Something of her feeling communicated itself to the child, and he felt shy and uncomfortable; he wanted to stay in the trap with Patsy.
'No,' she said firmly, 'you must come with me. And I want you to shake hands very politely when you see your grandfather.'
The side-door was open, but Jinny rang the bell. It clanged loudly, echoing in a passage far away. A servant came to the door-the valet, she supposed, who had travelled over from London with his master.
'Mrs. Brodrick?' he asked, and John-Henry saw his mother bow again.
The gesture pleased him. It was so full of dignity. He imitated her, nodding his head up and down, but she frowned, and he supposed it was something that only grown-up people were allowed to do.
The servant opened a door across the hall and showed them into a large room, a dining-room. The cloth had been removed, but there was a long strip of green baize down the centre of the table.
This is where we lunched that Christmas Day, thought Jinny, when I was sixteen and Hal was twenty…
The servant had kindled a small wood fire in the grate, for although it was August the weather was chill. There were two chairs before the fire. Jinny was uncertain whether she should sit or stand. She had expected that Hal's father would have been in the room, waiting for them. The door at the end of the room was open. She remembered that it gave on a passage leading to the new wing, and she wondered if he had gone through there, to the other part of the house. She went on standing before the fire-place, holding John-Henry by the hand, and the little boy looked about him with interest, and pointed to a picture on the wall. It was a young girl, with soft brown eyes and dark curling hair.
She wore a string of pearls round her neck.
'Yes,' whispered Jinny, 'she's very pretty.'
Jinny turned to the other side of the fire-place and gazed at the portrait of Hal's mother. How like him she must have been! That same reserve, that silence for no reason. Then the boy tugged at her hand, and looking over her shoulder, she saw that Hal's father had come into the room. He was not the Henry Brodrick she remembered as a child, not the Henry of the pencil sketch in the study at the Rectory. He was thinner, much thinner, and his face had fallen away, that had been large and firm before. His hair was scarce on top, and nearly white. The mouth was narrow, and the eyes more prominent than she remembered. Then he came forward, holding out his hand.
'You are Jinny,' he said, 'and I haven't seen you since you were six years old.'
She had been ready to stand on her dignity, to speak at once in defence of Hal, of all that had happened, to accuse Henry if need be of neglect, unkindness, hardness of heart, but at his words her antagonism went, her defences were stripped from her, and she saw that he was shy and uncertain, even as she was herself, and lonely too.
'Yes,' she said, 'I'm Jinny, and this is John-Henry.'
The boy put up his hand, as he had been told to do, and looked then around him at the door, wishing they might go.
'Won't you sit down?' said Henry, pointing to the chair, and Jinny held the boy by her side, whispering to him to be still.
For a moment Henry did not speak. He glanced away from the boy to the wood fire in the grate.
'What are your plans?' he said.
'I shall go on living in Doonhaven, with father and mother at the Rectory,' she said, 'until it is time for John-Henry to go to school. Then, I don't know.
It will depend on many things.'
'I suppose,' said Henry, 'that Tom would like him to be a parson?'
'I don't think so,' said Jinny. 'Once, when I was talking about the future, he said that the Navy would be an excellent thing for John-Henry. But we needn't think about it yet.'
There was a moment's pause.
'And Hal?' said his father. 'Did he have any ideas on the subject?'
Jinny held the boy's hand, which was fidgeting with the lace collar.
'No,' she said gently. 'Hal was not interested in education, or professions. He just imagined that-that one day John-Henry would live here at Clonmere.'
Henry rose to his feet, and stood with his hands behind his back, looking down on Jinny and his grandson, 'I wanted to sell the place,' he said, 'many years ago. Hal will have told you that. I would still sell it, but, as you probably know, Clonmere is entailed. When I die, and this boy reaches the age of twenty-one, he can do as he likes. He can break the entail at will.'
'Yes,' said Jinny.
Henry walked slowly up and down the room.
'Property is a burden these days,' he said.
'There is not the value in it that there used to be.
We're soon going to enter upon a new century too, and things are changing fast. This country may be slower to change than most, I don't know about that.
I've lived away too long either to know or to care.'
He spoke without bitterness, but his voice was sad, as though, since he had looked upon his home, the past had risen up and closed upon him.
'Will you never come back to live here again?' said Jinny.
'No,' he said, 'no, that's all finished and done with.'
He turned and faced her, his hands behind his back, his head a little on one side. That is how Hal used to stand, she thought. He had been part of him after all, a very great part, he had not belonged entirely to his mother.
'The mines are gone,' he said; 'they were the great link with this country. They brought good fortune to my family, but I doubt if they brought happiness. That is one of the reasons that I sold them, not to be quit of a bad debt, as most people believe. Now only the house remains, and if you and the boy want to live here, you are welcome to do so. There won't be any money for the upkeep though, not until I die. And I don't propose spending a penny on it in the meantime.'
Jinny flushed. This was the Henry her father had warned her about. The business man, who sought first his own interests, or rather those of the wife at his back across the water, and was not likely to put his hand in his pocket for anyone else, not even his own grandson.
'It would be rather too big,' said Jinny, 'for me and John-Henry alone. Living close by, at the Rectory, we can come here often, and later on, when he is older, he will understand that one day it will belong to him.'
It seemed to her that he looked upon her strangely, and with pity, and she held the boy's hand tightly, as though the firmness of his touch gave her strength and consolation.
'This is the third generation of my family,' he said, 'to be brought up by one parent only. You have lost Hal. I lost my Katherine. And my mother lost her John, when he was only a year or so older than your Hal. You will find it is not easy, for the one who is left…?
'No,' said Jinny, 'it will not be easy. But I love John-Henry, and I am not afraid.'
He looked away from her, up at the portrait of Katherine on the wall. Then, very slowly, he put his hand inside his waistcoat pocket, and drew out a small round leather case. He held it a moment in his hands, and then snapped the clasp. He took from the case a replica of the portrait on the wall, in miniature. The likeness was well done, although the colouring was a little smudged in places, and the hair brighter than in reality.
'I have not shown this to anyone else,' said Henry, 'and I never shall. Hal did it for me, when he was a lad… He gave it me the night I brought Adeline back to London with me, and I rather think I never thanked him for it. You see, we were both a little shy of one another.'
Jinny held the miniature, and then gave it back to Henry. He replaced it carefully in the leather case, and put it in his pocket.
'I've carried it now for twenty-one years,' he said, 'and Adeline has never discovered it.'
A ghost of a smile appeared on his lips, and in a flash Jinny saw the gay, laughing Henry that once had been, the young man who stood beside her father in the university group.
'You won't give me away to anyone, will you?' he said.
Jinny shook her head.
