A Change of Air

CHAPTER III.

Denborough Determines to Call

"I will awake the world," Dale Bannister had once declared in the insolence of youth and talent and the privacy of a gathering of friends. The boast was perhaps as little absurd in his mouth as it could ever be; yet it was very absurd, for the world sleeps hard, and habit has taught it to slumber peacefully through the batterings of impatient genius at its door. At the most, it turns uneasily on its side, and, with a curse at the meddlesome fellow, snores again. So Dale Bannister did not awake the world. But, within a month of his coming to Littlehill, he performed an exploit which was, though on a smaller scale, hardly less remarkable. He electrified Market Denborough, and the shock penetrated far out into the surrounding districts of Denshire – even Denshire, which, remote from villas and season-tickets, had almost preserved pristine simplicity. Men spoke with low-voiced awe and appreciative twinkling of the eye of the "doings" at Littlehill: their wives thought that they might be better employed; and their children hung about the gates to watch the young man and his guests come out. There was disappointment when no one came to church from Littlehill; yet there would have been disappointment if anyone had: it would have jarred with the fast-growing popular conception of the household. To the strictness of Denborough morality, by which no sin was leniently judged save drunkenness, Littlehill seemed a den of jovial wickedness, and its inhabitants to reck nothing of censure, human or divine.

As might be expected by all who knew him, the Mayor had no hand in this hasty and uncharitable judgment. London was no strange land to him; he went up four times a year to buy his stock; London ways were not Denshire ways, he admitted, but, for all that, they were not to be condemned offhand nor interpreted in the worst light without some pause for better knowledge.

"It takes all sorts to make a world," said he, as he drank his afternoon draught at the "Delane Arms," where the civic aristocracy was wont to gather.

"He's free enough and to spare with 'is money," said Alderman Johnstone, with satisfaction.

"You ought to know, Johnstone," remarked the Mayor significantly.

"Well, I didn't see no 'arm in him," said Mr. Maggs, the horse-dealer, a rubicund man of pleasant aspect; "and he's a rare 'un to deal with."

Interest centered on Mr. Maggs. Apparently he had spoken with Dale Bannister.

"He's half crazy, o' course," continued that gentleman, "but as pleasant-spoken, 'earty a young gent as I've seen."

"Is he crazy?" asked the girl behind the bar.

"Well, what do you say? He came down a day or two ago, 'e and 'is friend, Mr. 'Ume – "

"Hume," said the Mayor, with emphasis. The Mayor, while occasionally following the worse, saw the better way.

"Yes, 'Ume. Mr. Bannister wanted a 'orse. 'What's your figger, sir?' says I. He took no notice, but began looking at me with 'is eyes wide open, for all the world as if I'd never spoke. Then he says, 'I want a 'orse, broad-backed and fallen in the vale o' years.' Them was 'is very words."

"You don't say?" said the girl.

"I never knowed what he meant, no more than that pint-pot; but Mr. 'Ume laughed and says, 'Don't be a fool, Dale,' and told me that Mr. Bannister couldn't ride no more than a tailor – so he said – and wanted a steady, quiet 'orse. He got one from me – four-and-twenty years old, warranted not to gallop. I see 'im on her to day – and it's lucky she is quiet."

"Can't he ride?"

"No more than" – a fresh simile failed Mr. Maggs, and he concluded again – "that pint-pot. But Mr. 'Ume can. 'E's a nice set on a 'orse."

The Mayor had been meditating. He was a little jealous of Mr. Maggs' superior intimacy with the distinguished stranger, or perhaps it was merely that he was suddenly struck with a sense of remissness in his official duties.

"I think," he announced, "of callin' on him and welcomin' him to the town."

There was a chorus of approbation, broken only by a sneer from Alderman Johnstone.

"Ay, and take 'im a bottle of that cod-liver oil of yours at two-and-three. 'E can afford it."

"Not after payin' your bill, Johnstone," retorted the Mayor, with a triumphant smile. A neat repartee maketh glad the heart of the utterer.

