The Prisoners of Hartling/Chapter 8

RTHUR'S usual hour for his morning interview with old Mr Kenyon was 11 o'clock, but two or three times a week he received a message either at breakfast or immediately after, releasing him from attendance. He had been prepared for such a reprieve this morning, imagining that the old man might be a trifle exhausted by his passage of arms with Kenyon Turner the day before, but as no message arrived he went into the library to read the morning papers for an hour and a half before going upstairs.

All the important journals were taken at Hartling, most of them in duplicate; and Arthur was probably the only member of the household who had ever considered the expense involved. He had calculated once that, including magazines and other periodicals, more than a hundred pounds a year were spent under this head alone. But the expenditure of the place was all on the same magnificent scale. Arthur remembered his uncle's whimsical comment that cigars were not provided in the workhouse, and smiled grimly at the thought that the inmates of Hartling were the most pampered paupers in the world.

The library was empty that morning. Arthur generally found Hubert there at that time, but he had presumably had breakfast even earlier than usual and gone out. Nor did Mr Turner, who came in half an hour later, settle himself down there to his customary study of the Times. Instead he nodded a curt good-morning to Arthur, selected half a dozen papers, and immediately retired with them to some other room.

After that Arthur was left severely alone. The inference was clear enough: the Kenyons did not wish to appear in the cause he was going to plead. They might approve his intention but they preferred not to influence it. If he failed, they would deny any kind of responsibility for what he had said. Their attitude had been foreshadowed in the course of their conversation the previous night. "No good our interfering," Turner had said. They were afraid of being dismissed from their luxurious almshouse.

Arthur put down his paper, walked across to the window, and stood there looking out into the gardens. It had rained heavily in the night and there was more rain coming. Low wisps of ashen gray cloud were travelling intently across the dark purples of the heavy background, and the horizon was hidden by the mist of an approaching downpour. It was not a day, he reflected, remembering many such days, to spend in going from house to house through fountains of London mud; nor in receiving poor patients at the surgery. How their wet clothes reeked! They brought all the worst of the weather in with them, the mud and the wet invaded the consulting room; one was never dry or clean on such days as these.

Instinctively he rubbed his hands together, and then looked down at them. They were better kept than when he had first come to Hartling; it had been impossible to keep his hands like that in Peckham. He liked the brown of their tan, deeper on the back than at the finger tips, and his nails were rather good. It was worth while now to spend a little time on them.

Were the Kenyons to be pitied? They were not free, of course, but no one was free. They were certainly more free living their life here than he would be if he went back to Peckham. It was a dog's life that, even Somers couldn't deny it.

The tall trees in the garden were bent by a rush of wind, and the rain suddenly spattered furiously against the plate glass of the window. How protected one was here! Hartling windows did not rattle in the gale, nor let in the wet. A day such as this gave a zest to the comfort of it all. And although one could not go out there was plenty to do, any amount of books to read, billiards with Turner, and probably they would play bridge in the afternoon—his uncle, Turner, and Elizabeth all played quite a good game. …

If the old man turned him out for interfering in a matter in which he was not concerned, he would have to go back to Somers for a night or two. If he was not very careful with the little money still left to him, he would have to give up the idea of Canada altogether. Living in a place like this for five weeks changed one's scale of values. He did not look forward to "roughing it" so much as he had before he came away from Peckham.

Was he pledged in any way to plead Hubert's cause with his grandfather? Would it not be better from very point of view to leave it alone? If Hubert's own family would not put in a word for him, why should a comparative stranger interfere? The old man would almost certainly be annoyed. How on earth could one open the subject to him without impertinence? That offer last night had been made in a moment of sentimental benevolence. He had been worked up by that pathetic story Uncle Joe had told him, and they—he bunched the whole Kenyon family together in this thought of them—could not blame him if he backed out at the last minute. They could not put on airs in that connection. His only regret would be that Miss Kenyon would score. He would have liked to have beaten her, but what possible chance had he of doing that? The fact was that he was standing it all to nothing. He would be a damned fool to risk being turned out of Hartling just now, for the sake of a romantic notion of generosity. It was not as if his pleading were likely to help Hubert; it would probably make things ten times worse for him by putting the old man's back up. …

He heard the mellow chime of the hall clock striking eleven, and reluctantly turned to the door. He passed through the main drawing-room on his way, and found all the family except Hubert and Eleanor, sitting there engrossed in their usual occupations. None of them spoke to him as he passed through. Miss Kenyon looked up at him for a moment as he came in, but he could not decide whether her expression was one of challenge or confidence in her own ability to get what she wanted.

