The Squire sat making calculations in his study, as he did nearly every
day of his life. There was nothing in his appearance to denote that
anything unusual, least of all anything exceedingly pleasant, had
occurred to him. And yet, it was only that morning that they had told
him Jack was alive and was coming home the same evening. Perhaps it was
that, like Digby, he found it hard to revive an affection that had
ceased to be part of his life six months ago; or, more likely still, he
felt in some vague way or another that Jack had come back to life on
purpose to produce some unpaid debts for his father to settle. Sir
Marcus never dissimulated, and he made no attempt to conceal the fact
that his joy in his son's resurrection did not wholly compensate for
the trouble that was certain to be a consequence of it.
So he sat making calculations as usual, though his wife felt bound to go
into hysterics in the drawing-room, and the rest of the family were
trying to erect a shaky evergreen arch in the garden, with "Welcome
home!" nailed on it in evergreen letters. They were making a good deal
of noise over it, too, and the calculations did not get on, in
consequence. They related this time to rabbits, to the number imported
yearly from abroad, and the inadequate number reared in the home country
itself, and Sir Marcus was making them with the object of writing a
letter to the county paper, suggesting rabbit culture as a lucrative
employment for the British villager. According to Sir Marcus, the
British villager had an immense amount of time on his hands. Not that
his interest in the duck culture was in any degree on the wane, but the
county paper had refused to insert any more of his letters about the
Murville ducks and the enormous profits that the Murville laborer was
said to realize from breeding them; and so the Squire had been only too
glad to take up the question of tame rabbits, which was being
tentatively ventilated by a neighboring Squire in another village. Sir
Marcus never did anything tentatively, however; so he began by talking
rabbits at every man he met in the village street; and as every man he
met, owing to his own former persuasions, was a ducker, that worthy
generally received his recommendation of this new animal with something
like distrust. The duckers of Murville could not understand any article
of commerce that did not lay eggs, and although they obediently ate the
few samples that the Squire sent round to them for their Sunday dinners,
yet they did so with much condescension, and no little suspicion that
they were being coaxed into liking a new food that must be inferior
because it was cheap. The Murville laborer had retained some of his
independence, in spite of being the property of a Radical overlord.
"Tell ye what it is, George," said Tom Clarke, the biggest ducker in the
village, as he sat smoking one evening in the newly built club in the
main street, "I be altogether flustered along o' them new fancies of the
Squire, I be. What be rabbits, hey, man? Can ye tell me that, now? Ye be
oop at the Manor all day, along o' the Squire hisself, so ye ought to
know for sure."
The handy man shook his head dumbly, which was his usual form of reply,
and the one that his hearers generally preferred; and Tom Clarke
continued his ruminations for the benefit of any of the members present
who might be inclined to listen to him.
"Rabbits beats me altogether, I be bound to own. They bain't poultry,
and they bain't butcher's meat neither. What be they, anyhow? The Squire
be a proper kind gentleman for sure, but when he takes up with them
okkard new fancies what no one can't explain, it be proper hard to know
how to treat 'un. Why, George man, when the parson was readin' of the
Litany, Sunday past, and come to the 'kindly fruits of the earth,' I
thinks to myself, 'that's rabbits, that is,' and I shuts my mouth tight,
I does! And me what's never missed sayin' and singin' all the
prayer-book allows 'un to do, this forty year that I've sat in the choir
up agin poor Jack Priest's tablet. 'T ain't as though I be an
unreligious body what sings an' don't pray, as I've known some do; but
there's never a Amen that I don't take part in, and there bain't a trap
in the service as can catch me now, allays allowin' for the reply to the
tenth commandment what were put in by the devil or the chapel people,
and caught on by the parsons accidental, so to speak. So you see how a
man be upset all along o' them beasts, if ye can call a thing a beast
what eats like string."
Mrs. Tom Clarke, in spite of the cookery lectures that had been given in
the Club on Wednesday evenings, by an expert from London, who had
evolved strange dishes from herring heads and mutton bones with the aid
of a patent portable stove, still preferred to cook her husband's food
in her own way, and this generally consisted in putting it into a
saucepan from which the duck's food had just been extracted,--a process
which had the effect of making everything taste alike; so it was
certainly probable that the Squire's rabbit had not had a fair chance in
that cottage, at all events.
