEN
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I The Squire Is Infernally Worried
II A Question of Matrimony
III Exit Miss Bird
IV The Dower-House
V Lady George
VI Blaythorn Rectory
VII The Squire Puts His Foot Down
VIII The Squire Feels Trouble Coming
IX Dick Pays a Sunday Visit
X The Meet at Apthorpe Common
XI Dick Leaves Kencote and Makes a Discovery
XII The House Party
XIII The Hunt Ball
XIV A Shoot
XV The Guns and the Ladies
XVI The Money Question
XVII Sunday and Monday
XVIII Mrs. Clinton Chooses a Governess
XIX Mrs. Clinton In Jermyn Street
XX Aunt Laura Intervenes
XXI An Engagement
XXII Dick Comes Home
XXIII Humphrey Counts His Chickens
XXIV Virginia Goes to Kencote
XXV A Lawn Meet
XXVI What Miss Phipp Saw
XXVII The Run of the Season
XXVIII Property
XXIX Brothers
XXX Miss Bird Hears All About It
CHAPTER I
THE SQUIRE IS INFERNALLY WORRIED
"Nina," said the Squire, "I'm most infernally worried." He was sitting
in his wife's morning-room, in a low chair by the fire. In front of
him was a table set for tea for one--himself. There were buttered
toast and dry toast and preserves, a massive silver teapot, milk jug,
cream jug, and sugar basin, a breakfast cup of China tea, and two
boiled eggs, one of which he was attacking, sitting forward in his
chair with his legs bent. He had come in from hunting a few minutes
before, at about six o'clock, and it was his habit thus to consume
viands which most men of his age and bulk might have been afraid of, as
likely to spoil their dinner. But he was an active man, in spite of
his fifty-nine years and his tendency to put on flesh, and it would
have taken more than a tea that was almost a meal to reduce his
appetite for dinner at eight, after a day in the saddle and a lunch off
sandwiches and a flask of sherry. When his tea was over he would
indulge himself in half an hour's nap, with the _Times_ open at the
leader page on his knee, and go up to dress, feeling every inch of him
a sportsman and an English country gentleman.
His tea was generally brought to him in his library. This evening a
footman had followed him into that room immediately upon his entering
the house, as usual, had unbuckled his spurs, pulled off his boots for
him, and put on in their place a pair of velvet slippers worked in
silk, which had been warming in front of the fire. Only when his coat
was wet or much splashed with mud did the Squire change that. He
considered smoking-jackets rather effeminate, and slippers, on ordinary
occasions, "sloppy." It was only in his dressing-room or on these
evenings after hunting that he wore them. Otherwise, if he had to
change his boots during the daytime he put on another pair. He was
particular on little points like this. All his rules were kept
precisely, by himself and those about him.
This evening he had told the footman, and the butler who had followed
him into the room with the tray, that he would have his tea in Mrs.
Clinton's room, and he had marched across the hall with a firm and
decisive step, in his red coat and buckskin breeches, between which and
his hand-knitted heather-mixture socks showed a white expanse of
under-drawers round a muscular calf.
Mrs. Clinton sat opposite to him in another low chair, at work on a
woollen waistcoat. He always wore waistcoats made by her, thick for
the winter, light for the summer, and she knitted his socks for him, of
which he required a large number, for he hated them to be darned. He
liked to see her working for him like this. He was a rich man, but a
woman ought to work with her hands for her husband, whether he was rich
or poor. It was her wifely duty, and incidentally it kept her out of
mischief. Mrs. Clinton, at the age of fifty-four, with her smooth
yellow-grey hair and her quiet and composed face, did not look as if
she would be up to serious mischief, even if this and other
restrictions were removed from her. She looked up when her husband
addressed her, and marked the furrow between his heavy eyebrows. Then
she looked down again at her work and waited for him to unbosom himself
further.
"How old is Dick?" asked the Squire, leaning forward to put a spoonful
of yolk of egg into his mouth with one hand, while he shielded his grey
beard with the other.
She knew then the subject upon which he had expressed himself as
infernally worried, for he was not accustomed to keep the first
stirrings of discontent to himself.
"He was thirty-four last April," she said.
"Thirty-four," he repeated. "Yes; and I was _twenty_-four when I
married you. That's early. I shouldn't advise any young man to marry
at that age, unless, perhaps, he was the only one to keep a name
going--as I was, of course--at least in my immediate family. But
thirty-four! It's really time Dick thought about it. He's the eldest
son. It's his duty. And as far as I can see he never gives the matter
a thought. Eh?"
"As far as I can see he is not thinking about it," said Mrs. Clinton.
