CHAPTER XII
MR FANSHAWE
Dicky Fanshawe, as every one called him, was twenty-five years of age. He had enough money to do what he liked, and so, as a rule, he did nothing; at least, that was what his uncle, General Grampound, said about him. But as a matter of fact, he did a great deal, for wherever he went he made people feel happier and better.
He was not what people call a “good young man.” He spent a great deal of money in ways that people said he shouldn’t, but he also spent a great deal of money in a way that nobody knew anything about, for he was always ready to help a person in distress. He was a dead shot, a great cricketer, and he nearly always was in the first flight in the hunting field.
General Grampound, Dicky’s uncle, was very strict; ever since Dicky had been a boy General Grampound had found fault with him. Six months ago they had had a really fierce quarrel; it had begun over some trifle, hot words had ensued, and it ended by the General telling his nephew never to darken his doors again.
This command would not have broken Dicky’s heart, indeed he would have cared very little about it, only that he was in love with General Grampound’s ward, a dark-haired, beautiful girl named Violet Lestrange.
He had not seen her for six months, and as General Grampound intercepted all his letters to her, he could not write to her.
To-day he had left Dunboyne House, where he had been staying for the hunting, at ten o’clock, and it was nearly four when the outside car turned in through the lodge gates of Glen Druid.
As the car drew up towards the house front, Mr Fanshawe heard himself hailed. The voice seemed to come from the sky, and, looking up, he saw two heads projecting from a window in the grey old side of the house, the head of a girl with golden hair and the head of a rather pasty-faced little boy.
“Hulloo!” cried the heads; and an arm, presumably that of the boy, waved something by way of a flag, something that seemed either a huge and dirty pocket-handkerchief or an old dish-cloth.
“Hulloo!” replied Mr Fanshawe, waving his pipe.