"my dear emmeline," said the judge, "if i hadn't such a profound contempt for edward's intellect and for everything represented or misrepresented by him, i could feel it in my heart to be very sorry for him."
"my dear herbert," replied lady birkett, "if you weren't as deeply sorry for him as you actually are, you wouldn't be your own kind, sympathetic, would-be-cynical self."
sir herbert and lady birkett with their two daughters and their son-in-law had arrived at kencote that afternoon to make part of the company gathered there for the south meadshire hunt ball. other guests had arrived by a later train, but there had been an interval during which the judge had been closeted with his brother-in-law, the squire, and heard from him everything that had taken place within the past month, which was the interval that had elapsed since dick had abruptly left kencote. he had now come into his wife's bedroom, where she was in the later stages of dressing for dinner, although dinner was as yet half an hour off.
"i know you want to tell me everything," she said, "and although the lady who is doing my hair does not understand a word of english as yet, you will probably be able to talk more freely if she is not present. if you will come back in five minutes she will have gone to angela."
so the judge went into his dressing-room and, finding his clothes already laid out, dressed and repaired again to his wife, not quite in five minutes, but in little more than ten.
"i suppose you have heard all about it from nina?" he said, taking up the conversation where he had left it. "have you seen this lady george dubec?"
"yes," said lady birkett. "she is not in the least what edward pictures her, according to nina. as far as her looks tell one anything, i should say she was a charming woman."
"edward paints her as a voluptuous siren of the ballet. i suppose one may put that down as one of his usual excursions of imagination."
"she certainly isn't that, and it was news to me that she had ever been on the stage. poor nina is very distressed about it. she says that they have had no word from dick since he left the house, that edward has only heard through humphrey that he has sent in his papers, but even humphrey doesn't know where he is or what he is doing."
"i had the same news from edward, with the additions which might be expected of him. he takes it hard that after all he has done for dick he should be treated in that way, and i don't know that i shouldn't take it hard in his place. it makes me increasingly thankful that i haven't any sons."
this was a polite little fiction on the judge's part which his wife respected. it was the chief regret of his life that he had no son.
"nina says he is fretting himself into a fever," said lady birkett, "lest dick should be raising money on his expectations."
"fretting himself into a fever," replied the judge, "is not the expression i should use of edward. but he certainly feels deep annoyance, and expresses it. he had not thought of that when he delivered his ultimatum, and, as he says, it would be the easiest possible thing for dick to do. but i was mercifully able to relieve his mind on that point. i did not exactly tell him that dick, although he has more brains in his little finger than his father has in his head, is so much like him that he would shrink from taking so sensible a step as much as edward himself would; but i gave him the gist of it. my dear emmeline, to men like edward and dick, land—landed property—is sacrosanct. dick would give up any woman rather than embarrass an acre of kencote. kencote is his religion, just as much as it is edward's. edward gained comfort from my assuring him of the fact. he said that dick was behaving so badly that right and wrong seemed to have no distinction for him for the time being, but probably there were crimes that he would not commit, and this might be one of them."
"i am glad you told him that," said lady birkett. "i should think it is probably true. but what is he doing, or thinking of doing?"
"he may be thinking of doing a little honest work," said the judge, who had sat for some time in the house of commons as a wicked radical. "i put the suggestion to edward for what it was worth, but he scouted it. as he indicated, there is nothing that a man who has been through a public school and university training, and has been for ten or fifteen years in a position of responsibility in his majesty's army, can do. he has no money value whatever. i did not contradict him."
"she has money, i suppose," said lady birkett.
"she must have some. but there again i felt able to reassure edward. i know the dicks of the world pretty well. they are not without their merits, and there are certain things they don't do. of course, if he were working, and making some sort of an income, with his prospects it would be different."
lady birkett let this go by. "will edward hold out, do you think?" she asked.
"well," said the judge reflectively, "i'm bound to say it surprises me, but there is every sign of his holding out till doomsday, or, which puts a more likely period to it, till something unforeseen happens."
"till he hears that dick has married her, for instance."
