“M’m,” said Dawkins. Words can hardly express the extent of his relief. “You know it was very naughty of you, don’t you?”
“Y—yes,” said Nina.
Dawkins racked his brains for something else to say, but the words did not come too easily, especially as he had a feeling that incidents of this kind constituted the better part of “education” in its wide sense. “I hope you will tell Miss Willow that you are sorry, on Monday.” Dawkins felt the inadequacy of this even as he said it.
“I don’t think I am sorry,” said Nina.
And then Dawkins saw an avenue of approach, and took it desperately.
“But it was very rude of you to laugh when Miss Willow and Miss—er—Shorter were talking to you,” he said. “It’s worse than yawning and all the other things Miss Lamb tells you about. It’s very rude.”
“Um. Yes. I hadn’t thought of that,” said Nina.
“Well, that’s what you had better apologize about. Go up to Miss Willow and Miss Shorter and say you’re sorry you were so rude to them.”
It is doubtful whether even this line of argument would have been very convincing to Nina if she had not caught the gleam in Dawkins’ eye. There was a sort of twinkle there—it was the winking of the augur. Nina grinned at Dawkins, and Dawkins grinned back helplessly.
“Righto,” said Nina. “That’s what I’ll do. Oh, and I do want some tea.”
And that was all Dawkins could manage in the way of correction in the matter. He could not see anything evil in Nina’s behavior on that occasion, and it was more than he could manage to simulate indignation—with Nina looking at him with the eyes of the Hawk, that is to say. Nevertheless he felt justified in writing to Miss Willow that he had spoken very seriously indeed to Nina on the subject of her behavior and that he hoped he had brought her to reason, as her apologies would prove. But even as he wrote his mouth twisted as he drew a mental comparison between his present activities and those of a year ago. He preferred the present ones.
Chapter XVIII
Betty Slaughter was a plump and jolly little girl, so plump indeed that the sight of her rounded contours had made Miss Willow’s palm itch during that deplorable interview in her room. She and Nina were bosom friends, and no one, noting, as Dawkins did, her solidity both mental and physical, could have any doubt at all about who had taken the initiative in the campaign of reprisals against IIIB.
Betty was the only child of her mother who was a widow; and Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter (Betty had to put up with an abbreviated surname owing to the school rule against hyphens) was a fairly well-known figure in the second circle of Gilding society. We may take it for granted that she had already heard from her daughter about her friend Nina Royle and had not taken much notice. But later, just before the grand catastrophe described in the last chapter, she had found that Nina Royle was the ward of Mr. Dawkins, and her interest increased enormously. For prominent in Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter’s set were the manager and the first cashier of the Gilding branch of the National County Bank, and both these gentlemen were married and not entirely discreet —and they were exceedingly interested in Mr. Henry Dawkins of the Other House.
For several months now Mr. Dawkins had entered the Gilding branch at fairly regular intervals of a few weeks, and had paid in large sums of money—anything between five thousand and twenty thousand pounds at a time, mainly in checks but partly in three months’ bills which he had discounted. Nearly all this money Mr. Dawkins had invested in gilt-edged securities of a range which excited the manager’s respect; he owned British Government stock and Corporation loans and Dominion stock, Egyptian and Soudanese loans, and few of the really secure securities such as bank shares and brewing debentures. So far the stream of investment showed no signs of coming to an end, and the manager and the cashier had ceased to expect an end and had begun to look upon Mr. Dawkins as a man with an income averaging ten thousand pounds a month—which was a very considerable income even for Gilding, round which clustered the sub-suburban palaces of a score of millionaires. The general ignorance about Mr. Dawkins excited gossip, and gossip had little enough to go on. But it sufficed that Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter should know that Mr. Dawkins was reputed to be immensely rich and that his ward should be a friend of her daughter. Miss Willow’s letter to her regarding Betty’s deplorable conduct arrived at the psychological moment. Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter girded up her loins and set out on the campaign which she sketched out to herself brilliantly, and which was devised to end a troublous widowhood on a despicably small pension.
