Archibald Marshall

“ He need never have known it; so few people did know it, even in London, where Virginia was beginning to be well known, or in Leicestershire, where she was very well known indeed. Of course, Humphrey knew it—he knew all that sort of gossip about everybody—and Dick's anger against him began to burn as he imagined the way in which he would have let it out. He was like a spiteful old woman, fiddling about in drawing-rooms, whispering scandal into other old women's ears and receiving it into his own in return. ”

“ Neither Dick nor, of course, the twins had ever known the dower-house unassociated with the quiet lives of the old ladies, and they shared in their different degree the same feeling of strangeness as they stood under the porch and listened to the bell echoing in the empty house. It was like a human body from which life had departed, but with its age and many memories it still kept a soul of its own which could be revivified by fresh occupancy. ”

“ If I were to go and tell my father straight off that I am going to marry Virginia he would be all over bristles at once. All the things that don't matter a hang beside what she is, and what every one can see she is who knows her, would be brought up, and he'd put himself into a frantic state about it. He wouldn't let me bring her to Kencote; he'd fight blindly with every weapon he could use. I'm heir to a fine property, and I'm as well off as I need be, even while my father is alive, as long as I don't set myself against all his dislikes and prejudices. ”

“ What do you know of mathematics?"
"Don't be foolish, Margaret," said Miss Phipp sharply. "They must not begin by making fun of their lessons."
"Oh, but we shouldn't think of doing that," said Joan.
"They're far too serious, and we have been taught not to make fun of serious things," said Nancy.
Miss Dexter laughed again. "What do you know of mathematics?" she asked.
"Nancy is not good at them," replied Joan. "She got as far as the asses' bridge in Euclid, with the starling, our last governess, and then she struck, as you might expect. Her strong point is literature. ”

“ Dick came to breakfast in a tweed jacket, and Humphrey in a quilted silk smoking-coat, and both had linen aprons tied round their waists to preserve their well pipe-clayed breeches. But the Squire belonged to an older generation, having been born when boots and breeches still lingered as the normal dress of country gentlemen, and a red coat was as easy in the wearing as any other coat. He looked a fine figure of a man, as he stood up at the end of the table to read prayers to his household, and ready to go with the best if he got a horse up to his weight. ”

“ Lord Meadshire glanced at him quizzically. He knew well enough his ostrich-like habit of burying one fact in a Sahara of words and leaving a dozen for all the world to see. "Come now, my dear Edward," he said persuasively, "why not make friends with the lady? You will find her everything she ought to be, and a charming woman into the bargain. If Dick is a little struck with her charms, I don't wonder at it, and there's nothing to be alarmed at. The best thing you can do is to keep your eye on her while he is away." ”

“ Miss Dexter came over to them and drew the curtains again firmly. "Don't make a fuss," she said, "or you will make your mother anxious. Pull yourselves together and come and sit down. Joan, give Miss Phipp some tea."
Joan did as she was told, still crying softly. Nancy said, "Father has never had a bad fall, and he has been hunting all his life. He knows how to take a toss. Don't be a fool, Joan. I expect it will be all right."
"Don't talk like that," said Miss Phipp sharply, her nerves on edge, "and, Joan, stop crying at once." ”

“ A cigarette-smoking, loose-tongued, kind-to-everybody creature of the stage! He would rather be at enmity with his son all his days, he would rather see him dead, than married to such a woman.
He walked his horse, not knowing where he was going to, except that he wanted to get as far as possible away from Lady George Dubec, to the outskirts of the crowd and beyond them, his mind in a ferment of disgust. He heard the creak of saddlery and the thud of a horse's hoofs on the hard turf behind him. ”

“ Even if people wrong us, if they love us and we see it, it is not difficult to forgive them. If you would come home I think all your anger would disappear, however much you may think you are justified in it. I have never seen your father so unhappy and so troubled. For his sake, Dick, for the sake of all that he has done for you, come home to us. ”

“ Virginia said. "Dick dear, what shall you do?"
Dick did not answer this question directly. He had his father's habit of following out his own train of thought and ignoring, or rather not noticing, interruption. "He must know perfectly well," he said, "that I can raise money quite easily on my prospects. I dare say he hasn't thought of that, though. He never does think a thing thoroughly out. He wouldn't be happy if I threatened to do it."
"Oh, Dick, Dick!" exclaimed Virginia, "why do you want to worry about money? I have plenty for both of us." ”

