Part 4 (1/2)

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-fas.h.i.+oned; 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.