But in spite of the opposition he was receiving from his most faithful
adherents, Sir Marcus still sat patiently, and made his calculations for
his new letter to the papers. He had already written to two or three
members of Parliament for statistics, and had received replies from the
House of Commons which he folded on his writing-table with the address
uppermost, and in which they mostly referred him to Whitaker; and he had
caused a slight disruption at the luncheon table, only that day, by
wanting to know the good of the expensive education he had given his
children if it turned them out ignorant of rabbits. The children were
wishing just then that their father's new hobby had not happened to
possess him in the Christmas holidays, and Lady Raleigh had taken the
precaution of telling her cook to jug the hare and make it as unlike a
rabbit as possible, so that dinner might pass off more peaceably than
luncheon had done.
"I must have Joan down; _she_ would sympathize," murmured Sir Marcus,
laying his pen down, and reading the first sentences he had written of
his letter. "Splendid woman, Joan, never laughs at my little ideas, and
takes such an interest in them. Shows what intelligence can do for a
girl. She'd have made Jack realize the responsibilities of existence,
she would. Devil take my head, why is it swimming so this afternoon?"
The letter did not get on very fast, there was too much similarity
between its sentiments and those he had so often expressed before; it
looked rather as though he were adapting an old letter by scratching out
"duck" and substituting "rabbit," for he found himself writing that the
feathers and eggs alone of one rabbit more than repaid the cost of
rearing it.
"Digby used to come down and see me oftener than he does now," said Sir
Marcus, laying down his pen again and passing his hand across his brow.
"I don't like his being away so long, and the dear little boy too; why
don't they come and see me? Got a wife? Oh, to be sure, yes; my memory
don't seem so strong as it was, somehow: to be sure, a wife, yes. Nice
little thing, very; wonder if she would know how many we get yearly from
Holland? My hand gets more tired than it used, though it wouldn't do to
say so; people are so ready to talk about an old man breaking up before
he's out of the sixties. Why, I walked up from the post-office in eight
minutes and a half this morning; I can beat the youngsters now, eh? I
wish Joan would come and catch hold of this accursed letter, it keeps
drifting so far away. I always wonder what made her take Digby; funny
fellow, Digby. What am I saying? It's Jack who is her husband, isn't it?
I've been writing too much to-day, that's what it is. I'm only a little
queer, but--I wish Joan would come and finish my letter for me. Why
won't Digby bring her down now? Let's get hold of the whiskey; that's
what I want to set me straight, of course. What nonsense they are
talking; men don't fall to pieces when they are sixty-four. I can walk
with the best of them, eh, Joan, my dear?"
There were three people destined for Murville Manor in the 6.45 from
Euston that evening. Two of them were in separate third-class smoking
carriages at the end of the train; the other sat in a first-class
compartment. They were Digby, and Jack, and Lady Joan, all summoned by
the same telegram, and all obeying the summons unknown to each other,
and with the greatest speed possible. The two brothers, singularly
enough, each spent the greater part of the two hours' journey in reading
and re-reading a letter, which was written, in both cases, in a thick,
rather illegible handwriting. The musician, as he took his from the
already opened envelope, gave a half-conscious look round the carriage
before he read it. It dated from the day before, and had no heading to
it:--
"I think on consideration that the new form of diversion you
proposed to me the other night would not work so well as we
thought. So I am not going to entertain it any longer. You will
probably blame me for my vacillation; but then, you should not have
established a precedent for vacillation in the 'Relton Arms,' four
years ago. After all, there is nothing left but the book; and I am
going to be away, and alone, until I have written it. Don't be
alarmed. I am not going to soak it with my own experiences.
"JOAN."
His younger brother, in the other carriage, did not look at any one when
he took his letter from his breast-pocket and unfolded it. It was very
limp, and looked as though it had been unfolded many times before. It
was dated two days earlier:--
"MY DEAR BOY,--I am a cad, and I hate myself for what I have done
to you. It is quite the meanest thing I have done in my life.
Please believe that I did not authorize Digby to come and tell you
for me, last night; he wanted to spare me the unpleasantness, I
suppose, of confessing to you that I was a brute. But I am a brute,
all the same; I should only be a worse one if I were to marry you
now. I haven't the least right to expect you to grant me a favor,
but I shall be glad if you will take this as final.
"JOAN RELTON."
