A Humble Enterprise Part 14

"I know nothing," said Tony mendaciously, "and am most anxious for information. I cannot imagine Mary a.s.sociating with anybody who isn't fit to a.s.sociate with me. But perhaps it is I who am not fit? Who's the almighty swell that I'm not good enough for?"

"No swell at all--quite the contrary. It's that tea-room girl--oh, Tony, I believe you knew all the time, only you like to put that mask on, because you know how I hate to see you look at me like a wooden image!

It's that Liddon girl, that she made such an absurd fuss about. She wasn't well, and Mary took her to Wandooyamba to recruit, and she's there now."

"I don't see what that has to do with me," said he in a stately way; and he tried to move away from her.

Maude clutched him with both hands round his arm, and moved with him.

"If it doesn't matter now, it will matter when you get under the same roof with her. Oh!"--looking up at him--"you _did_ know she was there, and you _are_ going after her! You used to sneak to the tea-room on the sly--heaps of people have told me--and now you are going to Wandooyamba just on purpose to make love to her--I can see it in your face, though you have your mask on! Oh! Tony dear, don't--_don't_ be a naughty, bad boy--for my sake!"

"If I have ever been bad--bad to women," said Tony, removing his mask, "that time is over. Don't distress yourself. If I should by chance make love to Miss Liddon, it will be quite respectably, I a.s.sure you."

"But that would be _worse_!" shrieked Maude, coming to a standstill in the middle of the room, horrified. "Oh, Tony, what are you talking about--you, that have always been so fastidious! A tea-room girl! Oh, you are only trying to aggravate me! I didn't save you from Lady Louisa to have you throw yourself away on a tea-room girl!"

He almost shook her, he was so angry with her. "May I ask you to be so very good as to mind your own business, and allow me to manage mine?" he said, with a sort of cold fury in his voice and eyes. It was not the way a son should speak to his mother--indeed, it was quite brutal--but he could not restrain himself; and she, looking at him, guessed what the sudden rage portended.

"It _is_ my business," she retorted, with equal pa.s.sion. "It is my family's business--it is all our businesses--to see that we are not disgraced."

"Disgraced!" he drawled, with bitter amus.e.m.e.nt. "Good Lord!"

The white gauze over her bosom heaved like foam on a flowing tide, the gold drops studding it shook like harebells in a breeze.

"Tony," she burst out fiercely, "I shall tell your father of you."

She swept out of the room, and he heard her long tail sc.r.a.ping over the tiles of the hall, and rustling up the broad stairs.

"Little devil!" he muttered in his teeth; and then he laughed, and his eyes cleared, and he went out upon the colonnaded verandah and walked up and down, with his hands behind him, till the gong clanged for dinner.

Sedately he marched into the dining-room and stood by the table, he and the servants, all silent alike, waiting for host and hostess to come downstairs. Then in flounced Maude, in her glittering whiteness, with her head up, and a wicked flash of triumph in her eyes as she met the wooden stare of her stepson; and her husband followed at her heels, furtive, downcast, troubled--pretending for the present that all was well, and failing to convince even the footman that it was so. Tony was at once aware that Maude had "told his father of him," and all through dinner he was trying to forecast what the result would be. She sparkled balefully for a time, trying to tease him into disputatious talk; but his cold irresponsiveness cowed her into silence too, and the resource of wistful glances that hinted at remorse and tears. It was a dismal meal. When it was happily at an end, and she rose from her plate of strawberries, he marched to the door and held it open for her, standing stiffly, like a soldier sentinel. She looked at him appealingly, and whispered "Forgive me," as she swept slowly out; but he stared stonily over her head and took no notice.

Shutting the door sharply behind her, he returned to his seat at the table. The gliding servants vanished, and his father pushed the wine towards him. There was a long silence, which he would not break. The old man cleared his throat a few times, and smacked his lips over his old port. At last their eyes met, and the spell was lifted.

"What's this, my boy, about--about poor Liddon's daughter?"

Anthony laid a broad palm over his father's hand resting on the table.

"Don't let us talk of it here, daddy," he said, with gruff gentleness.

"Finish your wine comfortably. Then we'll go into the smoking-room, and I'll tell you all about it."

Mr. Churchill brisked up, tossed off his port, and was ready for the smoking-room at once. It was detached from the house, and its French doors opened upon a retired lawn, on which the moon shone between the shadows of shrubs and trees. They drew armchairs towards the threshold, and lit their pipes, but not the lamps, and talked and talked in the cooling twilight, as men who had confidence in one another.

