The Honour of the Clintons Part 1

The Honour of the Clintons.

by Archibald Marshall.

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

A HOME-COMING

The lilacs in the station-yard at Kencote were heavy with their trusses of white and purple; the rich pastures that stretched away on either side of the line were yellow with b.u.t.tercups.

Out of the smiling peace of the country-side came puffing the busy little branch-line train. It came to and fro half a dozen times a day, making a rare contact between the outside world and this sunny placid corner of meadow and brook and woodland. Here all life that one could see was so quiet and so contented that the train seemed to lose its character as it crept across the bright levels, and to be less a noisy determined machine of progress than a trail of white steam, floating out over the grazing cattle and the willows by the brookside, as much in keeping with the scene as the wisps of cloud that made delicate the blue of the fresh spring sky.

The white cloud detached itself from the engine and melted away into the sky, and the train slid with a cheerful rattle alongside the platform and came to a stand-still. Nancy Clinton, who had been awaiting its arrival with some impatience, waved her hand and hurried to the carriage from which she had seen looking out a face exactly like her own. By the time she had reached it her twin sister, Joan, had alighted, and was ready with her greeting.

"Hullo, old girl!"

"You're nearly ten minutes late."

The twins had been parted for a fortnight, which had very seldom happened to them before in the whole nineteen years of their existence, and both of them were pleased to be together once more. If they had been rather less pleased they might have said rather more.

More was, in fact, said by the maid who stood at the carriage door with Joan's dressing-bag in her hand.

"Good-afternoon, Miss Nancy. Lor, you _are_ looking well, and a sight for sore eyes. We've come back again, you see, and don't want to go away from you no more. Miss Joan, please ketch 'old of this, and I'll get the other things out. Where's that porter? He wants somebody be'ind 'im with a stick."

"Hullo, Hannah!" said Nancy. "As talkative as ever! Come along, Joan.

She can look after the things."

The two girls went out through the booking-office, at the door of which the station-master expressed respectful pleasure at the return of the traveller, and got into the carriage waiting for them. There was a luggage cart as well, and the groom in charge of it touched his hat and grinned with pleasure; as did also the young coachman on the box.

"I seem to be more popular than ever," said Joan as she got into the carriage. "Why aren't we allowed a footman?"

"You won't find you're at all popular when you get home," said Nancy.

"The absence of a footman is intended to mark father's displeasure with you. He sent out to say there wasn't to be one, and William was to drive, instead of old Probyn. Father is very good at making his ritual expressive."

"What's the trouble?" enquired Joan. "My going to Brummels for the week-end?"

"Yes. Without a _with_-your-leave or _by_-your-leave. Such a house as that is no place for a well-brought-up girl, and what on earth Humphrey and Susan were thinking of in taking you there he can't think. I say, why _did_ you all go in such a hurry? You didn't say anything about it when you wrote on Friday."

"Because it was arranged all in a hurry. Lady Sedbergh is going through a month's rest cure at Brummels, and she thought she'd have a lively party to say good-bye before she shuts herself up. It was Bobby Trench who made her ask us, at the last moment."

"Joan, is Bobby Trench paying you attentions? You never told me anything in your letters, but he seems to have been always about."

Joan laughed. "I'll tell you all about Bobby Trench later on," she said. "I've been saving it up. Mother isn't annoyed at my going to Brummels, is she?"

"I don't think so. But she said Humphrey and Susan ought not to have taken you there without asking."

"There wasn't time to ask. Besides, I wanted to go, just to see how the smart set really do behave when they're all at home together."

"Well, how do they?"

"It really is what Frank calls '_chaude etoffe_.' I don't wonder that Lady Sedbergh wants a rest cure if that's how she spends her life. On Sunday we had a fancy dress dinner--anything we could find--and she came down as the Brummels ghost in a sort of nightgown with her hair down her back and her face whitened. She looked a positive idiot sitting at the head of the table. She must be at least fifty and the ghost was only seventeen."

"What did you wear?"

