Poor Relations Part 44

Eleanor's age was the only vulnerable spot in her self-confidence, and John took advantage of it to bring her little chat to a bitter end.

"My dear Johnnie," she said, tartly, "I'm not talking about the present.

I'm warning you about the future. However, you're evidently not in the mood to listen to anybody."

"No, I'm not," he a.s.sented, warmly. "I'm as deaf as an old adder."

The next day John, together with Mrs. Worfolk and Maud, left for Hampstead, and his secretary traveled with him up to town.

"Yes," his housekeeper was overheard observing to Elsa in the hall of 36 Church Row, "dog-cart is a good name for an unnatural conveyance, but give me a good old London cab for human beings. Turn again, Whittington, they say, and they're right. They may call London noisy if they like, but it's as quiet as a mouse when you put it alongside of all that baaring and mooing and c.o.c.kadoodledoing in the country. Well, I mean to say, Elsa, I'm getting too old for the country. And the master's getting too old for the country, in my opinion. I'm in hopes he'll settle down now, and not go wearing himself out any more with the country. Believe me or not as you will, Elsa, when I tell you that the pore fellow had to play at ball like any little kid to keep himself amused."

"Fancy that, Mrs. Worfolk," Elsa murmured with a gentle intake of astonished breath.

"Yes, it used to make me feel all over melancholy to see him. All by himself in a great field. Pore fellow. He's lonely, that's what it is, however...."

At this point the conversation born upon whispers and tut-tut pa.s.sed out of John's hearing toward the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"I suppose my own servants will start gossiping next," he grumbled to himself. "Luckily I've learnt to despise gossip. Hullo, here's another bundle of press-cuttings.

"_It is rumored that John Touchwood's version of Joan of Arc which he is writing for that n.o.ble tragedienne, Miss Janet Bond, will exhibit the Maid of Orleans in a new and piquant light. The distinguished dramatist has just returned from France where he has been obtaining some startling scenic effects for what is confidently expected will be the playwright's most successful production. We are sorry to hear that Miss Bond has been suffering from a sharp attack of 'flu, but a visit to Dr.

Brighton has--_"

These and many similar paragraphs were all pasted into the alb.u.m by his secretary the next morning, and John was quite annoyed when she referred to them as worthless gossip.

"You don't know what gossip is," he said, thinking of Eleanor. "I ignore real gossip."

Miss Hamilton smiled to herself.

CHAPTER XIII

After the Christmas party at Ambles John managed to secure a tranquillity that, however brief and deceptive he felt it was like to be, nevertheless encouraged him sufficiently to make considerable progress with the play while it lasted. Perhaps Eleanor's warning had sunk deeper than she might have supposed from the apparent result of that little chat with her brother-in-law about his future; at any rate, he was so firmly determined not to give the most evil mind the least opportunity for malicious exaggeration that in self-defense he devoted to Joan of Arc a more exclusive attention than he had hitherto devoted to any of his dramatic personages. Moreover, in his anxiety to prove how abominably unjust the insinuations of his family were, he imparted to his heroine some of his own temporary remoteness from the ordinary follies and failings of humanity.

"We are too much obsessed by s.e.x nowadays," he announced at the club one afternoon, and was tempted to expatiate upon his romantic s.h.i.+bboleth to several worn out old gentlemen who had a.s.sented to this proposition.

"After all," he argued, "life is not all s.e.x. I've lately been enormously struck by that in the course of my work. Take Joan of Arc for instance. Do we find any s.e.x obsession in her? None. But is she less psychologically interesting on that account? No. s.e.x is the particular bane of modern writers. Frankly, I cannot read a novel nowadays. I suppose I'm old-fas.h.i.+oned, but I'd rather be called old-fas.h.i.+oned than asked to appreciate one of these young modern writers. I suppose there's no man more willing than myself to march with the times, but I like the high roads of literature, not the muddy lanes...."

"The John Longs and John Lanes that have no turnings," a club wag put in.

"Look at Stevenson," the dramatist continued, without paying any attention to the stupid interruption. "When Stevenson wrote a love scene he used to blush."

"So would any one who had written love scenes as bad as his," sn.i.g.g.e.red a young man, who seemed oblivious of his very recent election to the club.

The old members looked at him severely, not because he had sneered at Stevenson, but because, without being spoken to, he had volunteered a remark in the club smoking-room at least five years too soon.

"I've got a young brother who thinks like you," said John, with friendly condescension.

"Yes, I know him," the young man casually replied.

John was taken aback; it struck him as monstrous that a friend of Hugh's should have secured election to _his_ club. The sanct.i.ty of the retreat had been violated, and he could not understand what the world was coming to.

"How is Hugh?" the young man went on, without apparently being the least conscious of any difference between the two brothers. "Down at your place in Hamps.h.i.+re, isn't he? Lucky chap; though they tell me you haven't got many pheasants."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You don't preserve?"

"No, I do not preserve." John would have liked to add "except the decencies of intercourse between old and young in a club smoking-room"; but he refrained.

"Perhaps you're right," said the young man. "These are tough times for landed proprietors. Well, give my love to Hugh when you see him," he added, and turning on his heel disappeared into the haze of a more remote portion of the smoking-room.

"Who is that youth?" John demanded.

The old members shook their heads helplessly, and one of the waiters was called up to be interrogated.

"Mr. Winnington-Carr, I believe, sir," he informed them.

"How long has he been a member?"

"About a week, I believe, sir."

John looked daggers of exclamation at the other members.

"We shall have perambulators waiting in the lobby before we know where we are," he said, bitterly.

Everybody agreed that these ill-considered elections were a scandal to a famous club, and John, relinquis.h.i.+ng the obsession of s.e.x as a topic, took up the obsession of youth, which he most convincingly proved to be the curse of modern life.

It was probably Mr. Winnington-Carr's election that brought home to John the necessity of occupying himself immediately with his brother's future; at this rate he should find Hugh himself a member of his club before he knew where he was.

"I'm worrying about my young brother," he told Miss Hamilton next day, and looked at her sharply to watch the effect of this remark.

"Why, has he been misbehaving himself again?"

"No, not exactly misbehaving; but a friend of his has just been elected to my club, and I don't think it's good for Hugh to be hanging about in idleness. I do wish I could find the address of that man Raikes from British Honduras."

"Where is it likely to be?"

"It was a visiting-card. It might be anywhere."

"If it was a visiting-card, the most likely place to find it is in one of your waistcoat-pockets."

John regarded his secretary with the admiration that such a practical suggestion justified, and rang the bell.

"Maud, please bring down all my waistcoats," he told his valeting parlor-maid, who presently appeared in the library bowed down by a heap of clothes as a laborer is bowed down by a truss of hay.

In the twenty-seventh waistcoat that was examined the card was found: