"I suppose I am."
At one of their chance meetings Miss Vanderpoel had told Lord Dunholm and Lord Westholt something of the story of G. Selden. The novelty of it had delighted and amused them. Lord Dunholm had, at points, been touched as Penzance had been. Westholt had felt that he must ride over to Stornham to see the convalescent. He wanted to learn some New York slang.
He would take lessons from Selden, and he would also buy a Delkoff--two Delkoffs, if that would be better. He knew a hard-working fellow who ought to have a typewriter.
"Heath ought to have one," he had said to his father. Heath was the house-steward. "Think of the letters the poor chap has to write to trades-people to order things, and unorder them, and blackguard the shopkeepers when they are not satisfactory. Invest in one for Heath, father."
"It is by no means a bad idea," Lord Dunholm reflected. "Time would be saved by the use of it, I have no doubt."
"It saves time in any department where it can be used," Betty had answered. "Three are now in use at Stornham, and I am going to present one to Kedgers. This is a testimonial I am offering. Three weeks ago I began to use the Delkoff. Since then I have used no other. If YOU use them you will introduce them to the county."
She understood the feeling of the junior a.s.sistant, when he found himself in the presence of possible purchasers. Her blood tingled slightly. She wished she had brought a catalogue.
"We will come to Stornham to see the catalogue," Lord Dunholm promised.
"Perhaps you will read it aloud to us," Westholt suggested gleefully.
"G. Selden knows it by heart, and will repeat it to you with running comments. Do you know I shall be very glad if you decide to buy one--or two--or three," with an uplift of the Irish blue eyes to Lord Dunholm.
"The blood of the first Reuben Vanderpoel stirs in my veins--also I have begun to be fond of G. Selden."
Therefore it occurred that on the afternoon referred to Lady Anstruthers appeared crossing the sward with two male visitors in her wake.
"Lord Dunholm and Lord Westholt," said Betty, rising.
For this meeting between the men Selden was, without doubt, responsible.
While his father talked to Mount Dunstan, Westholt explained that they had come athirst for the catalogue. Presently Betty took him to the sheltered corner of the lawn, where the convalescent sat with Mr.
Penzance.
But, for a short time, Lord Dunholm remained to converse with Mount Dunstan. In a way the situation was delicate. To encounter by chance a neighbour whom one--for reasons--has not seen since his childhood, and to be equal to pa.s.sing over and gracefully obliterating the intervening years, makes demand even upon finished tact. Lord Dunholm"s world had been a large one, and he had acquired experience tending to the development of the most perfect methods. If G. Selden had chanced to be the magnet which had decided his course this special afternoon, Miss Vanderpoel it was who had stirred in him sufficient interest in Mount Dunstan to cause him to use the best of these methods when he found himself face to face with him.
He beautifully eliminated the years, he eliminated all but the facts that the young man"s father and himself had been acquaintances in youth, that he remembered Mount Dunstan himself as a child, that he had heard with interest of his visit to America. Whatsoever the young man felt, he made no sign which presented obstacles. He accepted the eliminations with outward composure. He was a powerful-looking fellow, with a fine way of carrying his shoulders, and an eye which might be able to light savagely, but just now, at least, he showed nothing of the sulkiness he was accused of.
Lord Dunholm progressed admirably with him. He soon found that he need not be upon any strain with regard to the eliminations. The man himself could eliminate, which was an a.s.sistance.
They talked together when they turned to follow the others to the retreat of G. Selden.
"Have you bought a Delkoff?" Lord Dunholm inquired.
"If I could have afforded it, I should have bought one."
"I think that we have come here with the intention of buying three. We did not know we required them until Miss Vanderpoel recited half a page of the catalogue to us."
"Three will mean a "rake off" of fifteen dollars to G. Selden," said Mount Dunstan. It was, he saw, necessary that he should explain the meaning of a "rake off," and he did so to his companion"s entertainment.
The afternoon was a satisfactory one. They were all kind to G. Selden, and he on his part was an aid to them. In his innocence he steered three of them, at least, through narrow places into an open sea of easy intercourse. This was a good beginning. The junior a.s.sistant was recovering rapidly, and looked remarkably well. The doctor had told him that he might try to use his leg. The inside cabin of the cheap Liner and "little old New York" were looming up before him. But what luck he had had, and what a holiday! It had been enough to set a fellow up for ten years" work. It would set up the boys merely to be told about it. He didn"t know what HE had ever done to deserve such luck as had happened to him. For the rest of his life he would he waving the Union Jack alongside of the Stars and Stripes.
Mr. Penzance it was who suggested that he should try the strength of the leg now.
"Yes," Mount Dunstan said. "Let me help you."
As he rose to go to him, Westholt good-naturedly got up also. They took their places at either side of his invalid chair and a.s.sisted him to rise and stand on his feet.
"It"s all right, gentlemen. It"s all right," he called out with a delighted flush, when he found himself upright. "I believe I could stand alone. Thank you. Thank you."
He was able, leaning on Mount Dunstan"s arm, to take a few steps.
Evidently, in a short time, he would find himself no longer disabled.
Mr. Penzance had invited him to spend a week at the vicarage. He was to do this as soon as he could comfortably drive from the one place to the other. After receiving the invitation he had sent secretly to London for one of the Delkoffs he had brought with him from America as a specimen.
He cherished in private a plan of gently entertaining his host by teaching him to use the machine. The vicar would thus be prepared for that future in which surely a Delkoff must in some way fall into his hands. Indeed, Fortune having at length cast an eye on himself, might chance to favour him further, and in time he might be able to send a "high-cla.s.s machine" as a grateful gift to the vicarage. Perhaps Mr.