As he slowly mounted the wide staircase he still saw them all in imagination, waiting with a rather pleasurable excitement for the news of his interview. No doubt they knew well enough that he was going to sign the order for his own exile. Had they waited in just the same way when James Kenyon had defied his father twenty-five years earlier?

He paused half-way up the stairs and looked down into the hall. He could see the great elephant's pad standing there, with an effect of gross and imperturbable solidity. Since last night, he had come in some odd way to associate that clumping thing with Eleanor. He could almost see her now, a slender, solemn child, dusty with recent travel, waiting to learn her destiny. …

And it was Eleanor whom he saw first when he entered Mr Kenyon's suite of apartments. She had answered his knock—no one went into those rooms without knocking—and he found her standing near the door with an effect of impatience.

"Are you going to say anything to him about Hubert?" she asked at once in a low voice.

Arthur hesitated before he said, "I've been thinking that perhaps, on the whole, it would be better if I didn't. It might make it worse for him. I've no sort of influence with Mr Kenyon, I mean."

She looked at him suspiciously. He could not mistake the doubt in her eyes. She did not believe in the excuse that he had put forward. She had always mistrusted him for some reason or other.

"Well, have I?" he persisted feebly.

"None whatever, I should imagine," she said; "only, I thought. … She paused and looked towards the closed door of the inner room. "You're ten minutes late now," she added inconsequently.

He was irated by her attitude towards him, her dismissal of him as a person of no importance. He longed to show her that he was not a man to be lightly despised. But all he could find to say was a foolish, petulant accusation of her own motives. Had she not impugned his?

"No doubt you would be glad enough to see me turned out," he said, with an almost childlike sullenness. "You've always disliked me."

She stood quite still, staring past him towards the door of her grandfather's room. She was again wearing the dress of pale gray linen in which he had first seen her; and she looked exquisitely sweet, fresh, and young. But he was glad that he had been rude to her. By that rudeness he had shown that he thought of her, and that he resented her opinion of him. He would sooner that she hated him than that she should be indifferent.

"You think, then," she said, after what seemed to be a long pause, "that you might get—turned out, if you said anything to my grandfather about Hubert? You know enough for that?"

"I suppose I know pretty nearly everything there is to know now," he replied sulkily.

She looked at him quickly, and then turned her eyes away again. "Uncle Joe told you?" she asked.

With some vague idea of loyalty in his mind, Arthur tried to exculpate his uncle by saying, "Partly, yes; but he had nothing to do with the suggestion of my speaking to Mr Kenyon about Hubert."

"No, of course not," Eleanor said; "and in any case you've decided not to."

He thought there was still a hint of question in her tone, as if she still hoped that he might be persuaded to champion his cousin's cause; and he grasped the opportunity to get back to the point she had, as he believed, deliberately passed by.

"You admit that I shan't do any good to Hubert," he said. "Why are you so anxious that I should get myself into trouble by interfering—unless it is that you want to be rid of me? Because if that's all, I can go at any time of my own free will."

"I don't want you to go," she said coldly.

"Then why are you so keen on—on my taking the chance of offending Mr Kenyon?" he insisted.

She faced him with a cool, steady stare. "You can't seriously believe," she said, "that I should be so mean and small as to persuade you into this for any purely selfish purpose of my own? Why, none of them would be as paltry as that."

He blushed, but he would not drop his eyes from hers. "I'm to respect your motives, of course," he said defiantly; "but you're at liberty to impute any sort of cowardice to me?"

"Isn't it cowardice then?" she asked, returning his stare without flinching. "Haven't you changed your mind because you're afraid of having to leave here?"

She had defeated him; and realising that he dared not answer that question truthfully, he sought refuge in a youthful petulance. "Oh! very well," he said, turning his back on her, and crossing the room towards the inner door. "Have it your own way. You can think anything you like about me. I don't care." He knocked and then entered Mr Kenyon's room, without looking back to see what effect this speech might have on her. He was persuaded that he did not care any longer what she thought of him. She was so confoundedly self-sufficient and superior.

Mr Kenyon was reading the Times, a thing he could do without the aid of glasses. His sight and hearing were apparently as good as Arthur's own. But he dropped the paper on his knees as Arthur came in.

"You've been having a talk with Eleanor?" he remarked in his usual friendly tone. "What a wonderful girl she is, isn't she? I'm surprised that you and she don't get on better together. I had hoped you might be friends."

