Fortunately, this was not often. Unlike Wally, White was not a gentleman of leisure, but the manager of a small group of collieries in the district. His daughter, Janet, kept house for him; and he had one son, a few years younger than Janet, who lived at home, and was articled to a solicitor in the neighbouring town of Fritton. Before Wally's marriage to the rich Mrs. Fanshawe, White, whose salary never seemed to cover his expenses, had lived rather uncomfortably in a small villa in the town itself; but when Wally came to live at Palings, it had not taken Harold White long to discover that he was remotely related to him. The rest had been easy. Wally had found a kindred spirit in his connection, and had had very little difficulty in persuading Ermyntrude to lease the Dower House, which happened, providentially, to be unoccupied, to White, at a reduced rental. From this time, insisted Ermyntrude, Wally's increasing predilection for strong drink, and, his flights into the realms of even less respectable pursuits, might fairly be said to date. Harold White encouraged him to drink more than was good for him, prompted him to back horses, and introduced him to undesirable acquaintances.
Mary, who disliked White, yet could not agree with Ermyntrude that he was Wally's ame damne. Having lived with Wally for many more years than had Ermyntrude, she suffered from fewer illusions, and had long since realised that his character lacked moral fibre. He gravitated naturally into low society, and could be trusted upon all occasions to take the line of least resistance. While giving him due credit for having behaved to her with great kindness during the years of his guardianship, Mary knew him too well to allow herself to be blinded to the fact that the small income, advanced quarterly by her trustees to pay for her upkeep and education, had been extremely useful to Wally. Nor could she help regretting sometimes that her father, Wally's uncle, had not chosen to leave her a ward in Chancery rather than the ward of his one surviving relative.
This slightly shamefaced thought was in Mary's mind as she carried her basket of roses into the house. Wally had been a handicap to her during her schooldays; now that she was grown up, and marriageable, he was proving a still greater handicap.
She had denied that any understanding existed between herself and Mr. Hugh Dering, but, although this was strictly true, she could not help feeling that Hugh's interest in her sprang from something more than longstanding acquaintance. There was a bond of very real sympathy between them, and although Dering's residence was in London, where he might be presumed to encounter girls prettier, more attractive, and certainly more eligible than Mary Cliffe, none of these unknown damsels seemed to have captivated his fancy, and whenever he came to stay with his parents, one of his first actions was to seek Mary out. What his mother, who was notoriously easy-going, thought about his predilection for her society, Mary did not know, but that Sir William Dering regarded Wally Carter with disfavour she was well aware. She had been surprised to hear of the Derings' acceptance of Ermyntrude's invitation, for although they were, like everyone else in the neighbourhood, on calling-terms with the Garters, they had never until now accepted nor extended invitations to dinner-parties. Mary wondered whether Hugh was indeed at the bottom of it, for she could not suppose that the presence of a Georgian prince would prove as tempting a bait as Ermyntrude so firmly believed. In this, she slightly misjudged Lady Dering.
Chapter Two
Sit William Dering, whom no one had ever called Bill, was quite as astonished as Mary Cliffe when he discovered that he was to dine at Palings in the immediate future. He bent a stare upon his wife, which was rendered all the more alarming by his bushy eyebrows, and desired to know whether she had taken leave of her senses.
"Not only sane, but sober," replied Lady Dering, quite unimpressed by the martial note in Sir William's voice. "I wouldn't miss it for worlds! The amazing Ermyntrude has dug up a Russian prince!"
"Good God!" ejaculated Sir William. "You're not going to tell me, I trust, that you accepted that invitation for the sake of meeting some wretched foreign prince?"
His wife considered this, a humorous gleam in her pleasant grey eyes. "Well, not quite entirely. I mean, not for the Prince alone. But a Russian prince in that setting! You couldn't expect me to miss anything as rich as that!"
This response, so far from mollifying Sir William, made hire look even more shocked than before. "My dear lluth, aren't you letting your sense of humour carry you too far? Dash it, you can't accept people's hospitality just to make fun of them!"
"Dear old silly!" said Lady Dering affectionately, "I wasn't going to."
"You said-'
"No, darling, far from it. I never make fun of anyone except you. I am just going to be gloriously entertained."
"Well, I don't like it at all. I haven't anything against Mrs. Carter, beyond the fact of her being a damned common woman, made up to the eyes, and reeking of scent, but that fellow, Carter, I bar. We've always kept them at arm's-length, and now Heaven knows what you've let us in for!"
"An occasional invitation to them to dine."
"But why?" demanded Sir William. "Don't tell me it's because of a Russian prince! I never heard such nonsense!"
"Dear William, I like you so much when you're stupid! The amazing Ermyntrude is going to build the hospital for us."
"Mat?"
"Not with her own fair hands, dearest. She's going to give us a really big cheque, though. I don't call a few dinner-parties much of a price to pay."
"I call it disgusting!" said Sir William strongly.
"You may call it what you please, my dear, but you know as well as I do that that's how these things are done. Ermyntrude's a kind soul, but she's no fool, and she has a daughter to launch. I don't in the least mind being useful to her if she'll make our hospital possible."
"Do you mean to tell me you're going to drive some sordid bargain with the woman?"
"Dear me, no! Nothing of the kind. I shall merely tell her how much we all want her to join the committee, and how we hope she and her husband will be free to dine with us next month, to meet Charles and Pussy, when they come to stay. Not a breath of sordidness, I promise you!"
"It makes me sick!" declared Sir William. "You had better go a step further while you are about it, and and tell Carter how delighted we should be to welcome his ward into our family."
"That would be excessive," replied Lady Dering calmly. "Besides, I don't know that I should be altogether delighted."
"You surprise me!" said her lord, with awful sarcasm.
The arrival upon the scene of their son and heir put an end to this particular topic of discussion. Hugh Dering, in grey flannel trousers, and an aged tweed coat, came strolling across the lawn towards them, and sat down beside his mother on the wooden garden seat.
He was a large, and sufficiently good-looking young man, not quite thirty years old, who was engaged in building up a practice at the Chancery Bar. He had his mother's eyes, but his father's stern mouth, and could look extremely pleasant, or equally forbidding, according to the mood of the moment.