The Eldest Son Part 9

It eases all my spiritual aches and pains. Toby, you irritating creature, can't you see how lovely it is of him? If he were all wrong about having me come down here, I shouldn't care. He has done it because he believes in his heart of hearts that his people have only got to set eyes on me and all their objections will vanish into thin air."

"I don't say that quite--I don't know," said d.i.c.k.

"Well, you needn't go and spoil it," said Miss Dexter. "I was just going to say that it did make up for a good deal."

"Look here, Miss Dexter," said d.i.c.k. "If I were to go and tell my father straight off that I am going to marry Virginia he would be all over bristles at once. All the things that don't matter a hang beside what she is, and what every one can see she is who knows her, would be brought up, and he'd put himself into a frantic state about it. He wouldn't let me bring her to Kencote; he'd fight blindly with every weapon he could use. I'm heir to a fine property, and I'm as well off as I need be, even while my father is alive, as long as I don't set myself against all his dislikes and prejudices. If I do, he can make me a poor man, and he'd do it. He'd do anything by which he thought he could get his way. I shouldn't even be able to marry, unless I lived on my wife's money, which I won't do."

"No, you're too proud for that," said Miss Dexter.

"Put it how you like. I won't do it. I'll take all a wife can give me except money. That I'll give. If there were no other way, I'd break down his opposition. I know how to treat him, and I could do it; but it would take time; I should cut myself off from Kencote until I had brought him under, and Virginia's name would be bandied about here, in the place where we are going to live all our lives, in a way that would affect us always, and in a way I won't subject her to. He'd do that, although he might be sorry for having done it afterwards, and I don't think I should be able to put up with it. We might quarrel in such a way that we shouldn't be able to come together again, and the harm would be done. As I say, if there were no other way I would run the risk. But there is another way, and I'm taking it. You asked me a foolish question just now--if I was ashamed of Virginia. It is because I am so far from being ashamed of her--because I'm so proud of her--that I asked her to come down here, where he can get to know her before he has any idea that I'm going to marry her. _She_ can make her way, and make him forget all the rest. Now, what have you got against that? Let's have it plainly."

"Dear d.i.c.k!" said Virginia softly. "I have had many compliments paid me, but that is the best of all. Answer him, Toby, and don't keep up this tiresome irritation any longer. It spoils everything."

"Well, I'll give in," said Miss Dexter. "But in my inmost soul I'm against all this policy, and if your father isn't quite blind, Captain d.i.c.k, he will see through it, and you will be worse off than before."

"My father can't see through anything," said d.i.c.k. "Besides, there's nothing to see through. I shouldn't mind telling him--in fact, I _shall_ tell him--that it was I who advised Virginia to come down here.

He knows I have heaps of friends all over the place that he doesn't know of. Virginia is one of them, for the present."

"I hope everything will turn out well," said Miss Dexter after a slight pause. "I won't say I think you're right, but I'll say you may be, and I hope you are. And I won't worry you with any more doubts."

Virginia Dubec rose from her chair impulsively and kissed her. "My darling old Toby!" she said. "You are very annoying at times, but I couldn't do without you."

After tea Miss Dexter went out of the room, and they did not try to stop her. When they were left alone d.i.c.k held Virginia in his arms and looked into her eyes. "What have you done to me," he asked her, with a smile, "after all these years?"

"Am I really the first, d.i.c.k?" she asked him.

"You are the first, Virginia--and the only one. You have changed everything. I have always thought I had everything I wanted. Now I know I've had nothing."

"And I have had nothing, either," she said. "Every morning I wake up wondering what has happened to me. And when I remember I begin to sing. To think that at my age, and after my bitter experience, _this_ should come to me! Oh, d.i.c.k, you don't know how much I love you."

"I know how much I love _you_," he said. "If there were no other way I would give up Kencote and everything else for you. I love you enough for that, Virginia, and the things I would give up for you are the only things I have valued so far. But we won't give up anything, my girl.

My good old obstinate old father will fall at your feet when he knows you."

"Will he, d.i.c.k?"

"_I_ have fallen at your feet, Virginia, and I'm rather like my father, although I think I can see a bit further into things, and I have a little more control over my feelings--and my speech."

They had sat down side by side on a sofa, and d.i.c.k was holding her slender hand in his brown one.

"I used to think you had so much control over yourself that it would be impossible ever to get anything out of you," she said. "You are so frightfully and terrifyingly English."

He laughed. "That gnat-like friend of yours has the power to make me explain myself," he said. "I've never tried to talk over any one to my side as I do her. I have always taken my own way and let people think what they like."

