HECKLING A MINISTER
The engagement became known in the course of the afternoon, and the news
was received in a manner after all very gratifying to the happy pair.
Lady Caroline Sellwood did indeed insist on kissing her future
son-in-law, but the obvious attitude she now assumed did not impose upon
him for a moment. He had seen through her the night before; he could
never believe in the woman again. In any case, however, her affectation
of blank surprise, and her motherly qualms concerning the prospective
loss of her ewe lamb, were a little over-acted, even for so
inexperienced an observer as the Duke of St. Osmund's. She knew it, too,
and hated Jack with all her hollow heart for having found her out; to
him, it was, after this, a relief to listen to the somewhat guarded
observations of Mr. Sellwood, whose feelings in the matter were just a
little mixed.
Of the rest, Francis Freke volunteered his services for the great
event, and both he and his wife (who brought down her entire speaking
family to say good-night to "Uncle Jack") were consumed with that
genuine delight in the happiness of others which was their strongest
point. Claude, too, was not only "very nice about it," as Olivia said,
but his behaviour, in what was for him a rather delicate situation,
showed both tact and self-control. Never for a moment did look or word
of his suggest the unsuccessful suitor: though to be sure he had
scarcely qualified for such a _role_. Olivia and he had never been more
than friends. On her side, at least, the friendship had been of that
perfectly frank and chronic character which is least likely to develop
into love. And no one knew this better than Claude himself, who,
moreover, was not even yet absolutely sure that his own undoubted
affections were inspired by the divine impulse for which his poet's
heart had so often yearned. At all events he had thought upon the one
maiden for very many months; and putting it no higher than this, his
present conduct was that of a tolerably magnanimous man.
The one person who raised an unsympathetic eyebrow was Dalrymple the
squatter. He seemed surprised at the news and, for the moment, rather
annoyed; but Jack recalled the deplorably cynical view of women for
which the owner of Carara had been quite notorious in the back-blocks,
and the squatter's displeasure did not rankle. Nor was it expressed a
second time. Either the sight of the pair together, who made no secret
of their happiness; either this pretty spectacle, or the dictates of
good taste, moved Dalrymple, ultimately, to the most graceful
congratulations they had yet received. And it was characteristic of the
man that his remarks took the form of an unsolicited speech at the
dinner-table.
He had been only a few hours in the house, yet to all but Mr. Sellwood
(who did not meet him until evening) the hours seemed days. For the
squatter was one of those men who carry with them the weight of their
own presence, the breath of an intrinsic power, subtly felt from the
first; thus the little house-party had taken more notice of him in one
afternoon than the normal stranger would have attracted in a week; and
to them it already seemed inevitable that he should lead and that they
should follow whether they would or no. Accordingly, they were not in
the least surprised to see Dalrymple on his legs when the crumb-cloth
had been removed; though all but Jack deemed the act a liberty; and the
squatter still adopted the tone of a master felicitating his men, rather
than that of a guest congratulating his host.
Yet the speech was fluent and full of point; and the speaker himself
made a sufficiently taking figure, leaning slightly forward, with the
tips of his well-shaped fingers just resting on the black oak board that
dimly reflected them. An unexceptionable shirt-front sat perfectly on
his full, deep chest, a single pearl glistening in its centre; and there
was a gleam of even teeth between the close-cropped, white moustache and
the ugly, mobile, nether lip, whence every word fell distinct and clear
of its predecessor. The Home Secretary had heard a worse delivery from
his own front bench; and he was certainly interested in the story of the
iron hut and the savages of Northern Queensland, which Dalrymple
repeated with the happiest effect. Olivia forgave him certain earlier
passages on the strength of these; her heart was full; only she could
not lift her eyes from the simple chain about her wrist, for they were
dim. The speech closed with the dramatic climax of the tale; there had
been but one interruption to the flow of well-chosen words, and that was
when the speaker stopped to blow out a smoking candle without appealing
to his host.
The health of the pair was then drunk with appropriate enthusiasm; poor
Jack blurted out a few honest words, hardly intelligible from his
emotion; and the three ladies left the room.
"There's one more point to that yarn," said Dalrymple, closing the door
he had held open, "that I don't think you yourself are aware of, Jack.
It was when you got back to the store, with your shirt burnt off your
back, and the country in a blaze all round, that I first noticed the
legend on your chest. As you probably know, Mr. Sellwood, the Duke has
one of his own eagles tattooed upon his chest. I saw it that day for the
first time. I felt sure it meant something. And years afterwards, when I
heard that a London solicitor was scouring the Colonies for the unknown
Duke of St. Osmund's, it was the sudden recollection of that mark which
made me to some extent the happy instrument of his discovery."
"To every extent!" cried Jack, wringing his benefactor's hand. "I've
always said so. Mr. Sellwood, I owe him everything, and yet he makes a
song about my scaring away a few blackfellows with a bush-fire! By the
hokey, I've a good mind to have him live happily with us ever after for
his pains!"
The Home Secretary bent his snowy head: his rosy face was the seat of
that peculiarly grim expression with which political caricaturists have
familiarised the world. Dalrymple's light eyes twinkled like polished
flints; here was high game worthy of his gun. He took the empty chair on
Mr. Sellwood's left.
"I understand, sir, that you are fatally bitten with golf?" began the
squatter in his airiest manner. The other lit a cigarette with insolent
deliberation before replying.
"I'm fond of the game," he said at length, "if that's what you mean."