The establishment at Littlehill and the proper course to be pursued in regard to it were also the subject of consideration in circles more genteel even than that which gathered at the "Delane Arms." At Dirkham Grange itself the topic was discussed, and Mr. Delane was torn with doubts whether his duty as landlord called upon him to make Dale Bannister's acquaintance, or his duty as custodian-general of the laws and proprieties of life in his corner of the world forbade any sanction being given to a household of which such reports were on the wing. People looked to the Squire, as he was commonly called, for guidance in social matters, and he was aware of the responsibility under which he lay. If he called at Littlehill, half the county would be likely enough to follow his example. And perhaps it might not be good for half the county to know Dale Bannister.

"I must consider the matter," he said at breakfast.

"Well, one does hear strange things," remarked Mrs. Delane. "And aren't his poems very odd, George?"

The Squire had not accorded to the works referred to a very close study, but he answered offhand:

"Yes, I hear so; not at all sound in tone. But then, my dear, poets have a standard of their own."

"Of course, there was Byron," said Mrs. Delane.

"And perhaps we mustn't be too hard on him," pursued the Squire. "He's a very young man, and no doubt has considerable ability."

"I dare say he has never met anybody."

"I'm sure, papa," interposed Miss Janet Delane, "that it would have a good effect on him to meet us."

Mr. Delane smiled at his daughter.

"Would you like to know him, Jan?" he asked.

"Of course I should! He wouldn't be dull, at all events, like most of the men about here, Tora Smith said the Colonel meant to call."

"Colonel Smith is hardly in your father's position, my dear."

"Oh, since old Smith had his row with the War Office about that pension, he'll call on anybody who's for upsetting everything. It's enough for him that a man's a Radical."

"Tora means to go, too," said Janet.

"Poor child! It's a pity she hasn't a mother," said Mrs. Delane.

"I think I shall go. We can drop him if he turns out badly."

"Very well, my dear, as you think best."

"I'll walk over on Sunday. I don't suppose he objects to Sunday calls."

"Not on the ground that he wants to go to church, at all events," remarked Mrs. Delane.

"Perhaps he goes to chapel, mamma."

"Oh, no, my dear, he doesn't do that." Mrs. Delane was determined to be just.

"Well, he was the son of a Dissenting minister, mamma. The Critic said so."

"I wonder what his father thinks of him," said the Squire, with a slight chuckle, not knowing that death had spared Dale's father all chance of trouble on his son's score.

"Mrs. Roberts told me," said Janet, "that her husband had been to see him, and liked him awfully."

"I think Roberts had better have waited," the Squire remarked, with a little frown. "In his position he ought to be very careful what he does."

"Oh, it will be all right if you call, papa."

"It would have been better if he had let me go first."

Mr. Delane spoke with some severity. Apart from his position of overlord of Denborough, which, indeed, he could not but feel was precarious in these innovating days, he thought he had special claims to be consulted by the Doctor. He had taken him up; his influence had gained him his appointment at Dirkham and secured him the majority of his more wealthy clientèle; his good will had opened to the young unknown man the doors of the Grange, and to his wife the privilege of considerable intimacy with the Grange ladies. It was certainly a little hasty in the Doctor not to wait for a lead from the Grange, before he flung himself into Dale Bannister's arms.

All these considerations were urged by Janet in her father's defense when his title to approve, disapprove, or in any way concern himself with Dr. Roberts' choice of friends and associates was vigorously questioned by Tora Smith. Colonel Smith – he had been Colonel Barrington-Smith, but he did not see now what a man wanted with two names – was, since his difference with the authorities, a very strong Radical; on principle he approved of anything of which his friends and neighbors were likely on principle to disapprove. Among other such things, he approved of Dale Bannister's views and works, and of the Doctor's indifference to Mr. Delane's opinion. And, just as Janet was more of a Tory than her father, Tora – she had been unhappily baptized in the absurd names of Victoria Regina in the loyal days before the grievance; but nothing was allowed to survive of them which could possibly be dropped – was more Radical than her father, and she ridiculed the Squire's pretensions with an extravagance which Sir Harry Fulmer, who was calling at the Smiths' when Janet came in, thought none the less charming for being very unreasonable. Sir Harry, however, suppressed his opinion on both these points – as to its being charming, because matters had not yet reached the stage when he could declare it, and as to its being unreasonable, because he was by hereditary right the head of the Liberal party in the district, and tried honestly to live up to the position by a constant sacrifice of his dearest prejudices on the altar of progress.

