Val Stafford, smoking a well-earned pipe some hours later in the evening sunlight on the vicarage lawn, looked up at his brother over the Chronicle with a faint frown. "Who?"
"Ah! who?" said Rowsley, squatting cross-legged on the turf.
"Jack began on it this afternoon, and I had to switch him off, for I didn"t care to own that it was news to me."
"There"s nothing in it at present."
"The duke has offered me the management of his Etchingham property," said Val unwillingly. "Oh no, not to give up Bernard: Etchingham, you see, marches with Wanhope and the two could be run together. He was awfully nice about it: would take what time I could give him: quite saw that Wanhope would have to come first."
"How much?"
"Four hundred and an allowance for a house. Five, to be precise, which is what he is giving Mills: but of course I couldn"t take full time pay for a part-time job."
Rowsley whistled.
"Yes, it would be very nice," said Val, always temperate. "It would practically be 300 pounds, for I couldn"t go on taking my full 300 pounds from Bernard. I should get him to put on a young fellow to work under me."
"It would make a lot of difference to you, even so."
"To us," Val corrected him. "Another pound a week would oil the wheels of Isabel"s housekeeping. And--" he hesitated, but having gone so far one might as well go on--"it would enable me to do two things I"ve long set my heart on, only it was no use saying so: give you another hundred and fifty a year and insure my life in Isabel"s favour. It would lift a weight off my mind if I could do that. Suppose I were to die suddenly--one never knows what would become of her? She"ll be able to earn her own living after taking her degree in October, but women"s posts are badly paid and it"s uncommonly hard to save. Oh yes, old boy, I know you"d look after her! But I don"t want her to be a drag on you: it"s bad enough now--you never grumble, but I know what it"s like never to have a penny to spare. Times have changed since I was in the Army, but nothing alters the fact that it"s uncommonly unpleasant to be worse off than other fellows. I hate it for you--all the more because you don"t grumble. It is a constant worry to me not to be able to put you in a better position."
Rowsley had been too long inured to this paternal tenderness to be sensible of its touching absurdity on the lips of a man not much older than himself. But he was not a selfish youth, and he remonstrated with Val, though more like a son than a brother.
"Yes, I dare say, but where do you come in? A stiff premium for Isabel and 50 pounds for Jim and 150 pounds for me doesn"t leave much change out of 300 pounds!"
"Oh, I"ve all I want. Living at home, I don"t get the chance of spending a lot of pocket money."
"Why don"t you close at once?"
"Because I can"t get an answer out of Bernard. I"ve spoken to him but he won"t decide one way or the other. And he"s my master, and I can"t take on another job if he objects. That"s why I kept it dark at home: what"s the good of raising hopes that may be disappointed?"
"Pity you can"t chuck Bernard and take on Etchingham and the five hundred."
"I should never do that," said Val in the rare tone of decision which in him was final. "After all these years I could never leave Bernard in the lurch. I owe him too much."
"As if the boot weren"t on the other leg!" Rowsley muttered. He was not mercenary--none of Mr. Stafford"s children were: he saw eye to eye with Val in Val"s calm preference of six to eight hundred a year: but when Val carried his financial principles into the realm of sentiment Rowsley now and then lost his temper.
His brother smiled at him, amused by his irritation, unmoved by it: other men"s opinions rarely had any weight with Val Stafford.
"Pax till it happens, at all events! Honestly I don"t think Bernard means to object: he"s been all smiles the last day or two--Hyde"s coming has shaken him up and done him good--"
"Oh! Hyde!"
Val let fail his paper and looked curiously at Rowsley, whose tone was a challenge. "What is it now?"
"Do you like this chap Hyde?"
"That depends on what you mean by liking him. He"s not a bad specimen of his cla.s.s."
"What is his cla.s.s? Do you know anything of his people?"
"Of his family I know little except that he has Jew blood in him and is very well off," Val could have told his brother where the money came from, but forbore out of consideration for Lawrence, who might not care to have his connection with the Hyde Galleries known in Chilmark. "He came here because Lucian Selincourt asked him to see if he could do anything for Bernard."
"I can"t see Hyde putting himself out of his way to oblige Mr.
Selincourt."
"If you ask me, Rose, I should say he had only just got back to England and was at a loose end. But there was a dash of good nature in it: he"s genuinely fond of Mrs. Clowes."
"So I gathered," said Rowsley. His tone was pregnant. Val sat silent for a moment.
"What rubbis.h.!.+ He hasn"t seen her for eight or ten years."
