Читать книгу A Man Under Authority - Ethel M. Dell - Страница 7

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The Reverend Bill found quite a large gathering assembled at Hatchstead Rectory when he and Paddy finally arrived there. The engagement of Lottie Morton to the curate had only just been announced, and all Hatchstead was calling to congratulate.

The happy pair were out on the lawn with the rest of the family and about a dozen friends, and he found himself in an atmosphere of general festivity which seemed somewhat in excess of the occasion to his practical mind.

“Jolly decent of them to take it like this!” was his reflection. “But what the dickens will they live on? I’ll bet little Bird hasn’t a bean of his own.”

Little Bird certainly did not give the impression of a man of substance. He was short, high-shouldered, very slow in his ways, and strictly, almost painfully, conventional. Molly, the sharp-tongued, said that he was always afraid to laugh at a joke lest it should turn out to be something immoral. He received the Reverend Bill’s congratulations with great solemnity.

“Yes, I am indeed fortunate,” he said, in a voice that grated with earnestness. “I have hardly yet realized my good fortune. It all seems like a dream.”

“Silly little ass!” said a voice in Bill Quentin’s soul before he could stifle it, while he himself smiled upon his serious-minded colleague with a cheery, “Well, buck up and wake, my dear fellow! Getting married is a big job, you know. No more time for dreaming! You’ll have to get down to it.”

“Oh, but I must dwell for a space upon the wonderful mercy which has been vouchsafed me,” protested the curate. “You, my dear Quentin, you are as yet single, your life untouched by romance. It is impossible for you to grasp the true significance of this great step.”

“Romance! Ye gods!” remarked Bill Quentin’s inner voice, refusing to be suppressed. He realized abruptly that he must pass on or be for ever disgraced in the desperately serious eyes of little Bird.

“Of course,” he agreed pleasantly. “I had almost forgotten that. Well, good luck to you—the very best! I must go and find Miss Lottie.”

He discovered her—completely surrounded by well-wishers and wearing with all decorum an air of triumph which he found somehow pathetic.

Lottie Morton was no longer young. She was thin, and lined, and her hair was turning grey. She was an indefatigable worker in her father’s parish, and Bill Quentin had never regarded her as anything else. He liked her better than Fanny, her elder sister, who was noisily assertive and full of a nervous and devastating energy which he always sought instinctively to avoid. But he had never found Lottie even interesting to that extent. She made less impression upon him than any person of his acquaintance. Frankly, she bored him.

To-day for the first time he studied her with some attention. What did the curate see in her? What on earth was there to see? She had never been anything but plain. She had never been anything but dull; good of course, but she was much too dull to be anything else, jibed the voice that he could not silence. But her attractions, where were they?

He reached her and held her limp hand for a moment in his while he offered his good wishes.

She turned her pale eyes upon his with a smile that he found oddly embarrassing. It was almost as if she mocked him from behind the thick hedge of convention that surrounded her. For the first time he registered a definite impression concerning her, and that was that she disliked him. But why on earth should she? He had never done anything....

He passed on, to be seized upon by Fanny the garrulous and determined. His heart sank as he realized that there was none to deliver him. Fanny’s intentions were always so blatantly obvious. She was never offended by anything he said or did. She simply gobbled him like a bird of prey.

“How sweet of you to come over like this, Mr. Quentin! Of course you are not surprised. You must have seen it coming. I did—long ago. When two people are always seeking one another out, making perpetual excuses to meet—” she broke into giggles—“it generally means something, does it not? Now do come and sit down in the shade! Such a perfect day! You rode over? Ah, then do take me to see dear old Paddy! Where did you leave him? In the stable?”

No, he was fastened to the gate of the stable-yard, and this fact proved Bill Quentin’s salvation, for as they passed through the front garden they came upon old General Farjeon just dismounting from his car. Fanny was quite openly disappointed by this interruption, and would have drawn back out of sight, but Bill, plainly unaware of her projected manœuvre, pressed stolidly on.

He came to the old man as he stood stamping in the drive. “Hullo, sir! I’m awfully glad to see you out again. How are you? Going strong?”

“Oh, devilish strong, devilish strong!” said the General, wringing his hand. “Much you care whether I’m out or in, you scamp! Never been near me for a whole week.”

“I was coming to-day,” said Bill.

“Were you though? Then I’ll see that you do for once. You know what good intentions are used for, don’t you? Well, well, Fanny, so your sister has got off before you! Accept my condolences, and if you don’t at first succeed——”

“Oh, General Farjeon!” protested Fanny. “What a terrible joke. I’m sure I hope I have something better to do. Pray come through to the other garden! You will find my father there.”

“I’ll have your arm, Bill,” said General Farjeon. “Give me my stick, stupid!” to the chauffeur. “Now! Are you ready? Then quick march!”

Poor Fanny breathed a sigh of disappointment and led the way.

They returned to the gathering on the lawn, and the Rector of Hatchstead, a lean, worried-looking man, came to meet them. General Farjeon was his richest parishioner, and deep in the Rector’s soul was a sense of grievance which he had never managed to conquer, that he should show so marked a preference for the Vicar of Rickaby. It was a little hard to meet him thus on his own ground, leaning upon Bill Quentin’s arm.

He smothered his feelings, however, and greeted him with geniality. It was more than kind of the General to take the trouble to come and congratulate his daughter.

“Come and tell her what a fool she is, more like,” growled the General. “Where’s the sense of marrying on nothing a year? Still, that’s her affair, I suppose. Where’s Molly?”

He was fond of Molly, the giddy and capricious youngest of the family. He was indeed wont to say that Molly had more brains than all the rest of the family put together, which was possibly true. She was certainly shrewd enough to assume the direction of her own affairs at the earliest feasible moment in her career.

On the present occasion she was lounging on the bank at the further side of the tennis-court playing with a young fox-terrier,—a pretty child of eighteen, more like a boy than a girl, with a careless manner and defiant eyes.

The game was fast and furious, the dog almost beside himself with excitement. “She gets bitten every day,” said Mrs. Morton plaintively. “But she will go on. I’m sure I can’t stop her. Can you, Father?”

“Father” obviously could not, and wisely refrained from putting his inefficiency to the test.

“I like the monkey’s pluck,” said the General, frowning through his glasses at the contest. “There! That’s done it! Now she’s hurt all right.”

The dog had suddenly and not without considerable provocation lost his temper, and snapped his teeth, snarling upon her uncovered arm.

The girl flung him off with an exclamation and leaped to her feet. Her face was crimson. She snatched up her tennis-racquet and hurled it at the dog. It struck him, and he yelped and fled. Then she turned, caught sight of the watching group across the lawn, and, laughing, came towards them.

Bill moved to meet her and offered her a handkerchief. “You’ll have to bathe that,” he said.

“What for?” She glanced downwards. “Oh, it’s nothing. He often does it. So you’ve come to congratulate Lottie too! How nice of you! Wasn’t she pleased?”

“I really don’t know.” The question surprised him, as also did the malice in the girl’s bright eyes. What was the matter with them all? What had he done—beyond consistently eluding the tireless Fanny? And surely every man did that!

“Are you going to help at the wedding ceremony?” ran on Molly. “That will be awfully kind of you. Can’t you see it in The Daily Scream? ‘The officiating clergy were the bride’s father, Rector of the parish and the Reverend William Quentin, Vicar of Rickaby, whose sympathies with the cause of priestly celibacy are so well known.’ ”

“Ha!” said Bill, a sudden light breaking upon him.

“What is it? A joke?” said Molly, but not in the tone of one who was in the least interested. “I say, how do you like the beautiful Mrs. Rivers? I saw her in your garden this morning when I was bicycling. What do you think of her? Some people say she’s too good to be true.”

A curious wave of antipathy went through the Reverend Bill. “I’ll tell you what I think of you, if you like, Molly,” he said.