Penzance would accept it because he would understand what it meant of feeling and appreciation.
During the afternoon Lord Dunholm managed to talk a good deal with Mount Dunstan. There was no air of intention in his manner, nevertheless intention was concealed beneath its courteous amiability. He wanted to get at the man. Before they parted he felt he had, perhaps, learned things opening up new points of view.
In the smoking-room at Dunholm that night he and his son talked of their chance encounter. It seemed possible that mistakes had been made about Mount Dunstan. One did not form a definite idea of a man"s character in the course of an afternoon, but he himself had been impressed by a conviction that there had been mistakes.
"We are rather a stiff-necked lot--in the country--when we allow ourselves to be taken possession of by an idea," Westholt commented.
"I am not at all proud of the way in which we have taken things for granted," was his father"s summing up. "It is, perhaps, worth observing," taking his cigar from his mouth and smiling at the end of it, as he removed the ash, "that, but for Miss Vanderpoel and G. Selden, we might never have had an opportunity of facing the fact that we may not have been giving fair play. And one has prided one"s self on one"s fair play."
CHAPTER x.x.x
A RETURN
At the close of a long, warm afternoon Betty Vanderpoel came out upon the square stone terrace overlooking the gardens, and that part of the park which, enclosing them, caused them, as they melted into its greenness, to lose all limitations and appear to be only a more blooming bit of the landscape.
Upon the garden Betty"s eyes dwelt, as she stood still for some minutes taking in their effect thoughtfully.
Kedgers had certainly accomplished much. His close-trimmed lawns did him credit, his flower beds were flushed and azured, purpled and snowed with bloom. Sweet tall spires, hung with blue or white or rosy flower bells, lifted their heads above the colour of lower growths. Only the fervent affection, the fasting and prayer of a Kedgers could have done such wonders with new things and old. The old ones he had cherished and allured into a renewal of existence--the new ones he had so coaxed out of their earthen pots into the soil, luxuriously prepared for their reception, and had afterwards so nourished and bedewed with soft waterings, so supported, watched over and adored that they had been almost unconscious of their transplanting. Without a.s.sistants he could have done nothing, but he had been given a sufficient number of under gardeners, and had even managed to inspire them with something of his own ambition and solicitude. The result was before Betty"s eyes in an aspect which, to such as knew the gardens well,--the Dunholms, for instance,--was astonishing in its success.
"I"ve had privileges, miss, and so have the flowers," Kedgers had said warmly, when Miss Vanderpoel had reported to him, for his encouragement, Dunholm Castle"s praise. "Not one of "em has ever had to wait for his food and drink, nor to complain of his bed not being what he was accustomed to. They"ve not had to wait for rain, for we"ve given it to "em from watering cans, and, thank goodness, the season"s been kind to "em."
Betty, descending the terrace steps, wandered down the paths between the flower beds, glancing about her as she went. The air of neglect and desolation had been swept away. b.u.t.tle and Tim Soames had been given as many privileges as Kedgers. The chief points impressed upon them had been that the work must be done, not only thoroughly, but quickly. As many additional workmen as they required, as much solid material as they needed, but there must be a despatch which at first it staggered them to contemplate. They had not known such methods before. They had been accustomed to work under money limitation throughout their lives, and, when work must be done with insufficient aid, it must be done slowly.
Economy had been the chief factor in all calculations, speed had not entered into them, so leisureliness had become a fixed habit. But it seemed American to sweep leisureliness away into s.p.a.ce with a free gesture.
"It must be done QUICKLY," Miss Vanderpoel had said. "If ten men cannot do it quickly enough, you must have twenty--or as many more as are needed. It is time which must be saved just now."
Time more than money, it appeared. b.u.t.tle"s experience had been that you might take time, if you did not charge for it. When time began to mean money, that was a different matter. If you did work by the job, you might drive in a few nails, loiter, and return without haste; if you worked by the hour, your absence would be inquired into. In the present case no one could loiter. That was realised early. The tall girl, with the deep straight look at you, made you realise that without spoken words. She expected energy something like her own. She was a new force and spurred them. No man knew how it was done, but, when she appeared among them--even in the afternoon--"lookin" that womany," holding up her thin dress over lace petticoats, the like of which had not been seen before, she looked on with just the same straight, expecting eyes.
They did not seem to doubt in the least that she would find that great advance had been made.
So advance had been made, and work accomplished. As Betty walked from one place to another she saw the signs of it with gratification. The place was not the one she had come to a few months ago. Hothouses, outbuildings, stables were in repair. Work was still being done in different places. In the house itself carpenters or decorators were enclosed in some rooms, and at their business, but exterior order prevailed. In the courtyard stablemen were at work, and her own groom came forward touching his forehead. She paid a visit to the horses. They were fine creatures, and, when she entered their stalls, made room for her and whinnied gently, in well-founded expectation of sugar and bread which were kept in a cupboard awaiting her visits. She smoothed velvet noses and patted satin sides, talking to Mason a little before she went her way.
Then she strolled into the park. The park was always a pleasure. She was in a thoughtful mood, and the soft green shadowed silence lured her. The summer wind hus-s-shed the branches as it lightly waved them, the brown earth of the avenue was sun-dappled, there were bird notes and calls to be heard here and there and everywhere, if one only arrested one"s attention a moment to listen. And she was in a listening and dreaming mood--one of the moods in which bird, leaf, and wind, sun, shade, and scent of growing things have part.
And yet her thoughts were of mundane things.