Chapter Nine.
“We Get No Show.”
“Great Scott!” exclaimed Clytie Calmour as a vehement ring sounded at the front gate, obviously produced by the owner of the large red head which surmounted that portal. “Great Scott! but whoever called this shebang Siege House named it well. Here’s our last butcher pestering for his account for the seventh time. Now, dad, shell out.”
“Don’t talk rot, Clytie. You know I haven’t got a stiver. He’ll have to wait till next quarter-day. Tell him that, and let him go to the devil.”
“Yes, yes; that’s all right. But meanwhile we shall have to be vegetarians.”
“This infernal dunning gets on a man’s nerves. It oughtn’t to be allowed,” grumbled old Calmour, who, it being only breakfast-time, was not sufficiently drunk to philosophise.
“No, it oughtn’t,” cut in Bob; “but this time tell him we’ll square with him next week to a dead cert, Clytie, and deal with him ever after. You know, dad. You were forgetting,” with a significant wink.
“I wonder what nefarious plan you’re hatching between you,” said Delia. “But I’d be sorry for Wells if he depended upon it for getting his money.”
“Oh, shut up,” snarled Bob. “You weren’t so blazing straight-laced and sanctimonious until you got taken up by the nobs, either. By Jove, I believe Clytie’s got round him after all. What a girl she is!”
For the exasperated tradesman, who had been delivering himself of all sorts of uncomplimentary sayings, on the appearance of Clytie on the scene had evidently thawed with a suddenness which was quite miraculous, and was seen to salute quite respectfully as he turned away.
“I’ve fixed him,” she said serenely as she entered. “He’ll send round. We shan’t have to vegetate to-day.”
This sort of incident was common at Siege House, which, by the way, had really been so named by a former owner who had taken part in the siege of Delhi. Indeed, it was a mystery how they lived. Old Calmour’s pension was not large, and generally forestalled, yet somehow they managed to rub along.
“When are you going to start for Haldane’s, Delia?” went on Bob, who was inclined to make himself disagreeable.
“Soon.”
“Soon? Can’t be too soon, eh? It’s surprising how these old widowers freeze on to you. First Wagram, now Haldane,” jeered Bob.
But there came a look into the face of his would-be victim that he did not like. Delia had a temper, both quick and hot when roused, as he had more than once had reason to know, wherefore now his asinine guffaw seemed to dwindle. Clytie intervened.
“Shut your head, Bob,” she said decisively. “You open it a great deal too much, and generally at the wrong time. Likewise clear; we’ve had enough of you. Besides, you’re late. Pownall and Skreet must be absolutely languishing for you and your valuable services. Do you hear? Clear.”
Whatever hold the speaker had upon Bob it was obviously a tight one, for he never failed in his obedience. Such was rendered grumblingly, indeed, but rendered it was. Now he retreated to the door, grunting a surly “All right.”
“What are those two up to, do you think, Clytie?” said Delia. “The old man’s going to Pownall and Skreet’s as well as Bob.”
The last named at this juncture put his head in at the door to shout out:
“Which is the one, Delia? Wagram or Haldane?” and withdrew it in a hurry lest a well-aimed missile might considerably damage it – for of such were the ways of Siege House.
“I don’t know. There may be a judgment summons out against him that we know nothing about – or anything,” answered Clytie with a tinge of anxiety.
“You don’t think they’re up to any mischief with regard to that wretched gnu affair?” said Delia anxiously.
“No – no; I’ve put my foot on that. And Pownall and Skreet are infernal thieves. Look how they fleeced me. They couldn’t let Charlie Vance’s thousand pass through their hands without sticking to a lot of it. Called it costs! Why, they ought to have got those from the other side. Well, that’s all gone, and I don’t know how we’re going to raise the wind. A cool thou, wouldn’t come in badly just now. By the way, Delia, supposing my scheme fell through, how would it be to bring off something of that kind – on the principle of ‘half-an-egg’? And it would be a dashed sight more than a cool thou, this time, for the Wagrams are Croesus compared with the Vances.”
“Oh, that’ll do, Clytie. I suppose, as Bob says, I must have become straitlaced and sanctimonious; but I hate to look upon it in that light. I’m not meaning to reflect on you, mind; but, rather than do the other thing, I’d starve.”
“So might we. Oh, I don’t mind,” was the serene answer. “Only, look here, Delia, and see where we come in. It’s like having first-rate teeth but nothing to eat with them. Here we are, two devilish good-looking girls, each in our own way, yet we get no show. What’s the use of our looks if they’re to be nothing more than an instrument for cajoling a red-headed butcher into giving us further ‘tick’ – as in the present case?”
