CHAPTER XIV

She waited for something to follow—something that would let her into the secret of his flinging away the fragments of the circulars for which he had written to the officials of the steamship companies. She would have liked to know that it was on her account he had abandoned whatever project of travel he had in his mind; but dear as the reflection that he had done it for her sake would have been, it would have brought with it a certain pang to feel that she was a brake upon his enterprises.

She had a mother’s instinct that there was something to be told to her—something that would suggest to her what were his reasons for making up his mind to give his new life a fair trial. So she waited. She could see that something had touched him and left its mark upon him, whether for good or bad she could not tell; but surely, she thought, it must be for good. She was not so simple as to fancy that his success in the tennis tournament was the incident that had been potent enough to cause him to change his plans. The very fact of his enlarging as he did upon his own play and the play of the other men was enough to convince her that the day’s tennis had nothing to do with the matter. So she listened, and became animated in her commendation of his perseverance, and waited.

He drank tea with her, still talking of the tennis, with an occasional discursion in respect of the people who were on the ground; and then he lit a cigar, and fell into a train of thoughtfulness. She believed that he would now tell her something of what she wanted to, know; but he was still reticent, and before he had got halfway through his cigar he rose from his chair saying:

“I think that I shall take a stroll across the park to the farm. Funny, isn’t it, that I only spent about half an hour there since I arrived?”

“I am sure that they will appreciate a visit,” said his mother. “After so long an interregnum they will welcome the appearance of a new ruler.”

“Especially if he doesn’t rule,” said he, grimly.

“I don’t know that,” she replied. “These people even in this democratic age like a little ruling. Where is Mr. Dunning? Would it not be well to take him with you, or get him to coach you on a few points?”

“I think I prefer to drive my own coach a bit,” said he, and so he went off.

He returned about half an hour before it was time to dress for dinner, and during that comparatively short space of time he gave her a resume of the more prominent points which he had observed in the mismanagement of the farm. He could not have believed it possible, he declared, that such gross negligence could exist on any estate. Verrall, the manager, had not been on the premises, he said, and no one seemed to know exactly where he was to be found; and that gave the owner a chance of poking about the place himself, and thus seeing all that there was to be seen, without the assistance of a guide to prevent him from straying into corners which might be considered inconvenient to inspect. The owner had, it appeared, done a good deal of straying on his own account.

“The place is simply disgraceful,” he said. “Dunning hasn’t been near it for more than a year. I got so much out of one of the hands. He has been leaving everything in the hands of Verrall; and Verrall, it seems, is a great authority in coursing. He has quite a large kennel of greyhounds, which naturally he keeps and has been keeping at my expense. I will say that they looked first-rate dogs. But it seemed as if the kennel was kept up at the sacrifice of the dairy. The dairy is a disgrace. Unclean! That gives no idea of what it was like—absolutely filthy—sickening. The pump in the dairy is out of order. And when had it been in order? I asked. Seven months ago, I found out by crossexamining some of the slovenly hands who were loafing about. And the cattle! Dunning had told me that there were some fine beasts on the home farm. He knew nothing about it. There was not a single good point among the cows.”

“And your grandfather was so proud of his herd!” said Mrs. Wingfield.

“He wouldn’t see much to be proud of among their successors,” said Jack. “I never felt so ashamed in all my life. Verrall drove up in a dogcart when I was in the dairy, and began bawling out for some one to come to the horse. He had brought a new greyhound with him, and he bawled out for some one to come and look after the dog. I saw the origin of all this bawling when he tried to get down. He wasn’t over successful. He certainly wasn’t over sober. I had a very brief interview with him. He was startled at first, and then he thought that the right way to get round me was by becoming jocular. I fancy that, fuddled and all as he was, he has come to the conclusion by this time that that was a strategical mistake.”

“You gave him notice to quit?”

