SUNDAY AND MONDAY
On Monday some of the party assembled at Kencote hunted, but the
Squire, who had given up hunting for the season for reasons we know of,
went out with Sir Herbert Birkett and George Senhouse to walk up
partridges, and shoot whatever else came to their guns in an easy,
pottering way. Although he would not have admitted it, he was getting
quite reconciled to the loss of his favourite sport. His wide lands
afforded him plenty of game, and he enjoyed these small days with a few
guns, walking for miles through roots and over grass, and watching his
dogs work, descendants of the famous breed of pointers which had been
the pride of his sporting old grandfather. He thought they had not
been given half enough to do of late years, and now that his mind was
turned in another direction he had begun to feel keenly interested and
to follow it up with vigour. "Driven birds are all very well," he said
to his brother-in-law as they set out. "They're more difficult to hit
and you get more shooting. But you don't get so much sport. Any
cockney who's got the trick of it can bring 'em down."
"Well, I can't, and I'm a cockney," said Sir Herbert. "Still, I agree
with you. This is the sort of day for pleasure."
So they spent the whole of the mild winter day in the open, lunched
simply on the warm side of a hedge, and came back at dusk, having
thoroughly enjoyed themselves. The Squire had been at his best, the
country gentleman, busying himself in the open air with the pursuits
his forefathers had found their pleasure in for generations, allied to
his lands, simple in his enjoyment of what they provided for him,
companionable, master of field-craft, perfect as a host. "I haven't
had such a day for a long time," he said as they stood before the hall
door being relieved of their paraphernalia. "I've forgotten all my
troubles."
Sir Herbert was touched. He found the man tiresome in so many aspects
of life, stupid and overbearing. But he had also something of the
appealing simplicity of a child. He was in trouble, and he had been
able to forget it all while he had amused himself.
"It's the best day I've had for a long time too," he said. "You've
given me a great deal of pleasure, Edward."
But once in the house, the Squire's worries rolled back on him--not the
big trouble, which he had no time to brood over just now, although it
was always present in the background of his mind, but the little
annoyances incident to his entertaining a lot of people whose ways were
not his ways, and who interfered with the settled course of his life.
Lady Aldeburgh had given him great annoyance, and as for Bobby Trench,
it was as much as he could do to be civil to him. On the other hand,
he was more pleased with his son Humphrey than he had been for a long
time, and he had also come to feel that his son Walter was a man to be
relied on, in spite of his obstinate choice of a profession unsuitable
for a son of his, and his management of his life since he had taken up
that profession. If it had not been for this new-found satisfaction in
his younger sons, perhaps he would not have been able to prevent the
thoughts of his eldest son spoiling his day, and he would certainly
have been far more actively annoyed with Lady Aldeburgh and Bobby
Trench.
For neither of those gay butterflies of fashion had been able or cared
to adjust themselves to the Sabbath calm of a house managed in the way
that Kencote was. Lady Aldeburgh, having spent the morning in her
room, written her letters and done her duty to privacy for the day,
came down to luncheon ready and willing to be amused. And there was no
amusement provided for her. After luncheon she had played a game of
running round the billiard-table and knocking balls into pockets with
the bare hand with Bobby Trench, and fortunately the Squire, at rest in
his room, with the _Spectator_ on his knee, had not known what they
were doing. But this mild amusement had soon palled, and the problem
was to find something for two active young things to do in its place.
"Have you _ever_ stayed in a house like this before, Bobby dear?" asked
Lady Aldeburgh.
Bobby dear said that he never had, and the powers above being
favourable, never would again.
"It's perfectly deadly," said Lady Aldeburgh. "What on earth are the
rest of them doing?"
"Slumbering on their beds," replied Bobby Trench; "and in half an hour
or so they will all appear, rubbing their eyes, and we shall go for a
nice long walk."
"Not me," said her ladyship, with a glance at the leaden sky outside
and the bare leafless trees shaking in a cold wind. "Do let's get
somewhere by a cosey fire and have a rubber of bridge."
