Part 14 (1/2)

VII

1

The handbills and posters had been out for the last week. Their headlines were very delightful to the eye with their enormous capitals staring at you in Pyecraft's royal blue print.

NATIONAL LEAGUE OF LIBERTY.

A MEETING IN AID OF THE ABOVE LEAGUE WILL BE HELD IN THE TOWN HALL, WYCK-ON-THE-HILL, _Sat.u.r.day, June 21st, 8 p.m._

_Chairman_: SIR JOHN CORBETT, OF UNDERWOODS, WYCK-ON-THE-HILL.

_Speaker_: HORATIO BYSSHE WADDINGTON, ESQ., OF THE MANOR HOUSE, LOWER WYCK.

YOU ARE EARNESTLY REQUESTED TO ATTEND.

G.o.d SAVE THE KING!

Only one thing threatened Mr. Waddington's intense enjoyment of his meeting: his son Horace would be there. Young Horace had insisted on coming over from Cheltenham College for the night, expressly to attend the meeting. And though Mr. Waddington had pointed out that the meeting could very well take place without him, f.a.n.n.y appeared to be backing young Horace up in his impudent opinion that it couldn't. This he found excessively annoying; for, though for worlds he wouldn't have owned it, Mr. Waddington was afraid of his son. He was never the same man when he was about. The presence of young Horace--tall for sixteen and developing rapidly--was fatal to the illusion of his youth. And Horace had a way of commenting disadvantageously on everything his father said or did; he had a perfect genius for humorous depreciation. At any rate, he and his mother behaved as if they thought it was humorous, and many of his remarks seemed to strike other people--Sir John and Lady Corbett, for example, and Ralph Bevan--in the same light. Over and over again young Horace would keep the whole table listening to him with unreasoning and unreasonable delight, while his father's efforts to converse received only a polite and perfunctory attention. And the prospect of having young Horace's humour let loose on his meeting and on his speech at the meeting was distinctly disagreeable. f.a.n.n.y oughtn't to have allowed it to happen. He oughtn't to have allowed it himself. But short of writing to his Head Master to forbid it, they couldn't stop young Horace coming.

He had only to get on his motor-bicycle and come.

Barbara came on him in the drawing-room before dinner, sitting in an easy chair and giggling over the prospectus.

He jumped up and stood by the hearth, smiling at her.

”I say, did my guv'nor really write this himself?”

”More or less. Did you really come over for the meeting?”

”Rather.”

His smile was wilful and engaging.

”You _are_ enthusiastic about the League.”

”Enthusiastic? We-ell, I can't say I know much about it. Of course, I know the sort of putrid tosh he'll sling at them, but what I want is to _see_ him doing it.”

He had got it too, that pa.s.sion of interest and amus.e.m.e.nt, hers and Ralph's. Only it wasn't decent of him to show it; she mustn't let him see she had it. She answered soberly:

”Yes, he's awfully keen.”

”_Is_ he? I've never seen him really excited, worked up, except once or twice during the war.”

As he stood there, looking down, smiling pensively, he seemed to brood over it, to antic.i.p.ate the joy of the spectacle.

He had an impudent, happy face, turned and coloured like his mother's; he had f.a.n.n.y's blue eyes and brown hair. All that the Waddingtons and Postlethwaites had done to him was to raise the bridge of his nose, and to thicken his lips slightly without altering their wide, vivacious twirl. He considered Barbara.