Arthur was slightly taken aback. It had never occurred to him that the old man might wish him to be on more friendly terms with Eleanor. He had never before referred to the subject in any way. Had he, perhaps, heard or guessed at the quarrel between them in the next room?

"I'm afraid she doesn't like me?" he explained.

"Oh! in that case there's nothing more to be said," the old man replied quietly. "Well, you needn't stay this morning, if you've anything else to do. I had meant to send you a message."

Arthur understood that he was dismissed, that he might now go back and explain to the people downstairs that he had been given no opportunity to act as the family's catspaw that morning. For twenty-four hours at least he was relieved from any kind of obligation, and in the meantime he could re-discuss the whole question with Hubert and his father. There was but one objection to this plan; he would have to tell Eleanor as he returned through the next room.

He sighed and stood irresolute. Mr Kenyon had returned to his study of the Times. No encouragement could be hoped from that quarter. The old man had an amazing gift of detaching his interest from his surroundings. He had probably forgotten that his attendant was still in the room. Why could not Eleanor have undertaken this mission herself? Oh! obviously because she knew that it was futile, purposeless, utterly foolish. Nevertheless, he was not going to be accused of cowardice, nor of trying to propitiate the old man for the sake of being remembered in his will.

"Might I speak to you a minute, sir?" Arthur made his opening curtly, almost contemptuously. By the very act of asking the question he had regained his freedom. He saw that his fear and respect of the old man before him were based on nothing but the longing for comfort and luxury, for abundance and idleness. Now that he had resolved to leave Hartling rather than endure the accusation of cowardice, all his fears had slipped from him.

Mr Kenyon put down his paper and looked up. His pale blue eyes were suddenly intent, the eyes of a hunting animal or a bird of prey, in sight but not yet sure of its quarry.

"Sit down, Arthur," he said quietly, pointing to a chair nearly opposite to his own. "You may speak for an hour if you wish. I have nothing to do this morning."

"It was about Hubert," Arthur said, accepting the invitation to sit down. He did not care now, so far as he himself was concerned, what was the upshot of this conversation, but while he was about it he might as well do his best for poor old Hubert.

Mr Kenyon nodded, gravely attentive.

"No doubt, sir, you'll wonder what concern it is of mine," Arthur continued, "but the truth is that I like Hubert, and I'm rather sorry for him. …"

"Sorry for him?" Mr Kenyon repeated with a faint surprise.

"We young men of the present generation, sir," Arthur explained, revelling now in his sense of liberty, "think a great deal of our freedom. I don't mean to say that Hubert has any particular ambition in that direction. He was brought up in a different atmosphere. But from my point of view, you see, his life seems dreadfully confined and limited, though perhaps it is a trifle presumptuous for me to be sorry for him on that account."

"And you wish …?" Mr Kenyon suggested, without the least sign of displeasure.

"Oh, well! that's another matter," Arthur said. "The fact is, sir, that Hubert has fallen in love, and for some reason that I can't pretend to understand, neither he nor my uncle seem to care about coming to ask your consent to his marriage. So—so I've come to plead his cause for him."

"Who is the girl he wants to marry?" Mr Kenyon put in. A change had come over him in the course of Arthur's last sentences. He sat less stiffly in his chair; he had the air of a man re-confronted by some familiar trouble with which he had often battled in the past.

"Her name is Dorothy Martin," Arthur began. "She …"

Mr Kenyon interrupted him with a gesture of his hand. "I know, he said, "her father is Lord Massey's agent—a homely fellow and rather stupid. So Hubert wants to marry Miss Martin, does he?" His head drooped a little forward and he began to slide his hands slowly backward and forward along his knees.

Arthur felt suddenly sorry for him. Neither Hubert nor his father had told him that Miss Martin's father was, to put it bluntly, not in the Kenyons' class. He understood better now why they had hesitated to approach the old man. And how decently he had taken it! Without any sign of anger, even of vexation.

"I believe he's very much in love with her," Arthur murmured.

Mr Kenyon sighed and sat up. "As you remarked just now, Arthur," he said, "you naturally can't be expected to understand, and I wonder if it would be indiscreet of a very, very old man to enlighten you?"

His expression as he spoke was pathetic, wistful; he looked at Arthur as if he besought him to approve the offered confidence.

"You may be absolutely sure, sir, that I shall not repeat anything you care to tell me," Arthur assured him.