"Oh, I borrowed Hannah's cap and ap.r.o.n; and Susan's maid lent me a black dress. I was much admired. Susan was a flapper. She had on some clothes of Betty Trench's, who is only fourteen, and about her size. She looked rather silly. Humphrey was properly dressed, except that he wore white trousers and a pink silk pyjama jacket. He said he was Night and Morning. He looked the most respectable of all the men, except Lord Sedbergh, who said he wasn't playing. He's a dear old thing and lets them all do just what they like, and laughs all the time. Bobby Trench was a bathing woman, with a sponge bag thing on his head. He was really awfully funny, but he was funniest of all when he forgot what he looked like and languished at me. I was having soup, and I choked, and Lord Rokeby, who was sitting next to me, thumped me on the back. All their manners are delightfully free and natural."

"Well, you seem to have enjoyed yourself."

"We finished up the evening with a pillow fight. Fancy!--Lady Sedbergh and some of the other older women joined in, and made as much noise as anybody. You should have seen Hannah's face when I did at last get into my room, where she was waiting for me. She said a judgment was sure to fall on us for such goings on."

"A judgment is certainly going to fall on _you_, my dear. Father will seize you the moment you get into the house and ask you what you mean by it."

"Dear father!" said Joan affectionately. "It _is_ jolly to be home again, Nancy. How lovely the chestnuts are looking! Dear peaceful old Kencote!"

They drove in through the lodge gates, where Joan received a smile and a curtsey, and along the short drive through the park, and drew up beneath the porch of the big ugly square house. Mrs. Clinton was at the door, and Joan enveloped her in an ardent embrace, which was interrupted by the appearance of the Squire, big and burly, with a grizzled beard and a look of self-contented authority.

"I've got something to say to you, Miss Joan. Come into my room."

He turned his back and marched off to the library, in which he spent most of his time when he was indoors.

Joan, after another hug and kiss, followed him. It may or may not have been a sign of the deterioration in manner, wrought by her visit to Brummels, that she winked at Nancy over her shoulder as she did so.

"Aren't you going to kiss me, father?" she asked, going up to him. "I am very pleased to see you again, and I'm sure you're just as pleased to see me."

The face that she lifted up to him could not possibly have been resisted by any man who had not the privilege of close relations.h.i.+p.

The Squire, however, successfully resisted it.

"I don't want to kiss you," he said. "I'm very displeased with you.

What on earth possessed Humphrey and Susan to take you off to a house like that, without a with-your-leave or a by-your-leave? And what do you mean by going to places where you knew perfectly well you wouldn't be allowed to go?"

"But, father darling," expostulated Joan, with an expression of puzzled innocence, "I knew Lord Sedbergh was an old friend of yours. I didn't think you could _possibly_ object to my going there with Humphrey and Susan. They only got up their party on Friday evening, and there wasn't time to write home. Why do you mind so much?"

"You know perfectly well why I mind," returned the Squire irritably.

"All sorts of things go on in houses like that, and all sorts of people are welcomed there that I won't have a daughter of mine mixed up with.

You've been brought up in a G.o.d-fearing house, and you've got to content yourself with the life we live here. I tell you I won't have it."

"Well, I'm sorry, father dear. I won't do it again. Now give me a kiss."

But the Squire was not yet ready for endearments.

"Won't do it again!" he echoed. "No, you won't do it again. I'll take good care of that. If you can't go on a visit to your relations without getting into mischief you'll stop at home."

"I don't want anything better," replied Joan tactfully. "I didn't know how ripping Kencote was till I drove home just now. Everything is looking lovely. How are the young birds doing?"

"Never mind about the young birds," said the Squire. "We've got to get to the bottom of this business. You must have known very well that I should object to your going to a house like Brummels. When that young Trench came here a few years ago you heard me object very strongly to the way he behaved himself. Cards on Sunday, and using the house like an hotel, never keeping any hours except what suited himself, and I don't know what all. Did they play cards on Sunday at Brummels?"