The Eldest Son Part 39

CHAPTER XXIV

VIRGINIA GOES TO KENCOTE

"My dear Lady George Dubec" [wrote Mrs. Clinton], "My husband and I will be glad if you will come to us here when you return to Meads.h.i.+re, which d.i.c.k tells me will be next Wednesday. We shall be pleased to welcome you at Kencote and to make your acquaintance. We shall be pleased also to see Miss Dexter, and perhaps you will kindly tell her so, and let me know if she will accompany you.

"With kindest regards to yourself and to her,

"Believe me, "Very sincerely yours, "NINA CLINTON."

"There!" said Virginia, tossing this missive over to her companion.

She had opened d.i.c.k's much longer letter, which had come by the same post, first of all, and half-way through its perusal had searched for Mrs. Clinton's amongst the rest. Now she returned to d.i.c.k's, while Miss Dexter read Mrs. Clinton's.

"What on earth does it all mean?" asked Miss Dexter. "Has the world come to an end, or has that preposterous old bear come to his senses at last?"

"It means, my dear Toby," said Virginia, looking up at her with a happy smile, "that all this horrible business is at an end. d.i.c.k has fought, and d.i.c.k has won. And we owe everything to the help that his dearest of dear mothers has given us. I knew I should love that woman from the first time I set eyes on her, and now I adore her. Three cheers for Mrs. Clinton."

She waved d.i.c.k's letter over her head. Miss Dexter looked down again at Mrs. Clinton's, and then again in dry surprise at her friend. "And do you really mean to tell me," she asked, "that you are satisfied with _this_ as an atonement for everything they have made you go through? I never read such a letter--as cold and unwilling as she is herself.

I'll tell you what will happen, Virginia, if you go to Kencote. You will simply be insulted. Do you think people like that can change?

Not a bit of it. 'Kindest regards,' indeed! She may keep her kindest regards to herself as far as I'm concerned."

"Oh, Toby, don't be so tiresome!" Virginia adjured her. "You know you're just as pleased as I am--or very nearly. Shall we go straight to Kencote from London, or go to Bathgate and leave some things at Blaythorn and pick up some others? I think we'll do that. I must take my smartest frocks, and so must you. For you are really quite presentable if you would only give yourself a chance."

"You may leave me out of it," said Miss Dexter. "I'm as likely to go to Kencote as I am to Windsor Castle. If _you_ like to put your head into the bear's den and say 'Thank you for having tried to eat me up, and now by all means finish me off,' you can. I have a little more self-respect, and nothing would induce me to go near those people."

"Ah!" said Virginia, "you are still huffy because Mrs. Clinton snubbed you. Quite right of her! You are a dear, loyal, faithful creature, and I know you would follow me to much more terrible places than Kencote, where you will find yourself in a week's time; but you had no business to go interfering without consulting me about it. I'm too fond of you to snub you, as you so often deserve, so I'm quite pleased when other people do it for me."

"Yes, that's all I get for trying to help you," said Miss Dexter.

"What do you suppose has happened? Has Captain d.i.c.k told them that you have money? That's the only thing I can think of that would make that purse-proud old lunatic change his mind."

"He doesn't say anything about that, and I'm sure he hasn't told them.

_I_ shall tell Mr. Clinton, and it will make him love me even more than I'm going to make him as it is. I know I'm talking nonsense, but in the state of mind I find myself in at present that can't be helped.

No, Toby dear, it is Mrs. Clinton who has done it all. My d.i.c.k says so. She was always on our side. She liked the look of me, Toby, odd as it may seem to you; and if she could have got round the old bear's prejudices--but I mustn't call him that any longer--she would have done so before. I knew I was right about her. It was the only thing I didn't _quite_ like about d.i.c.k--that he seemed always to think she was of no account. Now he has come round, and my cup of happiness is br.i.m.m.i.n.g over. Oh, Toby, I've never been so happy in my life before."

She put her handkerchief to her eyes, but she smiled gaily through her tears.

"Quite so," returned Miss Dexter, unmoved by this show of emotion.

"You're all for the moment. Next week, when you are alone amongst them all, and they show you what they really think of you, you will never have been so miserable in your life. People like that don't change.

They haven't got it in them. And you are laying up a most uncomfortable time for yourself. I give you solemn warning. I know what I'm talking about. I'm not carried away by sentiment as you are.

Don't go, Virginia. Don't make yourself cheap."

"My dear," said Virginia in gentle seriousness, "if I were really making myself cheap by going to Kencote, I would go, if d.i.c.k asked me to. I can never be cheap to him. He'll be there, and nothing that can happen will touch me. But nothing will happen--nothing disagreeable.

Why should you think so?"

