The Eldest Son Part 21

"In his bedroom, I suppose," replied Humphrey coolly, inspecting the dishes on the side-table.

The Squire said nothing further, but when he, with most of the party, was leaving the room half an hour later, and met Bobby Trench, to whom the morning light had apparently brought a renewal of self-content, entering it, he greeted him with an earnest enquiry after his health.

"Oh, I'm as bobbish as possible, thank you," replied Bobby Trench brightly.

"I'm glad of that," said the Squire, pa.s.sing on. "I thought as you didn't come down at the proper time you must have been feeling poorly."

Bobby Trench stared at his broad retreating back in amazement. "Lor'!

What a house!" was his inward exclamation, as he went on into the dining-room.

Humphrey, who was deliberate in his meals, was still at the table, and Joan was leaning on the back of his chair. She was making some suggestion as to pecuniary profit to herself and Nancy from the day's sport, which yet should not amount to a bet.

"Hullo, old man!" said Humphrey. "Joan, ring the bell. Everything must be cold by this time."

Joan hesitated. Such a proceeding was unheard of at Kencote, where, if people came down late for breakfast, they must expect it to be cold.

But Bobby Trench politely antic.i.p.ated her. "Don't you trouble, Miss Joan," he said, going to the bell himself. "I say, are you going to stand with me to-day and see me shoot?"

If Nancy had been there to support her she would have asked innocently, "Can you shoot?" for although she liked being addressed as "Miss Joan,"

she did not like Bobby Trench's free and easy air. But maiden modesty replied for her, "I think I'm going with Humphrey."

"She wants me to give her a shilling for every bird I miss, and she'll give me sixpence for every one I knock over. How does that strike you for a soft thing?"

A footman came in at that moment, and looked surprised at the order that was given him.

"Do you want heverythink cooked, sir, or only some fresh tea?" he asked, with a glance at the table where the lamps were still sizzling under the hot dishes.

"We live a life of rigid punctuality in this house," Humphrey apologised, when he had retired with his order. "They don't understand renewing the supplies."

"Sorry to give so much trouble," replied Bobby Trench, "but I'm pretty peckish, to tell you the truth. Dancing always gives me a twist. Look here, Miss Joan, I'll bet you half a dozen pair of gloves I kill more birds than Humphrey."

"Take him, Joan; it's a certainty," said Humphrey.

Joan was secretly enchanted at being treated as of a glovable age, but she answered primly, "Thank you, Mr. Trench, I'm not allowed to bet."

"Oh, ho!" jeered Humphrey. "What about that shilling you and Nancy got from me?"

"d.i.c.k said we ought not to have done it, and we weren't to do it any more," said Joan.

Humphrey was silent. Bobby Trench, who was good-natured enough to take pleasure in the innocent conversation of extreme feminine youth, especially when it was allied to beauty, as in the case of the twins, said, "Well, of course, you must always do what you're told, mustn't you? But I'll tell you what, we won't call it a bet, but if I don't kill more birds than Humphrey I'll give you six pairs of gloves--see?

Only you'll have to stand by me half the time and him half the time, to count."

"Oh, she doesn't want gloves," said Humphrey, with some approach to his father's manner. "Cut along upstairs, Joan, or you'll have Miss Bird after you."

"Miss Bird has departed," said Joan, but she went out of the room, somewhat relieved at the conclusion of what might have developed into an embarra.s.sing episode.

At half-past ten the big shooting-brake appeared at the door, and the whole party, men and women, got into it, with the exception of Mrs.

Clinton, and Lady Aldeburgh and her daughter, who had not yet made an appearance. The Squire had been extremely annoyed at this. "She's as strong as a horse," he had said of his kinsman's wife, "and when she stays in other people's houses she ought to keep their hours. And as for the girl, if she can't get up to breakfast after a ball, she oughtn't to go to b.a.l.l.s. I'll tell you what, Nina, I'm hanged if I'm going to keep the whole party waiting for them. We start at half-past ten sharp, and if you can't rout 'em out by then, you must wait and bring 'em on afterwards in the carriage."

Mrs. Clinton had not felt equal to the task of routing out her guests, and the brake had driven off, within three minutes of the half-hour, without them.

It was a deliciously mild morning. The sun, shining palely in a sky of misty blue, gave it an illusive air of spring; blackbirds whistled in the copses; the maze of tree-twigs in distant woods showed purple against the wet green of the meadows; the air was virginally fresh, and had the fragrance of rich moist earth and a hint of wood smoke. Brown beech leaves still clung to the hedges on either side of the deep muddy country lanes, and blackberries, saturated with dew, on the brambles.

