BROTHERS
When Dick went downstairs again he said to Virginia, "Put on your hat
and let's go and have tea with old Aunt Laura." She went obediently
upstairs, and presently they were walking down the drive together in
the gathering dusk.
"Is everything going to be all right?" Virginia asked him. "Are we
quite forgiven, and is our own to be restored to us?"
"I don't think we shall have much difficulty in getting all we're
entitled to," replied Dick.
Virginia put her arm into his. "It's nearly dark and nobody's about,"
she said in apology. "Dear Dick, it is nice to be here on these terms.
I do really feel that I belong to you, now--and to Kencote."
Dick pressed her hand to his side. "I nearly had to give up Kencote to
get you," he said. "Now I've got you _and_ Kencote, and I've nothing
left to ask for. My experience in life is that you generally get all
you want if you go to work in a straightforward way."
"Then your experience in life is a very fortunate one," replied
Virginia. "I've never had what I wanted before, although I think I've
been fairly straightforward. But I've got it now, dear Dick, and _I_
won't ask for anything further, either. I feel very happy and
comfortable, and if we weren't near the lodge I should lift up my voice
in song."
Aunt Laura was, it is needless to say, both flattered and genuinely
pleased at their visit, for this modest old lady liked company, but was
diffident of her own powers of attracting it. "This is the nicest
thing that could have happened," she said, when she had settled down in
close proximity to her tea-table. "The dear children came in this
morning with their new governess--a very competent person, I should
say, though not quite so respectful in her manner as Miss Bird used to
be--not that she was in any way _rude_, I don't mean that, but Miss
Bird was always cheerful and bright, and yet knew her place; and
Humphrey paid me a visit this afternoon; so I said to myself as I sat
down to tea, 'I have had two very pleasant visits to-day and can hardly
hope for a third. I must drink my tea by myself.' However, here you
both are, and I am very pleased indeed to see you, very pleased indeed.
Your dear father is none the worse since I last had word, I hope, Dick?"
"He's as well as can be, and talks about getting up for dinner,"
replied Dick.
"Oh, indeed, he must not do that," said Aunt Laura earnestly. "It
would be the greatest mistake. He has such courage and vitality that
he cannot realise what a terrible shock he has undergone. His only
chance, if he is to escape all ill effects from it, is to keep as quiet
as possible for a long time yet. I am sure when I think of what
_might_ have happened to him, if you, my dear, had not been, so
mercifully, on the spot, I go cold all over. Indeed, his escape was,
in the highest sense of the word, providential, and I am sure we are
all deeply grateful for it, and can lift up our hearts in thanksgiving.
Humphrey told me the whole story, in the most graphic way, and while it
made me shudder it also made me rejoice, that you were there, my dear,
to give such ready assistance. He made much of it."
"That was very kind of him," said Virginia. "But it was nothing to
make much of. I only went for help. And I've been well rewarded, you
know. Mr. Clinton didn't like me much before, and now he likes me very
much indeed. That makes me very happy."
"Of course it does," said Aunt Laura kindly. "Edward is a man whose
good opinion is worth having, for he does not give it without reason,
but, once given, it can be depended on. Well, as I say, it is very
good of you to come and see me. I'm sure the kind and thoughtful way
in which I am treated by one and all is highly gratifying. You have
not met Susan Clinton, I think, dear Humphrey's bride that is to be?
She also visited me frequently while she was at Kencote, and Humphrey
comes to see me every day. Since you are unable to live here, Dick, I
am very glad that we shall have him and his wife in our old home. I
shall be very glad to see the dear place lived in again, for I spent
many happy years of my life there."
"Has he settled how he's going to arrange the rooms?" asked Dick, in a
tone that made Virginia look at him, although Aunt Laura noticed
nothing unusual in the question.
"Yes, he has talked a good deal about it," she said, "and I have given
him advice upon the matter, some of which he thinks it quite likely
that he will take."
"I hear you've been very generous to him, Aunt Laura," Dick said.
"Oh, but there was no need for him to have said anything to you about
that," said Aunt Laura. "I wanted to help him to marry the girl he
loved, and it was quite true that a girl of her rank--not that her
branch of the family is better than ours, but they have rank and we
have not, although I have no doubt that we _could_ have had it if we
had wished--would expect rather more in her marriage than other girls,
and I told Humphrey that I quite understood that, as he seemed rather
low about his prospects. I didn't want your dear father to have all
the burden, and he has responded wonderfully to my offer. I am only
glad that it was possible for me to help Humphrey in his desire, and
that it should be possible for me to do so without doing _you_ or any
of the others an injustice, Dick; for I know you are well provided for,
and will not grudge your brother his share of good things."
