The Honour of the Clintons Part 4

Bobby Trench laughed good-humouredly. "Well, it's true we _are_ rather a rackety lot nowadays," he said. "I don't know that you haven't got the best of it, after all. I sometimes think I shouldn't mind settling down in the country myself, and doing a bit of gardening. We've started gardening at Brummels. We quarrel like anything about it; it's the greatest sport. You don't go in for it here, I see. But it's a jolly place. You've got lots of opportunities."

The Squire found himself fast losing patience. It was true that he did not go in for gardening, in the modern way, judging that pursuit to be more fitted for the women of the family. Mrs. Clinton had her Spring garden, in which she was allowed to have her own way, within limits, in the matter of designing patterns of bright-coloured flowers; and she was also allowed a say in the arrangement of the summer bedding, as long as she did not interfere too much with the ideas of the head gardener. But as for altering anything on a large scale, or even additional planting of anything more permanent than spring or summer flowers, that was not to be heard of.

And yet the Squire did love his garden, as he loved everything else about his home. He knew every tree and every shrub in it, and was immensely proud of the few rarities which every old garden that has at some time or other been in possession of an owner who has taken a living interest in it possesses. He knew nothing of the modern nurseryman's catalogue, but would gratefully accept a cutting or a root of something he admired from somebody else's garden, and see that it was brought on well and planted in the right place. He belonged to the days of Will Wimble, who was pleased "to carry a tulip-root in his pocket from one to another, or exchange a puppy between a couple of friends that lived perhaps on the opposite sides of the county"; and who shall say that that intimate sort of knowledge of an old-established garden gives less pleasure than the constant changes which modern gardening involves? If his great grandfather, who had called in an eighteenth century innovator to sweep away the old formal gardens of the Elizabethan Kencote, and lay the ground they covered all out afresh, had stayed his hand in the same way, he would have done a good deal better.

The Squire swallowed a cup of tea and rose from his seat. "Well, I have a great deal of work to get through," he said, "so I'll ask you to excuse me. Remember me to your father. It's years since we met, but we were a good deal together as young fellows."

He held out his hand. It was as near a dismissal as he could bring himself to utter under the circ.u.mstances. He would have liked to be in a position to tell Bobby Trench that he did not want him at Kencote, and the sooner he went the better; but he could not very well put his meaning into words.

"Oh, but wait a minute," said the totally unabashed Bobby. "I've come over on important business, Mr. Clinton. I particularly want to have a word with you."

"Well, then, come into my room when you have had your tea," said the Squire. "One of the girls will show you the way."

"Well, it's about Miss Joan I wanted to talk to you," persisted Bobby.

"Of course, you've heard of that unfortunate business at Brummels when she was there a few weeks ago--my mother's necklace being stolen, I mean."

The Squire's face showed rising temper. "I did hear of it," he said.

"d.i.c.k told me, and I asked him particularly not to say anything about it to Joan. I don't want my girls to be mixed up in that sort of thing. Have you told her about it?"

Bobby Trench, marking the air of annoyance, chose to meet it with diplomatic lightness. "Well, none of us want to be mixed up with that sort of thing," he said with a smile. "But I'm afraid we can't help ourselves in this instance. Yes, I told Miss Joan. Of course I thought she knew."

The Squire sat down again, the frown on his brow heavier than ever. "I must say it's very annoying," he said. "To be perfectly frank with you, I was annoyed at my daughter being taken to Brummels at all. Your father is an old friend of mine, and I should say the same to him. I don't like the sort of thing that goes on in houses like yours, and I don't want my children to know the sort of people that go to them. I may be old-fashioned; I dare say I am; but to my mind a woman like that Mrs. Amberley is no fit person for a young girl to come into contact with, and----"

"Well, you're about right there," broke in Bobby Trench, who may have been surprised at this exordium, but was unwilling to have to meet it directly. "She's no fit person for anybody to come in contact with, as it turns out. Still, she's all right in a way, you know. She and my mother were friends as girls, and, of course, her people are all right.

We couldn't tell that----"

"I don't care who her people were," interrupted the Squire in his turn.

"She might be a royal princess for all I care; I say she would still be a disreputable woman. What's happened since only shows that she will stick at nothing. I should have objected just as much to a daughter of mine being asked to meet her if this vulgar theft hadn't happened. In fact, I did object. And a good many other people that haven't got themselves into trouble by stealing necklaces are no better than she is. It's the whole state of society, or what is called such nowadays, that I object to. I won't have my girls mixing with it. There are plenty of good people left who wouldn't have such women as Mrs.

Amberley inside their houses, and they can find their friends amongst them. I'm annoyed that you should have said anything to Joan about what has happened, and I don't want the subject mentioned again."

"Well, I'm sorry, Mr. Clinton," said Bobby. "But we were bound to leave no stone unturned to get at the truth of things; and as it turns out Miss Joan will be a very valuable witness on our side. She saw Mrs. Amberley at the hiding-place, and can only just have escaped seeing her take out what was in it. She----"

"What's this?" exclaimed the Squire terrifically.

Joan met his gaze unflinchingly. The state of her conscience being serene, she was in truth rather enjoying herself, and her father's asperities had long ceased to terrify either her or Nancy. "I told Mr.

Trench what I saw," she said. "Of course I hadn't thought about it before, because I knew nothing of what had happened."

"What did you see?" enquired the Squire.

She told him. He received the information with a snort. "You saw a lady looking at a picture," he said. "What is there in that? I've no doubt that Mrs. Amberley did take the necklace, but if she is going to be charged with it there's not the slightest necessity for your name to be brought in at all. What you saw amounted to nothing."

"Oh, but I think it did," said Bobby Trench. "It was what she looked like when Miss Joan caught her. You said yourself that she looked as if she had been doing something she oughtn't to have done, and was startled at your coming in, didn't you, Miss Joan?"

"Yes," said Joan. "It was just like that. And she blushed scarlet, and then ran away suddenly."

"The fact is," said her father, "that you have imagined all this, because of what you were told. You think you will gain importance by telling a story of that sort; but I tell you I won't have it."

"Oh, father dear," expostulated Joan, "I wouldn't tell stories, you know. I haven't imagined anything. It was all just as I have said."

"Well, then, you had better forget it as soon as you can," said the Squire, changing his ground. "It's a most unpleasant subject, and I won't have you talking about it, do you hear?--either you or Nancy.

Now mind what I say."

He rose from his seat again, as if the subject was finally disposed of.

And again Bobby Trench arrested his departure. "I'm afraid we can't leave it like that, you know, Mr. Clinton," he said. "Miss Joan's evidence is of the greatest possible importance to us. I'm bound to tell my people. Besides, surely you wouldn't want to keep a fact like that back, would you? The necklace is worth six or seven thousand pounds, and if we bring the theft home to Mrs. Amberley, my mother may get some of the pearls back. We've already traced some of them, and know that she has been disposing of them separately."

"Tell your people by all means," said the Squire. "But don't let Joan's name be brought into the trial. I insist upon that. I won't have it."

Bobby Trench stared at this exhibition of blindness to the necessities of the case. He made no reply, probably reflecting that the subpoena which would be served upon Joan would bring those necessities home to the Squire as readily as anything, and that it would be unnecessary to bring additional wrath upon himself by explaining matters beforehand.

It was Mrs. Clinton who, observing his face, said, "I think Mr. Trench means that it will be necessary for Joan to give evidence of what she saw at the trial, if it comes to that," she said.

"What!" exclaimed the Squire, bending his brows upon her. "What can you be thinking of to suggest such a thing, Nina? A girl of Joan's age to give evidence at a criminal trial! A pretty idea, indeed!"

He transferred his glare upon Bobby, who felt uncomfortable. "Absurd old creature!" was his inward comment, but as he made it he looked at Joan, standing in her white frock under the shade of her big hat, and the picture she made appealed so forcibly to his aesthetic sense that he was impelled to an endeavour to put the situation on a better footing.

It would never do to go away saying nothing, and then to launch the bombsh.e.l.l of a subpoena into peaceful, prejudiced Kencote. It would bring Joan into the witness-box, but it would certainly keep Bobby Trench away from her, in the worst possible odour with her resentful parent.

"I know it's a most awful bore, Mr. Clinton," he said. "I'll promise you this, that if Miss Joan can be kept out of it in any way, she shall be. I should hate to see her in the court myself."

"You won't see her there," said the Squire decisively. "But you'll excuse my saying that it won't matter to you one way or the other where you see her. I will write to your father about this business. It's all most infernally annoying, and I wish to goodness you had kept away from us--although I should have been glad enough to see you here if this hadn't happened."

The last statement was not in the least true, but was drawn from him by the contest going on in his mind between his strong dislike of Bobby Trench and his sense of what was required of him towards a guest. He compelled himself to shake hands of farewell, and marched into the house, the set of his back and the way he held his head indicating plainly that he would give free rein to the acute irritation he was feeling when he got there.

There was a pause when he had disappeared through the windows of the library, and then Mrs. Clinton asked quietly, "Do you think there is any chance of Joan not being required to give evidence at the trial?"

"Well, I'll tell you exactly how it is, Mrs. Clinton," said Bobby, relieved at being able to address himself to somebody who was apparently capable of accepting facts. "If Mrs. Amberley would admit that she had stolen the necklace, and give back the pearls she hadn't made away with, we should drop it, and there wouldn't be any more bother. But I'm bound to say that I don't think she will now. It's gone too far. She brazened it out when my father and mother charged her with it, and she'll go on brazening it out. I think it is bound to come into the courts."

"Will she be charged with the theft?"

"That's not quite settled on. She threatened to bring an action against us if we talked about it. And, of course, we _have_ talked.

We are quite ready to meet her action, and would rather it came on in that way. But if she doesn't make a move soon, we shall be obliged to.

It will be the only chance of getting anything back. We have had detectives working, and it is quite certain that she has sold pearls in Paris within the last month. They are ready to swear to her. She has p.a.w.ned one in London, too--in the city. So you see we're quite certain about her. Yet it would only be circ.u.mstantial evidence, for, of course, n.o.body could swear to separate pearls; and she might get off.

What Miss Joan saw would clinch it. I'm awfully sorry about it, since Mr. Clinton feels as he does, but I'm bound to say that I think she ought to be prepared to give her evidence. It wouldn't be fair on us to hold it back, even if it was possible--now would it?"

Mrs. Clinton seemed unwilling to express an opinion, but she told her husband later on, when Bobby Trench had taken himself off, that she feared there would be no help for it, Joan would have to give her evidence, whether they liked it or no.

And so it proved. In answer to his letter to Lord Sedbergh, the Squire received an intimation from his old friend that they had decided to prosecute at once. They had learnt that Mrs. Amberley, who was getting cold-shouldered everywhere, was making arrangements to leave England altogether. They were on the point of having her arrested. He was very sorry that a girl of Joan's age should be mixed up in such an unpleasant affair, but it must be plain that her evidence could not be dispensed with, and he hoped that, after all, the ordeal might not be such a very trying one for her. She would only have to tell her story and stick to it. Everything should be done on their side that was possible to make things easy for her, and the affair would soon blow over.

The Squire, raging inwardly and outwardly, had to bow to circ.u.mstances.

The day after he had received Lord Sedbergh's letter a summons came for Joan to present herself at a certain police court, and he and Mrs.

Clinton took her up to London the same afternoon.

CHAPTER IV

JOAN GIVES HER EVIDENCE

The June sunshine, beating through the dusty windows of the Police Court, fell upon a very different a.s.sembly from that which was usually to be found in that place of mean omen.