The Eldest Son Part 13

"I hope it will not come about," said Mrs. Clinton. "d.i.c.k is level-headed, and he sees questions of this sort in much the same light as you do, Edward."

"It would be intolerable," wailed the poor Squire. "And d.i.c.k of all people! I'd have trusted him anywhere. And now I shall have to stand up against him, and it will be one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. But I won't let him throw himself away and drag the old name in the dust if I can possibly prevent it. And, G.o.d helping me, I will prevent it, whatever it costs me. Nina, you are not to go near this woman. The only way is to keep her at arm's-length. If we stand firm the affair will fade out, and d.i.c.k will forget all about it. He has always been a good boy. I've been proud of my son. He will thank me some day for saving him from himself. Good-night, Nina, G.o.d bless you. There's a difficult time coming for us at Kencote, I'm afraid."

So night and silence fell on the great house. Its master, always healthily tired after his day, spent mostly in the open, soon forgot his troubles in sleep; its mistress lay awake for a long time, wondering if trouble were really going to befall her first-born, who had gone so far from her since she had first hugged him to her breast.

And in other rooms in the house there were those who lay awake and wearied themselves with the troubles of life or slept soundly without a care, some of them of account in the daily comings and goings, some of very little, but one and all acting and reacting on one another, concerned in some degree in a common life.

CHAPTER IX

d.i.c.k PAYS A SUNDAY VISIT

It did not take d.i.c.k long to find out on that next (Sunday) morning that his diplomacy had failed, that his father, urged by his fears, had discovered what he would have hidden from him for a time, or thought he had discovered it, which came to the same thing, since it was true, and that he might just as well have announced his intention of marrying Virginia Dubec, and entered at once upon the struggle which was now bound to come in any case.

Nothing was said on either side, and the Squire did his best to behave as usual. But the attempt was too much for him, and there was no one who did not know before breakfast was over that there was a disturbance in the air. He would enter upon a course of conversation with gaiety, and relinquish it immediately to frown upon his plate. He grumbled at everything upon the table, and testily rebuked the twins for fidgeting.

They took the rebuke calmly, knowing quite well what it portended, and were only anxious to discover the cause of the upset.

"It's this Lady George Dubec," said Joan, when they were alone together. "There's something fishy about her; it must have come out after we were sent away yesterday. Father thinks he's Emperor of this part of Meads.h.i.+re, and he doesn't like her coming here without his being consulted."

"I don't think it's that at all," said Nancy. "I believe it's Humphrey's debts. Father has got pots of money, but he hates sh.e.l.ling it out. He was snappy with Humphrey this morning."

"So he was with everybody but d.i.c.k. That proves nothing. A week's pocket-money that it's this Lady George."

"d.i.c.k said we weren't to bet."

"Oh, well, perhaps we'd better not, then. He was a brick about the camera. I don't suppose he's concerned in it, whatever it is. With father, d.i.c.k does no wrong."

"I'm not sure. Joan, supposing d.i.c.k has fallen in love with Lady George and father is upset about it!"

"Oh, my dear, do talk sense. d.i.c.k in love with a widow!"

"Stranger things have happened. Anyhow, we'll leave no stone unturned to find out what it is."

"Oh, we'll ferret it out all right. It will add to the interest of life."

There was one thing that the Squire always did on the rare occasions on which he found himself in a dilemma, and that was to consult his half-brother, the Rector. Consequently when, after church, meeting Mrs. Beach, the Rector's wife, in the churchyard, he asked her if she and Tom would come up to luncheon, d.i.c.k, overhearing him, smiled inwardly and a little ruefully, and pictured to himself the sitting that would be held in the afternoon, when the Rector would be invited into the library and the Squire would unbosom himself of his difficulties. d.i.c.k himself had often joined in these conclaves.