Miss Dexter threw out her hands. "Oh, when you talk like that!" she said. "Well, go, my dear, and good luck go with you."

"_You_ are my good luck, and you will go with me," said Virginia.

"Now, Toby darling, don't say no. You have done so much for me.

Surely you can do this."

"I suppose I can," said Miss Dexter after a short pause. "But if Mrs.

Clinton thinks I'm going to fall into her arms after her treatment of me, she'll find herself mistaken. And if the worst comes to the worst I can tell Mr. Clinton what I think of him. I should like an opportunity of doing that. Yes, I'll come, Virginia."

They went straight to Kencote from London, the state of Virginia's travelling wardrobe having been decided to be capable of answering all necessary calls on it, and Miss Dexter having declared that if she appeared as a dowdy, she would find others to keep her company at Kencote in spite of the airs they gave themselves.

At the railway terminus Humphrey Clinton came up to them. "Hulloa!" he said in the somewhat off-hand manner he adopted towards most ladies of his acquaintance. "Going back to Blaythorn?"

"No," said Virginia. "We are going to Kencote. So are you, I suppose?

We will travel down together, and you shall smoke to me."

Miss Dexter's sharp eyes were upon him, and she saw him flinch, although Virginia did not. It was the merest twitch of a muscle, and he had recovered himself instantly. "That's first cla.s.s," he said.

"And this seems to be First Cla.s.s too. Shall we get in here?"

"That nice-looking porter with the grey beard has found us a carriage,"

said Virginia. "If we all three spread ourselves over it n.o.body will come in, and you can smoke when once the train has started."

"You had better sit at the other end of the carriage, then," said Humphrey, "and pull your veil down, or else _everybody_ will want to come in."

"Now, Toby, don't you call that a perfectly lovely speech?" asked Virginia.

Miss Dexter emitted a sound indicative of scorn, but made no verbal reply, and they walked down the platform. A lady with spectacles, an unbecoming felt hat and a short skirt, was coming towards them, and as they approached one another she and Miss Dexter exclaimed, simultaneously, and then shook hands with expressions of pleasure.

Miss Dexter then introduced the lady with the spectacles to Virginia, as an old schoolfellow, Janet Phipp, whom she had not met for years and years, and who had not changed in the least in the meantime, and asked her where she was going.

"I am going to a place called Kencote," said Miss Phipp; "as governess," she added uncompromisingly, with an eye on Virginia's fur and feathers and Humphrey's general air of opulence.

"Oh, but that's where we are all going!" cried Virginia. "How jolly!

And this is Mr. Humphrey Clinton, the brother of your pupils."

Humphrey shook hands with Miss Phipp. "You'll find them a rare handful," he said.

"That won't worry me in the least," said Miss Phipp.

"We'll all travel down together," said Virginia, "and you shall be told all about the twins. I've never met them, and I'm dying to."

"I'm going second cla.s.s," said Miss Phipp, and Miss Dexter said, "I'll go with you. Virginia, I shall just have time to change my ticket."

She dashed off to the booking-office.

"That's so like Toby," said Virginia. "Always impulsive. She might have thought of changing Miss Phipp's ticket. What was she like at school, the dear thing?"

"Excellent at mathematics," replied Miss Phipp. "Languages weak, as far as I remember."

The train slipped off on its two hours' non-stop run, with Virginia and Humphrey in one carriage and Miss Dexter and Miss Phipp in another.

The two ladies had much to say to one another as to the course of their respective lives since they had last met. Miss Phipp's career had been one of arduous work, punctuated by continental trips and an occasional period of bad health. "I suppose I have worked too hard," she said.

"The doctors all say so, although I can't say I've ever been aware of it while I've actually been working. If I can't work I'd just as soon not live, and I've always had just the work that suited me. It's a blow to have to give it up. If it hadn't been for my health I should have been head-mistress of a big school long ago, and I'd have shown them what women's education could be. Now I've got to settle down to take two girls instead of two hundred, and I suppose if I try to teach them anything I shall be thwarted at every turn. Girls ought to be sent to school. I've no opinion of home education, and these two don't seem to have been taught anything. I'm low about it, Margaret. Still, I've got to do it, for a bit anyhow, and if they've got any brains I'll knock something into them, if I'm allowed to. However, we needn't worry ourselves about all that now. What have you been doing? Leading a life of luxury and gaiety, I suppose."

The smile with which she asked her question was affectionate. She had been a big girl at the school when Margaret Dexter had been a little one, and had mothered her. Margaret Dexter's father had been a consulting physician with a large practice. She had lived in different surroundings from most of her school-fellows.

"I've always had rather more luxury than I cared about," replied Miss Dexter. "As for gaiety, I don't care about that at all. I'm not cut out for it."