Jim walked homewards feeling as though he had been bitten in several places. “What is wrong with me?” he muttered aloud. He was, of course, aware that he had not been sociable; for the rank and fashion of Eversfield and its neighbourhood combined the dreary conservatism of English country life with the intellectual affectations of Oxford; and Oxford, as the Master of Balliol once said, represented “the despotism of the superannuated, tempered by the epigrams of the very young.” But he had always thought that he had something in common with Ted Barnes and his friends; for he had overlooked the fact that village opinion is still dictated in England by the “gentry.”
The realization was presently borne in on him that Dolly, failing to play with any success the part of the indispensable wife and helpmate, had assumed the rôle of martyr, and had confided her fictitious sorrows to her neighbours. It was a bitter thought; and he slashed at the hedges with his stick as it took hold of his mind.
He determined to tax her with this new delinquency at once; but when he reached the manor he found her sitting in the drawing-room with Mr. Merrivall, the tenant of Rose Cottage, who was lying back in an armchair, smoking a fat cigar which Dolly had evidently fetched for him from the cabinet in the study.
George Merrivall was a mysterious bachelor of middle age, whom Jim could not fathom. He had a heavy, grey face; a weak mouth; round, fish-like eyes, which looked anywhere but at the person before him; and thin brown hair, smoothed carefully across a central area of baldness. He had lived at Rose Cottage for the last ten years or more, and was in receipt of a monthly cheque, which might be interpreted as coming from some person or persons who desired his continued rustication.
There was nothing against him, however, save that after the receipt of each of the cheques he was said to shut himself up in his cottage for a few days, and the belief was general that at such times he was dead drunk. This, however, might be merely gossip; and his housekeeper, Jane Potts, was a woman of such extremely secretive habits that the truth was not likely to be known. Some people thought that she was, or had been, his mistress; but if this were true this secret, likewise, was well kept. He appeared to be a man of studious habits, a judge of pictures, a collector of rare books, and a regular church-goer.
Dolly had made his acquaintance before she had met Jim, and, since their marriage, he had been one of the few frequent visitors at the manor. Jim, however, did not like him or trust him, thinking him, indeed, somewhat uncanny; and he now greeted him with no enthusiasm.
“Hullo, Squire,” drawled the visitor, without rising from his chair. “Been out tramping as usual? You look as though you’d been sleeping under a hedge!”
“James, dear,” said Dolly, “you really do look very untidy. And you’re all covered over with bits of twigs and things.”
“Yes,” said Jim, wishing to shock. “I’ve been having a roll in the grass.”
Merrivall laughed. “Who with, you young rascal?” he said, pointing at him with the wet, chewed end of his cigar.