Part 38 (1/2)
”By Jove, but Wagram is a good chap!” exclaimed Clytie one day with characteristic outspokenness. ”This is all his doing, of course. I tell you what it is, Delia, if you don't bring off my scheme within a reasonable time of his return I'm blest if I don't cut in myself.”
”Why do you think it's his doing, Clytie?” had been the answer, ignoring the last threat.
”It wasn't for nothing he came down here pumping us that day. Well, he is one in a good many thousands, as I shall tell him some day when he's my bro--”
”Oh, shut up, Clytie. You know I hate that sort of chaff,” interrupted Delia testily, for the remark jarred upon her hideously.
”Right oh!” cried the other, with a good-humoured laugh. ”Keep your hair on, dear. You can, too, for it's all your own, and a jolly good lot of it too--that's where you dark ones score over us--though I don't come far behind. Let's shut up shop now and go for a bike ride. We shall skim over these frost-bound roads; only we'll get jolly red noses.
We can ride to Fulkston, and back through Hilversea--and adore the empty Court in the distance,” she added slyly.
They made an attractive pair as they skimmed along, both sitting gracefully and well; the serene cla.s.sical features of the one, and the more rich and sparkling brunette beauty of the other, together with the well-formed, graceful figures of both, const.i.tuted a picture which caused more than one male head to come round in admiration as its owner half halted.
”The Calmour girls! oh yes, pretty--devilish pretty--but--” const.i.tuting the comment, either uttered or thought. But the fourteen-mile ride out, and rather more back, added to the glow of health which mantled each very attractive face.
”There's the old Court, all shut up,” commented Clytie as the pile rose clear against its background of now naked trees in the bright frosty moonlight. ”What a sin to own a place like that and leave it shut up.
I wouldn't.”
”Wouldn't you! You'd vote it slow in a month, and start off for town, if I know anything of you,” answered Delia, starting out of a brown study; for they were just pa.s.sing the very point in the road where Wagram had surprised her while having her fortune told by the gipsy. A little farther, and they came to the scene of the gnu incident. There was the white gate gleaming in the moonlight; but the slumbrous wealth of foliage had given place to bare boughs, forming a frosted network against the winter sky. And with that day there came back to her another--a golden, glowing August day--that Sunday, the last long day of interrupted suns.h.i.+ne--when they had surprised the mysterious stranger and trespa.s.ser. Somehow from that day the rising of the cloud had seemed to date, but of this she said nothing to Clytie.
On arrival home they were met by Bob, looking more than scared.
”About time you came,” he grunted. ”Don't know what's up with the old man.”
”Oh dear. The usual thing,” said Delia, not scornful now, for she had undergone something of a change in every way.
”No, it isn't,” returned Bob quickly. ”He's not 'fresh' this time, but he's devilish queer.”
Old Calmour was lying on the sofa, breathing stertorously, and looking, as Bob had said, ”devilish queer.”
”Get on your bike, Bob, and go and fetch Thorpe,” commanded Clytie the capable, at the same time loosening her father's s.h.i.+rt collar.
”Can't; it's punctured.”
”Take mine, then. Only--go.”
”Good Lord, Clytie! But it's not serious, eh?”
”Go--d'you hear, you jacka.s.s,” she repeated, with a stamp of the foot.
”And bring him back with you. None of his--'look round directly.'
Bring him back with you.”
The old man lay, staring up at them, his red and bloated face showing no sign of recognition; and on the prompt arrival of the doctor they were not long in learning that it never would again, for in less than an hour old Calmour was dead. Stroke, greatly accelerated by intemperate habits, was the medical verdict.
”What's to be done now, Delia?” remarked Clytie a day or two after the funeral, while she and her sister were holding a serious council of war--or rather of ways and means. ”What the very devil is to be done?
We can't go on running Siege House at our rates of pay, and the poor old dad didn't leave a cent.”
This was a fact. The sale of the furniture would not put them in funds to any great extent. Old Calmour's pension had died with him, and there were three boys to keep at school. Well, this, of course, was out of the question. Bob would have to live on the by no means princely salary he received from Pownall and Skreet, and very blue did the said Bob look over the prospect. One thing was certain: the household would have to be broken up.
The funeral, as may be imagined, had not been largely attended; in fact, except the dead man's family, hardly anybody had been present One of these exceptions had been Haldane, and the circ.u.mstances had appealed to the girls with a very real sense of appreciation.