A Man's Man Part 24

"Well," remarked Miss Gaymer, turning her opponent's flank with characteristic readiness, "whatever it was, it wasn't very particular about clothes. Hughie, your get-up is perfectly _tragic_. If you are going to be my keeper you will have to begin by dressing decently. I don't know who your tailor is, but--Che-e-erub!"

"What ho!" came from the croquet-lawn.

"Come here, at once."

Cherub obediently put down his mallet and approached. Having arrived, he halted and stood to attention.

"Cherub," commanded Miss Gaymer, "turn round and round till I tell you to stop, and let Mr. Marrable see your clothes."

Much flattered, Cherub rotated serenely on his axis for the benefit of the untutored Marrable, while Miss Gaymer ran over his points.

"Must I have a waist?" inquired Hughie meekly.

"Yes--if you've _got_ one," replied Joan, surveying her guardian's amorphous shooting-jacket doubtfully.

"And purple socks?"

"Green will do, old man," remarked the _mannequin_ unexpectedly.

"Cherub, keep quiet!" said the _coutumiere_. "You have absolutely nothing whatever to recommend you but your clothes, so don't spoil it by babbling. There, Hughie! That is the sort of thing. You must go up to town next week and order some. Run away, Cherub! Now, another thing, Hughie. Look at your hands. They're like a coal-heaver's, except that they're clean. Can't you get them attended to?"

Hughie surveyed his hands in a reminiscent fas.h.i.+on. They were serviceable members, and had pulled their owner through many rough places. At present the palms bore the mark of the Orinoco's coal-shovels, and there was a great scar on one wrist where Hughie had incautiously touched a hot bearing. There was also an incision in the middle knuckle of the right hand, caused by the impact of Mr. Gates's front teeth on an historic occasion. There were other and older marks, and most of them had some interesting story attached to them. But of course Joan did not know this. To her they were large, unsightly, un-manicured hands--only that and nothing more. Hughie sighed. All his old a.s.sets seemed to have become liabilities, somehow.

"Aren't they a scandal, Hughie?" Joan repeated.

"I suppose they are, Joey," said Hughie, coming out of his reverie.

"Right O! I'll get them seen to. I don't suppose they're ever likely to be much use to me again," he added in a depressed tone, "so they might as well be made ornamental. I'll go and consult Sophy Fullgarney about them when I get back to town."

"Who's she?" said Joey quickly.

"Manicurist--before your time," said Hughie briefly, pleased to feel that he could give points to his ward in knowledge of something. "Any more requirements, Joey?"

"Let me see. Oh, yes. Can you dance?"

"Used to waltz," said Hughie cautiously.

"Decently?"

"I can get round a room."

"Can you reverse properly?"

"If a man reversed in my young days," said Hughie, "we used to regard him as a bounder. Do they do it now?"

"Yes, always. Can you do anything else?"

"The usual things--Lancers and polka. Danced a reel once in Scotland."

"n.o.body dances the polka now, and I hate the Lancers. Can you two-step?"

"Never even heard of it."

Miss Gaymer sighed.

"Never heard of the Boston, I suppose?" she said resignedly.

"Never in my life," said Hughie. "Look here," he added, inspired by a sudden hope, "perhaps it would be as well if I stayed at home on Tuesday night--eh?"

"_Quite_ as well," said Miss Gaymer candidly. "But I don't suppose Mildred will let you off. You'll be wanted by the wallflowers."

"But not by Joey, apparently."

"I don't dance with rotters," said Miss Gaymer elegantly. "I am practically booked up already, too. However, if you apply at once I might give you _one_." She thought for a moment. "I'll try you with number eight."

"We had better not settle at present," said Hughie. "I should like to have a look round the ballroom before I tie myself down in any way. But I'll bear your application in mind."

Miss Joan Gaymer turned and regarded her companion with unfeigned astonishment. He was still sprawling, but his indolent pose of lazy contentment was gone, and for a moment challenge peeped out of his steely eyes. She rose deliberately from the gra.s.s, and walked with great stateliness back to the croquet-lawn.

Hughie sat on, feeling slightly breathless. He had just realised that he possessed a temper.

Presently Mrs. Leroy completed a sequence of five hoops and retired, followed by the applause of an incompetent partner, to the copper-beech.

She sat down opposite Hughie, and surveyed him expectantly.

"Well, Hughie?" she said.

"Well, Mildred?"

"_Well_, Hughie?"

"I think," said Hughie, answering the unspoken question, "that she wants--_slapping_!"

Mildred Leroy nodded her head sagely.

"Ah!" she remarked. "I thought you would say that. Well, I hope you'll do it."

Hughie reviewed the events of the day, _more suo_, at three o'clock next morning, sitting with his feet on the sill of his open bedroom window,--the bedroom of his boyhood, with the old school and 'Varsity groups upon the walls,--as he smoked a final pipe before retiring to rest.

It was almost dawn. The velvety darkness was growing lighter in texture; and occasionally an early-rising and energetic young bird would utter a tentative chirrup--only to subside, on meeting with no encouragement from the other members of the orchestra (probably trades unionists), until a more seasonable hour.

Hughie had sat on with D'Arcy and Leroy in the billiard-room long after the other men--Joey's _clientele_--had emptied their gla.s.ses and gone to bed. There had been a "ladies' night," accompanied by fearsome games (of a character detrimental to the table) between sides captained by Joey and another damsel; and even after Mildred Leroy had swept her charges upstairs there had been bear-fighting and much shrieking in the pa.s.sages and up the staircase. Then the younger gentlemen had returned, rumpled but victorious, to quench their thirst and listen with respectful deference to any tale that the great Marrable might care to unfold. (The story of the Orinoco had gone round, though it had mercifully escaped the notice of the halfpenny papers.)

But Hughie had not been communicative, though he had proved an eager and appreciative listener to 'Varsity gossip and athletic "shop." So the young men, having talked themselves to a standstill, had gradually faded away, highly gratified to find the great man not only willing but eager to listen to their meticulous chronicles; and Hughie and D'Arcy and Leroy, their symposium reduced to companionable limits, had compared notes and "swapped lies," as the Americans say, far into the night.

Hughie's impressions of the day were slightly blurred and confused--at the which let no man wonder. He was accustomed to fresh faces and new environments, but the plunge from yesterday into to-day had been a trifle sudden. Last night he had driven up to the door of Manors a masterless man, a superior vagabond, an irresponsible free-lance, with hundreds of acquaintances and never a friend. In twenty-four hours this sense of irresponsible detachment had gone for ever, and the spell of English home-life had sunk deep into his being. He felt for the first time that he was more than a mere unit in the Universe. He had turned from something into somebody. He realised that he had a stake in the country--the county--the little estate of Manors itself; and a great desire was upon him to settle down and surround himself with everything that is conveyed to an Englishman here and abroad--especially abroad--by the word Home.