Part 3 (1/2)
He told her smiling: ”Not with you, anyway, Nellie.” Little attentions like these were rare, and he liked them. In his weak and amiable way he patted the hand that rested for a moment on his shoulder, and he explained. ”You're quite right, of course, old girl. Of course I realise what it means to you and I ought to have shared it with you at once. I'm sorry--sorry, Nellie. Just like me. And about never making them your family. I know you're right there. But you don't really mean that--don't mean I've done it intentionally. You know--I've often told you--we were miles apart, my branch and theirs; you do see that, don't you, old girl? A different branch--another crowd altogether. I don't suppose you've ever even heard of the relations who stand the same to you as I stand to the Burdons. All the time we've been married, long before that even, I've never had anything to do with 'em.” He smiled affectionately at her. ”That's all right, isn't it?”
She was getting impatient that he ran on so. ”Of course, of course,”
she said indifferently. ”I never meant to say that.” And then: ”Oh, Maurice, but do--do--do think what I'm feeling.” She entwined her fingers about his arms and looked caressingly up at him. ”Have you thought what it means to us, Maurice?”
He liked that. He liked the ”us” from her lips. His normal disposition returned to him; he smiled whimsically at her. ”'Pon my soul, I haven't,” he said; and added, smiling more, ”it's a big order.
By Gad, it's a big order, Nellie.”
She clapped her hands in her excitement and stood away from him, her eyes sparkling. ”Maurice! Lord Burdon! Fancy!”
”It'll be a nuisance, I shouldn't wonder,” he grimaced.
She laughed delightedly. ”Oh, that's just like you to think that! A nuisance! Maurice! Think of it! Lady Burdon--me! It's a dream, isn't it?”
”It's a bit of a startler,” he agreed, smiling tolerantly down upon her excitement.
She laughed aloud. ”But fancy you a lord!” and she looked at him, holding him by both his arms and laughed again. ”A startler! A nuisance! What a--what a _person_ you are, Maurice! Fancy you a lord!
You'll have to--you'll have to _buck up_, Maurice!”
He turned away for a moment, occupying himself in fumbling in a drawer.
When he turned again to her, his face had the tail of a grimace that she thought expressive of how repugnant to him was the mere thought of any change in his life. ”Well, there's one thing,” he said. ”It won't be for long;” and he tapped his heart, that doctors had condemned.
She knew that was only his characteristic way of joking, but a flicker of irritation shadowed her face. She hated reference to what had often been a spoil-sport cry of ”Wolf! Wolf!”
”Oh, that's absurd!” she cried. ”That's nonsense; you know it is.
Those doctors! Make haste and dress and come down. Make haste! Make haste! I want to talk all about it. I want you to tell me--heaps of things: what will happen, how it will happen. Now, do make haste.
I'll run down now and see to Baby.” She had danced away towards the door; now turned again, a laugh on her face. ”Baby! What is he now, Maurice?”
”Still a baby, I expect you'll find, though I have been nearly an hour dressing.”
For once she laughed delightedly at his mild absurdity; just now her world answered with a laugh wherever she touched a chord. ”His t.i.tle, I mean. An honourable, isn't it--the son of a peer? The Honourable Rollo Letham! I must tell him!” She laughed again, moved lightly to the door and went humming down the stairs.
Mr. Letham waited till the sound had pa.s.sed. When the slam of a distant door announced the unlikelihood of her return, he dropped rather heavily into a chair and put his hand against the heart he had playfully tapped. ”Confound!” said Mr. Letham, breathing hard.
”Conster-_nation_ and d.a.m.n the thing. Like a sword, that one. Like a twisting sword!”
For the new Lady Burdon had been wrong in estimating any humour in the grimace with which he had looked at her after turning away, while she told him he must _buck up_.
CHAPTER IV
A FORETASTE OF THE PEERAGE
I
A worrying morning foreshadowed--or might have foreshadowed--to Egbert Hunt the strain and distress of the afternoon whose effect upon him we have seen. Normally his master was closeted in the study with the three young men who read with him for University examinations; his mistress engaged first in her household duties, then in her customary run on her bicycle before lunch; shopping, taking some flowers to the cottage hospital, exchanging the magazines for which her circle subscribed. These occupations of master and mistress enabled Egbert to evade with nice calculation the tasks that fell to him. This morning the household, as he expressed it, was ”all of a boilin' jump,” whereby he was vastly incommoded, being much harried. The three young men thoughtfully denied themselves the intellectual delights of their usual labours with Mr. Letham. ”Lucky dawgs,” said Egbert bitterly, hiding in the bathroom and watching them from the window meet down the road, confer, laugh, and skim off on their bicycles; his mistress--writing letters, talking excitedly with her husband--did everything except settle to any particular task. The result was to keep Egbert ceaselessly upon ”the 'op,” and he resented it utterly.
II