The Country House | Page 8

had small grey whiskers and a carved, keen visage. He came
of an old Kentish family which had migrated to Cambridgeshire; his
coverts were exceptionally fine; he was also a Justice of the Peace, a
Colonel of Yeomanry, a keen Churchman, and much feared by

poachers. He held the reactionary views already mentioned, being a
little afraid of Lady Malden.
Beyond Miss Pendyce sat the Reverend Hussell Barter, who would
shoot to-morrow, but would not attend the race-meeting on
Wednesday.
The Rector of Worsted Skeynes was not tall, and his head had been
rendered somewhat bald by thought. His broad face, of very straight
build from the top of the forehead to the base of the chin, was
well-coloured, clean-shaven, and of a shape that may be seen in
portraits of the Georgian era. His cheeks were full and folded, his lower
lip had a habit of protruding, and his eyebrows jutted out above his full,
light eyes. His manner was authoritative, and he articulated his words
in a voice to which long service in the pulpit had imparted remarkable
carrying-power--in fact, when engaged in private conversation, it was
with difficulty that he was not overheard. Perhaps even in confidential
matters he was not unwilling that what he said should bear fruit. In
some ways, indeed, he was typical. Uncertainty, hesitation,
toleration--except of such opinions as he held--he did not like.
Imagination he distrusted. He found his duty in life very clear, and
other people's perhaps clearer, and he did not encourage his
parishioners to think for themselves. The habit seemed to him a
dangerous one. He was outspoken in his opinions, and when he had
occasion to find fault, spoke of the offender as "a man of no character,"
"a fellow like that," with such a ring of conviction that his audience
could not but be convinced of the immorality of that person. He had a
bluff jolly way of speaking, and was popular in his parish--a good
cricketer, a still better fisherman, a fair shot, though, as he said, he
could not really afford time for shooting. While disclaiming
interference in secular matters, he watched the tendencies of his flock
from a sound point of view, and especially encouraged them to support
the existing order of things--the British Empire and the English Church.
His cure was hereditary, and he fortunately possessed some private
means, for he had a large family. His partner at dinner was Norah, the
younger of the two Pendyce girls, who had a round, open face, and a
more decided manner than her sister Bee.

Her brother George, the eldest son, sat on her right. George was of
middle height, with a red-brown, clean-shaved face and solid jaw. His
eyes were grey; he had firm lips, and darkish, carefully brushed hair, a
little thin on the top, but with that peculiar gloss seen on the hair of
some men about town. His clothes were unostentatiously perfect. Such
men may be seen in Piccadilly at any hour of the day or night. He had
been intended for the Guards, but had failed to pass the necessary
examination, through no fault of his own, owing to a constitutional
inability to spell. Had he been his younger brother Gerald, he would
probably have fulfilled the Pendyce tradition, and passed into the Army
as a matter of course. And had Gerald (now Captain Pendyce) been
George the elder son, he might possibly have failed. George lived at his
club in town on an allowance of six hundred a year, and sat a great deal
in a bay-window reading Ruff's "Guide to the Turf."
He raised his eyes from the menu and looked stealthily round. Helen
Bellew was talking to his father, her white shoulder turned a little away.
George was proud of his composure, but there was a strange longing in
his face. She gave, indeed, just excuse for people to consider her too
good-looking for the position in which she was placed. Her figure was
tall and supple and full, and now that she no longer hunted was getting
fuller. Her hair, looped back in loose bands across a broad low brow,
had a peculiar soft lustre.
There was a touch of sensuality about her lips. The face was too broad
across the brow and cheekbones, but the eyes were magnificent--
ice-grey, sometimes almost green, always luminous, and set in with
dark lashes.
There was something pathetic in George's gaze, as of a man forced to
look against his will.
It had been going on all that past summer, and still he did not know
where he stood. Sometimes she seemed fond of him, sometimes treated
him as though he had no chance. That which he had begun as a game
was now deadly earnest. And this in itself was