BUSINESS ONLY
Next morning Hughie made Miss Joan Gaymer a proposal of marriage.
It was not an impressive effort--very few proposals are. But a
performance of this kind may miss the mark as a spectacle and yet, by
the indulgence of the principal spectator, achieve its end. Even thus
Hughie failed, and for various reasons.
In the first place, he proposed directly after breakfast, which, as Joey
pathetically observed to Mrs. Leroy long afterwards, was just the sort
of brutal thing he would do. A woman, especially if she be young, likes
to be won, or at any rate wooed, in a certain style. A secluded spot,
subdued light, mayhap a moon; if possible, distant music--all these
things tell. If Hughie had paid a little more attention to stage-effects
of this kind he might have found his ward more amenable. Being a
Marrable, he brushed aside these trappings and came straight to what he
fondly imagined was the point, little knowing that to a young girl
romance and courtship make up one great and glorious vista, filling the
eye and occupying the entire landscape, while marriage is a small black
cloud on the distant horizon.
His actual method of procedure was to sit heavily down beside his ward
as she enjoyed the morning sun in a corner of the lawn, and say,--
"Joey, I want to talk to you--on business."
"All right, warder," replied Miss Gaymer meekly; "fire away!"
"I suppose you know," said Hughie, a little dashed, "that all your
affairs have been left in my hands?"
"I do, worse luck!" said Miss Gaymer frankly. "And that reminds me,
Hughie dear, I should like a trifle on account. You won't refuse poor
Joey, will you?"
She squeezed her guardian's arm in a manner which a Frenchman would have
described as _très câline_.
"I think I had better put you on an allowance," said Hughie.
Joan's eyes danced.
"Oh, you _ripper_! How much?"
"Can't say," replied Hughie, "until I've been up to town and seen the
bankers."
"When are you going?"
"To-morrow: that's why I wanted to talk to you to-day. You see, your
money is in two parts, so to speak. One lot is tied up in such a way
that it can't be touched until poor Uncle Jimmy's death is actually
proved."
Joan's blue-grey eyes were troubled.
"Hughie," she said, "is there _any_ hope? I still like to think so."
Hughie shook his head. "Not much," he said. "In fact, none. It is known
that he went with that crack-brained expedition of Hymack's up the
Congo,--to study the Rubber Question on the spot,--and the last letter
he sent home said that he was suffering from black-water fever, and it
is also known that the expedition came back without him. And--all that
was two years ago, Joey."
Joan nodded her head submissively.
"Poor Uncle Jimmy!" she said softly.
"Still," continued Hughie stoutly, "you never know. I have sent a man
out to make inquiries, and if he fails, perhaps I shall go myself. But
until we learn something definite the will can't be proved. However, he
left me very full instructions what to do in case he did not come back,
so I must carry them out. There is plenty for you to go on with. I shall
run up to town to-morrow, and when I come back I'll let you know how
much it is, and how much a year I can allow you."
Miss Gaymer clasped her hands and sighed happily.
"We _will_ have a time, Hughie!" she said. "I'll stand treat."
"Thank you," said Hughie gravely.
There was a long silence. Hughie, suddenly ill at ease,--he had arrived
at Part Two of his morning's syllabus,--made fatuous attempts to roll a
cigarette. His ward sat with a rapt expression in her widely-opened
eyes, mentally visualising a series of charitable enterprises (ranging
from a turquoise pendant for Mildred Leroy to a new cap for the cook)
made feasible by the sudden prospect of wealth.
Presently Hughie cleared his throat in a heart-rending manner, and said,
in what he afterwards admitted to himself was entirely the wrong sort of
voice,--
"Joey, I think you and I had better marry one another."
Miss Gaymer, who was more used to this sort of thing than her companion,
turned and eyed him calmly.
"And why?" she asked.
There was only one possible answer to this question, and Hughie should
have given it with the full strength of his heart and soul and body.
But--well, reserve is a curious and paralysing thing. All he said was,--
"I think it would be very suitable; don't you?"
"For you or for me?" inquired Miss Gaymer.
"For both of us," replied Hughie. "No--for me!" he added, his habitual
modesty getting the better of him.
"In what way?" continued Miss Gaymer, with unnatural calm.
"Well--Uncle Jimmy was very keen about it," said Hughie desperately.
"You're a dutiful nephew, Hughie," observed Joan approvingly.
"And then," continued the suitor, "as I have been made your guardian,
and all that, I think I am in a position to take care of you, and look
after your money, and so on."
"You mean it would make it easier for you to manage my affairs?" said
Miss Gaymer helpfully.
"Yes," said Hughie, feeling that he was getting on.
"Any more reasons?" inquired Miss Gaymer, with a docile appearance of
intelligent interest.
Hughie made an immense effort, and grasped his chair until the veins
stood out on his hands. _Parturiunt montes_--at last.
"Well, Joey," he said at last, "we have always been pals, and all that.