Servants and dogs and guns had been sent on a quarter of an hour before. The Squire, on these important occasions, when he took the cream of his preserves and began at an outlying wood, to finish up just before dark with the home coverts, liked to drive up to the place appointed and find everything ready for an immediate start. Beaters must be in place ready for the whistle on the instant. Guns must be posted for the first drive with no delay whatever. There was a lot to get through before dusk, and no time must be wasted. If those who were asked to shoot at Kencote on the big days did their parts, he--and d.i.c.k--and the keepers would do theirs and show them as pretty a succession of drives, with an occasional walk over stubble or a field of roots to vary the proceedings, as they would get anywhere in England. Only there must be no dawdling, and the women who were permitted to look on must subordinate their uncontrolled natures to the business in hand.

All the arrangements necessary to make the machinery run without a hitch, so that none of the full day's programme should be hurried, meant a great deal of preliminary consultation and adjustment. Bunch, the head-keeper, admirable in his capacity for generalling his little army of beaters and for faithfully carrying out instructions, had no initiative of his own, and the Squire had always relied upon d.i.c.k--and relied on him much more than he knew--for arranging the plan of campaign. This time he had had to do it alone, with much consequent irritation to himself and bewilderment and head-scratching to honest, velveteen-clad Bunch. And he had relied on d.i.c.k's coolness--also much more than he knew--to get the guns posted expeditiously and with as little friction of talk and enquiry as possible. To-day he would have to rely on Humphrey to help him, and Humphrey was as yet untried in this capacity. He was anxious and worried as he drove, sitting on the high box-seat beside his coachman, and itching to handle his horses himself as he always did except on shooting days, when he wanted to save his hands. Usually he sat behind, but this morning he felt he could not take his part in the talk and laughter that went on in the body of the brake. He was not at all sure how the day would turn out.

There were several points at which a hitch might occur. Following a light suggestion of d.i.c.k's, he had arranged to take High Beach Wood the opposite way to that in which it had always been taken, and he was not at all sure that Bunch had fully understood his testily given instructions--or, indeed, that he fully understood them himself. Nor was he quite certain of his guns, and he wanted to kill a respectable head of game. The two local notabilities whom he had invited, old Mr.

Wilkinson, of Birfield, and Colonel Stacey, who lived in a villa in Bathgate, and shot steadily through the season within a radius of forty miles, he could rely on. Humphrey was a good shot, though not so good as d.i.c.k. Sir Herbert Birkett was surprisingly good, for a Londoner, on his day, but when it wasn't his day he was surprisingly bad, and didn't even care enough about it to make the usual lamentations. George Senhouse enjoyed it thoroughly, but never touched a feather.

Hammond-Watt and Bobby Trench he knew nothing whatever about, but it was unlikely that either of them would turn out above the average. He could only hope that they would not turn out very much worse. At any rate, at the best, it was not a team that could be expected to create a record in the Kencote preserves, and at the worst might bring disgrace on them.

He could not help thinking of these things and worrying about them. If d.i.c.k had been there he would have calmed those uneasy tremors. He would have told him that the birds would show up well, even if the guns didn't, that the experts were at least equal to the duffers and the doubtfuls, putting everything in a hopeful light, not antic.i.p.ating any possible hitch, but quite ready to deal with it if it should come.

d.i.c.k never lost sight of the fact that they were out for a day's sport; the Squire fussed and worried so about trifles that all such sense of pleasure was apt to leave him. He had an uneasy, half-defined feeling that his temperament caused him to err in this way, and it made him want d.i.c.k, who could relieve him of the weight of small anxieties, all the more. He was learning how much he had been wont to depend on his son. One of the impulses of appeal and affection, which continually shot across the stiff web of his obstinate determination, came to him now, and if d.i.c.k could have appeared at that moment he would have welcomed him with open arms, and given way in everything. But d.i.c.k was away, he did not know where, and with a sigh he resigned himself to the prospect of a day of anxiety.

