When she found herself beside her father again, he was in conversation with a short, fat, dark man whom he made known to his daughter with a somewhat abstracted air.
“Mr. Duffle, Lucilla.”
She was rather amused at the ease with which Olga’s parentage could be traced, although in her, a retroussé nose replaced the wide and upturned pug of her father, and her dark, intelligent gaze was an unmistakably improved edition of his shrewd black eyes. From both faces shone the same ardent, restless, and essentially animal, vitality.
Mr. Duffle, however, had none of Olga’s claims to social charms and talents. Lucilla knew him to be a successful building contractor, who had amassed a fortune during the war, and decided that he looked the part.
“I’ll come along one morning then, Canon, and have a little chat with you,” Mr. Duffle was declaring with a breezy assurance that could hardly have been derived from the Canon’s expression.
“You’re kept pretty hard at it, I daresay?”
“The man who wants me is the man I want,” quoted the Canon, with his grave smile.
“Capital. I’ll blow along then, and give you a call.
My big car is in London, but we’ve got a little Daimler down here that does very well for country lanes. My daughter, of course, runs her own little two-seater. These young people, nowadays, there’s no end to what they expect. Not that I grudge Olga anything in reason, you understand. She’s our only one, and naturally her mother and I think the world of her.”
A very simple pride beamed in his face as he spoke of Olga, and Lucilla congratulated him upon her acting.
“She’s pretty good, isn’t she? I believe she could take her place amongst professionals any day, so she tells me. But of course we shouldn’t hear of anything like that for her. In fact, her mother and I look very high for our little girl, very high indeed,
I may say, after all that Nature’s done for her, and the advantages we’ve given her as well.”
He laughed heartily, and then leaning confidentially towards Lucilla he said in a semi-whisper:
“Whoever gets our little Olga, young lady, will be a very lucky fellow. There’ll be a little bit of—” he tapped his forehead knowingly “and a little bit of—” the tap was repeated, against his coat pocket this time. Lucilla required no very acute powers of intuition to refer these demonstrations to her brother’s intention.
She wondered whether the Canon had made a similar deduction.
He was silent during their long drive home, but it was the silence of thoughtfulness rather than that of depression. The Canon’s intimates could generally interpret without difficulty the nature of his silences.
On the morning following he called Lucilla into the study.
“I had no word with Adrian last night,” he said wistfully. “I saw you talking to him, my dear. Did he tell you what day he is coming home again?”
“No, Father.”
“I confess that I am perturbed. Are these new friends of his gentlefolk, are they church people, are they even Christians?” said the Canon, walking up and down. “If only the boy would be more unreserved with me! One is so terribly anxious.”
“I don’t think he wants to be reserved. He really has no serious suggestion to offer, as to the future.”
“My poor lad! He is not sufficiently in earnest. I have blinded myself to it long enough. His early piety and simplicity were so beautiful that perhaps I dwelt upon them as tokens of future growth more than I should have done. But there was a levity of tone about these intimates of his that displeased me greatly. It must cease, Lucilla — this intercourse must cease.” Lucilla dreaded few things more than such resolutions, from which she knew that her father, at whatever cost to himself or to anybody else, never swerved. “The Admastons are neighbours,” she pointed out. “All the more reason for Adrian to be content to meet them in the ordinary course of events, without treating their house as an hotel. But there is a further attraction, Lucilla, I am convinced of it.”
The Canon dropped his voice to impart his piece of penetration.
“That little Miss Duffle is undoubtedly attractive, but can the boy have the incredible folly to be paying his addresses to her?”
It did not seem to Lucilla that any such formal term could possibly be applied to Adrian’s highly modern methods of displaying his admiration for Olga, and she informed her father so with decision.
“He must at all events be aware that he is in no position to render any young lady conspicuous by his attentions,” said the Canon. “I am displeased with Adrian, Lucilla.”
Canon Morchard was not alone in his displeasure. Two days after the theatricals, Olga Duffle’s father appeared at St. Gwenllian, and was shown into the study.
The Canon greeted him, his habitual rather stately courtesy in strong contrast to his visitor’s bluff curtness of manner.
“Sit you down, my dear sir.”
The Canon took his own place on the revolving chair before the writing-table, and the tips of his fingers were lightly joined together as he bent his gaze, benignant, and yet serious, upon the little building-contractor.
“You’ve got a nice little old place here. Needs a lot of seeing to, though, I daresay. I see you haven’t the electric light.”
The Canon glanced round him as though he had hardly noticed, as indeed he had not, the absence of this modern advantage.
“It wouldn’t cost you more than a couple of hundred to put it in,” said Mr. Duffle negligently.
The Canon was not in the least interested in the problematical expense to be thus incurred, but he replied gently that perhaps one of these days his successor might wish to improve St. Gwenllian, and be in a position to do so.
“Ah,” said Mr. Duffle. “That brings me to my point, in a roundabout sort of way. Your young man, Canon, has no particular inheritance to look forward to, if I understand rightly?”
“My young man?”
“Your boy Adrian. Not even your eldest son, is he?”