"Let's see what Tom has to say about it," his father would say. "He has a good head, Tom." d.i.c.k would be left out of this conclave, but as he thought of the line that his uncle was likely to take, he half wished that he had had a conclave with him himself beforehand. The Rector was a man of peace, a lovable man, who hated to see any one uncomfortable, and perhaps, for a churchman, hated a little too much to run the risk of discomfort himself. Probably he would have sympathised. Certainly he would have brought no hard judgment to bear on Virginia, whatever she had done and whatever she had been. However, it was too late to think of that now, and when Joan asked him at luncheon if he would go for a walk with them in the afternoon, he took the bull by the horns and said that he was going to drive over to Blaythorn.

"By the by," said Mrs. Beach, not noticing the Squire's sudden frown, "have you heard that Mr. Marsh has let his rectory to a hunting lady?"

"Yes," said d.i.c.k, "Lady George Dubec. She is a friend of mine, and I'm going over to see her."

Never had the Squire spoken with more difficulty. But it behoved him to speak, and to speak at once. "I am very sorry she has come," he said. "She is a friend of d.i.c.k's in London, but we can't recognise her here at Kencote."

Except that the servants were not in the room it was a public throwing down of the gage of battle. It amounted on the Squire's part to an affront of his son, the being beloved best in the world, and he would have put it on him if the whole household had been present. But what it cost him to do so could be told from his moody fits of silence during the rest of the meal, his half-emptied plate and his twice-emptied gla.s.s.

d.i.c.k took the blow without flinching, although he was inwardly consumed with anger, not at the affront to himself, but to Virginia. "We are a little behind the times at Kencote," he said lightly. "But we shall probably fall into line by and by."

The Squire made no answer. He had shot his bolt and had none of the ammunition of repartee at hand. The awkward moment was covered by the immediate flow of conversation, but he took little or no part in it, and it was a relief when the meal was over.

When the Squire had led the way into the library and shut the door upon himself and the Rector, he broke out at once. "Tom, you heard what happened. d.i.c.k is out of his mind about this woman. Unless something can be done to stop it, a dreadful day is coming to Kencote."

The Rector, tall, fleshy, slow in movement, mild of speech, was astonished. "My dear Edward!" he exclaimed. "I did not gather from what pa.s.sed that--that this meant anything serious."

"Oh, serious!" echoed the Squire, half distraught. "It's as serious as it can be, Tom." And he told him in his own decisive manner exactly how serious it seemed to him to be. "A hunting woman!" he ended up.

"I could have forgiven that. I can't deny that women do hunt, now, who wouldn't have done in our young days. An American! Well, people do marry them nowadays--but an American at Kencote after all these generations! Think of it, Tom! And if that were only the worst! But a stage dancer! A woman who has shown herself before the public--for money! And a widow!--a woman who has been married to one of the worst blackguards in England. You remember him, Tom--at Eton."

"No," said the Rector. "He was before my time."

"Before your time--yes, and three or four years older than I am. He'd have been an old man if he'd been alive now. And it's the widow of that man my son wants to marry. Isn't it too shameful, Tom? What can have come over him? He has never acted in this sort of way before. My boy d.i.c.k! In everything that has ever happened to annoy me, he has always behaved just exactly as I would have my son behave. And now he brings this trouble on me. Oh, Tom, tell me what on earth I'm to do."

The poor gentleman was so overcome with distress that it was pitiful to witness. The Rector knew how he took things--hard at first, and bringing his heaviest weight of resistance to bear upon the lightest obstacles, but calming down after he had been humoured a bit, accepting the inevitable like a sensible man, and making the best of it. But this was beyond the point at which he could be humoured. It struck at all that he held dearest in life, the welfare of his son, the dignity of his house. He would not give way here, whatever distress it cost him to hold out.

"Have you seen this lady, Edward?" asked the Rector.

"Oh, seen her! No," replied the Squire. "Why should I want to see her? She may be good-looking. They say she is. I suppose d.i.c.k wouldn't have fallen in love with her if she were not, and at any rate women who are not good-looking don't become pets of the stage, as I'm told this woman was. Pah! It's beyond everything I could have believed of d.i.c.k. I would rather he had married the daughter of a farm-labourer--a girl of clean healthy English stock. To bring a creature from behind the footlights and make her mistress of Kencote--a soiled woman--that's what she is, even if she has never sold herself--and who knows that she hasn't? She _did_ sell herself--to a broken-down _roue_, a man old enough to be her father--for his wretched t.i.tle, I suppose. And now she wants to buy Kencote, and my son, d.i.c.k, the straightest, finest fellow a father ever had reason to be proud of.

