The Ffolliots of Redmarley Part 38

"I'm always a bit wakeful when the fly's up, sir; the river seems to draw me, and I can't leave it."

"Have a cigar," said Reggie, and sat down beside him.

They smoked in silence for a few minutes till Willets said--

"Seen anything of Miss Mary up there, sir?"

"No, Willets, I haven't been able to get away for a minute till now, but I may manage to run down to Woolwich next week just to buck to the General about my catch. You'll have him down then post haste--I bet----"

"I suppose, sir," said Willets, with studied carelessness, "you never happened to come across the young man that's member for these parts?"

"What, young Gallup? I believe I saw him once. He's making quite a name for himself I hear, his maiden speech was in all the papers. By the way though, I _did_ hear of him the other day in a letter I had from Miss Mary. They'd all been to dine at the House of Commons with him, and had no end of a time."

"Well I _am_ d.a.m.ned!" said Willets.

He said it seriously, almost devoutly, and Reggie turned right round to stare at him.

"I beg your pardon, sir, I'm sure, but I really was fairly flabbergasted."

He stood up st.u.r.dy and respectful in a patch of moonlight, and his keen brown eyes raked Reggie's as though they would read his very soul.

It wasn't an easy soul to read, and Reggie knew that Willets had something on his mind, so he waited.

"I beg your pardon, sir," Willets said again. He had never got over the feeling that Reggie was one of the young gentlemen, and that it behoved him to be careful of his language in front of him.

Reggie Peel laughed. "Look here, Willets," he said, "what's your objection? Why shouldn't they go to the House of Commons to dine with Gallup if it amuses them?"

"I don't know, sir, I'm sure, but I was took aback. An' in a small place like this it's certain to make talk. That old Miss Gallup, now, she'll be boasting everywhere that our Miss Mary went to dine with her nephew, just as she did when he went to a dinner party up at the house, and for us as _belongs_ to the house--well, we don't relish it. I hope, sir," Willets went on in quite a different tone, "that you'll make it convenient to go up and see after Miss Mary?"

The hawk's eyes were fixed unwinkingly on Reggie's face, so lean and sallow and set; the moonlight accentuated the rather hollow cheeks.

and cast black shadows round his eyes, which looked green and sinister.

Suddenly he smiled, and when Reggie smiled, his whole face altered.

"Out with it, Willets," he said, "what maggot have you got in your head now? You're worried about something; you may as well tell me. I'm safe as a church."

"I'd like to know, sir," Willets remarked in a detached impersonal tone, "what's your opinion of mixed marriages?"

"_What_ sort of marriages?"

"Well marriages where one of the parties has had a different bringing up to the other. Now suppose, sir--do you know Miss s.h.i.+pway--over to Marlehouse; her father's got that big shop top of the market-place full of bonnets and mantles and such--good-looking girl she is----"

"I'm afraid I don't know the lady, Willets; why?"

"Well, sir, it's this way. She'll have a tidy bit of money when old s.h.i.+pway dies; her mother was cook at the Fleece, but they've got on.

Well now, sir, suppose you was to go after Miss s.h.i.+pway-----"

Reggie's eyes twinkled. "It might be a most sensible proceeding on my part--a poor devil like me--if as you say she's a nice girl and will have a lot of money. Will you give me an introduction?"

"I'm not jokin', sir, nor taking the liberty to propose anything of the sort; it's only----"

"A hypothetical case?"

"That's it, sir. I mean suppose a gentleman like yourself was to marry a girl like her, do you think you'd be happy?"

"Surely it would all depend on whether they liked each other--and liked the same things----"

"Ah, sir, that's it. _Would_ you like the same things, do you suppose?"

"Well, Willets, I don't see that you've any cause to worry.

Unfortunately I don't know the young lady, so I can't see how I'm to get any forrader."

"Suppose, sir, a young _lady_, like what the Mistress was, should marry a man in quite a different rank from herself, do you think _they'd_ be happy?"

"It depends," said Reggie, "what sort of a chap he was. People rise, you know."

"Well, suppose he did, would they happy?"

"I couldn't say, Willets, I'm sure. Is it any particular young lady you're worried about?"

Willets sat down on the wall. "In my time,"

he said slowly, "I've seen a good bit; and all I have seen, seems to me to show that it's safest for ladies and gentlemen to stick to their own cla.s.s. But I thought I'd like to have your opinion, sir."

For five minutes they sat in silence, then Willets remarked, "And you think you'll be going up to town next week, sir?"

"I think so. I shall try anyway."

"Would you be so good, sir, as to say to General Grantly that he'd better not put off much longer if he wants the best of the fis.h.i.+ng."

"I'll be sure and tell him, Willets. I suppose we must go to bed.

Many thanks for the splendid sport. I have to get back to Chatham to-morrow, worse luck, and with the Sunday trains it takes a deuce of a time."

"Good-night, sir, I'm glad you managed to come, even though it was for but one night."

Reggie let himself in very quietly and went up to his room.

He lit his pipe and went to the window to smoke it.

The moonlight was so brilliant that he drew a letter from his pocket and read it easily:

"Dear Reggie," it ran, "yours was a lovely long letter. I'm glad you rescued poor Clara, and you needn't be afraid of me selling papers or carrying sandwich boards. I'm much too busy having a lovely time. Oh _never_ have I had such a time, but I grieve to tell you that both Ganpy and I are very shocked at the behaviour of Grannie. She is having an outrageous flirtation with young Mr Gallup, our member. It's all very well for her to say she is forming him. She is undermining all his most cherished principles, and if his nonconformist const.i.tuents hear of his goings on I don't believe they'll ever have him again.

"She has taught him auction: he played with her last _Sunday_ afternoon because it was too wet to be out in the garden. She has sent him to lots of plays: he came with us one night to the Chocolate Soldier; she talks politics to him by the hour and demolishes his pet theories. She tells him that he has, up to now, thought so many things wrong that he can't possibly have any sense of proportion, or properly discriminate what really matters and what doesn't; and she is so brisk and masterful and delightfully amusing--you know Grannie's way--that the poor young man doesn't know whether he's on his head or his heels, and simply follows blindly wherever that reckless woman leads. He gave a dinner for us in the House the other night and got Ganpy a seat in the Stranger's Gallery. He couldn't get us into the Ladies' Gallery because of the silly rule about only wives and sisters or near relations made since the suffragette fusses, but he showed us all about and it was simply fascinating. Of course Grannie met lots of members she knew, and we enjoyed ourselves awfully. We are going to tea on the Terrace next week. The dance at the Shop was ripping, and you needn't think I only danced with cadets. I danced with majors and colonels, and a beautiful captain in the Argyle and Sutherland, but I've come to the conclusion that the jolliest thing is to be Ganpy's wife on these occasions. You never saw such court as gets paid to Grannie. She never has a dull minute.

"Grantly went home on Sat. just for the night, and he says it's all too beautiful for words. Sometimes I feel wicked to be missing it, and I get homesick for mother and the children; but I do enjoy it all. When are you coming up to play about too? You stern, industrious young man."

Reggie folded the letter and put it back in his pocket.

"So that's what old Willets was driving at," he thought. He leaned out again to shake the ash out of his pipe. In the far east there was a pearly streak. "Daylight," he muttered, "--and by Jove I see it."