DICK PAYS A SUNDAY VISIT
It did not take Dick long to find out on that next (Sunday) morning
that his diplomacy had failed, that his father, urged by his fears, had
discovered what he would have hidden from him for a time, or thought he
had discovered it, which came to the same thing, since it was true, and
that he might just as well have announced his intention of marrying
Virginia Dubec, and entered at once upon the struggle which was now
bound to come in any case.
Nothing was said on either side, and the Squire did his best to behave
as usual. But the attempt was too much for him, and there was no one
who did not know before breakfast was over that there was a disturbance
in the air. He would enter upon a course of conversation with gaiety,
and relinquish it immediately to frown upon his plate. He grumbled at
everything upon the table, and testily rebuked the twins for fidgeting.
They took the rebuke calmly, knowing quite well what it portended, and
were only anxious to discover the cause of the upset.
"It's this Lady George Dubec," said Joan, when they were alone
together. "There's something fishy about her; it must have come out
after we were sent away yesterday. Father thinks he's Emperor of this
part of Meadshire, and he doesn't like her coming here without his
being consulted."
"I don't think it's that at all," said Nancy. "I believe it's
Humphrey's debts. Father has got pots of money, but he hates shelling
it out. He was snappy with Humphrey this morning."
"So he was with everybody but Dick. That proves nothing. A week's
pocket-money that it's this Lady George."
"Dick said we weren't to bet."
"Oh, well, perhaps we'd better not, then. He was a brick about the
camera. I don't suppose he's concerned in it, whatever it is. With
father, Dick does no wrong."
"I'm not sure. Joan, supposing Dick has fallen in love with Lady
George and father is upset about it!"
"Oh, my dear, do talk sense. Dick in love with a widow!"
"Stranger things have happened. Anyhow, we'll leave no stone unturned
to find out what it is."
"Oh, we'll ferret it out all right. It will add to the interest of
life."
There was one thing that the Squire always did on the rare occasions on
which he found himself in a dilemma, and that was to consult his
half-brother, the Rector. Consequently when, after church, meeting
Mrs. Beach, the Rector's wife, in the churchyard, he asked her if she
and Tom would come up to luncheon, Dick, overhearing him, smiled
inwardly and a little ruefully, and pictured to himself the sitting
that would be held in the afternoon, when the Rector would be invited
into the library and the Squire would unbosom himself of his
difficulties. Dick himself had often joined in these conclaves.
"Let's see what Tom has to say about it," his father would say. "He
has a good head, Tom." Dick would be left out of this conclave, but as
he thought of the line that his uncle was likely to take, he half
wished that he had had a conclave with him himself beforehand. The
Rector was a man of peace, a lovable man, who hated to see any one
uncomfortable, and perhaps, for a churchman, hated a little too much to
run the risk of discomfort himself. Probably he would have
sympathised. Certainly he would have brought no hard judgment to bear
on Virginia, whatever she had done and whatever she had been. However,
it was too late to think of that now, and when Joan asked him at
luncheon if he would go for a walk with them in the afternoon, he took
the bull by the horns and said that he was going to drive over to
Blaythorn.
"By the by," said Mrs. Beach, not noticing the Squire's sudden frown,
"have you heard that Mr. Marsh has let his rectory to a hunting lady?"
"Yes," said Dick, "Lady George Dubec. She is a friend of mine, and I'm
going over to see her."
Never had the Squire spoken with more difficulty. But it behoved him
to speak, and to speak at once. "I am very sorry she has come," he
said. "She is a friend of Dick's in London, but we can't recognise her
here at Kencote."
Except that the servants were not in the room it was a public throwing
down of the gage of battle. It amounted on the Squire's part to an
affront of his son, the being beloved best in the world, and he would
have put it on him if the whole household had been present. But what
it cost him to do so could be told from his moody fits of silence
during the rest of the meal, his half-emptied plate and his
twice-emptied glass.
Dick took the blow without flinching, although he was inwardly consumed
with anger, not at the affront to himself, but to Virginia. "We are a
little behind the times at Kencote," he said lightly. "But we shall
probably fall into line by and by."
The Squire made no answer. He had shot his bolt and had none of the
ammunition of repartee at hand. The awkward moment was covered by the
immediate flow of conversation, but he took little or no part in it,
and it was a relief when the meal was over.
