The Honour of the Clintons Part 43

"I'll forgive you," said Nancy, "if you promise to love John. He is here, you know. But we wouldn't let anybody come to the station with us. We wanted you to ourselves."

"Pets!" said Miss Bird affectionately.

"Ronald is here too, but I wouldn't let him come either," said Joan.

"What is he like tell me about him," said Miss Bird.

Joan cast a quick glance at Nancy, over the rather disordered bonnet.

It was the look that had meant in their childhood, "Let's have her on."

"He is most awfully _good_," she said in rather an apologetic voice.

"Starling dear, I wanted to say something to you before you saw him.

You don't think--if you love anybody very much, and they are really good--it matters about their looks, do you?"

"Oh, but I consider him _most_ handsome," said Miss Bird, "my sister gave me that ill.u.s.trated paper with his photograph and yours in a full page to each I wrote and told you so and pleased and proud I was to have it and over my mantelpiece it is hanging now."

"Yes, I know you wrote, darling, and it was very sweet of you. I couldn't bring myself to answer your letter. You know papers _will_ make mistakes sometimes."

"What do you mean what mistake?" asked Miss Bird. "It said plainly beneath the photographs 'The Earl of Inverell' and 'Miss Joan Clinton.'"

"Yes, I know it did, and it was me all right. Oh, Starling darling, can't you guess? Ronald is very good and very sweet, and I love him dearly; but----"

"But he is no beauty," said Nancy. "You can't expect us both to marry handsome men."

"I shouldn't call him _scrubby_, exactly, should you, Nancy?" enquired Joan.

"Not to his face," replied Nancy.

Joan gave a little gurgle, which she turned into a cough. "Starling darling, you don't mind beards in a young man, do you?" she asked.

"Oh, you will get him to shave that off," said Nancy, "after you are married. I shouldn't worry about that. And I don't think a _very_ slight squint really matters. You can always call it a cast in the eye, and some people like it."

"You see, Starling darling, I wanted you to be prepared," said Joan.

"I couldn't let you see him without saying something first, when you thought he was that good-looking young man in the picture. He is much better, really, and his looks don't put _me_ off in the least. I don't think about them. But if I hadn't told you, you might have been so surprised that you would have said something that would have hurt his feelings."

"As if I should or could," exclaimed Miss Bird indignantly, "there was no occasion to say a single word Joan and a good kind heart is _far_ better than good looks as I have often told you you do me a great injustice."

"I knew she wouldn't really mind, Nancy," said Joan. "But I am glad to have warned her. She will get used to the beard."

"And the cast in the eye," added Nancy.

"Indeed," said Miss Bird, "I should never notice such things a beard is a sign of manly vigour your father has a beard."

"Ah, but it isn't a beard like father's," said Joan. "It is more tufty and fluffy. I suppose you thought that young man in the picture _very_ handsome, didn't you, Starling darling?"

"Indeed no such thing," said Miss Bird, "I said to my sister and she will bear witness good-looking yes but _not_ a match in looks for my darling Joan and glad I am now that I said it."

Joan burst into a laugh, and embraced her warmly. "Oh, you're too sweet and precious for words," she said. "That _was_ Ronald, and I shall tell him you don't think he is very handsome."

"What a donkey you are, Joan!" said Nancy. "Why didn't you let her meet him in the hall?"

"Now that is _too_ bad Joan 'n' Nancy," said Miss Bird, quite in her old style of reproof, "a little piece of fun I can understand but you might have made it _most_ awkward for me Joan my bonnet well there I suppose I must say nothing more you _will_ have your joke and neither of you have altered at all you are very naughty girls and I was just going to say if you did not behave I should tell Mrs. Clinton pets I love you more than ever."

Miss Bird was almost overcome with emotion when she arrived at the house. The story was immediately told against her, and provoked laughter, especially from the Squire, who said, "The young monkeys!

They want husbands to keep them in order, both of them. 'Pon my word, with you here, Miss Bird, I feel inclined to pack them off to the schoolroom, to get them out of the way. It makes me feel young again to see you here, Miss Bird. You seem to belong to Kencote, and I'm very pleased to see you here again, very pleased indeed."

Miss Bird's heart was full, as she was taken up to her old bedroom by Joan and Nancy. Such a welcome! And from the Squire too, of whom she had always stood much in awe, but to whom she looked up as the type and perfection of manhood!

But how he had aged! When she was left alone, she looked out on to the spring green of the park, and the daffodils growing under the trees, and thought of how many years it was since she had first looked out on to that familiar scene, and how unchanged it was, although the children she had taught, and loved, had all grown up, and most of them were married. She thought of herself as a young, timid girl, for the first time away from her home, and of the Squire as a splendid young man, bluff and hearty even then. She had spent the best part of her life at Kencote, and had slept more nights in this room than in any other.

Kencote had been her home, and she had grown old in it. If the Squire, who had always been so vigorous that the years had pa.s.sed over him imperceptibly, was also at last growing old, it was in the place he loved above all others. She liked to think of him and dear Mrs.

Clinton still living here, she hoped for many years to come, with nothing changed about them, but only an added peace and quietness, to suit the evening of their lives.

Later in the evening, before dinner, the Squire paid a long-deferred visit to his cellars. The house would soon be filled from top to bottom with guests, and he wished to put the best he had before them, or before such of them as could appreciate it; also to take stock generally of the supply of wines in ordinary use, which he did regularly, but had not done for many months past. He was accompanied by his old butler with the cellar-book, and a footman with a candle, and spent nearly an hour among the bins and cobwebs.

At the end of the inspection, some slight trouble arose. The old butler had been fetching up claret which the Squire had intended should be kept for a time. He did not drink claret himself, and had not noticed the change.

"If we had used the other lot up you ought to have come and told me, Porter," he said. "I never meant this wine to be used every day. You come down here without a with-your-leave or a by-your-leave, and act as if you were master. You've been with me for a number of years, and have come to think you can do what you like. But you can't. I won't have it, Porter."

He marched off between the bins, and up the cellar steps. The old butler looked after him with a smile on his face, of which the attendant footman mistook the source, remarking, "He do give it you, don't he?"

"They're the best words I've had from him for a long time," said the old man. "He's got back to himself again."

But if the Squire had got back to himself, it was not entirely to his old habits. It had never before been Mrs. Clinton's custom to sit with him in his room, as he now liked her to do, and as she did that evening, while the younger members of the party, including Miss Bird, were disporting themselves in the billiard-room.

"This will be the last of it, Nina," he was saying. "When Frank marries it won't be from this house. They call it a quiet wedding, but, 'pon my word, I don't know how we could very well have found room for any more than are coming. I'm rather dreading it in a way, Nina.

I feel I'm getting too old for all this bustle."

"We shall be very quiet when it is all over," said Mrs. Clinton.

"Yes, my dear," he said. "You and I will be quiet together for the rest of our lives. We shall have our children with us often, and our grandchildren; but for the most of the time we shall just be by ourselves. We've had a long life together, my dear. We've had a great deal of happiness in it, and have been through some very deep trouble.

But the skies are clear now, and, please G.o.d, they'll keep clear.

Nina, my dear, we've got a great deal to thank Him for."

THE END