“_High Toryism, High Churchism, High Farming, and old port forever!_”
--CORLETT.
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HAT evening, when I came to meditate in solitude upon the appeal
I purposed to make, my confidence began to evaporate in the most
uncomfortable manner. Was I quite certain that I should be pleading a
righteous cause? Ah, yes; I had gone too far now to question my cause;
but how would my eloquence be received? Would it “fetch if properly
managed”? I tried to picture the baronet, and the more my fancy laid on
the colors, the more damping the prospect became.
“Ah, well; Providence must guide me,” I said to myself at last. And in
a way that I am sufficiently old-fashioned--superstitious--call it what
you will--to think more than mere coincidence, Providence responded to
my faith. I could scarcely guess that my friend, the old General, who
came in to smoke a pipe with me, was an agent employed by Heaven, but so
he proved.
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“I want your advice,” I said. “What should I say, what should I do,
under the following perplexing circumstances?”
And, without giving him any names, I told him the story of Dick.
“Difficult business, mossoo, delicate affair and that sort of thing,”
he observed, when I had finished. “You say your friend is a pretty
obstinate young fellow?”
“Dick Shafthead is obstinacy itself,” I replied, letting his name escape
by a most fortunate slip of the tongue.
“Shafthead!” said the General. “By Jove! Any relation to Sir Philip
Shafthead?”
“Since you know his name, and can be trusted not to repeat it, I may
as well say you that Sir Philip is the stern father in question. Do you
know him?”
“Knew his other son, Major Shafthead. He is the heir, isn't he?”
“Yes,” I said. “Dick is the second son.”
“Ever met Tommy Shafthead--as we called him--the Major, I mean?”
“No; he is stationed abroad, I believe.”
“Heard about _his_ marriage?”
“No,” I replied. “Dick has seldom mentioned him.”
“I wonder if he knows,” said the General.
“What?” I asked.
“About Tommy's marriage.”
“Is there a mystery?”
“Well,” said the General, “it's a matter that has been kept pretty
quiet; but in case it may be any good to you to know, I might as well
tell you. Tommy was in my old regiment; that's how I know all about it.
When he was only a subaltern he got mixed up with a girl much beneath
him in station. His friends tried to get him out of it, but he was like
your friend, pig-headed as the devil. He married her privately, lived
with her for a year, found he'd made a fool of himself, and separated
for good.”
“They were divorced?” I asked.
“No such luck,” said the General. “He can't get rid of her. She's
behaving herself properly for the sake of getting the title, and
naturally she's not going to divorce him. So that's what comes of
marrying in haste, mossoo. Not that there isn't a good deal to be said
for a young fellow who has--er--a warm heart and wants to do the right
thing by the girl, and so forth. I am no Chesterfield, mossoo; right's
right and wrong's wrong all the world over, but--er--there are limits,
don't you know.”
“Has Major Shafthead any family?” I inquired.
“No,” said the General.
“Then Dick will succeed to the baronetcy one day?”
“Or his son.”
“Ah,” I reflected, “I see now why Sir Philip is so stern. He would not
have a girl he dislikes the mother of future baronets, and he will not
allow the younger son to follow, as he thinks, in the elder's steps.”
At first sight this seemed only to increase my difficulties; but as I
thought more over it, my spirits began to rise. Yes, I might make out a
good case for Dick out of this buried story.
“Well, good-night, mossoo,” said the old boy, rising. “Good luck to
you.”
“And many thanks to you, General.”
The next morning broke very cold and gray. We were well advanced in
December, and the frost was making us his first visit for the winter;
indeed, it was cold enough to give Miss Daisy the opportunity of looking
charming in a fur coat when I met her at the station. Dick came to see
us off, and I must admit that I felt more responsibility than I quite
liked in seeing the cheerful confidence he reposed in me.
“It is but a chance that I can do anything,” I reminded him. “I may
fail.”
“No fear,” he replied. “I expect a pardon by return of post. By-the-way,
we got the manor of Helmscote in Edward the Third's time--Edward the
Third, remember--and the baronetcy after Blenheim. The governor doesn't
object to be reminded of that kind of thing if you do it neatly. But you
know the trick.”
“I should rather depend on your sister's eloquence,” I suggested.
“Oh, she's like me; can't stand on her hind legs and catch cake,”
laughed Dick. “We are plain English.”
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“Not so very plain,” I said to myself, glancing at my travelling
companion's fresh little face nestling in a collar of fur.
She was very silent this morning, and I could now see that the
experiment of taking down an advocate inspired her with considerably
less confidence than it had Dick.
“Confess the truth, Miss Shafthead,” I said to her, at last. “You fear I
shall only make bad into worse.”
“I don't know what you will do,” she replied, with a smile that was
rather nervous than encouraging.
“Command me, then; I shall say what you please, or hold my tongue, if
you prefer it.”
“Oh no,” she said, “you had better say something--now that you have come
with me; only don't be too sentimental, please.”
“I shall talk turnips till I see my opportunity; then I shall observe
coldly that Richard is an affectionate lad in spite of his faults.”
Daisy laughed.
“I think I hear you,” she replied.
Well, at least, my jest served to make her a little more at her ease,
and we now fell to planning our arrival. She had left a note before she
started for town, saying only that she would be away for the night, but
giving no intimation of when she might return, so that we expected no
carriage at the station. This, we decided, was all the better. We should
walk to Helmscote, attract as little notice as possible on entering
the house, and then she would find out how the land lay before even
announcing my presence; at least, if it were possible to keep me in the
background so long.
“My father is rather difficult sometimes,” she said.
“Hasty?” I asked.
“I'm afraid so.”
“He may, then, decline to receive me?”
“It is quite possible.”
The adventure began to assume a more and more formidable aspect. I
agreed that great circumspection was required.
At last we alighted at a little way-side station in the heart of the
country. We were the only travellers who descended, and when we had come
out into a quiet road, and watched the train grow smaller and smaller,
and rumble more and more faintly till the arms of the signals had
all risen behind it, and the shining steel lines stretched still and
uninhabited through the fields, we saw no sign of life beyond a cawing
flock of rooks. The sun was bright, the hoar-frost only lay under the
shadow of the hedge-rows, and not a breath of wind stirred the bare
branches of the trees. After a word of protest I took the fur coat over
my arm, and Daisy's bag in my hand, and we set out at a brisk pace to
cover the two miles before us.
Presently a sleepy little village appeared ahead of us; before we
reached it my guide turned off to the left.
“It is a little longer round this way,” she said, “but I am afraid the
people in the village might--well--”
“Exactly,” I replied. “We are a secret embassy.”
It was a narrow lane we were now in, winding in the shade of high
beech-trees and littered with their brown cast leaves. Whether it was
the charm of the place, or that we instinctively delayed the crisis now
that it was so near, I cannot say, but gradually our pace slackened.
“I am afraid they will be rather anxious about me,” said Daisy.
“If they value you as they ought,” I replied.
She smiled a little, and then, in a minute, we rounded a corner, and she
said, “That is Helmscote we see through the trees.”
I looked, and saw a pile of chimneys and gables close before us and just
a little distance removed from the lane. Along that side now ran a
high, ancient-looking wall with a single door in it, opposite the house.
Evidently this unostentatious postern was a back entrance, and the gates
must open into some other road.
My fellow-ambassador paused and glanced in both directions, but there
was no sign of any one but ourselves.
“I think it will be best if I leave you in the garden,” she said, “while
I go in and find mother.”
“Yes, I think it will be wise,” I answered.
She took out a key and opened the door in the wall, and I found myself
in an old flower-garden screened by a high hedge of evergreens at the
farther end.
“Give me my coat and bag,” she said. “Many thanks for carrying them. Now
just wait here. I shall be as quick as I can.”
I lit a cigar and began to pace the gravel path, keeping myself
concealed behind the bushes as far as I could. Decidedly this had a
flavor of adventure, and the longer I paced, the more did a certain
restlessness of nerves grow upon me. I took out my watch. She had been
gone ten minutes. Well, after all, I could scarcely expect her to return
so soon as that. I paced and smoked again, and again took out my watch.
