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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4218-h.zip b/4218-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..712efba --- /dev/null +++ b/4218-h.zip diff --git a/4218-h/4218-h.htm b/4218-h/4218-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0d186a5 --- /dev/null +++ b/4218-h/4218-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,14479 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of Sisters, by Ada Cambridge +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {text-indent: 0%; + font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.footnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.transnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sisters, by Ada Cambridge + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Sisters + +Author: Ada Cambridge + +Posting Date: July 2, 2009 [EBook #4218] +Release Date: July, 2003 +First Posted: December 8, 2001 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SISTERS *** + + + + +Produced by Col Choat. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +SISTERS +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +by +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +Ada Cambridge +</H2> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="100%"> +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="20%"> +<A HREF="#chap01">CHAPTER I</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="20%"> +<A HREF="#chap02">CHAPTER II</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="20%"> +<A HREF="#chap03">CHAPTER III</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="20%"> +<A HREF="#chap04">CHAPTER IV</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="20%"> +<A HREF="#chap05">CHAPTER V</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">CHAPTER VI</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap07">CHAPTER VII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap09">CHAPTER IX</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap10">CHAPTER X</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap11">CHAPTER XI</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap12">CHAPTER XII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap15">CHAPTER XV</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap18">CHAPTER XVIII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap19">CHAPTER XIX</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap20">CHAPTER XX</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap21">CHAPTER XXI</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap22">CHAPTER XXII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap23">CHAPTER XXIII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap24">CHAPTER XXIV</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap25">CHAPTER XXV</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap26">CHAPTER XXVI</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap27">CHAPTER XXVII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap28">CHAPTER XXVIII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I. +</H3> + +<P> +Guthrie Carey began life young. He was not a week over twenty-one when, +between two voyages, he married Lily Harrison, simply because she was a +poor, pretty, homeless little girl, who had to earn her living as a +nondescript lady-help in hard situations, and never had a holiday. He +saw her in a Sandridge boarding-house, slaving beyond her powers, and +made up his mind that she should rest. With sailor zeal and +promptitude, he got the consent of her father, who was glad to be rid +of her out of the way of a new wife; took the trembling, clinging child +to the nearest parson, and made her a pensioner on his small wages in a +tiny lodging of her own. They honeymooned for a fortnight, off and on, +as his ship could spare him—the happiest pair of mortals in the wide +world—and then parted in tears and anguish unspeakable for the best +part of a twelvemonth. +</P> + +<P> +He came back to find himself a father. Wonderful experience for +twenty-one! Never was such a heavenly mystery of a child! Never such an +angelic young mother!—eighteen, and with the bloom of that most +beautifying convalescence like a halo about her. He was first mate now, +with a master's certificate and a raised salary; it was time to make a +home. So while she nursed the baby in Sandridge—with the aid of a +devoted friend, the landlady's cousin—Guthrie Carey busied himself +across the way at Williamstown, fixing up a modest house. He also had a +devoted friend, in the person of a Customs officer, whose experienced +wife took charge of the operations. Lily was to see nothing until all +was ready for her. It was to be a "pleasant surprise". +</P> + +<P> +The last touches had been given—tea put in the caddy, meat and butter +in the safe, flowers in the vases. Mrs Hardacre, in her best gown, +spread a festive supper-table, and Bill, her spouse, stood by with a +Government launch to take the proud young husband to his wife, and to +bring them back together. +</P> + +<P> +Lily awaited him, trembling, tearful, wild with the joy of going home. +Her step-mother had come to Sandridge to see her off, and had brought +her a present of a macintosh, on the merits of which she dilated with +fervour as she twirled it round and round. +</P> + +<P> +"Buttons right down to the feet," she urged persuasively, "and cape +hanging below the waist"—the second Mrs Harrison was a big woman. "You +might go through a deluge in it. And so stylish, my dear! You can wear +it when you go out in threatening weather of an afternoon, and be quite +smart." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's pretty threatening now," said Guthrie uneasily. "I don't +know that it wouldn't be wiser—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no, no!" Lily implored. "No trains tonight! No way but this, +Guthrie. I can't get wet—in this nice waterproof. I don't care how it +blows—the more the better—with you with me." +</P> + +<P> +"But baby?" +</P> + +<P> +"We can keep him safe. He is going to be rolled in your 'possum rug. We +can take him inside if it is cold. Oh, we MUST go by sea, Guthrie!" +</P> + +<P> +"Call this sea?" he mocked. +</P> + +<P> +It was sea to her, who had never been beyond the Heads. She expected to +concentrate in the fifteen-minutes' trip across the bay the interest of +years of travel on land. There was nothing like blue water to this +sailor's wife, whose heart had been upon it for so many anxious months; +the extravagance of her partiality was the joke of husband and friends +against her. +</P> + +<P> +"All right," said Guthrie; "come along, then!" +</P> + +<P> +He was impatient to get her away from these people, and under his own +roof. +</P> + +<P> +The second-hand macintosh was again pressed upon her. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, thanks—thanks! But I think I won't put it on just yet, as it is +not raining. My dress is warm." +</P> + +<P> +Her dress was the wedding dress—chosen for use as well as beauty—a +delicate pink stuff, with a watered sash to match, in which she looked +like a school-girl on breaking-up day. She had a fancy to go to her +home in state, and also to make an appearance that would do her husband +credit before Mr and Mrs Hardacre. +</P> + +<P> +"Here is your fascinator, my dear," said the motherly landlady, +offering the wisely-selected substitute for Lily's hat. "Let me tie it +on for you—there!" +</P> + +<P> +The fascinator of white wool, made and adjusted properly, accounts for +its name; and Guthrie was sure that he had never seen a lovelier +picture than his darling's face in that soft frame. She was ready +now—as ready as she meant to be until the Customs launch had seen +her—and turned to pick up the large bundle that had the little baby in +the middle of it. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll carry him, Lily." +</P> + +<P> +"No, no, Mr Carey, I'm going to carry him," said the landlady's cousin, +a strapping young woman, whose arms were equal to the task—"as far as +the boat, at any rate." +</P> + +<P> +She did so, the elder ladies supporting her on either side. Guthrie and +Lily led the procession, hand in hand. +</P> + +<P> +Ah, how like another world it was, coming out upon that breezy platform +from the gutter-smelling streets! And how royal a proceeding it seemed +to Lily to be, the setting apart of a Government vessel solely and +entirely to convey her to her new abode, as if she were a little queen +going to her husband's kingdom. She could not help holding herself with +dignity, if not with a trifle of vaingloriousness, as, between +half-a-dozen eager hands and admiring eyes, she stepped down into it. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, have you got everything?" the landlady called from the pier. "Oh, +everything—everything in the world!" Guthrie shouted, in reply. +</P> + +<P> +"Where's your waterproof, Lily?" screeched the step-mother. "Better put +it on, my dear; and I'd advise you to sit under cover, both of you. +You'll be drenched if you don't, in this wind. Why, Mr Hardacre, it's +blowing a perfect gale!" +</P> + +<P> +"A bit fresh, ma'am," Bill admitted; "just enough to keep us lively. +All aboard, Mr Casey? Pass the word, sir, when you're ready." +</P> + +<P> +"Ready!" called Guthrie. And then he said something to the men, Bill +Hardacre and his mate Dugald Finlayson, about having everything on +board—all his life and happiness, or something to that effect—at +which they laughed and chaffed him as the launch backed from the pier, +and started off in the tearing hurry characteristic of Customs boats. +</P> + +<P> +Lily was in the cabin with the baby and the landlady's cousin, who had +'got round' Mr Hardacre to give her a return passage, after seeing the +little family safe home. Husband and wife had frowned at the suggestion +of having her with them on the launch, but when they had shut her in +out of sight and hearing, and found themselves free to follow their own +devices untrammelled by their child, they did not mind so much. +</P> + +<P> +"Hadn't you better—?" Guthrie began, when his wife reappeared, +clinging to the door-jamb; but she exclaimed again: +</P> + +<P> +"No, no! Let me be outside with you!" She wanted to feel "at sea" with +him, to bathe herself, under the shelter of his protection, in the +magnificent, tempestuous, inspiring night. To her, cooped up all her +life in streets and prosaic circumstances, there was something in the +present situation too poetical for words. No bride who had married +money, and was setting out by P. & O. upon her luxurious European tour, +could have been more keenly sensible of the romance of foreign travel +than she, crossing Hobson's Bay in a borrowed Customs launch; while the +squally darkness surrounding and isolating her and her mate +immeasurably enhanced the charm. "I want to see it—to feel it!" she +pleaded. "The air is so clean and fresh! The sea is so grand tonight! +How beautiful it smells! Guthrie, I must have been born for a sailor's +wife—I love it so!" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course you were," the sailor assented heartily. "No manner of doubt +about that. Well, sit here, if you prefer it, sweetheart"—on the stern +grating—"only mind you don't catch cold. And don't let us get that +pretty frock spoiled before the Williamstown folks have seen it." +</P> + +<P> +He steadied her while she stood to have the big macintosh drawn closely +about her—the round cape, flapping far and wide in the rough wind, was +like an unmanageable sail, he said—and when she was again seated, he +tucked it about her knees and feet. Buttons being hard to find and +fasten, he pulled the two fronts of the garment one over the other +across her lap, and she sat upon the outer one. Then he readjusted the +white fascinator, winding the fluffy ends round her neck, and finally +encircling all with his stalwart arm. There she sat, resting against +him, her left hand in his left hand, her contented eyes shining like +stars in the dark. They were practically alone in space, their deck +companions having thoughtfully turned their backs and made themselves +as remote as possible. +</P> + +<P> +A long sigh fluttered through Lily's parted lips from her surcharged +heart. Guthrie heard it through all the clamour of the gale—for it +really was a gale—and the noise of the screw and fiercely snorting +funnel. He stopped his face to hers. +</P> + +<P> +"Tired, pet?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," she murmured, "oh, no!" +</P> + +<P> +"What, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"Only happy—PERFECTLY happy." +</P> + +<P> +"Same here," he said, careless how he tempted Fate—"only more so." +</P> + +<P> +Their lips met, and were holding that sweetest kiss of lovers that are +man and wife, when a wave, driven by the wind, flung a shower of spray +at them, giving each a playful slap of the face as a hint not to be too +confident. +</P> + +<P> +"Hadn't you better get inside?" he urged, as he wiped her cheek. "It'll +be rougher still directly." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no, it's splendid! The rougher the better. I'm so glad it's rough. +I can't take any harm, so well wrapped up, and with you, my husband." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, Lil!" The hug he gave her in acknowledgment of the word made her +gasp for breath. He was so carried away that he had to use both arms, +whereby a lurch of the boat nearly unseated him. "Never," he declared, +in an intense whisper—"never shall you come to harm, my precious one, +while you've got me to protect you; I can promise you that." +</P> + +<P> +"Dear," she returned, in the same kind of tone, "I know I never shall." +</P> + +<P> +And she cuddled closer up to him, and he took a firmer grip of her. +There was no rail for either to hold to, and drawing out from the +shelter of the pier, and meeting the force of the southerly swell, the +launch had begun to dance like a cork on boiling water. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, there's quite a sea on," remarked Guthrie, with a laugh. "I hope +it won't make you sea-sick." +</P> + +<P> +"Sea-sick!" she echoed, with fine scorn. "I am a sailor's wife, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Bless your little heart, I've been sea-sick myself many a time, and +for not much more than this, either. However, it'll soon be over. +There's home waiting for us, Lil—" +</P> + +<P> +"Where? Where?" she interrupted him, with a tender eagerness. The +launch was tossed high in the air, and the lights of Williamstown +stretched across the darkness in front of them like a band of jewels. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you can't distinguish it," said Guthrie, "but it's there—it's one +of those lights; Mrs Hardacre said she was going to keep the blind up +and the gas flaring, so that we might see it as we came over." +</P> + +<P> +"That's what I shall do when you come back next time," said the girl, +with a voice like a dove cooing. "Make a beacon to guide you home." +</P> + +<P> +"No fear that I shall mistake the course, little woman." +</P> + +<P> +He had an irresistible impulse to hug her with both arms again, and +they happened to be on the verge of the river current. Hardacre and +Finlayson both shouted, "Look out, sir!" but he was not looking +out—his sailor eyes were otherwise occupied, and so he did not +perceive the enemy of love making the spring to seize him. Just as he +was folding his mate to his breast, he heard the warning cry for'ard, +and it was then too late to avert the catastrophe. In the same instant +a sudden wave struck the launch, and nearly turned her over, and the +young wife and husband, holding to nothing but one another, and simply +sitting upon an unprotected plank, were tipped out as easily as balls +from a capsized basket. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, this is too absurd!" +</P> + +<P> +That was Guthrie's mental ejaculation in the astonishing first moment. +A deep-sea sailor, who had come through what he had come through, to +let himself be caught unawares by such a paltry mischance as this! +Then, what an unspeakable ass to have been so careless—to have shown +himself incapable of protecting his wife, after all his boasts! Would +he ever hear the last of it as long as he lived? Poor little woman! How +cold the water felt when he thought of her tender skin. And her pretty +dress, that she had set such store by, in which she had intended to go +to church with him on Sunday—utterly destroyed, of course! Well, he +must make shift to afford her another and smarter one, and get it made +quickly. She should have her pick and choice. As the following wave +soused his uprising head, slapping him full in the face, so as to +confuse and blind him for a second or two, the fear that she might get +"a dose of it" before they could pull her out made him sharply anxious. +If she got a bad cold, a shock to her nerves, perhaps a serious +illness, he would never forgive himself. And what a sell that would +be—what waste of this precious holiday, this second honeymoon, so much +sweeter than the first—after the weary waiting for it! +</P> + +<P> +He cleared his eyes, and had a momentary view of the surroundings +before another wave rushed upon him. Waves they were, by George! He +would not have believed it possible that such a sea would be running +right up here, in this little duck-pond of a bay. It had seemed rough +on the boat, but viewed from the surface, it might have been the middle +of Atlantic wastes. They were in the river channel—worse luck!—and +the south wind was dead on to it, bringing up the swell from outside; +and the swell, that had set that way for days, was so heavy as to drive +him back faster than his powerful limbs could propel him in the other +direction. At first the launch seemed to want to dance over him, but +when he rose on a swirl of water to take his bearings after the first +bewilderment, she was a couple of lengths away, cutting the most +extraordinary capers in her efforts to put about. Her own lights, and +those of the beacons at the river mouth, showed him all her stern +grating and bright deck fittings as she heeled over, hanging to the +side of one of those ridiculous ocean rollers out of bounds; and he +thought it no wonder that he—even he—had been tossed off under the +circumstances. The crew, who were not sitting on a skimming dish, as it +were, had their work cut out to hold on. As he looked, he measured his +drift with serious disquietude, although the preposterous idea of +anybody being drowned had not as yet occurred to him. Drowned HERE! A +good joke, indeed! Why, they were within hail of Sandridge, and +half-a-dozen ships—or they would have been, but for the noise of wind +and water, which smothered lesser sounds; and the lights of +Williamstown—amongst them that of the little home awaiting +him—studded the shore on the other hand, near and clear, like the eyes +of a host of watching friends. And in Hobson's Bay, which could hardly +cover the body of a sunk yacht; and right up by the river, which had to +be dredged all the time to keep it open! +</P> + +<P> +But where was Lily? It scared him to find himself out of arm's reach of +her, forced back by the swell, and not to see her immediately when he +was able to look. He saw the launch—which of course was entirely +occupied in her rescue—and saw two white buoys floating, and saw a +line thrown, but nothing else, except the wild water that buffeted him, +and the moonless night overhead. And he remembered that the river +channel—indeed, Hobson's Bay in any part—was just as dangerous as +mid-Atlantic to one who could not swim. The thought clutched him like a +hand at his throat. +</P> + +<P> +"Got her?" he yelled, in a fury of terror. "Got her? See her?" +</P> + +<P> +He strained to make himself heard by the men on the launch in a way to +burst his heart. They shouted something that he could not understand, +and a line came whizzing past him. He caught it as it dropped, and soon +lessened the distance between them. Then he perceived a long boat-hook +stretching out into the darkness; it went up and down with the toss of +the boat like the fishing-rod of an impatient school-boy, and a few +yards beyond its reach, where it touched water, there was a dim smudge. +He knew it for the full cape of Lily's macintosh, outspread upon the +waves. They alternately rumpled and smoothed it, flapping it into all +shapes as they tossed and toyed with it; but, by the mercy of Heaven, +it had held her up. In the middle of the mass he could see her dear +little head hanging forward and downward, just under the surface, out +of which a larger or smaller speck of her white fascinator rose and +gleamed as each roll swung her up into the light of the boat's lamp +turned upon the spot. This told him that she was already helpless and +unconscious, although ten seconds had not elapsed since she went over. +God send that she had not struck anything—that her heart was not +weak—that she was not subject to any of the mysterious consequences of +shock peculiar to the more than ordinarily complex women! At any rate, +she had not had time to drown. He had seen a man recovered after being +under for forty minutes, and in less than one they would be taking her +full speed to Williamstown, signalling for the doctor as they went. +What would the fellows ashore make of the three whistles—three times +there before they got across? They would know the launch that blew +them, and her present errand, and think, perhaps, that the crew were on +the spree. But no, they would have more sense than that; they would +look at the wild night, and conclude that something had happened. So +would the doctor, who would hear the summons from his bed. What would +they all say to him, Guthrie Carey, with his good seaman's record +behind him, when he brought his wife home in such a state of +dilapidation? However, all's well that ends well. Let him only have her +safely there, and he would not mind what anybody said; and he'd take +precious good care not to run any risks with her again. +</P> + +<P> +Water-logged as he was, and cramped in his overcoat, he made a violent +bound towards the floating cape, lunged twice, caught it at the second +try, and pulled it eagerly—alas! too eagerly. He felt the tug of +Lily's weight only just long enough to be sure that she was there, and +then—the fastenings gave way, and she slipped through! The empty +garment swam up to him on the edge of a new wave, which clapped it over +his face like a gigantic plaster. +</P> + +<P> +Oh, this was dreadful! She would be rescued eventually, of +course—amongst them they would not let her drown, not if skill and +courage had any show at all—but the fact that she was in danger could +no longer be ignored. She was a little delicate thing, already +overcome, and precious time was wasting, when every second was of the +most stupendous consequence. With a frenzied gesture, Guthrie shook off +the cloak, spluttered, spat, and made a dive to intercept her as she +went down, wondering as he did so whether breath and strength would +hold out if he missed her and had to follow her to the bottom. The +swing of the swell was awful, and the darkness of the blind night too +cruel for words. +</P> + +<P> +"If only I had this cursed coat off!" he dumbly sobbed. "If only I +could get rid of these damned laced boots!" Bad words would have been +forgivable even had he not been a sailor. +</P> + +<P> +He missed her, groped desperately, to the verge of suffocation, and +came up to cough, and groan, and pump breath enough to take him down +again. It would have cost five minutes to get his clothes off, and +there was not a single second to spare—now. +</P> + +<P> +"See her?" he shrieked. +</P> + +<P> +"Ne'er a sign," Bill Hardacre shouted. "But we'll catch her when she +rises. Take a turn o' the line round you, sir, so's we can haul you +in—" +</P> + +<P> +But there was not even time for that in the frightful race of these +vital moments. She was gone, and she must be found, and there was but +her husband to look for her. The two other men were few enough for the +safety of the launch as she was then situated; and besides, Hardacre +could be more useful to Lily above water than below. The neighbouring +ships lay undisturbed, putting off no boats to help. In all that band +of lights ringing the black welter of the bay, like stars out of the +Infinite, shining calmly upon an abandoned world, not one was moving. +</P> + +<P> +Guthrie Carey gave a last look round, identified the window of what was +to have been his home, where the fire was burning brightly, the little +supper spread, good Mrs Hardacre watching for them at the door—heard +the landlady's cousin wailing, "Lil! Lil!"—and again plunged under, +arms wide and eyes staring, and heart bursting with despair. Everything +in him seemed bursting—an agonising sensation—as his overstrained +lungs collapsed, and the power of his strong limbs failed him; then +everything seemed to break away and let in the floods of Lethe with a +rush—confusion and forgetfulness and a whirl of dreams, settling to a +strange peace, an irresistible sleep, as if he had swallowed a magic +opiate. The sea took him, as a nurse takes a helpless child, and +floated him up from the place where he had been savagely groping; +something met him half-way, floating down upon him, and his arms went +round it of their own accord. But they were powerless to clasp or hold +it. It passed him, sinking gently, and lay where it sank, under all the +turmoil, as still as the rocking tide would let it. +</P> + +<P> +The launch sounded her steam whistle furiously. From both sides of the +bay it was heard, screeching through the windy night like a fiend +possessed, and men got up hastily to ask what was the matter. Another +launch put out from Williamstown, and a police boat from Sandridge, and +the anchored ships awoke and hailed them. Soon half-a-dozen boats were +tossing about the spot; they tossed for two hours, and Bill Hardacre +dived seven times with a rope round his waist, while the widowed young +husband lay on the cabin floor between two doctors, the baby and the +landlady's cousin keening over him. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Dugald Finlayson, as at last they headed for Williamstown +through the now lessening storm, with a bundle in tarpaulin beside +them, "it do seem as if the Powers above take a pleasure in tripping us +up when we least expect it." +</P> + +<P> +"Aye," said Bill Hardacre, sitting crying in his wet clothes, "he said +as we were starting he'd got all he wanted now. I thinks to myself at +the time, thinks I, 'That's an unlucky thing to say.'" But who is to +judge luck in this world? Poor little Lily Harrison was a helpless +creature, and had almost 'nothing in her' except vanity. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II. +</H3> + +<P> +Sincerely he believed, when he was on his feet again, that his life was +wrecked for ever. He did suffer from insomnia, even with his splendid +sea-seasoned constitution, for months, which proved the poignant +insistency of his grief, making thinking a disease instead of a healthy +function. He performed his duties mechanically, rigidly, like an engine +stoked from the outside. He no longer had pleasure or interest in them. +The flavour was gone from life; it had become a necessary burden, to be +borne as best he could. At one time he even questioned the right of the +Moral Law to ask him to bear it, under the circumstances. He used to +look at the blue water beneath him, and long to be beneath it, sharing +the fate of his loved and lost. He did not want to live without her—he +wanted to die. At twenty-one! +</P> + +<P> +At twenty-three he was a man again, physically and mentally sound, +doing all reverence to the memory of his dead wife—a flawless angel in +the retrospect—while finding natural solace in the company of living +women who were also young and fair. The living women were much in +evidence from the first; nothing but the sea could keep them from +trying to comfort him. A big fellow, with a square, hard face, and a +fist to fell an ox—that was just the kind of man to call for coddling, +apart from the fact that he was a widower—had been married for as long +as five weeks altogether—with his heart in his wife's grave, and with +that pathetic adjunct, a baby. When he would consent to recognise the +world of affairs again, and the claims of youth and manhood against it, +he found—but of course there is no need to specify all the things he +found. +</P> + +<P> +One was a batch of invitations awaiting each arrival of his ship in +port—first two, then four, then half-a-dozen women's notes, begging +him to come to as many hospitable houses for change and rest, and to +"bring the baby". He could not bring the baby, for reasons which he did +not honestly present, as a rule, but which he reluctantly disclosed to +Alice Urquhart one night at Five Creeks. Alice had written one of the +six notes (they were six because it was Christmas time), for she was +the sister of Jim Urquhart, who was the friend of an ex-squatter down +on his luck through droughts, and reduced to balancing ledgers in a +Melbourne office, who was the friend of one of those doctors of +Williamstown whose skill had brought Guthrie Carey to life after he had +been drowned. Jim, having made the acquaintance of the latter, took his +sister to inspect the ship, and to have tea in the mate's cabin; hence +the return visit, which the captain, who loved his chief officer, +stretched a point to sanction. +</P> + +<P> +There were at Five Creeks station, besides Jim, a Mrs Urquhart and +several children; but Alice, the eldest of the family, was the general +manager of her household, ever struggling with her brother, who +maintained it, to lift it and herself out of the ruts in which her +father had left it stuck. She was close on thirty, sad to say, and +there were three girls below her; and nothing happened from year to +year, and she was weary of the monotony. "Do come and see us," she +wrote to Guthrie Carey—one of the finest-looking men she had ever +known, not excepting the splendid Claud Dalzell—"do come and see us, +and bring the baby. Country air will do it good, and the house is full +of nurses for it." +</P> + +<P> +He went himself, out of friendship for Jim, and after dinner sat in the +verandah with Alice, and explained why he had not brought the baby. Jim +had then gone off to doctor a sick horse, and Mrs Urquhart was putting +children to bed. +</P> + +<P> +"I believe," Alice rallied him, "that you thought it INFRA DIG." +</P> + +<P> +He protested earnestly that she was wrong. No, it was not that—not +THAT. +</P> + +<P> +Ignorant of the details of the tragedy of his life, she scented a +mystery about the child. Was it, perhaps, not right in its head, she +wondered—or afflicted with a hare lip? +</P> + +<P> +"Son or daughter?" she ventured cautiously. "A boy," said Guthrie +Carey, still with that unfatherly air of discontent. "Sometimes I wish +it was a girl. She could look after me by-and-by; I could have her +trained to be my housekeeper, and sew my buttons on—that sort of +thing, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"You would have to wait a long time," said Alice, turning admiring eyes +upon his comely person, noting with regret that he could not be within +several years of her own age. "It is quite a young infant, isn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; that is—let me see—fifteen months and a little over. Yes, it +will be fifteen months on Thursday since he lost his mother." Time had +done so much for him that he could now speak of her to a stranger. "And +he was then only a few weeks old." +</P> + +<P> +"Poor, poor little thing!" sighed Alice Urquhart. +</P> + +<P> +It was, by the way, a particularly sympathetic night—soft, still, +solitary, with a full moon. They both felt it. Besides, he had had an +excellent dinner. Five Creeks was poor, but it lived well. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," laughed the guest, without merriment in his laugh, "you needn't +waste pity on HIM, Miss Urquhart; he's all right. Rolls in fat—never +ailed a thing in his life—might take the prize at a baby show. So they +tell me. I have not seen him myself for a good while." +</P> + +<P> +"What! Why, he's in Melbourne, isn't he?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not far out." +</P> + +<P> +"And you haven't been home to see him?" +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't got a home. I gave it up when—you know. I knew I should +never be there, and you can't leave a house and a young child to +servants. The little time that I did try to carry on by myself, I made +a dismal mess of it. The woman I trusted to'—he meant Mrs +Hardacre—'started feeding it with thick arrowroot. She'd have killed +it to a certainty." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed, yes. The idea! But it is incredible what some fools of women +can do in the way of mismanaging a baby." The remark implied expert +knowledge on the speaker's part. +</P> + +<P> +"A mother of children herself, too," said Guthrie reflectively, "and +looking it, if ever a woman did. While a girl, who'd never had any, +took to the job like a duck to water—knew just what to do and how to +do it. I will say that for her." "Instinct," Miss Urquhart remarked to +the man in the moon, who seemed to survey the couple with his tongue in +his cheek. "I'm sure, though I say it, that I could give many a mother +points myself." +</P> + +<P> +"I've no doubt you could. I heard somebody say, the other day, that +mothers are born, not made. Very true, too. You see it in the little +girls nursing their dolls. I don't think anything of a she-child that +doesn't want a doll as soon as it can speak." "I always loved them," +declared Alice casually. +</P> + +<P> +He leaned forward to look at a spider's web that the silver light had +just touched, making it shine out from its background of dark leaves +and verandah post; and there was danger of rupture to the delicate +thread of the topic that was weaving so charming a conversation. +Wherefore the young lady hastened to inquire what had become of his +little son. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose," she said, "he is with his mother's people?" +</P> + +<P> +Slowly resuming his attitude of repose, the guest considered the +question. +</P> + +<P> +"No-o—not exactly. With a friend of his mother's, not her family. +Unfortunately, she had no family to speak of—and mine is in England. +Neither of us had a soul here who really belonged to us. That was just +the difficulty." +</P> + +<P> +"It must have been a great difficulty," murmured Alice, in a feeling +tone. +</P> + +<P> +"I believe you," assented Guthrie, with emphasis. "In fact, it put me +into the most ridiculous hole, the most confounded fix—one that I +can't for the life of me see my way out of; one that—However, I +mustn't talk about it to you. It's not a thing that one ought to talk +about to anybody." +</P> + +<P> +And yet he yearned to talk about it, and now, and to this particularly +sympathetic woman, who was not young and giddy, but, like himself, +experienced in the troubles of life, such as weighed him down. There +was "something about her" that irresistibly appealed to him, and he did +not know what; but an author, who knows everything, knows exactly what +it was. It was the moonlight night. +</P> + +<P> +A few words from her, backed by the nameless influences of the hour, +unloosed his tongue. +</P> + +<P> +"You mustn't think me an unnatural parent," he said. "It's not that at +all. I'm awfully fond of him. I've got his photograph in my +pocket—I'll show it to you when we go in—the last one for the time +being. I get a new one about every other mail, in all sorts of get-up, +clothes and no clothes; but all as fat as butter, and grinning from ear +to ear with the joy of life. You never saw such a fetching little cuss. +I'd give anything to get hold of him—if I could." +</P> + +<P> +"But surely—his own father—" +</P> + +<P> +"No. It sounds absurd to you, naturally; but that's because you don't +understand the situation." +</P> + +<P> +"I can't conceive of any situation—" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course not. It's a preposterous situation. And I just drifted into +it—I don't know how. Oh, I do know—it was for the child's own sake; +so that you really mustn't call me a heartless parent any more, Miss +Urquhart. Nobody would do that who knew what I'd suffered for him." Mr +Carey made a gesture, and sighed deeply. "Even in the beginning it +would have been difficult to get out of it, having once got in," he +continued, after a pause; "but it has been going on so long, getting +worse and worse every day and every hour, till now I'm all tangled up +like that moth in that spider's web"—pointing to a little insect +tragedy going on beside them. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Urquhart leaned forward, resting her arms on her knees, and +spreading her hands in the enchanting moonlight, which made them look +white as pearls—and made her rather worn face look as if finely carved +in ivory. It was a graceful, thoughtful, confidential pose, and her +eyes, uplifted, soft and kind, gleamed just under his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm so sorry!" she murmured. "But if I don't know what the trouble +is—oh, don't tell me if you'd rather not!—I can't help you, can I? +And I do wish I could!" +</P> + +<P> +"So do I. But I'm afraid nobody can help me. And yet, perhaps a fresh +eye—a woman's clearer insight—" He paused irresolute, then succumbed +to temptation. "Look here, Miss Urquhart, I'll just tell you how it is, +if you'll promise not to speak of it again. You are no gossip, I +know"—how did he know?—"and it will be such a blessed relief to tell +somebody. And perhaps you could advise me, after all—" +</P> + +<P> +"Let me try," she broke in encouragingly. For an instant her pearly +hand touched his sleeve. "You may trust me," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure of it—I'm sure of it," he responded warmly. He drew his +chair closer, took a moment to collect himself, and plunged headlong. +</P> + +<P> +"You see, she was related to the people my poor wife lived with when we +were first married, and she was a lot with her—it was lonesome for +her, with me away at sea—and they got to be sort of chums. She was +with us the night I lost my poor girl—I can't talk about that now, but +some day I'll tell you—and I know she was awfully fond of her. That +was just the difficulty." +</P> + +<P> +"You are speaking," queried Alice gently, "of the person who has the +baby?" +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly. I see you begin to understand." +</P> + +<P> +"I think so," said Alice, with a smile broad enough to be visible in +moonlight. "But what was the difficulty?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you know, being so really fond of her, and all that—wishing to +do it for the sake of her dear friend—what could I say, especially as +those women were killing the unfortunate brat between them? She was not +so very young, and was evidently clever at managing—" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," interposed Alice, smiling still. +</P> + +<P> +"And peculiarly situated for undertaking the job, having a good home, +and only an old mother, who let her do what she liked. And awfully set +on the baby from the first, and wanting an object in life, as she said. +But chiefly it was for Lily's sake. To see Lily's child messed about by +just anybody, and killed with arrowroot and stuff, was more than she +could stand—to tell the truth, I couldn't stand it either—and she +begged me to let her have it to look after, as there was no female +friend or relative nearer to it than she was. What COULD I do? She +lived in a nice, healthy spot, and there was the old mother with her +experience, and I was obliged to go to sea; and—and—well, I just had +to say "yes", and be thankful to say it. We got the—the doctor found +a—we engaged the sort of nurse that does everything, you know—a fine, +strapping young woman, in the pink of condition; and—and—well, there +it was. And at the first blush the worst of the trouble seemed over, +instead of just beginning. I gave up my house, and went off to sea, +miserable enough, as you may suppose, but at least with an easy mind +about the boy. As far as he was concerned—as far as my poor Lily was +concerned, I felt I had acted for the best. Indeed, I don't for the +life of me understand how any man could have acted otherwise, under the +circumstances." +</P> + +<P> +The listener, listening intently, here put a quiet question—"Did you +pay her?"—which caused the narrator to wince like a galled horse. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, there you hit the weak spot, Miss Urquhart, right in the +bull's-eye," he declared, sighing furiously. "If I could have paid her, +of course there'd have been no difficulty at all. But she wouldn't be +paid." +</P> + +<P> +"You ought to have insisted on it," said Alice severely. +</P> + +<P> +"I did insist. I insisted all I knew. But she said it was a labour of +love for her friend, and seemed so hurt at the idea of money being +brought into the question, that I was ashamed to press her beyond a +certain point. She let me pay for the nurse's board, and that was all. +The baby didn't eat anything, you see, and they were comfortably off, +with lots of spare room in their house, and I just looked on it as a +sort of temporary visit—until I came back—until I should be able to +turn round a bit. But"—with another sigh—"he's there yet." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Urquhart nodded, with an air of utter wisdom. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course you went to see the child?" +</P> + +<P> +"Three times—whenever I was in port. And found him always the same—so +beautifully cared for that, upon my soul, I never saw a baby in my life +so sweet and clean and wholesome-looking; jolly as a little sandboy all +the time, too." +</P> + +<P> +"That means that he had a perfect constitution—inherited from you +evidently—and that you were fortunate in the nurse." +</P> + +<P> +"Very fortunate. But it appeared that beyond—beyond running the +commissariat department, so to speak, she did next to nothing for him. +Miss—the lady I spoke of—did everything. Made herself a perfect slave +to him." +</P> + +<P> +"Bought his clothes?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," groaned the wretched man, "I suppose so. What did I know about a +baby's clothes? And she wouldn't answer my questions—said he was all +right, and didn't want for anything, as I could see with my own eyes. I +tried making presents—used to bring her curios and things—found out +her birthday, and sent her a jewel—took every chance I could see to +work off the obligation. But it was no use. She gave ME a birthday +present after I'd given her one." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, if moths will go into spiders' webs," laughed his companion, +"they must take the consequences." +</P> + +<P> +"Sometimes they get helped out," he replied. "Some beneficent, godlike +being puts out an omnipotent finger—" +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her, and she looked at him. At this moment they seemed to +have known one another intimately for years. The moon again. +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me everything," she said, "and I'll help you out." +</P> + +<P> +So then he told her that he had not "this time" visited his son. He +might have added that he had come to Five Creeks partly to avoid being +visited by him. Cowardly and weak he frankly confessed himself. "But +the thing was too confoundedly awkward—too embarrassing altogether." +</P> + +<P> +"But she writes—she writes continually. Tells me what he weighs, and +when he's got a fresh tooth, and how he crawls about the carpet and +into her bed of a morning, and imitates the cat mewing, and drinks I +don't know how many pints of new milk a day, and all that sort of +thing. I believe the rascal has the appetite of a young tiger—and yet +I can't pay for what he eats! The nurse was long ago dispensed with, so +that I've not even her board to send a cheque for, that they might by +chance make a trifle of profit out of. It seems too late now to simply +take the child away, and there leave it. I haven't the shabby courage +to do such a thing; and besides, he might come to any sort of grief, +poor little chap, in that case. There's no doubt in the world that her +taking of him and doing for him have been the salvation of his health, +and perhaps his life. And I know, by what she tells me, that he +regularly dotes on her—as so he ought—and would howl his very head +off if I took him from her. What could I do with him if I did take him? +I've no home, and nobody to look after it if I had; and hired servants +are the deuce with a lone man at their mercy. It would be worse now +than it was at first. And so'—with another heavy sigh—'you see the +situation. I'm just swallowed up, body and bones, drowned fathoms deep +in a sea of debt and obligation that I can never by any possibility +struggle out of, except—" +</P> + +<P> +"Except," continued Alice, with the candid air of a kind and sensible +sister—"except by marrying her, you mean? Yes, I see the situation. I +appreciate your point of view. I should understand it if it were not +that she unquestionably laid the trap for you deliberately—just as +that spider laid his for moths and flies. And marriage by capture has +gone out." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, don't say that!" the man protested, in haste. "I would not for a +moment accuse her of that. She was Lily's friend; it was for her—it +was out of pure womanly compassion for the motherless child; at any +rate, in the beginning. And even now I have no right whatever to +suppose—" +</P> + +<P> +"But you know it, all the same. Every word you have said to me tells me +that you know it. You may as well be frank." +</P> + +<P> +He squirmed a little in his chair, but confessed as required. +</P> + +<P> +"Well—but it's a caddish thing to say—I think she does expect it. And +hasn't she the right to expect it? However, that's neither here nor +there. The point is that, in common honesty and manliness, I should +repay her if I can; and there's no other way—at least, I can't see any +other way. It is my fault, and not hers, that I don't take to the +notion; for a better woman never walked, nor one that would make a +better mother to the boy. But, somehow, you DO like to have your free +choice, don't you?" He had come as far as this—that he could entertain +the idea of choice, which meant a second choice. +</P> + +<P> +"It would be utterly wrong, absolutely immoral, downright wicked, to +forego it," Alice declaimed, with energy. "It would be nothing short of +criminal, Mr Carey." +</P> + +<P> +She argued the point with eloquence, even excitedly; and when she had +brought him to reason—very willing to be brought—leaned back in her +chair with a joyous air. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, we will arrange it!" she reassured him. "There are plenty of ways. +I'll tell you"—bending forward again and gazing earnestly into eyes +from which something that had been looking out of them seemed to have +drawn back hastily—"you shall introduce me to her, and I will bring +him away up here for a visit. He ought to be in the country in summer, +and he will come with me, I know, and won't miss her after a couple of +days. I can get you a nurse cheap from some of the selectors, and one +more or less makes not the slightest difference in a house like this; +and I will take care of him for you until you come back next voyage, or +for just as long as you will trust him to me. So the difficulty will +solve itself without any fuss. Do you see?" +</P> + +<P> +Guthrie Carey felt unable to reply. He could only murmur again and +again: "You are awfully good, Miss Urquhart. 'Pon my word, you are too +good altogether." Later, he declared more firmly that he could not +think of troubling her. +</P> + +<P> +"Nonsense!" she returned lightly. "It is all settled." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III. +</H3> + +<P> +Decidedly he was a coward, with all his brawn and inches; for he dared +not protest straight-forwardly that all was not settled. He certainly +told himself that he did not know what to do, but he also told himself +that he would be a fool to do practically the same thing that he had +done before. He passed a sleepless night, poor fellow, cogitating the +matter; and in the morning, when the moon was gone, saw clearly himself +where the path of prudence lay. Still he lacked courage to make it +clear to Miss Urquhart, even while he saw her laying out, with +enthusiasm, that road of her own which his terrified imagination +pictured her marching along presently, bearing the baby aloft in her +arms, and dragging him on a dog-chain behind her. It was not until +mid-day that he suddenly became a brave man—about five minutes after +the arrival of Deborah Pennycuick. +</P> + +<P> +She rode over from Redford, all by herself, as her frequent custom was, +to see how Five Creeks was getting on, and to talk over plans for +Christmas. She wore a brown holland habit over the most beautifully +moulded form, and, entering the house, tossed aside a shady hat from +the most beautiful face that ever delighted eyes of man and virile +heart of three-and-twenty. It is in such plain terms that one must +describe this noble creature; words in half-tones are unworthy of the +theme. Being introduced by Alice Urquhart, Guthrie Carey, in a sense, +expanded on the spot into a fresh stage, a larger scope of being, with +his unleaping recognition of her inspiring greatness. It seemed to him +that he had never looked upon a woman before. Lily, of course, had been +an angel. "I thought I should just strike lunch," she said, as she came +like a sunbeam into the dim, low-ceiled, threadbare, comfortable room +where the meal was ready. "I'm as hungry as a hunter, Mrs Urquhart." +</P> + +<P> +The homely old woman uttered a cry of joy, and spread her arms. The +visitor, incarnate dignity, bent to the maternal caress with willing +affection, yet with the tolerant air of good-nature that does not run +to gush. The children gathered round her, and hung upon her, undeterred +by the fact that she had no kisses or fondlings for them. Jim stood +motionless, glowing at the back of his fixed eyes. +</P> + +<P> +When the family had done greeting her, Guthrie was brought forward. +</P> + +<P> +"This is Mr Carey, Deb, who—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes, I know"—and the frank hand, large, strong and beautiful, +like every bit of her, went out to him as if she had really known +him—"it is on Mr Carey's account that I have come, to tell you that +you must bring him over to Redford at once." +</P> + +<P> +"We were going to," said Alice; for it was the natural thing to take +every Five Creeks visitor to Redford as soon as possible. "I was +writing to you only this morning." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, we just wanted to make sure. My father—you will excuse him for +not calling on you; he is not able to get about as he used, poor old +man—hears that you belong to a family at home which was very intimate +with his family when he was young. Do you come from Norfolk?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," replied the sailor, still in his dream. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, dear, what a pity! He will be so disappointed. We have been +hearing about the Careys of Wellwood all our lives—never were such +people, apparently—and when he heard your name, and got the idea that +you were of the clan, nothing would do but that you must be fetched at +once, to talk to him about them. Aren't you even a second cousin, or +something?" +</P> + +<P> +"My grandfather was born at Wellwood—" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, that's right! That's all we want. That makes you a Carey of +Wellwood, of course. I hope you know the place?" "I have seen it. But +my grandfather was a younger son and a ne'er-do-weel; he was kicked +out—he quite broke off—" +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind. You needn't go into inconvenient particulars. Try and +remember all you know that's nice about the Hall and the family. Did +you ever hear of a Mary Carey? But no—she would be before your time, +of course." +</P> + +<P> +"There was an old Mary Carey; she married a Spencer. She was pointed +out to me last time I was at home—the nut-cracker type, nose and chin +together—" +</P> + +<P> +"Goodness! Keep that dark too, for mercy's sake! She is his ideal +woman. It is for her sake he wants you to talk Wellwood with. If you +spoil his pleasure with that hint of nut-crackers, I'll never forgive +you." +</P> + +<P> +"I hope I know better," Guthrie smiled, coming to himself a little. +</P> + +<P> +"I am sure you do," said she, and turned from him to take her chair at +table. +</P> + +<P> +"Then we'll bring him tomorrow," Alice said, seating herself. +</P> + +<P> +"This afternoon," said the visitor commandingly. +</P> + +<P> +Alice wanted another moonlight talk about the baby, and knew the small +chance of getting it where Deborah Pennycuick was, and she raised +obstacles, fighting for delay. Deborah calmly turned to Jim. +</P> + +<P> +"Anything to hinder your coming this afternoon, Jim?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing," said Mr Urquhart promptly. +</P> + +<P> +The matter was evidently settled. +</P> + +<P> +They sat down to lunch, and the talk was brisk. It was almost confined +to the visitor and Alice, although the former carefully avoided the +shutting out of the hostess from the conversation, in which she was +incapable of taking a brilliant part. Jim, in the host's place, sat +dumb and still, except for his alertness in anticipating his guest's +little wants. Guthrie Carey, on her other hand, was equally silent. +Neither of the two men heard what she talked about for listening to the +mere notes of her charming voice. +</P> + +<P> +After luncheon she put on her sensible straw hat. +</P> + +<P> +"You must drive Mr Carey," she said to Jim. "I'll just ride ahead, and +let them know you are coming." +</P> + +<P> +"Let us all go together," said Alice. "I'll drive Mr Carey, and Jim can +escort you." +</P> + +<P> +But there was no gainsaying Deborah Pennycuick when she had expressed +her views. +</P> + +<P> +"You have to get ready," she pointed out, "and you'll do it quicker if +I'm not here. Besides, I can't wait." +</P> + +<P> +They all went out with her to the gate, where her superb, high-tempered +horse pawed the gravel, and champed upon his bit. Jim sent her +springing to the saddle from his horny palm like a bird let out of it, +and they watched in silence while she crossed two paddocks, leaped two +sets of slip-rails, and disappeared as a small dot of white +handkerchief from the sun-suffused landscape. +</P> + +<P> +"What riding!" Guthrie Carey ejaculated, under his breath. +</P> + +<P> +"She's the best horsewoman in the country," Jim Urquhart commented +slowly, after a still pause. +</P> + +<P> +He was a slow—to some people a dull and heavy—man, who talked little, +and less of Deborah Pennycuick than of any subject in the world—his +world. +</P> + +<P> +"And what a howling beauty!" the sailor added, in the same whisper of +awe. +</P> + +<P> +Again the bushman spoke, muttering deeply in his beard: "She is as good +as she is beautiful." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Urquhart took her levelled hand from her eyes, and turned to +contribute her testimony. +</P> + +<P> +"There, Mr Carey, goes the flower of the Western District. You won't +find her match amongst the best in England. I was with her mother when +she was born—not a soul else—and put her into her first clothes, that +I helped to make; and a bonny one she was, even then, with her black +eyes, that stared up at me as much as to say: 'Who are you, I'd like to +know?' Dear, it seems like yesterday, and it's nigh twenty years ago. +All poor Sally Pennycuick's girls are good girls, and the youngest is +going to be handsome too. Rose, the third, is not at all bad-looking; +poor Mary—I don't know who she takes after. The father was the one +with the good looks; but Sally was a fine woman too. Poor dear old +Sally! I wish she was here to see that girl." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Urquhart and Mrs Pennycuick, plain, brave, working women of the +rough old times, wives of high-born husbands, incapable of companioning +them as they companioned each other, had been great friends. On them +had devolved the drudgery of the pioneer home-making without its +romance; they had had, year in, year out, the task of 'shepherding' two +headstrong and unthrifty men, who neither owned their help nor thanked +them for it—the inglorious life-work of so many obscure women—and had +strengthened each other's hands and hearts that had had so little other +support. +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Pennycuick—she is not living, I presume?" Guthrie enticed the +garrulous lady to proceed. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear, no. She died when Francie was a baby," and Mrs Urquhart gave the +details of her friend's last illness in full. "Deb was just a little +trot of a thing—her father's idol; he wouldn't allow her mother to +correct her the least bit, though she was a wilful puss, with a temper +of her own; ruled the house, she did, just as she does now. If she +hadn't had such a good heart, she'd have grown up unbearable. There +never was a child in this world so spoiled. But spoiling's good for +her, she says. It's to be hoped so, for spoiling she'll have to the end +of the chapter. She's born to get the best of everything, is Debbie +Pennycuick. Fortunately, her father's rich, though not so rich as he +used to be; and when she leaves her beautiful home, it'll be to go to +another as good, or better. She's got to marry well, that girl; she'd +never get along as a poor woman, with her extravagant ways. It'd never +do"—Mrs Urquhart's voice had, subtly changed, and something in it made +the blood rise to the cheeks of the listeners "it'd never do to put her +into an ordinary bush-house, where often she couldn't get servants for +love or money, because of the dull life, and might have to cook for +station hands herself, and even do the washing at a pinch—" +</P> + +<P> +Jim wheeled round suddenly, and strode back to the house—the house, as +he was quite aware, which his mother alluded to. She, agitated by the +movement, and without completing her sentence, turned and trotted after +him. Alice was left leaning over the gate, at Guthrie Carey's side. +</P> + +<P> +"You will enjoy this visit," she remarked calmly, ignoring the little +scene. "Redford is a beautiful place—quite one of the show-places of +the district—and they do things very well there. Mary is ostensibly +the housekeeper; she really does all the hard work, but it is Deb who +makes the house what it is. After she came home from school she got her +father to build the new part. Since then they have had much more +company than they used to have. Mary, who had been out for some years, +didn't care for gaieties. She is a dear girl—we are all awfully fond +of her—but she has a most curious complexion—quite bright red, as if +her skin had something the matter with it, although it hasn't. Of +course, that goes against her." +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Deborah's complexion is wonderful." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. But oh, Deb isn't to be compared with Mary in anything except +looks. She is eaten up with vanity—one can't be surprised—and is very +dictatorial and overbearing; you could see that at lunch. But Mary is +so gentle, so unselfish—her father's right hand, and everybody's +stand-by." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think Miss Deborah seemed—" +</P> + +<P> +"Because you don't know her. I do. She simply loathes children, while +Mary would mother all the orphan asylums in the world, if she could. I +always tell her that her mission in life is to run a creche—or should +be. Lawks! How she will envy me when I get that boy of yours to look +after!" +</P> + +<P> +Guthrie's feet seemed to take tight hold of the ground. "Really, Miss +Urquhart—er—I can't thank you for your goodness in—in asking him up +here—but I've been thinking—I've made up my mind that the best thing +I can do is to take him home to my own people." The idea was an +inspiration of the desperate moment. How to put it into practice he +knew not, and she tried to show him that it was impracticable; but he +stuck to it as to a life-buoy. He would write to his sister—all the +'people' he owned apparently—and find somebody who was going home; and +"Isn't it time to be putting our things together? Miss Pennycuick told +us we were to be there for tea at four o'clock, if possible." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<P> +Behold him at Redford, with his tea-cup in his hand. He was safe now +from talk about the baby; but he was also cut off from the lovely +Deborah, now wandering about her extensive grounds with another young +man. Old Father Pennycuick had him fast. They sat together under a +verandah of the great house. +</P> + +<P> +"There were no pilots then," said the old man, puffing comfortably at +his pipe—"there were no pilots then, and we had to feel our way along +with the cast 'o the lead. We got ashore at Williamstown, on sailors' +backs, and walked to Melbourne. Crossed the Yarra on a punt, not far +from where Prince's Bridge now is—" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Guthrie Carey. +</P> + +<P> +He seemed to be listening attentively, his strong, square face set like +a mask; but his eyes roamed here and there. +</P> + +<P> +"Bread two-and-six the small loaf," Mr Pennycuick dribbled into his +dreaming ears. "Eggs sixpence apiece. Cheap enough, too, compared with +the gold prices. But gold was not thought of for ten years after that. +I tell you, sir, those were the times—before the gold brought all the +riff-raff in." +</P> + +<P> +The sailor murmured something to the effect that he supposed they were. +</P> + +<P> +"We'd got our club, and a couple of branch banks, and a post-office, +and Governor La Trobe, and Bishop Perry, and the nicest lot of fellows +that ever came together to make a new country. We were as happy as +kings. All young men. I was barely twenty-three when I took up +Redford—named after our place at home. You know our place at home, of +course?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have seen it from the road," answered the guest, arrested in his +mental wanderings by the mention of his own age. +</P> + +<P> +"You must have seen it often, living so close." +</P> + +<P> +"I never lived close myself; I am a Londoner." +</P> + +<P> +"It's all the same—your people do. The Pennycuicks and the Careys have +been neighbours for generations." +</P> + +<P> +"I am only distantly related to that family." +</P> + +<P> +"A Carey is a Carey," persisted the old man, who had determined to have +it so from the first, and he would listen to no disclaimers. +</P> + +<P> +He had already referred darkly to that Mary Carey of the hooked nose +and pointed chin. His eldest daughter, he said, had been named after +her. This eldest daughter, with her too-ruddy face, had shyly drawn +near, and taken a chair at her father's elbow, where she sat very +quietly, busily tatting. Plain though her face was, she had beautiful +hands. Her play with thread and shuttle, just under Guthrie's eyes, +held them watchful for a time—the time during which no sign of +Deborah's white gown was to be perceived upon the landscape. +</P> + +<P> +"My brother and I, we never hit it off, somehow. So when my father died +I cleared. You don't remember his funeral, I suppose? No, no—that was +before your time. They hung the church all over with black broadcloth +of the best. That was the way in those days, and the cloth was the +parson's perquisite. The funeral hangings used to keep him in coats and +trousers. And they used to deal out long silk hat-scarves to all the +mourners—silk that would stand alone, as they say—and the wives made +mantles and aprons of them. They went down from mother to daughter, +like the best china and family spoons. That's how women took care of +their clothes when I was young. They didn't want new frocks and fallals +every week, like some folks I could name." And he pinched his +daughter's ear. +</P> + +<P> +"Talk to Deb, father," said Mary. "I have not had a new frock for a +great many weeks." +</P> + +<P> +"Aye, Deb's the one! That girl's got to marry a millionaire, or I don't +know where she'll be." +</P> + +<P> +Almost Mrs Urquhart's words! And, like hers, they pricked sharply into +the feelings of our young man. His eyes went a-roaming once more, to +discover the white gown afar off, trailing unheeded along a dusty +garden path. The old man saw it too, and his genial countenance clouded +over. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he continued, after a thoughtful pause, "poor old Billy Dalzell +and I, we emigrated together. He had a devil of a stepfather, and no +home to speak of. We were mates at school, and we made up our minds to +start out for ourselves. You remember the Dalzells of the Grange, of +course?" +</P> + +<P> +"I can't say that I do, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, they're gone now. Billy's father went the pace, and the +mortgagees sold him up; and if his mother hadn't given him a bit when +we started, Billy wouldn't have had a penny. She pawned all she could +lay her hands on for him, we found out afterwards—Billy was cut up +about that—and got ill-used by Heggarty for it when he found it out. +She was a fool, that woman. Everybody could see what Heggarty was, +except her. Old Dalzell was a gentleman, anyhow, with all his faults." +</P> + +<P> +The white dress drew nearer, and its grey tweed companion. The host was +once more wasting his story on deaf ears. "So we started off; and when +we got here we went in together. He had enough to buy a mob of cattle +and a dray and team, and so had I. We loaded up with all the +necessaries, and hired three good men, and travelled till we found +country. Took us about five months. At last we came here, and put our +pegs in, and I started off to Melbourne for the license—ten pounds, +and leave to renew at the end of the year—and here I've stuck ever +since. Billy, he took up other land, and got married, and died, poor +chap! And that's his boy over there," pointing with his pipe—"and +he'll never be the man his father was, if he lives to a hundred." +</P> + +<P> +The person referred to was he in the grey tweed, who sauntered with +such assurance at white-robed Deborah's side. He was a tall, graceful +and most distinguished-looking young fellow; but Guthrie Carey was +prepared to believe heartily the statement that Dalzell junior would +never be the man his father was. +</P> + +<P> +"You shall see the identical hut," Mr Pennycuick kindly promised. "Down +by the creek, where those big willows are—I planted them myself. Not +good enough for a dog-kennel, my daughters say; but the best thing I +can wish for them is that they may be as happy in their good houses as +I was in that old shanty—aye, in spite of many a hard time I had +there, with blacks and what not. We cut the stuff, Billy and I, and set +the whole thing up; and all our furniture was our sleeping-bunks and a +few stools and a table. We washed in a tin bowl on a block outside the +door. Not so particular about tubbing and clean shirts in those days. +Our windows were holes of a handy size for gun barrels, and the +shutters we put up o' nights were squares of bark hung on to nails by +strips of green hide. Many's the time I've woke to see one of 'em +tilted up, and a pair of eyes looking in—sometimes friends, sometimes +foes; we were ready for either. When Billy went, and I thought I'd get +married too, then I built a better house—brick this time, and workmen +from Melbourne to do it; that's it over there, now the kitchens and +store-rooms—and imported furniture—er—I am not boring you, I hope?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, dear, no! I am deeply interested." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Billy and I"—the tale seemed interminable—"Billy and I, we +gave sixty pounds apiece for our stock horses, and the same for a ton +of flour; and went right over Ballarat without knowing it. Camped +there, sir, and didn't see the gold we must actually have crunched +under our boot heels. And Billy had misfortunes, and died poor as a +rat. It was in the family. Mrs D. was all right, though. She used to +send a brother of hers to Melbourne market with her cattle, and cash +being scarce, he would sometimes have to take land deeds for them, and +she'd be wild with him for it. But what was the consequence? Those bits +of paper that she thought so worthless that it's a wonder she took the +trouble to save them, gave her city lots that turned out as good as +gold mines. She sold too soon, or she'd have made millions—and died of +a broken heart, they say, when she found out that mistake. Still, she +left a lot more than it's good for a young fellow to start life with. +That boy has been to Cambridge, and now he loafs about the club, +pretends to be a judge of wine, gets every stitch of clothes from +London—pah!" Mr Pennycuick spat neatly and with precision over the +verandah floor into a flower-bed. "But these mother's darlings—you +know them. If Mrs Dalzell could see him now, I daresay she'd be +bursting with pride, for there's no denying that he's a smart-looking +chap. But his father would be ashamed of him." +</P> + +<P> +"Daddy dear!" Mary gently expostulated. +</P> + +<P> +"So he would. An idle, finicking scamp, that'll never do an honest +stroke of work as long as he lives. And I wish Deb wouldn't waste her +time listening to his nonsense. Isn't it about time to be getting ready +for dinner, Moll?" +</P> + +<P> +Mary looked through a window at a clock indoors, and said it was. +Guthrie hailed the news, and rose to his feet. +</P> + +<P> +But not yet did he escape. His host, hoisting himself heavily out of +his big cane chair, hollowed like a basin under his vast weight, +extended a detaining hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Come with me to my office a minute," he half whispered. "I'd like to +show you something." +</P> + +<P> +With apparent alertness, but sighing inwardly, Guthrie followed his +host to the room in the old part of the house which he called his +office. Mr Pennycuick carefully shut the door, opened a desk full of +drawers and pigeon-holes, and brought forth a bit of cardboard with a +shy air. He had never shown it to his family, and doubtless would not +have shown it now if he had not been growing old and soft and +sentimental. It was a prim and niggling little water-colour drawing of +English Redford—a flat facade, with swallows as big as condors flying +over the roofs, and dogs that could never have got through any doorway +gambolling on the lawn in front. A tiny 'Mary Carey' in one corner was +just, and only just, visible to the naked eye. +</P> + +<P> +"This was done for me, when we were both young, by her—your aunt," +said Mr Pennycuick, gloating upon his treasure over Guthrie's shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"Not my aunt," explained Guthrie. "I don't know what relation, but a +long way farther off than that. I am only a very small Carey, you know, +sir." +</P> + +<P> +Mr Pennycuick testily intimated, as before, that to be a Carey at all +was enough for him. It was his excuse for these confidences, of which +he was half ashamed. +</P> + +<P> +While Guthrie studied the poor picture, trying to look as interested as +he was expected to be, his host turned and stared down into the drawer +that had held it for so many years. Other things were there—the usual +dead flowers, still holding together, still fusty to the nose; the +usual yellowing ball glove, the usual dance and invitation cards, and +faded letters, with their edges frayed; a book-marker with an +embroidered 'Friendship', mixed up with forget-me-nots, in coloured +silks upon perforated card, backed by a still gleaming red satin ribbon +looped at one end and fringed out at the other; the book that it was +tucked into ("The Language of Flowers"), a large valentine in a wrapper +with many broken seals, some newspaper cuttings, half a sixpence, with +a hole in it, and a daguerreotype in a leather case. +</P> + +<P> +This last he took up, opened and gazed at steadily, until his companion +was compelled to interrupt him with an inquiring eye. Then he passed it +over, and Guthrie turned it this way and that, until he caught the +outlines of a long aquiline face between bunched ringlets, and a long +bodice with a deep point, which he understood to have belonged to his +distant relative at some period before he was born. +</P> + +<P> +"And this?" he murmured politely. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Mr Pennycuick; "that's her. And I've never shown it to a +soul before—not even to my wife." +</P> + +<P> +"A—a sweet expression. Fair, was she?" +</P> + +<P> +"Fair as a lily, and as pure, and as beautiful. Gentle as a dove. With +blue eyes." +</P> + +<P> +Guthrie did not care for this type just now. He liked them dark and +flashing and spirited, like Miss Deborah. But he murmured "Hm-m-m" +sympathetically. +</P> + +<P> +"The loveliest woman in England," the old man maundered on. "Surely you +must have heard of her, in the family?" +</P> + +<P> +Guthrie had not only heard of her, as we know, he had seen her; but he +shook a denying head, and dropped another hint of his own position in +the family—outside the royal enclosure, as it were. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, now, I'll just tell you what happened," said Mr Pennycuick, +turning to the open drawer again. "Strictly between ourselves, of +course—and only because you are a Carey, you understand—somehow you +bring it all back—" +</P> + +<P> +He was fumbling with the big valentine, getting it out of its case. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes?" Guthrie encouraged him, while inwardly chafing to be gone. +</P> + +<P> +"You see this?" It was an exquisite structure of foamy paper lace, +silver doves, gauzed-winged Cupids, transfixed hearts and wreaths of +flowers, miraculously delicate. How it had kept its frail form intact +for the many years of its age was a wonder to behold. "You see this?" +said the old man. "Well, when I was a young fellow, the 14th of +February was a time, I can tell you! You fellows nowadays, you don't +know what fun is, nor how to go a-courting, nor anything.... I was at +old Redford that year, and she was at Wellwood, and all through the +sleet and snow I rode there after dark, tied my horse to a tree, crept +up that nut-walk—you know it?—and round by the east terrace to the +porch, and laid my valentine on the door-step, and clanged the bell, +and hid behind the yew-fence till the man came out to get it. Then I +went home. And last thing at night there was a clatter-clatter at the +door at Redford, and I dashed out to catch whoever it was—her brother +she sent—but wasn't quite smart enough. If only I'd seen him. I should +have known—as I ought to have, without that; but I didn't. It never +occurred to me that she'd send the answer so soon, and she had +disguised her writing in the address, and there was another girl—name +of Myrtle Vining—who used to have myrtle on her note-paper, and all +over the place—and here these flowers looked to me as if they were +meant for myrtle, and these two crossed arrows are like capital V—and +how I came to be such an egregious dolt, Lord only knows! Well, I've +paid for it—that I have—I've paid for it. Look here—don't touch! +I'll show you what I found out when it was too late—after she'd played +shy with me till I got angry and left her, and it was all over—my eyes +aren't good enough to see it now, but I suppose it's there still—" +</P> + +<P> +With infinite care and the small blade of his pocket-knife, he lifted +the tiny tip of a tiny Cupid's wing. With bent head and puckered +eyelids, Guthrie peered under, and read: "Yours, M. C.," written on a +space of paper hardly larger than a pin's head. +</P> + +<P> +"In my valentine that night," said Mr Pennycuick, "I'd asked her to +have me. I didn't hide it up in this way; I knew, while I wondered that +she took no notice, that she must have seen it. This was her answer. +And I never got it, sir, till she was married to another man—and then +by the merest accident. Then I couldn't even have the satisfaction of +telling her that I'd got it, and how it was I hadn't got it before. Of +course, I wasn't going to upset her after she was married to another +man. I've had to let her think what she liked of me." +</P> + +<P> +Guthrie was certainly interested now, but not as interested as he would +have been the day before. The day before, this story would have moved +him to pour out the tale of his own untimely and irreparable loss. He +and old Mr Pennycuick would—metaphorically speaking—have mingled +their tears together. +</P> + +<P> +"You forget, off and on," said Mr Pennycuick, as he wrapped up his +treasure with shaking hands and excessive care—"perhaps for years at a +time, while you are at work and full of affairs; but it comes +back—especially when you are old and lonely, and you think how +different your life might have been. You don't know anything about +these things yet. Perhaps, when you are an old man like me, you will." +</P> + +<P> +Guthrie did know—no one better, he believed. But he did not say. +Unknown to himself, he had reached that stage which Mr Pennycuick came +to when he began courting Sally Dimsdale, who had made him such a good +and faithful (and uninteresting) wife. +</P> + +<P> +"It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all," +says the old proverb. True enough. But one might write it this way, +with even more truth: "It is better to love and lose than to love and +gain." One means by love, romantic love, of course. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V. +</H3> + +<P> +Dinner was over. They had all gone up to the big drawing-room, which +was the feature of the 'new part'—the third house of the series which +now made one. The new part was incongruously solid and modern, with a +storey (comprising the drawing-room and its staircase only) which +overtopped the adjacent roofs. Below it was a corresponding +dining-room, and both apartments were furnished richly in the fashion +of the time—tons of solid mahogany in the latter, and a pasture of +grass-green carpet and brocade upholsterings in the former, lit up with +gilded wall-paper and curtain-cornices as by rays of a pale sun. Curly +rosewood sofas and arm-chairs, and marbled and mirrored chiffonniers, +and the like, were in such profusion upstairs as to do away with the +air of bleakness common to a right-angled chamber of large size and +middle-class arrangement. A fine grand piano stood open in a prominent +place. Four large shaded lamps and four piano candles pleasantly +irradiated the whole; while three French windows, opening on a balcony, +still stood wide to the summer night. +</P> + +<P> +By the great white marble mantelpiece, under the great gilt-framed +pier-glass, filling the huge chair specially dedicated to his use, +Father Pennycuick sat in comfortable gossip with his old friend, +Thornycroft of Bundaboo. It irked him to separate himself from pipe and +newspaper, baggy coat and slouchy slippers, and his corpulent frame +objected to stairs; but when he had guests he considered it his duty to +toil up after them, in patent shoes and dining costume, and sit amongst +them until music or card games were on the way, when he would retire as +unobtrusively as his size and heavy footstep permitted. It was the +custom to pretend not to see or hear him go, and it would have annoyed +him exceedingly had anyone bidden him good-night. +</P> + +<P> +The pair talked shop, after the manner of old squatters when they sit +apart; but the tall, spare, grey man with the thoughtful face—more +like a soldier than a sheep-farmer—was not thinking much of his flocks +and herds. His thoughts followed the direction of his quiet eyes, +focussed upon an amber silk gown and its immediate surroundings. Mr +Thornycroft was Deborah's godfather, and at forty-seven was to all the +sisters quite an elderly man, a sort of bachelor uncle to the family, +one with no concern in such youthful pastimes as love-making and +marrying, except as a benevolent onlooker and present-giver; and so the +veiled vigilance of his regard was not noticed, as it would not have +been understood, by anybody. +</P> + +<P> +But other eyes, similarly occupied, were plainer to read. +</P> + +<P> +Jim Urquhart's, of course. Jim—as ineligible for the most coveted post +in the Western District as he well could be, by reason of the family +already depending upon him, together with the load of debt left along +with it by his deceased father, a "pal" of Mr Pennycuick's in the gay +and good old times—still contrived to bring himself within the radius +of Deborah's observation whenever occasion served. And being there, +although silent and keeping to the background, his gaze followed her as +the gaze of an opossum follows a light on a dark night, with the same +still absorption. Nothing but her returning gaze could divert it from +its mark. It was so natural, so calmly customary, so unobtrusive, that +nobody cared to attach importance to it. +</P> + +<P> +He sat now, far back against the green brocade hangings of a corner +window, where he could see the beloved profile in the middle of the +room. His big, work-roughened hands clasped his big, bony knees, and +his long, loose body hung forward out of the little chair that was +never built for such as he; and he seemed given over to Rose +Pennycuick's tale of the pony that had corns, and the cat that had been +mangled in a cruel rabbit trap. He gave her wise counsel regarding the +treatment of these poor things, his deep, drawling voice an unnoticed +instrument in the orchestra of tongues; but his crude-featured, +sunburnt face held itself steadily in the one direction. From the day +that he came to manhood his soul had kept the same attitude towards the +woman to whom the profile belonged. But he never alluded to the fact, +save in this silent way. +</P> + +<P> +Then there was the Reverend Bennet Goldsworthy, "Church of England +minister", as his style and title ran. Privately, Mr Pennycuick did not +like him; but for the sake of the priestly office, and as being a +parishioner, he gave him the freedom of the house, and much besides. +The parson's buggy never went empty away. Redford hams, vegetables, +poultry, butter and eggs, etc., kept his larder supplied. His +horse-feed was derived therefrom; also his horse; also his cow. When +his cow began to fail, he promptly mentioned the fact—he was +mentioning it now to Mary Pennycuick. "Yes," he was saying, A PROPOS of +his motherless little girl—whom he often brought to Redford for change +of air, leaving her to the care of the sisters until convenient to him +to reclaim her—"yes, it will mean much to my child in after life to +have had the refining influences of this house at the most +impressionable age." Truth was, that Ruby was growing a little old for +her Kindergarten, and he wanted Redford to offer her (gratis, of +course) a share in Francie's governess. "I could not endure to see her +grow up like the daughters of so many of my brother clergy, ignorant of +the very rudiments of decent life"—meaning not decent life in the +ordinary acceptation of the term, but the life that included evening +dress and finger-glasses. "She has caught the colonial accent already +at that horrid school. 