"Well, if _I_ couldn't see _you_ couldn't see. I say it is time that
he did begin thinking about it. I'm getting on now--good for another
twenty years, I should hope, but I want to see the succession assured.
Walter is the only one of the boys that's married, and he's only got
two girls. Of course, he may have a son--they're coming pretty
quick--but I've never got over that doctoring business. I shouldn't
like the heir of Kencote to be brought up in a place like Melbury Park,
and I say so freely--to you."
This was the echo of an old disturbance. The Squire's third son had
refused to take Orders, with a view of occupying the family living, but
had studied medicine, and was now practising in a suburb of London, and
not one of the most genteel suburbs either. That furrow always
appeared faintly in the Squire's brow when he was forced to mention the
distasteful words Melbury Park.
"I think it would be a good thing if Dick were to marry," said Mrs.
Clinton.
"Good thing? Of course it would be a good thing. That's just what I'm
saying. There's Humphrey; he doesn't look much like marrying, either.
In fact, if he doesn't pick up a wife with a pot of money, I'd rather
he didn't. He spends quite enough as it is. I've no opinion of that
London life, except for a bit when a man's young and before he settles
down. Dick has been in the Guards now for--what?--twelve years. I
never meant that he should take up soldiering as a profession. Just a
few years spent with a good regiment--as I had myself, in the
Blues--that's all right for a young fellow who has a good property to
succeed to. But an eldest son ought to settle down, _on_ the property,
and get married, and have sons to succeed _him_."
"Dick comes here a good deal," said Mrs. Clinton, "and he takes an
interest in the property."
"Well, I should hope he did," responded the Squire. "The property will
belong to him when my time's over. What do you mean?"
"I only mean that Dick is not wrapped up in London life and all that
goes with it, as Humphrey seems to be."
"Oh, Humphrey! I've no patience with Humphrey. If Kencote isn't good
enough for him let him stay away. Only I won't pay any more bills for
him. He has a good allowance and he must keep within it. I've told
him so. Now if I'd put _him_ into the army, instead of the Foreign
Office, he might have stuck to it and made a profession of it. I wish
I had--into a working regiment. It would have done him all the good in
the world. However, I don't want to talk about Humphrey. I don't
expect an heir to come from him; and Frank is too young to marry yet.
Besides--a sailor! It's better for him to marry later. Dick _ought_
to marry, and there's an end of it. And when he comes down to-morrow I
shall tell him so."
Mrs. Clinton made no immediate reply, but after a pause, during which
the Squire came to the end of his eggs and began to attack the buttered
toast, she said, "I have to tell you something, Edward, which I am
afraid will disturb you."
"Besides," pursued the Squire in his loud, resolute voice, "there's the
dower-house standing empty now. If Dick were to get married soon I
need not bother about finding a tenant for it. I don't _want_ to let
it; it's too near here. If we got people there we didn't like it would
be an infernal nuisance. Eh, Nina? What were you saying?"
"I am sorry to say," said Mrs. Clinton, "that Miss Bird is going to
leave us."
The Squire was just about to put a piece of toast into his mouth, which
was half open for its reception. It remained half open while he looked
at his wife, the toast arrested halfway. "Miss Bird! Leave us!" he
exclaimed when he had found his voice. He could hardly have been more
astounded if his wife had announced that _she_ was going to leave him,
and indeed Miss Bird had lived at Kencote nearly as long as Mrs.
Clinton, and had initiated into the mysteries of learning all the young
Clintons, from Dick, who was now thirty-four, down to the twins, Joan
and Nancy, who were fifteen.
"She has talked about it for some time," said Mrs. Clinton. "She has
felt that the children were getting beyond her, and ought to have
better teaching than she can give them."
"Oh, stuff and nonsense!" exclaimed the Squire. "I don't want the
children turned into blue-stockings. I'm quite satisfied with what
Miss Bird is doing for them, and if she wants telling so, for goodness'
sake tell her, and let's have no more of such rubbish. Miss Bird
indeed! Who's she to upset the whole house?"
"I am afraid she has determined to go, Edward," said Mrs. Clinton in
her equable voice. "Her invalid sister, you know, has lost her
husband, and there is no one else to look after her."
The Squire grunted. "Well, if that's the reason," he said, rather
grudgingly, "I suppose we can't complain, although it's a most infernal
nuisance. I've got used to Miss Bird. She's a silly old creature in
some respects, but she's faithful and honest. Now we shall have to get
used to somebody else. Really, when one thing goes wrong, everything
goes wrong. Life is hardly worth living with all these worries. One
never seems to get a moment's peace. I'm going into my room now, Nina,
to read the paper for a bit."
"I should like to talk to you for a few minutes longer about the
children," said Mrs. Clinton. "As a change has to be made, I want to
make a thorough one. It is quite true that they are beyond Miss Bird,
even if she could have stayed. I should like to send them to a good
school for two or three years, and then to France or Germany for a
year."
