Miss Buncle Married by D. E. Stevenson Page A

to leave Silverstream—in a hurry.
    Mr. Abbott smiled as he thought of that midnight flitting from Silverstream. He had come down in his car as had been arranged, and had found Barbara and Dorcas ready and waiting, sitting on their suitcases—for the furniture had already gone. They were both frightened, he remembered, for they had been through a good deal already, and they knew there was worse to come. They were thankful to see him, thankful to get away from Tanglewood Cottage before the storm burst. Then, the very next day, he and Barbara had been married—a quiet affair in a dingy London church with no witnesses save the faithful Dorcas and Sam.
    Mr. Abbott’s thought stopped when they came to Sam, and he heaved an enormous sigh, for Sam was being extraordinarily difficult and annoying at the moment.
    Barbara’s hand tightened on his arm. “What’s the matter, Arthur?” she inquired sympathetically.
    â€œIt’s Sam,” replied Mr. Abbott. “I don’t know what on earth I’m going to do about Sam.”
    Sam Abbott was the son of Mr. Abbott’s eldest brother who had been killed in the war; Mr. Abbott had made himself responsible for Sam’s education, and, when the right moment arrived, had taken him into the office to try him out. He meant to make a partner of Sam later on. “Abbott, Spicer, & Abbott” sounded rather well—so thought the senior Abbott—but now he was beginning to feel dubious as to whether Sam would ever settle down to work and become the sort of man who would make a safe partner. The thing was, you couldn’t depend on the boy. Sometimes he seemed reliable enough, sometimes he seemed positively brilliant, but sometimes he was a confounded nuisance, and Mr. Abbott would reflect gloomily that the devil must have begotten Sam and sent him to Abbott & Spicer’s with the sole object of plaguing and badgering them into an early grave.
    â€œWhat has Sam been doing?” Barbara inquired.
    â€œHmm,” said Mr. Abbott. It seemed rather unfair to sneak to Barbara about Sam’s misdemeanors. After all the boy was only twenty-five—quite young—and his father had been killed when he was four years old, so he hadn’t had much of a chance. You couldn’t be very angry with him—and Elsie was weak. Elsie had spoiled the boy frightfully—not that he altogether blamed Elsie; it was difficult for a woman with a fatherless boy not to spoil him. But this morning, when Mr. Abbott had had to trek down to Bow Street and pay a fine for the boy, he had been angry, very angry indeed, and he had blamed Elsie. What a scene it had been! Elsie in a flood of tears, the boy ashamed and defiant in turn, and the magistrate smiling behind his hand. It wasn’t anything very serious, of course (just foolishness after some sort of dinner party, and Mr. Abbott had a strong suspicion that Sam had been made a sort of scapegoat), but Mr. Abbott had never got into trouble with the police in his young days. Why, when he was Sam’s age he had been fighting in France—an officer, with men’s lives dependent upon his common sense. Responsibility, thought Mr. Abbott. That was the thing to make a man of you. There were no wars now, thank God, and he hoped, most devoutly, that there never would be anymore, but he was very glad that he had been the right age for the last war.
    â€œWhat has Sam been doing?” inquired Barbara again.
    â€œOh, painting the town red,” said Mr. Abbott, laughing a little.
    â€œOh!” said Barbara. She had always wondered how you painted the town red—it sounded a fine thing to do. “Don’t you think we might ask him down here for a few days?” she suggested.
    Mr. Abbott was in two minds about this. “Well,” he said dubiously, “but Sam might not want to come.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    It was impossible to say why not without giving Sam away (Sam might