by Ian Hay
CHAPTER XIV
BUSINESS ONLY
Next morning Hughie made Miss Joan Gaymer a proposal of marriage.
It was not an impressive effort--very few proposals are. But aperformance of this kind may miss the mark as a spectacle and yet, bythe indulgence of the principal spectator, achieve its end. Even thusHughie failed, and for various reasons.
In the first place, he proposed directly after breakfast, which, as Joeypathetically observed to Mrs. Leroy long afterwards, was just the sortof brutal thing he would do. A woman, especially if she be young, likesto be won, or at any rate wooed, in a certain style. A secluded spot,subdued light, mayhap a moon; if possible, distant music--all thesethings tell. If Hughie had paid a little more attention to stage-effectsof this kind he might have found his ward more amenable. Being aMarrable, he brushed aside these trappings and came straight to what hefondly imagined was the point, little knowing that to a young girlromance and courtship make up one great and glorious vista, filling theeye and occupying the entire landscape, while marriage is a small blackcloud on the distant horizon.
His actual method of procedure was to sit heavily down beside his wardas she enjoyed the morning sun in a corner of the lawn, and say,--
"Joey, I want to talk to you--on business."
"All right, warder," replied Miss Gaymer meekly; "fire away!"
"I suppose you know," said Hughie, a little dashed, "that all youraffairs have been left in my hands?"
"I do, worse luck!" said Miss Gaymer frankly. "And that reminds me,Hughie dear, I should like a trifle on account. You won't refuse poorJoey, will you?"
She squeezed her guardian's arm in a manner which a Frenchman would havedescribed as _tres caline_.
"I think I had better put you on an allowance," said Hughie.
Joan's eyes danced.
"Oh, you _ripper_! How much?"
"Can't say," replied Hughie, "until I've been up to town and seen thebankers."
"When are you going?"
"To-morrow: that's why I wanted to talk to you to-day. You see, yourmoney is in two parts, so to speak. One lot is tied up in such a waythat it can't be touched until poor Uncle Jimmy's death is actuallyproved."
Joan's blue-grey eyes were troubled.
"Hughie," she said, "is there _any_ hope? I still like to think so."
Hughie shook his head. "Not much," he said. "In fact, none. It is knownthat he went with that crack-brained expedition of Hymack's up theCongo,--to study the Rubber Question on the spot,--and the last letterhe sent home said that he was suffering from black-water fever, and itis also known that the expedition came back without him. And--all thatwas two years ago, Joey."
Joan nodded her head submissively.
"Poor Uncle Jimmy!" she said softly.
"Still," continued Hughie stoutly, "you never know. I have sent a manout to make inquiries, and if he fails, perhaps I shall go myself. Butuntil we learn something definite the will can't be proved. However, heleft me very full instructions what to do in case he did not come back,so I must carry them out. There is plenty for you to go on with. I shallrun up to town to-morrow, and when I come back I'll let you know howmuch it is, and how much a year I can allow you."
Miss Gaymer clasped her hands and sighed happily.
"We _will_ have a time, Hughie!" she said. "I'll stand treat."
"Thank you," said Hughie gravely.
There was a long silence. Hughie, suddenly ill at ease,--he had arrivedat Part Two of his morning's syllabus,--made fatuous attempts to roll acigarette. His ward sat with a rapt expression in her widely-openedeyes, mentally visualising a series of charitable enterprises (rangingfrom a turquoise pendant for Mildred Leroy to a new cap for the cook)made feasible by the sudden prospect of wealth.
Presently Hughie cleared his throat in a heart-rending manner, and said,in what he afterwards admitted to himself was entirely the wrong sort ofvoice,--
"Joey, I think you and I had better marry one another."
Miss Gaymer, who was more used to this sort of thing than her companion,turned and eyed him calmly.
"And why?" she asked.
There was only one possible answer to this question, and Hughie shouldhave given it with the full strength of his heart and soul and body.But--well, reserve is a curious and paralysing thing. All he said was,--
"I think it would be very suitable; don't you?"
"For you or for me?" inquired Miss Gaymer.
"For both of us," replied Hughie. "No--for me!" he added, his habitualmodesty getting the better of him.
"In what way?" continued Miss Gaymer, with unnatural calm.
"Well--Uncle Jimmy was very keen about it," said Hughie desperately.
"You're a dutiful nephew, Hughie," observed Joan approvingly.
"And then," continued the suitor, "as I have been made your guardian,and all that, I think I am in a position to take care of you, and lookafter your money, and so on."
"You mean it would make it easier for you to manage my affairs?" saidMiss Gaymer helpfully.
"Yes," said Hughie, feeling that he was getting on.
"Any more reasons?" inquired Miss Gaymer, with a docile appearance ofintelligent interest.
Hughie made an immense effort, and grasped his chair until the veinsstood out on his hands. _Parturiunt montes_--at last.
