“Oh, I’ll soon be having a lot of quiet!” Wiggie answered cheerfully, twiddling the spoon. (He wondered whether they would think him silly if he asked to have a hockey-stick buried with him. Working out a new point-twist would put him on nicely until the Judgment.) “You know, I haven’t any more engagements for a long time.” (He hoped they wouldn’t collar him at once for the Heavenly Choir. He would like to sit and listen for a bit, and hear somebody else getting up steam for a change.) “I’m glad I had ‘Elijah’ as the final bust-up.”
“Why, you talk as though you never meant to sing again!” Dandy exclaimed curiously. “You do look tired, Wiggie dear! I feel anxious about you. Don’t you think you’d better stop here quietly, to-morrow, and just lounge about and do nothing, instead of coming up to the Show? I’m sure you’re not fit for a hard day, and we’d be back at night, you know, so you wouldn’t be alone for long.”
This suggestion was loudly encored by both parents, and Mrs. Shaw offered to stay down with him, but Hamer wouldn’t hear of it.
“No, no, Mother! We know what you and Cyril are when you get together. He’d be carrying jam-pots for you, or reading your crochet-patterns and singing you little snooze-tunes when he ought to be resting. He’ll be best alone, brutal as it sounds.”
“It will be horrid, leaving you behind!” Dandy added regretfully, and Wiggie felt a little spasm of happy warmth, and then a little twinge of shame because he was going to deceive these kind souls so completely. He grasped the teaspoon a little tighter, and tried not to care. It would be no use trying to make them understand how impossible it was to disobey Harriet.
“I forgot to tell you I heard two men asking for you,” Dandy went on. “They were sitting in the front pew—perhaps you noticed them? They wanted to know the way to Watters, and just as I was thinking of telling them you belonged to us, Harriet came up and said you’d gone to the station to meet the 4.45. I was so taken aback that I missed my opportunity, and let them escape, and when I tried to get at Harriet, to ask her what she meant, she just nodded and disappeared. I’m afraid she’s dreadfully vexed about the hockey-match. I hope she’ll get somebody all right. Did you go to the station, Wiggie, or was I dreaming? I suppose you don’t know who the men are? They’ll probably come on here, I should think, if they didn’t find you.”
“Probably!” Wiggie agreed. “Oh yes, I think I know them all right. They want to worry me about something, and I don’t think I could stand being bullied to-night. They’re terribly difficult people to get rid of, any time. Don’t you think we might tell them to call again?”
“In the morning,” she suggested, “just for a few minutes before you begin your nice, quiet day? How would that do? We’re starting before nine, you know, so I’m afraid we shan’t be here to protect you, but we’ll leave Blenkinship’s Marget in charge. She’s very brave with all the one-foot-on-the-mat people, and she’ll simply stand on her head for a chance of nursing somebody, so I do hope you’ll lie on the sofa and let her bring you beaten-up eggs and things.”
“And treacle-posset? I love treacle-posset!” Wiggie murmured happily, then got up quickly, dropping the teaspoon. He had heard a car turn in at the gate. “May I go and see her about it now?”
But instead of seeing Marget, he slid silently through the old gun-room into the stable-yard, and shinned up the Jacob’s Ladder in the loose box to the loft above, and sat on a rusty old turnip-chopper and shivered in the dark until there had been time to rout the enemy’s attack. It was Dandy who caught Blenkinship’s Marget in the hall, and whispered instructions that set that warlike damsel yearning for battle. She was a little surprised to find two quite pleasant, if rather tired and troubled gentlemen on the doorstep, but her orders were definite. Yes, Mr. Wigmore had been in, and gone out again, leaving word for them to call and see him at eleven o’clock in the morning. Well, could they see the master, Mr. Shaw, or say, Mrs. Shaw, if there was one? They couldn’t. The master was up to his ears in letters for the post, and as to whether there was a mistress or not, that was none of their business! How was Mr. Wigmore? Alive and kicking, if they cared to know, and fit to stick up for himself against anybody, any day. No, they couldn’t come in and wait. They’d lost two silver candlesticks off the hall-table, that way, already—but they might leave cards if they had such things—considered doubtful. However, the cards were forthcoming, and the disappointed callers drew back on their tracks. Watters had received them odiously altogether. They had found difficulty in turning into the drive, to begin with, and, when once safely through, had nearly run into a wheelbarrow that some idiot had left in the middle of it. Then they had been allowed to shiver unregarded on the step, and afterwards treated with contumely. The gate that had refused to open when they entered, swung heavily on their tail-lamp as they drove out. Decidedly, this wasn’t their day.