it did not take dick long to find out on that next (sunday) morning that his diplomacy had failed, that his father, urged by his fears, had discovered what he would have hidden from him for a time, or thought he had discovered it, which came to the same thing, since it was true, and that he might just as well have announced his intention of marrying virginia dubec, and entered at once upon the struggle which was now bound to come in any case.
nothing was said on either side, and the squire did his best to behave as usual. but the attempt was too much for him, and there was no one who did not know before breakfast was over that there was a disturbance in the air. he would enter upon a course of conversation with gaiety, and relinquish it immediately to frown upon his plate. he grumbled at everything upon the table, and testily rebuked the twins for fidgeting. they took the rebuke calmly, knowing quite well what it portended, and were only anxious to discover the cause of the upset.
"it's this lady george dubec," said joan, when they were alone together. "there's something fishy about her; it must have come out after we were sent away yesterday. father thinks he's emperor of this part of meadshire, and he doesn't like her coming here without his being consulted."
"i don't think it's that at all," said nancy. "i believe it's humphrey's debts. father has got pots of money, but he hates shelling it out. he was snappy with humphrey this morning."
"so he was with everybody but dick. that proves nothing. a week's pocket-money that it's this lady george."
"dick said we weren't to bet."
"oh, well, perhaps we'd better not, then. he was a brick about the camera. i don't suppose he's concerned in it, whatever it is. with father, dick does no wrong."
"i'm not sure. joan, supposing dick has fallen in love with lady george and father is upset about it!"
"oh, my dear, do talk sense. dick in love with a widow!"
"stranger things have happened. anyhow, we'll leave no stone unturned to find out what it is."
"oh, we'll ferret it out all right. it will add to the interest of life."
there was one thing that the squire always did on the rare occasions on which he found himself in a dilemma, and that was to consult his half-brother, the rector. consequently when, after church, meeting mrs. beach, the rector's wife, in the churchyard, he asked her if she and tom would come up to luncheon, dick, overhearing him, smiled inwardly and a little ruefully, and pictured to himself the sitting that would be held in the afternoon, when the rector would be invited into the library and the squire would unbosom himself of his difficulties. dick himself had often joined in these conclaves. "let's see what tom has to say about it," his father would say. "he has a good head, tom." dick would be left out of this conclave, but as he thought of the line that his uncle was likely to take, he half wished that he had had a conclave with him himself beforehand. the rector was a man of peace, a lovable man, who hated to see any one uncomfortable, and perhaps, for a churchman, hated a little too much to run the risk of discomfort himself. probably he would have sympathised. certainly he would have brought no hard judgment to bear on virginia, whatever she had done and whatever she had been. however, it was too late to think of that now, and when joan asked him at luncheon if he would go for a walk with them in the afternoon, he took the bull by the horns and said that he was going to drive over to blaythorn.
"by the by," said mrs. beach, not noticing the squire's sudden frown, "have you heard that mr. marsh has let his rectory to a hunting lady?"
"yes," said dick, "lady george dubec. she is a friend of mine, and i'm going over to see her."
never had the squire spoken with more difficulty. but it behoved him to speak, and to speak at once. "i am very sorry she has come," he said. "she is a friend of dick's in london, but we can't recognise her here at kencote."
except that the servants were not in the room it was a public throwing down of the gage of battle. it amounted on the squire's part to an affront of his son, the being beloved best in the world, and he would have put it on him if the whole household had been present. but what it cost him to do so could be told from his moody fits of silence during the rest of the meal, his half-emptied plate and his twice-emptied glass.
dick took the blow without flinching, although he was inwardly consumed with anger, not at the affront to himself, but to virginia. "we are a little behind the times at kencote," he said lightly. "but we shall probably fall into line by and by."
the squire made no answer. he had shot his bolt and had none of the ammunition of repartee at hand. the awkward moment was covered by the immediate flow of conversation, but he took little or no part in it, and it was a relief when the meal was over.
when the squire had led the way into the library and shut the door upon himself and the rector, he broke out at once. "tom, you heard what happened. dick is out of his mind about this woman. unless something can be done to stop it, a dreadful day is coming to kencote."
the rector, tall, fleshy, slow in movement, mild of speech, was astonished. "my dear edward!" he exclaimed. "i did not gather from what passed that—that this meant anything serious."
