Clytie opened the gate with the little half-startled look of
astonishment in her face which she had so quickly yet carefully planned.
The countenance of the visitor, on the other hand, was not free from a
reciprocating surprise. He had not bargained on this admission at the
hands of one of the daughters of the house--and an uncommonly attractive
looking one at that.
"Er--my name is Wagram," he began, raising his hat. "One of your
sisters met with something of an accident on our place a few days back,
and I thought it would be a satisfaction to know she was none the worse
for it. Is Major Calmour at home?"
The semi-puzzled look which had rested on Clytie's face during this
speech gave way to a carefully planned light up at its conclusion.
"Oh, yes, of course. We heard about that, and your part in it, Mr
Wagram. But won't you come in? My father is somewhere at the back, and
will be delighted to thank you in person." And having uttered this
shocking tarradiddle, she ushered him into the drawing-room.
Delia rose as he entered, having spent the intervening period in making
superhuman efforts to recover her wonted composure. A volume of
effusive thanks on the subject of the bicycle aided her efforts still
further.
"Oh, Mr Wagram, what a lovely machine it is!" she began. "Why, it's
simply perfection. A free wheel, too. I've always longed for a free
wheel. No, it's too lovely. When we unpacked it just now, why, I
thought I must be dreaming."
"Just now," she had said. Wagram looked up astonished, and feeling
somewhat uncomfortable, fearing lest his arrival at that inopportune
moment should wear an appearance as though he had come to be thanked.
"Has it only just come?" he said. "Why, it ought to have been delivered
nearly a week ago. Gee and Vincent are not usually such dilatory
people. I must row them up over it."
"Oh, please don't," said Delia. "Why should you take any further
trouble about it? You have been too kind already."
"No, no," he laughed. "By the way, it was just as Perrin said. The gnu
must have jumped the palings of the west park. There was no gap or
breakdown anywhere."
"Really? But--tell me. Was the Squire very angry?"
"Not he. He was relieved to hear you had escaped uninjured. You are
none the worse, are you? It was to ascertain that that I took the
liberty of calling."
"How kind of you again," she answered, with a lustrous softness in her
eyes that was not studied, and wonderfully attractive. "No; I am not
one atom the worse."
"Another thing has been on my conscience ever since, Miss Calmour; and
that is, that I should have allowed you to walk all that way home. I
ought to have insisted upon your coming on to the Court with me and
driving back."
"Oh, but you did try and persuade me, remember; it wasn't your fault at
all. Shall I tell you something, Mr Wagram? I believe the secret of my
holding out was that I was more than a little afraid to face the Squire
after what had happened."
As a matter of fact, Delia had repented her refusal ever since. Such an
opportunity might never recur; and, apart from that, it would have been
so much more time to look back to and dwell upon.
"You needn't have been. It was a pity," he answered.
"Yes. And I hear you have some beautiful things at the Court, Mr
Wagram--pictures and old relics and all that," she added half shyly, as
the consciousness flashed in upon her that he would take her remark as a
direct "fishing" for an invite to come and see them--a misgiving which
would not have afflicted her in the slightest degree had he been anybody
else in the world. But at that moment the door opened, admitting
Clytie, who had returned from a fictitious search for her parent,
combined with a renewed command to the retired Bob on no account to show
himself, on pain of such disabilities as it was within her power to
place him under.
"I can't find father anywhere," she said. "He must have gone out
without telling us. But he may be back any moment now. Oh, that's my
typing work, Mr Wagram," following his glance. "I'm afraid you'll think
us very untidy. It really has no business littering about in here, but
I brought it in because the light is better."
As a matter of fact, she had hurriedly brought it in before going to
answer his ring--and that with a purpose.
"Ah yes. Ladies have taken to that sort of thing a good deal, I'm told.
Do you do much of it?"
"Not so much as I should like; only as much as I can get," laughed
Clytie. "We have to do these things--and it all helps."
"And very right and plucky it is of you to do it," he answered.
"That sounds nice. Oh, and, Mr Wagram, if you should know of anybody
who wants anything done in that line you might mention me. There are so
many people in these days who write, or try to. And, as I said before,
it all helps."
Wagram, of course, promised accordingly, at the same time thinking it
would be hard if he could not put something in her way. He had known
straitened circumstances himself, and the fact of this girl turning her
hand to a means of adding to a small income sent her up in his opinion,
as she had guessed it would. But Clytie was honestly scheming for Delia
this time, and for her she judged it the moment to put in a word.
"But Delia is the one who works the hardest," she said. "My typing is
mere child's play compared with all she does. She has been away a
couple of years, and had to come home for a rest."
"Really?" he answered, turning to Delia. "Well, that is plucky of you,
Miss Calmour." And both thought to read in the high approval expressed
in his look and tone a shade of regret that she should be exposed to the
necessity of being overworked at all.
They talked on, and soon their visitor became acquainted with all the
family doings--of the third sister, who was away also working; of Bob
and another brother in Canada, and three more at school; then of other
things, and Wagram was surprised to note how well they talked. He had
made up his mind to pay this call from a sense of duty, and had
approached it with considerable misgiving. One girl he had already
seen, and she had impressed him favourably, yet how would she show up
under the circumstances of a surprise visit? For the others he had
expected to find very second-rate types, possibly overdressed, certainly
underbred; forward and gushing or awkwardly shy. But in these two, each
more than ordinarily attractive after her different type, he had found
nothing of the kind. There was an ease of manner and entire freedom
from affectation about them that fairly astonished him, remembering the
repute in which the family was apparently held; and, realising it, they
went up in his estimation accordingly. Both were at their best, and
knew it.