"Well, Joey," he said at last, "we have always been pals, and all that.I mean, we have known each other for a long time now, haven't we? Youeven offered to marry me once,"--he laughed nervously,--"when you were akiddie. Do you remember? It seems to me we should get on first-ratetogether--eh? What's your opinion?"
_Ridiculus mus!_
Miss Gaymer sat up in her chair, and turned upon the unfortunate youngman beside her.
"And you _dare_," she said, "to come to a girl like me with a proposallike that! You sit there and tell me that you have taken me over fromUncle Jimmy like a--like a parcel from a porter, and that you have beensaddled with my money and affairs, so perhaps it would be simplest andsave trouble if you married me! _Me!_" she repeated, "who have to keepmen off with a stick!"
The last sentence was a mistake. It was an inartistic and egotisticalclimax to a perfectly justifiable tirade. Joan realised the fact themoment she had uttered the words, but poor Hughie was too much occupiedin retiring into his shell to notice anything. He had laid bare hisheart, in his own fashion, for the first time in his life, and this wasthe result. Never again! He burned inwardly, like a child who has beenlaughed at by grown-ups.
"I'm sorry," he said stiffly. "My mistake! Shan't occur again."
Joey's ear was caught by the tone of his voice, and conscience gave hera twinge. She patted Hughie's arm in a friendly way.
"Old boy," she said, suddenly contrite, "I've made you angry, and I'vehurt you. I'm sowwy--sorry, I mean! (I'm a bit upset, you see)," shesaid, smiling disarmingly. "But I _can't_ marry you, really. I couldn't_bear_ to be married at all at present. It seems so--so unnecessary. Idon't see what I should get out of it. That's a selfish thing to say, Isuppose, but I'll try to explain a girl's point of view to you. You're aterrible child in some respects, so I'll do it quite simply."
She stroked his sleeve in a motherly fashion, and continued:--
"Years ago, my dear, the only way a girl could get her freedom or anymale society was by marrying. Now, she gets as much of both as shewants, and if she marries she loses all the freedom and most of the malesociety. So why should she marry at all?"
Hughie kept silence before this poser. He felt incapable of plunginginto the depths of an argument: one has to keep to the surface indiscussing these matters with a maiden of twenty.
"So I shan't marry for years, if at all," continued Miss Gaymer, withthe air of one propounding an entirely new theory. "Not until I'mgetting _passee_ at any rate, and only then if I could find a man whomit wouldn't give me the creeps to think of spending the rest of my lifewith. Besides, the moment one gets engaged all the ot
her men dropoff,--all the nice ones, at any rate,--and that would never do. Don'tyou think my system is a sensible one?"
"It comes hard on the men," said Hughie.
"Yes, poor dears!" said Miss Gaymer sympathetically. "Still, one man isso tiresome and a lot is so nice!"
With which concise and not unmasterly summary of the marriage question,as viewed through the eyes of the modern maiden, Miss Gaymer turned theconversation into other channels, and the idyll terminated.
Half an hour later they were called into the house, to make ready for aboating expedition.
Joan, with her usual frankness, reverted for a moment before they leftthe seclusion of the trees to the topic that was uppermost in theirminds.
"Hughie," she said softly, "does it hurt much?"
"I don't quite know yet," said Hughie.
"I mean, are you sad or angry--which? It usually takes a man one way orthe other," observed this experienced damsel.
"I don't know that I'm either," said Hughie meditatively; "the onlyfeeling that I have just now is that I'm desperately sorry. But I'm notkicking."
"It is my belief," remarked Miss Gaymer with sudden and pardonableasperity, "that you don't care for me in the least. Do you, now?"
They were a very honest and sincere couple, these. For a full minutethey looked each other in the face, without speaking. Then Hughiesaid,--
"Joey, I simply don't know! I thought I did half an hour ago, and I'dhave sworn it last night, when--"
He checked himself.
"When what?" asked Joan swiftly.
"Nothing," said Hughie. "That's rather beside the point now, isn't it?"
Joan, curiosity struggling with honesty, nodded reluctantly.
"Anyhow," continued Hughie, "I thought I did then, but I'm blessed if Iknow now. In fact," he added in a sudden burst of confidence, "sometimesI can't stand you at any price, Joey dear!"
"Ah!" said Miss Gaymer, nodding a wise head, "I see you don't know yourown mind yet. But you _will_--one way or another--as soon as you getaway from me."
* * * * *
A week later another interview took place between the pair, on the samespot.
"Business only this time, Joey!" said Hughie, with rather laboriouscheerfulness.
"All right. Did you have a good time in town?" inquired Miss Gaymer, inthe inevitable manner of women and Orientals, who dislike coming to thepoint in matters of business without a few decent preliminaries.
"Yes, thanks. I have been picking up old friends again, andgenerally settling down," said Hughie. "Got a flat, and a comicman-servant--Scotchman--introduce you some day. He--"
He plunged into a rather rambling description of John Alexander Goble.He was evidently no more anxious to get to business than Joan.
