Poor Relations Part 41

"Oh yes," Harold chimed in. "I've never been there yet. Mother said it was too far for me; but it isn't, is it, Uncle John?"

"Your mother was right. It's at least three miles too far," said John, firmly. "Oh, by the way, Hugh, I've been thinking over your scheme for that summerhouse or whatever you call it, and I'm not sure that I don't rather like the idea after all. You might put it in hand this afternoon.

You'd better keep Laurence with you. I want him to have it in the way he likes it, although of course I shall undertake the expense. Where's Bertram? Ah, there you are. Bertram, why don't you and Viola take Harold down to the river and practice diving? I dare say Mr. Fenton will superintend the necessary supply of air and reduce the chances of a fatal accident."

"But the water's much too cold," Hilda protested in dismay.

"Oh well, there's always something to amuse one by a river without actually going into the water," John said. "You like rivers, don't you, Fenton? I'm afraid we can't offer you a very large one, but it wiggles most picturesquely."

Aubrey Fenton, who was still feeling twinges of embarra.s.sment on account of his uninvited stay at Ambles, was prepared to like anything his host put forward for his appreciation, and he spoke with as much enthusiasm of a promenade along the banks of the small Hampshire stream as if he were going to view the Ganges for the first time. John, having disposed of him, looked around for other possible candidates for a walk.

"You look like hard work, James," he said, approvingly.

"I've a bundle of trash here for review," the critic growled.

"I'm sorry. I was going to propose a stroll up Shalstead Down. Never mind. You'll have to walk into your victims instead." And, by gad, he would walk into them too, John thought, after that dinner yesterday.

Beatrice and Eleanor were not about; old Mrs. Touchwood was unlikely at her age to venture up the third highest elevation in Hampshire; Hilda was occupied with household duties; Edith had a headache. Only George now remained unoccupied, and John was sure he might safely risk an invitation to him; he looked incapable of walking two yards.

"I suppose you wouldn't care for a const.i.tutional, George?" he inquired, heartily.

"A const.i.tutional?" George repeated, gaping like a chub at a large cherry. "No, no, no, no. I always knit after lunch. Besides I never walk in the country. It ruins one's boots."

George always used to polish his own boots with as much pa.s.sionate care as he would have devoted to the coloring of a meerschaum pipe.

"Well, if n.o.body wants to climb Shalstead Down," said John beaming happily, "what do you say, Miss Hamilton?"

A few minutes later they had crossed the twenty-acre field and were among the chalk-flecked billows of the rising downs.

"You're a terrible fraud," she laughed. "You've always led me to believe that you were completely at the mercy of your relations. Instead of which, you order them about and arrange their afternoon and really bully them into doing all sorts of things they never had any intention of doing, or any wish to do, what's more."

"Yes, I seemed to be rather successful with my strategy to-day," John admitted. "But they were stupefied by their Christmas dinner. None of them was really anxious for a walk, and I didn't want to drag them out unwillingly."

"Ah, it's all very well to explain it away like that, but don't ever ask me to sympathize with you again. I believe you're a replica of my poor mother. Her tyranny is deeply rooted in consideration for others. Why do you suppose she is always trying to make me give up working for you? For her sake? Oh, dear no! For mine."

"But _you_ don't forge my name and expect her to pay me back. _You_ don't arrive suddenly and deposit children upon her doorstep."

"I dare say I don't, but for my mother Ida Merritt represents all the excesses of your relations combined in one person. I'm convinced that if you and she were to compare notes you would find that you were both suffering from acute ingrat.i.tude and thoroughly enjoying it. But come, come, this is not a serious conversation. What about the fourth act?"

"The fourth act of what?" he asked, vaguely.

"The fourth act of Joan of Arc."

"Oh, Joan of Arc. I think I must give her a rest. I don't seem at all in the mood for writing at present. The truth is that I find Joan rather lacking in humanity and I'm beginning to think I made a mistake in choosing such an abnormal creature for the central figure of a play."

"Then what have I come down to Hampshire for?" she demanded.

"Well, it's very jolly down here, isn't it?" John retorted in an offended voice. "And anyway you can't expect me to burst into blank verse the moment you arrive, like a canary that's been uncovered by the housemaid. It would be an affectation to pretend I feel poetical this afternoon. I feel like a jolly good tramp before tea. I can't stand writers who always want to be literary. I have the temperament of a country squire, and if I had more money and fewer relations I should hardly write at all."

"Which would be a great pity," said his secretary.

"Would it?" John replied in the voice of one who has found an unexpected grievance and is determined to make the most of it. "I doubt if it would. What is my work, after all? I don't deceive myself. There was more in my six novels than in anything I've written since. I'm a failure to myself. In the eyes of the public I may be a success, but in the depths of my own heart--" he finished the sentence in a long sigh, all the longer because he was a little out of breath with climbing.

"But you were so cheerful a few minutes ago. I'm sure that country squires are not the prey to such swift changes of mood. I think you must be a poet really."

"A poet!" he exclaimed, bitterly, with what he fancied was the kind of laugh that is called hollow. "Do I look like a poet?"

"If you're going to talk in that childish way I sha'n't say any more,"

she warned him, severely. "Oh, there goes a hare!"

"Two hares," said John, trying to create an impression that in spite of the weight of his despondency he would for her sake affect a light-hearted interest in the common incidents of a country walk.

"And look at the peewits," she said. "What a fuss they make about nothing, don't they?"

"I suppose you are comparing me to a peewit now?" John reproachfully suggested.

"Well, a moment ago you compared yourself to an uncovered canary; so if I've exceeded the bounds of free speech marked out for a secretary, you must forgive me."

"My dear Miss Hamilton," he a.s.sured her, "I beg you to believe that you are at liberty to compare me to anything you like."

Having surrendered his personality for the exercise of her wit John felt more cheerful. The rest of the walk seemed to offer with its wide prospects of country asleep in the winter sunlight a wider prospect of life itself; even Joan of Arc became once again a human figure.

It was to be feared that John's manipulation of his guests after lunch might have had the effect of uniting them against the new favorite; and so it had. When he and Miss Hamilton got back to the house for tea the family was obviously upon the defensive, so obviously indeed that it gave the impression of a sculptor's group in which each figure was contributing his posture to the whole. There was not as yet the least hint of attack, but John would almost have preferred an offensive action to this martyred withdrawal from the world in which it was suggested that he and Miss Hamilton were living by themselves. It happened that a neighbor, a colorless man with a disobedient and bushy dog, called upon the Touchwoods that afternoon, and John could not help being aware that to the eyes of his relations he and his secretary appeared equally intrusive and disturbing; the manner in which Hilda offered Miss Hamilton tea scarcely differed from the manner in which she propitiated the dog with a bun; and it would have been rash to a.s.sert that she was more afraid of the dog's biting Harold than of the secretary's doing so.

"Don't worry Miss Hamilton, darling. She's tired after her long walk.

Besides, she isn't used to little boys. And don't make Mr. Wenlow's dog eat sugar if it doesn't want to."

Eleanor would ordinarily have urged Bertram to prove that he could achieve what was denied to his cousin. Yet now in the face of a common enemy she made overtures to Hilda by simultaneously calling off her children from the intruders.

"If I'd known that animals were so welcomed down here," James grumbled, "I should have brought Beyle with us."

It was not a polite remark; but the disobedient dog in an effusion of cordiality had just licked the back of James' neck, and he was not nearly so rude as he would have been about a human being who had surprised him, speaking figuratively, in the same way.

"Lie down, Rover," whispered the colorless neighbor with so rich a blush that until it subsided the epithet ceased to be appropriate.

Rover unexpectedly paid attention to the command, but chose Grandmama's lap for his resting place, which made Viola laugh so ecstatically that Frida felt bound to imitate her, with the result that a geyser of tea spurted from her mouth and descended upon her father's leg. Laurence rose and led his daughter from the room, saying:

"Little girls who choke in drawing-rooms must learn to choke outside."

"I'm afraid she has adenoids, poor child," said Eleanor, kindly.

"I know what that word means," Harold bragged with gloating knowledge.

"Shut up!" cried Bertram. "You know everything, gla.s.s-eyes. But you don't know there are two worms in your tea-cup."

"There aren't," Harold contradicted.

"All right, drink it up and see. I put them there myself."

"Eleanor!" expostulated the horrified mother. "_Do_ you allow Bertram to behave like this?"