The Squire bent his brows in an amazed frown. "What on earth can you
be thinking of, Nina?" he exclaimed. "France or Germany? Nice healthy
English girls--teach 'em to eat frogs and horse-sausage--pick up a lot
of affected nonsense! You can put that idea out of your head at once."
Mrs. Clinton's calm face flushed. "There is no need to talk of that
for two or three years," she said. "I should like them now--when Miss
Bird leaves us--to go to a really good school in England, where they
can learn something."
"Learn something? What do you mean--learn something? Haven't they
been learning something all their lives--at least since Miss Bird began
to teach them? What does a girl want to learn, except how to read and
write a good hand and add up accounts? I don't want any spectacled,
short-haired, flat-chested females in _my_ house, thank you. The
children are very well as they are. They're naughty sometimes, I've no
doubt, but they're good girls on the whole. Girls ought to be brought
up at home under their mother's eye. I can't think what you want to
send them away from you for, Nina. It isn't like you. I should have
thought you would have missed them. I know _I_ should, and they're not
going to school."
"I should miss them very much," said Mrs. Clinton.
"Very well, then, let them stop at home. It's quite simple."
Mrs. Clinton was silent, bending her head over her work.
"You would miss them and _I_ should miss them," pursued the Squire,
after a pause. "No, there's no sense in it."
There was another pause, and then the Squire asked, "Why do you want to
send them to school?"
Mrs. Clinton laid down her work and looked at him. "I should be
satisfied," she said, "if they could get the teaching they ought to
have at home. Perhaps I should prefer it. But it would mean a
first-class governess living here, and----"
"Well, there's no objection to that," interrupted the Squire. "I dare
say old Miss Bird is a little out of date. Get a good governess by all
means; only not a blue-stocking, mind you."
Mrs. Clinton smiled. "I'm afraid she would have to be what you would
call a blue-stocking," she said. "But she needn't show it. Clever
girls don't wear spectacles and short hair necessarily nowadays."
"Oh, don't they?" said the Squire good-humouredly. He was leaning back
in his chair now, looking at the fire. "How are you going to set about
getting one?"
"I should ask Emmeline to help me." Emmeline was Lady Birkett, the
wife of Mrs. Clinton's brother, the judge.
"Not a bad idea," said the Squire. "But I won't have any of your
suffragettes. Herbert is a very good fellow, but he's a most pestilent
Radical."
"You would let me offer a good salary, I suppose."
"What do we pay Miss Bird?"
"Only thirty pounds a year. She has never asked for more."
"She's a good old creature. I'm sorry for her sister. Is she well
off, do you know?"
"I'm afraid very badly off."
"Then how will they get on? I suppose Miss Bird has saved a bit.
She's had no expenses here except her clothes for many years."
"She told me she had saved about four hundred pounds."
"_Has she_? Out of thirty pounds a year! It's extraordinary. Still,
that won't give her much, capitalised, poor old creature. I'll tell
you what, Nina, I'll talk it over with Dick and see if we can't fix up
a little annuity for her. She's served us well and faithfully all
these years, and we ought to do something for her."
"Oh, Edward, I am so glad," said Mrs. Clinton. "I hoped you might see
your way to helping her. She will be so very grateful."
The Squire lifted himself out of his chair. "Oh yes, we'll do
something or other," he said. "Well, get another governess then, Nina,
and pay her--what do you want to pay her?--forty?"
Mrs. Clinton hesitated a moment. "I want to get the best I can," she
said. "I want to pay her eighty at least."
The Squire, in his moods of good humour, was proof against all
annoyance over other people's follies. He laughed. "Oh, I should make
it a hundred if I were you," he said.
"When the boys had Mr. Blake in their holidays," said Mrs. Clinton, "he
had five pounds a week, and only had to teach them for an hour a day."
"That's a very different thing," said the Squire. "Blake was a
University man and a gentleman. You have to pay a private tutor well."
"I want to get a lady," said Mrs. Clinton, "and I should like one who
had been to a University."
"Oh, my dear girl," said the Squire, moving off down the room, "have it
your own way and pay her what you like. Now is there anything else I
can do for you before I go and write a few letters?"
"You are very kind, Edward, in letting me have my way about this.
There is one more thing. If the children went to school they would
have extra lessons for music and drawing or anything else that they
might show talent in. Joan and Nancy have both got talent. I want to
be able to have masters for them, from Bathgate--or perhaps even from
London--for anything special that their governess cannot teach them."
The Squire was at the door. "Well, upon my word!" he said, nodding his
head at her. Then he went out of the room.