"Nor let it affect your relations with my family?" the old man added, and then while Arthur still sought a convincing reply to that rather difficult question, went on: "We are necessarily lonely in our old age, my boy, but I sometimes wonder if my case is not in some ways unusual. Or is it that I have suffered for overstepping the reasonable limit of mortality?" He rose from his chair as he spoke and began to pace slowly up and down the room.

"I have taken a peculiar fancy to you, Arthur," he continued after a brief pause, "and I need not be ashamed to tell you why; it is because I admire the independence of your spirit. I liked the way you spoke to me just now; your disregard of what might have been against your own interests; your championship of Hubert. I could wish—I have often wished—that there was more of the same spirit in my own family."

Arthur flushed with pleasure. But it seemed to him that he understood now, finally, conclusively, the secret of the Kenyons.

They were all cowards, and the old man despised them for their cowardice; not one of them had ever had the courage to stand up to him. If he had, in a sense, bullied them, it was because he had tried to stimulate them into some show of active response. Nevertheless, Arthur attempted an excuse for them.

"Perhaps, sir," he said, "if they had had to face the world as I have …"

Mr Kenyon had paused in his walk and now stood in front of him, gravely attentive. But as Arthur hesitated, trying to frame a statement that should not sound too boastful, the old man held up his hand.

"Well, well," he said, "I don't wish to discuss my family with you. My purpose is more selfish than that. I only want you not to misjudge me, as you might very reasonably do, in the circumstances. Downstairs, no doubt, I may sometimes appear in the light of an autocrat." And he lifted his head with a little jerk that wonderfully expressed his own awareness of the absurdity of that accusation.

"You see, my boy," he went on, resuming his deliberate pacing of the room, "I have long been aware that none of my children, unless it be Esther, resemble me in character. They are not," he smiled with an air of excusing his choice of a metaphor, "not fighters. There was my poor boy James, Eleanor's father. I don't know if they have told you anything about him?"

"I have heard something," Arthur admitted.

"Oh, well! then you will understand what a grief his career was to me," Mr Kenyon said with a sigh. "I knew his weakness better than he knew it himself," he continued reflectively, "but he would not listen to me. I've been forced to take care of them all, because they are none of them able to take care of themselves. I would have saved James, too, if he would have let me. And all I insist upon, in return, is that they should stay here with me, where I can, in a sense, watch over them. Perhaps I'm getting senile. The old habit of thought is too strong in me. If I let them go out into the world, at their age, they would surely be safe enough; but the thought of it arouses all my old uneasiness. But in any case it can't be long now."

He had fallen into a brooding monotone, as if he spoke his thoughts aloud; and now he raised himself with an effort and stared at Arthur as though he had become suddenly aware of his presence in the room.

"So Hubert wants to marry Miss Martin, does he?" he asked, returning to the point at issue; "and has sent you to plead for him."

"No, he didn't send me, sir," Arthur explained. "It was entirely my own idea."

Mr Kenyon smiled paternally. "Rash youth! rash youth!" he said. "Have you no battles of your own to fight?"

"Well, at the moment, no sir," Arthur replied, "I have been having a very easy time here for the last five weeks."

"And now you're pining to get back into the struggle again, eh?" Mr Kenyon said, with a lift of his eyebrows. "Well, youth and senility are the ages of selfishness, and when there comes a clash between them it is senility that always must give way. And yet, Arthur, I should be so glad if you could stay with me—till the end. I gave you my reasons when we first talked the matter over together. I can add still another, now; I've taken a great liking for you. Are you absolutely determined to go?"

"I? No, sir. I didn't mean …" Arthur stammered.

The old man was watching him keenly. "But you don't deny that you had that in your mind, when you began to speak to me about Hubert?" he said, and then, reading confirmation of that statement in Arthur's embarrassment, he came up to him and laid his hands on his shoulders.

"Natural enough; natural enough, my boy," he said, "there's nothing to be ashamed of. And I wouldn't ask you to make the sacrifice if I were a younger man. But as it is what difference will a year, two years at most, make to you at your time of life? Come, now," he smiled with a flash of roguery, "let's make a bargain! Your friend Hubert shall have his Miss Martin, if you'll promise to stay with me and perform those little duties I mentioned when I'm gone."

"Oh, of course, sir, rather," Arthur said, blushing with pleasure and embarrassment. "I would promise that in any case. There's no need for any—any quid pro quo, I mean."

Mr Kenyon still had his hands on the young man's shoulders, and he gave him a gentle shake as he said, "Very well, that's a bargain then; and I may tell you that you've taken a great weight off my mind. Now, go and tell Hubert to come up to me. I'll promise to let him off more lightly than he deserves."

