Chapter IX: The Welcome Home

A fortnight, minus two days, had passed since John Beacham was married, and once more, on the occasion of the return of the bride and bridegroom to their home, all Switcham was on the tiptoe of expectation. At the little wayside station, almost a private one for the accommodation of “the Castle,” few trains throughout the day were in the habit of stopping. There was one at 7.10 P.M., a fact to which the time-table and _Bradshaw_, those sworn enemies to indiscreet surprises, bore useful witness; and as by that train the bridal party was by the Switchamites fully expected to arrive, a considerable crowd had (when the down passengers were due) assembled round and about the station, ready, with more heartiness than good taste, to bestow on the returned travellers a noisy and a cordial welcome home.

Meanwhile John and his pretty wife had spent the greater part of the day in London, enjoying, amongst other inexpensive pleasures, the apparently inexhaustible one of looking in at the tempting windows of the West-end shops. It was Saturday afternoon, and the carriages, as was usual on that day, were pretty well filled with passengers. Honor and her husband had already taken their places, the first bell had been rung, and only one seat remained unappropriated in the compartment which they occupied, when a handsome, distinguished-looking young man, whose face Honor thought she had seen before, came slowly sauntering along the platform. He glanced in a careless manner towards the carriages as he passed, but his eye chancing to catch sight of John’s honest sun-burnt face, he stopped, and nodding familiarly, asked the latter if there was a vacant place.

“Plenty,” John said cordially.--“Make a little room, Honey. That’s it.--Quite well, sir?”--shaking hands cordially with the new-comer, whom he introduced to his wife as “the young Squire.”

“You must excuse me,” he went on, speaking with the cheery voice and pleasant smile that were among the various causes of the well-known horse-breeder’s popularity,--“you must excuse me for calling you so. I’ve known you ever since you was such a little chap, and your noble father” (John’s ideas of nobility were somewhat confused, inasmuch as the simple fellow was weak enough to believe in the “patent” of a good man who “fears God, and loves his neighbour as himself”)--“your noble father was ‘the Squire’ before you, sir, and we wouldn’t like the title to die out.--I have known this gentleman, my dear,” turning to Honor, who was blushing crimson behind her little coquettish veil, “ever since”--suiting the action to the word--“he was _that_ high.”

Arthur laughed. The train was going at express speed now, so that conversation was carried on under difficulties. “You must have had wretched weather during your excursion,” he said, addressing himself less exclusively to Honor than he would have done had she been exactly in his own position in life. He was, as I have more than once said, a very good-looking young gentleman, and being besides unfortunately endowed with the often dangerous gift, described by one of the most brilliant of French novelists as _l’œil à femmes_, he was a little in the habit of _bonnes fortunes_. Honor, too, was looking wonderfully pretty, as she sat opposite, with lowered eyelids, colouring under the pleasing consciousness of being gazed at and admired. Arthur was not much troubled with shyness, but for some reason, or other he did not find it quite easy just then to talk to John Beacham’s wife.

“Well, I can’t say that the sun did trouble us much,” John said: “as I told Honor there, she might have left her parasols and sun-shades behind her. Such a fortnight as it’s been I never knew before, for the time of year. We’ve come back a day or two before time; but we were half afraid the old lady would find it dull by herself at the Paddocks, to say nothing of the stock,” he added, laughing. “Honor tells me sometimes that she believes I care more for the mares and foals than I do for kith and kin.”

“Ah, now I didn’t say quite that, John,” Honor said in a very low tone; but Arthur caught the words and replied to them:

“I’m sure you didn’t, Mrs. Beacham, and John will be forgetting his out-of-door amusements altogether, now that he’s got something better than kith and kin at home. I only wish that we were half as well off at the Castle. The old house has grown more melancholy than ever since I went away. By Jove, what a county it is! No hunting--no neighbourhood--nothing earthly to be done!”

“Why don’t you take to breeding?” John asked; “there’s an interest for you at once. Manage one of your own farms, and have plenty of young stock, and, take my word for it, you’ll be all right then.”

Before Arthur could make any reply to this characteristic piece of advice, the train had slackened speed, and looking out, he announced that they had arrived at Switcham. It was, as I before remarked, a small unpretending station, very quiet as a rule, which made the crowds assembled in and about it all the more remarkable.

“What _can_ be going on?” said Honor. “John, look at those people. Maybe the Queen is coming along the line;” and she looked out curiously upon the throng, as the long train slowly rolled on towards it.

Suddenly there was heard a shout--the welcome cry of a hundred tongues, as the bride’s fair face was recognised, and John Beacham, the man whom both rich and poor loved and respected, was known to be once more amongst them. Honor drew back, embarrassed and distressed.

“O, John! it’s because of our coming home,” she whispered; but John was too busy, and, if the truth must be told, too pleased at this public reception, to be very ready with his sympathy.

“Switcham! Switcham!” shouted the bustling official, as he threw open the carriage-door; and in a moment John was on the platform, his hands full of packages, and a broad smile of unmitigated happiness lighting up his honest face.

“Can I be of any use? Hadn’t you better take my arm?” Arthur said. He spoke in the soft conventional tone which the constant mixing with what is called “good society” renders habitual, but to Honor, at that moment of (to her) real distress, it seemed the confidential whisper of a friend, and the gentle intervention of a champion.

“Make way!--Will you be so good?--A little on one side, there’s a good man,” urged Arthur, pressing forward with John Beacham’s bride upon his arm, and addressing certain individuals amongst the complimenting crowd, who allowed their curiosity to get the better of their good breeding, with an impertinent amenity that was not without its effect. “Stand back, please.--That’s all right.--This is your brougham, is it not?” to Honor, who, pale, bewildered, and overcome, was looking round helplessly for her husband.

“O, you needn’t expect Beacham yet,” said Arthur, laughing; “he is shaking hands with everybody, right and left. That’s what comes of being popular. It would be long enough before all those fellows wanted to shake hands with me. Ah, there he is! You will let me see you safe into the carriage? By heavens! what are all those fellows going to do?” he exclaimed, as a number of young men and boys, who had crowded round the brougham, gave evident tokens of preparing for an ovation. Already the coachman--one of John Beacham’s most trusted retainers--was off his box, and had taken his professional stand by the head of the powerful, high-stepping bay mare, whose traces were hanging loosely at her sides, and who was beginning to manifest very decided symptoms of impatience. Honor was greatly agitated--her nerves, like all those of persons who _feel_ deeply, were not strong--and the shout of welcome which had brought tears to her eyes, and a _globus hystericus_ to her delicate throat, was still tingling in her ears. Arthur felt her hand tremble, and her breath come quick and pantingly from her parted lips. He feared she was going to faint, and in his exasperation made matters worse by swearing at the crowd, and devoting to perdition the authors of her annoyance.

At that moment (the whole affair had not occupied many minutes) John Beacham, hot, red-faced, and happy, made his appearance. He laughed heartily, having no suspicion of his wife’s distress, at what was going forward.

“Fire away, boys!” he cried to the strong men who had already taken the Wild Woman’s place in the shafts. “Rather you than me, this warm day, anyhow!--Jump in, Honor;” and then, looking round at his wife, he saw with dismay how pale she was. “Never mind, Pet; they’re good fellows, and they won’t be long about it.--Now then, away with you!--Good-bye, Mr. Vavasour;” and Arthur, standing by, his eyes fixed on the white frightened face within the carriage, saw, as in a dream, the laughing, shouting throng, and in the midst of it, moving slowly onward, the dark-green brougham that bore the lovely Honor to her home.

“By ----” he muttered to himself, as he gathered up the reins of his dog-cart, “to think that such beauty as that should be wasted on a boor!”