“Oh, no; I couldn’t very well go so far as that on the spot; but I am to go over the books of the farm to-morrow—I had previously found out that no books were kept—and I’m inclined to think that Mr. Verrall will give me notice of his intention to take himself off before we get far in our investigation of how the books came to be accidentally burnt or drowned or eaten by the prize cattle—whatever story he may invent to account for their disappearance.”

So he went on as they sat in the hall looking out upon the western sun that was sending his level beams over the great elms of the avenue. He had become quite heated in his account of the mismanagement of the farm. A few hours ago his mother would have refused to believe in the possibility of his being sufficiently interested in such an episode in the profession of a potterer as to become even warm over its narration. How on earth had the sudden change come about?

That was the question which she kept asking herself all the time her maid was dressing her for dinner, and her son Jack was splashing in his bath, trying to remove some of the memories of his visit to his farm. But it was not until the following afternoon that she got from him any suggestion that she could accept as a clue to the secret of the situation.

He had been at the home farm at six in the morning and had dismissed Farmer Verrall before breakfast. Farmer Verrall had looked for his coming about eleven or twelve, and having been up until pretty late the night before, he had not quite succeeded in his endeavour to do himself justice by “sleeping it off”—the phrase was Mrs. Verrall’s—so that Mr. Wingfield had further opportunities for inspection before the man had got on even the most rudimentary clothing.

After the simultaneous discharge of his duty and his manager, Jack Wingfield had eaten a good breakfast and gone off to the tennis ground, where he succeeded in beating two more antagonists in the G.S.s, and had then got knocked out in the first set he played with a partner—a very wild young woman—in the M.D.s. After these excitements he returned to have tea with his mother.

It was after a long pause at the close of that meal that he remarked, so casually as to awaken the suspicions of his mother in a moment:

“Talking of the dairy—” he had been saying a word or two respecting the dairy—“I wonder if you have ever heard of a man named Wadhurst—a great authority on shorthorns—in fact, a great dairyman altogether.”

“Of course I have heard of him, several times,” she replied. “Why, I heard something of him only a few weeks ago—something in a newspaper. Something he had done in America, I think—something brave—not connected with a dairy. What nonsense! I remember now. It was another man—was it his son who tried to save some people on a wreck and got drowned himself?”

“Not exactly his son. The man who did that was a scheming rascal who had inveigled Mr. Wadhurst’s daughter into a marriage with him and got arrested for a swindle on the steps of the church.”

“Of course, that was it. Stupid of me to forget. But really, what between these Frenchwomen poisoning their husbands and Americans getting divorces, it is hard to remember the details of any one particular case. But I only need to be reminded and the whole thing comes back to me.”

“Miss Wadhurst of course returned to her father’s house. She is living there at present. She never had slept a night out of it.”

“The detectives were just in time! How lucky for her! But she is not Miss Wadhurst: she must be Mrs. something or other. The ceremony was gone through with, wasn’t it?”

“I believe it was, but it was only natural—only right—just—that she should revert to her maiden name. She had a right to her maiden name, hadn’t she?”

“I suppose so; but a marriage is a marriage, and a sacred thing, whatever the Americans may say.”

“A sacred swindle, this particular one was, my dear mother. Anyhow, the young woman is here and I have met her, and I don’t think I ever met a more clearheaded young woman. She practically runs that big dairy of her father’s off her own bat—they send a thousand gallons of milk to London every morning.”

In a moment she perceived what was the origin of her son’s zeal in the matter of dairy work; her heart sank. But she made no sign. She only remarked:

“A thousand gallons! Surely that is impossible, Jack! A thousand——”

“It’s a fact. It’s by far the biggest dairy in the county. I am going up the hill to see it one of these days; and meantime——”

He paused, and she looked up from the old lace that she was mending—she looked up interrogatively.

“Meantime I want her to give me a hint or two, and I should like, if you don’t mind, to ask her to visit you.”

“Is that necessary, do you think? Wouldn’t she feel more at home if she looked in at the farm? She could then see in a moment at what end to begin to work as regards your improvements.”