"there wouldn't be much object in his holding out after that. but there is seldom much object in edward's divagations. he is swayed by his prejudices and by the impulses of the moment. still, i'll do him justice: he is acting as sensibly as he knows how in this crisis. i believe he loves dick better than any being upon earth, with the possible exception of himself. i really believe he loves him better than himself. of course dick represents kencote, and the family, and the line, and all the whole clamjamphrie, which partly accounts for it. at any rate he is causing his stupid old self an infinity of worry and annoyance, and all for the sake of what he considers a principle. i should say that dick is acting foolishly in holding off altogether. i dare say nina told you he has not answered a single letter. it has always struck me that he had edward completely under his thumb, and i should have said that he had only to hang on here and play his cards well and edward would have given way. now he is stiffening himself up."
"i suppose they are both stiffening themselves up."
"you put it in a nutshell. fancy edward giving up his season's hunting so that he shan't be obliged to set eyes on his aversion! that impresses me. he is in dead earnest. he will stop this marriage if he can."
"but dick is just as obstinate."
"it is the case of the irresistible body and the immovable force."
"didn't you make any suggestion?"
"yes, i did. i suggested that he should stipulate for a year's delay. i pointed out that if the lady was the bad character he supposes her to be, dick, with the sense he has inherited from his father—i said that, god forgive me—would come to see it in that time."
"did he take to the idea?"
"not at all. when did edward ever take to any idea at first sight? but it will sink in, and i shall give tom beach a hint to follow it up."
"i believe it will be the best way, and nina is going to try and see dick when she comes up with me next week."
the judge stroked his chin. "h'm!" he said. "i'm afraid nina has very little power to help matters."
"i am much more sorry for nina than i am for edward."
"oh, so am i," interpolated the judge.
"it is the thing i can least forgive dick—his treating his mother practically in the same way as edward treats her—as if she were of no account. it doesn't promise well for the happiness of this lady george, or whoever he does come to marry."
"let's hope for her own sake that she won't make nina's mistake."
"you mean——"
"oh, nina laid herself down to be trampled on from the very first. she had plenty of character. she could have stood out. now, whatever character she has has been buried under a mountain weight of stolid stupidity. she can't call her soul her own."
"i think she would act—and against edward—if she saw her way to act effectively."
"she would be laying up a pretty bad time for herself if she did act against edward in any way."
"oh, but she wouldn't mind that if she thought it was her duty."
"well, she can try. and she might put that idea of mine to dick. let him promise not to marry the lady for a year. he has been a bachelor for thirty-five or so, and he can stand another. i believe it might be the solution. i suppose we had better be going down now."
it was an unusually large party for kencote that assembled at dinner. the squire took in lady aldeburgh, who must have been five-and-forty if a day, but either by a special dispensation of providence, or by mysterious arts marvellously concealed, was still enabled to present herself to the world as eight-and-twenty. the squire did not quite approve of this, but the illusion was so complete that he found himself talking to her as if she were a girl. she was beautifully gowned in blue and silver, and wore the aldeburgh diamonds, which sparkled on the clear white skin of her neck, on her corsage, and in the smooth ripples of her hair. she was attractive enough to the eye to make it possible for her to indulge in moods for the heightening of her charm. sometimes she was all childish gaiety and innocence; sometimes the deep melancholy of her soul looked out of her violet eyes, which were so good that they had to be given their chance; sometimes she was ice. this evening she had begun on a pouting note, which she had often found effective with elderly gentlemen, but finding the squire impervious to its appeal and plainly puzzled by it, remembering also that she had on her diamonds, she had exchanged it for the air of a grande dame, humanised by maternal instinct.
"mother is telling mr. clinton how she has devoted herself to my bringing-up," whispered lady susan to humphrey. "is he likely to be impressed at all, do you think?"
