The Eldest Son Part 2

"She had to. I believe there was more in that than we knew about."

Nancy looked up sharply. "Do you? Why?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't know. I believe it had something to do with her engagement to Jim. She was married pretty soon after, anyhow, and there was no talk of it at the time."

"I wonder if we could find out."

"What's the good? And it's over two years ago now. I wonder if d.i.c.k would drive us over to Mountfield to see the babies to-morrow. He won't be able to hunt."

"He won't want to see the babies. Men are so silly in that way. They pretend they don't care for them."

"Father doesn't. He's just as silly about them as we are."

"It isn't silliness in us. We are women, and we understand. If a man does like a baby it's just as a toy."

"All the same, I think it does father credit liking his grandchildren.

I should hardly have expected it of him."

"He's getting softer in his old age. Nancy, I wonder how mother persuaded him to let us have a really good governess. He'd think it quite absurd that girls should want to learn anything."

"My dear child, you could get anything you wanted out of father if you tackled him in the right way."

"Only some things."

"Anything, I said."

"I'll bet you four weeks' pocket-money that you couldn't get him to let us hunt."

"Oh, well! that's part of his religion. 'I may be old-fashioned--I dare say I am--but to see a pack of women scampering about the country and riding over the hounds--eh, what? No, thank you!' I didn't mean I could make him become a Roman Catholic, or anything of that sort. But I'll bet you what you like I'll get him to let us have a pony."

"Four shillings?"

"Right."

"Do you think you really can, Nancy? It would be jolly."

"I don't see why he shouldn't. Cicely always rode old Tommy, and so did we till he died."

"Only surrept.i.tiously, and bare-backed. We should have to have habits and all that, now."

"Mother would see to that. Anyhow, I'll tackle him."

"How shall you manage it?"

"I shall think out a scheme."

"d.i.c.k might help. Nancy, I'll bet you eight weeks' pocket-money you can't get two ponies."

"I'll begin with one, and see how I get on. Now I think I'll immerse myself in a book."

Presently they were called into the dining-room and sat, one on each side of their father, cracking and peeling walnuts for him and eating grapes on their own account, demure and submissively responsive to his affectionate jocularity. "What big girls you're both getting!" he said. "And going to be turned into blue-stockings, eh, what! Have to buy you a pair of spectacles each next time I go to Bathgate." He laughed his big laugh, drank half a gla.s.s of port, and beamed on them.

He thought they were the prettiest pair of young feminine creatures he had ever seen, and so little trouble too! It was a good thing for a man to have sons to carry on his name, but young girls were an attractive addition to a family, and to the pleasures of a big house.

He had thought it rather ridiculous of his wife to present him with the twins fifteen years before, and seven years after his youngest son was born, but he had long since forgiven her, and would not now have been without them for anything.

When he and d.i.c.k were left alone over their wine there was a short pause, and then he cleared his throat and began: "I want to talk to you about something, d.i.c.k."

d.i.c.k threw a glance at him and took a puff at his cigarette, but made no reply.

The Squire seemed a little nervous, which was not usual with him. "Of course I don't want to interfere with you in any way," he said. "I've always given you a pretty free hand, even with the property, and all that sort of thing. I've consulted you, and you've had your way sometimes when we've differed. That's all right. It will belong to you some day, and you're--what?--thirty-four now."

"Yes," said d.i.c.k. "Thirty-four. Time to think of settling down, eh?"

The Squire brightened. "Yes, that's just it," he said. "Time to think of settling down. You've had enough soldiering--much more than I had.

I never expected you would stick to it so long."

"I don't want to leave the service yet," said d.i.c.k calmly. "I'm down here pretty often--almost all my leave."

"Yes, yes, I know," said the Squire. "But if--if---- Well, look here, d.i.c.k--no use beating about the bush--why can't you get married?"

d.i.c.k smiled. "It wouldn't be a bad scheme," he said.

The Squire was pleased. He was getting on splendidly. "You feel that," he said. "Well, I haven't liked to say anything, but it's been on my mind for a long time." He then recapitulated the reasons why he thought d.i.c.k should marry, as he had enunciated them to Mrs.

Clinton--his position as eldest son and heir to a fine property, his advancing age, the inadvisability of looking to Melbury Park as the cradle for a successor to the emoluments and amenities of Kencote, or of leaving it to Humphrey, the second son, to provide an heir. "The fact is, you ought to do it for your own sake," he wound up, "as well as for the sake of the place."

"Whom do you want me to marry?" asked d.i.c.k, with a shade of flippancy.

"Oh, well, I'd leave that to you," the Squire conceded handsomely.

"You've a lot to offer. I should think you could pretty well take your pick--must have had plenty of opportunities all these years. You needn't look for money, though it's always useful. Any nice girl of good birth--of course you wouldn't want to marry one who wasn't. Good heavens! there must be a score of them presented every year, and you have been about London now for ten or twelve years. Do you mean to say you haven't got one in your mind?"

"Haven't you?" asked d.i.c.k.

"Well, if you like to consult me, why not Grace Ettien? Old Humphrey Meadshire would be delighted. She is his favourite granddaughter, and I'm sure he would like to see her married before he goes."

"Grace is a charming girl," replied d.i.c.k. "But I don't want to marry my cousin."

"Cousin! My dear fellow, old Humphrey and your grandfather were first cousins. You're surely not going to let that stand in the way."

"I've known her ever since she was a baby. She's a baby now. It would be like marrying one of the Tw.a.n.kies."

The Squire began to get fussed. "You're talking nonsense, d.i.c.k," he said. "She must be at least twenty-one. The fact is you have left it so long that an ordinary girl of a marriageable age seems a child to you. You'll be taking up with a widow next."

There was an appreciable pause before d.i.c.k asked, "Well, should you object so much to that?"

"Of course I should," said the Squire, "--for you. I shouldn't mind in the case of Humphrey, if she wasn't too old, and had enough money for the pair of them. I'm not going to pay any more of his debts. I'm sick of it."

d.i.c.k allowed the conversation to travel down this byroad for a time, and when the Squire brought it back to the original track, said, "Well, I'll think over what you say. But I don't know that I should care, now, about marrying a young girl."

The Squire turned this over in his mind, looking down on his plate, and his brows came together. "What do you mean?" he asked shortly. "You wouldn't want to marry an old woman."