Part 32 (1/2)

”If you've come to say anything about Grantly you may spare yourself the pains, he has told me himself.”

”About Grantly,” Buz repeated stupidly, ”why should I want to talk about Grantly?--it's about him and me I want to talk.”

”Him and you?” Mr Ffolliot echoed desperately.

”Yes, I rotted him that night and he was awfully decent----”

”What night?”

”The night I broke my arm--they said at the Infirmary that if he hadn't been so careful of me it would have been much worse.”

”You refer, I suppose, to Gallup?”

”Yes, father, and it really was decent of him, because I went dressed up as a suffragette and had no end of a rag; he might have been awfully s.h.i.+rty, and he wasn't--he never told a soul. Don't you think we ought to ask him?”

”Does your mother know about this?”

”Of course not, n.o.body knew except Uz and,” Buz added truthfully, ”Adele.”

”Leave me,” said Mr Ffolliot feebly, ”I've had about as much as I can bear this afternoon--Go.”

”You do see, sir, that it makes a difference,” pleaded the persistent Buz.

”Go,” thundered the exasperated Squire.

”All right, father, I'm going, but you _do_ see, don't you?” said Buz from the door.

CHAPTER XXI

A RETROSPECT AND A RESULT

Mr Ffolliot was really a much-tried man. Those interviews with Grantly and Buz caused his nerves to vibrate most unpleasantly.

So unhinged was he that for quite half an hour after Buz's departure he kept looking nervously at the door, fully expectant that it would open to admit Uz, primed with some fresh reason why Eloquent Gallup should be asked to dinner; and that he would be followed by Ger and the Kitten bent on a similar errand.

However, no one else invaded his privacy. The Manor House was very still; the only occasional sound being the soft swish of a curtain stirred by the breeze through the open window.

Mr Ffolliot neither read _Gaston Latour_ nor did he write, though his monograph on Ercole Ferrarese was not yet completed.

Wrapped in thought he sat quite motionless in his deep chair, and the subject that engrossed him was his own youth; comparing what he remembered of it with these queer, careless sons of his, who seemed born to trouble other people, Mr Ffolliot could not call to mind any occasion when he had been a nuisance to anybody. He honestly tried and wholly failed.

Such persons as have been nourished in early youth on Mr Thackeray's inimitable _The Rose and The Ring_ will remember how at the christening of Prince Giglio, the Fairy Blackstick, who was his G.o.dmother, said, ”My poor child, the best thing I can send you is a little misfortune!”

Now the Fairy Blackstick had evidently absented herself from Hilary Ffolliot's christening, for his youth was one long procession of brilliant successes. It is true that his father, an easy-going, amiable clergyman, died during his first term at Harrow, but that did not affect Hilary's material comfort in any way. It left his mother perfectly free to devote her entire attention to him.

He was a good-looking, averagely healthy boy, who carried all before him at preparatory school. Easily first in every cla.s.s he entered, he was quite able to hold his own in all the usual games, and he left for Harrow in a blaze of glory, having obtained the most valuable cla.s.sical scholars.h.i.+p.

Throughout his career at school he never failed to win any prize he tried for, and when he left, it was with scholars.h.i.+ps that almost covered the expenses of his time at Cambridge. Moreover, he was head of his house and a member of the Eleven.

His mother, a gentle and unselfish lady, felt that she could not do enough to promote the comfort of so brilliant and satisfactory a son.