“Adrian is the youngest of my five children,” said the Canon with peculiar distinctness. “I have two sons and three daughters. May I enquire the reason of this interest in my family?”
“No offense, I hope, Canon. I thought you’d have guessed the reason fast enough — my girl Olga. Now mind you, I know very well that boys will be boys, and girls girls, for the matter of that. I’m not even saying that the little monkey hasn’t led him on a bit — she leads ’em all on, come to that! But Master Adrian has been talking of an engagement, it seems, and that won’t do at all, you know. So I thought you and me, Canon—”
“Stop!” The Canon’s face was rigid. “Am I to understand that your daughter has reason to complain that my son presses undesired attentions upon her, or causes their names to be coupled together in a manner displeasing to her?”
The builder’s stare was one of honest bewilderment.
“Coupled together!” he repeated derisively. “Why, the lad follows her about like a little dog. I should think old Matthew Admaston is as easy going as they make ’em, but even he thought it a bit thick to have your young moon-calf, if you’ll excuse the expression, ‘on his doorstep morning, noon and night, while my girl was in the house, till they had to ask him to stay, to save the front-door bell coming off in his hand.”
Mr. Duffle’s humourous extravagance of imagery awoke no response in Canon Morchard.
“My son’s impertinent folly shall be put a stop to immediately,” he said, through closely compressed lips.
“Bless me! there’s nothing that needs a rumpus made about it, you understand. Only when it comes to prating about being engaged, and promising to marry him in goodness knows how many years, and goodness knows what on — why, then it’s time us older folk stepped in, I think, and I’m sure you’ll agree with me.”
“Do I understand that my son — without reference to me, I may add — has asked Miss Duffle to do him the honour of becoming his wife?”
Mr. Duffle stared at the Canon
blankly.
“Ill though he seems to have behaved, you will hardly expect me to accept, on his behalf, an entire rejection of his suit, without reference to the young lady herself.”
A resounding blow from Mr. Duffle’s open palm onto his knee startled the Canon and made him jump in his chair.
“Good God!” roared the builder, causing Canon Morchard to wince a second time, “is this talk out of a novel? How in the name of all that’s reasonable can the boy marry without a profession or an income? I’ll do him the justice to say that I’ve never thought him a fortune hunter. (He’s not got the guts for that, if you’ll excuse me being so plain-spoken.) He’s besotted about the girl, and not the first one either, though I do say it myself. But my Olga is our only child, and will get every penny I have to leave, and the fact of the matter is that she’ll be a rich woman one of these days, in a manner of speaking. Therefore, Canon, you’ll understand me when I say that Olga can look high — very high, she can look.”
The Canon’s countenance did, indeed, show the most complete comprehension of the case so stated. His face, in its stern pallor, became more cameo-like than ever.
“Sir, do you accuse my son of trifling, of the unutterable meanness of endeavouring to engage a young lady’s affections without any reasonable prospect of asking her in marriage like an honourable man?”
“Bless me, Canon, I don’t accuse the young fellow of anything, except of being a bit of an ass,” said the builder. “I daresay it’s been six of one and half a dozen of the other. He’s a nice-looking boy, and all this play-acting has thrown them together, like; but that’s over now, and Olga comes back to London with us next week. But I thought I’d throw you a hint,” said Mr. Duffle delicately, “so that there’s no nonsense about following us to town, or anything of that sort. Her mother’s going to speak to Olga about it, too. Bless me, it’s not the first time we’ve had to nip a little affair of this sort in the bud. The fellows are round our little girl like flies round a honey-pot. We give her a loose rein, too, in a manner of speaking, but as the wife pointed out to me last night, it only keeps off better chances if a girl is always seen about with lads who don’t mean business.”
The Canon groaned deeply, and Mr. Duffle, fearing himself misunderstood, hastily interposed:
“Don’t run away with the idea that I’ve anything against the boy, now, Canon. I’m sure if he was only a year or two older, in a good job, and with a little something to look to later on, I’d be only too glad of the connection. But as things are, I’m sure as a family man yourself you see my point.’’
He looked almost pleadingly at the Canon as he spoke.
“You did perfectly right to come to me, Mr. Duffle; you did perfectly right. Unspeakably painful though this conversation has been to me, I fully recognize the necessity for it.’’
If Mr. Duffle still looked perplexed, he also looked relieved.
“That’s right, Canon. I felt you and me would understand one another. After all, we’ve been young ourselves, haven’t we, and I daresay we’ve chased a pretty pair of ankles or said more than we meant on a moonlight night, both of us, once upon a time.’’
So far did Canon Morchard appear to be from endorsing this view of a joint past that his visitor added an extenuation.
“Of course, before you turned parson, naturally, I mean. I know you take your job seriously, if you’ll excuse me passing a personal remark, and that’s not more than’s needed nowadays. There’s no idea of young Adrian going in for the clerical line, I suppose?’’ “What I have heard today would be enough to convince me that It is out of the question,” said the Canon bitterly. “But my son has evinced no such desire.”