Mr. Dawkins was quite pleasantly surprised one afternoon at the Other House when Mary the maid brought in a card inscribed “Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter.” He had the lady brought in to the drawing-room, and nervously ordered tea, feeling heartily uncomfortable that Miss Lamb should have gone shopping in Gilding. He did not know that Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter had made sure of this by actual observation before she called.
One glimpse of Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter revealed the origin of that comfortable plumpness on Betty’s part which has already been remarked. For Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter, if she could hardly be called fat, was at least substantially covered. But she was over average height, and well gowned and hatted—and corseted, for that expression regarding the girding of her loins was by no means figurative. She made a fine figure of a woman in consequence as she came forward to Mr. Dawkins and tendered him a small plump hand in an elegant glove.
“I hope you won’t think too badly of me, Mr. Dawkins,” she said, “for calling on you in this fashion, but I felt I simply had to come and talk over with you this very unfortunate business at the school, about your ward and my daughter, you know.”
“Oh—er—yes, of course,” said Mr. Dawkins, at last forming a mental connection between Betty Slaughter and this magnificent Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter. “Won’t you sit down?”
Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter sat down and looked about her while the maid brought in tea. The house was small, of course, but not too small. It was furnished quite expensively in very good taste; there were signs of a fair-sized domestic staff; the gardens, as far as her lightning glance before entering the house could tell, were well kept, and Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter well knew what a sure indication of the financial barometer this was; and she had seen a gardener and a boy at work in them. She also knew the make and price of Mr. Dawkins’ car. Altogether she deduced, very soundly, that there must be plenty of money in the establishment, although she had to admit that if rumor spoke truly regarding his wealth Mr. Dawkins was not spending one twentieth of his income. However, she was satisfied that she would have no cause to regret it if her pension were to lapse on her remarriage.
“Won’t you have some tea?” asked Mr. Dawkins.
“Thank you.”
“And—er—hadn’t you better pour out?”
“Of course, if you like.”
Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter busied herself very efficiently with the tea things.
“Milk? Sugar? Thank you, I will have some toast.”
Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter had very white plump hands (oh, the care she lavished on them every day) with pink fingernails like daggers. They were rather fascinating hands, and their owner displayed them to the best advantage. In fact, Dawkins’ attention was riveted so closely upon them that he had to recall himself with a jerk.
“It was a very bad shock for me, Mr. Dawkins,” she said, “when that letter arrived saying that Betty was liable to expulsion. I suppose Miss Willow wrote to you in the same way? I was most unhappy at the thought of my daughter’s future being jeopardized like that, until she came home and told what had really happened. But Betty was full of admiration for your Nina, Mr. Dawkins.”
This last sentence was the first of a well-planned series. Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter wanted to find out all Mr. Dawkins’ soft spots as quickly as possible. She could not properly appreciate the state of mind of a grown man who could be deeply interested about an eleven-year-old girl, but of course it was possible. And Mr. Dawkins’ pleased smile a
nd nervous movement told her that it was true enough, and that one way to his heart was a proper interest in Nina. She resolved to play for safety and keep to the topic until further developments occurred spontaneously.
“Of course,” she said, “I expect Betty was just as responsible for what happened as Nina was. It’s very difficult, isn’t it, to get to the bottom of children’s naughtiness? I tried for a long time to get out of Betty why she did all that, but she wouldn’t say anything except that she and Nina ‘thought they would.’”
“It was some kind of a feud, I believe,” said Dawkins, in the careful accent he was learning from Miss Lamb, “between their form and some other form.”
“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter, “I found out in the end that something like that was the matter”—actually she had made no attempt at all, not being interested in Betty’s behavior—“but I should like to know why it was our two girls who had to do it, and not any of the others.”