"I suppose," he said in reply to an appeal from Tora, "that a man has a right to please himself in such things."

"After all papa has done for him! Besides, Sir Harry, you know a doctor ought to be particularly careful."

"What is there so dreadful about Mr. Bannister?" asked Tora. "He looks very nice."

"Have you seen him, Tora?" asked Janet eagerly.

"Yes; we met him riding on such a queer old horse. He looked as if he was going to tumble off every minute; he can't ride a bit. But he's awfully handsome."

"What's he like?"

"Oh, tall, not very broad, with beautiful eyes, and a lot of waving auburn hair; he doesn't wear it clipped like a toothbrush. And he's got a long mustache, and a straight nose, and a charming smile. Hasn't he, Sir Harry?"

"I didn't notice particularly. He's not a bad-looking chap. Looks a bit soft, though."

"Soft? why, he's a tremendous genius, papa says."

"I didn't mean that; I mean flabby and out of training, you know."

"Oh, he isn't always shooting or hunting, of course," said Tora contemptuously.

"I don't suppose," remarked Janet, "that in his position of life, – well, you know, Tora, he's of quite humble birth, – he ever had the chance."

"He's none the worse for that," said Sir Harry stoutly.

"The worse? I think he's the better. Papa is going to ask him here."

"You're quite enthusiastic, Tora."

"I love to meet new people. One sees the same faces year after year in Denshire."

Sir Harry felt that this remark was a little unkind.

"I like old friends," he said, "better than new ones."

Janet rose to go.

"We must wait and hear papa's report," she said, as she took her leave.

Tora Smith escorted her to the door, kissed her, and, returning, said, with a snap of her fingers:

"I don't care that for 'papa's report.' Jan is really too absurd."

"It's nice to see her – "

"Oh, delightful. I hate dutiful people!"

"You think just as much of your father."

"We happen to agree in our opinions, but papa always tells me to use my own judgment. Are you going to see Mr. Bannister?"

"Yes, I think so. He won't hurt me, and he may subscribe to the hunt."

"No; he may even improve you."

"Do I want it so badly, Miss Smith?"

"Yes. You're a weak-kneed man."

"Oh, I say! Look here, you must help me."

"Perhaps I will, if Mr. Bannister is not too engrossing."

"Now you're trying to draw me."

"Was I? And yet you looked pleased. Perhaps you think it a compliment."

"Isn't it one? It shows you think it worth while to – "

"It shows nothing of the kind," said Tora decisively.

Thus, for one reason or another, from one direction and another, there was converging on Littlehill a number of visitors. If your neighbor excites curiosity, it is a dull imagination that finds no plausible reason for satisfying it. Probably there was more in common than at first sight appeared between Mr. Delane's sense of duty, the Mayor's idea of official courtesy, Colonel Smith's contempt for narrowness of mind, Sir Harry Fulmer's care for the interests of the hunt, and Dr. Roberts' frank and undisguised eagerness to see and speak with Dale Bannister face to face.

CHAPTER IV.

A Quiet Sunday Afternoon

To dissolve public report into its component parts is never a light task. Analysis, as a rule, reveals three constituents: truth, embroidery, and mere falsehood; but the proportions vary infinitely. Denborough, which went to bed, to a man, at ten o'clock, or so soon after as it reached home from the public house, said that the people at Littlehill sat up very late; this was truth, at least relative truth, and that is all we can expect here. It said that they habitually danced and sang the night through; this was embroidery; they had once danced and sung the night through, when Dale had a party from London. It said that orgies – if the meaning of its nods, winks, and smiles may be summarized – went on at Littlehill; this was falsehood. Dale and his friends amused themselves, and it must be allowed that their enjoyment was not marred, but rather increased, by the knowledge that they did not command the respect of Denborough. They had no friends there. Why should they care for Denborough's approval? Denborough's approval was naught, whereas Denborough's disapproval ministered to the pleasure most of us feel in giving gentle shocks to our neighbors' sense of propriety. No doubt an electric eel enjoys itself. But, after all, if the mere truth must be told, they were mild sinners at Littlehill, the leading spirits, Dale and Arthur Angell, being indeed young men whose antinomianism found a harmless issue in ink, and whose lawlessness was best expressed in meter. A cynic once married his daughter to a professed atheist, on the ground that the man could not afford to be other than an exemplary husband and father. Poets are not trammeled so tight as that, for, as Mrs. Delane remarked, there was Byron, and perhaps one or two more; yet, for the most part, she who marries a poet has nothing worse than nerves to fear. But a little lawlessness will go a long way in the right place, – for example, lawn-tennis on Sunday in the suburbs, – and the Littlehill party extorted a gratifying meed of curiosity and frowns, which were not entirely undeserved by some of their doings, and were more than deserved by what was told of their doings.

