Part 6 (1/2)

The end of it was rather surprising. He was getting along swimmingly, on a high note of displeasure, when he was brought to a sudden stop by Lady Susan bursting into tears.

Now tears from a woman were what the Squire never could stand. He was essentially kind, and even tender-hearted, in spite of his usual att.i.tude of irritable authority, and, since he had never lived with women who cried easily, he took tears from them very seriously. They meant, of course, for one thing, complete capitulation; for of tears of mere temper he had had no experience whatever; and they appealed to his chivalry as emphasising the weakness of the vessels from which they came.

”Oh, come now!” he said soothingly, and with an expression of discomfort. ”No need to cry over it. It's over and done with for the present, and now I've pointed out quietly what a wrong thing it was, I'm quite sure it won't be repeated.”

But Susan still continued to sob freely, and Humphrey said with some indignation, ”She's very much upset at what's happened. She's taken it much more to heart than you think. It doesn't want rubbing in any more.”

”Well, perhaps I've said enough,” admitted the Squire, ”but you've got to consider that we haven't done with this business yet. We shall have it hanging over us for months, until the trial comes on; and then we shall have to go through it all again. Still, you know, Susan, _you_ won't be called as a witness. _You've_ nothing to cry about. Now, do leave off, my dear girl. Let's put it out of our minds now, and think no more about it till we're obliged to. My dear child, what is the matter?”

For Susan's sobs had increased in volume, and now showed some signs of becoming hysterical. Mrs. Clinton essayed to soothe her in her calm sensible way, and Humphrey said kindly, ”All right, Susan, we're not going to talk about it any more. We're both sorry we made the mistake we did, and you are not so much to blame for it as I am.”

But perhaps it was Joan, who was not greatly moved by a woman's tears, who brought Susan's to an end by remarking, ”We are getting near Lemborough. I think this train stops there.”

When Susan had dried her eyes, and was able to speak with no more than an occasional hiccough, she said, ”I am sorry for Mrs. Amberley. I don't know her very well, and I don't like her, but it's a horrible position to be put in.”

”Well, I don't think you need waste much sympathy on her,” said the Squire. ”If that's all you are crying about you might have saved your tears, my dear. She won't get more than she deserves.”

”It isn't what I was crying about,” said Susan. ”You spoke as if all of us who were at Brummels were just the same as she is.”

The Squire did privately think that most of them, except Humphrey and Susan themselves, and Lord Sedbergh, and of course Joan, would have been capable of acting in the same way as Mrs. Amberley, if necessity and opportunity had prompted them, but he said, ”Oh no, Susan. I didn't mean to go nearly so far as that. Still, there's a proverb about evil communications, you know, and I do hope you will take a lesson from this nasty business and steer clear of the sort of people who go in for that kind of thing.”

He spoke as if the people received into fas.h.i.+onable society who ”went in” for stealing pearl necklaces were easily distinguishable from the rest. This was probably not precisely what he meant, and as Susan plucked up a smile and said, ”Well, you've said some very unkind things to me, but I'm going to be a good girl now, and I hope you won't say any more,” he allowed the subject to drop altogether, and the rest of the journey pa.s.sed in peace.

CHAPTER V

A QUIET TALK

Frank and Nancy were on the platform at Kencote. The Squire, longing for his home whenever he was away from it, like any schoolboy detached from the dear familiar, was pleased to see their smiling faces. They were agreeably surprised by the warmth of his greeting, having expected him to reach home in even a worse state of mind than that in which he had left it, and not having realised that a dreaded ordeal has lost most of its sting when it has been gone through, even if its terrors have been worse than fancy had painted them.

”Well, young people,” was his hearty greeting, ”I hope you haven't been up to any pranks while we've been away.”

Not a word about the police court proceedings; no black looks! They responded suitably to his geniality, and pa.s.sed on to greet the other members of the family, looking on to the time when one of them could be detached to tell the story of what had happened.

There was no stint of carriages in the Squire's stables, nor of horses to draw or men to drive them. He himself invariably drove his phaeton from the station, enjoying, whatever the weather, the sense of being in the open air, doing one of the things that was a part of his natural life, after being cooped up for a couple of hours in a train. On this occasion there was also an open carriage, and the station omnibus for the servants and the luggage. This involved six horses, and five men, in the sober Clinton livery of black cloth with dark green facings, and a general turn out in the way of fine upstanding satin-coated horseflesh, gloss of silver-plated harness, mirror-like carriage varnish, and spick and span retainerhood that would not have disgraced royalty itself. It was indeed with a sense almost akin to that of royalty that the Squire took the salutes of his servants, and threw his eye over such of his vehicular possessions as met it. He was undisputed lord of this little corner of the world, and it was good to find himself back in his kingdom, after having been an undistinguished unit amongst London's millions, and especially to breathe its serene air after having had his nostrils filled with the sordid atmosphere of the police court. He took the reins of his pair of greys from his head coachman with a deep sense of satisfaction, and swung himself actively up on to his seat, but not before he had settled exactly who was to ride in which carriage.

Mrs. Clinton always sat by the side of her husband, and did so now.

But all the rest had wished to walk. The landau, however, was there, and could not be sent back empty. At least, the Squire asked what was the good of having it sent down if n.o.body used it. So Humphrey and Susan sacrificed their desire for exercise to his sense of fitness, and Joan, Nancy, and Frank set out to walk the short mile that lay between the station and the house, well pleased to find themselves alone together.

The Squire had completely recovered his equanimity for the time being, and his satisfaction at finding himself at home again translated itself into an impulse of good will towards his wife, sitting by his side.

With her soft white hair and comely face, Mrs. Clinton looked a fitting helpmate for a country gentleman getting on in years, but still full of manly vigour. There was rather a splendid air about the Squire, with his ma.s.sive frame and his look of health and vigour, as he sat up driving his handsome horses; and his wife did not share it. He had married her for love when he had been a young man who might be called splendid without any qualification whatever, the owner of a fine estate at the pitch of its fruitfulness, and an admitted match for all but the very highest. He had chosen her, the daughter of an Indian officer who lived in a small way on the outskirts of the neighbouring town, and had been considered by many to have made a misalliance. But he had never thought so himself. He had made of her a slave to his own preferences, kept her shut up from the time of her marriage, away from the pursuits and the friends.h.i.+ps for which her understanding fitted her, and unconsciously belittled that understanding by demanding that in all things she should bring her intelligence down on a level with his. But he had trusted her more than he knew, and on the rare occasions on which she had quietly a.s.serted herself to influence him he had followed her, and, without acknowledging or even feeling himself to have been in the wrong, had afterwards been glad of it. By giving way to him on an infinity of small matters, but not so small to her as to have avoided a sacrifice of many strong inclinations, she had kept her power to guide him in greater matters. Whatever it may have been to her, his marriage had brought him all that he could ever have desired. She had brought him, perhaps, more submission than had been good for him. His native capacity for domineering had thriven on it; because he had never had to meet any big troubles in his married life, he had always made much of little ones; because she had so seldom opposed him, he took opposition from any quarter like a thwarted child. But she had made him always beneath the surface contented with her; never once in the forty years of their marriage, when he had gone about angrily chewing a grievance, had she been the cause of it. Nothing that she might have struggled for and won in her own life would have outweighed that.

Now, with her own thoughts about what had happened strong in her, she had to sit and listen to his views, which were fortunately more cheerfully coloured than they had been for some days past.

”Well, that's over for the present,” was the burden of his speech, but when he had so expressed himself with sundry variations, he found something else to comment upon.

Susan's tears! They had moved him. ”I think she's all right at heart,” he said. ”She's had a shock.”