"It's the best day I've had for a long time too," he said. "You've given me a great deal of pleasure, Edward."
But once in the house, the Squire's worries rolled back on him—not the big trouble, which he had no time to brood over just now, although it was always present in the background of his mind, but the little annoyances incident to his entertaining a lot of people whose ways were not his ways, and who interfered with the settled course of his life.
Lady Aldeburgh had given him great annoyance, and as for Bobby Trench, it was as much as he could do to be civil to him. On the other hand, he was more pleased with his son Humphrey than he had been for a long time, and he had also come to feel that his son Walter was a man to be relied on, in spite of his obstinate choice of a profession unsuitable for a son of his, and his management of his life since he had taken up that profession. If it had not been for this new-found satisfaction in his younger sons, perhaps he would not have been able to prevent the thoughts of his eldest son spoiling his day, and he would certainly have been far more actively annoyed with Lady Aldeburgh and Bobby Trench.
For neither of those gay butterflies of fashion had been able or cared to adjust themselves to the Sabbath calm of a house managed in the way that Kencote was. Lady Aldeburgh, having spent the morning in her room, written her letters and done her duty to privacy for the day, came down to luncheon ready and willing to be amused. And there was no amusement provided for her. After luncheon she had played a game of running round the billiard-table and knocking balls into pockets with the bare hand with Bobby Trench, and fortunately the Squire, at rest in his room, with the Spectator on his knee, had not known what they were doing. But this mild amusement had soon palled, and the problem was to find something for two active young things to do in its place. "Have you ever stayed in a house like this before, Bobby dear?" asked Lady Aldeburgh.
Bobby dear said that he never had, and the powers above being favourable, never would again.
"It's perfectly deadly," said Lady Aldeburgh. "What on earth are the rest of them doing?"
"Slumbering on their beds," replied Bobby Trench; "and in half an hour or so they will all appear, rubbing their eyes, and we shall go for a nice long walk."
"Not me," said her ladyship, with a glance at the leaden sky outside and the bare leafless trees shaking in a cold wind. "Do let's get somewhere by a cosey fire and have a rubber of bridge."
"Who's the four?" asked Bobby Trench. "Shall we wake up old Clinton, and ask him? There are risks. It might be amusing to see somebody in an apoplectic fit, and again it might not."
"Don't be foolish," said Lady Aldeburgh, patting him on the arm. "Humphrey would play, and I'll tell Susan she's wanted."