“What’s the use? None at all,” said Delia bitterly – “nor ever will be. We don’t seem to ‘get there,’ and it’s my belief we never shall.”
“We’ve a margin left yet, thank the Lord; and you never know your luck. Well, Delia, you’ve a ripping day before you, at any rate. If I were you I should start early and ride slow. You never look your best coming in hot and blown. And make all you can and half as much again of your chances, for, as I said, you never know your luck.”
What Clytie had stated, in her characteristically slangy way, was rather under the truth. These two, possessed of exceptional powers of attractiveness, had, as she put it, “no show.” Nor did their relative attractions clash. The one, with her limpid blue eyes, Grecian profile, and tall serenity of carriage, made an effective contrast to the rounder, more voluptuous outlines of the other, with her dark, clear skin and mantling complexion, bright hazel eyes and full, ruddy lips. But their circumstances and surroundings were all against them; and, handicapped by tippling, disreputable old Calmour as a parent, those they would have had to do with fought shy of them, and those they would not – well, they would not.
“There’s the second post,” said Delia with a sigh. “More duns, I suppose.”
She went to the door just as the postman rapped his double knock, and returned immediately with two letters.
“Both for me, but – I don’t know the first at all.”
“It’s Haldane, putting you off, of course.”
“Oh, Clytie, don’t,” quickly answered Delia, to whom such an eventuality would have constituted the keenest of disappointments. “No; it’s all right,” tremulously tearing open both envelopes. “But – they’re not for me at all, they’re for you. They’re about typing, but they’re both directed ‘Miss Calmour.’”
“Let’s see.” Then reading: “‘Madam, – you have been mentioned to me by Mr Wagram Wagram – ’ Ah, that’s all right.” And she went on with the letter, which ran to the effect that the writer wanted the MS of a novel of 80,000 words typed, asking her terms, and throwing out a promise that, if such were satisfactory, he would be happy to entrust her with all his work. The name was a fairly well-known one.
“Now, what shall I ask him? If I say a shilling a thousand, there’s a four-pound job. But, then, he may answer he can get it done for tenpence, which is quite true. If he had seen me I’d ask him fifteen pence.”
“Do it anyhow. You can always come down.”
“No fear; not through the post. Well, I’ll ask him a bob, and chance it.”
“He could well afford it. He must be making pots of money, according to the newspapers.”
“M – yes – according to the newspapers. Now, then, Delia, here we are. ‘Mr Wagram Wagram’ again. It’s a she this time, and starts on tenpence. Knows her way about evidently; hints at ninepence because of the inconvenience of postage, and it’s only two short stories of 4000 apiece. Well, I’ll take her on, too, at tenpence. You can’t haggle up our own sweet sex. Well done, Wagram Wagram. It’s brickish of him; and I’d just begun to think he’d forgotten what he said, or had only said it for something to say. Four quid, and a trifle over; that’ll help stave off Wells. Just in the nick of time too.”
“Yes; isn’t it good of him?”
“Who? Wells? Oh, Wagram. Yes. Quite so. It is rather. Good job you went over to Hilversea the other day, Delia; it may have reminded him.”
“I don’t think he’d ever have forgotten. Oh, but it was lovely there – the whole thing. It was like being in another atmosphere, another world.”
Clytie, the shrewd, the practical, put her head a little to one side as she scrutinised her sister.
“Make it one then, dear; make it yours. You’ve got some sort of show at last, if you only work it right. I’m sorry, though, we let Bob into the scheme. What asses we were, or rather I was. One oughtn’t so much as to have mentioned a thing of that sort in his hearing.”
“No, indeed. But the idea is too ridiculous for anything.”
“Because he is Wagram Wagram of Hilversea. Supposing he were Wagram Wagram of nowhere? What then, Delia?”
“Ah!”
Clytie shook her pretty head slightly and smiled to herself. The quick eagerness of the exclamation, the soft look that came into her sister’s eyes, told her all there was to tell.
“You’re handicapped,” she said. “You can’t play the part. You’re handicapped by genuineness. Never mind; even that may count as an advantage.”
Chapter Ten.
At Haldane’s
Delia was a quick and graceful cyclist, and now on her beautiful new machine she seemed to fly as she skimmed the level and well-kept roads; and although she covered the eleven miles intervening between Bassingham and Haldane’s house – a pleasant country box – in a little over the hour she was neither hot nor blown. Yvonne was strolling on the lawn, and greeted her with great cordiality.
