Part 20 (1/2)
”Well, well, there's something in that,” said the old man, mollified by this brightening of prospects. ”I must have a gla.s.s of grog on the strength of it.”
Clytie looked at him for a moment, shook her pretty head, and then got out a bottle. He was quite sober, and it was the first that day.
”Only one,” she said. ”No more, mind.”
She did not think it necessary to tell him that this increase of material prosperity was due to the good offices of Wagram. The latter was not the one to do things by halves, and had never forgotten the promise he had made on the occasion of his call at Siege House.
”There you are, Delia!” she triumphantly declared as the orders came pouring in. ”You never know what you lose through want of asking. If I hadn't put it point-blank to him I shouldn't have got all these--and it makes a difference, I can tell you. What a devil of a good chap he must be!”
A few days later a surprise came for Delia in the shape of a letter from the editor of a particularly smart and up-to-date pictorial, requesting her to contribute to its ill.u.s.trated series of articles on old country seats, so many words of letterpress and so many photographs of Hilversea Court, and quoting a very liberal rate of remuneration if the contribution proved to be to the editor's satisfaction. The girl was radiant.
”It's too good to be true, Clytie. How can they have heard of me?” she exclaimed. ”Surely no one has been playing a practical joke on me. I can hardly believe it.”
Clytie scanned the letter ”It's genuine right enough,” she p.r.o.nounced.
”Wagram again.”
”What? But--no--it can't be this time. Why, don't you see what it says: 'Provided you can obtain the permission of Mr Grantley Wagram'?
So, you see, it's apart from them entirely.”
”That's only a red herring. I'll bet you five bob he's at the back of it. Are you on?”
”N-no,” answered Delia, upon whom a recollection was dawning of things she had let fall on that memorable occasion of her last visit to Hilversea. She had prattled on about herself, and her experiences, among which had been a little journalism of a very poorly-paid order.
”I believe you are right, Clytie,” she went on slowly. ”I remember letting go that I had done that sort of thing in a small way, and even that I would be glad to do it again in a large one if only I got the chance, but I never dreamt of anything coming of it--never for a moment.”
”No? Well, you're in luck's way this time, dear. Probably this editor is a friend of his; and then, apart from that, a man in the position of Wagram of Hilversea can exercise almost unlimited influence in pretty near any direction he chooses--by Jove, he can.”
Delia did not at once reply, and, noting a certain look upon her meditative face, Clytie smiled to herself, and forebore to make any allusion to her cherished scheme, which, in her own mind, she decided was growing more promising than ever.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
”A CALMOUR AT HILVERSEA.”
Wagram's private study, or ”den,” where he was wont to do all his business thinking and writing, and which was absolutely sacred to himself and his papers and general litter, was a snug room overlooking the drive; and thence, as he sat with his after-breakfast pipe in his mouth and some business papers relating to the estate before him on the morning following the incidents just recorded, he was--well, not altogether surprised at seeing a girl on a bicycle skimming up to the front door.
”Poor child!” he said to himself. ”She looks positively radiant. I used to think, in those awful days, if I were in the position I am in now--by the grace of G.o.d--what a great deal I could do for others, and yet, and yet, it's little enough one seems to be able to do.”
He need not have disparaged himself. There were not a few, among them some who had shown him kindness in ”those awful days,” who now had reason to bless his name as long as they lived, and their children's children after them.
”Come in. Yes; I'll be down in a minute or two,” he said in response to the announcement that Miss Calmour had called on a matter of business, and very much wished to see him. He smiled to himself as he remembered the occasion of her last call--also ”on a matter of business.” Then he made a note as to where to resume the work in which he had been interrupted, laid down his pipe, and went downstairs.
”And now,” he said merrily when they had shaken hands, ”what is this 'matter of business'?”
Delia was looking radiant, and, consequently, very pretty. She had that dark warmth of complexion which suffuses, and her hazel eyes were soft and velvety.
”This will explain,” she said, holding out the editor's letter; ”and, Mr Wagram, it would be affectation for me to pretend that I did not know whom I had to thank for it.”
”Of course. As far as I can see it is the editor of _The Old Country Side_. But editors don't want thanking; they are hard, cold-blooded men of business, as I have had ample reason to discover in my old struggling days.”