But through it all came the recollection of that action for breach of
promise. Which of them was concerned in it, he wondered; or was it the
absent one? Well, there was no finding out now. Yet somehow, he did
not think it could be Delia. If it were either of these two he would
rather think it was Clytie; and then, suddenly, it occurred to him to
wonder why on earth he was troubling his head about it at all. He had
paid his duty call, and there was an end of the whole matter. But--was
there?
"_So_ sorry father was out, Mr Wagram," said Clytie as he rose to take
his leave, "and so will he be. But, perhaps, if you are in Bassingham
again and are inclined to drop in for a cup of tea, I know he'll be
delighted."
Wagram, as in duty bound, declared that the pleasure would be mutual.
It was strange, he said, that he did not even know Major Calmour by
sight; but he was so seldom in Bassingham, and had not been very long at
the Court, for the matter of that.
"We pulled that off well, Delia," said Clytie as they returned from
seeing their visitor to the gate. "He's gone away thinking no small
beer of us. He had heard all sorts of beastly things said about us, and
came to see if they were true, and has come to the conclusion they are
not."
"Why do you think that?"
Clytie smiled pityingly.
"My dear child, I never saw the man yet I couldn't read like a book,
even in matters far more complicated than that, and not often a woman.
Never mind. I'll back you up all I know how if you'll go on playing up
to me as you did just now. Oh, good Lord! there's the old man, and--
he's `fresh.'"
For a volley of raucous profanity had swamped her last words, and over
the top of the front gate a face was visible--a very red face indeed,
surmounted by a hat awry. The profanity was evoked by its utterer's
natural inability to open a locked gate by the simple process of pushing
and battering against the same. Delia looked troubled.
"Do you think _he_ saw him?" she said. "He's only just this second gone
out."
"Depends which way the old man came. But `he', if you remember, said
he'd never set eyes on him."
"Yes; but that's not to say he never will. And then, on top of that
recognition, he'll be in no lively hurry to wend our way again."
"Leave all that to the future, and chance," returned Clytie. "Oh,
bother! The old man's blaring away like a calf that has lost its cow.
We'd better let him in sharp or he'll draw a crowd."
The two walked leisurely back to the gate, against which their parent
was raining kicks--and curses.
"Go easy, dad," said Clytie. "How the deuce can a fellow open the gate
from this side what time you're banging it in from that? There! Now,
come along."
"How the deuce? Look here, you minx, that's nice sort of feminine
language to use to your father, isn't it? Or to anyone," he repeated as
he walked stiffly and with an ominous swaying gait up the garden path.
"And that's nice sort of masculine language to use to your daughters--
and the gate, and things in general, as you were doing just now, isn't
it?" laughed Clytie serenely. "Unless you can plead, with the
proverbial Scotchman, that you were only swearing `at large.'"
"Ha-ha! What a girl it is!" chuckled the old man, with the suspicion of
a hiccough. "You ought to go on the stage, dear; you'd make your
fortune."
"No doubt. But I've got to get there first. I say, dad, who d'you
think has just gone?"
"Dunno, don't care; only that I'm devilish glad they have gone. Now I
can have a `peg.'"
"No, you can't."
"Can't! What the devil do you mean, Clytie?"
"What I say. You've had enough of a `peg' to last you till to-night.
What you want now is some strong coffee, so come right in and have it."
He grumbled something about not being master in his own house, and a
good deal more. But in the end he submitted; for Clytie was the one who
ruled him, and, to do her justice, ruled him tactfully and for his good,
so far as it lay within her power; whereas Delia was somewhat intolerant
of this phase of her parent's weakness, and adopted towards it a
scornful attitude.
"Well, dad, you haven't guessed who has just gone," went on Clytie.
"How the blazes should I know--or care?" snapped the old man. "Some
spark of yours, I suppose."
"Haven't got any just now. Everyone seems `off' me. Delia's putting my
nose clean out of joint," was the placid reply. "Well, what d'you think
of Wagram?"
"What?" roared old Calmour, who was just in the quarrelsome stage and
was glad of an object whereon to vent it. "He? If I'd been here I'd
have kicked him out of the house."
"No, you wouldn't," said Delia quickly. "You couldn't, to begin with."
"What the--what the--?" And as the old man, purple with rage, let off a
string of unstudied profanity, both girls put their fingers to their
ears.
"Let's know when you've blown off steam, dad," said Clytie, "then we'll
listen to you again."
At last old Calmour, seeing no fun in cursing without an audience, and
being, moreover, quite blown, desisted, the resumed thread of his wrath
taking the shape of rumbling growls. He would teach that blanked,
stuck-up jackanapes--keeping wild beasts to attack his girls on a public
road. He didn't care this or that for any blanked Wagram, even if they
owned half the county. He'd knock a thousand pounds damages out of them
for that little job. He'd put it in his solicitors' hands at once, he
would, by so and so.
"You'll do nothing of the sort, dad," said Clytie. "We've got a much
better plan than that."
"Oh, you have, have you? And what is it?"
"Not going to tell you--not yet. Leave it to me, and--keep quiet."
Again he grumbled and swore, but Clytie's equanimity was proof against
such little amenities. She was not going to let her father into their
scheme only to have him giving it away in his cups, in this or that
saloon bar about the place, not she. At last, drowsy with the combined
warmth of the day, his own vehemence, and, incidentally, the liquor he
had imbibed, he subsided on a sofa, and snored.
He did not look lovely as he lay there, open-mouthed and breathing
stertorously, his grey hair all touzled about his red and bloated face.
It was hard to realise that he could be the father of these two very
attractive girls, yet in his younger days he had been a good-looking man
enough. But the effects of poverty and domestic worry, and drink taken
to drown the care inseparable therefrom, had made him--well, what he
was.