A Man's Man Part 42

"Come in," said a voice.

The lovers entered.

"I have brought Mr. Haliburton to see you, Hughie," remarked Miss Gaymer, much as one might announce the arrival of a person to inspect the gas meter.

Mr. Haliburton, who was not the man to show embarra.s.sment, whether he felt it or not, advanced easily into the room. Joan surveyed his straight back and square shoulders as he pa.s.sed her, and the corners of her mouth twitched, ever so little.

Then she looked at Hughie. It was her first meeting with him since his return home that morning. He had answered her note by another, saying that he would be in the library at five o'clock. There was no twitching about his mouth. It was closed like a steel trap; and he stood with his back to the wood-fire which glowed in the grate--it was getting on in September, and cold out of the sun--with absolute stolidity. Joan saw at a glance that, whatever the difficulties of the position, her guardian's line of action was now staked out and his mind made up--one way or the other.

She dropped into an arm-chair.

"Now, you two," she remarked encouragingly, "get to work! I want to hear what each of you has got to say about my future. It will be quite exciting--like going to a palmist!"

The two men turned and regarded her in unfeigned surprise. They had not expected this. Haliburton began swiftly to calculate whether Joan's presence would be a help to him or not. But Hughie said at once:--

"You must leave us alone, Joan, please! I can't possibly allow you to remain."

Joan lay back in her chair and smiled up at him, frankly mutinous. She had never yet failed, when she so desired, to "manage" a man. Hughie was regarding her stonily; but two minutes, she calculated, would make him sufficiently pliable.

She was wrong. At the end of this period Hughie was still rigidly waiting for her to leave the room. Joan, a little surprised at his obstinacy, remarked:--

"If you are going to object to--to Mr. Haliburton's suggestions, Hughie, I think I ought to hear what the objections are."

"Before you go," said Hughie in even tones, "I will tell you one thing--and that should be sufficient. It is this. There is not the slightest prospect of this--this engagement coming off. My reasons for saying so I am prepared to give to Mr. Haliburton, and if he thinks proper he can communicate them to you afterwards. But I don't think he will. Now will you leave us, please?"

Joan was genuinely astonished. But she controlled herself. She was determined to see the matter out now. All the woman in her--and she was all woman--answered to the challenge contained in Hughie's dictatorial att.i.tude. Besides, she was horribly curious.

She heaved a sad little sigh, and made certain shameless play with her eyes which she knew stirred poor Hughie to the point of desperation, and surveyed the result through drooping lashes with some satisfaction.

Hughie's mouth was fast shut, and he was breathing through his nose; and Joan could see a little pulse beating in his right temple. (Both of them, for the moment, had forgotten the ardent suitor by the window.) She would win through in a moment now.

But alas! she had forgotten a masculine weapon against which all the Votes for Women in the world will avail nothing, when it comes to a pinch.

Hughie suddenly relaxed his att.i.tude, and strode across to the door, which he held open for her.

"At _once_, please!" he said in a voice which Joan had never heard before, though many men had.

Without quite knowing why, Miss Gaymer rose meekly from her chair and walked out of the room. The door closed behind her.

When Joan found herself on the lawn again she gasped a little.

"Ooh!" she said breathlessly. "I--I feel just as if I'd been hit in the face by a big wave! This game is not turning out quite as you expected, Joey, my child: the man Hughie is one up! Still, I'll take it out of him another time. But--heavens!"--She was staring, like Red Riding-Hood on a historic occasion, at a rec.u.mbent figure in her canvas chair beneath the copper beech--"Who on _earth_ is that in my chair? It's--it's--oh! Joey Gaymer, you've got hysterics! It's--it's--Uncle Jimmy! _Uncle Jimmy!...

My Uncle--Jimmy!_"

Next moment she was reposing comfortably, a distracted bundle of tears and laughter, in the arms of Jimmy Marrable.

"A bit sudden--eh, young lady?" enquired that gentleman at last. "I ought to have written, I suppose. But I quite forgot you would all think I was dead. Never mind--I'm not!"

He blew his nose resonantly to substantiate his statement.

Joan, satisfied at last that he was real, and greatly relieved to find that she was not suffering from hysterical delusions arising from Hughie's brutal treatment of her, enquired severely of the truant where he had been for the last five years.

Jimmy Marrable told her. It was a long story, and the shadow of the copper beech had perceptibly lengthened by the time the narrator had embarked at Zanzibar for the port of Leith. They had the garden to themselves, for the Leroys were out.

"I don't want to hear any more adventures, because I'm simply bursting with questions," said Miss Gaymer frankly. "First of all, why did you go away? You rushed off in such a hurry that you had no time to explain. I was barely eighteen then."

"It was the old failing--the Marrable wandering tendency," replied her uncle. "I had kept it at bay quite easily for close on fifteen years, but it came back very hard and suddenly about that time."

"Why?"

"Partly, I think, because the only thing that had kept me at home all those years seemed to be slipping away from me."

"I _wasn't_!" declared Miss Gaymer stoutly. Then she reflected. "Do you mean--all those silly boys? Was it them?"

"It was," said Jimmy Marrable. "They not only put my nose out of joint but they bored me to tears."

"You were always worth the whole lot of them put together, dear," said Miss Gaymer affectionately.

"I knew that," replied Jimmy Marrable modestly, "but I wasn't quite sure if you did. I saw that for the next two or three years you would be healthily and innocently employed in making fools of young men, and so could well afford to do without your old wreck of an uncle. The serious part would not come until you grew up to be of a marriageable age. So I decided in the meanwhile to treat myself to just one last potter round the globe, and then, in a couple of years or so, come home and a.s.sume the onerous duties of chucker-out."

"Then why did you stay away so long?" demanded Miss Gaymer.

"Because I heard Hughie had come home," said Jimmy Marrable simply.

Joan started guiltily, and her hand, which was resting in one of the old gentleman's, relaxed its hold for a moment. Jimmy Marrable noticed nothing, and proceeded:--

"I got news of him from a man in Cape Town. His name was Allerton. He seemed a bit of a rolling stone, but had lately married the proprietress of a little public-house, Wynberg way, and was living in great contentment and affluence. His wife regarded his capture as the crowning achievement of her life, and altogether they were a most devoted couple.

On hearing that my name was Marrable, he said he was sure I must be Hughie's uncle, as Hughie had told him I was the only relation he had.

He was a gentleman, of sorts, and seemed to regard friend Hughie as a kind of cross between Providence and the Rock of Gibraltar. They had been through some rather tough times together--on board the Orinoco. I expect Hughie has often told you all about that?"

Joan shook her head.

"No? Well, it was like him not to. However, Allerton told me for a fact that Hughie was now home for good; so I knew then that my plans had worked out right after all, and that I need not hurry back. My little girl was safe."

He sighed contentedly, and patted Joan's hand.

"I'm a happy old fossil, Joey," he said. "I've always schemed in a clumsy way to bring this about, and now it has happened. 'There's a divinity that shapes our ends,' you know. And now, I suppose, you are mistress of this old house. How long have you been married?"

"We're not," said Joan in a very small voice.

"Not what?"

"Married."

She held up a ringless hand in corroboration. Jimmy Marrable inspected it.

"Where's your engagement ring?" he demanded.