CHAPTER VI
THE YOUNG BIRDS
"It's a horrid thing for a young girl to have to go through."
John Spence fitted two walnuts together in the palms of his big hands and cracked them with a sudden tightening of the muscles. His good-humoured ruddy face was solicitous. "I think they ought to have kept her out of it," he said.
The dark-panelled dining-room of the Dower House framed a warm picture of two men and two women sitting at the round table, bright with lights and flowers, old silver and sparkling glass. A fire of applewood twinkled on the hearth; for September had come round, and one section at least of the young birds, now adolescent, were about to discover for themselves what their elders had possibly warned them of: that those great brown creatures, whom they had hitherto known only as protective census-takers, became as dangerous as stoats and weasels when the dew began to lie thick on the grass.
John Spence had come down for the first day among the Kencote partridges, leaving his own stubbles, which were more copiously populated, until later. Dick Clinton had generally started the season with him. The Kencote partridges ranked second to the Kencote pheasants, and could very well bide the convenience of those who were to kill them. But they had done very well this year, and it was becoming less easy to draw Dick away from his home.
"It's good of old John to put off his own shoot and come down here," he had said to his wife, when he had received the somewhat unexpected acceptance of his invitation.
Virginia had looked at him out of her great dark eyes, and there had been amusement in them, as well as the half-protective affection which they always showed towards her handsome husband; but she had said nothing to explain the amusement, and he had not noticed it.
The party at the dinner-table was discussing Mrs. Amberley's trial, which was to come on in the following month.
"Joan has got her wits about her," said Dick. "She answered up very well in the police court, and I don't suppose it will be any more terrible next month."
"Still, I think it's beastly for her," persisted his friend. "That woman—putting it to her publicly about Trench! I read it in the evidence."
"It was a piece of bluff," said Dick. "Still, she ought to have her neck wrung for it."
"A cat!" said Miss Dexter, Virginia's friend, square-faced and square-figured. "A spiteful, pilfering cat!"
"Poor darling little Joan!" said Virginia. "She hates the very name of Bobby Trench now, and she used to make all sorts of fun of him and his love-making before."
"Oh, he made love to her, did he?" asked Spence.
"Don't talk such nonsense, Virginia," said Dick maritally. "He knew the twins when they were children; looks on them as children now. So they are. He's years older than Joan."
"Still, she's a very pretty girl," said John Spence. "And so is Nancy."
Virginia laughed. "It's the same thing," she said.
"Well, I don't know," said John Spence judicially. "In appearance, yes—perhaps so. But there is a difference. You see it more now they are grown up. I think Nancy is cleverer. Of course, they're both clever, but I should say Nancy read more books and things. And what I like about Nancy is that with all her brains she's a real good country girl. I must say I don't care about these knowing young women you meet about London, and in other people's houses."
Virginia laughed again. "Tell Mr. Clinton that," she said. "He will think you one of the most sensible of men."
"Well, I don't profess to be a clever fellow myself," said John Spence modestly; "but I like a girl to have brains and know how to use 'em, and I like her to like the country. It's what I like myself; and if Mr. Clinton thinks the same I'm with him all the time."
"Mr. Clinton might not insist upon the brains," said Miss Dexter.
Virginia held up her finger. "Toby!" she said warningly, "we don't criticise our relations-in-law."
Dick grinned indulgently at his neighbour. "How you'll let us have it when you go away from here!" he said.
"I always do let you have it," she replied uncompromisingly. "You think such a deal of yourselves that it does you all the good in the world. But I don't wait till I go away."
"I was rather sorry that Joan got let into that gang of people at all," said John Spence. "They're no good to anybody. It hasn't altered her at all, has it? She and Nancy were the jolliest pair. Lord, how they made me laugh when they were kids, and I first came down here!"
He laughed now at the remembrance, a jolly, robust laugh which wrinkled his firm, weathered skin, and showed his white teeth. "I shouldn't like to see either of them spoiled by going about to houses like Brummels," he said, with a return to seriousness. "I don't believe Nancy would have cared about it."
"She would have gone just the same as Joan," said Miss Dexter, "if she had happened to be in the way of it, and she would have behaved just the same; that is, just as she ought to have behaved. You seem to think that Joan is smirched because she has been let in, through no fault of hers, for this horrid thing. You're as bad as Mrs. Amberley."
John Spence received this charge with an "Oh, I say!" But he added, "All the same, I wish it hadn't happened."
The guns met the next morning at the corner by the Dower House. The Squire brought with him Sir Herbert Birkett, the judge, and Sir George Senhouse, who had married the judge's daughter. Neither of them would be expected to do much execution amongst the young birds, but the Squire was strong on family ties, and liked to have his relatives to shoot with him, more especially when he was going to shoot partridges.
The twins and Lady Senhouse were of the party, and Virginia and Miss Dexter. It was a family occasion, and John Spence, knowing that it was to be so, had felt glad, when he had looked out of his window in the morning, that he had put off the inauguration of his campaign amongst his own young birds in order to take part in it.