“Is that your post-card collection?” she said as she helped to unstrap three large albums from the carrier. “Why, it must be as big as mine. I am longing to see it. We’ll overhaul it after lunch down there,” indicating a spreading tree by the stream which gave forth abundant shade.
“What a lovely kitten,” cried Delia.
“Isn’t it?” said Yvonne, picking it up. “Only it isn’t a kitten; it’s full-grown. It’s a kind that never grows large – do you, Poogie?” she added lovingly, stroking the beautiful little animal, which nestled to her, purring contentedly. It was of the Angora type, with small, lynxlike ears, thick, rich fur with regular markings, and a spreading tail. “We got it in Switzerland. I wasn’t going to lose the chance. You might go all your life and never see another like it, so I made father buy it for me. It follows me like a dog. If I walk up and down it walks up and down with me. Look.”
“How sweet,” said Delia, watching the little creature as, with tail erect, it paced daintily beside them. “I do love them like that.”
“So do I, and so does father. I believe if anything happened to Poogie he’d be as sick about it as I would.”
“I don’t wonder.” And, all unconsciously, the speaker had more completely won Yvonne’s heart.
Even the shyest – and Delia was not addicted to shyness – would have felt at ease as they sat down, a party of three. Haldane had a frank, easy way with him towards those he did not dislike, calculated to make them feel at home, especially in the case of a bright, pretty, and intelligent girl, and soon all three were chatting and laughing as if they had known each other all their lives. Delia was at her best, and talked intelligently and well, as she could do when temporarily emancipated from the depressing atmosphere of Siege House.
“What a beautiful place Hilversea Court is, Mr Haldane,” she said presently.
“Yes. Too big for me. Very good as a show place; but for living in give me a box like this.”
The said “box” at that moment looked out upon a wondrously lovely bit of summer landscape – great clouds of vivid foliage against the blue sky; intervening seas of meadow, golden with spangling buttercups; and in the immediate foreground a stretch of green lawn, flower-bedded, and tuneful with the murmur of bees, blending with the plash of the stream beyond. Within, all was correspondingly bright and cheerful.
“Father says Hilversea Court exists for the sole purpose of framing old Mr Wagram,” said Yvonne. “That Grandisonian, old-world look about him wouldn’t be in keeping with anything more modern.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” assented Haldane. “But, as I said before – never to the Wagrams, though – the place is much too big to live in.”
“I suppose they are passionately attached to it?” asked Delia.
“That’s the word. If they have a weakness it is a conviction that the world revolves round Hilversea, and this conviction Wagram holds, if possible, a trifle more firmly than the old Squire.”
“Really?”
“Yes; but he acts in keeping with the idea. There isn’t a better looked after place – well, in the world, I may safely say. All the people on it simply idolise him, especially since the old Squire turned over the whole management to him.”
“How perfectly delightful,” pronounced Delia. “I can well imagine it, for a more kind and considerate man can hardly exist. Fancy, that splendid new bicycle I’m riding he insisted on sending me in place of mine that got smashed up by the gnu – an old rattle-trap of a thing that would hardly have fetched its value in old iron.”
“Yes; that’s just the sort of thing he would do,” said Yvonne.
Then Delia went on to tell about the typewriting work he had been instrumental in procuring for her sister; and they talked Wagram for some time longer, in such wise as should have put the heir-apparent of Hilversea to the painful blush could he have overheard them.
“What I object to about him, though,” said Haldane, “is that he shirks his duties on the Bench. I suppose if it weren’t that he can hardly help being on the commission of the peace he’d resign.”
“I’m sure he would,” declared Yvonne. “You know, Miss Calmour, he says it doesn’t seem his mission to to be punishing other people.”
“Ho – ho – ho!” laughed Haldane. “Decidedly, then, he had forgotten that principle when he caned that cad for you the other day, Sunbeam. He seems to have waled the fellow within an inch of his life.”
“Why? What was that?” asked Delia, looking up with quick interest. And then the story came out.
“The brute deserved all he got,” she exclaimed with heat, and there was something like adoration in the glance she sent at Yvonne. This lovely child-woman, in her exquisite refinement, to be insulted by a common or roadside cad!
“And he deserved all he’s going to get if ever I have the pleasure of beholding him,” supplemented Haldane grimly.
“No, he isn’t, father, for I don’t believe I should know him again from Adam, in the first place. In the second, I shouldn’t point him out to you if I did. Thirdly and lastly, I think the poor beast got quite enough that day.”
“He couldn’t. Don’t you agree with me, Miss Calmour?”