"Who's the four?" asked Bobby Trench. "Shall we wake up old Clinton,
and ask him? There are risks. It might be amusing to see somebody in
an apoplectic fit, and again it might not."
"Don't be foolish," said Lady Aldeburgh, patting him on the arm.
"Humphrey would play, and I'll tell Susan she's wanted."
"They are going out for a walk together. It's a case," said Bobby
Trench boldly.
"Whatever put that into your head?" enquired her ladyship, with
wide-open eyes. "It's quite absurd."
"Oh, I think Susan's a very nice girl," replied Bobby Trench. "Though
I admit it's absurd to take much notice of her while you're about."
Lady Aldeburgh hit his sleeve again with her jewelled hand. "If you
talk like that I shall go away," she said. "When I said it was absurd
I meant that neither of them has a shilling."
"Humphrey ought to have a good many shillings if he plays his hand well
with old Papa Beetroot just now," replied Bobby Trench. "There's a
deuce of an upset. I should hold for a rise if I were you."
"You shouldn't talk so disrespectfully. You are disrespectful to me,
and to Mr. Clinton, who is a relation of mine--and the head of our
family, or so he says. And as for Humphrey, he's a nice boy--certainly
the pick of this particular bunch--but Susan wouldn't look at him."
"Why not? He's civilised, if his people aren't."
"She could do much better, and I shouldn't allow it. Of course they
are friends, and I don't mind that. You must remember that they are
cousins."
"Is it fifty-sixth or fifty-seventh cousins?" asked Bobby Trench
innocently. "Well, you know best, of course, but you've got other
girls besides Susan to look after, and if you don't take care she'll
get left. No, my dear lady, it's no use trying to deceive me. You're
quite ready to let Susan marry Humphrey if Papa Mangel-Wurzel will put
up the stakes. Aren't you, now? Confess."
"I shan't confess anything so ridiculous," said Lady Aldeburgh
petulantly. "What I want to do is to play bridge, and relieve myself
of this frightful boredom. I shouldn't have come here if I'd known
what it was like. _Can't_ we get a four?"
"I'll see about it later on," said Bobby Trench. "Perhaps after tea.
Why not picquet in the meantime?"
"It's a stupid game," said Lady Aldeburgh. "But if you make the stakes
high enough it would be better than nothing."
"I'll make the stakes what you like," said Bobby Trench. "I'll pay you
if I lose, and if you lose you must pay me."
Lady Aldeburgh having consented to this not unreasonable arrangement,
Bobby Trench rang the bell and asked the servant who answered it to
bring a card-table and some cards. Although somewhat surprised at the
order he presently fulfilled it, and the game proceeded until tea-time.
All the members of the house party met over the tea-table, and
afterwards Lady Aldeburgh, having whispered to her daughter, went out
of the room followed by Bobby Trench. Lady Susan then whispered
something to Humphrey, who looked rather disturbed, and then also went
out of the room with her. Now the whispers had not been in the least
obtrusive, or of the nature to arouse comment, but the Squire happened
to have observed them both, and told Joan as he went back into his room
to find Humphrey and send him to him, not anticipating hearing of
anything wrong, but thinking that he might as well know what was going
on as not.
Joan was delighted with the errand. She also had observed the
whispers, and was at least as eager as her father to find out what was
on foot. She went to several rooms before she opened the door of the
billiard-room, which was little used, and never on a Sunday. There she
found Lady Aldeburgh and Bobby Trench seated at a card-table, and
Humphrey standing by them with Susan Clinton at his side. "Humphrey,
father wants to speak to you for a minute," she said, and then ran away
to find Nancy and tell her of the terrible thing that was happening.
"Well, if you don't mind, then," said Humphrey, preparing to obey the
summons, and Lady Aldeburgh said, "Oh no, not in the least. I didn't
know there would be any objection."
Joan, passing through the hall, was again stopped by the Squire, who
was standing at the door of his room. "I told you to fetch Humphrey,"
he said irritably. "Why have you been so long? I want to speak to
him."
"I couldn't find him, father," said Joan.
"Where was he?" asked the Squire.
"He's just coming," replied Joan.
