Luncheon at Todhurst was, except in the hunting season, like the family gathering of other days, when the mid-day meal was the chief one. There were blithe interchanges of the morning’s experiences, pleasant intercourse with some of the elder members of the nursery, and a homely ease which was not always found at the late dinner, when formal company-manners had to be assumed, so far as they could be in the genial presence of Squire Elliott. All this was changed on the fatal day on which the Major’s misdirected letters had been delivered. The Squire sat at one end of the table, evidently in an ill-humour; his spouse, Mrs Joseph, at the other end, doing her best not to show the wrath which was in her bosom. Mrs John was suppressing her natural gaiety and desire to make fun of the whole party, whilst she was pathetically earnest in her endeavours to soothe the perturbed spirit of her lord. The latter was irritable and gloomy, accepting her attentions most ungraciously. Stanley Maynard ate and looked as if he were savagely devouring an enemy. Miss Euphemia sat like a post, playing with her knife and fork rather than eating. Nellie was not present.
The Major was late in taking his place, and was flustered in consequence, even more than he might have been under the circumstances. He felt the gloom which pervaded the place, and he was made painfully conscious of the fact that he was the cause of it. He was generally regarded as an acquisition to any party, for he had a special knack of setting conversations ‘going,’ a more useful quality than that which constitutes a ‘good talker.’ The latter demands everybody’s attention, and bores the greater part of his audience; the former enables everybody to speak, and thus produces the agreeable feeling of self-satisfaction in having personally contributed to the enjoyment of the hour.
With desperate heroism, he endeavoured to break the spell which tied the tongues of his companions. He told one of his best stories, the point of which had never failed to set the table in a roar of laughter. Lugubrious grimaces were the only response. He tried another anecdote, with the same result. He descended to the lowest depths of convivial intercourse; he propounded a conundrum, and the eldest of the girls immediately answered it with the addition of the galling commentary: ‘I knew that long ago.’ In his present condition of absolute helplessness, he wished to goodness the child would remember another conundrum, and give it for his benefit, if not for that of the company. Probably, she would have done so, had not the mother’s eye been upon her, suggesting the austere maxim, ‘Children should be seen, not heard.’
The Major took another tack. He put questions to his host about the moors, about the horses, about the hounds, and about the cause of Tally-ho’s illness—any one of which topics would at another time have started the Squire into a gallop of chat. He would have compared the seasons as affecting the moors for twenty years past; he would have detailed the pedigree and merits of every horse in his stables; he would have repeated endless anecdotes about the hounds; and as to the illness of Tally-ho, he would have gone into the most minute particulars as to its cause, his treatment, and the probable result.
But on this day all was in vain. The Major’s suggestive queries were responded to by: ‘Don’t know,’ ‘Much the same as usual,’ ‘Hope for the best,’ and, ‘I daresay the brute will come round.’
When they rose from the table, the Major thanked heaven that this trial was over. The Squire, with a curious mingling of awkwardness and suppressed ill-temper, utterly opposed to his habitually jovial manner, advanced to his unhappy guest: ‘I want to see you in the library in about half an hour,’ he said, and walked out of the room.
‘That’s a comfort,’ thought the Major. ‘I shall have a man with some common-sense to hear me.’
Meanwhile, he would have liked to speak a few words of consolation to Maynard; but that gentleman met his advances with somewhat repellent politeness.
‘If you want to speak to me about the trouble you have made between Miss Carroll and me, you will have ample opportunity to do so when we meet in the library,’ he said, and strolled out to the lawn to seek the soothing influence of a cigar.
Then the Major wished to discharge the duty he had so rashly undertaken, which was to bring the morbidly suspicious John Elliott to reason. He was only now realising the difficulty of the task; and he presently had a decisive indication that it was likely to be one he could not accomplish. He had barely uttered half-a-dozen words of his well-intentioned admonition which was to precede his explanation of ‘the incident,’ when John Elliott peevishly interrupted him: ‘I have promised not to discuss this subject until we are in the library.’