CHAPTER XIII
THE PHILANDERERS
The news was round the Leader office like a flash of summer lightning. The most secret transactions in the managerial room of a newspaper seem to have this strange quality of immediately becoming the common knowledge of the office-boy, without any one person being accusable of blabbing. Not only so; but in a few hours there was no journalist in Laysford, from the unattached penny-a-liner, who wrote paragraphs for London trade papers, to the editors of the rival dailies, that did not know who was the new editor of the Leader. Almost as soon as the news had been confirmed, Edgar had penned a flowery eulogium and posted it to that mighty organ of journalism, the Fourth Estate, which has whimpered from youth to age that journalists will not buy it, although they have never been averse from reading—or writing—its personal puffs. Edgar showed herein either a better judgment of Henry's character than one would have expected from him, or a little touch of innocence in one so fain to be a man of the world. It is seldom that the subjects of these gushing personal notices in the Fourth Estate wait for others to sing their praises; they can and do sound the loud timbrel themselves. Shyness has no part in journalism, and even the bashful young junior, who has been trying quack remedies for blushing, leaves his bashfulness outside the door of the reporters' room after his first week on the press.
But somehow, a thick streak of rustic simplicity remained in Henry's character despite all the eye-opening and mental widening which had resulted from his City life. If Edgar had not sent that paragraph Henry never would, and if we could but peer into the inmost corner of Edgar's heart we might find that the impulse behind the writing of the absurd little puff about "a rising young journalist" was to stand well with the man who had come to greatness—as greatness was esteemed in the journalistic world of Laysford.
The news was conveyed in characteristic style to a quarter where it was eagerly hoped for.
"It's happened just as I expected," Edgar announced, when he returned home that evening. "Old Mac has got the shoot direct; no humming and hawing, but 'Out you go!'"
"I suppose you mean he has been discharged?" said Mr. Winton quietly.
"Yes, dad, that's the long and short of it; and Henry is to be our new boss. You remember I told him we all expected it."
"So far as I recollect," his father observed sententiously, "that was how you put it."
"I am so glad to hear it," said Mrs. Winton. "Henry has got on," with an emphasis on "Henry has" and a motherly look towards Edgar, who gave no sign that the implied comparison was present in his mind.
The one whose interest was most personal had given least sign, but Flo's heart was fluttering in a way that was known only to herself. Following on the heels of her first thrill of satisfaction stepped something resembling irritation. She would have preferred that Edgar had been less eager with the news, and had left it for Henry to convey in person. What a splendid opportunity that would have been for unaffected congratulation! Out of her momentary irascible mood she threw a taunt at Edgar.
"And you, I suppose, have been appointed Henry's assistant—that would be the least they could do for such a brilliant young man."
Edgar flushed and winced. This flicked him on the raw; but his well-exercised powers of denunciation were equal to the occasion.
"No such luck for me; that Scotch ass Tait has got Henry's crib. He is one of those sly, slaving plodders, without a touch of ability."
"I have noticed, Edgar," put in his father, "that it is the plodders who steadily push ahead."
"Oh, that's all right; but I don't like Tait." Perhaps this explained a good deal.
A sudden sense of the value of Edgar's services in her love affair with Henry filled Flo with regret for having been spiteful to her dear brother, and she at once endeavoured to save him from further unfavourable criticism by expressing the belief that Henry would doubtless help to advance him all he could. When the first opportunity offered, Flo drew Edgar again to her favourite topic, and had quite smoothed away any ruffles in her brother's temper before she reached this diplomatic point:
"Now that Henry has so much in his power, you must keep on the best of terms with him. Get him to come and see us as often as you can. Why not ask him to dine with us on Sunday next? He could stay until required at the office."
"Not much use of that, I fancy; Saturday is about the only day he is likely to come."
"Nonsense! Sunday should suit as well," with a touch of impatience.
"But you must remember, Flo, that Henry isn't like us. Unless he has changed more than I know, there is a big chunk of the go-to-meeting young man left in him; you never know when you may bump up against some of his religious principles. You remember that he used to go to church with as much pleasure as an ordinary chap goes to a music-hall. In fact, he did the thing as easily as take his dinner."
"Yes, yes; but he is getting over those narrow-minded country ways."
"Perhaps you are right. You don't find much of that antiquated religious nonsense among us gentlemen of the Press—hem, hem!—Henry's is the only case of the kind that I have seen. But there is hope for him yet," and Edgar laughed heartily at his own wit, while Flo rewarded him with a smile as she pushed home the one point she wished to make.
"Then you think you may be able to induce him to spend Sunday with us?"
"I'll do my best. Can't say more. Usual dinner hour, I suppose?"
"Two o'clock. That gives him time for forenoon church—if he really must go."
