CHAPTER VII

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

‘I met a traveller from an antique land.’

――_Shelley._

The sight of the croquet-hoops, looking lonely and deserted on the grey lawn, where they were now scarcely distinguishable, reminded him of the tournament, and when, very shamefacedly, he pushed open the dining-room door, he understood the anxiety his behaviour had created. He stood still upon the threshold, a little dazzled by the bright light and the noise of uplifted voices. Supper was finished, but they were all sitting up for him. The clock on the chimney-piece pointed to a quarter past nine.

“Where _have_ you been?” demanded Aunt Caroline. “Do you know that Mr. Drummond and Robert” (the coachman) “are at this very moment scouring the country in search of you?”

Grif remained with hanging head, still not far from the doorway. “I’m very sorry. I didn’t know it was so late till it began to get dark.”

“But aren’t you starving? Have you had anything to eat?”

“Oh yes. I had lunch and tea at the Batts’. Then I met Mr. Bradley and listened to him playing, and he gave me a music-lesson, and then it got dark.”

Aunt Caroline seemed relieved. “Well, you’re a nice boy! And a nice partner, too,” she suddenly recollected. “Here was I waiting for you all afternoon.”

“I――I’m afraid I forgot about the tournament.”

“Balmer and I beat Edward and Barbara――oh, easily!” Ann patronized. “So did grandpapa and Jim. And Balmer and I beat Miss Johnson and Mr. Drummond.”

“We’re going to play Drumsticks to-morrow,” cried Jim irreverently.

“And now you’re going to bed,” interrupted Aunt Caroline. “Run away at once, and Ann too. You can hear the prodigal’s adventures in the morning.”

This was not in the least what Jim had bargained for, and he attempted to divert Aunt Caroline’s thoughts by proposing that they should light a bonfire on the drive as a signal to Mr. Drummond and Robert. Meanwhile Bridget appeared with a bowl of soup, and other delicacies. These she set before Grif, who was conscious of being much more in the limelight than seemed at all necessary.

“You must eat an enormous supper,” Aunt Caroline warned him. “Otherwise I shall think your outing has made you ill, and be really angry.”

“There’s a circus coming, and we’re going to it,” Jim called from the door, where he still hovered, in spite of the failure of the bonfire scheme.

“You certainly won’t go unless you’re in bed in five minutes,” Aunt Caroline replied.

Jim scuttled away, and presently he and Ann could be heard engaged in a struggle on the stairs.

“I’m afraid I didn’t bring you back your net, Palmer,” said Grif. “I think I must have left it at the Batts’.”

“Ah, the searchers have returned!” cried grandpapa, as the sound of a closing door, and then of footsteps in the hall, reached them.

“Come in, Drummond,” he called out, and next moment a youthful, smooth-faced parson entered.

“Behold him!” The canon waved a hand at his grandson. “The cause of all your trouble! It was really very good of you. You ought to have a whisky and soda to counteract the effects of your exertions. Next time we’ll leave him to look after himself.”

Mr. Drummond refused the whisky and soda, but accepted, at the hands of Miss Johnson, a glass of Eiffel Tower lemonade.

“Where was he?” he murmured.

“Oh, just paying a round of visits. First of all he called on the Batts――Captain Narcissus and his sisters:――natural enough that he should seek companions of his own years. What did you think of the captain, Grif?”

“I thought him very nice.”

“So he is. Wonderful man in his way. Makes all his own clothes, Drummond――boots too, I believe.”

Mr. Drummond was unimpressed.

“I think they might have sent him home a little earlier. They must have known you would be anxious about him.”

“Oh, he didn’t stay _there_ all the time. He also called on Mr. Clement Bradley, and spent a few hours with him――four or five, I think it was.”

The curate did not smile. In his opinion this was not the proper spirit in which to take Grif’s escapade. He was inclined to agree with Miss Johnson, who had confided to him, over croquet, that she was afraid the children were going to be spoiled.

“That’s more than _you’ve_ ever done,” the canon went on gaily.

“Yes. I don’t care for him.”

“He’s harmless enough,” the canon laughed. “A little odd, though the oddest thing about him is that he should be here at all. He’s an Oxford man, you know――in fact he was at my own college――and there’s no doubt he’s a capable musician.”

“The explanations of such mysteries are not far to seek as a rule,” the curate replied uncharitably.

“I don’t think they’d fit the present case,” said the canon. “He doesn’t look like a man who had come to grief through drink or anything of that sort.”

“Petit chaudron, grandes oreilles,” murmured Aunt Caroline.

“He is going to teach me singing,” said Grif quietly. “He gave me a lesson to-night.”