It was beyond Dawkins’ will or capacity to explain that the Hawk’s daughter could hardly help taking the lead in a feud. But he had a curiously grateful feeling about the “our” which Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter had deliberately employed. It almost elevated him to respectable parenthood.
“These things are very much a matter of chance, I suppose,” he said.
“Yes, I suppose so. But it would have been dreadful if Miss Willow had really expelled Betty. I can’t think what I should have done. Children are a great worry, Mr. Dawkins, don’t you think so? Or haven’t you had enough experience to judge?”
“No—er—I’m not married.”
That was just what Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter had wanted to make sure about.
“It was very brave of you, then, to look after Nina like this. She was the daughter of a relation, I suppose?”
“No, of a very great friend of mine who died.”
“How sad! And does Nina resemble her very much?”
“Oh, I only knew her father—he was the friend I spoke about.”
Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter added to her mental dossier that Nina, at any rate, was not connected directly or indirectly with any affair of Mr. Dawkins’ heart—she realized that her most formidable rival to the affection of this bachelor of nearly forty would be a sentimental recollection. Her hopes and her spirits were rising every moment.
She led the conversation dexterously this way and that, exploring tentatively all Dawkins’ tastes and tendencies and found them peculiarly unsatisfactory. He had no soul for art or literature or music, seemingly. He did not hunt—that she knew already. He played golf, but Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter, looking keenly at him under lowered eyelids in the way she had, could not detect any glow of enthusiasm for the game. He did not play bridge, and that was a pity, for Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter was the best player in Gilding, and her winnings paid her laundry bills. Apparently he did some work, but his remarks about it were vague and unsatisfactory, beyond the information conveyed that it took up only half his time—she could not, of course, be expected to realize that his remarks were so vague because he was rather shy about owning to an interest in charitable work. Search whichever way she would, she could not find any enthusiasms anywhere in the man save for the hardly credible one about Nina. That gave her a better measure of the task before her; it is far more difficult to entrap a man who has no enthusiasms to run away with him.
Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter was about to take her departure to give herself an opportunity to digest the data she had collected when they heard fresh arrivals at the door. They were Nina and Miss Lamb, come home on the afternoon bus, the one from school and the other from shopping. Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter smiled sweetly at them as Dawkins awkwardly made the introductions. She eyed Miss Lamb straightly, for in her, at first, she sensed a possible rival, or at least an enemy. But one glance at the thick spectacles, at the trace of gray just appearing in her hair, at the untouched-up lips and hardly-powdered cheeks, at the flat bosom and unassertive manner satisfied her, and she dropped Miss Lamb contemptuously out of mind. But Nina was different. She stood at Miss Lamb’s side, both of them rather wordless in consequence of the surprise of finding an elegant lady visitor in the drawing-room. Nina’s clean palate detected through her dilated nostrils an unaccustomed scent in the room, a very feminine, elegant scent which Nina instantly decided to dislike for the rest of her life. She decided, too, instinctively that she disliked Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter’s plump, well-corseted figure, and her well-massaged cheeks, and her pretty hands with their cruel nails. In fact there was nothing about Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter of which Nina even faintly approved. And all because of the friendly, familiar attitudes of Dawkins and Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter on either side of the tea-table as she entered the room.
Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter, on the other hand, did not bother her mind about whether she liked Nina or not. She paid no attention to the long chin and the steady gray eyes. All she wanted to do was to receive Nina in a fashion which would please Dawkins. She made the attempt prettily enough.
“So this is Nina,” she said, both hands out, with a pretty modulation of her contralto voice, “I’ve heard such a lot about you from Betty. I’m Betty’s mother.”
Nina reluctantly gave her one hand and suffered herself to be drawn effusively into range and pecked upon the cheek.
“Of course, you and Betty are great friends,” said Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter. “You must come and see us quite soon.”
As she spoke she half-included, by her gesture, Mr. Dawkins, but not Miss Lamb, who was accustomed, of course, to similar omissions.