After luncheon on Sunday, Mr. Delane had a nap, as his commendable custom was. Then he took his hat and stick and set out for Littlehill. The Grange park stretches to the outskirts of the town, and borders in part on the grounds of Littlehill, so that the Squire had a pleasant walk under the cool shade of his own immemorial elms, and enjoyed the satisfaction of inspecting his own most excellent shorthorns. Reflecting on the elms and the shorthorns, and on the house, the acres, and the family that were his, he admitted that he had been born to advantages and opportunities such as fell to the lot of a few men; and, inspired to charity by the distant church-bell sounding over the meadows, he acknowledged a corresponding duty of lenient judgment in respect of the less fortunate. Thus he arrived at Littlehill in a tolerant temper, and contented himself with an indulgent shake of the head when he saw the gravel fresh marked with horses' hoofs.

"Been riding instead of going to church, the young rascals," he said to himself, as he rang the bell.

A small, shrewd-faced man opened the door and ushered Mr. Delane into the hall. Then he stopped.

"If you go straight on, sir," said he, "through that baize door, and across the passage, and through the opposite door, you will find Mr. Bannister."

Mr. Delane's face expressed surprise.

"Mr. Bannister, sir," the man explained, "don't like visitors being announced, sir. If you would be so kind as walk in – "

It was a harmless whim, and the Squire nodded assent. He passed through the baize door, crossed the passage, and paused before opening the opposite door. The sounds which came from behind it arrested his attention. To the accompaniment of a gentle drumming noise, as if of sticks or umbrellas bumped against the floor, a voice was declaiming, or rather chanting, poetry. The voice rose and fell, and Mr. Delane could not distinguish the words, until it burst forth triumphantly with the lines:

"Good gracious!" said Mr. Delane.

The voice dropped again for a few moments, then it hurled out:

The voice was interrupted and drowned by the crash of the pianoforte, struck with remorseless force, and another voice, the voice of a woman, cried, rising even above the crash:

"Now, one of your own, Dale."

"I think I'd better go in," thought Mr. Delane, and he knocked loudly at the door.

He was bidden to enter by the former of the two voices, and, going in, found himself in a billiard room. Five or six people sat round the wall on settees, each holding a cue, with which they were still gently strumming on the floor. A stout, elderly woman was at the piano, and a young man sat cross-legged in the middle of the billiard-table, with a book in one hand and a cigar in the other. There was a good deal of tobacco smoke in the room, and Mr. Delane did not at first distinguish the faces of the company.

The young man on the table uncoiled himself with great agility, jumped down, and came forward to meet the newcomer with outstretched hands. As he outstretched them, he dropped the book and the cigar to the ground on either side of him.

"Ah, here you are! Delightful of you to come!" he cried. "Now, let me guess you!"

"Mr. Bannister? – Have I the pleasure?"

"Yes, yes. Now let's see – don't tell me your name."

He drew back a step, surveyed Mr. Delane's portly figure, his dignified carriage, his plain solid watch-chain, his square-toed strong boots.

"The Squire!" he exclaimed. "Mr. Delane, isn't it?"

"I am Mr. Delane."

"Good! You don't mind being guessed, do you? It's so much more amusing. What will you have?"

"Thank you, I've lunched, Mr. Bannister."

"Have you? We've just breakfasted – had a ride before, you know. But I must introduce you."

He searched the floor, picked up the cigar, looked at it regretfully, and threw it out of an open window.

