Plashers Mead Part 30

"Yes, this train is usually pretty punctual," Guy answered, and for a minute or two after a self-conscious hand-shake they talked about trains, each, as it seemed, trying to throw upon the other the responsibility of any conversation that might have promoted their ease.

Guy introduced his father to G.o.dbold, who greeted him with a kind of congratulatory respect and a.s.sumed towards Guy a manner that gave the impression of sharing with Mr. Hazlewood in his paternity.

"Hope you're going to pay us a good long visit," said G.o.dbold, hospitably, flicking the pony.

Mr. Hazlewood, who, squashed as he was between Guy and fat G.o.dbold, looked more sapless than ever, said he proposed to stay until the day after to-morrow.

"Then you won't see us play s.h.i.+pcot on Sat.u.r.day, the last match of the season?" said G.o.dbold in disappointed benevolence.

"No, I sha'n't, I'm afraid. You see, my son is not so busy as I am."

"Ah, but he's been very busy lately. Isn't that right, Mr. Hazlewood?"

G.o.dbold chuckled, with a wink across at Guy. "Well, we've all been expecting it for some time past and he has our good wishes. That he has.

As sweetly pretty a young lady as you'll see in a month of Sundays."

His father shrank perceptibly from a dominical pre-vision so foreign to his nature, and Guy changed the conversation by pointing out features in the landscape.

"Extraordinarily inspiring sort of country," he affirmed.

"So I should imagine," said his father. "Though precisely what that epithet implies I don't quite know."

Guy was determined not to be put out of humor, and, surrendering the epithet at once, he subst.i.tuted "bracing."

"So is Hamps.h.i.+re," his father snapped.

"I hope Wilkinson's successor has turned out well," Guy ventured in the hope that such a direct challenge would force a discharge of grievances.

Surprisingly, however, his father talked without covert reproaches of the successor's virtues, of the field-club he had started, of his popularity with the boys, and of the luck which had brought him along at such short notice. At any rate, thought Guy, he could not be blamed for having caused any inconvenience to the school by his refusal to take up office at Fox Hall. The constraint of the long drive came to an end with the first view of Plashers Mead, at which his father gazed with the sort of mixture of resentment, interest, and alarm he might have displayed at the approach of a novel insect.

"It looks as if it would be very damp," was his only comment.

Here G.o.dbold, who had perhaps for some time been conscious that all was not perfectly well between his pa.s.sengers, interposed with a defense of Plashers Mead.

"Lot of people seeing it from here think it's damp. But it isn't. In fact, it's the driest house in Wychford. And do you know for why, sir?

Because it's so near running water. Running water keeps off the damp.

Doctor Brydone told me that. 'Running water,' he says to me, 'keeps off the damp.' Those were his words."

Mr. Hazlewood eyed G.o.dbold distastefully--that is, so far as without turning his head he could eye him at all. Then the trap pulled up by the gate of Plashers Mead, Guy took his father's bag, and they pa.s.sed in together. The noise of wheels died away, and here in the sound of the swift Greenrush Guy felt that hostility must surely be renounced at the balm of this September afternoon shedding serene sunlight. He began to display his possessions with the confidence their beauty always gave him.

"Pretty good old apple-trees, eh? Ribston pippins nearly all of them.

The blossom was rather spoiled by that wet May, but there's not such a bad crop considering. I like this salmon-colored phlox. General something or other beginning with an H it's called. Mr. Grey gave me a good deal. The garden, of course, was full of vegetables when I had it first. I must send you some clumps of this phlox to Galton. Of course, I got rid of the vegetables."

"Yes, of course," agreed Mr. Hazlewood, dryly.

"Doesn't the house look jolly from here? It's pretty old, you know.

About 1590, I believe. It's a wonderful place, isn't it? Hullo! there's my housekeeper. Miss Peasey, here's my father. She's very deaf, so you'll have to shout."

Mr. Hazlewood, who never shouted even at the naughtiest boy in his school, shuddered faintly at his son's invitation and bowed to Miss Peasey with a formality of disapproval that seemed to include her in the condemnation of all he beheld.

"Quite a resemblance, I'm sure," Miss Peasey archly declared. "Tea will be ready at four o'clock, and Mr. Hazlewood senior's room is all in order for him." Then she disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

"A little empty, I'm afraid," said Guy, as his father looked round the hall.

"Is that water I hear?"

"Yes, the river washes the back of the house."

"And this place isn't damp?"

"Not a bit," Guy declared, positively.

"Well, it smells of bronchitis and double pneumonia."

Guy showed his father the dining-room.

"I've got it rather jolly, I think," he ventured.

"Yes, my candlesticks and chairs, that your mother lent you for your rooms at Balliol, look very well," his father agreed.

Guy led the way to the spare bedroom.

"No wonder you spent all your money," Mr. Hazlewood commented, surveying the four-post bed and the Jacobean furniture. "How on earth did you manage to afford all this luxury?"

"Oh, I picked it up somehow," said Guy, lightly. He had decided, on second thought, not to reveal the secret of the Rectory's loan.

When his father had rid himself of the dust from his journey, Guy introduced him proudly to his own room.

"Well, this is certainly quite a pleasant place," Mr. Hazlewood admitted. "If not too draughty with those two windows."

"You must scratch a motto on the pane with the diamond pencil," Guy suggested.

"My motto is hard work."

"Well, write that. Or at any rate put your initials and the date."

His father took up the pencil with that expression of superiority which Guy most hated, and scratched his name rather awkwardly on the gla.s.s.

"I hope people won't suppose that is my ordinary hand," he said, grimly regarding the "John Hazlewood" of his inscription. During tea Guy wondered when he ought to introduce the subject of Pauline. Beyond G.o.dbold's unfortunate allusion on the drive, nothing had been said by either of them; and Plashers Mead had not as yet effected that enchantment of his father's senses which would seem to proclaim the moment as propitious. How remote they were from one another, sitting here at tea! Really his father had not accorded him any salutation more cordial than the coldly absent-minded "good dog" he had just given to Bob. Yet there must be points of contact in their characters. There must be in himself something of his father. He could not so ridiculously resemble him and yet have absolutely nothing mentally in common. Perhaps his father did himself an injustice by his manner, for after all he had presented him with that 150. If he could only probe by some remark a generous impulse, Guy felt that in himself the affection of wonted intercourse over many years would respond immediately with a warmth of love. His father had cared greatly for his mother; and could not the love they had both known supply them with the point of sympathetic contact that would enable them to understand the ulterior intention of their two diverging lives?

"It was awfully good of you, Father, to come down and stay here," said Guy. "I've really been looking forward to showing you the house. I think perhaps you understand now how much I've wanted to be here."

Guy waited anxiously.

"I've never thought you haven't wanted to be here," his father replied.

"But between what we want and what we own there is a wide gap."

Oh, why was a use to be made of these out-of-date weapons? Why could not one or two of his prejudices be surrendered, so that there were a chance of meeting him half-way?

"But sometimes," said Guy, desperately, "inclination and duty coincide."