Arthur strode out of the room with the conscious pride of one who has all life at his feet.

Eleanor rose from the desk at which she was writing as he entered.

"So you did speak to him after all?" she said, searching his face with an eager, inquiring stare.

"Yes, I did. It's all right," Arthur returned, disciplining his expression of triumph to a becoming modesty. "He wants to see Hubert now. He has promised to let him off lightly," he said.

"And you're staying on?" Eleanor inquired.

"Yes. He—he made me promise that." Arthur found himself inexplicably dropping into apology. "I couldn't possibly refuse him, could I? You see he wants me to be here—at the end."

"I understand," Eleanor said coldly, turning her back on him and reseating herself at the desk. "Will you give Hubert the message or shall I send some one?"

"I'll go," Arthur replied curtly.

He was suddenly vexed and disheartened. She had dispersed all the glamour of his achievement; had made him feel as if he had done a mean rather than a splendid thing. There could be but one explanation of her attitude—she suspected him of working on her grandfather's affections. No doubt she knew that he had become a special favourite; had known it probably before he knew it himself. Yet even so, if there were no jealousy on her part—and Uncle Joe had made it certain last night that her motives were above suspicion—why should she be so annoyed? Was she afraid that he might be designing to cut out the rest of the family?

He had reached the hall when that explanation came to him, and he paused there, burnt with shame by the bare thought of such a suspicion. It was degrading, infamous. He felt that he could not endure that she should hold such an opinion of him for another moment. He turned back towards the staircase with the intention of instantly challenging her, and then a better means of vindication occurred to him, and he went on into the drawing-room.

They were all there now, except Eleanor; and they made no attempt to disguise their interest and excitement. They faced the door with what seemed to be a concerted movement as he entered and at once misread the signs of his still evident emotion.

Miss Kenyon, indeed, made so sure of the correctness of her inference that she acted upon it without further consideration.

Arthur saw her then, he believed, in her true character. She rose and came towards him across the room with an effect of vindictive triumph. Her pale blue eyes were bright, the pupils contracted almost to a pin-point; they were the eyes of some fierce bird that is at last within sight of the kill.

"Well?" she said in a clear, cold voice, "so you've seen my father."

Arthur made no attempt to prevaricate. "Yes, he wants to see Hubert," he said, and looked across the room at his cousin as he added, "I understand that he won't raise any objection." He saw, as he spoke, the lift of Hubert's head and the quick change of his expression, before his attention was snatched back to Miss Kenyon.

"And you?" she asked sharply.

There was no need to put the question more plainly. He knew they all knew what she meant.

"Your father has asked me to stay on—indefinitely," he said quietly.

She made no reply, but she instantly veiled her eyes, lowering her glance to the simple brooch she was wearing at her breast, at the same time putting up a hand as if to adjust it. And when she looked up again her expression betrayed no sign of anger or resentment.

He was disappointed. He had expected, even hoped, for some indication of defeat from her. Vaguely he had pictured her going up to her father to enter a violent protest. This apparently meek submission annoyed him.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you," he said provocatively.

"I have forgotten the meaning of the word disappointment," she returned gravely, looked him full in the eyes for a moment, and then passed on towards the door.

Her self-control was superb, but the picture that remained in Arthur's mind was of her advance towards him across the room. For one instant he had been afraid of her.

"I say! is it all right, do you think?" Hubert eagerly asked, as Arthur joined the group at the farther end of the room.

"Perfectly all right, old chap—I believe," Arthur replied. "Hadn't you better toddle up and see him at once?"

"But what did you tell him?" Hubert persisted.

"Everything I knew," Arthur said. "Cut along."

"I suppose you're very proud of yourself?" Elizabeth put in demurely as her brother went out.

"I'm very glad for Hubert's sake," was Arthur's amendment.

"Only for his sake?" Elizabeth commented carelessly.

Turner, with the Times on his knees, was thoughtfully twisting his neat little moustache. "So you're going to stay on indefinitely?" he remarked.

"Well, yes; that's to say Mr Kenyon said he would like me to," Arthur replied rather lamely. He was aware of a sense of antagonism between him and the others. None of them so far had shown the least inclination to thank him for acting as their catspaw. All they thought about apparently was the fact that he was going to remain permanently at Hartling. And he knew that the time had come to vindicate his motives, to express that purpose which had come to him in the hall when he relinquished the idea of confronting and, if possible, confounding Eleanor.