The station for Murville village was two miles away from the Manor
House, or from any human habitation of importance; and as the train
slowly steamed away from it to-night, the three passengers whom it had
brought from town, unknown to each other, were the only three whom it
had deposited on the platform. They found themselves standing together
near the exit, and there was an awkward moment of recognition while they
fumbled with cold fingers for their tickets. Digby had apparently lost
his altogether; Lady Joan had hers ready, and passed out swiftly; and
Jack promptly gave up the wrong half of his and passed out after her, in
spite of the station-master's expostulations.
"Stupid of George to be late," observed Jack in the road outside. He was
clearing his throat a good deal, and looking up the road with a great
show of concern.
"It was odd that we should all catch the same train," she said, stamping
her feet, and coughing with unnecessary violence; "I suppose you have
not been down before?"
"No; they only knew of my arrival in time to cable to me that my father
was dying," he said, with a queer mixture of humor and bitterness; "life
is very rum sometimes, isn't it?"
"Always," she said fervently, and shivered among her furs. They both
looked up the road then, and prayed for the advent of George and the
cart. Digby's irritated tones could be heard from within, concerning his
missing ticket.
"I say, won't you let fly for the fire in the booking-office till George
comes? I reckon you're cold some," began Jack again, awkwardly.
"Oh, no, please don't trouble about me," she replied politely, as though
she had just been introduced to him for the first time.
Digby came out and joined them.
"He's always late," he began, in a high-pitched tone, also looking up
the road with a great show of interest.
"He is a countryman, you see," said Lady Joan, with gravity.
"And the mother has been at him for six years," added Jack.
They discussed the handy man, without a suspicion of a smile, for some
minutes longer, and they continued to look up the road, and back at the
clock in the station, and anywhere except at each other, until the
welcome sound of wheels at last drew near, when they all flung
themselves upon the handy man, without mercy, and robbed him of his few
wits at once.
"How is your master, George?"
"Yes, how is Sir Marcus, George?" added Joan, anxiously.
"Aye, how be the Squire, for sure, poor gentleman?" chimed in the
solitary porter from behind.
"And what on earth possessed you to bring the luggage cart, George?"
added Digby, wrathfully.
The handy man slowly dismounted from his seat, and made a desperate
effort to say what was required of him.
"He be proper bad, he be; leastways so the cook told me when I come by
the larder window with the sprouts, or I should say the celery for
dinner it was, an' Lady Raleigh, she would have it as it were too slippy
to bring the dog-cart, notwithstandin' as it bain't the cart what falls
down, but the animal for sure, an' he won't last till mornin', poor
gentleman, though the best London doctor come down by the five-forty o'
purpose to have a last look of him, what went far towards killin' of 'im
off in my thinkin'. An' the luggage is to be sent on afterwards, if ye
please, Mr. Jack; an' Tom Clarke he says as how he means to put off his
visit to his sister, what's married into the grocery business at
Reading, till he be sure how things means to turn out, cos he says he
bain't a-goin' of to miss a choreal funeral, what hasn't been for nigh
upon thirty--"
"Go to the horse's head, George," said Digby, sternly, and he turned to
hand Lady Joan into the cart; "it is not very comfortable, I am afraid,
but Jack and I will walk on, which will give you more room."
Lady Joan drew back and hesitated a little.
"You had better come too, hadn't you?" she said; "it would be much
quicker, and--"
"Aye, sir, there be room and to spare," put in the porter,
encouragingly; "you've only got to put your arms round one another all
tidy an' comfortable like, an' there ain't no fear o' tumbling out.
Bless ye, sir, there be as many as six together in a cart like this on
market days, all as safe and as pleasant as can be."
"An' there bain't no time to lose, Mr. Digby," added George, from the
horse's head; "leastways, the end might come while we be gossipin' here,
and the Lord grant him a peaceful--"
"Come and take the reins, George," interrupted Lady Joan, suddenly
mounting the cart without any assistance at all, "and get in quickly,
you two; there's loads of room, of course."
They began by sitting stiffly on the edge of the seat, as far away from
each other as possible; but the first plunge forward of the restive pony
nearly tipped up the seat and sent them all backwards, and a parting
admonition from the friendly porter followed them up the road.
"Hold on tight to the lady, sirs; that be the only way of doin' it," he
bawled at the top of his voice; and although it was an attitude that
none of the three would have chosen at that moment, they were compelled
by common prudence to follow his advice; and they completed the drive in
silence, sitting on the narrow seat of the little rickety cart, with
their arms locked together, and their hands unavoidably clasped.
* * * * *
The Squire's letter to the papers was never finished, and nobody ever
told him how many rabbits were imported annually from Holland. It was a
question he repeatedly asked of those around him on the last night of
his life, though he varied it, when Joan and his two sons arrived, by
wanting to know when Jack was going to be married.
"Soon, quite soon," Lady Joan whispered to him reassuringly, and she put
her hand in Jack's to confirm the delusion. Jack knew it was a delusion,
and did not press it; he had come to understand her at last.
They stood together in the library, a week after the Squire's death, on
the eve of her departure for Relton.
"I was a fool ever to think you could care for me," he said sadly. The
circumstances of the week they had spent together, since their meeting
at the station, had completely dissipated their first feelings of
awkwardness. They were almost on the dull footing of a brother and
sister, who have very little in common, but who have learnt the trick of
companionship.
"I let you think I did. It was my fault, as I told you before. Hadn't we
better let it drop?" she said brusquely. "Oh, heavens! how old I am
beginning to look," she added, as she caught a glimpse of herself in the
glass over the mantelshelf.
"It is only because you are tired," he said, looking at her.
She laughed.
"At least you are truthful," she said, carelessly; "tell me you are not
wild with me, Jack. I have treated you abominably, haven't I? If only
you were not so provokingly good-tempered about it, I should feel much
better, I think. I always did hate whipping a dog that didn't howl. Ah,
you don't understand a bit! I believe I am rotten all through, and that
is why I have dished my life so effectually. And I'm not a bit sorry,
and I mean to have a good time still. Hey-day! But tell me you're not
wild, Jack."
"Oh, that's all straight now. And it's much worse for you, don't you
know," he said, stumbling on the truth in his slow way; "I shall do all
right; don't you fret yourself about me. I ought to have known I
shouldn't do for you. Digby will take you to the station, eh?"
"I am going alone," she answered abruptly, and went out into the porch,
where most of the family had come to see her off. Owing to some
mismanagement on the part of the handy man, who, having been the most
important man in the village since the Squire's death and funeral, had
completely neglected his usual work ever since, the pony needed shoeing
on this particular afternoon, and Lady Joan could not be driven to the
station in consequence. She persisted in her determination to walk
alone, and Digby remained in awkward silence while his escort was being
freely pressed upon her by his unconscious relations. Poor Lady Raleigh,
more inconsequent than ever in the midst of her grief, kissed her
convulsively, and poured out a confused medley of entreaties into her
ear.
"You won't take anything to heart, dear, that Jack has said to you? He
doesn't mean anything he says, you know, so you must believe him when he
says he loves you as much as ever. He tells me it is all right, so I am
not going to say anything about it; but of course you'll look on this as
your home until he marries you, won't you, dear? And I assure you Jack
cannot bear to be away from you a single hour, but he does like to stay
in his home best, so you won't think anything of his not walking to the
station with you. Of course Digby is only too pleased to go with you,
and all the fields about here are crowded with dangerous bulls, and if
you are not quick you will lose the train, and they never keep it for
you at these country stations, you know. So you must have Digby, of
course. And you are sure you understand about dear Jack? You mustn't
listen to him, that's all; he says he _is_ so fond of you still, dear
boy."
"Do have Digby, Joan; he doesn't leave till to-morrow, and he only hangs
about the place doing nothing, and it will take him out for an hour."
This from Helen.
"I am sorry to disappoint everybody," said Lady Joan, in her clearest,
most composed tones; "but if I did lose the train, Digby would not be of
the least use to me in producing another one; and I'm afraid I am not
nearly unselfish enough to burden myself with his company for the good
of the community; so good-bye, sir;" and she gave him a straight look
out of her eyes as she held out her hand. It was the first time she had
spoken directly to him since they had parted that night in Pont Street,
and he avoided her eyes.
"Good-bye. They seem very anxious to burden you with my presence, don't
they?" he said, with a forced laugh; "all luck to the book."
"Thanks. I will send it to you in instalments for criticism."
He was the last to remain in the porch, watching her across the fields;
and there was not a criminal in the kingdom with whom he would not
gladly have changed places at that moment.
"I shall go up to-night, I think, and surprise Norah," he muttered
presently. There was a dull consolation in the idea of meeting the woman
who had acquired the habit of being glad to see him; and he felt a
little better when he packed his bag upstairs.
The baby was in bed when he walked into the flat, and Norah was having
her solitary meal in the dining-room.
