A Safety Match Part 9

"I said I didn't know _many_ men," corrected Daphne. "But those I do know I know pretty thoroughly. They're very easy to understand, dear things! You always know where you are with them. Now, girls are different. Did you notice that boy whom we pa.s.sed just now, who went pink and took off his hat. That's Bobby Gill--a flame of Cilly's. I'm going to have a lot of trouble with Cilly's love-affairs, I can see.

She falls down and worships every second man she meets. I believe she would start mooning round the place after _you_ if you weren't so old," she added. "Cilly's a darling, but what she wants----"

She plunged, with puckered brow and tireless tongue, into a further tale of hopes and fears. Stiffy's schooling, Nicky's boots, the curate who _had_ to come--all were laid upon the table. Even the Emergency Bag and Wednesday's joint crept in somehow.

They were almost home when she concluded.

Suddenly Apollyon inquired:

"Do you know the name of that little hollow on our right? Is it Tinkler's Den?"

"Yes; we often have picnics there. How did you know?"

"It is part of Lord Kirkley's estate, as you are probably aware; and his lordship, finding like most of us that he has not sufficient money for his needs, has asked me to come and have a look at the ground round Tinkler's Den on the off-chance of our finding coal there."

Daphne turned upon him, wide-eyed and horror-struck.

"You mean to say," she gasped, "that you are going to dig for coals in Tinkler's Den?"

"I can't tell you, until----"

Apollyon paused. A small hand was resting on his sleeve, and a very small voice said beseechingly--

"Don't--_please_!"

"Very well, then: I won't," he said, in a matter-of-fact fashion; and they resumed their walk.

"I hope you haven't been bored," said Daphne, the hostess in her rising to the surface as the shadow of the Rectory fell upon her once more. "Your ears must be simply aching, but it's such a treat to talk to any one who knows about things. I never get the chance to ask advice. I usually have to give it. Dad and the boys are so helpless, bless them!"

They were pa.s.sing through the wicket-gate. Daphne suddenly paused, and looked up at her guest with more mischief in her eyes than her brothers and sisters would have given her credit for.

"It's queer," she mused, "that you should sell coals. _We_ thought you _shovelled_ them!"

"Explain, please!" said Sir John.

Daphne did so. "We _had_ to call you something," she concluded apologetically. "Do you mind?"

"Not at all. I have been called a good many names in my time," said Sir John grimly.

"What do your friends call you?" asked Daphne--"your intimate friends."

"I am not sure that I have any."

Daphne surveyed him shrewdly, with her head a little on one side.

"No--I should think you _were_ that sort," she said gravely. "Well, what do your--do other people call you?"

"Most of them, I believe," said Sir John, "call me 'Juggernaut Carr.'"

CHAPTER SIX.

DAPHNE AS MATCHMAKER.

Juggernaut's stay at the Rectory had been prolonged for more than three weeks, the business upon which he was engaged being as easily directed, so he said, from Brian Vereker's study as from his own London offices. An unprejudiced observer might have been forgiven for remarking that to all appearances it could have been directed with equal facility from the Two-penny Tube or the North Pole; for if we except a prolonged interview with Lord Kirkley's land agent on the second day after his arrival, Juggernaut's activities had been limited to meditative contemplation of the Rector's spring flowers and some rather silent country walks in company with the lady to whom the Rector was wont to refer to in his playful moments as "my elderly ugly daughter."

Whether Daphne's impulsive protest against the desecration of her beloved Tinkler's Den carried weight, or whether that sylvan spot was found wanting in combustible properties, will never be known; but it may be noted here that Lord Kirkley was advised that there was no money in his scheme, and Snayling remains an agricultural centre to this day.

However, if it be a fact that no fresh experience can be altogether valueless, Juggernaut's time was certainly not wasted. He was absorbed into the primitive civilisation of Snayling Rectory. He was initiated into tribal custom and usage, and became versed in a tribal language consisting chiefly of abbreviations and portmanteau words. He was instructed in the principles which underlie such things as precedence in the use of the bath and helpings at dinner. He also studied with interest the fundamental laws governing the inheritance of out-grown garments. Having been born without brothers and sisters, he found himself confronted for the first time with some of those stern realities and unavoidable hardships which prevail when domestic supply falls short of domestic demand. The mystic phrase "F. H. B.!" for instance, with which Daphne had laid inviolable taboo upon the trifle on the day of his arrival, he soon learned stood for "Family, hold back!"

