Part 34 (1/2)

”Who told you?”

”I've had a wire to stop me from sending in for next week's.”

Albert Benbow gave an oath. His wife ought surely to have been horrorstruck by the word; but she did not blench. Flus.h.i.+ng and scowling she said:

”What a shame! We've sent ours in.”

The faithful creature had for days past at odd moments been a.s.sisting her husband in the dictionary and as a clerk.... And lo! at last, confirmation of those absurd but persistent rumours to the effect that certain busybodies meant if they could to stop missing word compet.i.tions on the ground that they were simply a crude appeal to the famous ”gambling instincts” of mankind and especially of Englishmen!

Albert had reb.u.t.ted the charge with virtuous warmth, insisting on the skill involved in word-choosing, and insisting also on the historical freedom of the inst.i.tutions of his country. He maintained that it was inconceivable that any English court of justice should ever interfere with a pastime so innocent and so tonic for the tired brain. And though he had had secret fears, and had been disturbed and even hurt by the comments of a religious paper to which he subscribed, he would not waver from his courageous and sensible English att.i.tude. Now the fearful blow had fallen, and Albert knew in his heart that it was heaven's punishment for him. He turned to shut the gate after him, and noticed Bert. It appeared to him that in hearing the paternal oath, Bert had been guilty of a crime, or at least an indiscretion, and he at once began to make Bert suffer.

Meanwhile Swetnam had gone on, to spread the tale which was to bring indignation and affliction into tens of thousands of respectable homes.

IV

Janet came softly and timidly into the drawing-room.

”They are gone?” she questioned. ”I thought I heard the front-door.”

”Yes, thank goodness!” Hilda exclaimed candidly, disdaining the convention (which Edwin still had in respect) that a weakness in family ties should never be referred to, beyond the confines of the family, save in urbane terms of dignity and regret excusing so far as possible the sinner. But in this instance the immense inept.i.tude of the Benbows had so affected Edwin that, while objecting to his wife's outbreak, he could not help giving a guffaw which supported it. And all the time he kept thinking to himself:

”Imagine that d----d pietistic rascal dragging the miserable shrimp up here to apologise to George!”

He was ashamed, not merely of his relatives, but somehow of all humanity. He could scarcely look even a chair in the face. The Benbows had left behind them desolation, and this desolation affected everything, and could be tasted on the tongue. Janet of course instantly noticed it, and felt that she ought not to witness the shaming of her friends. Moreover, her existence now was chiefly an apology for itself.

She said:

”I really think I ought to go back and see about a meal for Johnnie in case he turns up.”

”Nonsense!” said Hilda, sharply. ”With three servants in the house, I suppose Johnnie won't starve! Now just sit down. Sit _down_!” Her tone softened. ”My dear, you're worse than a child.... Tell Edwin.” She put a cus.h.i.+on behind Janet in the easy chair. And the gesture made Janet's eyes humid once more.

Edwin had the exciting, disquieting, vitalising sensation of being shut up in an atmosphere of women. Not two women, but two thousand, seemed to hem him in with their incalculable impulses, standards, inspirations.

”Janet wants to consult you,” Hilda added; and even Hilda appeared to regard him as a strong saviour.

He thought:

”After all, then, I'm not the born idiot she'd like to make out. Now we're getting at her real opinion of me!”

”It's only about father's estate,” said Janet.

”Why? Hasn't he made a will?”

”Oh yes! He made a will over thirty years ago. He left everything to mother and made her sole executor or whatever you call it. Just like him, wasn't it? ... D'you know that he and mother never had a quarrel, nor anything near a quarrel?”

”Well,” Edwin, nodding appreciatively, answered with an informed masculine air. ”The law provides for all that. Tom will know. Did your mother make a will?”

”No. Dear thing! She would never have dreamt of it.”