"oh, serious!" echoed the squire, half distraught. "it's as serious as it can be, tom." and he told him in his own decisive manner exactly how serious it seemed to him to be. "a hunting woman!" he ended up. "i could have forgiven that. i can't deny that women do hunt, now, who wouldn't have done in our young days. an american! well, people do marry them nowadays—but an american at kencote after all these generations! think of it, tom! and if that were only the worst! but a stage dancer! a woman who has shown herself before the public—for money! and a widow!—a woman who has been married to one of the worst blackguards in england. you remember him, tom—at eton."
"no," said the rector. "he was before my time."
"before your time—yes, and three or four years older than i am. he'd have been an old man if he'd been alive now. and it's the widow of that man my son wants to marry. isn't it too shameful, tom? what can have come over him? he has never acted in this sort of way before. my boy dick! in everything that has ever happened to annoy me, he has always behaved just exactly as i would have my son behave. and now he brings this trouble on me. oh, tom, tell me what on earth i'm to do."
the poor gentleman was so overcome with distress that it was pitiful to witness. the rector knew how he took things—hard at first, and bringing his heaviest weight of resistance to bear upon the lightest obstacles, but calming down after he had been humoured a bit, accepting the inevitable like a sensible man, and making the best of it. but this was beyond the point at which he could be humoured. it struck at all that he held dearest in life, the welfare of his son, the dignity of his house. he would not give way here, whatever distress it cost him to hold out.
"have you seen this lady, edward?" asked the rector.
"oh, seen her! no," replied the squire. "why should i want to see her? she may be good-looking. they say she is. i suppose dick wouldn't have fallen in love with her if she were not, and at any rate women who are not good-looking don't become pets of the stage, as i'm told this woman was. pah! it's beyond everything i could have believed of dick. i would rather he had married the daughter of a farm-labourer—a girl of clean healthy english stock. to bring a creature from behind the footlights and make her mistress of kencote—a soiled woman—that's what she is, even if she has never sold herself—and who knows that she hasn't? she did sell herself—to a broken-down roué, a man old enough to be her father—for his wretched title, i suppose. and now she wants to buy kencote, and my son, dick, the straightest, finest fellow a father ever had reason to be proud of. i tell you, tom, the world ought to be delivered of these harpies. they ought to be locked up, tom, locked up, and the wickedness whipped out of them."
"has dick said that he wanted to marry her?" asked the rector, anxious to bring this tirade, which was gathering in intensity, to an end.
"it's as plain as it can be. he has brought her down here, and he wants us to take her up."
"well, but is that all, edward? surely you have more to go on than that, if you have made up your mind that he wants to marry her."
"i have more to go on. he told me only two nights ago that he was quite ready to marry, and that he wouldn't marry a girl. that's plain english, isn't it? and this comes just on top of it. why, he had her down here—fixed it all up for her—and never said a word to us till after we'd heard from outside that she was there. there are a lot of things. i can put two and two together as well as anybody, and i haven't a doubt of it. and i asked him definitely, yesterday, and he didn't deny it."
"he didn't acknowledge it, i suppose."
"i tell you he didn't deny it. he gave me an evasive answer. that isn't like dick. she has had a bad influence on him already. don't waste time in trying to persuade me that black is white, tom. tell me how i am to stop this."
the rector could not tell him how to stop it. he knew very well that dick was a stronger man than his father, and that if he had made up his mind to do a thing he would do it. but he still doubted whether he had made up his mind to do this particular thing. he thought that the squire was probably alarming himself needlessly, and with all the art that lay in his power he tried to persuade him that it was so. "young men," he ended, "do make friends with women they wouldn't want to marry. you know that is so, edward. it is no use shutting your eyes to facts."