"I asked you _where_ he was," persisted the Squire, and when she said
he had been in the billiard-room, asked her what he was doing there.
"Talking to Lady Aldeburgh," said Joan; and the Squire asked her what
_she_ was doing.
Then it came out. "Playing at cards with Mr. Trench," said Joan, who
disliked Lady Aldeburgh and Bobby Trench equally, and didn't see why
she shouldn't answer a plain question in plain terms.
Then the Squire went into his room, shutting the door decisively, and
Humphrey went in after him, Joan having escaped for the second time.
Inside the Squire's room there was an outbreak. "I will not have it in
this house. I simply _will not_ have it," was the burden of his
indignant cry.
"Well, look here, father," said Humphrey quietly. "I didn't know what
was happening, and directly I did I stopped them. They gave it up at
once when I said you wouldn't like it. They couldn't tell, you know.
Everybody does it now."
The Squire spluttered his wrath. "I call it disgraceful," he said. "I
don't know what the world's coming to. Cards on Sunday in a
respectable God-fearing house! And you defend it!"
"No, I don't," said Humphrey. "I told you that I had stopped them."
The Squire looked at him. "Did they want you to play?" he asked. "You
and a girl like Lady Susan! You don't mean to tell me her mother
wanted her to play? Is the girl accustomed to that sort of thing, I
should like to know?"
Humphrey did not want to give Lady Aldeburgh away, but rather her than
Susan, and rather Bobby Trench than either of them.
"Susan doesn't care about it," he said. "Lady Aldeburgh--well, you can
see what she is, can't you?--nothing like as sensible as her daughter.
She'll do what anybody wants her to."
"Oh, then it's Master Trench I'm to thank for making my house a
gambling saloon on a Sunday!" exclaimed the Squire. "If he wasn't my
guest, I would say something to that young cub that would surprise him.
Anyhow, he'll never come into this house again, and I must say, seeing
what he is, that I wonder at your asking him at all."
"I'm sorry I did," said Humphrey. "But I hope you won't say anything
to him about this. I'll take charge of them and see that they behave
themselves."
"Then you'll have your work cut out for you," said the Squire grumpily.
"You'd better set about doing it at once. I wish to goodness I'd never
consented to people like that coming into the house. I may be
old-fashioned--I dare say I am--but I don't understand their ways, and
I don't want to."
That had been the end of it as far as he was concerned.
If he could have heard what passed between Lady Aldeburgh and Bobby
Trench when deprived of their legitimate amusement--but that thought is
too painful. What had happened further on that Sunday evening was that
feeling vaguely the need of some sort of comfort in the anxieties that
beset him he had suddenly taken it into his head to go to church to the
evening service, a thing he hardly ever did, and striding with firm and
audible steps into the chancel pew during the saying of the Psalms, he
had found, as well as most of the ladies from the house and George
Senhouse, assembled there, Humphrey and Susan Clinton sitting together,
and had come to the conclusion, during the sermon, that it was
creditable on Humphrey's part to have stopped the card-playing on his
behalf, instead of joining in it, as might have been expected of him,
and that he seemed to be turning over a new leaf, and was probably
exercising a good influence over the harmless daughter of a foolish
mother.
So he was pleased with Humphrey, but displeased with Lady Aldeburgh,
who had shown herself perverse at the dinner-table and in the
drawing-room afterwards, had refused to talk more than was necessary,
and had gone up to her room on the stroke of ten; and furious with
Bobby Trench, who had made no effort to disguise his yawns throughout
the evening, and fallen openly asleep in the library after the ladies
had retired.
As for Walter, he had talked to him very sensibly later still in the
evening about Dick. "Don't do anything," he had said, "till I have
seen him again. I don't know what can be done, or if anything can be
done. But it's quite certain that if you threaten him you will drive
him straight into doing what you don't want him to do." So he had
consented to Walter acting as his ambassador, and felt that he could
rely on him in that capacity, and even take some comfort in the hope
that he might do something to lighten the state of gloom and depression
in which most of his waking hours were now passed.