“Thank you,” said Nina soberly, apparently not overwhelmed by the prospect.
“And now,” said Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter, “I must run off. Good-by, Miss er—er. Good-by, Nina, dear. Good-by, Mr. Dawkins. Our little talk has quite put new hope into me. Thank you so much. Oh, please don’t bother——”
Her voice died away down the hall as Mr. Dawkins overrode her half-hearted protests and escorted her to the door. Miss Lamb and Nina looked at each other. They heard the conversation at the door bubble up again momentarily, and they heard Mr. Dawkins come back for his hat. Then they heard the purr of the motor-car engine being started, and the sound of the wheels on the gravel. Mr. Dawkins had not been so churlish as not to offer his caller a lift back into the town. Miss Lamb sought to keep her features expressionless as she rang the bell for more tea, but she was unsuccessful. Nina was much too acute for her.
Chapter XIX
Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter had no wish to rush matters. She said little to Mr. Dawkins while at his side in the car, and she stopped him and got out on the very outskirts of Gilding, on the plea that she had other calls to make. She contented herself with a brilliant opening of her dark eyes as she said good-by to him on the pavement. Then she hastened away, leaving Dawkins to stare after her for a second or two before climbing back into the car.
He was by no means a bad-looking man, she said to herself as she walked away. She always liked blue eyes, and even if his hair wasn’t golden there was a lot of life and light in it. His manner was rather brusk and shy, but that wouldn’t matter much, and he had obviously a nice quiet taste in good clothes. As far as outward appearance went he would be a highly satisfactory husband; those burly shoulders of his and his towering figure would attract attention wherever they went. He had money enough, too, seemingly. And clearly he was a bit of a fool, which would be an advantage. But he was not a bit foolish, for all that. She would have to be very careful. No use pretending she was much younger than she actually was—with a twelve-year-old daughter to give her the lie. He could do simple addition as well as the next man. She would have to own to thirty-two at least. And on second thoughts she would own to her full age of thirty-five. That was a sacrifice, seeing that she did not look a day more than a full-bosomed twenty-nine. But it was a sacrifice well worth making, for he was the sort of man to whom honesty and frankness would appeal—and to whom thirty-five would appeal too. That just showed what a clever woman Mrs. Gateson-Slaugh
ter was. She let herself into her little house in a side street off Gilding High Street with her latch-key. Betty was there, and she looked up eagerly from her home work at the sound of the key and ran to greet her. But Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter put her aside.
“Oh, don’t bother me, please,” she said. “You know I don’t like fussing about.”
Mr. Dawkins drove back in a curiously disturbed state of mind. It was the first time in all his life that he had been in equal social contact with a woman of Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter’s apparent class. He had not as yet even had much to do with the semidowdy lady members of the golf club. This superb woman of the splendid eyes and assured bearing, humanized by motherly love, was something different. He could jest with and be beloved by the slatternly, too-fecund mothers of the settlement; he could associate without awkwardness, but with an unconscious shy courtesy which left memories laden with regrets, with the hardened women of the streets who had shared his reckless moments, but he realized that normally he would be very discomposed by contact with a lady who knew she was a lady. But he had been perfectly at ease with Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter directly after the first plunge. And those exquisite hands of hers! Mr. Dawkins knew men’s hands, and chapped coarsened hands, and Nina’s brown paws, and Miss Lamb’s unobtrusive thin hands, although he had never paid much attention to these last. But he had never known hands like Mrs. Gateson-Slaughter’s before—so knowledgeable and cared-for, worldly-wise sort of hands, masterful hands and yet completely feminine. And that faint suspicion of fulness about her hips and throat—that tiniest hint of fleshiness! It brought a whole train of rose-colored thoughts, quite formless, into Mr. Dawkins’ mind. They surged through his brain so suddenly that he had to take a grip on himself with a start and lighten the pressure on the accelerator pedal. That kind of thought was hardly compatible with driving along a main road. He came carefully back to the Other House.