Much to Edgar's surprise, and more to his satisfaction, the editor of the Leader consented with unusual readiness to honour the Wintons the following Sunday, and when the day came Henry was not at the forenoon service. He was not even annoyed at himself for having lain abed too long. His mind was filled with thoughts of the importance he had suddenly assumed in the eyes of many who had previously seemed unaware of his existence. Even the church folk, among whom he had moved for years almost unfriended, were now curiously interested in him, and the vicar had done him the remarkable honour of inviting him to dinner to meet several gentlemen prominent in the religious and social life of the city, an invitation which it had given Henry a malicious pleasure to refuse, as the memory of his cold entrances and exits through the door of Holy Trinity contrasted frigidly with this unfamiliar friendliness.
Yet the vicar was a good man, and the church folk were in the main good people too. Henry's experience was no unusual one, nor unnatural. It was but the outcome of that pride of youth which, while one is hungry for friendship, restrains one from any show of a desire to make friends. He was not the first nor the last young man who coming from a small town or village where the church life has an intimate social side, expects something of the same in the larger communion of the city, and is chilled by what seems frosty indifference. The fault, however—if any fault there be—lies nearly always with the individual, and not with his fellow-Christians. So, or not; religion is no matter of hand-shaking and social smirks. The truth is that Henry had at last been touched by that dread complaint of Self-importance, from which before he had appeared to be immune.
A swelling head, from the contemplation of one's importance in the great drama of life, and a heart swelling with thoughts of one young woman, are two phenomena which make the bachelor days of all men remarkably alike at one stage or another.
If "the youngest editor of any daily newspaper in England" (vide the Fourth Estate) let the church slide that Sunday morning, he devoted as much care to his personal appearance as the least devout of ladies to her Easter Sunday toilet. When he arrived at the Wintons, arrayed in a well-fitting frock-coat and glossy silk hat, there was no least lingering trace of the outward Henry we knew of old.
The dinner was very daintily served indeed; there was a touch of pleasant luxury about the meal which contrasted most favourably with the homely cuisine of Hampton Bagot, to say nothing of his lonely bachelor dinners. He knew that the hand which had set this table and superintended that meal was Flo's, and assured himself he was on the right tack. What a charming hostess she would make! How well she would entertain his friends, and do the honours of his house! It was in pure innocence of heart, and merely with a desire to agreeably tease the visitor, that Mr. Winton remarked during the meal:
"Well, Henry, you are quite an important personage now; the next thing we shall hear is that you have blossomed out with a fine villa in Park Road, and—a wife!"
From the mother—any mother—such an observation would, in all likelihood, have been prompted by thoughts of a daughter; but not from the father—not from any father.
Flo tried not to look conscious; though under cover of her apparent indifference she stole an anxious glance at Henry, who only laughed. The laugh was not convincing of the indifference which his speech suggested:
"Plenty of time for that, Mr. Winton. I have a lot to do before I turn my thoughts to the domestic side of life. Besides, it means a year or two of saving."
Flo imagined that for one brief second the eye of their interesting visitor rested upon her as he delivered himself so to her father.
It was the first occasion since the old days at Wheelton that Henry had engaged to spend more than an hour or two at the Wintons, and the drawing-room conversation seeming to flag a little after dinner, Flo suggested a walk. The weather was alluring, and Laysford on an autumn day is one of the most lovable towns in England. Henry was nothing loth, and for the sake of appearance, Edgar was included; but before they had reached the green banks of the River Lays the obliging fellow had suddenly remembered an appointment with a friend who lived in an opposite direction, and Flo and Henry were bereft of his company for the remainder of the walk, which now lay along the grove of elms by the river-side.
"It's really too bad of Edgar," said Flo, with a fine show of indignation when he had gone. "One can't depend on him for five minutes at a time; he's always rushing away like that."
"Never mind," replied Mr. Henry Innocent, glancing at his companion in a way that showed the situation was by no means disagreeable to him. "He will very likely be home before we get back."
"But I am afraid you will find me dull company," she said, although shining eyes and an arch smile gave flat contradiction to the words.
"I don't think you need be afraid of that."
"Really! Why?"
"Because you must know it is not the case."
Thus and thus, as in the past, now, and always, your loving couples. The gabble-gabble reads tame in print, and we will listen no further. Let them have their fill of it; their giggles, their tiffs if they may; why should the stuff be written down? But this must be said: Flo had reason to believe that the affair of her heart was making progress. She thought that Henry was coming out of his shell, and the process was of deep interest to her.
Edgar had not returned when the couple reached home, and he was absent from the tea-table. The day had been rich indeed to Flo, and Henry was almost in as high spirits as his companion. When the evening bells pealed out for church he still dawdled in the undevotional atmosphere of the Wintons' drawing-room. Yet even for him they did not ring in vain. At their sweet sound the shutter of forgetfulness was raised from his mind, and he saw again a tiny country church perched on a green hill; a ragged file of homely folk trailing up the path and through the lych-gate, familiar faces all in the long-ago; and from the vicarage, with failing step, the grey-haired pastor of the flock, and by the old man's side the figure of a sweet woman, on which for a moment his mental vision lingered, to be rudely broken by—"A penny for your thoughts, Mr. Editor," from Flo.
The shutter came down with a rush.