The Eldest Son Part 33

CHAPTER XXI

AN ENGAGEMENT

Mrs. Clinton reached Kencote in the dusk of the January afternoon and found the twins on the platform awaiting her. With the station staff and the other pa.s.sengers in the train as audience, they gave her an all-embracing and, indeed, somewhat vociferous welcome, and led her to the carriage, one on each side of her, with little squeezings of the arms and continued expressions of joy.

"We shan't let you out of our sight again, mother," said Joan as they drove off. "It has been perfectly awful without you. We haven't known what to do at all."

"I hope you haven't been getting into mischief," said Mrs. Clinton, with an indulgent smile.

"We have been as good as gold," said Nancy. "You would hardly have recognised us. Haven't you noticed our gardenias? Humphrey gave them to us. He said they were the white flowers of a blameless life."

"Is Humphrey still at home?" Mrs. Clinton asked.

"Yes," said Joan; "and something has happened, mother; we don't quite know what, but we think he has got engaged."

"Engaged!" exclaimed their mother.

"Yes. Of course you know who it is."

Mrs. Clinton thought for a moment. "What has put the idea into your heads?" she asked.

"Father is very pleased with him," explained Joan. "And that is the only thing we can think of to account for it. But we have seen it coming for a long time."

"Well, for about a fortnight," corrected Nancy. "It's Susan Clinton, of course. Do you like her, mother?"

Mrs. Clinton did not reply to this question, and Joan said, "We are prepared to give her a sisterly welcome."

"If she treats us well we'll treat her well," said Nancy. "And we like the idea of Mr. Humphrey and Lady Susan Clinton. It's so Morning Posty."

"I think you are running ahead a little fast," said their mother.

"Don't you want to hear about your new governess?"

"Oh yes! What is she like?" exclaimed the twins in one breath.

"She is very learned, and rather severe," said Mrs. Clinton. "You will have to work very hard with her."

"We are quite ready to do that," said Nancy. "Is she ornamental?"

"Not at all," replied Mrs. Clinton. "And her name is Miss Phipp. She is coming in ten days, so you must make the best of your holidays until then."

Nancy sighed. "Our happy childhood is over," she said. "No more will the house ring with our careless laughter. In ten days' time we shall become fevered students."

"I hope it won't be quite so bad as that," said Mrs. Clinton.

The Squire was waiting at the door. He had never before kissed his wife before the servants, but he did so now. If they liked to go away and talk about it they might. "We'll have no more of this gadding about," he said jovially. "We want you at home, don't we, children?"

"Rather," said the twins, renewing their embraces; and Mrs. Clinton felt that there was nothing lacking in the warmth of her welcome.

They went into the morning-room where the tea-table was already set and the kettle boiling over its spirit-lamp. "I told 'em to bring up tea,"

said the Squire; "I want a word with you. Now run along, children.

You can talk to your mother afterwards."

The twins obediently retired. "He's full of it," said Joan. "What a childish pleasure he takes in a piece of news!"

"If it is as we believe," said Nancy, "we mustn't call her Silky Susan any more."

"She's all right, really," said Joan, "if you get her away from her awful old mother."

The Squire, left alone with his wife, took up his favourite att.i.tude in front of the fire. "I've got a piece of news for you, Nina," he said.

"What would you think of another marriage in the family?"

Mrs. Clinton, busy with her tea-making, looked up at him.

"I'm pleased about it," said the Squire, who, warming himself in the Englishman's citadel, and keeping away the fire from his wife, who was cold after her journey, looked thoroughly pleased. "She's a nice girl, although I can't say I took much to her mother, and don't want to see more of her than is necessary. It's Humphrey, Nina--Humphrey and Susan Clinton. It seems they've taken to each other, and if I can make it all right for them, they want to get married. I'm quite ready to do my part. I'm quite glad that Humphrey wants to settle down at last. And if things are going wrong in other quarters, as unfortunately they seem to be, this will make up for it a little. They can have the dower-house, and if an heir to Kencote comes from this marriage--well, it will be a very satisfactory arrangement."

This was going ahead with a vengeance. Mrs. Clinton thought of d.i.c.k.