It was with a feeling of relief that he saw the whole party, with the
exception of Sir Herbert Birkett, set out later in the evening on their
ten-mile drive to Kemsale. It had been his intention to go with them,
but the thought that Virginia, with whom he had seen Lord Meadshire
colloguing, would almost certainly have received an invitation, and
would no doubt eagerly have accepted it, deterred him. When his wife's
carriage, containing herself, Lady Birkett, and Lady Aldeburgh, who
would far rather have been with the younger members of the party, had
driven off, and the omnibus, with the rest of them, had followed it, he
breathed a sigh of relief. "To-morrow we shall be able to settle down
again, thank God!" he said to himself as the door was shut behind him.
Kemsale Hall, towards which carriages from every country house in South
Meadshire within driving distance, and motor-cars from far beyond, were
converging, was a very fine place, and the ball which Lord Meadshire
gave that evening was a very fine ball. Amongst the numerous guests,
whose names were all chronicled in the _Bathgate Herald and South
Meadshire Advertiser_, were Lady George Dubec and Miss Dexter.
Virginia had gone home from the Hunt Ball vowing that nothing would
induce her to accept the invitation which Lady Kemsale had given her so
patronisingly when it should be confirmed by the promised card, and
Miss Dexter had backed her up in her own dry way, while professing to
combat her resolution.
"I don't know what you can be thinking of, Virginia," she said.
"Refuse an invitation to a house like Kemsale--the house of a Marquis,
a Lord-Lieutenant! Why, lots of women would commit hari-kari
to-morrow--or at least the day after the ball--if they could get an
invitation."
"Well, I'm not one of them," said Virginia. "To think that I would go
anywhere on sufferance! Lord Meadshire's an old darling, but as for
his daughter-in-law, I should very much like to tell her what I think
of her."
The opportunity of doing so occurred no later than the following
afternoon, when Lady Kemsale came to Blaythorn Rectory to call, but
Virginia did not take it.
Lady Kemsale's manners were naturally stiff, but she did her best to
soften them when she was shown into Virginia's drawing-room. "I
thought I would come over before Monday," she said, with a smile, "so
as to put everything on the most approved basis of etiquette. We don't
often get new people in this part of the world, and when we do we must
make haste to show that we appreciate them."
This was handsome enough, and it rather took Virginia's breath away.
When Lady Kemsale had been announced she had jumped to the conclusion
that Lord Meadshire had sent her, which was true; but what was also
true was that she had been quite pleased to come, and to have the
opportunity of making amends for her frigidity at the Hunt Ball, which
had been caused by the Squire's tale and thawed again by her own
observations. When she drove away half an hour later Virginia said
with a rare lapse into the American tongue, "Why, she's a perfectly
lovely woman, after all, Toby. Now you can't say that I was wrong to
say I'd go, after the way she behaved."
"Just a little soft-sawder, and you fall at her feet," said Miss
Dexter. But she was pleased, all the same, that Virginia should be
going to Kemsale, and that one more of Dick's people should have
acknowledged her charm and her worth. She was pleased also to be going
herself, for she had a little scheme of her own, which she had not
imparted to her friend.
She had, in fact, made up her mind to speak to Mrs. Clinton, if she
could find an excuse to do so, unobserved by the Squire. She had
watched her in the Bathgate Assembly Room, and she had seen her in her
turn watching Virginia with eyes whose meaning, whatever it was, was
not one of hostility. "Now there's a woman with sense," she had said
to herself. "_She_ wouldn't be tiresome. I wonder how much she is
under the influence of her old bear of a husband?"
This was what she was going to find out, if she could, and she waited
her opportunity, refusing invitations to dance, and wandering about the
great string of rooms at Kemsale, stalking her prey, with a
whole-hearted indifference as to what might be thought of a single lady
so apparently friendless and partnerless.
It was Lord Meadshire himself, who, coming across her passing through
one of the smaller drawing-rooms, did what she wanted. "What! not
dancing?" he asked in his friendly way; and with a searching glance at
his kind old face she said, "I have something else to do. I want to
speak to Mrs. Clinton, but I don't know her."
