The Eldest Son Part 11

"They are better than you'd think, though, and she has only brought three horses."

"Why didn't you tell us you were springing this strange lady upon us?"

asked the Squire, as a beginning out of all the questions he wanted to ask.

"I haven't been home for a month," said d.i.c.k, "and I'm not much of a correspondent."

"You didn't say anything about it last night, and you didn't say you were going over to see her this afternoon." The Squire's uneasiness was beginning to take shape, and d.i.c.k realised with annoyance that he had given it something to feed on.

"I'm sorry," he said. "But we were talking about other things. The poor lady had a brute of a husband--I expect you knew him, didn't you?"

"Oh yes, I knew him. A pretty sort of rascal he was too."

"I've always heard so, though I never met him. He behaved like a swine to her, at any rate, and she's a very charming woman. I think you'll like her, father. I want to ask the mater to go over and see her as soon as she can. She doesn't know any one hereabouts, and it's a bit lonely for her."

He could not keep the note of appeal, rarely heard from him, out of his voice, but it escaped the Squire, who only saw himself at issue with his eldest son--a position he exceedingly disliked.

"Oh, my dear boy!" he said. "A woman that blackguard George Dubec picked up off the music-hall stage! You can't be serious."

"That's not true," said d.i.c.k sharply. "Who said she was on the music-hall stage?"

"Well, on the stage, anyhow--dancing on the stage--it's the same thing."

"Who told you that?"

"Humphrey said she had been on the stage, and Mrs. Graham remembered seeing her when she was in America."

"Is Humphrey here?"

"Yes, he came this afternoon. An American dancer, you know, d.i.c.k, and a woman who would marry George Dubec--really, you might have thought twice before you brought a person of that sort here; and as for your mother calling on her--that's out of the question. Surely you can see that."

The Squire's tone was conciliatory. He would not have spoken in that way, upon a subject on which he felt strongly, to any one else in the world, and when he had spoken he threw a glance at his son, whose face betokened nothing of all he was thinking at that moment.

d.i.c.k did not speak at once. When he did he said quietly, "When I suggested to Lady George, who has been a friend of mine for some time, that she should spend a month or two in this part of the country, I told her that my people would be glad to see her and do what they could for her. It never crossed my mind that you would refuse to acknowledge a friend of mine. It is not my habit to make friends of women I couldn't introduce you or my mother to."

"But, my dear boy!" expostulated the Squire. "A woman who has danced on the stage, the widow of a notorious profligate and swindler--George Dubec was a swindler, and he wasn't received latterly even in men's society--decent men. _I_ wouldn't have received him, for one."

"You can say what you like about George Dubec," replied d.i.c.k. "It was the way he had treated her that made me sorry for her, first of all.

Then I found she was a good woman, as well as a very charming one.

There isn't a soul who knows her--and lots of people know her--who could have a word to say against her. It isn't generally known that she was on the stage--it was for a very short time--and I wish to goodness Humphrey had minded his own business and kept that to himself.

Her father was a planter in the South, and lost everything he had in the war. She had to support her mother, and that was the only way.

She was very young. I honour her for what she did."

"Yes, oh yes, that's all right," said the Squire, who was coming more and more to feel that it was all wrong. "But it's no good, d.i.c.k.

Plenty of people in their different lines of life do things that you can honour them for, as you say, but you don't welcome them to houses like Kencote. We live a quiet enough life here, I know that. We're not one of the modern smart country houses, thank G.o.d, and never will be as long as I'm alive. But we're of some account in this part of the world, and have been for generations. And the long and the short of it is, d.i.c.k, that if you want to make friends with ladies of that sort, I can't stop you--I don't want to--it's your affair and you're old enough to look after yourself--but I won't have them at Kencote."

Inwardly, d.i.c.k was raging, and it needed all his self-control to keep his feelings from showing themselves in his face or in his speech. But he knew that if he did so everything was lost. It had been no vain boast that he had made to Virginia Dubec, that he could manage his father. He had the advantage over him that a man who controls his speech and his temper always has over a man who habitually controls neither. For many years past the Squire, who pictured himself as the wise but undisputed autocrat of his household, had gone to his eldest son for advice upon any matter that bothered him, and had always taken his advice. In questions of estate management he had never taken a step of any importance without consulting d.i.c.k, and d.i.c.k had been the virtual ruler of the estate, although the Squire did not know it. In his father's eyes d.i.c.k was a model son. He had never once had to exercise his paternal authority over him since his schooldays. He knew that Kencote, which was the apple of his own eye, was also the apple of d.i.c.k's, and that he would have as worthy a successor as any head of an old-rooted family ever had. In course of years he had come to treat his eldest son with a respect and consideration which he gave to no other being alive. Except that none but an eldest son who was some day to step into his place could have aroused the feelings he had towards him, his att.i.tude towards d.i.c.k was what he might have felt towards a brother, almost, it might be said, towards an elder brother.

Now d.i.c.k was quite aware of all this, and he knew also that in his last speech his father had crossed a line that had never yet been crossed between them. He had done what he did almost every day of his life with some member or other of his family or household, but had never done with him since he was a child, because he had never given him the opportunity. He called it putting his foot down, and although in reference to other matters d.i.c.k had frequently, by the exercise of his peculiar gift of cool tact, caused the taking up again of a foot that was announced to have been put down, and by no means despaired of being able to do so in this instance, he knew that this was not the time to undertake the removal. Something of his moral supremacy had already disappeared if his father could take it into his hands to give an ultimatum against his expressed wishes. There was no knowing how much further it would be damaged if he were encouraged, as he would be by opposition now that he had once delivered himself, to back up his revolt by strong speech. It was what he always fortified himself with either before or after the process of putting his foot down, and d.i.c.k had no mind to undergo it.