"yes, but they don't bring them down to their homes for their mothers and sisters to make friends with," retorted the squire. "it's the last thing dick would do, and i'd rather he did what he's doing now, bad as it is, than do a thing like that. he's hypnotised—that's what it is—he thinks she's a good woman—everything she ought to be——"
"and perhaps she is a good woman, edward, and everything she ought to be," interrupted the rector, speaking more emphatically than was his wont, for in his simple unworldliness it had not occurred to him that his last words could bear the interpretation the squire had put upon them, and he was rather scandalised. "i say that you ought to hold your judgment until you have seen her, and know something of her at first hand. i do not believe that dick would expect his family to make friends with a lady who was not above reproach, and i certainly never meant for a moment to imply that he would do such a thing as make love to a woman he did not intend to marry. when i said that men make friends with women, i meant no more than i said."
"well, you're a parson," said his brother, "and you've got to keep your eyes shut to certain things that go on, i suppose."
"no, edward, that is not the duty of a parson," returned the rector. "i shut my eyes to nothing. it seems to me that you do. it seems to me that you shut your eyes to what you know of dick's character. you picture to yourself a vulgar, scheming adventuress. i say that if dick is in love with this lady, as you say he is, she is not that, but something very different, and i say again that you ought to withhold your judgment until you have seen her."
"as far as seeing her goes," grumbled the squire, "there's nothing easier than that. i shall see her at the covert-side, and i dare say i shall see her scampering all over the county covered with mud, and getting in the way of the hounds. women are an infernal nuisance in the hunting-field. well, you don't give me much comfort, tom. still, it does one some good to talk over one's troubles. i'm afraid this is going to be a big trouble—the biggest i've ever had in my life."
"then don't meet it half-way," said the rector. "you don't know for certain that dick wants to marry her, and if he does she can't be anything like you have imagined her. i'm afraid i must go now, edward. i have to look in at the sunday-school."
"well, good-bye, tom, my dear fellow. tell 'em in the sunday-school to obey their parents. yes, for this is right, by george! the bible says. and so it is; if children would obey their parents, half the trouble in the world would disappear."
dick was not best pleased, when he drove up to the door of blaythorn rectory, to hear that her ladyship had gone for a walk with miss dexter, and would not be back for an hour or more. he had not told her that he was coming over, and had not intended to do so. horses were not taken out of the kencote stables on sundays without necessity. he said he would wait, and went into the drawing-room to get what consolation he could out of his own thoughts until virginia should return.
he had been there about half an hour, sometimes walking up and down the room, sometimes reading a few pages of a book and throwing it impatiently on one side, sometimes sitting staring moodily into the fire, when he heard voices in the hall. a look of relief came over his face and he got up, prepared to greet virginia, when the door was opened and mrs. graham was shown into the room. she was dressed in her usual serviceable walking clothes and had a dog-whip in her hand, although she had left her dogs for the time being outside.
"good gracious, dick!" she exclaimed. "they told me there was nobody here."
"the other maid let me in," said dick. he could not for the life of him prevent himself feeling and looking shamefaced.
mrs. graham took no notice of it. she walked straight to a little writing-table in the corner of the room and sat down. "as i suppose you are wondering what on earth i am doing here," she said, "i'll tell you. i had a letter this morning from anne conyers, who asked me to come and see lady george, as she didn't know a soul in the county. i'm only too pleased to; we're such a set of rustics here that it does us good to get somebody new, if they're not nincompoops like those people we've just got rid of at mountfield. i thought i would drop in this afternoon. if she's sensible she won't mind my coming in these clothes. if she isn't i don't want to know her. you know her; you don't think she'll mind, eh?"
"oh, of course not."
"i'm just going to write her a note asking her to dine to-morrow. jim and muriel are coming, and roddy buckstone. will you and humphrey come, dick? we don't want too many women."
