Part 13 (1/2)
”Not your nearest and dearest. Be as gruff as you can, and limp as you did last night. We're not going to let you off! Don't you think it! Why, we couldn't possibly do the piece without you!”
The young people, ostensibly for the entertainment of their elders, but largely for the amus.e.m.e.nt of themselves, had been acting in the evenings to an audience of Aunt Nellie, Uncle David, and Father and Mother. Their last performance had really been so successful that they felt they might venture to give it in so great an emergency. They began at once to pack their various properties.
”Rather a score to be asked to appear on a public platform! I wish Miss Mitch.e.l.l could be there to see us!” triumphed Merle.
”The joke is that I don't believe Chagmouth people will recognise any of us,” said Mavis, hunting for a pair of spectacles she had mislaid. ”I'm going to bargain that our names aren't announced beforehand.”
”Right-o! The audience can imagine we're a London Company on tour in the provinces, or anything else they like. They'll think far more of us if they don't know who we are till afterwards. Tudor mustn't give us away!”
CHAPTER IX
Facing the Footlights
The big five-seater car came punctually at three and conveyed the young people and all their belongings to The Warren, where their arrival caused much satisfaction.
”You've saved us from a most awkward predicament,” declared Mrs. Glyn Williams. ”I hardly know how to thank you. Wasn't it clever of Babbie to think of it?”
”We've never forgotten how you did a scene here once!” said Tudor.
”Couldn't do it myself to save my life! And Gwen says the same. Oh, here she is! I was looking for you, Gwen! Here are the Ramsays, and Talland.”
The Gwen who advanced to shake hands was so different from their old acquaintance that the girls felt they scarcely would have recognised her.
She did her hair in a new fas.h.i.+on, and was wonderfully grown-up, and even more patronising than formerly. She said a languid ”How d'you do,” then left Babbie to entertain them, which the latter did with enthusiasm, for she was fond of Mavis and Merle.
”I expect you're thinking of all the improvements you'll make here when you come of age?” said Mrs. Glyn Williams, trying to be pleasant to Bevis over the tea-cups. ”It's a nice place, and will really look very well when it's been redecorated. You'll have to do it up for your bride, won't you?”
At which joke Bevis blushed crimson and dropped his cake on the carpet, to his own confusion and the delight of the fox-terrier Jim, who thought it was done for his especial benefit, and promptly swallowed the piece, icing and all.
”I don't want to hurry you to turn out,” protested Bevis shyly.
”Oh, we shall have Bodoran Hall ready by that time. We were there last week looking at the new building. The workmen are really beginning to get on with it at last.”
”You'll have to build fresh stables here, Talland, if you mean to do any decent hunting,” advised Tudor airily. ”If I were you I'd get those lawyers to start them at once, then they'd be ready when you want them. I suppose you _will_ hunt?”
”I'm not sure yet what I mean to do,” replied Bevis guardedly.
He did not like so much catechism about his future plans. In the old days of his poverty he had never admired the Glyn Williams' ideals of life, and he had no wish to mould himself upon their standards. The sporting landlord, with a horizon bounded by the local meet or a county ball, was a type that did not appeal to him, and he saw no reason why he should be forced by a spurious public opinion into lines that were uncongenial.
Though on the surface he and Tudor were friends, at bottom the old antagonism existed as in the days when they had quarrelled on the cliffs near Blackthorn Bower.
It was only to please Mavis and Merle that he had accepted this invitation to The Warren, where he found himself in the peculiar position of being patronised in his own house.
With Bevis rather gloomy and restrained, Tudor slightly aggressive, and Gwen too fas.h.i.+onable to trouble to entertain her old friends, matters were not as exhilarating as they might have been, and everybody seemed relieved when it was time to walk down to the Inst.i.tute.
”I suppose I shall have to go!” yawned Gwen. ”These village concerts of Mother's are _such_ a nuisance! Why can't the people get up their own instead of always expecting her to bother with them! _I_ don't want to hear Miss Smith and Miss Brown and Miss Robinson! It bores me stiff.”
”Not very polite of her when _we_ are going to act!” whispered Merle to Mavis as they put on their hats.
”It certainly isn't! But Gwen's always like this. I vote we try not to mind,” returned Mavis heroically.