I tell you, Tom, the world ought to be delivered of these harpies.

They ought to be locked up, Tom, locked up, and the wickedness whipped out of them."

"Has d.i.c.k said that he wanted to marry her?" asked the Rector, anxious to bring this tirade, which was gathering in intensity, to an end.

"It's as plain as it can be. He has brought her down here, and he wants us to take her up."

"Well, but is that all, Edward? Surely you have more to go on than that, if you have made up your mind that he wants to marry her."

"I _have_ more to go on. He told me only two nights ago that he was quite ready to marry, and that he wouldn't marry a girl. That's plain English, isn't it? And this comes just on top of it. Why, he had her down here--fixed it all up for her--and never said a word to us till after we'd heard from outside that she was there. There are a lot of things. I can put two and two together as well as anybody, and I haven't a doubt of it. And I asked him definitely, yesterday, and he didn't deny it."

"He didn't acknowledge it, I suppose."

"I tell you he didn't deny it. He gave me an evasive answer. That isn't like d.i.c.k. She has had a bad influence on him already. Don't waste time in trying to persuade me that black is white, Tom. Tell me how I am to stop this."

The Rector could not tell him how to stop it. He knew very well that d.i.c.k was a stronger man than his father, and that if he had made up his mind to do a thing he would do it. But he still doubted whether he had made up his mind to do this particular thing. He thought that the Squire was probably alarming himself needlessly, and with all the art that lay in his power he tried to persuade him that it was so. "Young men," he ended, "do make friends with women they wouldn't want to marry. You know that is so, Edward. It is no use shutting your eyes to facts."

"Yes, but they don't bring them down to their homes for their mothers and sisters to make friends with," retorted the Squire. "It's the last thing d.i.c.k would do, and I'd rather he did what he's doing now, bad as it is, than do a thing like that. He's hypnotised--that's what it is--he thinks she's a good woman--everything she ought to be----"

"And perhaps she _is_ a good woman, Edward, and everything she ought to be," interrupted the Rector, speaking more emphatically than was his wont, for in his simple unworldliness it had not occurred to him that his last words could bear the interpretation the Squire had put upon them, and he was rather scandalised. "I say that you ought to hold your judgment until you have seen her, and know something of her at first hand. I do not believe that d.i.c.k would expect his family to make friends with a lady who was not above reproach, and I certainly never meant for a moment to imply that he would do such a thing as make love to a woman he did not intend to marry. When I said that men make friends with women, I meant no more than I said."

"Well, you're a parson," said his brother, "and you've got to keep your eyes shut to certain things that go on, I suppose."

"No, Edward, that is not the duty of a parson," returned the Rector.

"I shut my eyes to nothing. It seems to me that you do. It seems to me that you shut your eyes to what you know of d.i.c.k's character. You picture to yourself a vulgar, scheming adventuress. I say that if d.i.c.k is in love with this lady, as you say he is, she is not that, but something very different, and I say again that you ought to withhold your judgment until you have seen her."

"As far as seeing her goes," grumbled the Squire, "there's nothing easier than that. I shall see her at the covert-side, and I dare say I shall see her scampering all over the county covered with mud, and getting in the way of the hounds. Women are an infernal nuisance in the hunting-field. Well, you don't give me much comfort, Tom. Still, it does one some good to talk over one's troubles. I'm afraid this is going to be a big trouble--the biggest I've ever had in my life."

"Then don't meet it half-way," said the Rector. "You don't know for certain that d.i.c.k wants to marry her, and if he does she can't be anything like you have imagined her. I'm afraid I must go now, Edward.

I have to look in at the Sunday-school."

"Well, good-bye, Tom, my dear fellow. Tell 'em in the Sunday-school to obey their parents. Yes, for this is _right_, by George! the Bible says. And so it is; if children would obey their parents, half the trouble in the world would disappear."