The Scarlet Feather Part 6

"Oh, it is shameful, shameful! Father is to blame--father! He's driving us to ruin. There's nothing too bad one can say about him. He deserves to be robbed of his miserly h.o.a.rd."

"Hush, hush, dearest," murmured the rector; "your father's money is his own, not ours. If he were to find out that you had pledged your jewels, there's no knowing what he might not do."

"Do! What could he do?" she replied, with a mirthless laugh. "A man can't prosecute his own child."

"Some men can, and do. Your father is just the sort to outrage all family sentiment, and defy public opinion."

"You don't think that!" she cried, turning around on him very suddenly, with a terrified look in her eyes.

They were interrupted by a tap at the door.

"A gentleman to see you, sir; at least, sir, to see Mr. d.i.c.k." The manservant's manner was halting and embarra.s.sed.

"What does he want with Mr. d.i.c.k?"

"Well, sir, he says--"

"Well, what does he say?"

The man looked at his master and mistress hesitatingly, as though he would rather not speak. "He says, sir--"

"Well?"

"That he has come to arrest him--but he would like to see you first."

"There must be some mistake. Send him in."

A thick-set, burly, bearded man entered, hat in hand, bowed curtly to the rector, and endeavored to bow more ceremoniously to Mrs. Swinton, who stood glaring at him in fear.

"Why have you come?" asked the rector.

"Well, there's a warrant. It has been reported he was going to skip."

"Why have you come so soon? I only received Wise's letter this morning."

"It was sent the day before yesterday."

The rector picked up the letter, and found that it was dated two days ago.

"There was evidently a delay in transmission. What are we to do?" asked the clergyman, turning to his wife despairingly.

She stood white and irresolute. It was a most humiliating moment. She longed to call her manservant to turn the fellow out of doors, but she dared not.

"My instructions were to give reasonable time, and not to proceed with the arrest if there was any possibility of the money being forthcoming, or a part of it, not less than two hundred and fifty--cash."

"Can you wait till this evening?" pleaded the rector, hopelessly, "while I see what can be done. You've taken me at a disadvantage. My son is not here now. He won't be back till after midday."

"If there is any likelihood of your being able to do anything by evening, of course--"

"He'll wait. He must wait," cried Mrs. Swinton, taking up her m.u.f.f. "I'll have to see father about it."

"You must wait till this evening, my man."

"All right, then. Until six o'clock?"

"Yes."

"Very well, six o'clock," the man agreed, and withdrew.

"I can't bear to think of your going to your father again, Mary," sighed the rector, bitterly. "d.i.c.k has been a shocking muddler in his affairs--as bad as his father, without his father's excuse. G.o.d knows, I've been too busy with parish affairs to attend properly to my own, whereas he--"

"He is young, John," pleaded the indulgent mother, "and ought to be in receipt of a handsome allowance from his grandfather. He has only been spending what really should be his."

"Sophistry, my darling, sophistry!"

"At any rate, I'm going up to my father to get money from him, by hook or by crook. We must have it, or we are irretrievably ruined."

CHAPTER VI

A KINs.h.i.+P SOMETHING LESS THAN KIND

"Pull the blinds higher and raise my pillows, do you hear, woman? I want to see what that lazy scamp of a husband of yours is about--loafing for a certainty, if he thinks no one can see him."

Herresford addressed his housekeeper, the wife of Ripon, the head-gardener. Mrs. Ripon bit her lip as she tugged at the blind cords savagely, and gave her master a defiant look, which he was quick to see.

It apparently amused him, for he smiled grimly.

"Oh, yes, yes, I know what you want to say," he snarled: "that I grind you all down, and treat you as slaves. That, my good woman, is where you make a mistake. Yet, you are slaves--slaves, do you hear? And I intend to see that you don't rob me, for to waste the time that I pay for is to rob me."

"Well, sir, if we don't suit you, we can go."

"My good woman, you'd have gone long ago, if it hadn't suited my convenience to retain you. Ripon is a good gardener; you are a good housekeeper. You both know the value of money. We happen to suit each other. Your husband has more sense than you. He does the work of two men, and he's paid for it. If the positions were reversed, he would be quite as hard a master as I; that's why I like him. He gets quite as much out of those under his control as I get out of him--only he doesn't pay 'em double."

The old man looked like a wizened monkey as he screwed up his eyes and chuckled. He was in a good temper this morning--good for him--and he looked well pleased as his eye traveled slowly over the wonderful expanse of garden which lay spread out like a fairy panorama below his window.

"Give me those field-gla.s.ses," he commanded sharply, "and then you can get about your business. Those maids downstairs will be wasting their time while you're up here."

"What will you take for luncheon to-day, sir?"

"Woman, I left enough chicken yesterday to feed a family. The chicken curried, and don't forget the chutney." Then, after a mumbling interval, "and, if anybody calls, I won't see 'em--except Notley, who comes at eleven. And, when he comes, send him up at once--no kitchen gossip! I don't pay lawyers to come here and amuse kitchen wenches. Why don't you speak, eh? W-what?"

"Because I've nothing to say, sir."

"That's right, that's right. Now that you've left off 'speaking your mind,' as you used to call it, you're becoming quite docile and useful.

Perhaps, I'll give Ripon another fifty dollars a year. I'm not a hard man, you know, when people understand that I stand no nonsense. But I always have my own way. No one can get over me. You and I understand each other, Mrs. Ripon, eh? Yet, I doubt if you'd have remained so long, if Ripon hadn't married you. He's made a sensible woman of you. Tell him I'm going to give him an extra fifty dollars a year, but--but he must do with a hand less in the gardens."