“Most decidedly,” said Delia, looking again at Yvonne. The latter laughed.
“The thing isn’t worth making any more fuss about,” she said, with a shake of her golden head. “And, if we have all done, it’s time to look at the post-cards; I’m longing to see them.”
Now, through all this conversation Delia was conscious that she had never enjoyed a more excellent lunch. Haldane was fond of the good things of life, and his Moselle was irreproachable – so, too, was Yvonne as a hostess – and, being gifted with a fine, healthy appetite, begotten of youth and a bicycle ride, their guest was in a position to appreciate it nicely.
The two girls adjourned to the shade of the big tree that Yvonne had pointed out, and there for long did they compare notes and look over each other’s collections.
Delia had been on the point of selling hers – everything was considered in the light of an asset at Siege House – and had only refrained by reason of the inadequacy of the offers made. Now she rejoiced that she had not since it constituted the peg whereon hung the initiation of this acquaintance. Yet she wished she had thought of weeding it a little, for some of the specimens, looked at in recent lights, struck her as tawdry and vulgar. Yvonne’s collection, on the other hand, seemed to represent every town, village, cathedral, and picturesque spot in Europe, with famed works of art and a sprinkling of celebrities.
“Why, what’s this?” cried Delia as several loose cards fluttered out of the books. “It’s yourself!”
“Yes. Father had it done to send to people as a Christmas card.”
“But you must let me have one of these. Why, they are charming portraits. Do! Will you?”
“Certainly, if you care about it. Shall I post it to you?”
“Not for the world. They’d stamp it all over, perhaps right across the face.”
“Ah – ah!” mischievously. “Now you see why I don’t like them through the post. All these places are like portraits to me; they remind me of good times.”
“They must indeed,” said the other, thinking under what glowing circumstances this happy child’s life had been passed.
“Here’s one of Poogie. I had that done. Would you like it too? Come here, Poogie, and strike the same attitude, and let’s see if it’s good.”
“I should rather think I would like it,” answered Delia, who was stroking the beautiful little creature. And so the afternoon fled, for one of them only too quickly; and presently Haldane joined them, smoking a pipe, and they strolled about a little till it was time for the inevitable tea, and soon after for a homeward move.
“You must come and see us again, Miss Calmour, if you have not found it too slow,” Haldane said as they exchanged farewells.
“Slow! Why, Mr Haldane, I have never enjoyed myself so much in my life.”
“I’m so glad,” Yvonne interposed in her frank, sunny way. Then they had parted.
“She seems a nice, pleasant, straightforward sort of girl, with no nonsense about her,” was Haldane’s comment as they strolled back from the gate. “Pity she comes of that rotten brood. I wouldn’t have one of the others inside my door on any account. But I’ve always stood out against holding the individual responsible for the defects of its relatives, and here, I fancy, is a case in point. Let’s go and try for a trout, Sunbeam.”
Their late guest, speeding along in the sweet June sunshine was going over the day’s events in her mind, and into the same there shot a sudden idea. If only she could be wanted as “companion” for Yvonne. She had held a post of the kind before, and had found it, not through her own fault, intolerable. But here it would be like Paradise, such was the spell this sunny child-woman, with the pretty little foreign ways contracted during a large Continental experience, had woven upon her. It needed Clytie to point out to her that a hale, middle-aged man such as Haldane, if in want of that functionary at all, must perforce employ a very Gorgon, which, of course, he could never dream of doing; and her musings kept her so busy that she nearly dropped off her bicycle in the start she gave on finding herself almost face to face with Wagram.
He was advancing towards her, evidently making for a gate that led into the ride of a wood. He had a rabbit rifle in his hand, the same weapon that had figured in the adventure. She was on her feet in a moment.
“Oh, Mr Wagram, how good of you!” she began in her impulsive way. “Clytie has just had two orders – both through your recommendation.”
“I am always pleased to be of use to anybody when it is within my power.”
What was this? Had the very heavens fallen? His tone was icy. He had just formally touched her outstretched hand – no more than the barest courtesy demanded.
“It was very, very good of you all the same,” she pursued lamely.
“Pray don’t mention it,” he replied, lifting his hat with a movement as though to resume his way, which she could not ignore.
She remounted her bicycle, and well, indeed, was it for her that the road was clear, as she whirled along mechanically with pale face and choking a sob in her throat. What did it mean? What had she done? What could she have done? The god at whose shrine she worshipped was displeased – sorely and grievously displeased. Yet why, why? To this she could find no answer – no, none.
And the sunshine had gone out of the day.