"Very well," he said quietly. "If you feel like that about it, there's no more to be said. It's d.a.m.ned awkward for me, but I suppose I took too much on myself."

The Squire immediately recrossed the line, on the other side of which only opposition could possibly make him wish to keep his footing. "Oh, well," he said, "of course I don't say--in this instance--what I mean is--well, look here, d.i.c.k, I don't say anything one way or the other.

I'll say this, my boy, you've never given me the slightest trouble, and we've always seen eye to eye in pretty well everything, and where we haven't at first you have always come to see that I was right in the end--eh? Better let me think the question over--what? I don't want you to feel you can't ask your friends to this house, which will be your own some day."

"I can hardly help feeling that, can I?" said d.i.c.k, with a short laugh.

"Eh? Well, I must think it over, and talk it over with your mother.

You'd better think it over too, old boy. I can't help thinking you'll feel you haven't been very wise. We're Clintons of Kencote, you know.

We owe something to ourselves."

But d.i.c.k could stand no more. "All right," he said, rising. "I think I'll go up and have a bath before dinner. I'm a bit stiff."

CHAPTER VIII

THE SQUIRE FEELS TROUBLE COMING

d.i.c.k went out of the room angry with himself, angry with his father, and still more angry with his brother. He wanted to meet Humphrey and have it out with him, and he knew that Humphrey at that hour--about seven o'clock--would be in the smoking-room. But he went upstairs, not because he wanted a bath before dinner as he had told his father, and certainly not because he was stiff after trotting a dozen miles or so along the roads, but because he knew that it was not wise to have anything out with anybody unless you had complete command over yourself. So he went into his big comfortable bedroom, where a bright fire was burning, lit some candles, and threw himself into an easy-chair to think matters out.

That his father would give way, that he was already in process of giving way, he was well a.s.sured. He knew how to work that all right, and he had taken no false step, as far as he could remember, in dealing with him. But that little fact of Virginia's having once danced on the stage, of which she had told him in the early days of their friendship, as she had told him everything else about her varied, unhappy life, he had never thought that he--and she--would have to face. If it had not been for that, his father, so he told himself, would have given way already. Knowing it, it was surprising that he had left anything to be said on the subject at all. He need never have known it; so few people did know it, even in London, where Virginia was beginning to be well known, or in Leicestershire, where she was very well known indeed. Of course, Humphrey knew it--he knew all that sort of gossip about everybody--and d.i.c.k's anger against him began to burn as he imagined the way in which he would have let it out. He was like a spiteful old woman, fiddling about in drawing-rooms, whispering scandal into other old women's ears and receiving it into his own in return.

At this point Humphrey came into the room. "Hullo, old chap!" he said.

"What on earth are you doing up here? It isn't time to dress yet."

d.i.c.k got up quickly out of his chair and faced him. He had better have gone to him in the smoking-room at once before he had begun to think things over. "What the devil do you mean by meddling with my affairs?"

he said angrily.

Humphrey stopped short and stared as if he had held a pistol to his head. He and d.i.c.k and Walter had been closer friends than most brothers are. Their ways for some time had begun to diverge, but they had remained friends, and since their boyhood they had never quarrelled. Such a speech as d.i.c.k's was in effect more than a pistol held to his head. It was a pistol shot.

"I suppose you mean what I told them downstairs about Virginia Dubec,"

he said.

"Virginia Dubec? Who gave you the right to call her Virginia?" said d.i.c.k hotly, and could have bitten out his tongue for saying it the moment after, for of course it told Humphrey everything.

But Humphrey was too deeply astonished at the moment to take in anything. He thought he knew his brother; he had always rather admired him, and above all for his coolness. But if this was d.i.c.k, pa.s.sionate and indiscreet, he did not know him at all, and it was difficult to tell how to deal with him.

But Humphrey was cool too, in his own way, hating the discomfort of pa.s.sion, and he certainly did not want to have a row with his elder brother. "I don't know why you're up against me like this," he said.

"I should have thought we knew each other well enough by this time to talk over anything that wants talking over, sensibly. I'm quite ready to talk over anything with you, but hadn't we better go and do it downstairs? They'll be up here putting out your clothes directly."

"We'll go down to the smoking-room," said d.i.c.k, not sorry to have a minute or two in which to pull himself together.

So they went downstairs without a word, and along a stone pa.s.sage to a big room which had been given over to them as boys, because it was right away from the other rooms, and in which they knew no one would disturb them.

Neither of them spoke at once, but both took cigarettes from a box on a table, and Humphrey offered d.i.c.k a match, which he refused, lighting one for himself.

"Lady George Dubec," said d.i.c.k--"Virginia Dubec, if you like to call her so--I've no objection--is a friend of mine, as you know. She wanted a quiet place to hunt from for a month or two, and I said I would try to find her a house here. Of course I told her that they would make friends with her from here. I went to see her this afternoon, and I come back to find you have been talking scandal about her, and giving the governor the impression that she's an impossible sort of creature for respectable people to know. Upon my word, Humphrey, you ought to be kicked."