CHAPTER XXI

By twelve o’clock at noon next day the inhabitants of Raynham Abbey knew that Berry, the baronet’s man, had arrived post-haste from town, with orders to conduct Mr. Richard thither, and that Mr. Richard had refused to go, had sworn he would not, defied his father, and despatched Berry to the Shades.  Berry was all that Benson was not.  Whereas Benson hated woman, Berry admired her warmly.  Second to his own stately person, woman occupied his reflections, and commanded his homage.  Berry was of majestic port, and used dictionary words.  Among the maids of Raynham his conscious calves produced all the discord and the frenzy those adornments seem destined to create in tender bosoms.  He had, moreover, the reputation of having suffered for the sex; which assisted his object in inducing the sex to suffer for him.  What with his calves, and his dictionary words, and the attractive halo of the mysterious vindictiveness of Venus surrounding him, this Adonis of the lower household was a mighty man below, and he moved as one.

On hearing the tumult that followed Berry’s arrival, Adrian sent for him, and was informed of the nature of his mission, and its result.

“You should come to me first,” said Adrian.  “I should have imagined you were shrewd enough for that, Berry?”

“Pardon me, Mr. Adrian,” Berry doubled his elbow to explain.  “Pardon me, sir.  Acting recipient of special injunctions I was not a free agent.”

“Go to Mr. Richard again, Berry.  There will be a little confusion if he holds back.  Perhaps you had better throw out a hint or so of apoplexy.  A slight hint will do.  And here—­Berry! when you return to town, you had better not mention anything—­to quote Johnson—­of Benson’s spiflication.”

“Certainly not, sir.”

The wise youth’s hint had the desired effect on Richard.

He dashed off a hasty letter by Tom to Belthorpe, and, mounting his horse, galloped to the Bellingham station.

Sir Austin was sitting down to a quiet early dinner at his hotel, when the Hope of Raynham burst into his room.

The baronet was not angry with his son.  On the contrary, for he was singularly just and self-accusing while pride was not up in arms, he had been thinking all day after the receipt of Benson’s letter that he was deficient in cordiality, and did not, by reason of his excessive anxiety, make himself sufficiently his son’s companion:  was not enough, as he strove to be, mother and father to him.; preceptor and friend; previsor and associate.  He had not to ask his conscience where he had lately been to blame towards the System.  He had slunk away from Raynham in the very crisis of the Magnetic Age, and this young woman of the parish (as Benson had termed sweet Lucy in his letter) was the consequence.

Yes! pride and sensitiveness were his chief foes, and he would trample on them.  To begin, he embraced his son:  hard upon an Englishman at any time—­doubly so to one so shamefaced at emotion in cool blood, as it were.  It gave him a strange pleasure, nevertheless.  And the youth seemed to answer to it; he was excited.  Was his love, then, beginning to correspond with his father’s as in those intimate days before the Blossoming Season?