They came to an open gate by the roadside and drove in through a strip of wood until they came to an open s.p.a.ce in front of a keeper's cottage. It stood, backed by trees, facing a wide sloping meadow, which was completely surrounded by a wood of oak and beech, intermixed with spruce and some firs. The little group of loaders with their masters' guns and cartridge-bags stood ready by the palings, the glossy coated retrievers waved welcoming tails as the brake drove up, the hoof-beats of the horses m.u.f.fled on the thick gra.s.s. The beaters were already in line at the other end of the wood, far out of sight, waiting for Bunch's signal. There was nothing to do but place the guns and prepare for the stream of pheasants which would presently begin to fly over them. Except that neither Mr. Wilkinson nor Colonel Stacey had yet arrived.

It was the first check to the prompt orderly proceedings of the day.

The Squire, taking his gun from the hands of an under-keeper and filling the pockets of his wide shooting-jacket with cartridges, gave vent to a forcible expression of irritation. "Now there we are, held back at the very start!" he exclaimed. "'Pon my word, it's too bad of those fellows. I told 'em eleven o'clock sharp, and they've shot here dozens of times before and know the place as well as I do."

"It's only just five minutes to eleven," said Humphrey, and as he spoke Mr. Wilkinson's dog-cart drove in from the wood, bringing himself and Colonel Stacey, all ready for immediate business. Before eleven o'clock struck from the cuckoo-clock in the keeper's kitchen the whole party was walking down the meadow to line the borders of the wood and do what execution they might.

Humphrey showed himself efficient in translating the Squire's intentions as to the placing of the guns, from the notes he had jotted down on a sheet of letter paper. He knew that inextricable confusion would arise later if those notes were to be followed literally, but trusted to be able to arrange things by word of mouth when the time came, as most people were content to do.

So they stood and waited. From the keeper's cottage up the hill you could have seen the eight little groups, standing expectantly on the gra.s.s at a short distance from the wood, following the curve of its line. Behind each stood a gaitered loader with another gun ready to hand to his master. The women, in clothes not distinguishable in colour from those of the men, stood with them; the dogs squatted by the side of their masters or tugged at leashes held by the men. Blackbirds popped in and out of the wood, and thrushes, but there were few sounds of life. There was a hush of expectancy, and otherwise only the deep winter stillness of nature, and the pale sun, and the wet odour of the soil.

CHAPTER XV

THE GUNS AND THE LADIES

Nancy stood with her uncle, as she had announced her intention of doing. Sir Herbert, in a Norfolk jacket of voluminous tweed and a green Tyrolean hat, would hardly have been recognised by those who had only seen him in his Judge's robes. He asked Nancy as they were waiting whether she thought he was properly attired. "I like to do the thing thoroughly while I'm about it," he said. "I notice that n.o.body but myself is wearing these b.u.t.toned things--spats I think they call them. I think you might have written, Nancy, to tell me they had gone out of fashion. Do you think I could take them off and throw them away presently? I don't know what good they are. It is only a pa.s.sion for being correctly dressed that induced me to put them on."

"I think they look very nice," said Nancy. "And as for your hat, Uncle Herbert, I'm sure it's the very latest thing, because Humphrey has got one just like it. But it wants a woodc.o.c.k's feather in it."

"Oh, does it? Thank you for telling me. I shall direct my attention to-day to shooting a woodc.o.c.k if one turns up, and robbing him of his feather. It is very unpleasant and takes away your conceit of yourself not to have everything exactly right. With your intelligence you no doubt understand that."

"Joan understands it better than I do," replied Nancy. "She likes to be well dressed. I don't care about it one way or the other."

"Ah! but that's such a mistake," said Sir Herbert, "especially for a female, if I may call you so. When your body is well dressed your mind is well dressed. You should look into that."

"I have," said Nancy. "It's all a question of b.u.t.tons."

What she meant by this aphorism did not appear, for a shot from the right of the line made Sir Herbert spring to attention, and immediately after, with a sudden whir, a high pheasant shot like a bullet over his head, and flying straight into the charge from his gun, turned over in the air and fell with a thud on the gra.s.s far behind him.

"Glorious!" exclaimed the Judge. "I'm in form." But although he fired many barrels during the next few minutes, in which a hot fusillade was going on on the right and on the left, and birds were falling, clean shot, or sliding to the ground with wings outspread, or continuing their swift flight unshaken, he brought only one down, with a broken wing, which ran off into the shaugh at the top of the hill.

"Now that is most disappointing," he said, when the tap-tap of the beaters' sticks could be heard, and they began to emerge from the wood one by one. "I really did think I was going to shoot well to-day.

Life is full of such delusive hopes."