"This," he resumed, waving his hand toward the piano, "is Mrs. Ernest Hodge. This is Miss Fane, Mrs. Hodge's daughter – no, not by a first marriage; everybody suggests that. Professional name, you know – she sings. Hodge really wouldn't do, would it, Mrs. Hodge? This is Philip Hume. This is Arthur Angell, who writes verses – like me. This is – but I expect you know these gentlemen?"

Mr. Delane peered through the smoke which Philip Hume was producing from a long pipe, and to his amazement discerned three familiar faces: those of Dr. Roberts, the Mayor, and Alderman Johnstone. The Doctor was flushed and looked excited; the Mayor was a picture of dignified complacency; Johnstone appeared embarrassed and uncomfortable, for his bald head was embellished with a flowery garland. Dale saw Mr. Delane's eyes rest on this article.

"We always crown anybody who adds to our knowledge," he explained. "He gets a wreath of honor. The Alderman added to our knowledge of the expense of building a room. So Miss Fane crowned him."

An appreciative chuckle from the Mayor followed this explanation; he knocked the butt of his cue against the floor, and winked at Philip Hume.

The last-named, seeing that Mr. Delane was somewhat surprised at the company, came up to him and said:

"Come and sit down; Dale never remembers that anybody wants a seat. Here's an armchair."

Mr. Delane sat down next to Miss Fane, and noticed, even in his perturbation, that his neighbor was a remarkably pretty girl, with fair hair clustering in a thick mass on the nape of her neck, and large blue eyes which left gazing on Dale Bannister when their owner turned to greet him. Mr. Delane would have enjoyed talking to her, had not his soul been vexed at the presence of the three Denborough men. One did not expect to meet the tradesmen of the town; and what business had the Doctor there? To spend Sunday in that fashion would not increase his popularity or his practice. And then that nonsense about the wreath! How undignified it was! it was even worse than yelling out Nihilistic verses by way of Sabbath amusement.

"I shall get away as soon as I can," he thought, "and I shall say a word to the Doctor."

He was called from his meditations by Miss Fane. She sat in a low chair with her feet on a stool, and now, tilting the chair back, she fixed her eyes on Mr. Delane, and asked:

"Are you shocked?"

No man likes to admit that he is shocked.

"I am not, but many people would be."

"I suppose you don't like meeting those men?"

"Hedger is an honest man in his way of life. I have no great opinion of Johnstone."

"This is your house, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"All the houses about here are yours, aren't they?"

"Most of them are, Miss Fane."

"Then you are a great man?"

The question was put so simply that Mr. Delane could not suspect a sarcastic intent.

"Only locally," he answered, smiling.

"Have you any daughters?" she asked.

"Yes; one."

"What is she like?"

"Fancy asking her father! I think Janet a beauty."

"Fair or dark?"

"Dark."

"Dale likes dark girls. Tall or short?"

"Tall."

"Good eyes?"

"I like them."

"Oh, that'll do. Dale will like her;" and Miss Fane nodded reassuringly. Mr. Delane had not the heart to intimate his indifference to Dale Bannister's opinion of his daughter.

"Do you know this country?" he asked, by way of conversation.

"We've only been here a week, but we've ridden a good deal. We hold Dale on, you know."

"You are on a visit to Mr. Bannister?"

"Oh, yes, mother and I are here."

Mr. Delane could not help wondering whether their presence was such a matter of course as her tone implied, but before he could probe the matter further, he heard Dale exclaim:

"Oh, it's a wretched thing! Read it yourself, Roberts."

"Mount him on the rostrum," cried the young man who had been presented to Mr. Delane as Arthur Angell, and who had hitherto been engaged in an animated discussion with the Doctor.

Laughing, and only half resisting, the Doctor allowing himself to be hoisted on to the billiard-table, sat down, and announced in a loud voice:

"'Blood for Blood': by Dale Bannister."

The poem which bore this alarming title was perhaps the most outrageous of the author's works. It held up to ridicule and devoted to damnation every person and every institution which the Squire respected and worshiped. And the misguided young man declaimed it with sparkling eyes and emphasizing gestures, as though every wicked word of it were gospel. And to this man's charge were committed the wives and families of the citizens of Denborough! The Squire's self-respect demanded a protest. He rose with dignity, and went up to his host.

"Good-by, Mr. Bannister."

"What? you're not going yet? What? Does this stuff bore you?"