“No, sir,” said Louisa; coming half-way down the stairs to meet him as he came up them, and speaking confidentially when they met. “Miss Verinder told me not to pack, sir. I think she has changed her mind and doesn’t intend to go.”
It was open rebellion.
CHAPTER IV
MR. VERINDER gave his orders now—foolish ones, as such orders always are. Miss Verinder was not to leave the house except when accompanied by her maid, or her mother. In the case of her issuing forth with Louisa Hodson, she was to account for the time spent while away. Louisa must also account for it. Miss Verinder was to go about with her mother as much as possible; to fulfil all social engagements that had already been made; to do the afternoon drives in Hyde Park, together with both her parents, and so on.
During the course of the morning he called upon his solicitors in Spring Gardens, and saw the head of the firm, Mr. Williams. He desired Mr. Williams to find out all about Anthony Dyke. “Find out everything you can for me. I want the fullest information I can get.” Mr. Williams, promising to do so, noticed that his client and old friend looked gloomy and depressed; and the brief interview terminated at once, without passing into the pleasant general chat that was customary when Mr. Verinder came to Spring Gardens.
It has been said that Mr. Verinder had a love of law and order. Truly, he adored them. We are all of us what our antecedent history makes us; and Mr. Verinder, looking backward far beyond his own birth, behind his grandfather’s birth even, could see such beneficent factors as open markets, stable rates of exchange, organised means of transport, together with banking and credit systems that are really based on the confidence inspired by a firm government—he could see all this not only as the solid foundation on which the British Empire had been raised, but as the prime cause of the success of those paper mills in the midlands from which he and his family derived their wealth. The mills had long ceased to give any trouble, they just went on; and he merely drew dividends or travelled by train occasionally to attend board meetings. But, of course, except for law and order, the mills could not have maintained their initial impetus so comfortably.
He was proud to think that the mills made paper used by government offices, and that his son Eustace—now aged thirty-three—was actually a government official. Eustace, after taking honours at the venerable long-established institution known as Oxford University, had entered the Board of Trade—not to stay there for ever, but as a step in his career; whereby he would lay up such a store of useful knowledge with regard to the wider aspects of national commerce as should enable him later on, when he went into Parliament, handsomely to assist the government of the day instead of hampering them with unenlightened criticism.
Except in relation to classical music, Mr. Verinder himself was never critical. He was content to bow to acknowledged authority in every form; respecting heads of professions and submitting to expert opinions; believing in the wisdom of judges on the bench, the art of Royal Academicians, the inspired logical faculty of bishops in conclave. Although a stout Anglican, he could not in any circumstances have brought himself to speak disparagingly of the Pope.