“Decima ought to have told me,” was all the reply given by Lady Verner.
“And Decima would have told you, at all hazards, but for my urgent entreaties. The blame is wholly mine, Lady Verner. You must forgive me.”
“In what lay the objection of Sir Rufus?” she asked.
“I honestly believe that it arose entirely from that dogged self-will—may I be forgiven for speaking thus irreverently of my dead father!—which was his great characteristic through life. It was I who chose Decima, not he; and therefore my father opposed it. To Decima and to Decima’s family he could not have any possible objection—in fact he had not. But he liked to oppose his will to mine. I—if I know anything of myself—am the very reverse of self-willed, and I had always yielded to him. No question, until this, had ever arisen that was of vital importance to my life and its happiness.”
“Sir Rufus may have resented her want of fortune,” remarked Lady Verner.
“I think not. He was not a covetous or a selfish man; and our revenues are such that I can make ample settlements on my wife. No, it was the self-will. But it is all over, and I can openly claim her. You will give her to me, Lady Verner?”
“I suppose I must,” was the reply of my lady. “But people have been calling her an old maid.”
Sir Edmund laughed.
“How they will be disappointed! Some of their eyes may be opened to-night. I shall not deem it necessary to make a secret of our engagement now.”
“You must permit me to ask one question, Sir Edmund. Have you and Decima corresponded?”
“No. We separated for the time entirely. The engagement existing in our own hearts alone.”
“I am glad to hear it. I did not think Decima would have carried on a correspondence unknown to me.”
“I am certain that she would not. And for that reason I never asked her to do it. Until I met Decima to-night, Lady Verner, we have had no communication with each other since I left. But I am quite sure that neither of us has doubted the other for a single moment.”
“It has been a long while to wait,” mused Lady Verner, as they entered the presence of Decima, who started up to receive them.
When they returned to the rooms, Sir Edmund with Decima, Lady Verner by her daughter’s side, the first object that met their view was Jan—Jan at a ball! Lady Verner lifted her eyebrows: she had never believed that Jan would really show himself where he must be so entirely out of place. But there Jan was: in decent dress, too: black clothes, and a white neckcloth and gloves. Jan’s great hands laid hold of both Sir Edmund’s.
“I’m uncommon glad you are back!” cried he—which was his polite phrase for expressing satisfaction.
“So am I, Jan,” heartily answered Sir Edmund. “I have never had a real friend, Jan, since I left you.”
“We can be friends still,” said plain Jan.
“Ay,” said Sir Edmund, meaningly, “and brothers.” But the last word was spoken in Jan’s ear alone, for they were in a crowd now.
“To see you here, very much surprises me, Jan,” remarked Lady Verner, asperity in her tone. “I hope you will contrive to behave properly.”
Lady Mary Elmsley, then standing with them, laughed.
“What are you afraid he should do, Lady Verner?”
“He was not made for society,” said Lady Verner, with asperity.
“Nor society for me,” returned Jan good-humouredly. “I’d rather be watching a case of fever.”
“Oh, Jan!” cried Lady Mary, laughing still.
“So I would,” repeated Jan. “At somebody’s bedside, in my easy coat, I feel at home. And I feel that I am doing good; that’s more. This is nothing but waste of time.”
“You hear?” appealed Lady Verner to them, as if Jan’s avowal were a passing proof of her assertion—that he and society were antagonistic to each other. “I wonder you took the thought to attire yourself decently,” she added, her face retaining its strong vexation. “Had anybody asked me, I should have given it as my opinion that you had not things fit to appear in.”
“I have got these,” returned Jan, looking down at his clothes. “Won’t they do? It’s my funeral suit.”
The unconscious matter-of-fact style of Jan’s avowal was beyond everything. Lady Verner was struck dumb, Sir Edmund smiled, and Mary Elmsley laughed outright.
“Oh, Jan!” said she, “you’ll be a child all your days. What do you mean by your ‘funeral suit’?”
“Anybody might know that,” was Jan’s answer to Lady Mary. “It’s the suit I keep for funerals. A doctor is always getting asked to attend them: and if he does not go, he offends the people.”
“You might have kept the information to yourself,” rebuked Lady Verner.
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” asked Jan. “Aren’t they good enough to come in?”
He turned his head round, to get a glance at the said suit behind. Sir Edmund laid his hand affectionately on his shoulder. Young as Jan had been before Edmund Hautley went out, they had lived close friends.
“The clothes are all right, Jan. And if you had come without a coat at all, you would have been equally welcome to me.”
“I should not have gone to this sort of thing anywhere else, you know: it is not in my line, as my mother says. I came to see you.”
“And I would rather see you, Jan, than anybody else in the room—with one exception,” was the reply of Sir Edmund. “I am sorry not to see Lionel.”
“He couldn’t come,” answered Jan. “His wife turned crusty, and said she’d come if he did—something of that—and so he stayed at home. She is very ill, and she wants to ignore it, and go out all the same. It is not fit she should.”