"Since her marriage." Val shrugged his shoulders. "Sorry, Val, but I cannot see Hyde staying on at Wanhope out of cousinly affection for Bernard Clowes. It must be a beastly uncomfortable house to stay in. Nicely run and all that, and they do you very well, but Bernard is distinctly an acquired taste. Oh, my dear chap!" as Val"s silence stiffened, "no one suggests that Laura"s ever looked at the fellow! But facts are facts, and Hyde is-- Hyde. I"m not a bit surprised to hear he has Jew blood in him,"
Rowsley continued, warming to the discussion: he was a much keener judge of character that the tolerant and easy-going Val.
"That accounts for the arty strain in him. Yvonne says he"s a thorough musician, and Jack told me Lord Grantchester took to him because he knew such a lot about pictures. Well, so he ought!
He"s a Londoner. What does he know of the country? Only what you pick up at a big country-house party or a big shoot! He"s not the sort of chap to stay on at Wanhope for the pleasure of cheering up across-grained br--a fellow like Bernard. Yes, he"s talking of staying on indefinitely: is going to send to town for one of his confounded cars. . . . And what other woman is there in Chilmark that he"d walk across the road to look at?"
"I"m not sure you"re fair to him."
Rowsley turned up to his brother an amused, rather sweet smile.
"Val, you"d pray for the devil?"
"Oh, Hyde isn"t a devil! I came pretty close to him ten years ago. He has a streak of generosity in him: no one knows that better than I do, for I"m in his debt. What? Oh! no, not in money matters: is that likely? But he"s capable of . . .
magnanimity, one might call it," Stafford fastidiously felt after precision: "no, he wouldn"t pursue Laura; he wouldn"t make her life harder than it is already."
"He might propose to make it easier." Rowsley threw a daisy at a c.o.c.kchafer and missed it. "You and I are sons of a parsonage.
We shouldn"t run off with a married lady because it would be against our principles." His thin brown features were twisted into a faint grimace. Rowsley, like Val, possessed a satirical sense of humour, and gave it freer play than Val did. "It"s so difficult to shake off early prejudices. When Fowler and I were at the club the other day, we met a horrid little sweep who waxed confidential. I said I couldn"t make love to a married woman if I tried, and Fowler said he could but held rather not, and we walked off, but as I remarked to Fowler afterwards the funny thing was that it was true. I don"t see anything romantic in the situation. It strikes me as immoral and disgusting. But Hyde wouldn"t take a narrow view like mine. He has to live up to his tailor."
"Oh, really, Rose!" Val gave his unwilling laugh. "You"re like Isabel, who can"t forgive him for sporting a diamond monogram."
"No, but I"m interested. I know Jack"s limitations, and Jimmy"s, and yours, but Hyde"s I don"t know, and he intrigues me," said Rowsley, lighting a cigarette with his agile brown fingers.
"Now I"ll tell you the way he really strikes me. He"s not a bad sort: I shouldn"t wonder if there were more decency in him than he"d care to get credit for. But I should think," he looked up at Val with his clear speculative hazel eyes, "that he"s never in his life taken a thras.h.i.+ng. He"s always had pots of money and superb health. I know nothing, of his private concerns, but at all events he isn"t married, and from what Jack says he"s sought safety in numbers. No wife, no kids, no near relations--that means none of the big wrenches. No: I don"t believe Hyde"s ever taken a licking in his life."
"You sound as if you would like to administer one."
"Only by way of a literary experiment," said Rowsley with his mischievous grin. He was of the new Army, Val of the old: it was a constant source of mild surprise to Val that his brother read books about philosophy, and psychology, and sociology, of which pre-war Sandhurst had never heard: read poetry too, not Tennyson or Shakespeare, but slim modern volumes with brown covers and wide margins: and wrote verses now and then, and sent them to orange-coloured magazines or annual anthologies, at which Val gazed from a respectful distance. "I don"t owe him any grudge.
I"m not Bernard"s dry-nurse!"
Val turned a leaf of his paper, but he was not reading it.
"I rather wish you hadn"t said all this, Rowsley. It does no good: not even if it were true."
"Val, if it weren"t such a warm evening I"d get up and punch your head. You"re a little too bright and good, aren"t you? Yvonne Bendish says it, and she"s Laura"s sister."
"Yvonne would say anything. I wish you had given her a hint to hold her tongue. She may do most pestilent mischief if she sets this gossip going."
"It"ll set itself going," said Rowsley. "And, though I know the Bendishes pretty well, I really shouldn"t care to tell Mrs. Jack not to gossip about her own sister. You might see your way to it, reverend sir, but I don"t."
"If it came to Bernard"s ears I wouldn"t answer for the consequences."