A Country Gentleman and His Family

yet not be strong enough to tyrannise over his mother-in-law and lay down the law in her house. This is a condition of affairs quite different from the fashionable view, and then, Mrs. Warrender was in her own house, and quite independent of her son-in-law. She had a malicious pleasure in the thought of his discomfiture. Cavendish! She imagined to herself how they would open their eyes, and tasted in advance the pleasure of the letter which she should write to Minnie, disclosing all that would happen. It seemed to her that she knew very well what would happen. The young man was honourable and honest, and Chatty was most fit and suitable, a bride whom no parents could object to. As for mysterious restraining influences, Mrs. Warrender believed in no such things. She had not lived in a world where they exist, and she felt as sure of Dick Cavendish as of herself⁠—that is to say, almost as sure.

All this might have been very well and done no harm, but in the energy of her angry, excited, exasperated, exhilarated mood, it occurred to Mrs. Warrender to take such a step as she had never done before nor thought herself capable of doing. To make overtures of any sort to a man who had shown a disposition to be her daughter’s lover, yet had not said anything or committed himself in any way, would, twenty-four hours before, have seemed to her impossible. It would have seemed to her inconsistent with Chatty’s dignity and her own. But opposition and a desire to have the better of one’s domestic and intimate opponents is very strong, and tempts people to the most equivocal proceedings. Mrs. Warrender did not wait to think, but took out a fresh sheet of paper and dipped her pen in the ink with that impulsiveness which was characteristic of her. A note or two had already passed between Dick Cavendish and herself, so that it was not so extraordinary a proceeding as it seemed. This was what she wrote:⁠—

Dear Mr. Cavendish⁠—Is it worth while coming to us only from Saturday to Monday as your modesty suggests? I fear Chatty and I in our quietness would scarcely repay the long journey. But Minnie is with us (with her husband), and she was always a much more practical person than her mother. She has just been suggesting to me that Theo has now the command of covers more interesting from the sportsman point of view than our old thicket at the Warren. If, therefore, you really feel inclined to come down for a few days, there will, it appears, be a real inducement⁠—something more in a young man’s way than the tea-parties at Highcombe. So bring your gun, and let it be from Monday to Saturday instead of the other way.

We think of our brief campaign in town with great pleasure, and a strong sense of obligation to you who did so much for the pleasure of it. Most truly yours,

M. Warrender.

She sent this epistle off with great satisfaction, yet a little sense of guilt, that same evening, taking particular care to give it to the parlour maid with her own hand, lest Chatty should see the address. It was already September, and the time of the partridges had begun.

XXXIX

When the ladies left London, Dick Cavendish had felt himself something like a wreck upon the shore. The season was very near its end, and invitations no longer came in dozens. To be sure there were a great many other wrecks whose society made life tolerable; but he felt himself out of heart, out of temper, seized by that sudden disgust with life in general which is often the result of the departure of one person who has given it a special interest. It was a strong effect to be produced by Chatty’s unpretending personality, but it affected him more than if she had been in herself a more striking personage. For it was not so much that her presence made a blank in any of the gay scenes that still remained, but that she suggested another kind of scene altogether. He felt that to say it was a bore to go out was no longer that easy fiction which it usually is. It was a bore to go out into those aimless assemblies where not to go was a social mistake, yet to go was weariness of the flesh and spirit. In the midst of them his thoughts would turn to the little group in Half Moon Street which had made the commonplace drawing-room of the lodging-house into a home. Chatty over her muslin work⁠—he laughed to himself when he thought of it. It was not lovely; there was no poetry about it; the little scissors and sharp pointed blade that made the little holes; the patient labour that sewed them round. So far as he was aware there was not much use in the work, and no prettiness at all; a lover might linger over an embroidery frame, and rave of seeing the flowers grow under her hand; but the little checkered pattern of holes⁠—there was nothing at all delightful in that. Yet he thought of it, which was amazing, and laughed at himself, then thought of it again. He was not what could be called of the domestic order of man. He had “knocked about,” he had seen all sorts of things and people, and to think that his heart should be caught by Chatty and her muslin work! He was himself astonished and amused, but so it was. He could not take kindly to anything now that she was gone, and even in the rapidity of the last expiring efforts of the season, he felt himself yawn and think of quite another scene: of a little house to go home to, and say what a bore it was, while Chatty took out her muslin work. He was