"I should not let that trouble you," he said; "there are some here who play worse than you―just one or two. It passes the evening."
It was merely a friendly affair. I paid my twenty marks, and was given plus a hundred. I drew for my first game a chatty type of man, who started minus twenty. We neither of us did much for the first five minutes, and then I made a break of forty-four.
There was not a fluke in it from beginning to end. I was never more astonished in my life. It seemed to me it was the cue was doing it.
Minus Twenty was even more astonished. I heard him as I passed:
"Who handicapped this man?" he asked.
"I did," said the pleasant-spoken youngster.
"Oh," said Minus Twenty―"friend of yours, I presume?"
There are evenings that seem to belong to you. We finished that two hundred and fifty under the three-quarters of an hour. I explained to Minus Twenty―he was plus sixty-three at the end―that my play that night had been exceptional. He said that he had heard of cases similar. I left him talking volubly to the committee. He was not a nice man at all.
After that I did not care to win; and that of course was fatal. The less I tried, the more impossible it seemed for me to do wrong. I was left in at the last with a man from another hotel. But for that I am convinced I should have carried off the handicap. Our hotel didn't, anyhow, want the other hotel to win. So they gathered round me, and offered me sound advice, and begged me to be careful; with the natural result that I went back to my usual form quite suddenly.
Never before or since have I played as I played that week. But it showed me what I could do. I shall get a new table, with proper pockets this time. There is something wrong about our pockets. The balls go into them and then come out again. You would think they had seen something there to frighten them. They come out trembling and hold on to the cushion.
I shall also get a new red ball. I fancy it must be a very old ball, our red. It seems to me to be always tired.
"The billiard-room," I said to Dick, "I see my way to easily enough. Adding another ten feet to what is now the dairy will give us twenty-eight by twenty. I am hopeful that will be sufficient even for your friend Malooney. The drawing-room is too small to be of any use. I may decide―as Robina has suggested―to 'throw it into the hall.' But the stairs will remain. For dancing, private theatricals―things to keep you children out of mischief―I have an idea I will explain to you later on. The kitchen―"
"Can I have a room to myself?" asked Veronica.
Veronica was sitting on the floor, staring into the fire, her chin supported by her hand. Veronica, in those rare moments when she is resting from her troubles, wears a holy, far-away expression apt to mislead the stranger. Governesses, new to her, have their doubts whether on these occasions they are justified in dragging her back to discuss mere dates and tables. Poets who are friends of mine, coming unexpectedly upon Veronica standing by the window, gazing upward at the evening star, have thought it was a vision, until they got closer and found that she was sucking peppermints.
"I should so like to have a room all to myself," added Veronica.
"It would be a room!" commented Robin.
"It wouldn't have your hairpins sticking up all over the bed, anyhow," murmured Veronica dreamily.
"I like that!" said Robin; "why―"
"You're harder than I am," said Veronica.
"I should wish you to have a room, Veronica," I said. "My fear is that in place of one untidy bedroom in the house―a room that makes me shudder every time I see it through the open door; and the door, in spite of all I can say, generally is wide open―"
"I'm not untidy," said Robin, "not really. I know where everything is in the dark―if people would only leave them alone."
"You are. You're about the most untidy girl I know," said Dick.
"I'm not," said Robin; "you don't see other girls' rooms. Look at yours at Cambridge. Malooney told us you'd had a fire, and we all believed him at first."
"When a man's working―" said Dick.
"He must have an orderly place to work in," suggested Robin.
Dick sighed. "It's never any good talking to you," said Dick. "You don't even see your own faults."
"I can," said Robin; "I see them more than anyone. All I claim is justice."
"Show me, Veronica," I said, "that you are worthy to possess a room. At present you appear to regard the whole house as your room. I find your gaiters on the croquet lawn. A portion of your costume―an article that anyone possessed of the true feelings of a lady would desire to keep hidden from the world―is discovered waving from the staircase window."
"I put it out to be mended," explained Veronica.
"You opened the door and flung it out. I told you of it at the time," said Robin. "You do the same with your boots."
"You are too high-spirited for your size," explained Dick to her. "Try to be less dashing."
"I could also wish, Veronica," I continued, "that you shed your back comb less easily, or at least that you knew when you had shed it. As for your gloves―well, hunting your gloves has come to be our leading winter sport."
"People look in such funny places for them," said Veronica.
"Granted. But be just, Veronica," I pleaded. "Admit that it is in funny places we occasionally find them. When looking for your things one learns, Veronica, never to despair. So long as there remains a corner unexplored inside or outside the house, within the half-mile radius, hope need not be abandoned."
Veronica was still gazing dreamily into the fire.
"I suppose," said Veronica, "it's reditty."
"It's what?" I said.
"She means heredity," suggested Dick―"cheeky young beggar! I wonder you let her talk to you the way she does."
"Besides," added Robin, "as I am always explaining to you, Pa is a literary man. With him it is part of his temperament."
"It's hard on us children," said Veronica.
We were all agreed―with the exception of Veronica―that it was time Veronica went to bed. As chairman I took it upon myself to closure the debate.
CHAPTER II
"Do you mean, Governor, that you have actually bought the house?" demanded Dick, "or are we only talking about it?"
"This time, Dick," I answered, "I have done it."
Dick looked serious. "Is it what you wanted?" he asked.
"No, Dick," I replied, "it is not what I wanted. I wanted an old-fashioned, picturesque, rambling sort of a place, all gables and ivy and oriel windows."
"You are mixing things up," Dick interrupted, "gables and oriel windows don't go together."
"I beg your pardon, Dick," I corrected him, "in the house I wanted, they do. It is the style of house you find in the Christmas number. I have never seen it anywhere else, but I took a fancy to it from the first. It is not too far from the church, and it lights up well at night. 'One of these days,' I used to say to myself when a boy, 'I'll be a clever man and live in a house just like that.' It was my dream."
"And what is this place like?" demanded Robin, "this place you have bought."
"The agent," I explained, "claims for it that it is capable of improvement. I asked him to what school of architecture he would say it belonged; he said he thought that it must have been a local school, and pointed out―what seems to be the truth―that nowadays they do not build such houses."
"Near to the river?" demanded Dick.
"Well, by the road," I answered, "I daresay it may be a couple of miles."
"And by the shortest way?" questioned Dick.
"That is the shortest way," I explained; "there's a prettier way through the woods, but that is about three miles and a half."
"But we had decided it was to be near the river," said Robin.
"We also decided," I replied, "that it was to be on sandy soil, with a south-west aspect. Only one thing in this house has a south-west aspect, and that's the back door. I asked the agent about the sand. He advised me, if I wanted it in any quantity, to get an estimate from the Railway Company. I wanted it on a hill. It is on a hill, with a bigger hill in front of it. I didn't want that other hill. I wanted an uninterrupted view of the southern half of England. I wanted to take people out on the step, and cram them with stories about our being able on clear days to see the Bristol Channel. They might not have believed me, but without that hill I could have stuck to it, and they could not have been certain―not dead certain―I was lying.