Barnaby Part 11

Barnaby pa.s.sed by on his way from his own room, and her shrill call stopped him. His step outside sent the colour into Susan's cheek, and his voice came doubtfully through the door.

"Yes, mother?"

"Come in; come in. How shy you are!" said she, and the handle turned.

"You will tire yourself," he said, but she brushed aside his remonstrance.

"Rubbis.h.!.+" she said. "I have the whole evening to lie up and swallow physic. Come here and stick these in for me, will you? Margaret is so clumsy."

"I beg your pardon," he said, under his breath, as he bent down, fulfilling his office.--"The exigencies of the piece must excuse me."

"What a queer way of apologizing for running a pin into your wife!"

said his mother sharply. She might have been trusted to overhear. He had straightened himself, and was withdrawing rather precipitately, when his eyes fell on his own picture above the chimney-piece. "What is that thing doing here?" he asked, off his guard.

Lady Henrietta desisted from her pleased contemplation of Susan decked out with jewels.

"Well!" she said. "Of all things! Do you mean to say?--It has been there ever since she came. I had it hung there myself to be company for your heart-broken widow."

"Anyhow, we'll have it down now," he said hastily. "You'd rather not have the daub glaring at you, wouldn't you, Susan?"

Lady Henrietta turned her back on him.

"Don't mind him, my dear," she said. "We'll keep it."

There was warmth in her tone. She squeezed the girl's arm, bidding her remember that none of Barnaby's old flames could hold a candle to her.

Somehow or other he had fallen under her displeasure.

"I'm afraid my acting doesn't come up to yours," he said, when they were shut into the motor. "My mother thinks I am too undemonstrative ... that I am unworthy of my good luck."

"Don't!" she said.

He laid his hand comfortingly on hers.

"Look here, little girl," he said. "It's no use taking things hard.

We have to make the best of it. It won't last for ever.... We must look at the funny side of it. That's the bargain."

The swift drive through the night was already over. Three men, pus.h.i.+ng aside the servants, were slapping Barnaby on the back. They bore a family likeness to each other, big men, with creased red necks, and short, rumpled sandy hair.

"Come along in," they cried heartily. "The house is full of old friends wanting to get at you,--and nothing but odds and ends for dinner."

But one of them managed to lower his hearty voice a trifle.--"You won't mind meeting Julia Kelly? She has asked herself for the night."

"Who else?" said Barnaby, in his ordinary tones.

"Kilgour and the Slaters and Rackham and the d.u.c.h.ess;--and a few more,"

reeled off his host, thankfully dropping the awkward subject now he had got out his warning. He rushed them into the house, and Susan was bewildered by the tumult that greeted them, the sea of unknown faces.

Men and women alike were seizing on Barnaby and exclaiming. She hardly realized that they were at the same time taking stock of her. The three Drakes stood near her like a bodyguard, kind and stolid, settling into their usual phlegmatic form; and she felt glad of them.

"Getting on all right?" said Barnaby, as she pa.s.sed him on her way in to dinner, and she smiled back at him.

He and she were not near each other; but once or twice he looked her way, bending his head and slewing half round to catch a glimpse of her; that--or else Lady Henrietta's stars, kept up her courage. She listened politely, not understanding much, to the local gossip running along the table.

"Have you picked up any horses yet, Barnaby? Sims has one or two going up on Sat.u.r.day, at Leicester."

"I can let you have a bay, a capital fencer----"

"Oh, you don't palm off your roarers on me. I heard him to-day," said Barnaby.

"Well, I don't deny that he makes a noise----"

"I suppose you think I've been in the wilds so long I don't know a horse from a hedgehog!" said Barnaby. "Can anyone tell me what became of a black mare I had four seasons ago?"

"Do you mean Black Rose?" said Kilgour.

"That's the one. Do you know who has her?"

"I have," said Kilgour. "I took her from Peters. The fellow couldn't ride her. You can have her back if you want her, Barnaby; she isn't up to my weight. I remember you rode her at Croxton Park."

"And won," said Barnaby. "Want her? Rather."

Kilgour chuckled heavily.

"She isn't as young as she was, mind," he said. "But she can go still.

I suppose you're not as keen as you used to be on breaking your neck?"

"As keen as ever," said Barnaby, with conviction.

"Does your wife ride?"

The question sounded maladroit; it was inconceivable that Barnaby should have married a wife who did not. His hesitation was singular in their eyes; they all stopped to listen.

"I really don't know," he said.

In the general burst of laughter Susan caught his glance of amused consternation. In that hard-riding company his ignorance was incredible. Men, having a curious predilection towards the unsuitable in wives, he might, after all, have committed that inconceivable piece of folly. Barnaby's wife might lamentably turn out incapable of sitting on a horse. But that Barnaby should not know--!

It was while they were all laughing at him that Susan became aware of Julia Kelly.

She was on the same side of the table as herself, placed far from the lion of the occasion; and was leaning her elbows on the table, looking full at Susan. The man between them was sitting back in his chair roaring helplessly at the joke.

"What an ignorant husband, Mrs. Hill," said Julia, and her musical voice vibrated through the laughter. "Do you ride?"

"I have ridden," said Susan quietly. It was difficult for her to blot the memory of an encounter that the other woman ignored.

"But not with him?"

Mrs. Drake, springing up, made diversion.