"I think it is sweet of you to put yourself--and me--right with her, d.i.c.k. She has been the best friend that I ever had, except you, dear d.i.c.k. She stood by me in the worst days, and put up with untold insults without flinching, so that she could stay with me. Of course, at first, she was terrified lest I should make another mistake. She is like a grim watch-dog over me. But she likes you, and trusts you. You must put up with her little ways."

"Oh, I do, my dear, and I will. She's a good sort."

"d.i.c.k, will your mother like me? You have never told me very much about her. I think I feel more nervous about her than about your father."

"You needn't, Virginia. She is one of the best of women. I think she is perhaps a little difficult to know. She is rather silent and keeps her thoughts to herself; but I know we shall have her on our side. She has only to know you. But in any case she wouldn't give us any trouble."

"That sounds rather hard, d.i.c.k. Don't you love your mother? I loved mine."

"Of course I do. But she doesn't interfere with us. She never did.

It was my father we had to consider, even when we were boys."

"Interfere with you! I don't like the sound of it. d.i.c.k, I don't think I will talk to you about your mother. I will wait until I have seen her. You don't help me to know what she is like. I hope I shall get on with her. I shall know soon. Will she be at the meet on Monday, if there is one?"

"No. But my father will. I shall introduce him to you then. I told you he had a foolish prejudice against women hunting, didn't I? It won't be quite the most propitious of times. But we can't help that."

"Well, I won't hunt on Monday, then. I will drive Toby to the meet instead, and follow on wheels."

"H'm. Perhaps it would be better--just at the first go off. And I don't believe you really care as much about hunting as you think you do, Virginia."

She looked into his face with her dark, sweet eyes. "I don't care about anything, except to please you, d.i.c.k," she said. "As for hunting--it was the excitement--to keep my mind off. It was the only thing he let me do, over here. I believe he would have liked me to kill myself, and sometimes I used to try to."

He put his hand before her mouth. "You are not to talk about those bad times," he said.

She kissed his hand, and removed it. "I like to, sometimes," she said.

"It is such a blessed relief to think of them as quite gone--it is like the cessation of bad neuralgia--just a sense of peace and bliss.

Perhaps I didn't really try to kill myself, but certainly I shouldn't have cared if I had. It was not caring that gave me my reputation, I suppose, for I didn't mind where I went or what I did. I do care now.

I don't think I should very much mind giving it up altogether."

"Well, you mustn't do that for this winter, at any rate. You shall do what you like afterwards. And as for your reputation, my dear, I'm afraid we are so out of the smart hunting world in South Meads.h.i.+re that you will find very few of us aware of it. So you needn't run any risks in trying to keep it up."

"Very well, d.i.c.k. But I expect when the hounds begin to run I shall forget that I have to be cautious. Yes, I do love it. I don't want to give up hunting. And there won't be much for me to do here outside that, will there?"

"I'm afraid I am condemning you to a dull three months, my poor Virginia. But I want you to get to know the country, and love it, as I do. Kencote means a lot to me. I want it to mean a lot to you too."

"So it shall. I love it already, for your sake, and it seems a wonderful thing to me that you and all the people you have sprung from should have been settled down just in this little spot in the world for all those centuries. d.i.c.k dear, I know you are giving up a lot for me.

I know, although I wasn't brought up in all these traditions, that your father is right, really, and that it is not a woman like me you ought to choose for your wife."

d.i.c.k raised her hand and let it fall with his own. "I have chosen you for my wife, Virginia, out of all the women I have known. I love and honour you, and I wouldn't have you different--not in the smallest particular. No Clinton of Kencote has ever chosen a wife more worthy to bear his name. Let that be enough for you, and don't worry your pretty head about anything, except to make love to my old father when you meet him."

When d.i.c.k had ridden away, in the gloaming, and the two women were left to themselves for the long evening, Virginia Dubec said to Miss Dexter, "Toby, tell me the truth; don't you think I am the most fortunate woman in the world?"

"If all goes well," said the other soberly and decisively, "I think you will be happy. But your d.i.c.k, Virginia, is the sort of man who will want to rule, and to rule without question. He is very much in love with you now--that is quite plain, although he is one of those men who hold themselves in. But you won't get your way, my dear, when you are married, unless it is his way too--any more than you did before."

"Oh, my own way! What do I care about that? My way shall be his way.

I love him and I can trust him. He is a strong man, and tender too.

Toby, I adore him. I will do everything in the world that I can to make him happy. He has raised me out of the dust, and given me to myself again. When I am married to him I shall forget all the pain and misery. It's a new life he is giving me, Toby, and the old unhappy life will fall from me and be as if it had never been."

"You are expecting a great deal, Virginia," said Miss Dexter; "I hope some part of it will be realised."

CHAPTER VII