Ovington's Bank Page 11

  CHAPTER XI

  Josina had put a brave face on the matter, but when she came down tobreakfast on the Monday, the girl was almost sick with apprehension.Her hands were cold, and as she sat at table she could not raise hereyes from her plate. The habit of years is not to be overcome in anhour, and that which the girl had to face was beyond doubt formidable.She had passed out of childhood, but in that house she was still achild. She was expected to be silent, to efface herself before herelders, to have no views but their views, and no wishes that wentbeyond theirs. Her daily life was laid out for her, and she mustconform or she would be called to heel. On love and marriage she musthave no mind of her own, but must think as her father permitted. If hechose she would be her cousin's wife, if he did not choose the twowould be parted. She could guess how he would treat her is sheresisted his will, or even his whim, in that matter.

  And now she must resist his will in a far worse case. Arthur was hercousin. But Clement? She was not supposed even to know him. Yet shemust own him, she must avow her love for him, she must confess tosecret meetings with him and stolen interviews. She must be preparedfor looks of horror, for uplifted hands and scandalized faces, and tohear shameful things said of him; to hear him spoken of as an upstart,belonging to a class beneath her, a person with whom she ought neverto have come in contact, one whom her father would not think ofadmitting to his table!

  And through all, she who was so weak, so timid, so subject, must befirm. She must not flinch.

  As she sat at table she was conscious of her pale cheeks, and trembledlest the others should notice them. She fancied that her father's facealready wore an ominous gloom. "If you've orders for town," he flungat Miss Peacock as he rose, "you'll need be quick with them. I'm goingin at ten."

  Miss Peacock was all of a flutter. "But I thought, sir, that the Benchdid not sit----"

  "You'd best not think," he retorted. "Ten, I said."

  That seemed to promise a blessed respite, and the color returned toJosina's cheeks. Clement could hardly arrive before eleven, and forthis day she might be safe. But on the heels of relief followedreflection. The respite meant another sleepless night, another day ofapprehension, more hours of fear; the girl was glad and she was sorry.The spirit warred with the flesh. She did not know what she wished.

  And, after all, Clement might appear before ten. She watched the clockand watched her father and in returning suspense hung upon hismovements. How he lingered, now hunting for a lost paper, nowgrumbling over a seed-bill, now drawing on his boots with the oldhorn-handled hooks which had been his father's! And the clock--howslowly it moved! It wanted eight, it wanted five, it wanted twominutes of ten. The hour struck. And still the Squire loiteredoutside, talking to old Fewtrell--when at any moment Clement mightride up!

  The fact was that Thomas was late, and the Squire was saying what hethought of him. "Confound him, he thinks, because he's going, he cando as he likes!" he fumed. "But I'll learn him! Let me catch him inthe village a week after he leaves, and I'll jail him for a vagrant!Such impudence as he gave me the other day I never heard in my life!He'll go wide of here for a character!"

  "I dunno as I'd say too much to him," the old bailiff advised. "He's aqueer customer, Squire, as you'd ought to have seen before now!"

  "He'll find me a queer customer if he starts spouting again! Why,damme," irritably, "one might almost think you agreed with him!"

  Old Fewtrell screwed up his face. "No," he said slowly, "I'm notsaying as I agree with him. But there's summat in what he says,begging your pardon, Squire."

  "Summat? Why, man," in astonishment, "are you tarred with the samebrush?"

  "You know me, master, better'n that," the old man replied. "An' I binwith you fifty years and more. But, certain sure, times is changed andwe're no better for the change."

  "But you get as much?"

  "Mebbe in malt, but not in meal. In money, mebbe--I'm not saying alittle more, master. But here's where 'tis. We'd the common before thewar, and run for a cow and geese, and wood for the picking, and if alad fancied to put up a hut on the waste 'twas five shillings a year;and a rood o' potato ground--it wasn't missed. 'Twas neither here northere. But 'tisn't so now. Where be the common? Well, you know,Squire, laid down in wheat these twenty years, and if a lad squattednow, he'd not be long of hearing of it. We've the money, but we're notso well off. That's where 'tis."

  The Squire scowled. "Well, I'm d--d!" he said. "You've been with mefifty years, and----" and then fortunately or unfortunately thecurricle came round and the Squire, despising Fewtrell's hint, turnedhis wrath upon the groom, called him a lazy scoundrel, and cursed himup hill and down dale.

  The man took it in silence, to the bailiff's surprise, but his sullenface did not augur well for the day, and when he had climbed to theback-seat--with a scramble and a grazed knee, for the Squire startedthe horses with no thought for him--he shook his fist at the old man'sback. Fewtrell saw the gesture, and felt a vague uneasiness, for hehad heard Thomas say ugly things. But then the man had been in liquor,and probably he didn't mean them.

  The Squire rattled the horses down the steep drive with the confidenceof one who had done the same thing a thousand times. Turning to theleft a furlong beyond the gate, he made for Garthmyle where, at thebridge, he fell into the highway. He had driven a mile along this whenhe saw a horseman coming along the road to meet him, and he fell towondering who it was. His sight was good at a distance, and he fanciedthat he had seen the young spark before, though he could not put aname to him. But he saw that he rode a good nag, and he was notsurprised when the other reined up and, raising his hat, showed thathe wished to speak.

  It was Clement, of course, and with a little more wisdom or a littleless courage he would not have stopped the old man. He would have seenthat the moment was not propitious, and that his business could hardlybe done on the highway. But in his intense eagerness to set himselfright, and his anxiety lest chance should forestall him, he dared notlet the opportunity pass, and his hand was raised before he had wellconsidered what he would say.

