"Oh, come, Sam!" said Sir Mallaby. "At your age I used to think love was fairly important, too!"
"Love!" said Sam. He jabbed at his souffle with a spoon. You could see by the scornful way he did it that he did not think much of love.
-- 4
Sir Mallaby, the last cigar of the night between his lips, broke a silence which had lasted a quarter of an hour. The guests had gone, and he and Sam were alone together.
"Sam," he said, "do you know what I think?"
"No," said Sam.
Sir Mallaby removed his cigar and spoke impressively. "I"ve been turning the whole thing over in my mind, and the conclusion I have come to is that there is more in this Windles business than meets the eye.
I"ve known your Aunt Adeline all my life, and I tell you it isn"t in that woman to change her infernal pig-headed mind, especially about letting her house. She is a monomaniac on that subject. If you want to know my opinion, I am quite certain that your cousin Eustace has let the place to these people without her knowledge, and intends to pocket the cheque and not say a word about it. What do you think?"
"Eh?" said Sam absently.
"I said, what do you think?"
"What do I think about what?"
"About Eustace Hignett and Windles."
"What about them?"
Sir Mallaby regarded him disprovingly. "I"m hanged if I know what"s the matter with you to-night, Sam. You seem to have unhitched your brain and left it in the umbrella stand. You hadn"t a word to say for yourself all through dinner. You might have been a Trappist monk. And with that delightful girl Miss Bennett, there, too. She must have thought you infernally dull."
"I"m sorry."
"It"s no good being sorry now. The mischief"s done. She has gone away thinking you an idiot. Do you realise," said Sir Mallaby warmly, "that when she told that extremely funny story about the man who made such a fool of himself on board the ship, you were the only person at the table who was not amused? She must have thought you had no sense of humour!"
Sam rose. "I think I"ll be going," he said. "Good night!"
A man can bear just so much.
CHAPTER X
TROUBLE AT WINDLES
-- 1
Mr. Rufus Bennett stood at the window of the drawing-room of Windles, looking out. From where he stood he could see all those natural and artificial charms which had made the place so desirable to him when he first beheld them. Immediately below, flower beds, bright with a.s.sorted blooms, pressed against the ivied stone wall of the house. Beyond, separated from these by a gravel pathway, a smooth lawn, whose green and silky turf rivalled the lawns of Oxford colleges, stretched to a picturesque shrubbery, not so dense as to withhold altogether from the eye of the observer an occasional silvery glimpse of the lake that lay behind it. To the left, through n.o.ble trees, appeared a white suggestion of old stable yards; while to the right, bordering on the drive as it swept round to a distant gate, nothing less than a fragment of a ruined castle reared itself against a background of firs.
It had been this sensational fragment of Old England which had definitely captured Mr. Bennett on his first visit to the place. He could not have believed that the time would ever come when he could gaze on it without any lightening of the spirits.
The explanation of his gloom was simple. In addition to looking at the flower beds, the lawn, the shrubbery, the stable yard, and the castle, Mr. Bennett was also looking at the fifth heavy shower that had fallen since breakfast. This was the third afternoon of his tenancy. The first day it had rained all the time. The second day it had rained from eight till twelve-fifteen, from twelve-thirty till four, and from five till eleven. And on this, the third day, there had been no intermission longer than ten minutes. It was a trying Summer. Even the writers in the daily papers seemed mildly surprised, and claimed that England had seen finer Julys. Mr. Bennett, who had lived his life in a country of warmth and sunshine, the thing affected in much the same way as the early days of the Flood must have affected Noah. A first startled resentment had given place to a despair too militant to be called resignation. And with the despair had come a strong distaste for his fellow human beings, notably and in particular his old friend Mr. Mortimer, who at this moment broke impatiently in on his meditations.
"Come along, Bennett. It"s your deal. It"s no good looking at the rain.
Looking at it won"t stop it."
Mr. Mortimer"s nerves also had become a little frayed by the weather.
Mr. Bennett returned heavily to the table, where, with Mr. Mortimer as partner he was playing one more interminable rubber of bridge against Bream and Billie. He was sick of bridge, but there was nothing else to do.
Mr. Bennett sat down with a grunt, and started to deal. Half-way through the operation the sound of rather stertorous breathing began to proceed from beneath the table. Mr. Bennett glanced agitatedly down, and curled his legs round his chair.
"I have fourteen cards," said Mr. Mortimer. "That"s the third time you"ve mis-dealt."
"I don"t care how many cards you"ve got!" said Mr. Bennett with heat.
"That dog of yours is sniffing at my ankles!"
He looked malignantly at a fine bulldog which now emerged from its cover and, sitting down, beamed at the company. He was a sweet-tempered dog, handicapped by the outward appearance of a canine plug-ugly. Murder seemed the mildest of the desires that lay behind that rugged countenance. As a matter of fact, what he wanted was cake. His name was Smith, and Mr. Mortimer had bought him just before leaving London to serve the establishment as a watch-dog.
"He won"t hurt you," said Mr. Mortimer carelessly.
"You keep saying that!" replied Mr. Bennett pettishly. "How do you know? He"s a dangerous beast, and if I had had any notion that you were buying him, I would have had something to say about it!"
"Whatever you might have said would have made no difference. I am within my legal rights in purchasing a dog. You have a dog. At least, Wilhelmina has."
"Yes, and Pinky-Boodles gets on splendidly with Smith," said Billie.
"I"ve seen them playing together."
Mr. Bennett subsided. He was feeling thoroughly misanthropic. He disliked everybody, with perhaps the exception of Billie, for whom a faint paternal fondness still lingered. He disliked Mr. Mortimer. He disliked Bream, and regretted that Billie had become engaged to him, though for years such an engagement had been his dearest desire. He disliked Jane Hubbard, now out walking in the rain with Eustace Hignett.
And he disliked Eustace.
Eustace, he told himself, he disliked rather more than any of the others. He resented the young man"s presence in the house; and he resented the fact that, being in the house, he should go about, pale and haggard, as though he were sickening for something. Mr. Bennett had the most violent objection to a.s.sociating with people who looked as though they were sickening for something.
He got up and went to the window. The rain leaped at the gla.s.s like a frolicking puppy. It seemed to want to get inside and play with Mr.
Bennett.
-- 2
Mr. Bennett slept late on the following morning. He looked at his watch on the dressing table when he got up, and found that it was past ten.
Taking a second look to a.s.sure himself that he had really slumbered to this unusual hour, he suddenly became aware of something bright and yellow resting beside the watch, and paused, transfixed, like Robinson Crusoe staring at the footprint in the sand. If he had not been in England, he would have said that it was a patch of sunshine.
Mr. Bennett stared at the yellow blob with the wistful mistrust of a traveller in a desert who has been taken in once or twice by mirages. It was not till he had pulled up the blind and was looking out on a garden full of brightness and warmth and singing birds that he definitely permitted himself to accept the situation.
It was a superb morning. It was as if some giant had uncorked a great bottle full of the distilled scent of gra.s.s, trees, flowers, and hay.
Mr. Bennett rang the bell joyfully, and presently there entered a grave, thin, intellectual-looking man who looked like a duke, only more respectable. This was Webster, Mr. Bennett"s valet. He carried in one hand a small mug of hot water, reverently, as if it were a present of jewellery.
"Good morning, sir."
"Morning, Webster," said Mr. Bennett. "Rather late, eh?"