“Oh, do!” laughed Molly. “Everyone does, sooner or later. But wouldn’t it be more amusing if I told you?” She turned to the group which included General Farjeon. “I say, do listen, everybody! Our Reverend neighbour thinks I’m damn’ bad form. Isn’t it rude of him?”

“I can express it better than that if I’m allowed,” said Bill Quentin, rising to the occasion, not without a touch of heat. “I think that extreme youth in its acutest form is chiefly what is the matter with you, and that is a malady which only time can cure.”

“Hear, hear!” laughed General Farjeon. “What have you got to say to that, my pretty Molly? Being a woman, of course you are allowed to be as rude as you like, so bring out all your powder and shot!”

“Thank you,” said Molly, with her head in the air, “but I don’t think he is worth it. Have you seen the beautiful Mrs. Rivers yet, General?”

“Who?” said General Farjeon. “Never heard of her. Who is she?”

Molly chuckled. “Ask Mr. Quentin! She is a most romantic person with hair the colour of desert sand and subtle sort of eyes that never give anything away. A thrillingly interesting person, isn’t she, Mr. Quentin? Oh, and I forgot to add that her laugh is even more artificial than her hair. Mr. Quentin, being a man, would hardly notice that.”

“Molly! Molly!” said her father. “You let your tongue run away with you, my child.”

“No, no! Don’t stop her!” protested the General. “She amuses me. Tell me some more about this wonderful lady, Molly! I must go and see her. Where does she live?”

“You can’t go and see her,” said Molly. “She hasn’t got a husband. Only the clergy can call on people without husbands. You’ll have to get Mr. Quentin to introduce you. She lives at Beech Mount with her son who tears about the country in his two-seater trying to kill people by accident. They’ve got a foreign servant called Benedict who looks a regular cut-throat. He looks after the boy and the car and answers the door, and he always tells people that she is not at home. Mr. Quentin, of course, being a parson, didn’t have to wait for that ceremony. He scraped acquaintance in the road. Parsons can always do these things, can’t they, Dad? They rush in where angels fear to tread, and carry off the prizes before the angels know where they are.”

“Are you one of the last named, may I ask?” said General Farjeon, tweaking her ear.

“Good gracious, no!” said Molly. “I hie from the other direction. Anybody will tell you that. But anyway I am honest about it. You all know what I am.”

“We do indeed,” said the General. “The veriest scamp that ever trod! When are you coming to see me again? My nephew Stafford is coming down for the week-end if that’s any attraction.”

“It isn’t,” said Molly. “And I’m going boating with the Lowthers on Saturday in any case. Perhaps I’ll come round on Sunday evening if I have time, but I can’t promise.”

“Molly! Molly!” protested her mother.

Molly shrugged impatiently. “Isn’t anybody going to play tennis? Surely we needn’t stand round in a ring all day and stare at Lottie and A. B.!”

“Why do you call him that?” asked the General.

“Short for Alfred Bird. I hate the name of Alfred, don’t you? Why on earth didn’t they call him Richard? Dicky Bird would have been so much more appropriate. Do let us get up a sett! You’ll play of course!” to the Reverend Bill.

He hastened to excuse himself. “Not in this kit, thank you, Molly. Besides, I’m going now. I have one or two calls to pay in the town.”

“Oh, I know,” said Molly. “They come in useful, don’t they, on an occasion like this? How is Mrs. Winch? And poor old Ellen Barnet—just as obliging as ever?”

“Hi! Stop!” said the General. “I’m coming too. I only looked in to pay my respects to Miss Lottie and to assure her that I shall drink her health to-night. You had better come and help me, Bill, unless you have anything better to do.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Bill Quentin. “If you put it in that way, of course I haven’t.”

“Ha! Ha!” laughed the General. “Of course not! Of course not! Funny dog, aren’t you, Bill? Why the dickens aren’t you in the Service?”

“Something better to do, sir,” said Bill.

“And he’s always doing it,” said Molly. “That’s the wonderful part. That’s why we all admire him so. Funny dogs are always popular.”

“Molly—dear!” protested her mother.

Molly swung on her heel; her face was burning. “Oh, do get somebody to come and play tennis!” she said.