“I think that she would feel at home anywhere or in any society,” said he. “You would agree with me if you saw her and had a chat. She is really a very clever girl.” Jack Wingfield’s mother had a natural antipathy to clever girls. She had met a few in the course of her life with a reputation for cleverness, and for some reason or other the impression that she had acquired of them and their ways was that a clever girl was another name for a scheming girl, and that whether she was called clever or scheming she was an unscrupulous girl. That was why she shook her head, saying:

“I’m not sure that clever girls are quite at home in my company, Jack. I know that I am never at home in theirs.”

“And if you’re not I’m sure that I’m not,” said he. “But you’ll not find that Miss Priscilla Wadhurst is that sort of a clever girl.”

Mrs. Wingfield felt that if the young woman had impressed upon her son the fact that she was a clever girl, but not that sort of a clever girl, she was the cleverest girl of all; but she herself, being possessed of a certain share of this particular quality, knew perfectly well that in the way of a man with a maid there is nothing so stimulating as opposition, especially reasonable opposition, so she hastened to assure him that of course she should be greatly pleased if Mrs.—or, as she wished to be called, Miss Wadhurst—would call upon her; and the son, without being a clever man, had still no difficulty in perceiving that his mother was afraid to show any further opposition to his suggestion lest mischief might come of it. But he only said, “That’s all right, then. I think she may come, though I’m not quite sure.”

“I don’t suppose that she would find a visit to an old woman who has lived away from everything in the world for so long very attractive,” she remarked. “Have you asked this young person to advise you as to the dairy?”

“Not I. But I’m sure she’ll do it. She wears no frills.”

“You met her yesterday?”

“Well, I was going to speak to Lady Cynthia Brooks about the Mixed Doubles, when she rushed into the arms of Miss Wadhurst—there was kissing and all that; it seems that they had been at school together, and very chummy. Lady Gainsforth was tremendously taken with her.”

He did not think that it was absolutely necessary for him to tell his mother that he first made the acquaintance of Miss Wadhurst in the room next to that in which they were sitting; and he saw no harm in introducing the name of a countess and her daughter in the course of his account of meeting Miss Wadhurst.

“Cynthia Brooks was always a nice girl,” said Mrs. Wingfield. “I’m not sure that going about from one tennis meeting to another is very good for a girl; but if her mother doesn’t mind—— Wasn’t it at Biarritz we met them? That was three years ago—just before you went to South America.”

“Yes; it was at Biarritz. We carried off the M.D.s; but we had a very shady lot against us. We should have no chance playing together at such a meeting as this.”

Not another word passed between them on the subject of Miss Wadhurst, and Mrs. Wingfield went to her bed in a condition of great uncertainty on the subject of her son and the young woman who was to come to pay her a visit. A farmer’s daughter, with views of dairy management; that was rather a curious sort of young person for Jack to take up—if he had taken her up. But Jack was, she knew, like many other young men of whom she had been hearing recently—ready to do the unexpected. It was shocking to hear of them marrying girls who danced and did things. She had not quite succeeded in determining whether dancing or a dairy was the worse. Hadn’t some well-known man written a poem about a dairymaid?—or was it a musical comedy? But here was a dairymaid with a romantic story swirling round her like one of those gauzy robes in which some premiere danseuse was accustomed to make her gyrations. Mrs. Wingfield had a horror of being in anyway associated with a person who had had a romance in his or her life. She connected romance with unrespectability just as she did cleverness and scheming.

She sighed at the thought of her son’s marrying a dairymaid; but if he had set his heart on marrying her and failed to do so, would he not forthwith start once again upon his wanderings?

Which of the two prospects was to be preferred? That was the question which she had to decide. It was a case of Scylla and Charybdis—Priscilla and Charybdis, she thought; but she went asleep before she had made up her mind on this question. After all, was there any reason for her to keep awake thinking if it was possible that her son, who had run the gauntlet of many young women in search of husbands, and many young women—these were the more dangerous—having husbands of their own already, during the previous four years, was now head and ears in love with a red-faced, brownarmed, blowsy dairymaid?

She hoped for the best.