“No, peace and plenty, my dear,” he said, “such as we’ve always had, Maria. I shall be in for lunch, too. Thank God, old Claude doesn’t want any music to-night. We was hurried away from table last night, and I think Sir Thomas felt he hadn’t done justice to my port: ’40, Maria, and needs a lot of justice. But to-night he shall have his skin full.”
“Well, but Claude has said as how pleased Dora was with the music,” said Mrs. Osborne, “and we’re going to have a second go this evening. You can’t deny them their music, Mr. O.”
Mr. Osborne paused on his way to the door.
“Nor I don’t want to,” he said, “though myself, I hate that scratching sound. But last night, Mrs. O., I don’t mind telling you, what with young—young Franklin lighting up before we’d got into the wine at all, and Claude and he leaving the room to join the ladies, and I’m sure I don’t wonder, the dining room was a sort of Clapham Junction. And you telling me not to stop too long there and all. To-night give us time to sit and think, and if Claude wants his concert, God bless the boy, let him have it. But let it be made clear that those who want their wine and a talk, sit and have it, and don’t feel they’re expected. It’s little I drink myself, as well you know, but there’s Sir Thomas, who’s a fish for his liquor, and little harm it seems to do him. I like my guests to have what they want, Maria, and there’s no reason why some of us shouldn’t stay quiet and pass the bottle, while others listen to them fiddles. That’s the way we’ve got on, old lady, by giving everybody what they want, and of the best quality. Well, let’s do so still. Those that care to leave the table this evening, let them leave, but don’t let there be any pressure on such as like to remain. Lord, if there’s Mrs. Per not coming out already with all her fallals on! I must go and get Sir Thomas his glass of sherry.”
Mr. Osborne was in every way the most hospitable of men, and he would have felt it as a personal disgrace if (as never happened) any guest of his had not all the wine he wanted, even as he would have felt it a personal disgrace if any guest was not met at the station, or did not have sufficient breakfast. But wine to his mind was something of quite a different class to all other hospitalities, and was under his personal control, so that if Sir Thomas liked his drop of sherry in the middle of the morning, Mr. Osborne, if the sherry decanter, as proved to be the case this morning, was empty, had personally to go down to the cellar, followed by Thoresby with a taper, and fish out from the bin the bottle he wanted. Moreover, as the motoring party had finished breakfast nearly two hours ago, and would not get their lunch for nearly two hours after, Mrs. Osborne had ordered a tray of the more sustaining sorts of sandwiches, a cold ham, and a dish or two of fruit to be put ready in the dining-room to fortify them for their drive; for when they did have lunch it would only be a cold picnic kind of lunch which they carried with them in a huge wicker basket like a coffin, which two of the resplendent footmen were even now staggering under, and bearing out to the motor. For the sake of good fellowship several of the party who were not going on this prodigious expedition joined the travellers in this collation, for, as Mr. Osborne said, with a large plate of ham in front of him, “It made a bit of a break in the morning to have a mouthful of sherry and a dry biscuit. Help yourself, Per, my boy, for you’re the guard of this personally conducted tour, and you’ll need a bite of something before you get your lunch.”
Jim Austell meantime had gone back to his room, from which he ejected two flurried housemaids who were emptying things into each other, and dressed in a leisurely manner. He found a letter or two on his dressing table, and among them a note from Mr. Osborne’s secretary containing an extremely satisfactory cheque for the first quarter’s rent of Grote, and with great promptitude he despatched it to his bank. Then, coming downstairs and out on to the terrace, he found Claude rather impatiently waiting for the return of Dora, who had strayed off after breakfast with May Thurston, and challenged him to a game of croquet, in which the two were still engaged when the girls came back from their walk. They refused to join, and May went into the house while Dora drew a chair to the edge of the ground and watched. Jim, wallowing in the remembrance of his cheque, had proposed a sovereign on the game and Claude had accepted. The game, therefore, since money was concerned, was serious, but Dora, not knowing this, was not. She had a great deal to say.
“I think Englishmen are perfect butchers,” she said. “The whole of the long glade is simply one mass of the most heavenly young pheasants, who ran to us in flocks to be fed. Then comes October, and when they run to be fed you shoot them in the eye.”
“There you’re wrong, Dora,” said Jim, calmly taking aim, “you shoot at running rabbits, but not——”
“Oh well, you know what I mean, and you call it sport. There, that serves you right, Jim, now it’s Claude’s turn and he’s got you. Oh, Claude, what a beautiful shot! Wasn’t it lucky it hit the wire first? If it hadn’t it would have missed blue altogether.”
Claude did not reply: even though it was Dora who was talking, the fact that at the present moment he was playing a game overrode all other considerations. He would have much preferred to stop playing the game, and talk to her instead, but since that was impossible he continued to be entirely absorbed in what he was doing. The balls (after the beautiful shot) were well placed for a break, but a little consideration was necessary. Then a somewhat lengthy and faultless exhibition followed. At the end he came and sat down on the grass by Dora.