Sir George chuckled again. "Unformed," he repeated, "there's some of us likes 'em like that."

Eloquent sat long in his orderly little dining-room where the gla.s.s of milk and tray of sandwiches awaited him on the sideboard. His head was in a whirl. She drank champagne. She gambled. She seemed to think it was perfectly natural and right to do these things. It probably was if she thought so. She . . .

Heavens! what an adorable wife she would be for a young Cabinet Minister.

CHAPTER XXIII

WILLETS

Had Eloquent ever taken the smallest interest in country pursuits he must have come across Willets, for in that part of the Cotswolds Willets was as well known as the Marle itself.

A small thick-set man with a hooky nose, and with bright, long-sighted brown eyes and strong, sensitive hands, wrists tempered and supple as a rapier, and a tongue that talked unceasingly and well.

Sporting people wondered why Willets, with his multifarious knowledge of wood and river craft, should stay at Redmarley: a comparatively small estate, whose owner was known to preserve only because it was a tradition to do so, and not because he cared in the least about the sport provided. Willets was wasted, they said, and it is possible that at one time Willets, himself, agreed with them.

He came originally of Redmarley folk, and his wife from a neighbouring village. He "got on" and became one of the favourite keepers on a ducal estate in the North, much liked both by the n.o.ble owner and his sporting friends; a steady, intelligent man with a real genius for the gentle craft. He could charm trout from water where, apparently, no trout existed; he could throw a fly with a skill and precision beautiful to behold, and he was well read in the literature of his pursuits. Much converse with gentlemen had softened the asperities of his Cotswold speech, he expressed himself well, wrote both a good hand and a good letter, and was very popular with those he served. Life looked exceedingly rosy for Willets--for he was happy in his marriage and a devoted father to his three little girls--when the hand of fate fell heavily upon him. There came a terribly severe winter in that part of Scotland, and one after another the little girls got bronchitis and died; the three in five months.

He and his wife could bear the place no longer, and came South. The Duke was really sorry to lose him, and took considerable trouble to find him something to do in the Cotswold country whence he came.

It happened that just then old Mr Ffolliot was looking for a keeper who would see after things in general at the Manor, and the fishing in particular; so Willets accepted the situation merely as a make-shift for a short time, till something worthier of his powers should turn up.

It was pleasant to be in the old county once more. There was help and healing in the kind grey houses and the smiling pastoral country. His wife was pleased to be near her people, and his work was of the lightest. But Willets was not yet forty, he had ambitions, and the wages were much smaller than what he had been getting. It would do, perhaps, for a year or two, and he knew that whenever he liked, his late master would be glad to have him back and would give him a post in the Yorkshire dales.

Old Mr Ffolliot died, and his nephew, Hilary, reigned in his stead.

Willets announced to his wife that their time in Redmarley would be short.

The young Squire married and in the bride's train came General Grantly with all the patience and enthusiasm and friendly anecdotal powers of your true angler; and in his train came like-minded brother officers to whom, it must be conceded, Hilary Ffolliot was always ready to offer hospitality.

Things livened up a bit at Redmarley, and Willets decided to stay a little longer.

Margery Ffolliot liked the Willets and was pa.s.sionately sorry for them about the little girls; but it was the Ffolliot children who wove about Willets an unbreakable charm, binding him to his native village.

One by one, with toddling steps and high, clear voices, they stormed the little house by the bridge and took its owners captive.

Saving only their mother, Willets had a good deal more to do with the upbringing of the young Ffolliots in their earliest years than anybody else. Singly and collectively, they adored him, tyrannised over him, copied him, learnt from him, and wasted his time with a prodigality a more sporting master than the Squire might have resented seriously.

Thus it fell out that offers came to Willets, good offers from places far more important than Redmarley, where there were possibilities both in the way of sport and of tips--there was a sad scarcity of tips at Redmarley--and yet he pa.s.sed them by.

Sometimes his wife would be a little reproachful, pointing out that they were saving nothing and he was throwing away good money.

Willets had always some excellent reason for not leaving just then.

Redmarley had possibilities; it would be a nice place by the time Master Grantly was grown up and brought his friends. No one else would take quite the same interest in it that he did; he was proud of the children, and money wasn't everything, and so Willets stayed on.

With the arrival of the Kitten his subjugation was completed, and a seal was set upon the permanence of his relations with the Manor House.

From the days when the Kitten in a white bonnet and woolly gaiters would struggle out of her nurse's arms to be taken by Willets, sitting on his knee and gazing at him with wine-coloured bright eyes not unlike his own, occasionally putting up a small hand encased in an absurd fingerless glove to turn his face that she might see it better, Willets was her infatuated and abject slave. When on these occasions he attempted to restore her to her nurse she would clutch him fiercely and scream, so that it ended in his carrying her up to the house and up the backstairs to the nursery, whence he only escaped by strategy.

