"Now you're ridiculously romantic, but you're very charming, Kit," she said.
CHAPTER XI
OSBORN'S SURRENDER
By degrees Osborn accepted his daughter's choice philosophically. Kit was not the son-in-law he had wanted, but he was forced to admit that the fellow jarred less than he had thought. For one thing, he never reminded Osborn of the benefit he had conferred, and the latter noted that his country-house neighbors opened their doors to him. They could not, of course, altogether ignore the man Grace had promised to marry, but Osborn soon had grounds for imagining that they liked Kit for himself. The wedding had been fixed and Osborn, although not satisfied, was resigned.
In the meantime, it began to look as if the gloom that had long ruled at Tarnside was banished. Mrs. Osborn's reserve was less marked, she smiled, and her step was lighter. Grace, too, had changed, and developed. She had often been impatient but now was marked by a happy calm. Osborn found her gentler and sometimes strangely compliant, although he felt he must make no rash demands. The girl indulged him, but she could be firm. Her new serenity had a charm. Moreover, Gerald wrote cheerful letters and declared that he was making better progress than would have been possible for him at home.
Osborn had seldom thought much about the happiness of his family, but he felt a dull satisfaction because things were going well with the others. It was a set-off against his troubles, which were getting worse. The improvements his tenants and Hayes had forced him to make cost more than he calculated and he met stubborn resistance when he talked about putting up the rents. The money he had got by the last mortgage had gone; he could not borrow more, and his creditors demanded payment of his debts. He put off the reckoning, however, until, one day when he drove to the market town to consult his agent, he got a rude jar.
In the first place, Hayes kept him waiting in a cold room, and he stood for a time by the window, looking out drearily at the old-fashioned square. The day was bleak and wet, and the high moors that shut in the little town loomed, blurred and forbidding, through drifting mist. The square was empty, the fronts of the tall old houses were dark with rain, and the drops from a clump of bare trees fell in a steady shower on the grass behind the iron rails. The gloom reacted upon Osborn's disturbed mood, and he frowned when Hayes came in.
"I sent you word that I would call," he said.
"You did," Hayes agreed. "I was occupied when my clerk told me you were here."
Osborn looked at him with some surprise. Hayes was very cool and not apologetic. "Well," he said, "you know what I want to talk about. I suppose you have seen Forsyth and Langdon about the renewal of their leases?"