“You’re late, child,” says the General, not unkindly. “Better sit down and get your breakfast. I must go and attend to my correspondence” – and gathering up his letters he goes out.
“I do think, Nellie,” began her mother, as soon as they were left alone, “I do think you might take the trouble to be down a little sooner. Your papa is so vexed when everybody is late, and now you are both late, and he’ll be doubly so.”
“But he was not a bit cross, mamma, at least not with me.”
“Not with you! No, perhaps not. But Hubert isn’t down yet, and it’ll all fall upon him. However, as you are safe, it doesn’t matter about poor Hubert,” added Mrs Dorrien acidly.
“Really, mamma, I don’t think it’s quite fair to saddle me with Hubert’s derelictions. Surely he is old enough to take care of himself,” gently objected the girl.
“Of course. Selfishness is the order of the day in this house, I ought to have remembered that.”
Nellie gave a little shrug of her shoulders, but made no reply. She was far from being a selfish girl, but she could not see why everything and everybody should be made to give way to Hubert and his convenience, as it had to do wherever her mother’s authority or influence reached. For Mrs Dorrien chose to fancy her youngest son an invalid, on the strength of which that interesting youth at the age of twenty-two would have taken first prize at an unlicked cub show – supposing such an institution to exist. Nellie herself knew this reputed debility to be sheer fudge – which knowledge she unconsciously shared with certain convivial and raffish spirits who were wont to meet more nights a week than was good for them at the “Cock and Bull and Twisted Cable” in Wandsborough, and these latter could have accounted for the poor boy’s chronic seediness more to his mother’s enlightenment than satisfaction.
“Hallo, mother. Morning, Nell!” cried the object under discussion, entering the breakfast-room and sliding languidly into his place. A sallow, loosely-built, light-haired youth, somewhat deficient in chin, and with an irritating drawl.
“At last, Hubert dear. I began to think you must have had a bad night, and was getting anxious!” said his mother fondly. “How are you this morning, my boy? You don’t look at all well.”
She was right – in one sense. He had had a bad night, the above-mentioned sporting hostelry containing proportionately less whisky and soda, not to mention other varieties of tipple more or less deleterious. The General’s hair would have stood straight on end had he known when and how his youngest-born had arrived home.
“Oh, I’m all right, mother,” growled that guileless youth, “except that I’ve got a deuce of a head on. But I say, what was the veteran looking so mortally black about just now? I met him on the stairs, or rather I saw him – he didn’t see me, thank Heaven – and he was scowling like an assassin. He had a lot of letters in his fist. By the way” – breaking off with a start of alarm – “no one has been dunning him about – about me, don’t you know. Eh?”
“No, no dear,” quickly answered his mother. “It was not about you. Your father is put out over his correspondence, but it is not about you. That I may say.”
“That’s lucky,” said Hubert, greatly relieved. “I didn’t know who might have been at him. But, mother, what was it about?” he persisted, his curiosity awakened in proportion as his fears were lulled.
“Nothing that you need mind,” returned Mrs Dorrien, rising and taking refuge from further questioning in flight.
“Nellie,” began the young man, as soon as his mother had left the room, “I wish you knew the Rectory people.”
“So do I. I just met the girls once at the Nevilles’ garden party, and rather liked them. But mamma would sooner cut off her head than have anything to say to them. But why do you wish it?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The eldest isn’t up to much – too cold and stuck up. As for the young one – Sophie – she’s a detestable brat. Tries to snub a fellow, don’t you know. Thinks herself no end clever. But the middle one – Olive – fact is, she’s a monstrously pretty girl.”
“Ahem! And when did you make that discovery?”
“Why I saw her at the station the other day – and rather took stock of her; and I tell you, a fellow might make something of her.”
“Or the other way about – she might make something of a fellow,” returned his sister, with a slight curl of the lip.
“Go it!” exploded the other wrathfully. “Of course it’s very funny and all that. I see what you mean, and the joke’s a poor one. I thought you might be of some use to a fellow; but if you want to play the fool instead, why there’s an end of it.”
“My dear boy, I can’t help you in the very least. You know mamma hates the sight of them, and as for papa he declares that if he had his will he would try poor Dr Ingelow by drumhead court martial and have him shot. It’s hard lines that we are to be at daggers drawn with people whom everybody says are awfully nice, just because their opinions are not ours, I must say.”
“Well, I rather agree with the veteran. All that papistical stuff is awful bosh, and a parson who goes in for it is no better than a wolf in sheep’s clothing – as old mother Frewen always says. But all the same that’s no reason why we shouldn’t know the girls.”
“Why didn’t you make acquaintance with the brother at Oxford?” asked Nellie.
“Oh, I don’t know. Didn’t think it worth while then. These freshmen are generally a bore.”
“Freshmen! Why this is his fourth term.”
“Is it? I didn’t know. Hallo – I say – there’s the veteran calling you, outside. Better look sharp, the old man’s face is getting apoplectic,” he added teasingly, discerning that the French window was jammed and wouldn’t open, and that the frown was deepening on their father’s face where he stood at the other side of the gravel walk.
General Dorrien had been comfortably off before he succeeded his elder brother, with whom he had been on bad terms, and whose death, some five years previous to the opening of this narrative, took place on the high seas during the voyage home from South America – a voyage undertaken by medical advice. The General accepted his new position and its responsibilities perfectly naturally and easily, and at once set to work vigorously and with military precision to rectify the numerous derelictions which had prevailed and thriven under the sway of his easy-going predecessor. It stood to reason that many suffered by the change. Consequently the new Squire was not beloved. But if unpopular with his dependents, by his equals he was received with open arms. He had been a brilliant soldier in his time, and had served with distinction in more than one of our wars in the East; the county therefore felt proud of his fame, being, in fact, not wholly free from some idea of having itself contributed thereto. Then the late Squire had been a bachelor, but here was a family who would keep up Cranston as it should be kept up. There ought to be a law against old bachelors occupying such a place as Cranston, said the county, in its joy at seeing a family once more in possession at the Hall, and a family comprising two eligible sons – one of them a right royal “catch” – and a daughter who would certainly not be dowerless. So although on further acquaintance the General was feared rather than liked, yet the county was very well satisfied. But its feminine side longed for the return of the eldest son to his ancestral home, with a solicitude that should have been insidiously flattering to the unconscious wanderer had he been aware of its existence.
Chapter Two.
Concerning a Man and a Dog
Before a house in Cambridge Terrace a hansom draws up with that series of jerks peculiar to its kind, and discharges its freight – a man, a dog and a portmanteau, and while the first is making enquiries as to the occupant being within, the second is scampering up and