I mean, we have known each other for a long time now, haven't we? You
even offered to marry me once,"--he laughed nervously,--"when you were a
kiddie. Do you remember? It seems to me we should get on first-rate
together--eh? What's your opinion?"
_Ridiculus mus!_
Miss Gaymer sat up in her chair, and turned upon the unfortunate young
man beside her.
"And you _dare_," she said, "to come to a girl like me with a proposal
like that! You sit there and tell me that you have taken me over from
Uncle Jimmy like a--like a parcel from a porter, and that you have been
saddled with my money and affairs, so perhaps it would be simplest and
save trouble if you married me! _Me!_" she repeated, "who have to keep
men off with a stick!"
The last sentence was a mistake. It was an inartistic and egotistical
climax to a perfectly justifiable tirade. Joan realised the fact the
moment she had uttered the words, but poor Hughie was too much occupied
in retiring into his shell to notice anything. He had laid bare his
heart, in his own fashion, for the first time in his life, and this was
the result. Never again! He burned inwardly, like a child who has been
laughed at by grown-ups.
"I'm sorry," he said stiffly. "My mistake! Shan't occur again."
Joey's ear was caught by the tone of his voice, and conscience gave her
a twinge. She patted Hughie's arm in a friendly way.
"Old boy," she said, suddenly contrite, "I've made you angry, and I've
hurt you. I'm sowwy--sorry, I mean! (I'm a bit upset, you see)," she
said, smiling disarmingly. "But I _can't_ marry you, really. I couldn't
_bear_ to be married at all at present. It seems so--so unnecessary. I
don't see what I should get out of it. That's a selfish thing to say, I
suppose, but I'll try to explain a girl's point of view to you. You're a
terrible child in some respects, so I'll do it quite simply."
She stroked his sleeve in a motherly fashion, and continued:--
"Years ago, my dear, the only way a girl could get her freedom or any
male society was by marrying. Now, she gets as much of both as she
wants, and if she marries she loses all the freedom and most of the male
society. So why should she marry at all?"
Hughie kept silence before this poser. He felt incapable of plunging
into the depths of an argument: one has to keep to the surface in
discussing these matters with a maiden of twenty.
"So I shan't marry for years, if at all," continued Miss Gaymer, with
the air of one propounding an entirely new theory. "Not until I'm
getting _passée_ at any rate, and only then if I could find a man whom
it wouldn't give me the creeps to think of spending the rest of my life
with. Besides, the moment one gets engaged all the other men drop
off,--all the nice ones, at any rate,--and that would never do. Don't
you think my system is a sensible one?"
"It comes hard on the men," said Hughie.
"Yes, poor dears!" said Miss Gaymer sympathetically. "Still, one man is
so tiresome and a lot is so nice!"
With which concise and not unmasterly summary of the marriage question,
as viewed through the eyes of the modern maiden, Miss Gaymer turned the
conversation into other channels, and the idyll terminated.
Half an hour later they were called into the house, to make ready for a
boating expedition.
Joan, with her usual frankness, reverted for a moment before they left
the seclusion of the trees to the topic that was uppermost in their
minds.
"Hughie," she said softly, "does it hurt much?"
"I don't quite know yet," said Hughie.
"I mean, are you sad or angry--which? It usually takes a man one way or
the other," observed this experienced damsel.
"I don't know that I'm either," said Hughie meditatively; "the only
feeling that I have just now is that I'm desperately sorry. But I'm not
kicking."
"It is my belief," remarked Miss Gaymer with sudden and pardonable
asperity, "that you don't care for me in the least. Do you, now?"
They were a very honest and sincere couple, these. For a full minute
they looked each other in the face, without speaking. Then Hughie
said,--
"Joey, I simply don't know! I thought I did half an hour ago, and I'd
have sworn it last night, when--"
He checked himself.
"When what?" asked Joan swiftly.
"Nothing," said Hughie. "That's rather beside the point now, isn't it?"
Joan, curiosity struggling with honesty, nodded reluctantly.
"Anyhow," continued Hughie, "I thought I did then, but I'm blessed if I
know now. In fact," he added in a sudden burst of confidence, "sometimes
I can't stand you at any price, Joey dear!"
"Ah!" said Miss Gaymer, nodding a wise head, "I see you don't know your
own mind yet. But you _will_--one way or another--as soon as you get
away from me."
* * * * *
A week later another interview took place between the pair, on the same
spot.
"Business only this time, Joey!" said Hughie, with rather laborious
cheerfulness.
"All right. Did you have a good time in town?" inquired Miss Gaymer, in
the inevitable manner of women and Orientals, who dislike coming to the
point in matters of business without a few decent preliminaries.
"Yes, thanks. I have been picking up old friends again, and
generally settling down," said Hughie. "Got a flat, and a comic
man-servant--Scotchman--introduce you some day. He--"
He plunged into a rather rambling description of John Alexander Goble.
