The party was merely to consist of Colonel and Mrs Dysart, their two elder daughters, and one of their sons, who was discovered to be at home and invited at the last minute. It was difficult to see why a few extra people should make any difference, but Jem dressed himself with a sense of preparing to walk on egg-shells, and Arthur felt suddenly reluctant, and as if the sense of even this small festivity was depressing.
“My dear Jem,” his mother had said, “I look to you to make it go off well.” But the second Miss Dysart was very pretty, and just in the style Jem admired, and he was speedily absorbed in discussing a new novel with her, and forgot to guide the rest of the party, who talked of the neighbourhood and the society in the manner of people entertaining new comers. The ladies of the Dysart party were very conscious of the recent history of their entertainers; and, perhaps, Miss Dysart was a little disappointed that Arthur’s manner and conversation were so much like other people’s. The gentlemen were less well-informed, or more forgetful; and about half-way through dinner—after the shops of Oxley, and the excellence of Miss Venning’s school for girls, and the doubtful advantages of the grammar-school for boys, had been well discussed—the inevitable subject of a country dinner-party made its appearance, and young Dysart, across the table, began to ask Arthur about the shooting. Hugh paused suddenly in what he was saying, as Arthur answered: “I am afraid you haven’t much at Ashenfold; but ours is pretty good.”
“You shoot, I suppose?” said young Dysart.
“Oh, yes,” said Arthur, but with a catch in his breath.
“We shall take a day together, now and then, I hope, Mr Crichton?” said Colonel Dysart to Hugh.
“No. I have given it up,” said Hugh, with sudden abrupt emphasis. “I shall let my shooting.” He spoke as if he were confessing his faith on the scaffold; and, in the midst of the dead silence that ensued, James was heard wildly asking his little country-bred neighbour if she had ever been to a pigeon-match at Hurlingham; while Arthur, at the sound of his voice, said, with an effort that he could not conceal:
“The Ribstones are the great sportsmen in these parts. Sir William always has plenty of pheasants;” and Mrs Dysart caught up the Hurlingham shuttlecock and conducted the conversation safely on to the Princess of Wales. Arthur joined in, but his eyes looked absent, and once or twice he missed the answers to what he had said; while Jem’s pretty neighbour looked at him with the tears in her eyes. No one could forget what, had passed; and, indeed, in such a household as Redhurst, this matter of the shooting was a practical difficulty, and a subject that could not be tabooed.
The guests had hardly departed when Hugh said suddenly:
“To set this matter at rest for ever—as long as I live I shall never touch a gun again. Rest assured of it.”
No one answered, till Arthur said, moving away: