The Red Derelict Part 26

"Do you know, Miss Calmour, Reggie is the most provoking child. It's simply impossible to tease him. I'm always trying, and you've just got a sample of how I succeed. Is he the same at Hillside, Gerard?"

"Can't tell tales out of school."

Then Yvonne retorted, and the banter went on fast and furious, but always good-tempered, and sometimes really humorous, until it finally merged into plans for fishing on the morrow.

"They are threatening to take us all down to the west park presently, Miss Calmour," said Wagram soon after lunch. "Do you feel up to that amount of exertion?"

Delia replied that she would have been delighted, only it was time to think of getting back.

"Of getting back?" repeated Wagram. "Are you obliged to? Because if not, won't you stay and play for us again this evening? It would be a great help."

"Yes; do stay, Miss Calmour," urged Yvonne, cordially impulsive.

"There will be a bright moon to ride back by, and I can offer you my escort."

"Can I go too, pater?" said Gerard, eagerly scenting the fun of a moonlight bicycle ride.

"Certainly. You wouldn't leave your venerated dad to return over three miles of lonely road unprotected, would you?"

"Then I shall be very pleased to stay," answered the girl, her whole face lighting up. Days such as this const.i.tuted to her everything that was worth living for, and now there was more of it before her than behind.

The old Squire had withdrawn, laughingly explaining that he could not do without his forty winks on a hot Sunday afternoon. The workings of Fate, or Providence, are indeed strange. Some such working it must have been that moved Haldane to declare that he too felt drowsy, and it was much too hot for exercise. In a word, he resisted all persuasion to join in the walk; had he yielded the subsequent events of this our history might have turned out very differently.

They reached the paddock, and the great sable antelope, which was inclined to be tame, condescended to stalk up in a lordly manner and be fed with some crusts they had brought for the purpose. The gnus, however, kept their distance away in the middle, whisking their tails, and prancing, and shaking their fierce-looking heads. Suddenly Wagram, chancing to look round, became aware of the propinquity of a stranger.

He was a little distance off along the fence, and with the aid of a bough had managed to climb up, and was holding on, watching the animals.

"That's a cool customer," he said after watching him for a few minutes.

"I must go and talk to him."

"Going to turn him away, pater?" asked Gerard.

"No, I won't do that; but I'll drop him a friendly hint that he mustn't make this the scene of his daily walks. You remain here."

The stranger was not in the least confused or apologetic as Wagram accosted him. The latter recognised with some interest the weather-beaten, white-bearded face of the man who had been pointed out to him as Develin Hunt.

"Good specimens these," he said approvingly. "I've shot many of them, so I ought to know."

"Yes. They'd be dangerous if they weren't shut in," said Wagram.

"Very likely. Wild animals enclosed generally do get that way."

"Now you're here you're welcome to look at them," said Wagram pleasantly, "but I thought I'd just mention that this is private ground."

The man dropped from his perch with a cat-like nimbleness, rather noticeable in one of his apparent years.

"Meaning I'm trespa.s.sing?" he said shortly.

"That's the word," laughed Wagram. "But, as I said before, as you are here pray see all you came to see; I have no wish that you should hurry away. Good-afternoon."

The stranger stood gazing after him.

"So that's Wagram Wagram!" he said to himself. "Why, chalk from cheese isn't in it in the difference between him and that bright boy Everard.

Lord, Lord! it's a rum world. To think that now he should be turning me off, and soon I shall be turning him off--bag and baggage. But I hope it won't come to that. No; somehow or other I don't think it will. He has every inducement to be reasonable--oh, and I hope he will. He's a fine fellow, but--necessity knows no law."

"I say, pater, that chap's got some cheek," said Gerard as his father rejoined them. "Look, he hasn't moved. Didn't you tell him to clear?"

"No; I told him he needn't hurry as he was here."

And, indeed, the stranger seemed to have taken Wagram literally at his word, for he had climbed up again to his former position, and was placidly puffing at a pipe.

"Look at those three, Miss Calmour," said Wagram presently, referring to the children, who had started some romping game; "they can no more keep quiet for half-an-hour when they get together than a lot of kittens.

Yvonne is generally the one who sets it going. Look at her now--issuing her commands as usual."

The tall, beautiful child was standing erect, her blue eyes sparkling, and cheeks flushed with the glow of health and exercise, tossing back the golden flash of her flowing hair. There was grace in each unstudied gesticulation, music in the high, sweet key in which she was expostulating rapidly with her playfellows.

"She is too sweet," murmured Delia.

"Isn't she? By the way, you haven't told me yet what you think of my son and heir--"

Breaking off, the speaker turned. It was only the trespa.s.sing stranger, who raised his hat and pa.s.sed on his way.

"--Though, really, it's hardly a fair question, as coming from me."

"I think he's one of the best-looking and best-mannered boys I've ever seen; Mr Haldane's son is the other."

"You do us proud," laughed Wagram. "But Hilversea is a dullish place for one boy to get through his holidays in, shut up with two old fogeys, so he's generally over at Haldane's, or Haldane's boy is over here.

They divide it up between them, and get all the fun they want."

Delia was about to reply that she could not imagine the word "dull" in connection with Hilversea under any circ.u.mstances whatever; but it struck her that the remark would sound ba.n.a.l, and she refrained.

"We shall be going North on Thursday for the grouse," he went on.

"Haldane and I always 'split' a moor. Then these young scamps will be in clover. We're going to let them take out a gun this time, and they're about half mad with antic.i.p.ation."

"I expect so," said Delia, to whom, however, the whole of this announcement brought a heart-sinking. She knew enough by this time of the manners and customs of Hilversea to be aware that such a move was probable; but somehow, now that it was on the eve of becoming an accomplished fact--well, she felt depressed. "Does old Mr Wagram shoot?"

"Doesn't he! If he isn't quite so good at right and left now as a few years back, even yet he can hold his own with the great majority. We must round up those riotous children now and begin strolling homeward."

Of late something had occurred to Wagram and set him wondering, and to-day it struck him more than ever. This was a certain unaccountable change which had come over this girl. She seemed of late to have acquired a subtle and unconscious refinement, not only in speech and manner but also in look, which certainly was not there when he had first made her acquaintance under dramatic circ.u.mstances; indeed, were that acquaintance to be made over again, and now, a.s.suredly one dictum in which he had summed her up would be omitted. The fact was there, but there was no explaining it. It puzzled him. To one other this change had become manifest, and her it did not puzzle at all. That one was Clytie; and, going over things in her mind, that extremely attractive schemer nodded her plotting head complacently and smiled to herself.

The westering sunlight flooded down upon the vernal sheen of tossing oak foliage and smoothly undulating gra.s.s with a richness of glow that was well-nigh unearthly in the sensuous stillness of the August evening.

One of this group sauntering there it thrilled through and through. The children, excited with their game, were laughing and chattering-- frequently all at once. But Delia, while bearing her part as brightly and intelligibly as ever in conversation with her host, was conscious of an absorbing _arriere-pensee_--that, if there were such a thing as a day of paradise, she was going through just that. The while a yet further back and subtle thread of thought kept crying aloud that the paradise was a fool's paradise.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

A FORCED HAND.

"Now then, old josser, where are you coming to? have you bought the whole room or only half, eh?"