He was evidently no more anxious to get to business than Joan.
At last Miss Gaymer inquired,--
"Well, Hughie, have you fixed up my affairs?"
"Yes," said Hughie slowly. "Do you want details?"
"Mercy, no! I don't know anything about business, and I don't believe
you do either, Hughie. _Do_ you?"
"Not much," confessed the trustee. "However, I must tell you at once,
Joey, that your income won't be nearly as large as I expected--"
"Right O!" replied Joan cheerfully. "When do I start for the workhouse?"
"It's not quite so bad as that," said Hughie, "but--"
"What am I worth?" inquired the practical Miss Gaymer.
"I can't quite tell you," said Hughie in a hesitating fashion. "You
see"--he appeared to be choosing his words rather carefully--"the
nominal value of investments, and their actual cash equivalent--"
Joan put her fingers in her ears.
"Stop!" she cried, "or I shall scream! I don't know an asset from a
liability, except that in the arithmetic book brokerage is one-eighth,
and--Never mind! I should never understand. How much am I to have a
year? Tell me that."
"Supposing it should be a mere trifle," said Hughie slowly, "what would
you do?"
Miss Gaymer puckered her brow thoughtfully.
"You mean, if I hadn't enough to live on?"
Hughie nodded.
"Well, I shouldn't be a governess, I don't think. I love children, but
children are always perfectly diabolical to their governess, and I
shouldn't be able to stand their mothers, either. No: governesses are
off! I shouldn't mind being a typewriter, though, or a secretary,--not
that I can typewrite, or even spell,--provided it was to a really nice
man. An author, you know, or a Cabinet Minister. He could walk about the
room, rumpling up his hair and getting the stuff off his chest, and I
would sit there like a little mouse, in a neat black skirt and a white
silk blouse,--_perhaps_ one or two carnations pinned on,--looking very
sweet and taking it all down."
"It's a pretty picture," said Hughie drily.
"Yes, isn't it?" said Miss Gaymer, with genuine enthusiasm. "I think,"
she continued, soaring to still greater heights, "that I should like to
go on the stage best of all. Of course, it wouldn't be the slightest
good my going on the proper stage--learning parts, and all that; but a
piece like 'The Merry Widow,' with different frocks for each act and
just a few choruses to sing in, would be top-hole! _Say_ I'm a pauper,
Hughie!"
"You're not--thank God!" was Hughie's brutal but earnest response.
"All right, then! Don't bite my head off!" said Miss Gaymer, with
unimpaired good temper. "Let us resume. How much are you going to give
me?"
"How much can you live on?"
"Well, I was talking about it to Ursula Harbord--you know her, don't
you?"
"I do," said Hughie, making a wry face.
"Very well, don't abuse her. She's the cleverest girl I know," said Joan
warmly. "She is on the staff of 'The New Woman,' and can put a man in
his place in about two minutes."
"So I discovered," said Hughie resignedly. "Popular type of girl.
However, you were saying--?"
"I was asking Ursula," continued Joan, "about the cost of living in
town, and so on, and we agreed to share a flat. She said I could get
along on three hundred a-year."
Joan paused expectantly, and waited for an answer to her unspoken
question.
"That," said Hughie, after hesitating a moment as if to work out a sum
in mental arithmetic, "is just what I can give you."
* * * * *
A pair of Archdiaconal shoe-buckles, the glimmer of a lady's white
evening wrap, and a glowing cigar-end were discernible in the half-light
of the verandah outside the drawing-room window after dinner. Two
Olympians, to whom human hearts were as an open book, were discussing
mortal affairs.
"Is there no way of bringing it off?" inquired one voice.
"Lots," replied the other. "But they have so bungled things between them
that we shall have to go slow for a bit. Why, oh, why do men whom you
could trust to do almost _anything_ in the ordinary way always make such
a mess of their love-affairs? Why aren't _you_ married, for instance,
Mr. D'Arcy?"
"To return to the point," said the reverend gentleman evasively, "what
ought Hughie to do? Take her by the shoulders and shake her? I have
known such a method prove most efficacious," he added, rather
incautiously.
"N-no," said Mrs. Leroy, "I don't think so--not in Joey's case. It would
bring some women to reason--most women, in fact--in no time. But the
child is too high-spirited. Her pride would never forgive such
treatment. A better way would be for him to make love to some one else."
"Being Hughie, that is out of the question. He could only make love to
some one else if he meant it; and that would rather defeat your object,
Mrs. Leroy."
"_My_ object?"
"Well, ours, then. But is there no other way?"
"Yes. He must get into trouble of some kind. At present he is too
popular: everybody likes him. If they turned against him she would come
round fast enough. Yes, he must get into _trouble_."
"Well, perhaps he will," said the Venerable the Archdeacon hopefully.
BOOK FOUR
THE UNJUST STEWARD