"i don't know about humphrey. i shall be pleased to."
"well, that's all right. you might take a message from me to humphrey."
"i'd rather you wrote a note to him—and posted it."
"oh!" said mrs. graham in a voice that invited explanation.
but dick gave none.
"lady george has a friend staying with her—miss dexter," he said. "you'd better ask her too, i think."
"oh, of course. thank you for telling me. miss dexter."
she wrote her note, fastened and directed it, dwelling rather deliberately on the process as she neared its completion. she seemed as if she were turning over in her mind something to say, but finally rose, and said, "well, i suppose she'll get that when she comes in. i'll take myself and the dogs back to mountfield now."
"why don't you wait and see her?" asked dick, rather grudgingly, for he didn't want mrs. graham to stay. "she can't be long now."
mrs. graham looked at him shrewdly. "i don't think i will," she said. "she'll be out with the hounds to-morrow, i suppose. look here, dick, i don't know whether i'm a fool to say anything or not, and i don't want to mix myself up in other people's business, but anne conyers told me that lady george was a friend of yours, and that you had got her this house. we'll see that she gets on here all right."
she gave him a knowing nod which made him reply—
"oh, you mean that there's likely to be trouble at kencote. well, i don't mind telling you that there is trouble. my father announced to-day before tom and grace and the whole family that lady george dubec might be good enough for me to know in london, but she wasn't good enough for him or anybody to know at kencote." he spoke bitterly, and as mrs. graham, who knew him well, had never heard him speak of his father.
"did he?" she said. "well, that's what, if i were a man, i should call rather thick. still, he'll probably come round, and if he doesn't he is not the only person in south meadshire, though he sometimes behaves as if he thought he was. good-bye, dick; to-morrow at eight o'clock, then. i'll write to humphrey, though i shan't break my heart if he doesn't come."
dick let her out at the front door, where she was vociferously greeted by her pack, and then returned to the drawing-room. "and i wonder what she'll be thinking as she goes home," he said to himself.
virginia came into the room alone when she and miss dexter returned. dick could hear her glad little cry of surprise outside when she was told he was there, and it made him catch his breath with a queer mixture of sensations. she brought a cool fresh fragrance into the room with her, and he thought he had never seen her look sweeter, with her rather frail beauty warmed into sparkling life by the exercise she had taken in the sharp winter air and her pleasure at finding him there on her return.
sitting by her side on the sofa he told her what had happened, and she took the news thoughtfully and sadly. "he must be rather terrible, your father," she said, "and cleverer than you thought too, dick, if he suspects already what is between us."
"oh, i suppose it's i who am not so clever as i thought myself," he said. "when he asked me point-blank i couldn't tell him a lie. but i own i never thought he would ask me. it was from something i had said to him the night before, about not wanting to marry a youngster. i don't know why on earth i was fool enough to say it, and put him on the scent. i suppose i was thinking such a lot of you, my girl. i can't get you out of my head, you know. but the fact is i'm not cut out for a conspirator, virginia, and now that all my carefully laid plans have come to nothing, i'm not sure that i'm not rather relieved."
"you think they have quite come to nothing, dick?"
"it looks like it. we shall know to-morrow. i still think—what i've always thought and built upon—that if he once sees you——"
"dear dick! but it's rather late for that now, if he has heard all about me, and has made a picture of me in his mind."
"well, it's such a preposterous picture, that the reality can't help striking him. we won't do anything until after we know what has happened at the meet. and by the by, there's a dinner invitation for you for to-morrow evening." he told her about mrs. graham and gave her her note.
"that is very kind of mrs. graham," she said. "i forgot to tell you that i knew her sister-in-law. i'm afraid we shan't have much opportunity of talking there, dick."
so they talked where they were for a long time, until the dusk fell and the maid came in with the lights and the tea, and miss dexter after her, and the result of their talk was that they felt things were not as bad as they looked. dick's father would relent some day, and until he did they had each other.