"he is likely to be bowled over by the result," replied humphrey gallantly, and lady susan, who was not so pretty as her mother, and only slightly more sensible, told him not to be an idiot.
of lady birkett's two daughters, beatrice, the elder, had been accompanied by her husband, sir george senhouse, the rising young politician, whose handsome, intellectual head would have made him remarked anywhere, but whose bent shoulders, grey temples, and carelessness of dress made him seem older than his years. the younger, angela, sat by the man she was going to marry, hammond-watt, the youngest k.c. at the bar. the inclusion of these two men in the party had caused bobby trench, humphrey's friend, to ask if he had come to kencote for a ball or a political meeting, and to suggest the advisability of clearing out again before he should be asked for a speech. this young gentleman, to whom the accident of birth had brought the privilege of taking in his hostess, and whose other neighbour had been beatrice birkett, asked himself before dinner was over what he had come for, ball or no ball. he was accustomed to shine in smart country houses, and kencote was not at all smart. he had found mrs. clinton unresponsive to his light chatter, and angela birkett so taken up with the conversation of her k.c. that she had little attention to spare for him. george senhouse, who sat opposite to him, made no effort to follow his lead, and, in fact, ignored him as far as possible, which secretly annoyed him. lady aldeburgh, who would have permitted him to flirt with her, was beyond his reach, and her daughter was too much taken up with humphrey to do more than exchange a light sally or two with him. he was reduced to eating his dinner, which was a very good one, and, in large intervals of silence, to gazing around upon the company and inwardly ejaculating, "never again!"
when the ladies had left the room the squire, with old-fashioned courtesy, brought the decanters down to his end of the table and engaged him in conversation about his father.
"i recollect very well," said the squire, in his loud, confident tones, "when cane chair won the derby at thirty-to-one, by george!—dear me, i should be afraid to say how many years ago. he belonged to your grandfather, and of course we were all on him. your father and i——"
"oh yes, he's told me that story dozens of times," said bobby trench.
"oh!" said the squire, somewhat disconcerted. "yes, i suppose he has."
"we haven't heard it dozens of times," said george senhouse. "what was the story, mr. clinton?"
the squire turned towards him and his face lightened. "i haven't thought about it for years," he said. "it's just come back to me. jim trench and i made up our minds we would go and see the horse run, so we got out of a window at four o'clock in the morning—did i say it was when we were at cambridge together?—and drove tandem to hitchin, where we got a train to london. i recollect we had sent on a change of horses to—to some place half-way. we slunk about amongst the crowd, as jim's father was particular—wouldn't bet even on his own horses and all that sort of thing, and i don't blame him; i haven't had a bet on a horse since i was in the blues;—and he wouldn't have taken it well to see jim at epsom when he ought to have been at cambridge. well, we saw the horse win, and, by george! i should be afraid to say how much money your father"—here he turned again towards bobby trench—"took off the bookies."
"pots," said bobby laconically. "but he lost it all over the leger."
"ah, well, the best thing he could have done," said the squire. "i had put on a tenner, and both of us had had a little ready-money transaction on the course after we'd seen the horse canter; so we went back to london with a pocketful each, and by george!"—here the squire laughed his great laugh—"we'd dropped it all to a pack of card-sharpers before we got there. we were pretty green in those days, and it was all our own fault, so we didn't quarrel with the fellows—we'd tried to have them, and they'd had us instead. we made 'em show us how it was done, so that we shouldn't be had again, and i recollect they said we were a couple of good sportsmen and gave us a sovereign or two back to get us to cambridge, or we should have had to walk there, by george!
"but that wasn't the end of it," proceeded the squire after he had done justice to his youthful memories with a hearty laugh. "we celebrated the occasion with a supper of the true blue club, in your father's rooms—has he told you that?"
"i don't know whether he's ever told me the truth about it," admitted bobby trench.
"weil, it's a long time ago," said the squire, "and we were all young and foolish. it was a lively supper, and your father went out for a little fresh air. they used to keep the college buttery stores in barges on the river in those days, and after wandering about a bit and climbing a few fences and gates for purposes of his own he found himself on the st. john's barge. then he thought he'd like a bath, and it didn't somehow occur to him to go in over the side, so he knocked a hole in the bottom of the barge and sank her, by george!"
here the squire interrupted himself to laugh again. "he had all the bath he wanted, and the wonder is he wasn't drowned," he concluded. "well, we had some pretty lively times in those days, and it doesn't do you any harm to recall them occasionally. i should like to see your father again. it must be thirty years since i set eyes on him. wonder if he'd care to come and shoot one of these days?"
bobby trench said he was sure he would be delighted, and undertook to deliver a message, which he fulfilled later on by informing his father that his one-time friend had developed into a regular old turnip-hoer, and if he wanted to sit and listen to long-winded yarns about nothing kencote was the place to go to.