He drew up a chair and sat down, with an air that he felt claimed his right to be included in the family conclave.

"I wonder if you'll let me say something to you all about a rather delicate matter?" he asked, looking at his uncle.

Joe Kenyon raised himself uneasily in his chair and glanced round the faces of the little circle. They were all alert now. There could be no question that they correctly anticipated the nature of the "matter" the new-comer was going to discuss, although they were uncertain what precisely he might have to say about it.

"Yes, Arthur, yes. Say anything you like," Joe Kenyon replied rather doubtfully. "Now we know that you've come to stay for good, of course, there's no reason why you shouldn't have—well—our confidence."

"I don't want that," Arthur said. "I want to give you mine. I feel, you know, in a confoundedly awkward position, and I'd like to clear it up if I could. I do want you all to understand more particularly that I'm—that I'm not 'on the make' in this business."

He paused a moment, but no one made any comment—unless Turner's slight nod of the head could be regarded as an invitation for him to continue.

"I feel, you see, for one thing," Arthur went on, "that I am in a sense at least an outsider, not one of the family anyhow, and I do realise too that the circumstances are pretty well unique. So what I thought of proposing was that I should make some sort of undertaking—I'd put it in writing—that if by any extraordinary chance I should be—be specially favoured later, if you know what I mean, I would hand most of anything I got, back to the family. I should think we could get some sort of binding deed drawn up to that effect, couldn't we?"

Not until he stopped speaking did Arthur see how terribly he had embarrassed them by thus naming the secret thing in public. Mrs Turner was fumbling with her work; her husband leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling; and Elizabeth, flushing slightly, got up and walked over to the window.

It was his aunt who answered him, however, indirectly. "Perhaps we'd better go into another room, Catherine," she said, addressing her sister-in-law. "I've never been able to understand legal affairs, and this proposal of Arthur's, so far as I understand it, seems to be something of the kind."

Mrs Turner grabbed her work and got up with a nod of agreement, but then some purpose seemed to stiffen her. She hesitated, nearly dropped the bead bag she was making, and said in a scarcely audible voice, "But we do appreciate the spirit of it all the same."

"Oh, rather! of course," her brother echoed her.

Turner returned to that as an opening, when the three men were left alone to discuss the proposition that had been vaguely indicated. "Very decent of you, Woodroffe," he said; "and you put the thing quite delicately too; but you understand, don't you, that it would never do to have any kind of formal agreement?"

"I don't. I should prefer it to be as formal and binding as possible," Arthur protested.

Joe Kenyon shook his head. "No, no, it would never do," he said. "You see, my boy, the old man might think we'd been influencing you."

"Good Lord! I'd make that clear enough to him," Arthur exclaimed.

The two older men exchanged a smile that pitied his innocence.

"You don't know him," Turner remarked caustically.

Arthur was a trifle disgusted. He was still warm with gratitude to the old man who had treated him so delightfully that morning, and he resented the bitter note of aspersion in Turner's voice.

"He has been most frightfully decent to me," he said coldly.

Joe Kenyon began to drum on the arm of his chair. "Well, no need to go into that, eh, Charles?" he asked nervously. "The point is—what we've got to make clear to Arthur comes to this, that we're quite glad, what! to trust his word without any damned deeds and so on?"

"Oh, quite! quite!" Turner agreed.

"But you know …" Arthur began to protest.

"My dear chap," Turner interrupted him, "if we can trust you to do the straight thing that's surely all that's necessary. Shake hands on it, if you like; but no parchments, for the Lord's sake."

"Very good of you," Arthur mumbled, a little overwhelmed by this evidence of their faith in him.

"If we hadn't trusted you, I couldn't have said what I did last night," his uncle put in. "And I for one am very grateful to you for interfering in Hubert's affair." He sighed profoundly as he concluded: "It will help him in some ways, I don't doubt."

There was apparently nothing more to be said, and Arthur was on his feet preparing to go when Turner remarked casually to his brother-in-law, "Totting 'em up pretty fast just now, isn't he? That'll make three more of us if poor old Ken has to come in."

Joe Kenyon's only reply was to draw down the corners of his mouth and raise his eyebrows.

Arthur did not want to hear any more. He was sorry that he had heard so much. These petty criticisms of old Kenyon made him despise Turner and his uncle; they represented another aspect of their cowardice. Damn it, the old man was worth the lot of them, if you excluded Eleanor.

He supposed that she would hear of his agreement with the family, and wondered if she would apologise to him.