come back.
'It would have been better for the men I employ,' said Copper John to his son, 'that you had spent the winter across the water. As a general rule matters do not become slack in my absence, even for so long as five months at a time, but they have taken advantage of your presence here to do any number of things that I have never permitted. Even Baird, whom I thought I could trust, presents a bill a foot long and tells me he has your authority for doing so.'
'I had not realised it was necessary to be so close, sir,' answered John.
'Close? No one can accuse me of being anything but liberal with my servants. But I object to being robbed. Some of the items on Baird's account were not only needless but I very much doubt if they were ever purchased. Too late to check up on it now, of course. At the time you could have demanded to see the stuff he claims to have bought, but I suppose you did nothing of the sort. Here are several new farm implements, asked for, he says, by the cowman, of which Ned Brodrick denies all knowledge.'
'Perhaps they will last a long time, sir, and then you will not need to buy later.'
'You are making fun of me, I suppose, but I find the jest in poor taste. What happens to a man when he lives in this country, that he allows himself to become soft and useless, and lacking in all authority?'
Copper John looked at his son in exasperation.
'I thought marriage might stiffen you, John,' he said, 'but I believe it has made you more of an idler than you were before. Your wife is worth two of you, and I am glad to see she has such a mind of her own. One other thing that has rather astounded me is that I hear from Captain Nicholson that you did not make one single visit to the mines in the whole course of the winter.'
John had been waiting for this. And he had no excuse to give. To say that he preferred spending his mornings in bed with Fanny-Rosa would have sounded flippant, but it happened to be the truth.
'I meant to ride over several times,' he said.
'It was very remiss of me. The fact is Fanny-Rosa being unable to ride just now made it difficult, and I did not like to leave her.'
'Yet you took her over to Mundy in the carriage several times to attend your coursing meetings?'
John was silent. There was really nothing that he could invent to defend himself.
'I am sorry, sir,' he said. 'I have been idle, I admit it.'
'You are therefore, of course, quite unaware of the trouble they have been having with the new mine, above the road? The pump that I installed there has not proved man enough for the job, and what with the winter rains and the springs bursting there has been considerable flooding. The new pump that I have ordered from over the water cannot possibly be here for a few weeks. Meanwhile we are losing the stuff, by being unable to bring it to the surface. It is a source of considerable annoyance to me and to Captain Nicholson. Here is the summer coming on, and the ore wasting underground.'
It was, John thought, the usual story. He had failed in his duties as his father's son. To make his apologies now, to offer to accompany his father every morning, and to sit like a dummy while he and Captain Nicholson discussed technical details of what should or should not be done to the offending pump was a matter of obligation, no doubt, but he could not bring himself to do it. He felt a wave of irritation sweep over him for the whole business.
Baird and his bills, the cowman and the rakes, Nicholson and his ridiculous pump. Why did his father have to take all these things so seriously? John left the library, in an ill-temper with his father and everyone else which was not improved by hearing that Fanny-Rosa and Jane had departed in the small pony carriage for Andriff, intending to spend the day there and return before dark. Fanny-Rosa had said nothing to him of the visit, and the reason was, of course, that he would have forbidden her to go. She was appallingly careless about herself, and because she felt so well was inclined to drive about the country with no thought of her condition. No one but Fanny-Rosa and himself knew how near she was to the time of her confinement, and even they were a little hazy about the actual date. His sisters believed, or pretended to believe, that it would be the early part of July; he himself suspected that it must be somewhere near the middle of May, and already they had reached the last days of April. If Fanny-Rosa was going to have her baby in three weeks' time it was an act of madness to go driving the fifteen odd miles or so to Andriff, in a jolting pony-cart, and return the same day, making thirty miles in all, with only Jane for company.
'You must have been mad to let her go,' he said to Barbara. 'I cannot understand what you were about.'
'But, John dear, they went without my knowledge.
Fanny-Rosa told Eliza she was certain you had decided to go with father to the mine this afternoon, and she felt restless, she said, and a drive would do her good, but I had no idea they proposed to go farther than a few miles or so. It was Tim who overheard them making plans for Andriff.'
'Jane should have shown more sense. She lets Fanny-Rosa do as she likes with her, just as I do, and every other damned fool.'
'John!' said Barbara in reproof.
'I've a good mind to go down and see Willie Armstrong and have a talk with him. He has promised to attend Fanny-Rosa when the time comes, and would know whether it is folly or not. I know that I have never let any of my bitches travel a jolting road when they are so near to the business, and here I am, having apparently allowed my wife to do something that I would have spared my dogs.'
'You forget, John,' said Barbara, hoping to soothe her brother, 'that Fanny-Rosa's health is excellent, and nothing seems to tire her.
Besides, the event is not for some little time yet, after all.'
'Nonsense!' said John. 'You know very well that it is within a few weeks. Why we all have to pretend to one another, I do not know. At any rate, I shall go down now and see if Willie Armstrong is at home, and if necessary I shall ride over to Andriff and insist upon Fanny-Rosa remaining there for the night.'
He went round to the stables and had Tim saddle his horse, 'You are quite sure, Tim, that Mrs. Brodrick and Miss Jane proposed to drive as far as Castle Andriff?' he enquired.
'I am, Master John,' replied the man.
'It was Mrs. Brodrick herself who said that they would be there soon after one o'clock, and would have time to offer some refreshment to the lieutenant before he went to catch the steamer from Mundy.'
'What are you talking about, Tim?'
'Why, doesn't Lieutenant Fox leave this day for the East, Master John, and the young ladies arranging to say goodbye to him, him likely enough to be murdered by the savages out there, and Miss Jane crying her eyes out because of it?'
'I see…' said John. 'No, Tim, I did not know.'
So that was the reason Fanny-Rosa and Jane had gone off for the day. Poor Jane wished to bid farewell to Dick Fox, out of sight of the family, and Fanny-Rosa had offered to go with her.
John rode into Doonhaven, and found the doctor in his house, preparing to sit down to cold meat and potatoes, which he suggested John should share.
'You had better come with me afterwards,' said the prospective father, falling upon the cold luncheon with a hearty appetite, 'and bring back those two madcaps from Andriff. Or you can bring home Jane. I shall stay at the castle with my wife.'
'I think Jane will not be in much of a state to return with me,' said Doctor Armstrong quietly. 'This departure of Dick Fox must have been a great shock to her.'
'I would have given a good deal for it not to have happened,' said John. 'To have a broken heart at eighteen is not much of a start in life. Confound that fellow for trifling with her at all.'
'He is only twenty-one himself; they are both no more than children,' said the doctor. 'I often think what an elderly dullard I must seem to Jane at thirty-five.'
'To tell you the truth,' John said, 'I am more concerned about my wife than about Jane.
Fanny-Rosa's baby is due within a few weeks, as you have probably guessed, and a drive of thirty miles is surely an act of madness?'
'Mrs. Brodrick's constitution is not likely to suffer,' said Doctor Armstrong shortly, and he rose from the table to answer the summons at the front-door, for the house bell was ringing loudly.
He was always a little gruff where Fanny-Rosa was concerned. Anyway, he had promised to bring the child into the world, and be godfather into the bargain. He returned now with a note in his hand for John.