When the Squire had led the way into the library and shut the door upon
himself and the Rector, he broke out at once. "Tom, you heard what
happened. Dick is out of his mind about this woman. Unless something
can be done to stop it, a dreadful day is coming to Kencote."
The Rector, tall, fleshy, slow in movement, mild of speech, was
astonished. "My dear Edward!" he exclaimed. "I did not gather from
what passed that--that this meant anything serious."
"Oh, serious!" echoed the Squire, half distraught. "It's as serious as
it can be, Tom." And he told him in his own decisive manner exactly
how serious it seemed to him to be. "A hunting woman!" he ended up.
"I could have forgiven that. I can't deny that women do hunt, now, who
wouldn't have done in our young days. An American! Well, people do
marry them nowadays--but an American at Kencote after all these
generations! Think of it, Tom! And if that were only the worst! But
a stage dancer! A woman who has shown herself before the public--for
money! And a widow!--a woman who has been married to one of the worst
blackguards in England. You remember him, Tom--at Eton."
"No," said the Rector. "He was before my time."
"Before your time--yes, and three or four years older than I am. He'd
have been an old man if he'd been alive now. And it's the widow of
that man my son wants to marry. Isn't it too shameful, Tom? What can
have come over him? He has never acted in this sort of way before. My
boy Dick! In everything that has ever happened to annoy me, he has
always behaved just exactly as I would have my son behave. And now he
brings this trouble on me. Oh, Tom, tell me what on earth I'm to do."
The poor gentleman was so overcome with distress that it was pitiful to
witness. The Rector knew how he took things--hard at first, and
bringing his heaviest weight of resistance to bear upon the lightest
obstacles, but calming down after he had been humoured a bit, accepting
the inevitable like a sensible man, and making the best of it. But
this was beyond the point at which he could be humoured. It struck at
all that he held dearest in life, the welfare of his son, the dignity
of his house. He would not give way here, whatever distress it cost
him to hold out.
"Have you seen this lady, Edward?" asked the Rector.
"Oh, seen her! No," replied the Squire. "Why should I want to see
her? She may be good-looking. They say she is. I suppose Dick
wouldn't have fallen in love with her if she were not, and at any rate
women who are not good-looking don't become pets of the stage, as I'm
told this woman was. Pah! It's beyond everything I could have
believed of Dick. I would rather he had married the daughter of a
farm-labourer--a girl of clean healthy English stock. To bring a
creature from behind the footlights and make her mistress of Kencote--a
soiled woman--that's what she is, even if she has never sold
herself--and who knows that she hasn't? She _did_ sell herself--to a
broken-down _roue_, a man old enough to be her father--for his wretched
title, I suppose. And now she wants to buy Kencote, and my son, Dick,
the straightest, finest fellow a father ever had reason to be proud of.
I tell you, Tom, the world ought to be delivered of these harpies.
They ought to be locked up, Tom, locked up, and the wickedness whipped
out of them."
"Has Dick said that he wanted to marry her?" asked the Rector, anxious
to bring this tirade, which was gathering in intensity, to an end.
"It's as plain as it can be. He has brought her down here, and he
wants us to take her up."
"Well, but is that all, Edward? Surely you have more to go on than
that, if you have made up your mind that he wants to marry her."
"I _have_ more to go on. He told me only two nights ago that he was
quite ready to marry, and that he wouldn't marry a girl. That's plain
English, isn't it? And this comes just on top of it. Why, he had her
down here--fixed it all up for her--and never said a word to us till
after we'd heard from outside that she was there. There are a lot of
things. I can put two and two together as well as anybody, and I
haven't a doubt of it. And I asked him definitely, yesterday, and he
didn't deny it."
"He didn't acknowledge it, I suppose."
"I tell you he didn't deny it. He gave me an evasive answer. That
isn't like Dick. She has had a bad influence on him already. Don't
waste time in trying to persuade me that black is white, Tom. Tell me
how I am to stop this."
The Rector could not tell him how to stop it. He knew very well that
Dick was a stronger man than his father, and that if he had made up his
mind to do a thing he would do it. But he still doubted whether he had
made up his mind to do this particular thing. He thought that the
Squire was probably alarming himself needlessly, and with all the art
that lay in his power he tried to persuade him that it was so. "Young
men," he ended, "do make friends with women they wouldn't want to
marry. You know that is so, Edward. It is no use shutting your eyes
to facts."