No day pa.s.sed without a visit from the Kitten and although he was not wholly blind to the defects in her character, he was sure she was the "peartest, sauciest, cleverest little baggage in the British Isles."

Of course the fact that Eloquent had been asked to dine at the Manor House was much canva.s.sed in the village. Miss Gallup trumpeted the matter abroad, and naturally it was discussed exhaustively by what Mr Ffolliot would have called his "retainers."

Willets was not sure that he approved. "I've no doubt," he said leniently to Mrs Willets as they were sitting at tea, "that he's a smart young chap and he's got on wonderfully, but I don't altogether trust that pushing kind myself, and he's that sort. Why, I saw him, with my own eyes, walk past this house with our Miss Mary as bold as bra.s.s. I'll warrant if Squire had seen him he'd have been put out."

"He was her partner at dinner last night," Fusby was saying, "and what's more," here Mrs Willets lowered her voice mysteriously, "he says as he looked at her that loving, he's sure he's after her."

"After your grandmother!" Willets said rudely, his hawk's eyes bright with anger. "As if Miss Mary would so much as look at him! Let him seek a mate in his own cla.s.s."

"That's just what he won't do; Miss Gallup--she's that set-up and silly about him--says he must marry a lady, one who'll be able to help him now he's got so high up. I'm surprised, I own it, at Squire--but probably it was the Mistress, she's all for friendliness always. But I'll warrant they'd both be in a pretty takin' if they thought he was after Miss Mary."

"I tell you he's nothing of the kind," Willets shouted, thumping the table so violently that he hurt his hand. "It's scandalous to say such things, and so I'll tell Fusby the first time I see him--gossiping old silly."

"Now, William, it's no good going on against Fusby. He was as upset as you could be yourself, an' he only told me when he looked in this afternoon because he felt worried like. He wouldn't care a bit if it wasn't that she seems taken with 'im. He says he saw them whisperin'

at dinner, and young Gallup he give something to Miss Mary under the table. Fusby _saw_ them."

"I don't believe it," Willets said stoutly. "It's all some foolishness Fusby's gone and made up. I don't hold with such cackle, and I'm surprised at you, my dear, allowing him to say such things."

"How could I stop him? He was worried, I tell you. You talk to him about it yourself and see what he says."

"I'm not going to talk about Miss Mary to anyone, let alone Fusby.

There's nothing but mischief happens when people begins talking about a young lady. I've seen it over and over again. If, which I can't believe, young Gallup's got the cheek to be after our Miss Mary, he'll be choked off, and pretty quick too."

"Who's going to do the chokin'? He's in parlyment, he's got plenty money, there's nothing against him as I know of, and they've asked him to their house. Who's going to do the chokin?"

Mrs Willets paused, breathless and triumphant. She seemed to take a malicious delight in considering the possibility of such a courtship.

Willets looked at her steadily. "We shan't have far to seek," he said, "and that old fool Fusby's got a maggot in his head. Why, the fellow's gone to London; Parliament meets to-morrow, I saw it in the paper."

Mrs Willets nodded, as who should say "I could an' I would"--aloud she remarked, "And Miss Mary's going to London to her granpa for a long visit, beautiful new clothes she's gettin', and going to see the King and Queen and all, so they're certain to meet. It's quite like a story book."

Willets frowned. He had once spent two days in London. He realised what a big place it was, but he also remembered that during those two days he had met seven people he knew in other parts of the country.

CHAPTER XXIV

CROSS CURRENTS

Reggie kept his word as to not interfering with Mary till such time as she should have seen a little more of the world. How much of the world in general, and the male portion of it in particular, he was willing she should see, he could not make up his mind. Sometimes he thought a very little would sufficiently salve his conscience and make a definite course of action possible. Reggie was not one of those who feared his fate. He was always eager to put it to the touch. Inaction was abhorrent to him. To desire a thing and to do nothing to obtain it seemed to him sheer foolishness. Whether any amount of effort would get for him what he desired just now was on the knees of the G.o.ds. But it was the waiting that tried him far more than the uncertainty. He was not conceited. He was confident, ready to take risks and to accept responsibility, but that is quite another thing.

Just before her birthday he sent her a little necklet under cover to Mrs Ffolliot, asking that it might be put with Mary's other presents on her plate that morning. And she had written to thank him for it, but he did not answer the letter. He had always been by way of writing to her from time to time; letters, generally embellished with comic sketches and full of chaff and nonsense, which were shared by the family. Lately he had not felt in the mood to write such letters. He wanted to see her with an unceasing ache of longing intense and persistent; and if he wrote he wanted to write, not a love letter--Reggie did not fancy he'd be much of a hand at love letters--but something intimate and revealing that would certainly be unsuitable for "family reading."

Then he got two letters from Redmarley that seemed to him to need an answer.

These were the letters:--