



Produced by Al Haines









The

Honour of the Clintons


By

Archibald Marshall



_Author of_

"Elton Manor," "The Squire's Daughter,"
  "The Eldest Son," etc.



New York

Dodd, Mead and Company

1919




COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY




_To_

_ARTHUR MARWOOD_




CONTENTS


BOOK I

CHAPTER

    I  A Home-Coming
   II  A Vulgar Theft
  III  The Squire Is Drawn In
   IV  Joan Gives Her Evidence
    V  A Quiet Talk
   VI  The Young Birds
  VII  The Verdict


BOOK II

    I  Bobby Trench Is Asked to Kencote
   II  Joan and Nancy
  III  Humphrey and Susan
   IV  Coming Home from the Ball
    V  Robert Recumbent
   VI  Joan Rebellious
  VII  Disappointments
 VIII  Proposals


BOOK III

    I  The Squire Confronted
   II  A Very Present Help
  III  The Burden
   IV  This Our Sister


BOOK IV

    I  A Return
   II  Payment
  III  The Straight Path
   IV  A Conclave
    V  Waiting
   VI  The Power of the Storm
  VII  Thinking It Out
 VIII  Skies Clearing
   IX  Skies Clear




BOOK I


CHAPTER I

A HOME-COMING

The lilacs in the station-yard at Kencote were heavy with their trusses
of white and purple; the rich pastures that stretched away on either
side of the line were yellow with buttercups.

Out of the smiling peace of the country-side came puffing the busy
little branch-line train.  It came to and fro half a dozen times a day,
making a rare contact between the outside world and this sunny placid
corner of meadow and brook and woodland.  Here all life that one could
see was so quiet and so contented that the train seemed to lose its
character as it crept across the bright levels, and to be less a noisy
determined machine of progress than a trail of white steam, floating
out over the grazing cattle and the willows by the brookside, as much
in keeping with the scene as the wisps of cloud that made delicate the
blue of the fresh spring sky.

The white cloud detached itself from the engine and melted away into
the sky, and the train slid with a cheerful rattle alongside the
platform and came to a stand-still.  Nancy Clinton, who had been
awaiting its arrival with some impatience, waved her hand and hurried
to the carriage from which she had seen looking out a face exactly like
her own.  By the time she had reached it her twin sister, Joan, had
alighted, and was ready with her greeting.

"Hullo, old girl!"

"You're nearly ten minutes late."

The twins had been parted for a fortnight, which had very seldom
happened to them before in the whole nineteen years of their existence,
and both of them were pleased to be together once more.  If they had
been rather less pleased they might have said rather more.

More was, in fact, said by the maid who stood at the carriage door with
Joan's dressing-bag in her hand.

"Good-afternoon, Miss Nancy.  Lor, you _are_ looking well, and a sight
for sore eyes.  We've come back again, you see, and don't want to go
away from you no more.  Miss Joan, please ketch 'old of this, and I'll
get the other things out.  Where's that porter?  He wants somebody
be'ind 'im with a stick."

"Hullo, Hannah!" said Nancy.  "As talkative as ever!  Come along, Joan.
She can look after the things."

The two girls went out through the booking-office, at the door of which
the station-master expressed respectful pleasure at the return of the
traveller, and got into the carriage waiting for them.  There was a
luggage cart as well, and the groom in charge of it touched his hat and
grinned with pleasure; as did also the young coachman on the box.

"I seem to be more popular than ever," said Joan as she got into the
carriage.  "Why aren't we allowed a footman?"

"You won't find you're at all popular when you get home," said Nancy.
"The absence of a footman is intended to mark father's displeasure with
you.  He sent out to say there wasn't to be one, and William was to
drive, instead of old Probyn.  Father is very good at making his ritual
expressive."

"What's the trouble?" enquired Joan.  "My going to Brummels for the
week-end?"

"Yes.  Without a _with_-your-leave or _by_-your-leave.  Such a house as
that is no place for a well-brought-up girl, and what on earth Humphrey
and Susan were thinking of in taking you there he can't think.  I say,
why _did_ you all go in such a hurry?  You didn't say anything about it
when you wrote on Friday."

"Because it was arranged all in a hurry.  Lady Sedbergh is going
through a month's rest cure at Brummels, and she thought she'd have a
lively party to say good-bye before she shuts herself up.  It was Bobby
Trench who made her ask us, at the last moment."