"Yes, but they don't bring them down to their homes for their mothers
and sisters to make friends with," retorted the Squire. "It's the last
thing Dick would do, and I'd rather he did what he's doing now, bad as
it is, than do a thing like that. He's hypnotised--that's what it
is--he thinks she's a good woman--everything she ought to be----"
"And perhaps she _is_ a good woman, Edward, and everything she ought to
be," interrupted the Rector, speaking more emphatically than was his
wont, for in his simple unworldliness it had not occurred to him that
his last words could bear the interpretation the Squire had put upon
them, and he was rather scandalised. "I say that you ought to hold
your judgment until you have seen her, and know something of her at
first hand. I do not believe that Dick would expect his family to make
friends with a lady who was not above reproach, and I certainly never
meant for a moment to imply that he would do such a thing as make love
to a woman he did not intend to marry. When I said that men make
friends with women, I meant no more than I said."
"Well, you're a parson," said his brother, "and you've got to keep your
eyes shut to certain things that go on, I suppose."
"No, Edward, that is not the duty of a parson," returned the Rector.
"I shut my eyes to nothing. It seems to me that you do. It seems to
me that you shut your eyes to what you know of Dick's character. You
picture to yourself a vulgar, scheming adventuress. I say that if Dick
is in love with this lady, as you say he is, she is not that, but
something very different, and I say again that you ought to withhold
your judgment until you have seen her."
"As far as seeing her goes," grumbled the Squire, "there's nothing
easier than that. I shall see her at the covert-side, and I dare say I
shall see her scampering all over the county covered with mud, and
getting in the way of the hounds. Women are an infernal nuisance in
the hunting-field. Well, you don't give me much comfort, Tom. Still,
it does one some good to talk over one's troubles. I'm afraid this is
going to be a big trouble--the biggest I've ever had in my life."
"Then don't meet it half-way," said the Rector. "You don't know for
certain that Dick wants to marry her, and if he does she can't be
anything like you have imagined her. I'm afraid I must go now, Edward.
I have to look in at the Sunday-school."
"Well, good-bye, Tom, my dear fellow. Tell 'em in the Sunday-school to
obey their parents. Yes, for this is _right_, by George! the Bible
says. And so it is; if children would obey their parents, half the
trouble in the world would disappear."
Dick was not best pleased, when he drove up to the door of Blaythorn
Rectory, to hear that her ladyship had gone for a walk with Miss
Dexter, and would not be back for an hour or more. He had not told her
that he was coming over, and had not intended to do so. Horses were
not taken out of the Kencote stables on Sundays without necessity. He
said he would wait, and went into the drawing-room to get what
consolation he could out of his own thoughts until Virginia should
return.
He had been there about half an hour, sometimes walking up and down the
room, sometimes reading a few pages of a book and throwing it
impatiently on one side, sometimes sitting staring moodily into the
fire, when he heard voices in the hall. A look of relief came over his
face and he got up, prepared to greet Virginia, when the door was
opened and Mrs. Graham was shown into the room. She was dressed in her
usual serviceable walking clothes and had a dog-whip in her hand,
although she had left her dogs for the time being outside.
"Good gracious, Dick!" she exclaimed. "They told me there was nobody
here."
"The other maid let me in," said Dick. He could not for the life of
him prevent himself feeling and looking shamefaced.
Mrs. Graham took no notice of it. She walked straight to a little
writing-table in the corner of the room and sat down. "As I suppose
you are wondering what on earth I am doing here," she said, "I'll tell
you. I had a letter this morning from Anne Conyers, who asked me to
come and see Lady George, as she didn't know a soul in the county. I'm
only too pleased to; we're such a set of rustics here that it does us
good to get somebody new, if they're not nincompoops like those people
we've just got rid of at Mountfield. I thought I would drop in this
afternoon. If she's sensible she won't mind my coming in these
clothes. If she isn't I don't want to know her. You know her; you
don't think she'll mind, eh?"
"Oh, of course not."
"I'm just going to write her a note asking her to dine to-morrow. Jim
and Muriel are coming, and Roddy Buckstone. Will you and Humphrey
come, Dick? We don't want too many women."