"I don't grudge him anything that he's entitled to have," replied Dick.
"Now I want you to tell Virginia about Kencote in the old days, when my
great-grandfather was alive. She wants to hear all about Kencote that
she can."
Aunt Laura was nothing loath, and poured forth a gentle stream of
reminiscence until it was time for Dick and Virginia to go.
As they let themselves out of the house and walked down the dark
village street, Dick said, "Humphrey ought to be kicked. Fancy
sponging on that simple old woman! and getting her to leave the bulk of
her money to him, and away from the rest of us; because that's what it
means. I'll have it out with him as soon as I get home."
"Oh, my dear!" said Virginia. "Money, money, money! What does it
matter to us? We shall have plenty."
"We shouldn't have had plenty, or anything like it, if he'd had his
way. It isn't only old Aunt Laura he's been working on. He's taken
advantage of my being out of favour to get the governor to consider
leaving the best part of the property to him. He was actually at it
this afternoon. He tried to get a definite promise out of him to leave
him Partisham, which will be worth all the rest put together some day."
"But, Dick dear! you knew all that. It was your father's own decision.
You told me so."
"Humphrey had no right to take advantage of his threats to work against
me. That's what he's been doing. It wasn't like the governor. I can
see a good deal more daylight now. I thought I'd only got his
obstinacy to fight against. Now I see I've had an enemy at court,
who's been playing the sneak all along."
"I don't think so," Virginia said boldly. "Humphrey isn't bad. He has
been very nice to me. He told me he was glad that all this quarrelling
was at an end."
"I dare say he did," said Dick, unsoftened. "Now he sees that we can't
be kept out of it any longer he'd like to curry favour."
"Oh, what an uncharitable Dick! That's not like you, Dick. We're
going to be happy together, aren't we, my own beloved?" She was
walking with her hands clasped over his arm.
"I hope so," said Dick.
"Well, then, think of him a little too. _He_ loves a woman, and wants
to be happy with her."
"Oh, love! I don't believe he loves her the least in the world. I
know her well enough. She's an insipid clothes-peg. I don't believe
he'd look at her if she hadn't got a title. He's like that. I don't
know where he gets it from. The governor likes a title too, but not in
that rotten way."
"You didn't choose me for _my_ title, did you?" asked Virginia.
He laughed at her. "Your title will disappear when you marry me," he
said. "Mrs. Richard Clinton will have to do for you, my girl, for the
present."
"You never told me that," she said. "And I do love being called 'my
lady.' Americans do. However, I would rather be Mrs. Richard Clinton
than what I am now. But, Dick dear, please don't have a row with
Humphrey. Please don't. Let's try and make everybody happy. He must
be feeling disappointed, and perhaps angry. We can afford to be
generous."
"I'll tell him what I think of him," said Dick.
"Then tell him what you really think of him. He's your brother. You
have been friends all your lives. Tell him, if you must, that you
don't think he has behaved well. But don't tell him that you think it
isn't in his nature to behave well. There's a good deal to be said for
him. Let him say it. And, even if there wasn't----"
"Well, I don't think there is. He's behaved in a selfish, underhand
way."
"Supposing he has, Dick! Make allowances for him. He's done himself
more harm than he's done you. We ought to be sorry for people who have
done wrong. That's what I believe Christianity means."
"Oh, well, yes; if they're sorry for it themselves."
"You can make them so; but not by being angry with them. It isn't hard
to forgive people when they admit they're in the wrong. It is hard,
otherwise, but that doesn't make it any less right to do it. I'm
preaching, but we're going to be always together, Dick, and you must
put up with a little sermon sometimes."
"You're a sweet saint, Virginia, but what on earth are you asking me to
do? Am I to go to Humphrey and say, 'You've acted like a cur, but I
forgive you; take all that you can get that has always been looked upon
as mine, and let's say no more about it'?"
"Oh, don't talk about the money or the property at all. Let that look
after itself. Only remember that you were little boys together, and
were very fond of each other, as I'm sure you were; and remember that
you have been made happy, and he has been disappointed. That ought to
make you kind. And you can be so kind, Dick."