"Joan, is Bobby Trench paying you attentions?  You never told me
anything in your letters, but he seems to have been always about."

Joan laughed.  "I'll tell you all about Bobby Trench later on," she
said.  "I've been saving it up.  Mother isn't annoyed at my going to
Brummels, is she?"

"I don't think so.  But she said Humphrey and Susan ought not to have
taken you there without asking."

"There wasn't time to ask.  Besides, I wanted to go, just to see how
the smart set really do behave when they're all at home together."

"Well, how do they?"

"It really is what Frank calls '_chaude etoffe_.'  I don't wonder that
Lady Sedbergh wants a rest cure if that's how she spends her life.  On
Sunday we had a fancy dress dinner--anything we could find--and she
came down as the Brummels ghost in a sort of nightgown with her hair
down her back and her face whitened.  She looked a positive idiot
sitting at the head of the table.  She must be at least fifty and the
ghost was only seventeen."

"What did you wear?"

"Oh, I borrowed Hannah's cap and apron; and Susan's maid lent me a
black dress.  I was much admired.  Susan was a flapper.  She had on
some clothes of Betty Trench's, who is only fourteen, and about her
size.  She looked rather silly.  Humphrey was properly dressed, except
that he wore white trousers and a pink silk pyjama jacket.  He said he
was Night and Morning.  He looked the most respectable of all the men,
except Lord Sedbergh, who said he wasn't playing.  He's a dear old
thing and lets them all do just what they like, and laughs all the
time.  Bobby Trench was a bathing woman, with a sponge bag thing on his
head.  He was really awfully funny, but he was funniest of all when he
forgot what he looked like and languished at me.  I was having soup,
and I choked, and Lord Rokeby, who was sitting next to me, thumped me
on the back.  All their manners are delightfully free and natural."

"Well, you seem to have enjoyed yourself."

"We finished up the evening with a pillow fight.  Fancy!--Lady Sedbergh
and some of the other older women joined in, and made as much noise as
anybody.  You should have seen Hannah's face when I did at last get
into my room, where she was waiting for me.  She said a judgment was
sure to fall on us for such goings on."

"A judgment is certainly going to fall on _you_, my dear.  Father will
seize you the moment you get into the house and ask you what you mean
by it."

"Dear father!" said Joan affectionately.  "It _is_ jolly to be home
again, Nancy.  How lovely the chestnuts are looking!  Dear peaceful old
Kencote!"

They drove in through the lodge gates, where Joan received a smile and
a curtsey, and along the short drive through the park, and drew up
beneath the porch of the big ugly square house.  Mrs. Clinton was at
the door, and Joan enveloped her in an ardent embrace, which was
interrupted by the appearance of the Squire, big and burly, with a
grizzled beard and a look of self-contented authority.

"I've got something to say to you, Miss Joan.  Come into my room."

He turned his back and marched off to the library, in which he spent
most of his time when he was indoors.

Joan, after another hug and kiss, followed him.  It may or may not have
been a sign of the deterioration in manner, wrought by her visit to
Brummels, that she winked at Nancy over her shoulder as she did so.

"Aren't you going to kiss me, father?" she asked, going up to him.  "I
am very pleased to see you again, and I'm sure you're just as pleased
to see me."

The face that she lifted up to him could not possibly have been
resisted by any man who had not the privilege of close relationship.
The Squire, however, successfully resisted it.

"I don't want to kiss you," he said.  "I'm very displeased with you.
What on earth possessed Humphrey and Susan to take you off to a house
like that, without a with-your-leave or a by-your-leave?  And what do
you mean by going to places where you knew perfectly well you wouldn't
be allowed to go?"

"But, father darling," expostulated Joan, with an expression of puzzled
innocence, "I knew Lord Sedbergh was an old friend of yours.  I didn't
think you could _possibly_ object to my going there with Humphrey and
Susan.  They only got up their party on Friday evening, and there
wasn't time to write home.  Why do you mind so much?"

"You know perfectly well why I mind," returned the Squire irritably.
"All sorts of things go on in houses like that, and all sorts of people
are welcomed there that I won't have a daughter of mine mixed up with.
You've been brought up in a God-fearing house, and you've got to
content yourself with the life we live here.  I tell you I won't have
it."

"Well, I'm sorry, father dear.  I won't do it again.  Now give me a
kiss."

But the Squire was not yet ready for endearments.

"Won't do it again!" he echoed.  "No, you won't