The Red Derelict. Mitford Bertram
“In! Why, I thought she might be sleeping off the effects of her efforts yesterday,” said the Squire.
“Not she. She’s adding to them. She’s gone down with Hood to try and capture an early trout.”
“Really!” exclaimed Monsignor. “Is she generally successful, Mr. Haldane?”
“She’s a very fair hand at throwing a fly. Really, though, Monsignor, I’m afraid you’ll think me a doting sort of a driveller on that subject. The fact is, we all spoil her shockingly among us. Wagram doesn’t come far behind me in that line, and the Squire too.”
“I’m not surprised,” answered the prelate. “I think she is without exception the dearest child I have ever seen, and the proof of it is she remains unspoiled through it all. Why, there she is.”
On the lawn she was standing, just handing her trout rod to the old head keeper, who could not refrain from turning his head with a smile of admiration as he walked away. Then she danced up to the window, the pink flush of health in her cheeks, the blue eyes alight with a mischievous challenge.
“Well? What luck, Sunbeam?” said Haldane, who was already at the open window.
“Ah—ah! I wasn’t to get any, was I?” she cried ostentatiously, holding down the lid of her creel. “Well—look.”
She exhibited a brace of beautiful trout, each something over a pound, but in first-rate condition.
“Did you get them yourself?” said Wagram, who liked to tease her occasionally.
“Mr. Wagram! I shall not speak to you for the whole of to-day—no—half of it.”
“I thought possibly Hood might have captured them,” he explained. “Did you say one or both?”
“Now it will be the whole of the day.”
“Well done, little one. Did they fight much?” said Haldane. “You shall tell us about it presently. Cut away now and titivate, because Wagram was threatening to polish off all the strawberries if you weren’t soon in, and I want you to have some.”
“He’d better; that’s all,” was the answer as she danced away, knowing perfectly well that the offender designate would get through the intervening time picking out all the largest and most faultless—looking for her especial delectation. Whereby it is manifest that her father had stated no more than bare fact in asserting that they all combined to spoil her. Equally true, it should be added, was Monsignor Culham’s dictum that they had not succeeded.
“Are my censures removed?” said Wagram as Yvonne entered. “Look at all I have been doing for you,” holding up the plate of strawberries.
“I don’t know. Perhaps they ought to be. I said I wouldn’t speak to you for the whole day. Well, we’ll make it half the day. I’ll begin at lunch-time.”
“Then we’ll say half the strawberries. You shall have the other half at lunch-time.”
“Look at that!” she cried. “Claiming pardon by a threat! You can’t do that, can he, Monsignor?”
“Certainly not,” answered the prelate, entering thoroughly into the fun of the thing; “not for a moment.”
“Roma locuta—causa finita,” pronounced Wagram with mock solemnity, handing her the plate. “Of course, I bow.”
“In that case I must treat you with generosity, and will talk to you now, especially as you are dying to know where and how I got my trout. I got them both, then, within fifty yards of each other; one in the hole below Syndham Bridge, the other at the tail of the hole; one with a Wickham’s Fancy, the other with a small Zulu—”
“Didn’t Hood play them for—?”
“Ssh-h-h! You’ll get into trouble again,” interrupted Yvonne. “You’re repeating the offence, mind.”
“Peccavi.”
“I’ll forgive you again on one condition: I’m just spoiling for a bicycle ride. You shall take me for one this afternoon.”
“Won’t the whole day be enough for you?”
“Not quite. The afternoon will, though.”
“Well, that’ll suit me to a hair. We’ll make a round, and I’ll look in at Pritchett’s farm; I want to see him about something. What do you think, Haldane? Are you on?”
“Very much off, I’m afraid. I sent my machine in to Warren’s to be overhauled. He promised it for yesterday morning, but the traditions of the great British tradesman must be kept up. Wherefore it is not yet here. But you take the child all the same.”
At first Yvonne declared she didn’t want to go under the circumstances, but was overruled.
“I’ve got to go into Fulkston on business, Sunbeam,” said her father, “so I shall be out of mischief, anyhow. I’ll borrow one of the Squire’s gees, if I may.”
“Why, of course,” said the Squire. “You know them all, Haldane. Tell Thompson which you’d rather ride.”
Then the conversation turned to matters ecclesiastical, also, as between the two old gentlemen, reminiscent. They had been schoolfellows in their boyhood, but the clean-shaven, clear-cut face of Monsignor Culham, and the white hair, worn rather long, gave him a much older look than the other; yet there was hardly a year’s difference between them. Both had in common the same tall, straight figure, together with the same kindly geniality of expression.
“I think I shall invite myself this time next year, Grantley,” said the prelate. “It is really a privilege to take part in such a solemnity as we held yesterday. It makes one anticipate time—very much time, I fear—when such is more the rule throughout the country than an isolated and, of course, doubly valued privilege.”
“My dear old friend, I hope you will. Only you must pardon my reminding you that it is for no want of asking on my part that ages have elapsed since you were here. And they have.”
“Well, it certainly wasn’t yesterday, and I concede being in the wrong,” rejoined Monsignor Culham. “But I have been in more than one cathedral church where the solemnities were nothing like so carefully and accurately performed. It was a rare pleasure to take part in these.”
“Here, Wagram, get up and return thanks,” laughed Haldane. “If it weren’t breakfast-time one would have said that Monsignor was proposing your health.”
“The lion’s share of the kudos is due to Father Gayle,” said Wagram. “He and I between us managed to knock together a fairly decent choir for a country place, which includes Haldane, a host in himself, and, incidentally, Yvonne. The rest is easy.”
“ ‘Incidentally Yvonne!’ ” repeated that young person with mock resentment.
“I don’t know about easy,” declared Monsignor Culham. “The fact remains you had got together an outside crowd who weren’t accustomed to singing with each other—over and above your own people.”
“Yes; but we sent word to the convent asking them to practise their children in what we were going to sing—and to practise them out of doors, too. For the rest of those who helped us we trusted to their intuitive gumption.”
“Ah, that’s a good plan,” said the prelate; “there’s too little care given to that sort of thing. Singers on such an occasion are left to sort themselves. Result: discord—hitches innumerable.”
“I know,” said Haldane. “I was on the sanctuary once in a strange church. They were going to have the Te Deum solemnly sung for an occasion. I asked for a book with the square notation score. They had no such thing in their possession, and the consequence was everyone was dividing up the syllables at his own sweet will. It was neither harmonious