Part 13 (2/2)

'We will brave the terrors of the vasty deep together,' said Toffy; 'it's no use your going alone.'

'You ain't up to it,' said Peter gruffly, 'thanks all the same, old chap.'

'I must fly somewhere,' said Toffy, 'it doesn't much matter where.'

'Has the usual acute financial crisis come?' Peter said, looking affectionately at the long, thin figure on the sofa. 'You can't the least deceive me into thinking you had better go into Argentine to hunt for a man who has been missing for twenty-five years. It isn't good enough!'

'I shall have to get a lot of boots,' said Toffy thoughtfully; 'it seems the right sort of thing to do when one is starting on an expedition, and I would rather like to get some of those knives that fellows seem to buy when they go out to South America.'

'You see,' objected Peter, allowing the question of boots and hunting-knives to lapse, 'the place is right enough, I have no doubt, but it's pretty big, and I don't a bit know what is in front of me. I 'll tell you what I will do, though, I 'll send for you as soon as I get there if I find it's a white man's country at all, and then we will jog round together.'

'I suppose we couldn't go in a yacht?' said Toffy, inspired with a sudden suggestion, and sitting up on the sofa full of grave interest.

'There 'd be much less chance of being copped on the pier than if one travelled on a liner. Another thing, I 'm not at all sure that a yacht wouldn't be a good investment; it really is the only way to live economically and keep out of the reach of duns at the same time. A nice little eighty-tonner now, for instance, with Just two or three hands and a boy on board. What could be cheaper than that? And you could live the simple life to any extent that you liked! But of course something larger would be wanted for Argentine, and she couldn't be fitted out in time. No, Peter, I think I 'll risk having the heavy hand of the law laid upon me at starting, and we 'll just have to lump it and go in a mail steamer.'

Peter laughed. 'My bold buccaneer!' he said.

They sat silent for a time in the drawing-room with its crude colours and priceless china, while the big fire in the burnished steel grate roared with a jolly sound up the big chimney, and the air was frosty and cold outside. The room despite its hideousness was full of pleasant recollections to them both, for when Hulworth was not let Toffy had often a.s.sembled bachelor parties there, and it had always been a second home to Peter, where he had been wont to keep a couple of guns and some of his 'things.'

The actual journey to Argentine was not a matter demanding any courage on the part of either of the young men, but the result of the journey might have a grave effect on the fortune of Peter Ogilvie. Tomorrow was to have been his wedding-day; and this fact being persistently present to both men, they left the subject to the last. It was with an effort that Peter said, before they parted for the night, 'Whatever happens, we mean to try to be married when I come back. Jane is awfully plucky about it, but this confounded Court of Chancery does not seem to regard me with much favour at present.'

'It's only for a year,' said Toffy hopefully. 'Let's make a solemn covenant that we shall meet in this very room on the 25th of October 1911, with the wedding-day fixed for to-morrow again.'

'Where is your Bible?' said Peter. 'If you haven't one in your pocket or under your pillow, will it do if I kiss your account-book?'

'The whole thing can be just as we intended it to be,' said Toffy cheerfully. 'And this time next year Jane will be staying with Miss Abingdon, and old Wrot will be ironing out his surplice--at least Mrs.

Wrot will, and he 'll look on and think he 's doing it. And I 'll be here, probably with a cold in my head as usual, and thereto I plight thee my troth!'

He fingered in his pocket the wedding-ring which Peter had given him for safe custody, and the care of which had seriously disturbed his slumbers at night. 'I 'll keep the ring until then, Peter, and place it on the third finger of Jane's left hand. No, no, you do that, by the way; and I shall have to wait until I get a wife of my own.'

'Here 's to her good health!' said Peter. And they endeavoured to be lively, as befits the subject of weddings; but Peter was thinking that perhaps his own wedding-day might be five years hence, and however they might plan that it should be the same as they had first intended, it was a long time to wait. And Toffy was wondering how long Horace Avory meant to live, and if Carrie would mind very much his going to Argentine, and whether she would write him one of those long tear-blistered letters in her indistinct handwriting, which he found so hard to read, and, suppose Horace Avory never died (as seemed quite likely), what would be the end of it all? Also, he wondered whether Carrie and Miss Sherard would get on well together if they were to meet, and he hoped with manly stupidity that they might be friends.

But what he wondered more than anything else at present was whether Kitty Sherard would allow him to go and say good-bye to her. Toffy was feeling ill, and his vitality was low; in his weakness he thought with an insistence that was almost homesick in its intensity how beautiful it would be to see her in this ugly old house of his, in one of her rose-coloured gowns, and with her brown curls and her hopelessly baffling and bewildering manner of speech.

And each of the two young men, being absorbed in quite other subjects, talked cheerfully of the voyage, and speculated on what sort of sport they might incidentally get; and they discussed much more seriously the fis.h.i.+ng flies and guns they should take with them than the possible finding of Peter's brother or Peter's own change of fortune.

Lydia, listening at the door before she went to bed, for no particular reason except that her aunt had forbidden it, decided that her master and Captain Ogilvie were planning a sporting expedition together--'which means dullness and aunt for me for a few months to come,' said Lydia, with a sniff.

CHAPTER X

So Peter went to London to collect his kit and to say good-bye to Jane Erskine, and Nigel Christopherson ordered a great many new boots of various designs, and some warlike weapons, and then there came the time when he had to write to Mrs. Avory to say that he was going away, and when in the solitude of his life at Hulworth he had time to sit down and wonder what she would think about it. He was not long left in doubt. A telegram came first, and then a letter. 'Dearest, dearest,'

this ran, 'I cannot let you go away.' It was a horribly compromising letter, but it came from a poor little woman who had fought long odds, and who was often very tired, and who sat for the greater part of the day making blouses for which she was seldom paid. Mrs. Avory was not a strong woman, nor in any way a great-minded woman, but she was one who, in spite of weakness and a good deal of silliness, clung almost fiercely to the fact that she must be good, and who kept faithfully the promises she had made to a wholly unworthy person in the village church at home twelve years ago. Every word of the letter was an appeal to her dear, dear Nigel to stay in England and not leave her alone. She had so few friends and so little to look forward to except his Sunday visits. And then this poor tear-blotched letter which was neither very grammatical nor legibly written changed its tone suddenly, and Mrs.

Avory said that perhaps it was better that he should go. Everything was very difficult, and it seemed that although his society was the one thing that she loved in the world, perhaps the fact of seeing him made things almost more difficult. Her husband, she heard, had been watching her movements lately; they said he wanted to marry some one else, so really and truly Nigel had better go, and if possible forget all about her for ever.

Toffy finished reading the letter and groaned. 'Was she never to have a good time!' he wondered, thinking of the dull room and the half-finished blouses upon the table, the economical gas jets in the fireplace in lieu of the glow of a bright fire, and the dingy paper on the walls. The whole thing was too hard on her, he thought, and everything in the world seemed to be against her.

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