(I)
The Rectory garden at Merefield was, obviously, this summer, the proper place to spend most of the day. Certainly the house was cool—it was one of those long, low, creeper-covered places that somehow suggest William IV. and crinolines (if it is a fact that those two institutions flourished together, as I think), with large, darkish rooms and wide, low staircases and tranquil-looking windows through which roses peep; but the shadow of the limes and the yews was cooler still. A table stood almost permanently through those long, hot summer days in the place where Dick had sat with Jenny, and here the Rector and his daughter breakfasted, lunched and dined, day after day, for a really extraordinarily long period.
Jenny herself lived in the garden even more than her father; she got through the household business as quickly as possible after breakfast, and came out to do any small businesses that she could during the rest of the morning. She wrote a few letters, read a few books, sewed a little, and, on the whole, presented a very domestic and amiable picture. She visited poor people for an hour or so two or three days a week, and occasionally, when Lord Talgarth was well enough, rode out with him and her father after tea, through the woods, and sometimes with Lord Talgarth alone.
She suffered practically no pangs of conscience at all on the subject of Frank. Her letter had been perfectly sincere, and she believed herself to have been exceedingly sensible. (It is, perhaps, one may observe, one of the most dangerous things in the world to think oneself sensible; it is even more dangerous than to be told so.) For the worst of it all was that she was quite right. It was quite plain that she and Frank were not suited to one another; that she had looked upon that particular quality in him which burst out in the bread-and-butter incident, the leaving of Cambridge, the going to prison, and so forth, as accidental to his character, whereas it was essential. It was also quite certain that it was the apotheosis of common-sense for her to recognize that, to say so, and to break off the engagement.
Of course, she had moments of what I should call "grace," and she would call insanity, when she wondered for a little while whether to be sensible was the highest thing in life; but her general attitude to these was as it would be towards temptation of any other kind. To be sensible, she would say, was to be successful and effective; to be otherwise was to fail and to be ineffective.
Very well, then.
At the beginning of September Dick Guiseley came to Merefield to shoot grouse. The grouse, as I think I have already remarked, were backward this year, and, after a kind of ceremonial opening, to give warning as it were, on the twelfth of August, they were left in peace. Business was to begin on the third, and on the evening of the second Dick arrived.
He opened upon the subject that chiefly occupied his thoughts just now with Archie that night when Lord Talgarth had gone to bed. They were sitting in the smoking-room, with the outer door well open to admit the warm evening air. They had discussed the prospects of grouse next day with all proper solemnity, and Archie had enumerated the people who were to form their party. The Rector was coming to shoot, and Jenny was to ride out and join them at lunch.
Then Archie yawned largely, finished his drink, and took up his candle.
"Oh! she's coming, is she?" said Dick meditatively.
Archie struck a match.
"How's Frank?" went on Dick.
"Haven't heard from him."
"Where is the poor devil?"
"Haven't an idea."
Dick emitted a monosyllabic laugh.
"And how's she behaving?"
"Jenny? Oh! just as usual. She's a sensible girl and knows her mind."
Dick pondered this an instant.
"I'm going to bed," said Archie. "Got to have a straight eye to-morrow."
"Oh! sit down a second.... I want to talk."
Archie, as a compromise, propped himself against the back of a chair.
"She doesn't regret it, then?" pursued Dick.
"Not she," said Archie. "It would never have done."
"I know," agreed Dick warmly. (It was a real pleasure to him that head and heart went together in this matter.) "But sometimes, you know, women regret that sort of thing. Wish they hadn't been quite so sensible, you know."
"Jenny doesn't," said Archie.
Dick took up his glass which he had filled with his third whisky-and-soda, hardly five minutes before, and drank half of it. He sucked his mustache, and in that instant confidentialism rose in his heart.
"Well, I'm going to have a shot myself," he said.
"What?"
"I'm going to have a shot. She can but say 'No.'"
Archie's extreme repose of manner vanished for a second. His jaw dropped a little.
"But, good Lord! I hadn't the faintest—"
"I know you hadn't. But I've had it for a long time.... What d'you think, Archie?"
"My good chap—"
"Yes, I know; leave all that out. We'll take that as read. What comes next?"
Archie looked at him a moment.
"How d'you mean? Do you mean, do I approve?"
"Well, I didn't mean that," admitted Dick. "I meant, how'd I better set about it?"
Archie's face froze ever so slightly. (It will be remembered that Jack Kirkby considered him pompous.)
"You must do it your own way," he said.
"Sorry, old man," said Dick. "Didn't mean to be rude."
Archie straightened himself from the chair-back.
"It's all rather surprising," he said. "It never entered my head. I must think about it. Good-night. Put the lights out when you come."
"Archie, old man, are you annoyed?"
"No, no; that's all right," said Archie.
And really and truly that was all that passed between these two that night on the subject of Jenny—so reposeful were they.