At last Miss Gaymer inquired,--
"Well, Hughie, have you fixed up my affairs?"
"Yes," said Hughie slowly. "Do you want details?"
"Mercy, no! I don't know anything about business, and I don't believeyou do either, Hughie. _Do_ you?"
"Not much," confessed the trustee. "However, I must tell you at once,Joey, that your income won't be nearly as large as I expected--"
"Right O!" replied Joan cheerfully. "When do I start for the workhouse?"
"It's not quite so bad as that," said Hughie, "but--"
"What am I worth?" inquired the practical Miss Gaymer.
"I can't quite tell you," said Hughie in a hesitating fashion. "Yousee"--he appeared to be choosing his words rather carefully--"thenominal value of investments, and their actual cash equivalent--"
Joan put her fingers in her ears.
"Stop!" she cried, "or I shall scream! I don't know an asset from aliability, except that in the arithmetic book brokerage is one-eighth,and--Never mind! I should never understand. How much am I to have ayear? Tell me that."
"Supposing it should be a mere trifle," said Hughie slowly, "what wouldyou do?"
Miss Gaymer puckered her brow thoughtfully.
"You mean, if I hadn't enough to live on?"
Hughie nodded.
"Well, I shouldn't be a governess, I don't think. I love children, butchildren are always perfectly diabolical to their governess, and Ishouldn't be able to stand their mothers, either. No: governesses areoff! I shouldn't mind being a typewriter, though, or a secretary,--notthat I can typewrite, or even spell,--provided it was to a really niceman. An author, you know, or a Cabinet Minister. He could walk about theroom, rumpling up his hair and getting the stuff off his chest, and Iwould sit there like a little mouse, in a neat black skirt and a whitesilk blouse,--_perhaps_ one or two carnations pinned on,--looking verysweet and taking it all down."
"It's a pretty picture," said Hughie drily.
"Yes, isn't it?" said Miss Gaymer, with genuine enthusiasm. "I think,"she continued, soaring to still greater heights, "that I should like togo on the stage best of all. Of course, it wouldn't be the slightestgood my going on the proper stage--learning parts, and all that; but apiece like 'The Merry Widow,' with different frocks for each act andjust a few choruses to sing in, would be top-hole! _Say_ I'm a pauper,Hughie!"
"You're not--thank God!" was Hughie's brutal but earnest response.
"All right, then! Don't bite my head off!" said Miss Gaymer, withunimpaired good temper. "Let us resume. How much are you going to giveme?"
"How much can you live on?"
"Well, I was talking about it to Ursula Harbord--you know her, don'tyou?"
"I do," said Hughie, making a wry face.
"Very well, don't abuse her. She's the cleverest girl I know," said Joanwarmly. "She is on the staff of 'The New Woman,' and can put a man inhis place in about two minutes."
"So I discovered," said Hughie resignedly. "Popular type of girl.However, you were saying--?"
"I was asking Ursula," continued Joan, "about the cost of living intown, and so on, and we agreed to share a flat. She said I could getalong on three hundred a-year."
Joan paused expectantly, and waited for an answer to her unspokenquestion.
"That," said Hughie, after hesitating a moment as if to work out a sumin mental arithmetic, "is just what I can give you."
* * * * *
A pair of Archdiaconal shoe-buckles, the glimmer of a lady's whiteevening wrap, and a glowing cigar-end were discernible in the half-lightof the verandah outside the drawing-room window after dinner. TwoOlympians, to whom human hearts were as an open book, were discussingmortal affairs.
"Is there no way of bringing it off?" inquired one voice.
"Lots," replied the other. "But they have so bungled things between themthat we shall have to go slow for a bit. Why, oh, why do men whom youcould trust to do almost _anything_ in the ordinary way always make sucha mess of their love-affairs? Why aren't _you_ married, for instance,Mr. D'Arcy?"
"To return to the point," said the reverend gentleman evasively, "whatought Hughie to do? Take her by the shoulders and shake her? I haveknown such a method prove most efficacious," he added, ratherincautiously.
"N-no," said Mrs. Leroy, "I don't think so--not in Joey's case. It wouldbring some women to reason--most women, in fact--in no time. But thechild is too high-spirited. Her pride would never forgive suchtreatment. A better way would be for him to make love to some one else."
"Being Hughie, that is out of the question. He could only make love tosome one else if he meant it; and that would rather defeat your object,Mrs. Leroy."
"_My_ object?"
"Well, ours, then. But is there no other way?"
"Yes. He must get into trouble of some kind. At present he is toopopular: everybody likes him. If they turned against him she would comeround fast enough. Yes, he must get into _trouble_."
"Well, perhaps he will," said the Venerable the Archdeacon hopefully.
BOOK FOUR
THE UNJUST STEWARD