"I believe you think I can be everything that's good."
"I know you can. And it will make me love you even more than I do now,
if that's possible, if you make friends with Humphrey, instead of
quarrelling with him for good. After all, we're rather tired of
quarrels, aren't we?"
"I think we are," said Dick.
He did not see Humphrey alone until the women had gone to bed. He had
gone up to his father when they had left the dining-room, and Humphrey
had avoided speaking to him, if he could help it, all the evening.
Otherwise he had taken his part in the mild gaiety of the conversation
and hidden his wounds gallantly. He was going upstairs with his candle
when Dick said to him, "Are you coming into the smoking-room?"
He looked at him with a momentary hostility. "Yes, when I've changed
my coat," he said.
"Mine's down here," said Dick, turning away.
When his servant had helped him on with his smoking-jacket and gone
away, he stood in front of the fire and filled a pipe. He was ready to
do Virginia's bidding and make friends with Humphrey, but he disliked
the job, and didn't know exactly how he was going to begin. And he was
going to speak plainly too. Humphrey had behaved badly, and he was
going to tell him so--kindly.
Humphrey came in and lit a cigarette before either of them spoke. As
he threw the match into the fire he said, "I suppose you want to have
it out."
His tone was not conciliatory. He was both angry and nervous. Dick's
brain cleared as if by magic. He had a situation to control.
"Well, I think we ought to have a talk," he said. "Things have been
going wrong with me, and now they've come right, and you don't appear
to be quite as much rejoiced at it as you might be."
"If you put it like that, I'm not rejoiced at all," said Humphrey, "and
I'm not going to pretend to be."
"But you told Virginia you were," Dick put in.
Humphrey was for a moment disconcerted. "I'm glad as far as she's
concerned," he said. "She oughtn't to have been treated as she has
been, and I've always said so."
"Oh, have you?" commented Dick.
Humphrey flushed angrily. "If you think I've been working against
you," he said, "it's quite untrue."
"Well, you've been working for your own hand, and it comes to much the
same thing."
"I haven't even been doing that. The governor made me a lot of
promises, and I didn't ask him to make one of them."
"What about Partisham?"
"You know as well as I do that he'd definitely made up his mind to
leave as much away from you as he could, and that was the chief thing
he had to leave away. I didn't ask him to do it, but----"
"It didn't occur to you to ask him not to do it, I suppose? Because
it's a pretty stiff thing to do--to leave away most of what keeps up
the place."
"No, it didn't occur to me, and it wouldn't have occurred to you if
you'd been in my place. I tell you I didn't ask for anything, except
for enough to get married on. But when it came to having it chucked at
me--well, if you want the plain truth, it happened to suit my book."
"Yes, I dare say it did. And what about Aunt Laura? You've been doing
pretty well out of her too, haven't you?"
Humphrey flushed again. "Look here," he said, "I'm not going to talk
to you any longer. You stand there sneering because you've got
everything you want now, and you think you can amuse yourself by
baiting me. I'm going upstairs, and you can do your sneering by
yourself. Only I'll tell you this before I go. I'm going to play my
hand, and I don't care whether I've got you up against me or not. I
consider I've been precious badly treated. I'm encouraged to go and
tell the Aldeburghs all sorts of things about what's going to be done
for me when I'm married, and I come back and am told coolly that none
of it's going to happen at all, and I'm to consider myself d----d lucky
to get just enough to live on."
"Well, you're going to have a bit more than enough to live on, and
you're welcome to it as far as I'm concerned. And the dower-house
too--for a bit."
"Thanks very much. I'm likely to take that on--live in a house by your
kind permission and get kicked out the moment you want it for yourself!"
"You won't get kicked out, as you call it, for two years at least. I
should think that's good enough."
Humphrey threw a glance at him. He was standing, looking down on the
carpet, with his hands in the pockets of his jacket.
"Look here," he said, looking up suddenly. "We've had enough of this.
I don't think you've acted straight, and I was bound to say so before I
said anything else. And now I've said it, I've said it for the last
time. Let's forget all about it. We've been pretty good pals up to
now, and there's no reason why we shouldn't go on being good pals up to
the end of the chapter."
Humphrey sat down and looked into the fire. "Perhaps I haven't behaved
very well," he said slowly. "It's precious easy to behave well when
you've got everything you want, as you've always had."