“H’m. There was some nonsense talked amongst the young people about a fat living at Stear being ready for him if he chose to step into it. I daresay there was nothing in it but a leg-pull, as they say. In any case, my girl wouldn’t look at a country parson. No offence to you, Canon, but it’s best to have these things out in plain English.”
“Enough,” said the Canon with decision. “You may rest assured that my son will cease this insensate persecution of—”
“Excuse me interrupting, but why make a mountain out of a molehill? There’s been no persecution or any of that talk out of books, in the case. Why, my Olga can’t help making eyes at a good-looking lad, and letting him squeeze her hand every now and then.”
The Canon gave utterance, irrepressibly, to yet another groan.
Mr. Duffle looked at him with compassion.
“Why make a mountain out of a molehill, as I said before?” he repeated. “There’s been no harm done, except maybe a little gossiping among the Admaston lot, and if you tip the wink to your lad, and mother and I trot Olga back to London again, we needn’t hear any more of it. We’re old-fashioned people, and brought up the child old-fashioned, and she’s not one of these modern young women who can’t live at home. I give her the best of everything, and a pretty long rope, but she knows that as long as she’s living under my roof and spending my money she’s got to obey me and her mother when we do give an order.”
The builder’s face, momentarily dogged, relaxed again and he laughed jovially.
“Though I’m not saying the little puss can’t get most things out of us by coaxing! But we’re set on a good marriage for her, that I tell you straight,”
“There is only one foundation for the sacrament of marriage,” said the Canon sombrely, “and that is mutual love, trust and esteem.”
“Quite, quite; the wife always takes that line herself. ‘When the heart is given, let the hand follow,’ she always says, and Olga knows well enough that she’ll have a free choice, within reason. But love in a cottage isn’t her style, and things being as they are, there’s no reason, as I said before, why she shouldn’t look high. She’s a sensible girl, too, and if there is a bit of the flirt about her, she doesn’t lose her head. I will say that for her.”
“I wish that I could say the same of my son,” bitterly rejoined the Canon.
“Well, well, don’t be too hard on the lad. Human nature is human nature all the world over, is what I always say. All the parsons in Christendom can’t alter that, if you’ll excuse the saying. It’s natural enough your son should lose his head over a pretty girl like my Olga,” said Miss Duffle’s parent indulgently. “All I mean is, that it must stop there, and no nonsense about being engaged, or anything of that kind.”
“Do these unhappy young people consider themselves bound to one another, as far as you know?”
“Bless me, Canon, they’re not unhappy. At least, my Olga certainly isn’t, and if your lad throws off a few heroics, he’ll soon get over it. Why, I remember
threatening to blow out my brains — as I chose to call them — when I was no older than he is, and all for the sake of a lady ten years older than myself, and married and the mother of three, into the bargain!”
Mr. Duffle was moved to hearty laughter at this reminiscence, although it failed signally to produce the same exhilarating effect upon Canon Morchard.
Perhaps in consequence of this, his mirth died away spasmodically, with a rather apologetic effect.
“Well, well, Canon, take a tip from me, if I may suggest such a thing, and don’t take this business too seriously. He’ll be head over ears in love with somebody else before you can look round, and it’ll all be to do over again.”
Before this luminous vista of future amatory escapades, the builder appeared to feel that the interview had better be brought to its conclusion, and he rose.
An evident desire to console and reassure his host possessed him.
“Get the young fellow a job of work, if I may advise. It’s wonderful how it steadies them down. He’ll have no time to run after the petticoats when he’s tied by the leg to an office, or roughing it in one of the Colonies.”
“The choice of a career lies in my son’s own hands,” said the Canon stiffly. “But you may rest assured, Mr. Duffle, that he will be allowed no furth
er occasion for misusing his time and abusing other people’s hospitality as he appears to have been doing. I am obliged to you, painful though this conversation has been to us both, for treating me with so much frankness in the matter.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Mr. Duffle.
The Canon bowed slightly and escorted his visitor to the door.
The Daimler car was in waiting, but the builder paused with one foot on the step.
“I’ll tell you one thing, Canon,” he remarked confidentially.
The Canon, with extreme reluctance in his demeanour, signified attention.
“If you should think of having that little improvement made to the place that I suggested — you know, the electric light put in — I can tell you the very people to go to — Blapton & Co. They’ve done a lot of work for our firm, and they’ll do it as reasonable as you can hope for. Don’t hesitate to mention my name.”
He nodded, and got into the car.
The Canon stood upon the front doorstep, his face pale and furrowed, his lips compressed.
“Stop!” shouted Mr. Duffle, suddenly thrusting his head from the window of the slowly moving car.
The Daimler stopped.
Mr. Duffle descended from it nimbly and once more approached the Canon.
He looked, for the first time, heated and confused.
“It slipped my memory that I wanted to give you this trifle. Perhaps you’ll see to some of those poor fellows who are out of work through no fault of their own, having the handling of it for the wives and kiddies. I’ve been lucky myself, and I never like to leave a place without what I may call some sort of thanksgiving. Not a word, please. Ta-ta.”
The Daimler made another sortie, and the Canon was left, still standing motionless on the doorstep, with the builder’s cheque for twenty-five pounds in his hand.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 225