The Daughter Pays Part 17

The bride coloured, but did not seem offended. She raised herself on her elbow and ate her morsel of toast, asking Grover various questions.

"Our courts.h.i.+p has been so short, I know nothing about his home life,"

she said. "But this seems to be a very pretty place."

"Pretty indeed, and a different house it will be when once you get it going, and full of friends, ma'am. Of course, they all say he was disappointed in love as a young man, ma'am, and that is why he dislikes the poor ladies so much. I expect, however, you know a good bit more about that than what I do."

"Yes," said Virgie, "I know all about that." She sighed. "I hope I shall do right," she remarked, "but gentlemen who live alone grow very set in their ways. You must tell me of any little tastes or fancies he may have."

Grover laughed gaily as she gathered up the tea-things and went to fill the bath. "You that can turn him round your little finger, I'll be bound," she chuckled.

The new mistress left her in this pleasing delusion, and lay back upon her pillows with a sigh. If she could but have the whole day in bed, she thought wistfully. A long day's rest, after her good sleep, would set her up once more. At this moment her one desire was to snuggle down in the safe refuge of the bedclothes, and remain there utterly pa.s.sive and inert.

She appeared, however, punctually in the dining-room when the gong for breakfast sounded.

The meal was set in the old-fas.h.i.+oned way, the tea and coffee service before the mistress, the hot dishes at the other end.

Gaunt was standing with an open newspaper in his hand near the window.

"Well," he said, "did you sleep?"

"Yes, thank you, I did."

She came up and shook hands. He eyed her keenly. This was the first time he had seen her in morning dress. Her white linen was simple and fresh, and she was daintily neat; but there were blue shadows under the melting eyes, and a sad droop of the mouth which spoke of dejection.

"Come, sit down, and pour out my coffee," he said, limping quickly to his own place. "We have much to get through to-day. You must go and see Mrs. Wells, and give the orders for the day." He added, with his "bad smile": "If you are not very good at housekeeping, I don't envy you.

She will think very small beer of you."

"It is two years since I had the management of a large house," was the gentle reply, "but I do not think I have forgotten. London housekeeping would seem more difficult to me."

He looked at her, puzzled. "But your mother kept house at Lissendean, I presume?"

"N-no, I don't think mother ever kept house," said Virgie doubtfully.

"She used to have a first-rate housekeeper who managed everything when we were little. But afterwards, when I grew up, we were becoming so much poorer, that I told father to dismiss the housekeeper and save her wages, because I thought I could manage. It was wonderful," she added reminiscently, "how much we saved then."

"Perhaps your father was not as particular about his food as I am," he remarked sourly.

"I expect Mrs. Wells knows your likes and dislikes, does she not? If she will help me for the first few weeks, I think I can manage to please you," was the courteous rejoinder.

Gaunt laid down his knife and fork to contemplate her. "In some ways,"

he said slowly, "it appears that you do _not_ resemble your mother."

"Who? I? Oh, no, I am not a bit like mother, except in looks," calmly replied Virgie. "Did you suppose I was? She is social and I am domestic. She likes going out, and I like home. I am shy with strangers, and she never is." After a minute's thought, she added: "You see, ever since I grew up, I have known the seamy side of things--trouble, losing father, and poverty. I suppose it has made me dull."

The man glowered upon her fixedly as she sat, with an empty plate, sipping her cup of tea.

"You're not eating," he threw out, at length.

"I have not much appet.i.te this morning," was her gentle reply.

"Eat!" he shouted, springing from his place and noting with satisfaction her involuntary recoil. "Come, what's it to be? Kidney and mushroom, eggs, ham--what?"

She grew pink with distress. "Please, no," she pleaded. "I--I can't manage it. I--I simply can't swallow."

"Nonsense!" he declared loudly. "No airs and graces here, please. What will you have?" He held his fork poised above the dishes. There was an electric silence, and he thought she was going to rebel openly. But, after a brief struggle, she commanded herself.

"An egg, please."

He rose, brought her the egg and the toast rack. She thanked him carefully, and he seemed to retire behind his paper. But, after some silence, he abruptly flung it down.

"If you don't eat what you have there, I'll come and stand over you,"

he threatened.

He was obeyed then, though with a most evident effort.

"As soon as you have had your interview with Mrs. Wells," said he, when she had finished, "I want to take you round the farms. Be ready in the hall at ten-thirty sharp."