Twenty minutes now, and no sign of my fellow-ambassador. I began to grow
impatient and also to feel less the necessity for caution. No one had
discovered me so far and no one was likely to; why should I not explore
this garden a little farther? I ventured down to the farther end, till
I stood behind the hedge. It was charmingly quiet and restful and sunny,
with high trees looking over the walls and rooks flapping and cawing
about their tops, and a glimpse of the house beyond. This glimpse was so
pleasing that I thought I should like to see more, and, spying a garden
roller propped against the wall and a niche in the stone above it, I
gave a wary look round, and in a moment more had scrambled up till my
feet were in the niche and my head looking over the top.
Below me I saw a grass terrace and a broad walk, and beyond these
the mansion of Helmscote. No wonder Dick showed a touch of pride and
affection when (on very rare occasions, I admit) he had alluded to his
home. It was an old brick house of the Tudor period, though some parts
were apparently more ancient than that and had been built, I should say,
by the first Shafthead who had settled there. The colors--the red with
diagonal designs of black bricks through it, the stone of the mullioned
windows, the old tiles on the roof, the gray of the ancient portions,
even, I fancied, the green ivy--had all been softened and harmonized by
time and by weather till the whole house had become a rich scheme that
would have defied the most cunning painter to imitate it.
“I know Dick better since I have seen his home,” I said to myself. “And
his sister? Yes, I think I know her better, too, though not so well as I
should like to. Pardieu! what has become of her?”
“Well, sir,” said a voice behind me, “what, are you doing there?”
[Illustration: 0295]
I turned with a start, my grip of the wall slipped, and, with more
precipitation than grace, I descended to the garden again to find myself
confronted by a decidedly formidable individual. He was a gentleman of
something over sixty years of age, but tall and broad and upright far
beyond the common, and even though his left arm was in a sling of black
silk I should not have cared to try conclusions with him. His face was
ruddy and fresh, his features aristocratic and well-marked, his eyes
blue and very bright, and he was dressed in a shooting-suit and leather
leggings. The air of proprietorship, the wounded left arm, and the
family resemblance left me in no doubt as to who he was. I was, in fact,
about to enjoy the interview with Sir Philip Shafthead for the sake of
which I had entered his garden.
Yet, strange though it may seem, gratitude for this stroke of good luck
was not my first sensation.
“Who the devil are you, and what are you doing here, sir?” he repeated,
sternly.
He had not heard of my arrival, then, and on the instant the thought
struck me that since he did not know who I was, I might make the
experiment of feigning ignorance of him.
“I address a fellow-guest of Sir Philip's, no doubt? I said, with as
easy an air as is possible for a man who has just fallen from the top of
a wall where he had no business to have climbed.
“Fellow-guest!” he repeated. “Do you mean to pretend you are visiting
Helmscote?”
“I am about to; though I confess to you, sir, that Sir Philip is at
present unaware of my intention.”
“Indeed?” said he.
“Yes,” I said. “You are doubtless a friend of Sir Philip's, sir?”
He emitted something that was between a laugh and an exclamation.
“More or less,” he replied. “And who are you?”
“My name is d'Haricot, and I am a friend of his son, Dick Shafthead.”
He started perceptibly, and looked at me with a different expression.
“I have heard your name,” he said.
“As you are staying at Helmscote you have no doubt heard of Dick's
imprudence?” I went on, boldly.
“I have,” he replied, shortly. “Have you come to see Sir Philip about
that?”
“Yes,” I said. “I have travelled down with Miss Shafthead this morning;
she left me here for a short time while she went in to see her parents,
and while waiting I had the indiscretion to mount this wall, in order
to obtain a better view of the beautiful old house. It is the finest
mansion I have seen in England. No wonder, sir, that Dick is so attached
to his home!”
“Yet, as you are aware, he has run away from it,” said the baronet,
dryly.
“Ah,” I said, “you have doubtless heard the father's view of his
escapade. Will you let me tell you the son's, while I am waiting?”
“Had you not better keep this for Sir Philip--that is, if he consents to
hear you?”
“No,” I said, eagerly. “I have no secrets to tell, and if I can persuade
you that Dick has some excuse for his conduct, perhaps you, too, might
say a word to Sir Philip in his favor.”
“It is unlikely,” said the baronet; “but go on.”
At that moment I spied Daisy entering the garden, though fortunately
her father's back was towards her. Swiftly I made a signal for her to
go away, and after an instant's astonished pause she turned and slipped
quietly out again. I had been given a better chance than I had dared to
hope for.
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