Part 5 (1/2)
Agnes laughed shortly.
”s.h.i.+lly-shally! I can't understand what opportunity you want. If it's good, it can't be spoilt by being read one day instead of another; if it's bad, it won't be improved by waiting. This is cherry-pie, and there is some tipsy cake. Edith, which will you have?”
Edith would have neither. She was still trembling with wounded indignation against her father for that cruel hit at her husband. She sat pale and silent, vowing never to enter the house again until Jack's fortunes were restored; never to accept another penny from her father's hands. She was comparatively little interested in the discussion about poetry. Ron was a dear boy; she would be sorry if he were disappointed, but Jack was her life, and Jack was working for bread!
If she had followed the moment's impulse, she would have risen and left the room, and though better counsel prevailed, she could not control the spice of temper which made the cherry-pie abhorrent.
Jack, as a man, saw no reason why he should deny himself the mitigations of the situation; he helped himself to cream and sifted sugar with leisurely satisfaction, and sensibly softened in spirit. After all, there was a measure of truth in what the old man said, and his bark was worse than his bite. If his own boy, Pat, took it into his head to go off on some scatter-brain prank when he came of age, it would be a big trouble, or if later on he came a cropper in business-- Jack waited for a convenient pause, and then deftly turned the conversation to politics, and by the time that cheese was on the table, he and his father-in-law were discussing the mysteries of the last Education Bill with the satisfaction of men who hold similar views on the inanities of the opposite party. Later on they bade each other a friendly good-night; but Edith went straight from the bedroom to the street, and clung tightly to her husband's arm as they walked along the pavement opposite the Park, enjoying the quiet before entering the busy streets.
”We'll never come again!” she cried tremulously. ”We'll stay at home, and have a supper of bread and cheese and love with it! You shan't be taunted and sneered at by any man on earth, if he were twenty times my father! What an angel you were, Jack, to keep quiet, and then talk as if nothing had happened! I was choking with rage!”
”Poor darling!” said Jack Martin tenderly. ”You take things too much to heart. It's rough on you, but you must remember that it's rough on the old man too. You are his eldest child, and the beauty of the family.
He hoped great things for you, and it is wormwood and gall to his proud spirit to see you struggling along in cheap lodgings. We can't wonder if he explodes occasionally. It's wonderful that he is as civil to me as he is; he has put me down as a hopeless blunderer!”
There was a touch of bitterness in the speaker's voice, for all his brave a.s.sumption of composure, and his wife winced at the sound. She clung more tightly to his arm, and raised her face to his with eager comfort.
”Don't mind what he says! Don't mind what any one says. I believe in you. I trust you! The good times will come back again, dear, and we will be happier than ever, because we shall know how to appreciate them.
Even if we were always poor, I'd rather have you for my husband than the greatest millionaire in the world!”
”Thank G.o.d for my wife!” said Jack Martin solemnly.
CHAPTER SIX.
A MANAGING WOMAN.
Meanwhile Ronald and Margot were holding a conclave on the third floor.
”I must get away from home at once!” cried the lad feverishly. ”I can't write in this atmosphere of antagonism. I breathe it in the air. It poisons everything I do. If I am to have only three more months of liberty, I must spend them in my own way, in the country with you, Margot, away from all this fret and turmoil. It's my last chance. I might as well throw up the sponge at once, if we are to stay here.”
”Yes, we must go away; for father's sake as well as our own,” replied Margot slowly. She leant her head against the back of her chair, and pushed the hair from her brow. Without the smile and the sparkle she was astonis.h.i.+ngly like her brother,--both had oval faces, well-marked eyebrows, flexible scarlet lips, and hazel eyes, but the girl's chin was made in a firmer mould, and the expression of dreamy abstraction which characterised the boy's face was on hers replaced by animation and alertness.
”Father will be miserable to-night because he flared out at supper; but he'll flare again unless we put him out of temptation. He likes his own way as much as we like ours, and it's so difficult for parents to realise that their children are grown-up. We seem silly babies in his eyes, and he longs to be able to shut us up in the nursery until we are sorry, as he used to do in the old days. As for our own plans, Ron, they are all settled. I was just waiting for a quiet opportunity to tell you. I have been busy planning and scheming for some time back, but it was only to-night that my clue arrived. Jack, my emissary, slipped it into my hand after supper. Read that!”
She held out a half sheet of paper with an air of triumph, on which were scribbled the following lines:--
”Name, Elgood. Great walker, climber, etcetera. Goes every June with brother to small lonely inn (Nag's Head)--Glenaire--six miles' drive from S--, Perths.h.i.+re. Scenery fine, but wild; accommodation limited; landlady refuses lady visitors, which fact is supposed to be one of the chief attractions; Elgood reported to be tough nut to crack; chief object of holiday, quiet and seclusion; probably dates two or three weeks from June 15.”
Ronald read, and lifted a bewildered face.
”What does it all mean? How do this man's plans affect ours? I don't understand what you are driving at, Margot, but I should love to go to Scotland! The mountains in the dawning, and the shadows at night, and the dark green of the firs against the blue of the heather--oh, wouldn't it be life to see it all again, after this terrible brick city! How clever of you to think of Scotland!”
”My dear boy, if it had been Southend it would have been all the same.
We are going where Mr Elgood goes, for Mr Elgood, you must know, is the editor of _The Loadstar_--the man of all others who could give you a helping hand. Now, Ron, I am quite prepared for you to be shocked, but I know that you will agree in the end, so please give in as quickly as possible, and don't make a fuss. You have been sending unknown poems to unknown editors for the last two years, with practically no result.
It's not the fault of your poems--of that I am convinced. In ten years'
time every one will rave about them, but you can't afford to wait ten years, or even ten months. Our only hope is to interest some big literary light, whose verdict can't be ignored, and persuade him to plead your cause, or at least to give you such encouragement as will satisfy father that you are not deluded by your own conceit. I've thought and thought, and lain awake thinking, till I feel quite tired out, and then at last I hit on this plan,--to find out where Mr Elgood is going for his holidays, and go to the same place, so that he can't help getting to know us, whatever he may wish. Ordinary methods are useless at this stage of affairs. We must try a desperate remedy for a desperate situation!”
”I'm sure I am willing. I would try any crazy plan that had a possibility of success for the next three months. But yours isn't possible. The landlady won't take ladies. That's an unsurmountable objection at the start.”
But Margot only preened her head with a smile of undaunted self- confidence.