"That was precisely what I did mean. Pardon me if I used an
unparliamentary expression. I have read a great deal in your English
papers--with which I never permit myself to lose touch--of the
far-reaching ravages of the game. Certainly the disease must be
widespread when one finds a Cabinet Minister down with the--golf!"
"We don't pronounce the _l_," Mr. Sellwood observed. "We call it
_goff_." For though in political life an imperturbable temper was one of
his most salient virtues, the Home Secretary was notoriously touchy on
the subject of his only game.
Dalrymple laughed outright.
"A sure symptom, my dear sir, of a thoroughly dangerous case! But pray
excuse my levity; I fear we become a little too addicted to chaff in the
uncivilised wilds. I am honestly most curious about the game. I'm an old
fogey myself, and I might like to take it up if it really has any
merits----"
"It has many," put in Claude cheerily, to divert an attack which Mr.
Sell wood was quite certain to resent.
"Has it?" said the squatter incredulously. "For the life of one I can't
see where those merits come in. To lay yourself out to hit a sitting
ball! I'd as soon shoot a roosting hen!"
"Hear, hear!" cried Jack. "That's exactly what _I_ say, Mr. Dalrymple."
The discussion had in fact assumed the constituent elements of a
"foursome," which may have been the reason why the Home Secretary was
unable any longer to maintain the silence of dignified disdain.
"I should like to take you out, the two of you," he said, "with a driver
and a ball between you. I should like to see which of you would hit that
sitting ball first, and how far!"
"We'll take you on to-morrow!" exclaimed Jack.
But the Home Secretary made no reply.
"I'm not keen," remarked Dalrymple. "It can't be a first-class game."
"You're hardly qualified to judge," snapped Sellwood, "since you've
never played."
"Exactly why I _am_ qualified. I'm not down with the disease."
"Then pray let us adopt the Duke's suggestion, and play a foursome
to-morrow--like as we sit. Eh, Mr.--I beg your pardon, but I quite
forget your name?"
"Dalrymple," replied the squatter; "and yours, once more?"
"Look in Whitaker," growled the Home Secretary, rising; and he left the
table doubly angered by the weakness of his retort, where indeed it was
weak to have replied at all.
Decidedly the squatter was no comfortable guest. Apart from his
monstrous freedom of speech and action, which might pass perhaps on a
bush station, but certainly not in an English country house, he was
continually falling foul of somebody. Now it was the butler, now a
fellow guest, and lastly a connection of his host, and one of Her
Majesty's Ministers into the bargain. In each case, to be sure, the
other side was primarily in the wrong. The butler was the worse for
drink; the _Parthenon_ man had indulged in gratuitous abuse of his
friend; even Mr. Sellwood had taken amiss what was meant as pure chaff,
and had been the first to begin the game of downright rudeness at which
the old Australian had soon beaten him. Yet the fact remained that
Dalrymple was the moving spirit in each unpleasantness; he had been a
moving spirit since the moment he set foot in the house, and this was
exactly what the other guests resented. But it was becoming painfully
apparent that Jack himself would take nothing amiss; that he was
constitutionally unable to regard Dalrymple in any other light than that
of his old king, who could still do no wrong. And this being so, it was
impossible for another to complain.
Indeed, when Mr. Sellwood joined the ladies, who happened to be in the
conservatory, with savage words upon his lips, his wife stuck up for the
maligned Colonist. That, however, was partly from the instinct of
conjugal opposition, and partly because Lady Caroline was herself afraid
of "this fellow Dalrymple," as her husband could call him fluently
enough behind his back. The other men were not long in joining the
indignant Minister. They had finished their cigarettes, but Jack had
donned his gorgeous smoking-cap by special request of Lady Caroline,
who beamed upon him and it from her chair.
"Hallo! have you come in for that thing?" exclaimed Mr. Sellwood, who
was in the mood to hail with delight any target for hostile criticism.
"I always thought you intended it for Claude, my dear Caroline?"
"It turned out to be a little too small for Claude," replied her
Ladyship sweetly.
"Claude, you've had an escape," said the Home Secretary. "Jack, my boy,
you have my sympathy."
"I don't require it, thank you, sir," laughed the Duke. "I'm proud of
myself, I tell you! This'd knock 'em up at Jumping Sandhills, wouldn't
it, Mr. Dalrymple?"
"It would indeed: so the cap goes with the coronet, does it?" added the
squatter, but with such good-humour that it was impossible to take open
umbrage at his words. "I wonder how it would fit me?" And he lifted the
thing off Jack's head by the golden tassel, and dropped it upon his own.
"Too small again," said Jack: indeed the purple monstrosity sat upon the
massive hairless head like a thimble on a billiard-ball.
"And it doesn't suit you a bit," added Olivia, who was once more in a
simmer of indignation with her lover's exasperating friend.
"No more would the coronet," replied Dalrymple, replacing the
smoking-cap on its owner's head. "By the way, Jack, where do you keep
your coronet?"
"Where do I keep my coronet?" asked the Duke of his major-domo. "I've
never set eyes on it."
"I fancy they have it at the bank," said Claude.
"And much good it does you there!" exclaimed Dalrymple. "Shall I tell
you what I'd do with it if it were mine?"
"Yes, do," said Jack, smiling in advance.
"Then come outside and you shall hear. I am afraid I have shocked your
friends sufficiently for one night. And there's a very fascinating
moon."