The Eldest Son Part 35

Humphrey, perhaps unwisely as regards his own interest, had announced his departure for London soon after it was known that d.i.c.k was coming down, and the Squire was left to turn things over in his mind with the distraction of Humphrey's affairs and Humphrey's presence withdrawn from him.

The twins went in the carriage to meet d.i.c.k at the station. They squeezed in on either side of him and made their pleasure at seeing him both vocal and tangible.

"Dear, darling old d.i.c.k," said Joan, trying to seize his hand under the bearskin rug, "it is very wrong of you to stay away from home. We've missed you awfully."

"You seem more of a fluffy angel than ever now we have got you back,"

said Nancy. "How true it is what the old Starling used to say, that we don't know our blessings till they have left us."

"Thanks very much," replied d.i.c.k. "What's this I hear about Humphrey being engaged? But I suppose they wouldn't have told you yet."

"Told us!" echoed Joan.

"We told _them_!" said Nancy.

"Oh, you did! Trust you for nosing out a secret."

"It wasn't much of a secret," said Joan. "Silky Susan--oh, I beg her pardon, we mustn't call her that now--I mean sweet Sue, was all eyes--big round ones."

"And she took a great deal of trouble to ingratiate herself with us,"

said Nancy. "We're not considered worth it as a rule, and of course we see through it in a moment, because we're not really her sort."

"But we're going to be," said Joan. "Humphrey told us that we ought to copy her in the way we behave, and we said we would."

"Jolly glad to get the chance," added Nancy. "We want to be sweet girls, but n.o.body has ever shown us how, before."

"Oh, you're all right," said d.i.c.k. "You needn't try to alter."

"Thank you, dear d.i.c.k," replied Joan. "You are blind to our faults, and it is very sweet of you. But there is room for improvement, and what with Miss Phipp to train our brains and sweet Sue Clinton to improve our manners, we feel we're getting a tremendous chance, don't we, Nancy?"

"Rather!" acquiesced Nancy; "the chance of a life time. We lie awake at night thinking about it."

d.i.c.k let them chatter on, and retired into his own thoughts. He would have liked to know how his father had taken the news of his coming, but was unwilling to question them, and he had never allowed them to exercise their critical faculties on their father before him; so they were not likely now to volunteer enlightenment. As the carriage rolled smoothly over the gravel of the drive through the park, he too, like his father, felt some discomfort at the thought of the meeting that lay before him.

Except that he had come out of his room and was waiting in the hall to receive his son, which had not been his usual custom, there was nothing in the Squire's greeting which could arouse comment amongst the servants who were present at it. This was always a great point at Kencote. "For G.o.d's sake, don't let the servants talk," was a phrase often on the Squire's lips; but he himself, in any crisis, provided them with more food for talk than anybody else.

"How are you, d.i.c.k?" he said, shaking hands. "We were beginning to think we should never see you again." (This was for the benefit of the servants.) "The meet's at Horley Wood to-morrow, but I'm not going out. I've got a touch of rheumatism. Come in and have a cup of tea."

They all went into the morning-room. "Mother, can't we begin to have tea downstairs now?" asked Joan. "We're quite old enough. We don't make messes any more."

Thus by a timely stroke a long-desired concession was won, for the only obstacle hitherto in the way had been the Squire's firm p.r.o.nouncement that children ought to be kept in their proper place as long as they were children, and the proper place for Joan and Nancy at tea-time was the schoolroom. But he was now so greatly relieved at having them there to centre conversation on that he said with a strong laugh, taking Joan by the shoulder and drawing her to him, "Now, there's impudence for you! But I think we might let them off the chain now, mother, eh?"

"In holiday time," acquiesced Mrs. Clinton, "and on the days when they're not at lessons."

"But if they get sticky with jam," said d.i.c.k, "they lose their privilege for a week."

"And any one who drops crumbs on the carpet must have tea with us in the schoolroom for a week," said Nancy.

The subject was discussed at some length on those lines until Mrs.

Clinton sent the twins up to take off their hats, when their elders still went on discussing them.

"So you've chosen the blue-stocking, mother," said d.i.c.k.

