The Eldest Son Part 16

Humphrey, not far away at the start, had been in at the finish, with half a dozen more, but he had seen nothing of d.i.c.k, and no one who had set out to follow on wheels had been anywhere within sight for the last half-hour. The Squire felt a grim satisfaction in the thought of Lady George Dubec left hopelessly out of it, but he also thought of d.i.c.k missing the best run, so far, of the season to keep behind with her, and his satisfaction turned into sad disgust. His long ride home was the most miserable he had ever taken, and he wished before it was ended that he had seen out the day, on the chance of another burst of excitement which for the time would have eased his pain.

He reached Kencote about three o'clock, and expected to find the house empty, for he knew that Mrs. Clinton had been going to lunch at Mountfield and he did not expect her to be back yet. But she met him in the hall and said, "I thought you might be home early, Edward, so I did not go out."

Now the Squire was never home early. He always saw out the day's sport, however bad it might be, and the number of times he had returned from hunting before dark during the last thirty years might have been counted on his ten fingers. He looked at his wife apprehensively and followed her into the morning-room, where she turned to him.

"d.i.c.k has gone," she said.

He stared at her, not understanding.

"He came back about twelve," she went on, "and changed his clothes.

His servant was out, but he left word for him to pack and follow him to Blaythorn. He wrote you a letter before he went."

"Where is it?" asked the Squire. "Didn't you see him before he went?

Didn't you speak to him?" He went out of the room and into his own, and Mrs. Clinton followed him.

"I did see him," she said, as the Squire went to his writing-table where an envelope was lying on the silver-mounted blotting-pad. "He said that you had made it impossible for him to remain at home, and he bade me good-bye, but he did not tell me anything more."

But the Squire was not listening to her. He turned the page of the letter and then put it into her hand. "Read that," he said.

"Dear Father" [it ran],

"I had hoped at least that you would have consented to meet the woman I am going to marry. If you had you would have seen how unlike she is to your ideas of her and that I am doing myself honour by my choice. You have made the situation impossible now, and I cannot return to Kencote until you consent to receive my affianced wife with the respect due to her.

"Your affectionate son, "RICHARD CLINTON."

The Squire's face was purple, but he controlled the violent expression of his anger. "His affianced wife!" he exclaimed scornfully. "So now we have it all, and I was right from the beginning. Well, if he waits till I receive her he may wait till I'm in my coffin. I told him this morning I would not recognise her, now or at any time, and I'll stick to my word. He has chosen to fight me, and he will find that I'm ready." He spoke bitterly, but firmly, and as if he meant everything that he said.

Mrs. Clinton laid the letter on the table. Her face was serious, and paler than its wont. "Have you seen her, Edward?" she asked. "Is she so impossible?"

"Seen her! Impossible!" echoed the Squire, with a return to the unbridled violence he usually showed when he was disturbed. "Yes, I've seen her, and she's as impossible as a wife for the heir of Kencote as any woman on the face of the earth--a painted hussy, hand in glove with the worst sort of vicious loafer, puffing cigarettes in the face of a whole crowd of respectable people, shamelessly breaking up sport--oh, I've seen her, and seen enough of her. To my dying day I'll never willingly see her again, and if that means breaking with d.i.c.k I'll break with him till he comes to his senses. I mean it. If she is going to stay here to hunt with the South Meadshire, then I'll go and hunt somewhere else until she's gone; or I won't hunt at all. Yes, she's impossible. You've spoken the right word. I shouldn't be doing my duty if I left any stone unturned to put an end to d.i.c.k's unaccountable folly. He'll thank me for it some day, and I'll put up with all and every unhappiness until that day comes."

He had calmed down during the course of his speech, as he often did, beginning on a note of unreasonable violence and ending on one completely different. But he did not usually end on a note of strong determination, as now, and Mrs. Clinton looked at him as if she hardly recognised him, with lines of perplexity and trouble in her smooth, comely face. She did not ask him what he was going to do, such questions being apt to provoke him to impatient anger and seldom bringing a direct reply. She said hesitatingly, "If he says definitely that he is going to marry her----" and left him to supply the end of her sentence.

"I shall not let him marry her," he said quietly. "He can't marry on his pay, and I shall stop his allowance from to-day."

This statement, revolutionary of all fixed notions that had their rise in Kencote, affected Mrs. Clinton as nothing before in her married life had affected her. It showed her her husband as she had never known him, bent on a course of action, not ready to take advice about it, but prepared to turn his back on the most cherished principles of his life in order to carry it out. She had nothing to say. She could only look down and wonder apprehensively what her world was coming to.

"I don't think I should have thought of doing such a thing," the Squire admitted. "It gives me more pain to take a course like that than anything else could have done. It was Humphrey who suggested it. He said, quite truly, that none of them could marry unless I saw them through. And I won't see d.i.c.k through this. I'll do anything to stop it, however much I suffer by what I have to do. Don't you think I'm right, Nina?"

This was more what Mrs. Clinton was accustomed to. She could not say that she thought he was right, nor that he was wrong. She could only say, as she did, that such a proceeding would be distressing to him.

"I know that," said the Squire, with a new simplicity. "I'm not thinking of myself. I'm thinking of d.i.c.k. I love the boy, Nina. He's got himself into trouble and I've got to help him out of it."