Mr. Drummond’s thin lips closed more tightly. “I don’t think I should encourage that,” he persisted.

“Nonsense! You’re prejudiced against him. After all, he’s a gentleman, even if he _is_ peculiar. What do _you_ say, Palmer?”

This question was called forth by the remarkable attitude Palmer had just adopted. He leaned back in his chair, his eyes nearly closed, but on his face an expression of Sphinx-like attention. His hands were joined on his knee, the finger tips just lightly touching. Even Miss Johnson should have been aware that this was one of the favourite positions of Mr. Sherlock Holmes when tackling a problem. Yet Palmer’s freckled countenance failed so completely to recall that of the master that grandpapa alone had discovered the inner significance of his posture.

“You must first have something definite to go on,” Palmer said. “The fact of his coming to live in the country doesn’t in itself constitute a clue. The thing is to find out a possible reason for his choosing this particular part of the country.”

“Buried treasure wouldn’t do? Well, poor Bradley’s had a good many years to find it in.”

Grif had been on the point of mentioning Mr. Bradley’s story of the ghost, but for some reason he now decided to keep silence. “Who is Billy Tremaine, grandpapa?” he asked.

“Did the Batts mention him? That was rather unusual, for they don’t talk about him as a rule, even to their oldest friends.... He was the captain’s grandson, poor little chap.”

“Yes, I know. But where is he now?” Then the truth dawned upon him. “He’s not――――”

“He’s dead,” said the canon gravely. “Didn’t they tell you?”

“No: they only said――something about showing me his room.”

“They don’t talk of his death.... You see, he always lived with them. That was his home: they were all the relations he had. His mother died when he was born, and the father was drowned within the same year――his ship was lost and every one on board her. He was a fine boy; very intelligent; as bright a little fellow as I have ever seen. His death was a tremendous blow to them. In a way their whole existence was centred in that boy. Now, I dare say, they feel they have nothing very much to live for. The place will go to strangers――distant cousins or something like that. It is a pity.”

“I must say I haven’t found either Captain Batt or his sisters very approachable myself,” the curate confessed. “Of course they’re perfectly civil, but one doesn’t really get to know them. I was quite unaware that the captain had ever been married, let alone that there had been a grandson.” His tone was slightly aggrieved, and won a sympathetic glance from Miss Johnson.

“It must be nearly four years since the boy’s death,” the canon murmured, trying to recall the date. “He was just about Grif’s age.”

“Grif dear, if you’ve finished your supper I think you had better say good night.”

To Grif the conversation had begun to be intensely interesting, nevertheless, at Aunt Caroline’s words, he got up immediately.

“How good he is,” she remarked to Miss Johnson when he had gone, and Palmer, Edward, and Barbara with him. “I don’t think I ever knew a more docile child.”

“Y――es,” Miss Johnson agreed unenthusiastically. “It doesn’t make him any easier to look after, unfortunately.”

“You are thinking about his staying out so long? After all, it wasn’t very serious, was it? I don’t think we need bother ourselves about him another time: he seems to have the gift of making friends.”

But Miss Johnson was not so sanguine. “I’m thinking of lots of things,” she replied. “I’d rather be in charge of all the others put together than of Grif. One at least knows where one is with them. And I’m not sure that he’s always perfectly truthful.”

She regretted these last words as soon as they were spoken, but, even if they were an exaggeration of what she felt, it was perhaps just as well to put Miss Annesley upon her guard.

“How do you mean?” asked Aunt Caroline, in surprise. “I can hardly believe he is _un_truthful. He certainly doesn’t look it. He’s got as honest a pair of eyes as any little boy I ever saw.”

“I don’t mean, of course, that he would tell a downright lie,” the governess hastened to explain. “But his accounts of where he has been, and of what he has been doing, and――things like that――are sometimes very unsatisfactory. And the friends he makes are _not_ always desirable. He once went away for a whole day with an Italian organ-grinder. Fortunately the man turned out to be less disreputable than might have been expected, and brought him back in the evening safe and sound. I gave him a piece of my mind as he stood on the doorstep grinning and bowing like a monkey. I told him he might consider himself lucky that I hadn’t called in the police. And after I had done Grif actually shook hands with him, and thanked him for the pleasant day he had had, and apologized for what _I_ had said. As for giving an account of what he had been doing or where he had been, he simply produced a farrago of nonsense like some story in the _Arabian Nights_.”

“Don’t you think it is a mistake to expect children to be perfectly literal. He was probably very much excited, and mixed up some of the things he wanted to see with what he _had_ seen.”

Miss Johnson did not argue the point, but she had an idea that before the end of her visit she should be able to bring out triumphantly that popular phrase, ‘I told you so.’