Again, if Master Stephen Blasius Vereker suggested to Miss Veronica Elizabeth Vereker that a B. O. at the T. S. would be an L. B. of A. R.; to which the lady replied gently but insistently, "Is it E. P.?" Juggernaut was soon able to understand that in response to an intimation on the part of her brother that a Blow Out at the Tuck Shop would be a Little Bit of All Right, the cautious and mercenary damsel was inquiring whether her Expenses would be Paid at the forthcoming orgy. If Stiffy continued, "Up to 2 D.," and Nicky replied, "If you can't make it a tanner, Stiffy, darling, je pense _ne_!" the visitor gathered without much difficulty that in the opinion of Miss Veronica no gentleman worthy of the name should presume to undertake the entertainment of a lady under a minimum outlay of sixpence.

Juggernaut soon settled down to the ways of the establishment. He said little, but it was obvious, even to the boys, that he was taking a good deal in. He seldom asked questions, but he possessed an uncanny knack of interpreting for himself the most secret signs and cryptic expressions of the community. This established for him a claim to the family's respect, and in acknowledgment of the good impression he had created he was informally raised from the status of honoured guest to that of familiar friend. What the a.s.sociated Body of Colliery Owners would have thought if they could have seen their chairman meekly taking his seat at the breakfast-table, what time the family, accompanying themselves with teaspoons against teacups, chanted a brief but pointed ditty consisting entirely of the phrase "pom-pom!"

repeated _con amore_ and _sforzando_ until breathlessness intervened--an ordeal known at the Rectory as "pom-pomming," and inflicted daily upon the last to appear at breakfast--is hard to say.

Mr Montague for one would have enjoyed it.

Only once did this silent and saturnine man exhibit any flash of feeling. One morning before breakfast Daphne, busy in the knife-and-boot shed at the back of the house, heard a step on the gravel outside, and Juggernaut stood before her.

"Good-morning!" she said cheerfully. "Excuse my get-up. I expect I look rather a ticket."

Juggernaut surveyed her. She wore a large green baize ap.r.o.n. Her skirt was short and business-like, and her sleeves were rolled up above the elbow. Her hair was twisted into a knot at the back of her head.

Plainly her toilet had only reached the stage of the _pet.i.t lever_.

She was engaged in the healthful but unfashionable occupation of blacking boots; _per contra_, what Juggernaut chiefly noted was the whiteness of her arms. Finally his eye wandered to the boot in which her left hand was engulfed.

"Whose boot is that?" he asked.

"Yours, I should say. Dad's are square in the toes."

Next moment a large and sinewy hand gripped her by the wrist, and the boot was taken from her.

"Understand," said Apollyon, looking very like Apollyon indeed, "this must never occur again. I am angry with you."

He spoke quite quietly, but there was a vibrant note in his voice which Daphne had never heard before. Mr Tom Winch and Mr Montague would have recognised it. She looked up at him fearlessly, rather interested than otherwise in this new side of his character.

"I can't quite grasp why you _should_ be angry," she said, "though I can see you are. Not being millionaires, we all clean our own boots--excepting Dad, of course. I always do his. You being a visitor, I threw yours in as a make-weight. It's all in the day's work."

But Juggernaut's fit had pa.s.sed.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "I have no right to be angry with any one but myself. I am ashamed. I should have thought about this sooner, but I accepted your a.s.surance that my visit would throw no extra burden upon the household rather too readily. Now, for the rest of the time I am here I propose, with your permission, to black my own boots.

And as a sort of compensation for the trouble I have caused, I am going to black my hostess's as well."

"Do you know _how_ to?" inquired the hostess, rather apprehensively.

For answer Juggernaut picked up a laced shoe from off the bench and set to work upon it.