CHAPTER XIII

THE STILE

That evening as supper was being eaten in the new dining-room at Cloom—­a merry supper enough, for all Annie’s skeleton presence at one end of the table—­Archelaus walked in.  It was the first time he had been over to Cloom since the night of the bush-beating, and it was the first time Ishmael had seen him since that glimpse in the light of a lantern in the wood.

Ishmael looked at his brother, and all that affair seemed very long ago, in a life when he had not been to London, mixed with men, or met Blanche.  He held out a hand to Archelaus, who for a stupid moment stood staring at it; then he saw the stranger girl from London, Ishmael’s girl, of whom he had heard, watching him.  Beyond her sat Phoebe.  Some train of thought was lit in Archelaus’s mind, and burned there; the second of hesitation during which his survey and the thought took place within his mind was imperceptible as he awkwardly struck his big fist into Ishmael’s palm.  Everyone present was aware, in greater or less degree, according to the amount of his knowledge, of relief.

Archelaus drew out a chair and partook of supper, talking little; but that little was good, racy, at times too much so, full of shrewd observations and little flashing gleams of knowledge of men and things.  Ishmael was not abashed and silenced by it as he had been on the night of his birthday; he too, as he sat there with his “girl” and his wider experiences, felt that the ground over which Archelaus roamed was not altogether untrodden by himself.  Annie, by the incursion of her eldest born, was changed, as always, from an acrid acquiescence to definite enmity towards Ishmael and his concerns.  She became so rude to Blanche that it seemed the temper of a veritable angel still to be able to smile and answer with politeness.  For her sake Ishmael also kept his temper, though inwardly he was ragingly angry—­not so much with Annie for being rude as with Archelaus for behaving so unwontedly well through it all—­hushing his mother up instead of encouraging her, and speaking respectfully to Blanche himself.

After supper the young people drifted out of doors, and before the girls, wrapping themselves against the dew, joined them, Archelaus drifted in his cat-like way—­odd for so big a man—­to Ishmael’s side.

“Will I wish ’ee joy, Ishmael?” he asked. “’Tes easy to see where your heart be set.  Does the maid feel she can love ’ee and Cloom Manor?”

The last words and some indefinable quality in the tone jarred on Ishmael, disturbing the satisfaction he had felt glowing over him at the supper-table.

“If you mean have I proposed to Miss Grey?” he said a little pompously as youth will speak, “I have.”

“And will she have ’ee, or has she given ‘ee a clout in th’ ear?”

Ishmael hated having to tell this barbarian anything about his lovely Blanche; he turned sick when he thought that this would be Blanche’s brother ... free to call her by her name, to take her hand....  All he could bring himself to say was that he believed Miss Grey was going to become his wife, but that he would thank Archelaus not to go talking about it, as nothing was to be made public as yet.