“ The ensuing silence was broken by a smothered giggle from Joan, which Nancy covered up by asking in a rather shaky voice of Miss Dexter whether she and Miss Phipp had known each other before.
"Yes," said Miss Dexter, "we were at school together—oh, years ago—and have never seen each other since, until we met on the platform. Funny, wasn't it? I say, is there a ghost at Kencote?"
"Oh, no, it isn't old enough," replied Joan. "But there's one at the dower-house—an old man in one boot who goes about looking for the other one." ”

“ We know who Dick is in love with now. Of course he got her down here. Humphrey said she was very beautiful."
"You are not to talk like that, children," said Cicely. "You know nothing about these things."
"Darling!" said Joan, squeezing her arm. "Don't be so frightfully grown-up. We are not children any longer, and we know a good deal more than you think."
"We are a force to be reckoned with now," said Nancy, "and it's no use trying to keep family secrets from us, sending us out of the room, and all that. It's too transparent, and makes us talk all the more." ”

“ But your Dick, Virginia, is the sort of man who will want to rule, and to rule without question. He is very much in love with you now—that is quite plain, although he is one of those men who hold themselves in. But you won't get your way, my dear, when you are married, unless it is his way too—any more than you did before."
"Oh, my own way! What do I care about that? My way shall be his way. I love him and I can trust him. He is a strong man, and tender too. Toby, I adore him. I will do everything in the world that I can to make him happy. ”

“ Bobby Trench, after he had had his toes trodden on and his shirt-front crumpled, inwardly repeated his ejaculations of dinner-time, "Never again!"
But he was, fortunately, in a minority. The bulk of the healthy open-air-looking young men and the pretty country-bred girls who footed it to the strains of a brisk and enlivening string band were not so particular as he. They smiled at the mishaps of others and laughed at their own, and enjoyed themselves thoroughly, as young men and women do who are not surfeited with pleasure. ”

“ Dick was one of them. He was riding Roland, the best horse, not a weight carrier, in the Kencote stables, who was quite capable of carrying him to the end of the great run that now seemed certain; for the fox had not turned aside towards the nearer coverts and must have had Trensham in his cunning mind since he had first set out. Dick waved a hand to him as he galloped past. There was no sign of Virginia; on such an occasion as this women, even the best beloved, must look after themselves. ”

“ What's she like, Humphrey?"
"Oh, most lovable—as you can see," replied Humphrey, disengaging his arm and setting out into the darkness.
When the carriage into which the twins had packed themselves with Miss Phipp and Miss Dexter had rolled off in the wake of the other, Miss Phipp said, "Well, girls, I hope we shall get on well together. You're not afraid of hard work, I suppose?"
"Oh no," replied Joan readily; "we're looking forward to it immensely."
"You will find our diligence one of our best points," said Nancy. "If at first we don't succeed we always try, try, try again." ”

“ She can make her way, and make him forget all the rest. Now, what have you got against that? Let's have it plainly."
"Dear Dick!" said Virginia softly. "I have had many compliments paid me, but that is the best of all. Answer him, Toby, and don't keep up this tiresome irritation any longer. It spoils everything."
"Well, I'll give in," said Miss Dexter. "But in my inmost soul I'm against all this policy, and if your father isn't quite blind, Captain Dick, he will see through it, and you will be worse off than before."
"My father can't see through anything," said Dick. ”

“ Virginia answered for her. "She wonders what there is in a man for a woman to cling to—and especially after my experience. She thinks a woman's friendship ought to be enough. She wants no other. We talk over these things together, but we don't quarrel. She knows that I shall always love her, don't you, Toby?"
"Perhaps I do, perhaps I don't," said Miss Dexter. "But we needn't discuss these matters before Captain Dick. I'll ring for the lights and the tea." ”

“ It isn't hard to forgive people when they admit they're in the wrong. It is hard, otherwise, but that doesn't make it any less right to do it. I'm preaching, but we're going to be always together, Dick, and you must put up with a little sermon sometimes."
"You're a sweet saint, Virginia, but what on earth are you asking me to do? Am I to go to Humphrey and say, 'You've acted like a cur, but I forgive you; take all that you can get that has always been looked upon as mine, and let's say no more about it'?"
"Oh, don't talk about the money or the property at all. Let that look after itself. ”

“ There was the fence over which, as a hard-riding subaltern, at the end of a season during which he had hunted for the most part in Leicestershire, he had broken the back of the best mare he had ever owned, through over-anxiety to show his neighbours what riding straight to hounds really meant, and nearly broken his own neck into the bargain. There was the grass field in which, many years before, although it seemed like yesterday, hounds had pulled their fox down, and Dick, riding his first pony, had been in at the death, had won his first brush, and had been duly blooded. ”