  The Squire pulled up his horses. "D'you want me?" he asked, civillyenough.

  "If I may trouble you, sir," Clement answered as bravely as he could."It's on important business, or--or I wouldn't detain you." Already,his heart in his mouth, he saw the difficulty in which he had placedhimself. How could he speak before the man? Or on the road?

  The Squire considered him. "Business, eh?" he said. "With me? Well, Iknow your face, young gentleman, but I can't put a name to you."

  "I am Mr. Ovington's son, Clement Ovington, sir."

  All the Squire's civility left him. "The devil you are!" he exclaimed."Well, I'm going to the bank. I like to do my business across thecounter, young sir, to be plain, and not in the road."

  "But this is business--of a different sort, sir," Clement stammered,painfully aware of the change in the other's tone, as well as of theservant, who was all a-grin behind his master's shoulder. "If I couldhave a word with you--apart, sir? Or perhaps--if I called at Garthtomorrow?"

  "Why?"

  "It is upon private business, Mr. Griffin," Clement replied, his faceburning.

  "Did your father send you?"

  "No."

  "Then I don't see," the Squire replied, scowling at him from under hisbushy eyebrows, "what business you can have with me. There can benone, young man, that can't be done across the counter. It is onlyupon business that I know your father, and I don't know you at all. Idon't know why you stopped me."

  Clement was scarlet with mortification. "If I could see you a fewminutes--alone, sir, I think I could explain what it is."

  "You will see me at the bank in an hour," the old man retorted."Anything you have to say you can say there. As it is, I am going toclose my account with your father, and after that the less I hear yourname the better I shall be pleased. At present you're wasting my time.I don't know why you stopped me. Good morning." And in a lower tone,but one that was perfectly audible to Clement,
"D--d youngcounterskipper," he muttered, as he started the horses. "Business withme, indeed! Confound his impudence!"

  He drove off at speed, leaving Clement seated on his horse in themiddle of the road, a prey to feelings that may be imagined. He hadmade a bad beginning, and his humiliation was complete.

  "Young counterskipper!" That rankled--yet in time he might smile atthat. But the tone, and the manner, the conviction that under nocircumstances could there be anything between them, any relations, anyequality--this bit deeper and wounded more permanently. The Squire'sview, that he addressed one of another class and another grade, onewith whom he could have no more in common than with the servant behindhim, could not have been made more plain if he had known the object ofthe lad's application.

  If he had known it! Good heavens, if he said so much now, what wouldhe have said in that case? Certainly, the task which love had set thisyoung man was not an easy one. No wonder Josina had been frightened.

  He had--he had certainly made a mess of it. His ears burned, as he saton his horse and recalled the other's words.

  Meanwhile the Squire drove on, and with the air and movement herecovered his temper. As he drew near to the town the market-trafficincreased, and sitting high on his seat he swept by many a humblegig and plodding farm-cart, and acknowledged with a flicker of hiswhip-hand many a bared head and hasty obeisance. He was not loved; menwho are bent on getting a pennyworth for their penny are not loved.But he was regardful of his own people, and in all companies he wasfearless and could hold his own. Men did not love him, but theytrusted him, knowing exactly what they might expect from him. And hewas Griffin of Garth, one of the few in whose hands were all countypower and all county influence. As he drove down the hill toward theWest Bridge, seeing with the eye of memory the airy towers and loftygateways of the older bridge that had once stood there and forcenturies had bridled the wild Welsh, his bodily eyes noted the teamof the out-going coach which he had a share in horsing. And thecoachman, proudly and with respect, named him to the box-seat.

  From the bridge the town, girdled by the shining river, climbspyramid-wise up the sides of a cleft hill, an ancient castle guardingthe one narrow pass by which a man may enter it on foot. The smilingplain, in the midst of which it rises, is itself embraced at adistance by a ring of hills, broken at one point only, which happensto correspond with the guarded isthmus; on which side, and some fourmiles away, was fought many centuries ago a famous battle. It is aproud town, looking out over a proud county, a county still based onancient tradition, on old names and great estates, standing solid andfour-square against the invasion that even in the Squire's daythreatened it--invasion of new men and new money, of Birmingham andLiverpool and Manchester. The airy streets and crowded shuts run downon all sides from the Market Place to the green meadows and leafygardens that the river laps: green meadows on which the chapels andquiet cloisters of religious houses once nestled under the shelter ofthe walls.

  The Squire could remember the place when his father and his like hadhad their town houses in it, and in winter had removed their familiesto it; when the weekly Assemblies at the Lion had been gay with cardsand dancing, and in the cockpit behind the inn mains of cocks had beenfought with the Gentlemen of Cheshire or Staffordshire; when fineladies with long canes and red-heeled shoes had promenaded under thelime trees beside the river, and the town in its season had been alittle Bath. Those days, and the lumbering coaches-and-six which hadbrought in the families, were gone, and the staple of the town, itstrade in woollens and Welsh flannels, was also on the decline. But itwas still a thriving place, and if the county people no longer filledit in winter, their stately houses survived, and older houses thantheirs, of brick and timber, quaint and gabled, that made the streetsa joy to antiquaries.

  The Squire passed by many a one, with beetling roof and two-storiedporch, as he drove up Maerdol. His first and most pressing businesswas at the bank, and he would not be himself until he had got it offhis mind. He would show that d--d Ovington what he thought of him! Hewould teach him a lesson--luring away that young man and pouching hismoney. Ay, begad he would!