"Do you think this is the best way?" was all that she could find to say.

"It's the only way. If there were any other I would take it. If it doesn't bring him to his senses at once, I shall keep the money for him till it does. G.o.d knows _I_ don't want to touch it."

"He will have to give up the Guards," said Mrs. Clinton.

The Squire had not thought of this, and he digested the statement.

"He's not an absolute fool," he said, "although he has lost his head over this. As far as the service goes, I shouldn't mind if he did give it up. I never meant him to go on soldiering so long. Still, if he does give it up, what's he to do, poor fellow, till he comes round? He wouldn't have a penny. I shall tell him that I will continue his allowance as long as he remains unmarried." He brightened up as this idea struck him. "Yes," he said, "that will be the best way, and just as effective. I couldn't bear to think of d.i.c.k hard up. I'll write now."

He sat down to his table, muddy boots, spurs, and all, and Mrs. Clinton left him, a little relieved in her mind that he saw a gleam of light, but otherwise solicitous for his sake and unhappy on her own. She loved her firstborn too, although it was very long since she had been able to show it. She would have liked to have helped him now, but he had not asked for her help, had told her nothing, and had left her with scarcely more than a formal word of farewell.

The Squire, left to himself, wrote quickly, and sealed up his letter after he had read it over once, as if first thoughts were best, and he was uncertain to what second would lead him.

"My dear d.i.c.k" [his note ran],

"I can only repeat that nothing will induce me to give my consent to the marriage you propose. If you marry in a way to please me I shall provide for you handsomely, as I have always intended to do, but if you persist in the course you have begun on I shall withdraw your allowance entirely. It will be paid to you for the present, but only as long as you remain unmarried. I am very sorry to have to take this course, but you leave me nothing else to do.

"Your affectionate father, "EDWARD CLINTON."

When he had closed and directed the envelope an unpleasant thought struck him, and he leant back in his chair and looked out of the window while he considered it. "I suppose she must have _some_ money," he said to himself; and then after a time, "But d.i.c.k would never do that."

The note was taken over to Blaythorn, as all notes were that were despatched from Kencote, by a groom on horseback. The Squire was impatient of the workings of the penny post, except for distances impossible for a horse, and he would not ask if d.i.c.k's soldier-servant had yet left the house with his master's belongings. "Tell one of the grooms to take that over," were his curt instructions, and so well was the letter of his orders always obeyed that a groom rode off with it within a quarter of an hour, although another one was already harnessing a horse to the cart that was to take d.i.c.k's servant to Blaythorn as soon as he should be ready. But having got safely outside the park gates he dawdled till his fellow caught him up, and the three of them then continued the journey together and discussed the situation.

d.i.c.k's servant was loyal to his master, but it was not in human nature that he should have refrained from speculating upon what was doing, and between them they managed to attain to a fairly clear idea of what that was, their unanimous conclusion being that if the Captain had made up his mind to marry the lady the Squire might take what steps he liked, but he would not stop him. In this way began the rumours that presently spread all over the county and thence all over England, or to such of its inhabitants as are interested in the affairs of its Captain Clintons and Lady Georges.

d.i.c.k and Virginia were alone together when the note was brought in, the mounted groom having ridden on when he got within a mile of his destination. "That means war," said d.i.c.k, laconically, when he had read it; "but I didn't think he would use those tactics quite so soon.

I wonder who put him up to it." He thought for a moment. "Humphrey wouldn't have done it, I suppose," he said reflectively.

Virginia's eyes were serious as she looked up from the note written in the Squire's big, rather sprawling hand on the thick white paper. "I wonder why he hates me so," she said a little plaintively. "Is it because I headed the fox, d.i.c.k?"

d.i.c.k took her chin between his thumb and finger and his face grew tender as he looked into her eyes. "You were a very foolish girl to do that, Virginia," he said. "I should have thought you would have known better."

"I didn't know there was such a sharp turn," she said. "I pulled up the moment I got round the corner."

"Oh, well! never mind about that," said d.i.c.k. "It was unfortunate, but it wouldn't have made him want to disinherit me. He can't disinherit me, you know. It's just like him to go blundering into a course like this, which he hasn't got the firmness to keep up."

"That letter doesn't look as if he lacked firmness," Virginia said.

"d.i.c.k dear, what shall you do?"

d.i.c.k did not answer this question directly. He had his father's habit of following out his own train of thought and ignoring, or rather not noticing, interruption. "He must know perfectly well," he said, "that I can raise money quite easily on my prospects. I dare say he hasn't thought of that, though. He never does think a thing thoroughly out.

He wouldn't be happy if I threatened to do it."

"Oh, d.i.c.k, d.i.c.k!" exclaimed Virginia, "why do you want to worry about money? I have plenty for both of us."

"My dear, I've told you that's impossible," said d.i.c.k a little impatiently. "Don't keep harping on it."

It gave her a thrill of delight to be spoken to in that way--by him.

She had been used to being ordered to do something or not to do something by a man, but not by the man she loved. She kept obedient silence, but gave d.i.c.k's arm a little squeeze.

"I'm not going to do it, though," he went on. "I should hate it as much as he would. Let's sit down, Virginia. I'll tell you what I'm going to do."

They sat down on the sofa, and d.i.c.k took a cigarette out of his case.