Was he, then, to be finally shouldered out of his place, and Humphrey installed in it, securely, instead? "Would he give up his profession?"

she asked.

"We haven't talked about it yet," said the Squire. "But that is my idea. I want somebody here to help me, and if d.i.c.k has decided to cut the cable, then we had better face facts and arrange matters accordingly."

His face changed as he mentioned his eldest son. That wound still rankled, but it was plain that the salve was already working. "I have done my best," he said, "and it has all been no good. Now what we have to do is to forget all about it and do what we can in other directions.

Walter's a good boy, although a bit headstrong and obstinate. Still, he's made his own life and is happy in it, and I will say for him that he's never given me any serious trouble. I've had that with Humphrey.

He has been extremely tiresome about money matters, and I own that I thought there was another storm of that sort blowing up, and haven't been quite so friendly towards the boy as I might have been. I'm sorry for it now, and I'll make up for it; for he tells me he doesn't owe a single penny."

Mrs. Clinton looked up in surprise. "Did he tell you that definitely?"

she asked.

"Why, don't you believe him?' asked the Squire rather sharply.

"I should believe him if he said it plainly," she replied.

"Well, he did say it plainly. 'I don't owe anybody a penny,' he said, 'although I can't say I have much of a balance in the bank.' I never supposed he would have that. If the boys keep out of debt on what I allow them, that's all I ask. But I'll own it surprised me, as it seems to have surprised you, that he _has_ kept out of debt since the last time, and I put it to him again. 'If there's anything to settle up,' I said, 'you had better let me know now. You don't want to begin married life with anything hanging over you!' And he said again, 'There's nothing at all. I don't owe anybody a penny.' So there it is, Nina. The boy's a good boy at heart, and I'm pleased with him.

And as for the girl, I think she'll turn out well. Get her away from all that nonsense she has been brought up to, and settle her down here, in a pretty place like the dower-house, with a good income to keep things going as they ought to be kept going--I'll do that for them--and I believe she'll turn out trumps, and I hope we shan't be wanting a grandson long. That's what pleases me, Nina"--his face beamed as he said it. "I'm an active man, but I'm getting on a bit now, and I should like to see my grandson growing up before I have to go and leave it all. That's been at the bottom of half I've felt about this wretched affair of d.i.c.k's; and it made me more annoyed than perhaps I need have been about Walter settling down in a place like Melbury Park.

To see a boy growing up at Kencote, as I grew up, and taking to it from the time he's a baby--that'll be a great thing, Nina, eh?"

He was exalted by his rosy dream. He saw himself leading a tiny child by the hand, very tender with his littleness, showing him this and that, hearing his prattle about familiar things, putting him later on a pony, and later still teaching him to shoot, watching him grow, sending him off to school, perhaps as an old man hearing of his doings at the University or in the service,--a fine, tall, straight young Clinton, fortunate inheritor of generations of good things, and made worthy of them, largely through his own guidance. So he had thought about d.i.c.k, years before, sitting before the fire, or pacing his room downstairs, while his wife and his little son, the centre of all his hopes, lay sleeping above, or out of doors as he had followed his favourite pursuits, and found new zest in them. But in those days he had been young, and his own life stretched immeasurably before him, with much to do and many things to be enjoyed. His own life was still strong in him, to hold and enjoy, but what should come after it was far more important now than it had been then, and he desired much more ardently to see its beginnings. And d.i.c.k had foiled his hopes. This was to be a new start, out of which better things should come. He wanted it keenly, and because he had had most things that he wanted in life, it seemed natural that it should be coming to him, and coming from a quarter whose signs he had not previously examined. "Nina," he said again, "I want to see my grandson grow up at Kencote."

She paused a moment before she said quietly, "As you saw d.i.c.k grow up years ago."

His sunny vision was clouded. He frowned. "We must make up our minds to do without d.i.c.k," he said; "he won't come here. He has practically thrown us off."

"No," she said. "I have seen him, and he is coming here on Friday."

He stared at her, the frown still on his face. He was moved by her news, but not altogether to pleasure. His mind was running on new desires, and it was an effort to adjust it to old ones.