He looked at her in return with a momentary seriousness. "Want to gain
a convert, eh?" he asked. He liked her plain sensible face, and the
way she stood, square to him and to the world. "Tell me now, is this a
serious business?"
She did not answer him directly. "She's one of the best women in the
world," she said. "Perhaps I'm the only person who really knows what
she's been through and how she has taken it. She has come out of her
troubles pure gold. And anybody can see for themselves that she is
beautiful and has a charm all her own."
"Oh yes, anybody can see that," said Lord Meadshire. "She's a sweet
creature. And Dick Clinton wants to marry her. _He's_ serious, eh?"
"I think he has proved it," said Miss Dexter.
Lord Meadshire considered this. He had heard that Dick had retired
from the army, but not about his having taken an estate agency. "I
suppose he is," he said.
"They ought to know her," said Miss Dexter. "People ought not to hug
prejudices that have no reason."
Lord Meadshire looked at her with his mischievous smile. "A matter of
abstract right and wrong--what?" he said. "Well, come along, and I'll
introduce you. But you must tell me your name, which I'm afraid I have
forgotten, although I know quite well who you are, you know."
"Yes. I'm Lady George Dubec's companion, and my name is Dexter," she
said.
Lord Meadshire loved a little conspiracy. His eyes twinkled at her as
he said, "This dance is coming to an end, and people will be here in a
minute. You would like to talk to her by yourselves. Go into the
conservatory there, and leave it all to me."
So Miss Dexter went and deposited herself on one of two chairs under a
palm. Couples in search of privacy wondered, sometimes audibly, why on
earth the woman couldn't find some other place to sit and mope in, but
she sat on undisturbed. A man whom she had danced with before, also
unattached, mooned in with his hands in his pockets, and showed a
disposition to take the vacant chair. "Please go away," she said. "I
have got toothache, and anybody who talks to me will have his head
snapped off," and he, being of a diffident nature, went. Presently the
lilting sweep of strings and the sweet penetrating sound of horns came
sweeping in from the distant orchestra, and she was left alone once
more, except for one couple, who still sat on in a distant corner. But
by and by she heard voices approaching. These were from Lord Meadshire
and Mrs. Clinton, whom he had brought in to look at the flowers, which
were banked up in gay, scented masses underneath the spreading branches
of the great palms. They came to where she was sitting, and Lord
Meadshire said again, "What! not dancing?" She rose and stood before
them. "I'm having a little rest," she said, with a smile; and then he
made the introduction. "Do you know Miss Dexter, Nina?" he asked.
"She has come to live here for a time, Mrs. Clinton."
Mrs. Clinton acknowledged the introduction not without stiffness. She
was taken by surprise, as was intended, but she was a woman whom it was
not wise to take by surprise, if you wanted her to show you what was in
her mind.
Lord Meadshire had intended to leave her with Miss Dexter, slipping
away on some excuse with a promise to return, but when he had borne the
brunt of a light conversation for a little time he perceived that he
could not do so. He paused in some bewilderment, and Miss Dexter said,
"May I have a few words with you, Mrs. Clinton?"
"Ah yes," he said, visibly relieved. "I'll leave you both here
together, and come back."
But Mrs. Clinton said at once, "If it is about Lady George Dubec, I
would rather not hear anything. I think I will go back to the
ballroom, Cousin Humphrey." Then she turned resolutely, with a bow to
Miss Dexter, who had plumped herself into her seat again and did not
return it, and Lord Meadshire had nothing to do but to go away with
her. "But you mustn't sit here all the evening," he said kindly, over
his shoulder, to Miss Dexter. "I shall come back and fetch you."
But when he returned five minutes later she was not there, and he saw
her dancing vigorously, and apparently anxious to avoid him.
But she could not dance the whole evening, owing to a lack of partners,
and he had an opportunity of speaking to her later. "I'm afraid our
little scheme miscarried," he said, with some concern.
She showed him a pink, angry face. "I wish to goodness I had left it
alone," she said. "I don't like being snubbed."
"She won't go behind her husband," he said rather lamely.
"I thought, to look at her, she had a good deal more sense than he,"
said Miss Dexter uncompromisingly. "It seems I was mistaken."