"It may be," said Dick. "Anyhow, you're not going to do so badly now.
If you haven't got all you want, you'll have a good slice of it."
There was silence between them for a time, and then Humphrey said, "If
you don't want to quarrel, I'm hanged if I do. Only, I must confess I
feel a bit sore. The way the governor swings round from one position
to another's enough to make anybody sick. You've had a dose of it
yourself; you know how you felt before you made it up with him."
Dick's self-esteem received nourishment from the recollection that he
had not behaved in the same way as Humphrey had, but he did not bring
forward the statement in that form. "It was awkward," he admitted.
"It made him think of doing things that he'd never thought of doing,
and I don't think he'd any right to think of doing. That's why I
haven't the slightest hesitation now in taking back whatever he may
have made use of to offer to--to, well, let's say to you, as a means of
getting his own way. They have always been looked on as coming to me
eventually, and if this disturbance hadn't come about nobody would have
thought of their being disposed of in any other way. So you're really
no worse off than you were before; in fact, you're a good deal better
off, and I'm quite agreeable, as far as it rests with me, that you
should be. Can't you manage to settle it with yourself that what
you're going to have is as much as you could have expected, and give up
trying for the rest?"
"I dare say I can manage that feat," said Humphrey, "especially as I
suppose I've got to. Still, when you look at it all round, there's a
good deal of difference in my expectations and yours. Two thousand a
year on the one side, and--well, I don't know what, but say ten
thousand a year and a big property on the other."
"Oh, if you're going to kick against the law of primogeniture--!" said
Dick. "Question is, would you kick at it if you happened to be the
eldest son? If not, you oughtn't to bring it in."
Humphrey was silent. They had been talking quietly. Hostility had
gone out of their talk, but friendliness had not yet come in.
Dick seated himself and began again. "Perhaps it isn't for me to say,
now that I've got everything I want, but I do say it all the same,
because I found it out when I didn't think I was going to have
everything I wanted. Money isn't everything. If you have as much as
you can live comfortably on, and something to do, you've just as much
chance of happiness as the next fellow. 'Specially if you're going to
marry the right woman."
"I dare say you're right," said Humphrey. "If you're disappointed of
something you can always fall back on philosophy. But it's just
because I am going to marry the right woman that I am disappointed.
I'd told her all sorts of things, and she was as ready as I was to
chuck the fun we've both had in London and other places, and settle
down here quietly."
"Well, my dear good chap!" exclaimed Dick. "If you looked upon it in
that light, what on earth is there to grumble at if you're free now to
live as you like, and anywhere you like? I don't know much about your
young woman, but I should imagine she'd rather settle herself in London
on a couple of thousand a year, which will give you enough to go about
with too, than bury herself down here."
"I don't think you do know much about her," said Humphrey. "I believe
the general opinion here is that I'm going to marry her without knowing
much about her myself, though what I shall gain by it, considering that
she hasn't got a _sou_, isn't quite clear. However, the general
opinion happens to be wrong."
Dick felt a little uncomfortable. "She's the one girl in the world for
you, eh?" he said lightly.
"That's about what it comes to. I know her mother's a fool; and she
suffers by it. But she's quite different herself, and I know what a
jolly good sort she is, if others don't."
Dick was touched. Humphrey's "poor thing but mine own" opinion of the
girl he was going to marry was so different from the pride he felt in
Virginia. "Well, old chap," he said, "we'll do our best to make her
feel one of the family. We're not a bad lot, take us all round, and if
she wants to, I dare say she'll get to like us. We ought to be able to
have some fun together when we all meet. I like her all right--what
I've seen of her--and now things have been more or less settled up I
should like to see more of her, and so would Virginia. I believe in a
family sticking together, even after they begin to marry off, and
new-comers ought to get a warm welcome. You've been very decent to
Virginia, and she likes you; and I should like to have an opportunity
of ingratiating myself with Susan."
Humphrey was conquered by this. "You're a jolly good sort, Dick," he
said. "I didn't know you were going to behave like that, or perhaps I
wouldn't have behaved as I have done. I'm not proud of myself,
exactly, now I look back on it, and if you'll forget all about it, as
you said you were ready to do, I'll chuck the whole beastly business,
and we'll go back to where we used to be."
"There won't be any difficulty about that, old boy," said Dick. "Peace
and goodwill is all _I_ want, and we may as well have it all round."