She rose. "Perhaps you will either show me the way to the kitchens, or ring for one of the servants?" said she rather stiffly.

"Hoity toity!" cried her husband, stopping short to gaze upon her. "We stand upon our dignity, don't we? Come along. I'll show you."

She followed him down the tiled pa.s.sage, to the comfortable, though not very extensive kitchen premises. Omberleigh was not a large house, though the reception rooms were s.p.a.cious and dignified.

"Now, Mrs. Wells," he announced, "here's your new tyrant. She fancies herself on her housekeeping, so I expect there will be wigs on the green before very long. But remember, if you quarrel you part; I am not going to have any wranglings in my peaceful bachelor abode."

Mrs. Wells evidently looked upon this speech as a particularly choice specimen of humour. "Well, there now! I never!" was her good-humoured comment. "If I can't make friends with this young lady, sir, I think I shall deserve to be turned out, if I have served you for a goodish while. He thinks to tease you and me, ma'am, don't he?"

The new mistress had a deft smile all ready. "Indeed, Mrs. Wells, I think he is fond of teasing," she said; and, as so often, the cadence of her voice reminded him unbearably of the woman who had forsaken him, hardened his heart, and drove him away, hostile and irritated.

Mrs. Wells proceeded to make Virginia welcome. Grover had evidently carried down a good report of the new arrival. The housekeeper took her lady round dairy, scullery, store-room and larder, and was soon impressed with her thorough knowledge of the workings of a gentleman's country household.

"Bless me, to look at her you'd never think it!" she declared afterwards. "Just like one of the coloured plates in the fas.h.i.+on papers, or a wax doll with the paper just off of it. But what she don't know about churning ain't worth learning; and as to bread and cakes--why, you'd think she had kept house all her life, and it's my belief she has too--ever since she was old enough to have the sense for it."

At half-past ten, when Gaunt strolled into the hall, his wife, in a shady hat and with a white sunshade, was descending the stairs. Her unquestioning submission--the punctuality which left him no ground for any kind of complaint--was annoying. He felt that the ground was being fairly cut away under his feet, and decided that he must make it clear that a mere policy of yielding would not exempt her from the discipline he meant to inflict.

They left the house together and, turning to the left among the thick pines, soon found a gate which let them through into the sunny meadowland.

They first visited the stables, the barnyards, and the orchards. Then descending the slope, they came to the cattle in the pastures. Beyond this again was cornland, and the fields were beginning to grow faintly golden with the promise of harvest.

Mindful of his sneer at her "prattle" Virginia said little; but he could not but recognise, from what she did say, that she knew what she was talking about. She asked one or two questions about his manures, which touched upon the very point that just now interested him keenly.

He was almost as much surprised as if she had begun to speak to him in Arabic. More clearly than ever he was beginning to perceive that this was not by any means the woman he had expected. Yet he hardened his heart. He gazed upon her elegance, her fragility, her Dresden china fairness, and told himself she was merely cleverer than he had foreseen. The agricultural interest was just a pose, meant to conciliate him. She had, apparently, more than one weapon up her sleeve. She intended his conquest, and was planning her campaign accordingly. As for him, he felt as a man may who has been taught only English methods of self-defence when confronted for the first time with a professor of Jiu-jitsu.

He had planned for himself the gratification of breaking in to a life of country solitude a second Virginia Sheringham. He had thought that he knew and understood the methods which would be most effective. He had his victim in his power, but behold! It was not merely not Virginia Sheringham, it was n.o.body in the least like her. More than once already he had been visited by the notion that he was behaving like a brute, that he was bullying a defenceless thing. Such a thought was intolerable. It simply could not be true. If it were, what outcome to the situation was there? No. It was not true. This submissiveness, this helpless pa.s.sivity, was merely the policy of _reculer pour mieux sauter_. She had some desperate plan in her head--meant, perhaps, to escape? He must be ready.

Meanwhile, they had tramped for nearly two hours, and Virginia's powers were giving out. The day was a fine one, and it was the hottest hour.

When they reached a stile, overshadowed by the grateful coolness of a huge beech tree in the corner of a lately mown field, she sat down and begged for a few minutes' rest.

"What, done up again? You don't seem to be very strong. We are two miles from home, and if we wait about we shall be late for lunch. Come along now, you can rest when we get back."