Here was a poser. Ger was so absolutely unused to lying that he was quite unprepared for any such question as this, so he was silent.

"Why did you take it?" angrily reiterated his father. "And what have you done with it? Answer at once. You know perfectly well that it is a most shocking breach of good manners to ignore a question in this fashion."

"I took it," repeated Ger stupidly, his large grey eyes looking into s.p.a.ce beyond his father.

"So I hear," said the squire, growing more and more annoyed. "But why did you take it? and where have you put it?"

"I can't tell you, father," said Ger firmly, and this time he met his father's eyes unflinchingly. To himself he said, "I won't tell more'n _one_ lie for mother's sake."

The squire was dumfoundered by this obstinacy. It was unheard of--absolutely without parallel in his domestic annals--that one of his children should actually flout him! yes! actually flout him with such an answer as this.

"Go and stand over there in that corner," he thundered, "and you shan't move until you can answer my questions, if you stand there for the rest of the day. If you children have nothing else, I am determined that you shall have good manners."

It was nearly five o'clock, and Ger still stood in the same corner of the study watching the last streak of red fade from the chill January sky. There was no sound in the room save only the soft "plop" of a cinder as it fell on to the tiled hearth. The fire had burned low, and he was very cold. Never in all his life had he gone without his dinner before, and although he was no longer hungry, everything seemed, as he said afterwards, "funny and misty."

The squire had fulfilled his threat. After sending the culprit away to wash his tear-stained face and hands, and to procure a clean handkerchief, he bade him return to stand in the same corner till he should arrive at a proper sense of the respect due to a parent. He had locked the door upon Ger when he went to lunch, and forbade any member of the family, including his wife, to hold any sort of communication with the culprit. Parker the fox-terrier, however, did not obey the squire, and remained in the study with Ger regardless of the fact that the servants' dinner bell had rung, which was also the signal for his own. And to Parker Ger confided the whole story, and very puzzled and unhappy it made him, for he ran between Ger and the door snuffing and whining till the squire came back and turned him out, when he remained upon the mat outside uneasily barking at intervals.

Mrs Ffolliot was almost beside herself with grief and consternation.

It was such an inexplicable piece of obstinacy on Ger's part, and he was not usually obstinate.

Grantly and Mary, while relieved that they would still have the opportunity of wearing the dresses which had been the object of so much thought, were really concerned about Ger; it seemed so senseless of him, "why couldn't he say why he wanted the beastly shilling and have done with it?"

The squire himself was very seriously disturbed. He had stormed and raged, he had argued, he had even spoken very kindly and eloquently on the subject of dishonesty, and the necessity there was for full confession before forgiveness could be obtained (this last appeal sorely trying Ger's fort.i.tude), but all to no avail. As the needle points ever to the north, so all the squire's exhortations ended with the same question, to be met with the same answer, growing fainter in tone as the hours wore on, but no less firm in substance. "I can't tell you, father."

Mr Ffolliot could no longer bear the little white-faced figure standing so silently in the corner of the room. He went forth and walked about the garden. He really was a much tried man just then. Only last night Buz, lying in wait for Reggie as he came to bed, had concealed himself in an angle of the staircase, and when his cousin, as he thought, reached his hiding-place, pounced out upon him, blowing out his lighted candle, and exclaiming in a sepulchral voice, "Out, out, d.a.m.ned candle!" (Buz was doing _Macbeth_ at school and had a genius for inept, and generally inaccurate quotation)--then flew up the dark staircase two steps at a time fully expecting hot pursuit, but none came. Dead silence, followed by explosive bursts of smothered laughter from Reggie and Grantly who had followed the squire upstairs. It did not comfort Mr Ffolliot at the present moment to reflect that Buz had had to write out the whole scene in which the "germ," as his father called it, of his misquotation occurred. At present his mind was full of Ger, and ever and anon like the refrain of a song, there thrust into his thoughts a sentence he had been reading when the little boy had interrupted him that morning, "and towards such a full and complete life, a life of various yet select sensation, the most direct and effective auxiliary must be, in a word, insight." "Could it be possible?" he asked himself, "that he was in some way lacking in this quality?"

He turned somewhat hastily and went back into the house. Once more Ger heard the key turn in the lock, and his father came in, followed by Fusby, bearing tea upon a tray.

The front door banged, and Ger's heart positively hammered against his ribs, for no one but Reggie ever dared to bang the Manor House front door. In another minute he had come in, and was standing on the hearth-rug beside Mr Ffolliot, bringing with him a savour of frosty freshness into the warm, still room.

"I got through sooner than I expected," said Reggie, in his big cheery voice, "and caught the two twenty-five, so I walked out. I've been to the stables to tell Heaven he needn't drive in for me after all. O tea! That's good,--where's Aunt Marjory? By the way, uncle, I owe you a shilling. A parcel came for me just as I was starting, and there was a shilling to pay on it. I had no change and was in a tearing hurry, so I took one I saw lying on your desk--hope it was all right."

There was a little soft thud in the far corner of the room, as Ger fell forward on his face, worn out by his long watch, and the rapture of this immense relief.

When things grew clear again the room was full of light and he was lying in his mother's arms. Reggie was kneeling beside him trying to force something in a spoon between his lips, something that smelt, so Ger said, "like a shop in Woolwich" and tasted very queer and hot.

"Lap it up, old chap," whispered Reggie, and Ger wondered why he seemed to have lost his voice. "There now, that's all right. You'll be as fit as possible directly," and Reggie scrambled up from his knees and bolted from the room.

Ger sat up and looked at his father who was standing beside him. The lamp shone full on the squire's face, and he, too, like Reggie, seemed to have got a cold in his eyes; but in spite of this peculiarity, there was that in their expression which told Ger that everything was all right again, and that in this instance absolution without confession had been fully and freely granted.