At first the father would not hear of the projected match. He belonged to a vulgar little world that was eaten up with the love of money, and could not despise the conventions of his caste. He argued, gently but obstinately, that it would "never do, you know," for quite a long time, thinking of what Maude would say to him if he failed to be firm; but a mention of Maude's homely predecessor, and the days when there was no high fashion in the family, touched his susceptible heart. Tony drew comparisons between his dead mother, his stepmother and his proposed wife, and morals therefrom.

"Well, well," the old gentleman admitted, "there's something in that."

"Where would you have been without _her_, all that time when you were poor and struggling?"

"True. But you are not poor and struggling."

"I may be. No one can tell. Any sort of misfortune may come to a man.

And in the day of adversity--well, you can see what she would be."

"Oh, she's a good girl--I never denied it--as good as they make 'em."

"Suppose I should fall ill? Maude's sister was at a ball the night before her husband died."

"She didn't know he was so bad, of course."

"She would have guessed if she'd been a woman of the right sort. Jenny won't go to b.a.l.l.s when I am ill in bed, if it's only a cold or a headache."

"No doubt that's the sort to stick to you and comfort you." The old father sighed as he reflected on his increasing gout. "And I daresay--after all--in the long run perhaps----"

"Exactly. I am firmly convinced of it. She will last it out. And meanwhile, think of the cosy home I'll have! Oh, I may have been a careless, fast fellow, but I've had my ideas of what I would like to be, and like my home to be. And then there's the children--if anybody has got the makings of a good mother in her, she has. Don't you see it yourself?"

"Certainly. A good daughter always makes a good mother."

"If you'd seen her with Maude's brats--washing the milk and b.u.t.ter stains from their hands and mouths! And they took to her on the spot, as if they'd known her for years. It is a sure sign."

"Oh, it is--it is! Your mother had that way. Poor old girl! Many's the time I've seen her at the wash-tub, and ironing my shirts, and cooking my dinner, and you children hanging round her all the while. But it's odd to see a swell fellow like you caring for that sort of thing. You've been brought up so differently."

"Perhaps it's my mother's nature cropping out in me. But, in fact, it's because I've seen too much, sir."

"Too much what?"

"Too much woman--of the sort that I know _don't_ make good wives--at any rate, not good enough for me."

"Ah, you're wise! I daresay you do take after your mother; she was better than I am. You are wiser for yourself than I should have been for you."

"I don't know that it's wisdom, consciously. It's pure selfishness, as like as not. I know she'll be good to me, and take care of me, and stick to me through thick and thin."

"You must stick to her, too, Tony."

"No fear. A man couldn't play the beast, with a wife of that sort; at least, I hope not. I mean to be a pattern husband."

After the third pipe he rose up stealthily.

"I'll just go and change my clothes and get home to bed," he said. "Say good-night to Maude for me. I won't disturb her again."

"Good-night, my boy. And you may tell her I've given my consent, if you like. Only, mind you, we shall have to abolish the tea-room for the sake of the family."

"We'll hand it over to the basket-maker's wife, and that fellow in the office must make a home for his remaining relatives. Good-night, dad--good old dad!"

He stole up to his room and changed his clothes, stole down again and out into the moonlit garden. As the road gate clicked behind him he saw the front-door open, and in the effulgent aperture a white figure that glittered vaguely. A wailing note came through the scented dusk.

"_Tony!_"

"Good-night," he called back, and turned to run towards an approaching tram. He made his voice as cheerful and kindly as he could, for he forgave her now; but he said to himself, "Oh, you little Jezebel!" and then, in a graver spirit, "Thank G.o.d, my Jenny is not one of that breed!"

He went home to bed and slept like a new-born baby. Next morning he went early to the tea-room to tell Sarah that his father had given his consent and good wishes, and to inquire if Jenny was still at Wandooyamba--because Mary's telegram had made him nervous. Sarah said her sister was with Mrs. Oxenham still, and not to return till after Christmas; and Sarah wept a little for pure happiness, and kissed her potential brother behind the screen. He would have spoken to Mrs.

Liddon, as suitor to guardian, before going away; but she was busy with her scones, and the girl declared they would all be spoiled and the credit of the tea-room ruined if such a surprise were sprung upon her at such a time. So he left the matter in Sarah's hands, and went away and did some more shopping; bought a beautiful little ring with a pea-sized pearl in it, in addition to fish and lollies. No more telegrams arrived, and Jarvis took the portmanteau to the station, and stood the crush of ticket-getting, and put his master's coat and the evening papers into the best corner of the smoking carriage on the express; and at 4.55 the happy man was borne upon his way, feeling certain that he was to see the wife he had promised himself before he went to bed that night.