"A JOLLY, DASHING SORT OF GIRL"
THE removing of the Wintons to Laysford had been a distinct change for
the better in the fortunes of the family. Mr. Winton's situation
furnished him with a comfortable income, and Edgar was now contributing
appreciably to the domestic funds, while Miss Winton's music-teaching
brought an acceptable addition beyond furnishing her with an ample
variety of dress, in which she always displayed a bold, though a
cultivated taste.
Their house was a great improvement on the little home in which Henry
had lodged six years ago, though it was still a poor substitute for the
luxurious residence Mr. Winton had maintained before his business
failure, when Flo and Edgar were children. The old horse-hair furniture
had disappeared from the dining-room, and in its place stood an elegant
leather suite. Henry would find the former still doing duty in a room
upstairs, which Edgar called his study. The drawing-room was the most
notable indication of changed fortunes, and bore many traces of Flo's
adorning hand, Edgar proudly drawing Henry's attention to some of her
paintings, and thus affording her excellent excuse for becoming blushes.
"Why, Henry, it is quite like old times to have you among us again,"
said Mrs. Winton, when he had entered the drawing-room.
She retained the right to his Christian name, although Flo, who had been
in the habit of addressing him familiarly at Wheelton, had surrendered
that, as Henry noticed, and was annoyed at himself for noticing. Mr.
Winton joined in the welcome, and Henry expressed his pleasure to be
among them again.
"I need not ask whether you had a good time while you were away," Mr.
Winton continued. "You are looking extremely well; brown as a berry."
"Quite like a gipsy," suggested Flo, and she decided at that moment that
she had always entertained a distinct preference for the Romany type of
manly beauty.
It was not altogether to her mind that the conversation swiftly drifted
into the uninteresting channels of public life in Laysford, touching
even the state of the hosiery trade, in which Mr. Winton was engaged. At
the tea-table, however, Flo had Henry by her side, and made the talking
pace with some spirit and, it must be granted, vivacity.
It is the most natural thing in the world for a young gentleman visitor
at a small family table like the Wintons' to be placed alongside the
daughter of the household, but there are young ladies who contrive to
make the most natural situation seem exceptional. Perhaps Miss Winton
was one of these, as Henry felt when he sat down that the arrangement
had more of artifice than nature in it. But while having the sense to
suspect this, he was rather flattered than otherwise in his suspicion,
and as with most young men of his age, a show of friendliness from a
young lady reached home to that piece of vanity which we all have
somewhere concealed, and sometimes, maybe, not even hidden.
He noticed in a sidelong glance, and possibly for the first time, that
the profile of Miss Winton's face was distinctly good. The nose was
almost Jewish, and all the better for that; the mouth perhaps too small,
but that was not seen in the side view; the chin neat, and sweeping
gracefully into a neck of which the owner was doubtless proud, as she
had not been at pains to hide it. Nor could a fault be found with her
endowment of fair hair, displayed low-coiled, and decorated with a
glittering diamond clasp. The diamonds were paste, of course, but what
of that? They sparkled. It must be accepted as proof of Henry's opening
eyes that he noticed these things, and found himself wondering if a
certain other young lady possessed such good looks. For the life of him
he could not say; and he took that, foolishly, as evidence in favour of
the girl by his side. His thoughts were immediately turned on himself,
when Edgar exclaimed:
"By the way, dad, I'm the first to tell Henry that he is likely to be my
new boss."
"Edgar, you're hopeless," put in Flo.
"If you mean your new editor," said Mr. Winton sententiously, as he
finished the carving of the cold roast, "then I'm glad to hear it, and I
hope he will boss some of his good sense into you."
"Then it is really true that Mr. Macgregor is leaving?" said Mrs.
Winton, with a look towards Henry.
"So Edgar tells me, but I have heard nothing official, and I have
purposely kept away from the office to-night."
"You can take it from me that his going is a dead cert," resumed the
irrepressible young man; adding with a glance at his father, whose
philological strictness was a source of sorrow to the son, "That is,
there seems to be very little doubt about the matter. And if old Mac
goes, Henry is well in the running for the editorial chair, and a rocky
bit of furniture that is."
"I wonder," said Flo, leaning forward with a quizzing glance to catch
Henry's eye, "if you would be a hard taskmaster, Henry?" It was
difficult for the girl to go on Mistering when the others Henried to
their heart's content. "I am sure you could put your foot down firmly if
you liked."
Henry laughed, pleased at the interest taken in him, and conscious that
he was made much of in this house.
"There may never be any occasion for me to try it," he replied; "even if
a vacancy does arise, my age may bar me."
"Not at all; the great Delane was scarcely twenty-four when he got the
editorship of the _Times_," Edgar remarked, with the conviction that he
had displayed a deep knowledge of journalistic history and settled this
point.
"Besides," added Flo, "you are one of those men whose age is not written
on their face. I'm sure no one could guess whether you were twenty or
thirty. You could pass for any age you like to name."
"There's something in that," said Henry musingly; "but I'm afraid I must
confess that I was only twenty-two last birthday."
"Great Scott! and you'll soon be bossing some chaps old enough to be
your pater. The snows of four-and-twenty winters have fallen on my own
cranium. It makes me sick to think of it."
From Edgar, obviously.
All this was very sweet to Henry. At twenty-two the average man tingles
with pleasure when it is suggested that he would pass for thirty, and at
thirty he is secretly purchasing hair-restorers for application to the
crown of his head, and plying a razor where he had been wont to
cultivate a moustache. He is charmed then beyond measure when his age is
guessed at twenty-two.
Mr. Winton settled down in an arm-chair in the dining-room for his
after-supper snooze, and while Mrs. Winton had to turn her attention for
a little to household affairs, superintending the inefficient
maid-of-all-work--whose presence in the house was another mark of
prosperity--the others withdrew to the drawing-room. Edgar lounged about
aimlessly for a time, and then suddenly pleaded the urgency of a letter
he had to write. Henry and Flo were left alone.
This sort of thing occurs often in the lives of young men who are
"eligible," but it is not until they have ceased to be in that blissful
condition that they suspect a woman's hand had some part in arranging
these accidental openings for confidences. Flo looked certainly as
innocent as a dove when Edgar withdrew to his study; but if Henry's eyes
had been wide open he might have noticed that Edgar's recollection of
his urgent letter was preceded by a meaning look and a contraction of
the brows from his sister.
"Now," she said softly, turning to Henry with an air of eager interest,
"do tell me all about your visit to Hampton. The name of the place
sounds quite romantic to me. Is it on the map?"
"I'm afraid you would search your atlas for it in vain. At best it could
only be a pin-point; like that very tiny German duchy which the American
traveller said he would drive round rather than pay toll to pass
through. It is smaller than the Laysford market-place."
"So small as that! Then it's all the more interesting to me."
"But there's really nothing to tell about it. One day is the same as
another there. Nothing ever happens. It is a veritable Sleepy Hollow."
"But there were interesting folk there. You see, I know my Washington
Irving."
Flo had the shrewdness to judge this to be an effective touch, and it
did not matter that her knowledge of the American author was limited to
the bare fact that he had written something about a place of that name.
"I am glad to find you have read one of my favourites," Henry replied,
and the echo of an absurd "What is Meredith?" rang in his ears. It
prompted him to ask, without apparent reason:
"By-the-by, have you read Meredith? He is one of the least known and
greatest of living writers."
"Oh, yes, isn't he perfectly lovely?" She had a vague recollection of
hearing the name somewhere.
"I am just in the middle of his latest novel, 'Beauchamp's Career.' It
is positively Titanic."
"I am sure it must be interesting, and I should love to read it. But
really you must tell me about this Sleepy Hollow of yours. Who did you
see there?"
"My own folk, of course, and a handful of old friends."
"Anybody in par-tic-u-lar?"
Flo smiled roguishly. She had practised the smile before, and could do
it to perfection.
"N-o; nobody--worth mentioning."
Henry had a suspicion that he was being teased, and he rather liked the
operation.
"Really! I can scarcely believe you. But all the same, I have a fancy to
see this birthplace of our budding editor. I imagine it must be a sweet
little spot."
"Perhaps it is best in imagination. You would find the actual thing
deadly dull."
He felt himself drifting rudderless before a freshening breeze of
talkee-talkee.
"No, no, no; I am sure I wouldn't, though you do not paint it with
purple. Do you know," she went on, resting her pretty head upon her hand
and glancing up sideways at him, "I'm beginning to think that they don't
appreciate you properly in Hampton Bagot. A prophet has no honour in his
own country, they say. But we are proud of you here."
"Perhaps that maxim is not always true, although it is biblical. In my
own case, I fear there is at least one at Hampton who thinks too much of
my ability."
"Ah, now you have said it. And who is that one, pray?"
"My father."
"Oh! No one else?"
"My mother and sisters, perhaps."
"I should so much like to meet your sisters. I almost feel as if I knew
them already. Who knows but some day I may have a peep at your Sleepy
Hollow, and tell your sisters all about you!"
The prospect was an alarming one to Henry, and for the first time in his
life he felt himself ashamed of that little home behind the Post Office
door. But on the whole, the chatter of this young lady was pleasant in
his ears. By no means vain of his abilities, he was still hungry for
appreciation, and he had not yet learned the most difficult of all
lessons: to recognise sincere admiration. It seemed to him that in Flo
Winton he had found one who understood him, whose sympathetic interest
in his work and ambitions could brace and hearten him in the discharge
of the important duties to which there was every likelihood of his being
called before he was a day older.
The return of Mrs. Winton to the drawing-room sent the talk off at an
obtuse angle, and Edgar, having finished that important letter, came in
to render the remainder of the evening hopeless to Flo; but when Henry
parted from her in the hall with another lingering hand-shake, he had
the feeling that something like an understanding had been established
between them; and it was with a springy stride and a light heart he
passed out to the nearest tramway station.
The next afternoon he looked in at the office, and found the manager
anxious to speak with him. It was even as Edgar had prophesied. Sir
Henry Field was understood to think so highly of Henry's work that he
agreed with Mr. Jones in offering him the editorship at a commencing
salary of L250 a year. A bright young member of the reporting staff was
named as his assistant. "If Sir Henry should ask your age," Mr. Jones
advised, "you are getting on for thirty. You would pass for that, and I
have confidence in you."
Henry found himself returning to his rooms as one who walked on eggs,
murmuring to himself, with comic iteration: "Two hundred and fifty a
year! two hundred and fifty a year!" And he saw arising in Hampton Bagot
a fine new villa, the pride of the place, to be inhabited by Edward John
Charles and his family circle. Yet he had once been so proud of that
quaint old house with the Post Office in front.