"Yes; she is coming next week," said Mrs. Clinton.

"Mother didn't want anybody dangerously attractive about the house,"

said the Squire, hastening to take up that subject, which was continued until the twins returned, when they were allowed to dominate the conversation to an unusual degree.

But at last the time came when the Squire had always been accustomed to say, "Well, we'll go into my room and have a cigar," or to go out without saying anything, with the certainty of d.i.c.k's following him.

He could not now go out of the room without saying anything, for that would have amounted to a declaration made before the children that he did not want d.i.c.k's company, and he s.h.i.+rked the usual formula which would precipitate the "talk" that he dreaded.

d.i.c.k relieved him for the time being. "I'll go into the smoking-room and write a few letters," he said.

"Ah, well, I'll go into my room and smoke a cigar," said the Squire, making a move.

Mrs. Clinton asked Joan to ring the bell. "They may not have lit the fire in the smoking-room," she said.

The Squire looked back. "Eh? What!" he said sharply. "Of course they've lit it, if one of the boys is at home."

But it appeared that they had not lit it, and "they," in the person of a footman, were instructed to repair the oversight immediately. It was a disturbing episode. d.i.c.k had used the smoking-room less than the others, having usually shared the Squire's big room with him as if it were his own, and they had probably omitted to light the smoking-room fire when he only of the boys was at home, on occasions before, without the omission being noticed. But it looked as if differences were beginning to be made, as if the dread "they" had begun to talk; and the Squire hated the suspicion of their talk like poison. At any rate, it drew attention to d.i.c.k's announcement that he would write his letters in the smoking-room instead of in the library, and that would be food for talk. He said with a frown, "Hadn't you better come into my room?

You can write your letters there. You generally do."

So d.i.c.k followed him, and the door was shut on them.

The spurt of annoyance had brought the Squire up to the point of "tackling the situation." After all, it had to be talked out between them, and it was useless to put off the moment and pretend that things were as usual.

"I suppose your mind is still made up?" he said, with his back to his son.

"Yes," replied d.i.c.k. "We needn't go over all that again."

"I don't want to," said the Squire. "Only we had better have things plain. I won't receive her, either before marriage or after."

d.i.c.k put constraint on himself, but his face grew red. "If you are going to talk like that," he said after a pause, "I had better not have come."

The Squire turned and faced him. The frown was still on his face, but it was one of trouble. "Oh, my dear boy," he said, "I'm glad enough to see you. I wish you had never gone away. I wish to G.o.d you'd drop it all and come back, and let us be as we were before. But if you won't change, I won't change, and if we're to be comfortable together these few days, let's know at the beginning where we stand. That's all I meant."

"All right," said d.i.c.k rather ungraciously. "But I should like to know how I stand in other matters as well. You've sent me messages. You're going to make me pay pretty heavily for marrying the woman I've chosen.

I'm not complaining and I'm not asking you to change your mind. But I think I've a right to know exactly where I stand."

"Well, then, sit down," said the Squire, "and I'll tell you."

They were confronted in a way neither of them had been prepared for.

Certainly d.i.c.k had not come home to ask for explanations, nor had his father meant to open up the now closed dispute. Some underling in the back regions, with his mouth full of bread and b.u.t.ter and tea and his mind relaxed from his duties to his own insignificant enjoyments, was responsible for what was now going to be said in his master's sanctum.

A match struck and put to the smoking-room fire would have altered the course of affairs at Kencote, perhaps only for an hour or two, perhaps for d.i.c.k's lifetime. Now, at any rate, there was to be a discussion which would otherwise have been deferred, and for their own future comfort neither the Squire nor d.i.c.k was in the most tractable mood for discussion.

"You know how the property stands and what goes with it?" the Squire began.

"Yes, I know all that," said d.i.c.k. "There's about eight thousand acres, and a rent-roll in good times of perhaps a couple of thousand a year. Then there are a couple of livings to present to, a house which might be let with the shooting by a fellow who couldn't afford to live in it for, let's say, a thousand a year. So I shall be fairly comfortably off somewhere else as long as I do let, and I dare say there won't be much difficulty about that. There are plenty of rich manufacturers who would like to take a place like Kencote."