Jan and Her Job Part 43

"I'll get you some tea at once, and I have quinine in the house. Will you take some now?"

Hugo laughed. "Your quinine would be of no earthly use to me, but I've already taken it this morning. I've got some here in my pocket. The minute my bag comes I'll go to bed--if you don't mind."

Someone fumbled at the handle of the door, and Tony, followed by William, appeared on the threshold.

Hugo Tancred opened his eyes. "Hullo!" he said. "Do you remember me, young shaver?"

Tony came into the room holding out his hand. "How do you do?" he said solemnly.

Hugo took it and stared at his son with strange glazed eyes. "You look fit enough, anyhow," he said, and dropped the little hand.

"I came as quick as I could," Tony said eagerly to Jan. "But Mr. Dauncey caught a trout, and I _had_ to wait a minute."

"Good heavens!" Hugo exclaimed irritably. "Do you all _still_ think and talk about nothing but fis.h.i.+ng?"

"Come," said Jan, holding out her hand to Tony, "and we'll go and see about some breakfast for Daddie."

William, who had been sniffing dubiously at the man in the chair, dashed after them.

As they crossed the hall Tony remarked philosophically: "Daddie's got fever. He'll be very cross, then he'll be very sad, and then he'll want you to give him something, and if you do--p'raps he'll go away."

Jan made no answer.

Tony followed her through the swing door and down the pa.s.sage to speak to Hannah, who was much moved and excited when she heard Mr. Tancred had arrived. Hannah was full of sympathy for the "poor young widower," and though she could have wished that he had given them notice of his coming, still, she supposed him to be so distracted with grief that he forgot to do anything of the kind. She and Anne Chitt went there and then to make up his bed, while Jan boiled the kettle and got him some breakfast.

While she was doing this Meg and little Fay came round to the back to look for Tony, whom they found making toast.

"Who's tum?" asked little Fay, while Jan rapidly explained the situation to Meg.

"Your Daddie's come."

Little Fay looked rather vague. "What sort of a Daddie?" she asked.

"You take her to see him, Tony, and I'll finish the toast," said Jan, taking the fork out of his hand.

When the children had gone Meg said slowly: "And Mr. Ledgard comes to-morrow?"

"He can't. I must telegraph and put him off for a day or two. Hugo is really ill."

"I shouldn't put him off long, if I were you."

Jan seized the tray: "I'll send a wire now, if you and the children will take it down to the post-office for me."

"Why send it at all?" said Meg. "Let him come."

CHAPTER XXIII

TACTICS

It was a fortnight since Hugo Tancred arrived at Wren's End, and Jan had twice put off Peter's visit.

During the first few days Hugo's temperature remained so high that she grew thoroughly alarmed; and in spite of his protestations that he was "quite used to it," she sent for the doctor. Happily the doctor in his youth had been in the East and was able to rea.s.sure her. His opinion, too, had more weight with Hugo on this account, and though he grumbled he consented to do what the doctor advised. And at the end of a week Hugo was able to come downstairs, looking very white and shaky. He lay out in the garden in a deck-chair for most of the day and managed to eat a good many of the nouris.h.i.+ng dishes Hannah prepared for him.

It had been a hard time for Jan, as Hugo was not an invalid who excited compa.s.sion in those who had to wait upon him. He took everything for granted, was somewhat morose and exacting, and made no attempt to control the extreme irritability that so often accompanies fever.

When the fever left him, however, his tone changed, and the second stage, indicated by Tony as "sad," set in with severity.

His depression was positively overwhelming, and he seemed to think that its public manifestation should arouse in all beholders the most poignant and respectful sympathy.

Poor Jan found it very difficult to behave in a manner at all calculated to satisfy her brother-in-law. She had not, so far, uttered one word of reproach to him, but she _would_ shrink visibly when he tried to discuss his wife, and she could not even pretend to believe in the deep sincerity of a grief that seemed to find such facile solace in expression. The mode of expression, too, in hackneyed, commonplace phrases, set her teeth on edge.