“ When he was on his horse and had seen that his flask and sandwich-case were in place, he had another moment of indecision. Through all his discomfort and annoyance, his heart yearned towards his son, and he was alternately and from minute to minute swayed by opposite impulses, to hold out firmly for Dick's sake or to give way for his own. As he walked his horse on to the green it was in his mind to cross over to where Dick was standing by the pony-cart and, with what graciousness he could, end it all. ”

“ Life is hardly worth living with all these worries. One never seems to get a moment's peace. I'm going into my room now, Nina, to read the paper for a bit."
"I should like to talk to you for a few minutes longer about the children," said Mrs. Clinton. "As a change has to be made, I want to make a thorough one. It is quite true that they are beyond Miss Bird, even if she could have stayed. I should like to send them to a good school for two or three years, and then to France or Germany for a year."
The Squire bent his brows in an amazed frown. "What on earth can you be thinking of, Nina?" ”

“ To bring a creature from behind the footlights and make her mistress of Kencote—a soiled woman—that's what she is, even if she has never sold herself—and who knows that she hasn't? She did sell herself—to a broken-down roué, a man old enough to be her father—for his wretched title, I suppose. And now she wants to buy Kencote, and my son, Dick, the straightest, finest fellow a father ever had reason to be proud of. I tell you, Tom, the world ought to be delivered of these harpies. They ought to be locked up, Tom, locked up, and the wickedness whipped out of them. ”

“ He knew very well that Dick was a stronger man than his father, and that if he had made up his mind to do a thing he would do it. But he still doubted whether he had made up his mind to do this particular thing. He thought that the Squire was probably alarming himself needlessly, and with all the art that lay in his power he tried to persuade him that it was so. "Young men," he ended, "do make friends with women they wouldn't want to marry. You know that is so, Edward. It is no use shutting your eyes to facts." ”

“ The Squire had said the day before, when he had made known to her that he had heard of her projected departure, "You must come and see us, you know, Miss Bird. The house won't be like itself without you."
Could anything be more gratifying—and from such a man? Mrs. Clinton, of course, had been kindness itself, had said just the right things to make a person feel herself valued, and said them as if she meant them, as no doubt, dear lady, she did, for she was always sincere. ”

“ Dear me, what with Walter and Cicely being married two years ago and Dick and Humphrey about to be married, one feels one belongs to a family in which things are always happening. I only wish that my dear sisters had been alive to take part in it all. ”

“ He was standing by his scissors-and-paste table when Humphrey went in, and there was a slight frown of annoyance on his otherwise amiable face. He was a big man, clean-shaven except for the rudiments of a pair of whiskers, and looked like an intelligent family solicitor, preoccupied with affairs of moment. His appearance had sometimes caused him to be taken for a serious politician and had caused him some annoyance. "I'm all for the constitution and that sort of thing," he was accustomed to say, "and my vote's safe enough when it's wanted. But I will not take the chair at political meetings. ”

“ Humphrey was silent. They had been talking quietly. Hostility had gone out of their talk, but friendliness had not yet come in.
Dick seated himself and began again. "Perhaps it isn't for me to say, now that I've got everything I want, but I do say it all the same, because I found it out when I didn't think I was going to have everything I wanted. Money isn't everything. If you have as much as you can live comfortably on, and something to do, you've just as much chance of happiness as the next fellow. 'Specially if you're going to marry the right woman." ”

“ The twins went in the carriage to meet Dick at the station. They squeezed in on either side of him and made their pleasure at seeing him both vocal and tangible.
"Dear, darling old Dick," said Joan, trying to seize his hand under the bearskin rug, "it is very wrong of you to stay away from home. We've missed you awfully."
"You seem more of a fluffy angel than ever now we have got you back," said Nancy. "How true it is what the old Starling used to say, that we don't know our blessings till they have left us." ”

“ Their elders looked on from the rout seats placed round the room, or from their place of vantage on the daïs, and in the intervals of the babel of talk—for nearly all of them knew one another and had a great deal to say—thought of their own young days and were pleased to see their pleasure repeated by their sons and daughters. There is no ball like a country ball, not too overwhelmingly invaded from London or elsewhere. It has the essence of sociability, where people meet who do not meet too often, and there is something for the young ones to do and the old ones to look on at. ”