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In a moment she had opened the gate and was in the lane. But the coveted blossoms grew high, badly needing the aid of a hooked stick. She looked around for something approximating to one and found it. Then followed a good deal of scrambling, and at last, hot and flushed and a little scratched, Yvonne made her way back to the gate, trying to reduce into portable size and shape the redundant stems of the fragrant creeper. Being thus intent she did not look up until she had reached the gate, and then with a slight start, for she discovered that she was no longer alone.
Standing on the other side of the gate, but facing her, with both elbows lounged over the top bar, was a pasty-faced, loosely-hung youth, clad in a bicycle suit of cheap build and loud design. This precious product nodded to her with a familiar grin but made no attempt to move.
“Will you make way for me, please? I wish to pass,” she said crisply.
This time the fellow winked.
“Not until you’ve paid toll, dear,” he said, with nauseous significance.
It was well for him that Yvonne’s hands held nothing more formidable than a couple of bunches of honeysuckle. Had they held a whip or a switch it is possible that the pasty face of this cowardly cur might have been wealed in such wise as to last him for quite an indefinite time.
“Will you stand away from that gate, please? I repeat that I want to pass,” she said in even more staccato tone than before. Her blue eyes had grown steely, and there was a red flush in the centre of each cheek. She glanced furtively on the ground; if even she could find a stone for a weapon of defence; but the lane was soft and grassy, and stones there were none. But all the fellow did was to drop his elbows farther down over the top bar, so as to hold the gate more effectually.
“Not until you’ve paid toll, dear,” he repeated. “Come, now, don’t be disagreeable. It’s the rule of the road to take toll of a pretty girl when you let her through a gate. You’re only a kid, too, and I won’t give it away. Ooh – hah – hah!”
It would be impossible to convey an idea of the combined terror and anguish conveyed in the above shout. Equally impossible would it be, we fear, to convey the attitude struck, in sudden and swift transition, by him who uttered it. He bounded back from the gate like an india-rubber ball thrown against it, and with like velocity, for a tough and supple ground-ash stick had descended upon that part of his person which his forward lounge over the gate had left peculiarly suggestive of the purpose; and with lightning-like swiftness again the stick came down, conveying to the recipient some such sensation as that of being cut in half by a red-hot bar. One appalled glimpse of Wagram’s face, blazing with white wrath above him, and the terrified bounder, ducking just in time to avoid being seized by the collar, turned and fled down the road, quite regardless, in his blind panic, of abandoning his bicycle, which leaned against the hedge a few yards from the gate.
But for himself no more disastrous plan could he have conceived. Wagram had no intention of letting him down so easily, and sprang in pursuit, with the result that in about a moment he was flogging his victim along the road at the best pace that either could by any possibility put forward. At last the fellow lay down, and howled for mercy.
Giving him one final, pitiless, cutting “swish” as he rolled over, Wagram ceased.
“You crawling cur,” he said, still white with anger, and rather breathless with his exertion, “I won’t even give you the privilege of apologising. That is one reserved for some slight semblance of a man; but for a thing like you – Faugh!”
The thought seemed to sting him to such a degree of renewed ferocity that his face changed again. Fearing a renewal of the chastisement the cringing one fairly whimpered.
“You’ve nearly killed me,” he groaned. “I didn’t mean any harm, sir; it was only a bit of fun.”
“Fun!” Wagram turned away. He could not trust himself until he had put a dozen yards between them. Then he turned again.
“Get your bicycle, and take yourself off,” he said – “if you can still sit on it, that is.” Then he returned to Yvonne.
“I am not pleased with you,” he said. “You should not have gone wandering off on your own account like that. And I’m responsible for you to your father. What’ll he say? The only bright side to it is that I was in time to thrash that unutterable young brute within an inch of his life. No, though; I didn’t give him half enough,” with a vicious swish of the ground-ash through the air.
“Don’t be angry with me, Mr Wagram,” she answered, and the sweet, fearless blue eyes were wet as she slipped her hand pleadingly through his arm; “I’m so sorry.”
There was no resisting this, and he thawed at once.
“Well, we’ll think no more about it, dear. There, now, don’t cry.”
“No, I won’t.” She dashed away her tears with a smile. She thought so much of Wagram that a displeased word from him was more to this happy, sunny-hearted, spirited child than the occasion seemed to warrant. Then a shout behind caused them both to turn.
They had strolled about a hundred yards from the gate, and now they saw that the fellow had regained his bicycle. He was standing in the middle of the road ready to mount, but at a safe distance.
“I’ll have the law of you for this,” he shouted, “you great, bullying coward. I’d like to see you hit a man your own size. I’ll have a thousand pounds out of you for this job. You’ve committed a savage assault on me, and you shall pay for it, by God! I know who you are, my fine fellow, and you’ll hear more about this; no blooming fear!”
“Oh, you haven’t had enough?” called out Wagram. “All right. My bike’s just close by; I’ll get it and come after you, then you shall have some more,” holding up the ground-ash. “Go on; I’ll soon catch you up.”
This was a new aspect of the affair. The fellow seemed cowed, for he forthwith mounted his machine with some alacrity, and made off at a pace which must have caused him agonies in the light of the raw state to which his seating properties had just been reduced.
This is how the situation had come about. When Wagram returned to the house with the farmer he found that Yvonne, tired of waiting, had strolled off down the road, intending to pick wild flowers, or otherwise amuse herself. Without a thought of anything untoward he had followed her. The gate at which the affair began stood back from the road, and was concealed by the jutting of the hedge from anyone approaching. But the girl’s indignant voice, clear as a bell, fell upon his ear, and simultaneously he had caught sight of the objectionable cad’s nether extremities, as their owner, leaned over the gate. The idea suggested, to open his knife, and in a couple of quick, noiseless slashes to cut one of the fine, serviceable ground-ash plants growing on the bank, was the work of a moment. It was the work of another moment to step noiselessly behind the fellow just as he was delivering himself of his second insult. The rest we know.
“Well, child, we shall have a lovely ride back,” he said. “I believe Mrs Pritchett has got some rather good strawberries and cream for you before we start, to say nothing of some very inviting-looking home-made bread and butter. She has come in, you know.”
They had reached the farmhouse by now, and the farmer and his wife were waiting for them in the porch.
“Come in miss, do,” said the latter. “I know you’ll like this.” And she beamed proudly, with a look at the spotless white tablecloth, and the set-out of blushing strawberries and snowy cream, and the thin, tempting slices of brown bread and butter. “I’ve made you a nice cup of tea, too, Mr Wagram, sir. I don’t know that you’ll take a fancy to such things,” added the good dame ruefully.
“I’ll take an immense fancy to a glass or two of your husband’s excellent home-brewed, Mrs Pritchett. Why, you’re forgetting how I’ve enjoyed it before to-day.”
“Why, of course I am, sir,” was the reply, immensely pleased; and in a trice the farmer returned with a foam-capped jug and a glass.
“What’s this?” said Wagram, with reference to the latter. “Why, certainly you’re going to keep me company, Pritchett.”
“Well, sir, I shall be proud,” was the answer, and the omission was promptly rectified.
“Here are your healths,” said Wagram, raising his glass. “I didn’t see you yesterday, Mrs Pritchett. Weren’t you able to get over? Of course, I don’t mean necessarily for the service,” he added quickly; “but you ought to know by this time that all our friends are heartily welcome, irrespective of their creed.”
“Well, sir, you see it was this way,” began the good woman with some slight embarrassment.
“That’s all right,” interrupted Wagram genially. “Well, you’ll know it next time, I’m sure.”
“That I shall, sir.”
After a little more pleasant conversation they shook hands heartily with the worthy couple and took their leave.
Just before the dressing-bell rang Haldane burst in upon Wagram in a wholly unwonted state of excitement.
“What’s this my little girl has been telling me, Wagram?” he said. “I must go and kill the scoundrel at once. I’ll borrow the Squire’s biggest hunting-crop.”
“You can’t, Haldane, if only that we haven’t the remotest idea who the said scoundrel is. It’s probably some miserable counter-jumper doing a bike round. But, sit tight; he’s got enough to last him for many a long day.”
“Did you cut him to ribbons? Did you?”
“I cut his small-clothes to ribbons. By George, he’ll have to launch out in a new biking suit. No; great as the offence was, even I think he got something like adequate compensation for it,” added Wagram grimly, as he called to mind the fellow’s insults – and their object.
And with this assurance Haldane had perforce to remain satisfied.
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!