She knew that poor Hugo--she called him "poor Hugo" just then--thought her cold and unsympathetic because she rather discouraged his outpourings; but Fay's death was too lately-lived a tragedy to make it possible for her to talk of it--above all, with him; and after several abortive attempts Hugo gave up all direct endeavour to make her.

"You are terribly Scotch, Jan," he said one day. "I sometimes wonder whether anything could make you _really_ feel."

Jan looked at him with a sort of contemptuous wonder that caused him to redden angrily, but she made no reply.

He was her guest, he was a broken man, and she knew well that they had not yet even approached their real difference.

Two people, however, took Hugo's att.i.tude of profound dejection in the way he expected and liked it to be taken. These were Mr. With.e.l.ls and Hannah.

Mr. With.e.l.ls did not bear Jan a grudge because of her momentary lapse from good manners. In less than a week from the unfortunate interview in the nut-walk he had decided that she could not properly have understood him; and that he had, perhaps, sprung upon her too suddenly the high honour he held in store for her.

So back he came in his neat little two-seater car to call at Wren's End as if nothing had happened, and Jan, guiltily conscious that she _had_ been very rude, was only too thankful to accept the olive-branch in the spirit in which it was offered.

He took to coming almost as often as before, and was thoroughly interested and commiserating when he heard that poor Mrs. Tancred's husband had come home from India and been taken ill almost immediately on arrival. He sent some early strawberries grown in barrels in the houses, and with them a note conjuring Jan "on no account to leave them in the sickroom overnight, as the smell of fruit was so deleterious."

Hannah considered Hugo's impenetrable gloom a most proper and husbandly tribute to the departed. She felt that had there been a Mr. Hannah she could not have wished him to show more proper feeling had Providence thought fit to s.n.a.t.c.h her from his side. So she expressed her admiration in the strongest of soups, the smoothest of custards, and the most succulent of mutton-chops. Gladly would she have commanded Mrs. Earley to slay her fattest c.o.c.kerels for the nourishment of "yon poor heartbroken young man," but that she remembered (from her experience of Fay's only visit) that no one just home from India will give a thank-you for chickens.

Jan had cause to bless kind Mr. With.e.l.ls, for directly Hugo was able for it, he came with his largest and most comfortable car, driven by his trustworthy chauffeur, to take the invalid for a run right into Wilts.h.i.+re. He pressed Jan to go too, but she pleaded "things to see to"

at home.

Hugo had seen practically nothing of Meg. She was fully occupied in keeping the children out of their father's way. Little Fay "pooah daddied" him when they happened to meet, and Tony stared at him in the weighing, measuring way Hugo found so trying, but Meg neither looked at him nor did she address any remark whatever to him unless she positively could not help it.

Meg was thoroughly provoked that he should have chosen to turn up just then. She had been most anxious that Peter should come. Firstly, because, being sharply observant, she had come to the conclusion that his visit would be a real pleasure to Jan, and secondly, because she ardently desired to see him herself that she might judge whether he was "at all good enough."

And now her well-loved Jan, instead of looking her best, was growing thin and haggard, losing her colour, and her sweet serenity, and in their place a patient, tired expression in her eyes that went to Meg's heart.

She had hardly seen Jan alone for over a week; for since Hugo came downstairs Meg had taken all her meals with the children in the nursery, while Jan and Hugo had theirs in the rarely-used dining-room. The girls breakfasted together, as Hugo had his in his room, but as the children were always present there was small chance of any confidential conversation.

The first afternoon Mr. With.e.l.ls took Hugo for a drive, Meg left her children in Earley's care the minute she heard the car depart, and went to look for Jan in the house.

She found her opening all the windows in the dining-room. Meg shut the door and sat on the polished table, lit a cigarette and regarded her own pretty swinging feet with interest.