He sat down to his table, muddy boots, spurs, and all, and Mrs. Clinton left him, a little relieved in her mind that he saw a gleam of light, but otherwise solicitous for his sake and unhappy on her own. She loved her firstborn too, although it was very long since she had been able to show it. She would have liked to have helped him now, but he had not asked for her help, had told her nothing, and had left her with scarcely more than a formal word of farewell.
The Squire, left to himself, wrote quickly, and sealed up his letter after he had read it over once, as if first thoughts were best, and he was uncertain to what second would lead him.
"My dear Dick" [his note ran],
"I can only repeat that nothing will induce me to give my consent to the marriage you propose. If you marry in a way to please me I shall provide for you handsomely, as I have always intended to do, but if you persist in the course you have begun on I shall withdraw your allowance entirely. It will be paid to you for the present, but only as long as you remain unmarried. I am very sorry to have to take this course, but you leave me nothing else to do.
"Your affectionate father,
"EDWARD CLINTON."
When he had closed and directed the envelope an unpleasant thought struck him, and he leant back in his chair and looked out of the window while he considered it. "I suppose she must have some money," he said to himself; and then after a time, "But Dick would never do that."
The note was taken over to Blaythorn, as all notes were that were despatched from Kencote, by a groom on horseback. The Squire was impatient of the workings of the penny post, except for distances impossible for a horse, and he would not ask if Dick's soldier-servant had yet left the house with his master's belongings. "Tell one of the grooms to take that over," were his curt instructions, and so well was the letter of his orders always obeyed that a groom rode off with it within a quarter of an hour, although another one was already harnessing a horse to the cart that was to take Dick's servant to Blaythorn as soon as he should be ready. But having got safely outside the park gates he dawdled till his fellow caught him up, and the three of them then continued the journey together and discussed the situation.
Dick's servant was loyal to his master, but it was not in human nature that he should have refrained from speculating upon what was doing, and between them they managed to attain to a fairly clear idea of what that was, their unanimous conclusion being that if the Captain had made up his mind to marry the lady the Squire might take what steps he liked, but he would not stop him. In this way began the rumours that presently spread all over the county and thence all over England, or to such of its inhabitants as are interested in the affairs of its Captain Clintons and Lady Georges.
Dick and Virginia were alone together when the note was brought in, the mounted groom having ridden on when he got within a mile of his destination. "That means war," said Dick, laconically, when he had read it; "but I didn't think he would use those tactics quite so soon. I wonder who put him up to it." He thought for a moment. "Humphrey wouldn't have done it, I suppose," he said reflectively.
Virginia's eyes were serious as she looked up from the note written in the Squire's big, rather sprawling hand on the thick white paper. "I wonder why he hates me so," she said a little plaintively. "Is it because I headed the fox, Dick?"