So Ger, from the safe shelter of his mother's arms, explained, "I couldn't tell more'n one lie because of mother, you know, and I thought he wanted it for debts or something. Is those sangwidges anchovy or jam, do you think?"

CHAPTER IX

THE DANCE

Reggie Peel was not quite sure whether he liked Mary with her hair up or not. The putting up of the hair necessitated a readjustment of his whole conception of her, and . . . he was very conservative.

With Mary the tom-boy child, with Mary the long-legged flapper and good chum, he was affectionately at his ease. He had petted and tormented her by turns, ever since as a boy of ten he had first seen her, a baby a year old, in his Aunt Marjory's arms. Throughout her turbulent but very cheerful childhood he had been her firm, if patronising, friend.

Then as she developed into what Ger had described to Eloquent as "a bit of a gawk," he became more than ever her friend and champion. "Uncle Hilary was so beastly down on Mary;" and Mary, though she did knock things over and say quite extraordinarily stupid things on occasion, was "such a good old sort."

He had never considered the question of her appearance till this Christmas. He supposed she was good-looking--all the Ffolliots were good-looking--but it really didn't matter much one way or another. She was part of Redmarley, and Redmarley as a whole counted for a good deal in Reginald Peel's life. He, too, had fallen under its mysterious charm. The manor-house mothered him, and the little Cotswold village cradled him in kindly keeping arms. His own mother had died when he was seven, his father married again a couple of years later; but, as Mr Peel was in the Indian Forest Department, and Reggie's young stepmother a faithful and devoted wife, he saw little of either of them, except on their somewhat infrequent leaves when they paid so many visits and had to see so many people, that he never really got to know either them or his half-brother and sister.

The love of Redmarley had grown with his growth till it became part of him; so far he had looked upon Mary as merely one of the many pleasant circ.u.mstances that went to the making of Redmarley. Now, somehow, she seemed to have detached herself from the general design and to have taken the centre of the picture. He was not sure that he approved of such prominence.

She startled him that first evening when, with the others, she met him in the hall. She was unexpected, she was different, and he hated that anything at Redmarley should be different.

"Mary's grown up since yesterday," Uz remarked ironically, "she's like you when you first managed to pull your moustache."

Of course Reggie suitably chastised Uz for his cheek, but all the same there was a difference.

To be sure she still wore her skirts well above her ankles, but nowadays quite elderly ladies wore short skirts, so that in no way accentuated her youth; and after all was she so very young?

Mary would be eighteen on Valentine's day.

Arrayed in Elizabethan doublet and hose for Lady Campion's dance, Reggie stood before his looking-gla.s.s and grinned at himself sardonically.

"Ugly devil," he called himself, and then wondered how Mary would look as Phyllida the ideal milkmaid.

Ugly he might be, but his type was not unsuited to the period he had chosen. A smallish head, wide across the brows, well-shaped and poised, with straight, smooth hair that grew far back on the temples and would recede even further as the years went on; humorous bright grey eyes, not large, but set wide apart under slightly marked eyebrows; a pugnacious, rather sharply-pointed nose with a ripple in it. Reggie declared that his nose had really meant well, but changed its mind half way down. His mouth under the fair moustache was not in the least beautiful, but it was trustworthy, neither weak nor sensual, and the chin was square and dogged. His face looked long with the pointed beard he had stuck on with such care, and above the wide white ruff, might well have belonged to some gentleman adventurer who followed the fortunes of Raleigh or Drake. For in spite of its insignificant irregularity of feature there was alert resolve in its expression; a curious light-hearted fixity of purpose that was arresting.

Reggie had never been popular or distinguished at Wellington; yet those masters who knew most about boys always prophecied that "he would make his mark."

It was the same at the "Shop"; although he never rose above a corporal, there were those among the instructors who foretold great things of his future. His pa.s.s-out place was a surprise to everyone, himself most of all. He was reserved and did not make friends easily; he got on quite pleasantly with such men as he was thrown with; but he was not a _persona grata_ in his profession. He got through such a thundering lot of work with such apparent ease.

"A decent chap, but a terrible beggar to swat," was the general verdict upon Reginald Peel.

To Mrs Ffolliot and the children he showed a side of his character that was rigidly concealed from outsiders, the truth being that as a little boy he had been very hungry for affection. The Redmarley folk loved him, and his very sincere affection for them was leavened by such pa.s.sionate grat.i.tude as they never dreamed of.

His face grew very gentle as he gazed unseeingly into the gla.s.s. He was thinking of loyal little Ger.

The clock on the mantelpiece struck the quarter. He blew out the candles on his dressing-table and fled.

Few gongs or dinner bells were sounded at the Manor House. Mr Ffolliot disliked loud noises. As he ran down the wide shallow staircase into the hall he saw that Mary was standing in the very centre of it, while her father slowly revolved round her in appreciative criticism, quoting the while:--

"The ladies of St James's!

They're painted to the eyes; Their white it stays for ever, Their red it never dies; But Phyllida, my Phyllida!

Her colour comes and goes; It trembles to a lily,-- It warms to a rose--"

This was strictly true, for Mary flushed and paled under her father's gaze, standing there tall and slender in russet gown and white bodice, a milking stool under her arm. She wore "buckled shoon" and a white sunbonnet, and was as fair a maid as a man could see between Christmases.

She was surprised that her father should express his approval thus graciously, but she was not uplifted. It was Mr Ffolliot's way. He had been detestable all day, and now he was going to be charming. His compliments counted for little with Mary. Yesterday he had told her she moved like a Flanders mare, and hurt her feelings very much. Her dress was made in the house and cost about half the price of her shoes and stockings, but Mary was not greatly concerned about her dress. She wanted to go to the dance, to dance all night and see other people.