“Ordith, too, going to China?”
“I suppose so.”
Mrs. Fane-Herbert made her way towards the drawing-room. She knew Margaret was watching her. Why, oh why, had Hugh said, “Ordith too?” Or was it her imagination and not his voice that had so laid the emphasis? She did not look round to search Margaret’s face, though her desire to do so was almost too strong for her. In a moment Margaret would speak, and her tone, even more clearly than her words, would indicate how much she had guessed.
But as they entered the drawing-room Margaret said: “If I am to go East, mother, I shall want dozens of new frocks, shan’t I?”
And Mrs. Fane-Herbert was left without enlightenment.
III
Mr. George Ordith, later a baronet, and head of the great armament firm honoured by the serious jealousy of Ibble and Co., had trained his son Nicholas with extraordinary care and consistency. He had been terrified lest Nick, who was to inherit all that a life’s toil had accumulated, should value it little and dissipate it rashly. Therefore, almost as soon as Nick’s fingers were able to close about the coin, a penny had been thrust into his palm, and, when he had held it a little while, been taken from him and dropped loudly into a money-box bearing his name. Nick enjoyed the tinkle, and crowed in accompaniment. The process was repeated every Saturday morning, until at last, because he was never allowed to play with them, Nick came to have a respect for pence. The money-box was cleared annually, its contents supplemented by a sovereign, which was George Ordith’s Christmas gift to his baby (for it was left to womenfolk to present what were described as “baubles and gewgaws”), and the whole was added to Nick’s deposit in the Post Office Savings Bank. By the time he was out of dresses he was a capitalist. Only Mrs. Ordith’s earnest entreaties saved her son from being taught to read from the financial columns of the newspapers. At school, Stocks and Shares were to Nick an exciting reality, and, at the age of fifteen, he withdrew from the Post Office all his money except half a crown, gave it to his father in return for a cheque drawn in favour of the parental broker, and instructed this gentleman to purchase on his behalf certain Meat Shares in the Argentine.
From this it must not be deduced either that George Ordith was a miser or that he wished his son to become one. He said a thousand times that money was not everything; that it could not purchase happiness; that, though it was a blessing to wise men, it was a curse to fools. And Nick said, “Yes, father,” and asked, as other children might ask for a coveted toy, when he might have some of those coupons that were cut off with scissors. George Ordith had acted upon a theory that the sons of hard-working, careful men are often wasters. He had wished to nip in the bud any natural tendency in Nick to become a waster. And he erred in this, that Nick had been so made that waste would in any case have been repugnant to him. If George had not provided a money-box, Nick would have been impelled by instinct to manufacture one out of the first empty tobacco-tin whose lid he could pierce. If George had not built up the firm of Ordith, Nick would probably have established it.
Thus had nature and training, instead of counteracting each other’s effects, as Sir George Ordith had intended, been allies in the production of the young Gunnery Lieutenant in whom Mr. Fane-Herbert found so much to admire. He had taken firsts in every examination in which it had been possible for him to take firsts; he had created a reputation for himself at Whale Island; he had played cricket and Rugby football for the Navy; he had smiled and danced himself into the favour of innumerable hostesses; he had a nice taste in wines, a beautiful touch in billiards, a safe seat on any horse, and an inexhaustible supply of words, which flowed like oil from his lips. He was tall, dark, and technically handsome. Moreover, he had a level head—a head so level that business men, while they admired him, looked back sometimes to the days of their own youth, and reflected that, after all, young Ordith must be missing a great deal. They would have liked an opportunity to raise their eyebrows now and then, and to say, “Ah well, boys will be boys!”