"I don't know about Humphrey. I shall be pleased to."
"Well, that's all right. You might take a message from me to Humphrey."
"I'd rather you wrote a note to him--and posted it."
"Oh!" said Mrs. Graham in a voice that invited explanation.
But Dick gave none.
"Lady George has a friend staying with her--Miss Dexter," he said.
"You'd better ask her too, I think."
"Oh, of course. Thank you for telling me. Miss Dexter."
She wrote her note, fastened and directed it, dwelling rather
deliberately on the process as she neared its completion. She seemed
as if she were turning over in her mind something to say, but finally
rose, and said, "Well, I suppose she'll get that when she comes in.
I'll take myself and the dogs back to Mountfield now."
"Why don't you wait and see her?" asked Dick, rather grudgingly, for he
didn't want Mrs. Graham to stay. "She can't be long now."
Mrs. Graham looked at him shrewdly. "I don't think I will," she said.
"She'll be out with the hounds to-morrow, I suppose. Look here, Dick,
I don't know whether I'm a fool to say anything or not, and I don't
want to mix myself up in other people's business, but Anne Conyers told
me that Lady George was a friend of yours, and that you had got her
this house. We'll see that she gets on here all right."
She gave him a knowing nod which made him reply--
"Oh, you mean that there's likely to be trouble at Kencote. Well, I
don't mind telling you that there _is_ trouble. My father announced
to-day before Tom and Grace and the whole family that Lady George Dubec
might be good enough for me to know in London, but she wasn't good
enough for him or anybody to know at Kencote." He spoke bitterly, and
as Mrs. Graham, who knew him well, had never heard him speak of his
father.
"Did he?" she said. "Well, that's what, if I were a man, I should call
rather thick. Still, he'll probably come round, and if he doesn't he
is not the only person in South Meadshire, though he sometimes behaves
as if he thought he was. Good-bye, Dick; to-morrow at eight o'clock,
then. I'll write to Humphrey, though I shan't break my heart if he
doesn't come."
Dick let her out at the front door, where she was vociferously greeted
by her pack, and then returned to the drawing-room. "And I wonder what
_she'll_ be thinking as she goes home," he said to himself.
Virginia came into the room alone when she and Miss Dexter returned.
Dick could hear her glad little cry of surprise outside when she was
told he was there, and it made him catch his breath with a queer
mixture of sensations. She brought a cool fresh fragrance into the
room with her, and he thought he had never seen her look sweeter, with
her rather frail beauty warmed into sparkling life by the exercise she
had taken in the sharp winter air and her pleasure at finding him there
on her return.
Sitting by her side on the sofa he told her what had happened, and she
took the news thoughtfully and sadly. "He must be rather terrible,
your father," she said, "and cleverer than you thought too, Dick, if he
suspects already what is between us."
"Oh, I suppose it's I who am not so clever as I thought myself," he
said. "When he asked me point-blank I couldn't tell him a lie. But I
own I never thought he would ask me. It was from something I had said
to him the night before, about not wanting to marry a youngster. I
don't know why on earth I was fool enough to say it, and put him on the
scent. I suppose I was thinking such a lot of you, my girl. I can't
get you out of my head, you know. But the fact is I'm not cut out for
a conspirator, Virginia, and now that all my carefully laid plans have
come to nothing, I'm not sure that I'm not rather relieved."
"You think they have quite come to nothing, Dick?"
"It looks like it. We shall know to-morrow. I still think--what I've
always thought and built upon--that if he once sees you----"
"Dear Dick! But it's rather late for that now, if he has heard all
about me, and has made a picture of me in his mind."
"Well, it's such a preposterous picture, that the reality can't help
striking him. We won't do anything until after we know what has
happened at the meet. And by the by, there's a dinner invitation for
you for to-morrow evening." He told her about Mrs. Graham and gave her
her note.
"That is very kind of Mrs. Graham," she said. "I forgot to tell you
that I knew her sister-in-law. I'm afraid we shan't have much
opportunity of talking there, Dick."
So they talked where they were for a long time, until the dusk fell and
the maid came in with the lights and the tea, and Miss Dexter after
her, and the result of their talk was that they felt things were not as
bad as they looked. Dick's father would relent some day, and until he
did they had each other.