Joan and Nancy, in workmanlike tweeds, gave him smiling welcome. Previously, when he had shot at Kencote, and they had gone out with the guns, they had disputed amicably as to which of them should walk and stand with him, and the one who had won the dispute had taken bold possession of him. Neither did so this morning, and it was left to him to give an invitation.
"Well, Joan," he said, when they were ready to move off, "are you going to keep me company?"
"Yes," said Nancy instantly. "I am going with Uncle Herbert."
"But you will come with me after lunch," said John Spence, with a trifle of anxiety.
"All right," she threw over her shoulder.
They walked over a field of roots. A single bird got up some little distance away and flew parallel to the line. Spence snapped it off neatly. "I'm going to shoot well to-day," he said with satisfaction. "I like a gallery, you know, Joan. I say, Nancy's not annoyed about anything, is she?"
"Not that I know of. Why?"
"Oh, I don't know. I thought she seemed as if she didn't much want to come with me."
"You see we're grown up now," said Joan. "We can't seize you by the arm, as we used to do, and see which can pull hardest. We have to wait till you ask us."
They had come to a high, rather blind fence, and the line had spread out, and was waiting. Joan and John Spence were practically alone, except for Spence's wise and calm retriever.
He looked down at her with the kind elder brotherly smile which, with his frank and simple appreciation of their humours, had so endeared him to the twins. "I say, that's awful rot, you know," he said.
Joan was conscious of pleasure and some relief as she met his eyes. She wanted nothing more than that things should be between the three of them as they had always been. She had come to think that perhaps, after all, Nancy wanted nothing more, either; but she did not know, because they had not talked about John Spence together lately. If this visit should show him to be what he had always been, they would talk about him together again, and perhaps that was what she wanted at the moment more than anything; for it was a source of discomfort to her that there was a subject taboo between Nancy and herself.
"It may be sad," she said. "But it isn't rot. We are grown up, and there is no getting over it."
A shadow came over his face. "They've been teaching you things," he said. "When I came down here last, and you were away in London—and at Brummels—Nancy was just the same as she had always been. I don't see any reason why you should alter."
"Dear old Jonathan! We'll never alter—to you," said Joan affectionately. But she was conscious of a little pang.
The birds began to come over. John Spence accounted for his due share of them. "I wish I'd got another gun," he said. "You've done well with them this year."
When they all came together for lunch, Nancy said to Joan, "Uncle Herbert is in splendid form—I don't mean over shooting, for he has hardly hit anything. Has Jonathan been amusing?"
"No, not at all," said Joan. "He has been lecturing me. He is getting old; he is just like father. I will gladly change with you."
Nancy stared, but said nothing. She and Joan were accustomed to criticise everybody. But they had never yet criticised John Spence.
"Well, my dear Joan," said the Judge, as she took her place by his side after lunch, "I heaped disgrace upon myself this morning, and I very much doubt if I shall wipe any of it off this afternoon. The Kencote partridges are too many for me—too many and too fast. Why do I still pursue them, at my age and with my reputation? Is it a genuine love of sport, or mere vanity?"
"Vanity, I think," said Joan. "You don't really care about it, you know. You are not like Mr. Spence, and father, and the boys, who think about nothing else."
"It is true that I do think of other things occasionally. But where does the vanity come in? Enlighten me for my good."
"Men are like that. Mr. Spence wouldn't be in the least ashamed at being ignorant of all the things that you know about, but you would be quite ashamed of not knowing something about sport."
"A searching indictment, my dear Joan. It comes home to me. I am a foolish and contemptible old man. And yet I do rather like it, you know. The colours of the trees and the fields, this delicious Autumn air—the expectation—ah!"
The advance guard of a covey had whizzed over his head unharmed; the rest came on, swerving in their rapid flight as if to dodge the charges from his barrels, which all except one of them succeeded in doing.
"More coming. I shall be ready for them next time," he said, hastily ramming cartridges into his breach.
More came—and most of them went. He had been in the best place, and had only killed three birds.
"I must be content with that," he said with a sigh. "It is not bad for me. Your John Spence would have shot three times as many, but he would not have got more fun out of it than I have. Joan, it is not all vanity."
Joan spent a pleasant afternoon, but she did not feel as happy over it as she would have done a year ago. When she and Nancy summed up the experiences of the day she said, "I don't mind whether Uncle Herbert can shoot or not. It is much more amusing to be with him than with any of the others."
"Jonathan said you weren't half as keen on sport as you used to be," said Nancy. "He thinks you are becoming fashionable."
"Idiot!" said Joan. Then she suddenly felt as if she wanted to cry, but terror at the idea of doing anything so unaccountable—before Nancy—dried up the desire almost as soon as it was felt. "I am afraid I am getting too old for Jonathan," she said. "He is beginning to bore me."