"Nor have you, my dear boy."
"But I might have," said John.
If this sort of thing went on much longer, he would, too--dozens of children.
"Bertram," John called out. "Come here, my boy, and listen to me. When I go back to London, you shall have a diving-suit too if I can find another."
Eleanor tossed her head back like a victorious game-c.o.c.k; she would have crowed, if she could.
"Dinner is ready," announced Hilda fresh from a triumph over Mrs.
Worfolk about the sauce and happily ignorant of the dreadful relegation of her son. After an unusually large meal even for Christmas the company lay about the drawing-room like exhausted Roman debauchees, while the pink and green paper caps out of the crackers one by one fluttered from their brows to the carpet. Snores and the occasional violent whizz of an overwound toy were all that broke the stillness. At tea-time everybody woke up, and Bertram was allowed to put on his fireman"s uniform in order to extinguish a bonfire that Huggins had hoped would burn slowly over the holidays. After a comparatively light supper games were played; drawing-room fireworks were let off; Laurence blacked his nose in the magic lantern; and George walking ponderously across the room to fetch himself a cigar was struck on the ear by a projectile from the vacuum pistol, the red mark of which was visible for some time even on his florid countenance. Then, when the children became too quarrelsome to be any longer tolerated out of bed, a bowl of punch was brought in and Auld Lang Syne was sung. After which everybody agreed that it had been a very merry Christmas, and Grandmama was led weeping up to bed.
The next morning about midday John announced that he was driving to Wrottesford for the purpose of meeting Miss Hamilton.
"For though it is holiday time, I must do a certain amount of work," he explained.
"Miss Hamilton?" said Grandmama. "And who may Miss Hamilton be?"
Hilda, Edith, Eleanor, and Beatrice all looked very solemn and mysterious; James chuckled; Hugh brightened visibly.
"Well, I suppose we mustn"t mind a stranger"s coming to spoil our happy party," Hilda sighed.
"Ah, this will be your new secretary of whom rumor has already spoken,"
said Laurence. "Possibly she will give me some advice on the subject of the typing of ma.n.u.scripts."
"Miss Hamilton will be very busy while she is staying here," said John, curtly.
Everybody looked at everybody else, and there was an awkward pause, which was relieved by Harold"s saying that he would show her where he thought a goldfinch would make a nest in spring.
"Dear little man," murmured his mother with a sigh for his childish confidence.
"Shall _I_ drive in to meet her?" Hugh suggested.
"No, thank you," said John, quickly.
"That"s right, Johnnie," James guffawed. "You stick to the reins yourself."
CHAPTER XII
John did not consider himself a first-cla.s.s whip: if he had been offered the choice between swimming to meet his love like Leander, climbing into her father"s orchard like Romeo, and driving to meet her with a dog-cart, he would certainly, had the engagement shown signs of being a long one, have chosen any mode of trysting except the last. This morning, however, he was not as usual oppressed by a sense of imperfect sympathy between himself and the mare; he did not think she was going to have hysterics when she blew her nose, nor fancy that she was on the verge of bolting when she tossed her chestnut mane; the absence of William the groom seemed a matter for congratulation rather than for regret; he felt as reckless as Phaeton, as urgent as Jehu, and the mare knew it. Generally, when her master held the reins, she would try to walk up steep banks or emulate in her capricious greed the lofty browsings of the giraffe; this morning at a steady swinging trot she kept to the middle of the road, pa.s.sed two motor-cars without trying to box the landscape, and did not even shy at the new hat of the vicar"s wife.
Later on, however, when John was safe in the station-yard and saw the familiar way in which Miss Hamilton patted the mare he decided not to take any risk on the return journey and in spite of his brother"s parting gibe to hand over the reins to his secretary; nor was the symbolism of the action distasteful. How charming she looked in that mauve frieze! How well the color was harmonizing with the purple hedgerows! How naturally she seemed to haunt the woodland scene!
"Oh, this exquisite country," she sighed. "Fancy staying in London when you can write here!"
"It does seem absurd," the lucky author agreed. "But the house is very full at present. We shall be rather exposed to interruptions until the party breaks up."
He gave her an account of the Christmas festival, to which she seemed able to listen comfortably and appreciatively in spite of the fact that she was driving. This impressed John very much.
"I hope your mother wasn"t angry at your leaving town," he said, tentatively. "I thought of telegraphing an invitation to her; but there really isn"t room for another person."
"I"m afraid I can"t say that she was gracious about my desertion of her.
Indeed, she"s beginning to put pressure on me to give up my post. Quite indirectly, of course, but one feels the effect just the same. Who knows? I may succ.u.mb."
John nearly fell out of the dog-cart.
"Give up your post?" he gasped. "But, my dear Miss Hamilton, the dog-roses won"t be in bloom for some months."
"What have dog-roses got to do with my post?"
He laughed a little foolishly.
"I mean the play won"t be finished for some months. Did I say dog-roses?
I must have been thinking of the dog-cart. You drive with such admirable unconcern. Still, you ought to see these hedgerows in summer. Now the time I like for a walk is about eight o"clock on a June evening. The honeysuckle smells so delicious about eight o"clock. There"s no doubt it is ridiculous to live in London. I hope you made it quite clear to your mother you had no intention of leaving me?"
"Ida Merritt did most of the arguing."
"Did she? What a very intelligent girl she is, by the way. I confess I took a great fancy to her."
"You told mother once that she frightened you."
"Ah, but I"m always frightened by people when I meet them first. Though curiously enough I was never frightened of you. Some people have told me that _I_ am frightening at first. You didn"t find that did you?"
"No, I certainly did not. And I can"t imagine anybody else"s doing so either."
Although John rather plumed himself upon the alarm he was credited with inspiring at first sight, he did not argue the point, because he really never had had the least desire to frighten his secretary.
"And your relations don"t seem to find you very frightening," she murmured. "Good gracious, what an a.s.semblage!"
The dog-cart had just drawn clear of the beechwood, and the whole of the Ambles party could be seen vigilantly grouped by the gate to receive them, which John thought was a lapse of taste on the part of his guests.
Nor was he mollified by the way in which after the introductions were made Hugh took it upon himself to conduct Miss Hamilton indoors, while he was left shouting for William the groom. If it was anybody"s business except his own to escort her into the house, it was Hilda"s.
"What a very extraordinary thing," said John, fretfully, "that the _only_ person who"s wanted is not here. Where is that confounded boy?"
"I"m here," cried Bertram, responding to the epithet instinctively.
"Not you. Not you. I wanted William to take the mare."
When lunch was over John found that notwithstanding his secretary"s arrival he was less eager to begin work again upon his play than he had supposed.
"I think I must be feeling rather worn out by Christmas," he told her.
"I wonder if a walk wouldn"t do you good after the journey."
"Now that"s a capital notion," exclaimed Hugh, who was standing close by and overheard the suggestion. "We might tramp up to the top of Shalstead Down."