"Why are you here to-night?" she asked him, as he held her to him more
closely than usual. There was a gleam in the eyes he had almost despised
lately for not being more observant, but he did not notice it as he
kissed her softly. "So Joan went away to-day, did she?" she added.
"Joan? Did she write to you?" he asked quickly.
"Oh, no. But I knew," and she nodded at him.
"How did you know, wise woman?" he said playfully.
"Because you have come home, of course," she replied, and laughed
outright. He laughed too; but there was not a pleasant ring in his
merriment and it was short-lived.
"What has come over you, childie?" he said, beginning to feel vaguely
alarmed.
She had disengaged herself from his arms, and was walking away to the
window.
"Oh, nothing. Only it is a pity you leave your coats about. I should
never have known if you had not been so careless. At least, I fancy I
have known all the winter," she added dreamily, as if to herself.
"Known what?" he asked in a voice he did not seem to recognize. But he
knew; and he felt rather worse than when he had stood in the porch that
afternoon, watching Joan over the fields. "What a hellish sport marriage
is!" he added in a bitter undertone.
She heard him, and came back to his side.
"Digby."
"Well? I don't want you to touch me, if you would rather not," he said
roughly, and did not look at her.
"I want to tell you," she went on softly. "I found Joan's letter, and I
read it as a matter of course; I thought it was about--oh, never mind
what. That was the day you went down to Murville; and I could not speak
to you then. It has been so dreadful waiting for you to come back,
Digby. Are you not going to look at me, now you have come?"
He turned round bewildered, and saw her eyes full of tears.
"Good God, Norah, do you mean you can know that, and--?"
"Yes, dear. I think I know more than you. I think I know how you have
been feeling lately, and all the winter. But I did not know it was as
bad as this, and when I read that letter--do you know how I felt? I
think I must tell you, Digby; I have had something to bear too, you
know. I felt first that something terrible had come between you and me,
something that wanted pushing away with all my might; and I couldn't do
it alone, Digby, and you--you were not there to help me. And then--I
only felt sorry for you. I have just longed for you to come back that I
might put my arms round you and comfort you, and tell you that I knew.
Digby, don't turn away like that."
"But--it is inconceivable--do you know what you are saying? Do you know
that if that letter had not been written, I should have--?" He paused,
for he could not bring himself to finish the sentence. But she sprang
away from him suddenly, and stood in front of him in the middle of the
room, with her hands clasped at the back of her head, and a blaze of
triumph in her eyes.
"No, no, not that!" she cried; "never that! I knew it could not be. If I
had thought you capable of that, should I be speaking to you now like
this? Do you think women are such fools then? _I_ know, _she_ knew--that
you were not capable of it, that you never meant it, that it was one of
your queer impulses that make me love you so madly, and that she can
never forgive in you. _That_ is why she wrote you that letter. _That_ is
why you are mine now, mine, mine, mine!"
The musician fell in love more thoroughly that afternoon than he had
ever fallen in love before.
He fell in love with his own wife.
"We must have Joan up to stay with us; she could write nicely at the
table in the dining-room, couldn't she?" said Norah, when they began to
talk rationally again. They felt wonderfully fond of Joan this evening.
"Oh, do you think so? I fancy she'll be all right down at Relton for the
present," he answered. He was feeling that he could do with his wife for
a good long time now.
"It's just as you like, dear. And do you know, baby is so wonderfully
good now she has nearly all her teeth, that I believe you would find the
study quiet enough to write music in. It has been very uncomfortable for
you lately, hasn't it?" said she.
"Oh, it's been all right. And I don't think I want to write music much.
I say, do you think baby will take to me now?" said he.
Then she laughed, and he demanded the reason of her merriment.
"I was thinking how Joan once said that I should never be able to
understand your nature, and that you would be wounding me half-a-dozen
times a day," she explained, and laughed again.
"How absurd of her," he cried, and roared with laughter himself; "but
then you know, childie, Joan has always been possessed with the idea
that we were not born for each other."
"Could anything be more ridiculous?" said Norah; and they broke into a
fresh peal of laughter, without any apparent reason for it.
A distant wail from the nursery summoned her presently, and Digby was
left alone in the dining-room. He smoked two cigarettes in silence, with
a complacent smile, and he delivered himself of his favorite exclamation
as he rolled up a third.
"Good heavens!" he said out loud; "if it were not for habit what chance
would there be for marriage? Next time I see Joan, I'll--"
But there he stopped.
THE END.