'When is the new keeow coming?' says she. And, +by the way, that reminds me—your good father promised me the cow a +fortnight ago. The one we have gives us hardly enough milk for the +table; we have had no butter from her for months." +</P> + +<P> +"I am so sorry," grieved Mary, as if Redford had failed in its sacred +duty of hospitality. "I will tell him about it. The men have all been +so busy with the shearing." +</P> + +<P> +She was also distressed that she could not definitely invite Ruby for +the impending holidays. But Deb had issued her commands that Redford +was not to be saddled with a nurseless child at Christmas, when +everybody's hands would be full. +</P> + +<P> +Mary was Ruby's willing foster-mother when Redford had her in charge; +she was also the kindest hostess of them all to Ruby's father. To her +was left the task of entertaining him, and she never neglected it. +Naturally, he gave her no thanks. When he said that what Ruby needed +was a mother's tender care, it was at Deborah he looked, who never +turned a hair's-breadth in his direction at any time, except when good +manners obliged her, and who was not tender to Ruby, whom she called +"that brat", and had smartly spanked on several occasions. +</P> + +<P> +A beautiful woman cannot help having objectionable lovers any more than +a king can help a cat looking at him. This man—a most well-meaning, +good-hearted, useful little underbred person, typical of so large a +class in the Colonial Church—was Deb's pet aversion, and did not know +it. He was not made to see his own deficiencies as she saw them. When +first she flashed upon his dazzled vision, splendid in a scarlet dinner +gown, and carrying her regal head as if the earth belonged to her, he +really saw no reason why he, with his qualifications of comparative +youth, good looks (his sort of good looks), and notorious pulpit +eloquence, should not aspire to rush in where so many feared to tread. +His rush had been checked at the outset, but he was still unaware of +the nature of the barrier that Deb held rigid between them. He +continued to gaze at her with his ardent little black eyes as if no +barrier were there. And it was because he did so that Deb, who could +not slap him for it, slapped Ruby sometimes, and called her a brat, and +would not have her asked to Redford for the holidays; thereby giving +occasion to envious Alice Urquhart for that warning to Guthrie Carey +not to trust his baby to her. +</P> + +<P> +There was still another lover present—the favoured lover. He sat with +Alice near the piano where Francie and her governess were playing +duets, listening without listening to his companion's jerky talk—those +pathetic attempts to attract him which so many second-rate girls were +not too proud to make obvious to his keen apprehension. Claud Dalzell's +distinction was that he was the most polished young man of his social +circle. He had had all the advantages that money could give and in +addition, was naturally refined and handsome. To hear Claud Dalzell +read poetry, or sing German folk-songs to his own graceful +accompaniment, was to make a poet of the listener; to dance with him +was pure enchantment (to another good dancer); he was the best horseman +in the land; and if his present host could not appreciate his many +charms—except perhaps the last named—others did. The whole race of +girls, more or less, fell down and worshipped him. +</P> + +<P> +He sat with Alice Urquhart because he could not sit with Deborah; or +rather, because he would not condescend to share her with that +"t'penny-ha'penny mate of a tramp cargo boat", as he styled Guthrie +Carey, whom she had made happy at last. She had rescued him from her +father's clutches; she had called him to a chair beside her, where +there was no room for a third chair. Her glistening skirt flowed over +his modest toes. Her firm, round arm, flung along the chair arm between +them, made him feel like Peter Ibbotson before the Venus of Milo—it +was so perfect a piece of human sculpture. She lay back, slowly fanning +herself, and smiling, her eyes wandering all the time in Dalzell's +neighbourhood, without actually touching him—a tall, deep-bosomed, +dark-eyed, dignified as well as beautiful young woman, knowing herself +to be such, and unspoiled by the knowledge. She wore her crown with the +air of feeling herself entitled to it; but it was an unconscious air, +without a trace of petty vanity behind it. Everything about her was +large and generous and incorruptibly wholesome, even her undoubted high +temper. And this was her charm to every man who knew her—not less than +her lovely face. +</P> + +<P> +Guthrie Carey—and who shall blame him?—basked in his good luck. But +every now and then he looked up and met the glower of Claud Dalzell +with a steely eye. These two men, each so fine of his kind, met with +the sentiments of rival stags in the mating season; the impulse to +fight 'on sight' and assure the non-survival of the unfittest came just +as naturally to them as to the less civilised animals. Each recognised +in the other not merely a personal rival, but an opposing type. +</P> + +<P> +It amused Deborah, who grasped the situation as surely as they did, to +note the bristling antipathy behind the careful politeness of their +mutual regard. If it did not bristle under her immediate eye, it +crawled. +</P> + +<P> +"Look out for the articles of virtue," Claud had warned her earlier in +the evening. "That big sailor of yours is rather like a bull in a china +shop; he nearly had the carved table over just now. He doesn't know +just how to judge distance in relation to his bulk. I'd like to know +his fighting weight. When he plants his hoof you can feel the floor +shake." +</P> + +<P> +"He IS a fine figure of a man," Deb commented, with a smile. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't," yawned Mr Dalzell casually, "stand a person who eats curry +with a knife and fork." +</P> + +<P> +"It was pretty tough, that curry. I expect he couldn't get it to pieces +with a spoon." +</P> + +<P> +"He did not try to." +</P> + +<P> +"I never noticed. I shouldn't remember to notice a little trifle like +that." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear girl, it is the little trifle that marks the man." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" said Deb. And then she sought Guthrie Carey, and brought him to +sit beside her. +</P> + +<P> +"That gentleman sings well," remarked Guthrie tepidly, at the +conclusion of a finely rendered song. "I often wish I could do those +ornamental things. Unfortunately, a man who has his work—if he sticks +to it properly—gets no time to qualify. I'm afraid I shall never shine +at drawing-room tricks." +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me about your work," said clever Deb, smiling behind her waving +fan. +</P> + +<P> +At once she had him quite happy, talking about himself. No effort was +necessary to draw him out; that she deigned to listen to him was +enough. His struggles as boy—blue-nose boy; his tough battle for the +first certificate; his complicated trials as second mate, holding +theoretically an authority that was practically none; his rise to be +qualified master and actual mate—no "t'penny-ha'penny" position in his +eyes evidently; his anticipation of the "master extra" and the pass in +steam, which might lead to anything—the whole tale was told her in +terse, straightforward fashion, but with an art new to the modest +sailor-man, who hated brag as much as cowardice. He bragged in +self-defence, in challenge of the formidable equipment of his rival. +And how interested she was! How well she understood his case—that it +was better than the swellest training-ship to make your own way by your +own exertions, and splendid to have done so much while still on the +right side of thirty. +</P> + +<P> +So much! He had done more than that—he had been a husband and father +at twenty-one. But this, his most distinguished exploit, was not +mentioned. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI. +</H3> + +<P> +He mentioned it next day, however. He had to; for after breakfast a +letter, forwarded from Five Creeks, reached him from the baby's +caretaker—the lady of whom he stood in such undignified dread. The +sight of her handwriting paled his brown face and set his stout heart +fluttering. What did she want of him? He kept the letter unopened for +some time, because he was afraid to know, although convinced beforehand +that he did know—that, of course, it was the visit he should have paid +before coming up country. When at last he drew the sheet from its +envelope, as if it had come from an infected house, and had not been +fumigated, and cast a hurried glance over the contents, he found that +the unexpected had happened once more—the wildly unexpected. +</P> + +<P> +She was going to be married. He was a "general merchant" in prosperous +business, and there was nothing to wait for—except Mr Carey's +instructions as to what was to be done with the dear little boy. She +would feel acutely the parting from him, after he had been from his +birth like a child of her own, but Mr Carey would understand that she +could not now continue her labour of love on his behalf—that she had +others to consider. But she knew of a most excellent substitute—a dear +friend of her own, who had long taken the deepest interest in darling +Harry, and with whom she was sure he would be as safe and happy as with +herself. She had expected to see Mr Carey when he arrived, to arrange +matters; she hoped he would come as soon as possible. +</P> + +<P> +In the bewilderment of his mingled elation and anxieties, the young +father did not know what to do for the moment, while recognising the +urgent need for action. He must go as soon as possible, of course; but +he could not depart suddenly without a reason, and to give the reason +would be to give himself away to Alice Urquhart. Besides, a day's +outing had been planned on purpose for him; the possibilities in +connection with it were enormous; and five days of his leave were +unexpended still. He must think it over. He must have advice. So, as a +first instalment of duty, he scrawled a recklessly affectionate letter, +full of gratitude to her who had been his good genius and the guardian +angel of his boy. He did not disguise his envy of the general merchant, +whose vows of love could not have excelled in fervent expression the +good wishes of the writer for the happiness of the betrothed pair. He +hoped to have the pleasure of seeing his dear old friend on the +following day, or the day after that at latest; and he promised himself +the satisfaction of squandering his saved pay on such a wedding present +as would at least cover the cost of the bread and milk the boy had +devoured at her expense. Guthrie dropped his letter in the post-bag +while they were calling to him that it was time to start. And he turned +the key of silence upon his secret until he could pour it into the +right ear. +</P> + +<P> +It was a wonder he did not pour it into Mary's, for she drove him to +Bundaboo, and nobody could have been more sympathetic than she. She was +the virtual mother of the family, who loved children, and she was +not—she could not be—a husband-hunter; a sensible man in domestic +difficulties could not have sought a wiser confidante. Yet he resisted +stubbornly all her gentle invitations to confide. In the first place, +he did not want to go with her in the pony-carriage, while Deb and +Dalzell rode. He did not like to see it taken for granted, as it seemed +to be by all, that a sailor on horseback must necessarily make a fool +of himself; the slight to his self-respect was enough to dull the edge +of his joy in the general merchant's proceedings—for, as the reader +will remember, he was still but three-and-twenty. +</P> + +<P> +He had to weigh down the springs of a little basket thing no better +than an invalid's wheel-chair, and see the young exquisite, whom he +could have tossed over his shoulder with one hand, show off feats of +fancy horsemanship to make Deb's dark eyes kindle. Mr Pennycuick had +carelessly asked Billy's degenerate son to "school a bit" a creature +which for weeks had not allowed a man upon his back, and had had no +exercise beyond his voluntary scamperings about the paddock from which +he had been brought, dancing with excitement and indignation. All the +stablemen had been required to get his bridle and saddle on; he now +wheeled round and round in the large space left for him, while Claud +Dalzell, in his London riding clothes, and with his air of a reigning +prince, warily turned with him. Guthrie Carey, in the waiting +pony-carriage, had but one interest in the performance—his hopeful +anticipation of a fatal, or at least a ridiculous, result. +</P> + +<P> +But there was no fear of that, and evidently Deb knew it. Sitting her +own dancing chestnut, how her beautiful eyes glowed! She gloried in the +ring of breathless witnesses to the prowess of her knight. Many a time +did she scoff and scowl at the dandyisms which she deemed effeminate; +this was one of the moments which showed the man as she desired him. +Through those fine fingers, with the polished filbert nails, the +shortened reins were drawn and held as by clamps of steel; so was the +wild-eyed head by the lock of mane in the same hand. When no one was +looking—although every eye believed itself fixed upon him—his left +foot found its stirrup, his right gave a hop, and like lightning he had +sprung up and round, without touching the horse until fairly down in +the saddle; so that the animal was robbed of his best chance of getting +the rider off, which is at the moment before he is quite on. No other +chance was offered to the baffled one, although he kicked like a demon +for nearly ten minutes. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish," Guthrie Carey ground through his strong teeth, "that the +cranky beast would break his neck." It was not the beast's neck he +meant. +</P> + +<P> +But Deb called: "Bravo! Well done, indeed!" and when the battle was +over called the victor to her with her lovely face of pride and joy. +Right willingly he went, and they sailed away together like the wind, +and were lost to view. Yes, this was Dalzell's hour. She knew nothing +of the brave deeds of sailor-men—common and constant as eating and +drinking, and performed to no audience and for no reward. +</P> + +<P> +Alice Urquhart and Rose Pennycuick, also on horseback, followed the +flying pair; then a buggy containing Jim and schoolgirl Francie (her +governess gone home for holidays today), and a load of ironwork for a +blacksmith on the route; last of all, Mary and the sailor, for all the +world like the old father and mother of the party. Mr Pennycuick +excused himself from excursions nowadays, and so did Miss Keene, the +elderly and quite uninfluential duenna of the house, when one was +needed (she "did the flowers" and knitted singlets for everybody). +</P> + +<P> +The Shetlands pattered along at a great rate, but did not come up with +the riders until they were nearly at Bundaboo. And all the way—a long +way—Guthrie Carey had to make efforts not to bore his hostess. They +talked about the clear air and the dun-coloured land—the richest +sheep-country in the colony, but now without a blade of green upon +it—and made comments upon three bullock drays piled with wool bales, +and two camping sundowners, and one Chinaman hawker's cart, which they +encountered on the way. And that was about all. +</P> + +<P> +The home-coming was a different affair. +</P> + +<P> +Tea had been served in Mr Thornycroft's cool drawing-room, hats and +gloves had been collected, orders sent to the stables; and the young +sailor, panting to emulate the prowess of his rival, and thereby compel +Miss Deborah to respect him, was asking one and another what were the +arrangements for the return journey. +</P> + +<P> +"I," said Rose, who hugged a puppy in her arms—a puppy long possessed, +but only now old enough to leave its mother—"I am going in the buggy +with Jim." +</P> + +<P> +"Wouldn't you rather go in the pony-carriage?" inquired Carey +anxiously. "You could make a better lap on the lower seat. I could ride +your horse home for you if they'll lend me a saddle; yours could be put +in the buggy—" +</P> + +<P> +Even as he spoke, Deb came round the corner from somewhere, with swift +steps and a brilliant complexion, Dalzell hurrying after her. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr Carey," she called, while the sailor was still yards away from her, +"Molly and I are going to change skirts. I am tired with my ride this +morning, and am going to drive home. Will you trust your neck to me?" +</P> + +<P> +Would he not, indeed? He was but a pawn in the game, but what did that +matter? Eighteen miles absolutely alone with her! And possibly half of +them in the dark! No saddle horse in the world could have tempted him +now. He could hardly speak his gratitude and joy. +</P> + +<P> +"Delighted, Miss Deborah!—delighted!—delighted!" +</P> + +<P> +But Dalzell, black as thunder, swung aside, muttering in his teeth. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, oh!" Francie's loud whisper followed. "DID you hear what he said? +He said 'damn'. That's because—" +</P> + +<P> +"You cut along," Jim's drawl broke in, "and get ready if you want to +ride." +</P> + +<P> +Mr Thornycroft tucked Deb into the pony-carriage with the solicitude of +a mother fixing up a young baby going out with its nurse. He insisted +that she should wear a shawl over her linen jacket, and brought forth +an armful of softest WOOL, Indian wove. +</P> + +<P> +"Where did you get this?" she asked, fondling it, for she loved fine +fabrics. +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind," said he. "Put it on." +</P> + +<P> +"I am suspicious of these shawls and fallals that Bundaboo seems full +of. Who is the hidden lady?" +</P> + +<P> +He only smiled at her. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, godpapa, you spoil me!" +</P> + +<P> +She drew the wrap about her, and he assisted to adjust it, with gentle +skill. Then he turned abruptly to Carey, as to a groom. +</P> + +<P> +"See that she doesn't throw that off. It will be chilly presently. No, +she'd better drive—she knows the road. But take care of her. +Good-night." +</P> + +<P> +"Isn't he an old dear?" said Deb to Carey, as they drove off. "He has +been a second father to me ever since I was a child." +</P> + +<P> +She did not hurry the ponies, being anxious not to appear to be tearing +after her offended swain. +</P> + +<P> +"The evening is the pleasantest time to be out, this weather," she +said, lolling back in her seat. "And I'm sure I don't want to look at +dinner after such a lunch as I have eaten. I don't know how you feel." +</P> + +<P> +"I feel the same," he assured her, with truth. +</P> + +<P> +So, for her own purposes, she made their drive half as long again as it +need have been. And was so friendly, so free, so intimate!—leading +that poor innocent to the belief that his great rival was already +virtually out of his way. He was an unsophisticated sailor-lad, who, +with that rival's help, had reached a certain stage and crisis—another +one—of his man's life; and—let us be honest in our diagnosis—the +bubbles of Mr Thornycroft's fine champagne still ran in his blood and +brightened his brain, lifting him above the prosaic ground-level where +a craven timidity would have smothered him. Not touching the balance of +his wits, be it understood; just heartening him—no more. +</P> + +<P> +Twice and thrice she branched off from the road to show him something +that could well have waited for another day. She was imprudent enough +to introduce him to so sentimental a spot as the family +cemetery—established at a time when there were only Dalzells and +Pennycuicks to feed it. "Their shepherds were killed by the blacks," +said Deb, as she pushed the ponies up to the wall, and he rose in the +carriage to look over the top, "and they buried them here, marking the +place with a pile of stones. There were other deaths, and they enclosed +the piece of land. Then a brother of Mr Dalzell's, and a girl; and Mr +Dalzell himself wished to be put here, beside his brother. Not his +wife, she wouldn't; she lies in the Melbourne cemetery. Then some of +our babies, then mother. She was the last. I don't suppose there will +be any more now. The State will insist on taking charge of us." +</P> + +<P> +Real English churchyard elms crowded about the wall and blightingly +overshadowed the lonely group of graves. English ivy, instead of neatly +clothing the wall, as it had been meant to do, straggled wildly over +the part of the enclosure which had once been a garden around them. Out +of it, like sea-stripped wrecks, dead sticks of rose-bushes poked up, +and ragged things that had gone to seed. The turf was parched away, +like the grass of the surrounding paddocks; the mounds were cracked; +the head-stones—several of them ornate and costly—stained with the +drip from the trees and birds, and some distinctly out of the +perpendicular. +</P> + +<P> +"It ought not to look like this," Deb apologised for it. "It ought to +have been seen to. We used to come often, and bring water from the dam. +But one forgets as time goes on; one doesn't think—or care. Poor dead +people! How out of it they are! And we shall be the same some +day—neglected and abandoned, just like this." +</P> + +<P> +"DON'T!" muttered Guthrie Carey, shivering. The ghost of his sweet Lily +seemed to reproach him with Deb's voice. But the ghost-woman fifteen +months old had no chance with the glowing live woman born into his life +but yesterday; and no blame to him either, and no wrong to the dead, if +one can look at the thing dispassionately and with an unbiased mind. +</P> + +<P> +"Let us go and see the dam," Deb cheered him, as she turned the ponies' +heads. "You haven't seen our big dam, have you? Everybody that comes to +Redford must see that, or father will want to know the reason why. +'Pennycuick's Folly' some people call it, because he spent so much +money on it; but father is not one to spoil the ship for a pen'orth of +paint. He likes to do things thoroughly. So do I." +</P> + +<P> +And soon they halted on the embankment of a mile-wide sheet of water, +shining like a mirror in a setting of soft-bosomed hills, their dun day +colour changed to a heavenly rose-purple under the poetic evening sky. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, it is a lake," said Guthrie Carey. "You could hold regattas on +it." "We do, now and then, with our little boats. We have three over +there"—pointing with her whip to a white shed on the farther shore. +"And swimming matches. We used sometimes, when we were younger, to come +down on hot nights and be mermaids. Once we moored ourselves out in the +middle, away from the mosquitoes, and slept in the bottom of the boat, +under the stars." +</P> + +<P> +"How charming!" +</P> + +<P> +"It was holiday time, and our parents were away. We took cushions and +things, and it was great fun; but Keziah reported us, and we were never +allowed to do it again." +</P> + +<P> +They sat in the pony-carriage on the dam embankment, gazing silently. A +flock of wildfowl had been scared away by their approach, and now not a +wing, not an eye was near. At a great distance curlews wailed, only to +make the stillness and solitude more exquisite, more profound. The +purple of the hills grew deeper and softer, the lake a mere pulseless +shimmer through the twilight haze. And then, last touch of magic, the +moon swam up—the same moon that had transfigured Five Creeks garden +and Alice Urquhart last night. +</P> + +<P> +He poured out his soul to Deborah Pennycuick. +</P> + +<P> +First, it was only the story of the baby—the story he had told Alice, +with some omissions and additions. He took advantage of the opportunity +to ask Deb's invaluable advice. +</P> + +<P> +Deb, well aware of the influence of a summer night and certain +accessories, tried her best to be practical. She asked straight +questions about the baby. +</P> + +<P> +"Where have you got him? Where does this friend live who has been +recommended to you?" +</P> + +<P> +"In Sandridge—all at Sandridge—" +</P> + +<P> +"That dirty, low part! That's no place to rear a boy in. Bring him into +the bush, to clean air, if you want to make a man of him. I know a +dear, nice woman—she is our overseer's wife—who has no children, and +is dying to get hold of one somehow or other. We might make some +arrangement with her, I am sure; and, if so, the little fellow would be +in clover. We'd all look after him, of course, while you were at sea—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! oh! oh!" The young father's heart simply exhaled itself in +gratitude too vast for words. Ah! there was no hanging back now! Not +the baby only, but the dog-chain, was laid at Deborah's feet. +</P> + +<P> +"You go and fetch him tomorrow," said she, "and I'll talk to Mrs Kelsey +while you are away. Then I'll meet you at the station on your return, +to help you with him, and tell you what Mrs Kelsey says—though I have +no doubt of what it will be. But we'll keep him at Redford for a bit, +till he gets used to everybody; and you must stay with him all you can +until your ship sails...." +</P> + +<P> +His eyes were full of tears. He laid his hand on her shawl again. He +leaned to her. It was no use—the moon and his feelings were too much +for him. They were talking of the baby, and the word "love" had not +been, and was not going to be, mentioned; but there the thing was, +unmistakable to her keen intelligence, looming like a frontier +custom-house on the road ahead. +</P> + +<P> +She grasped his big, trembling hand, and with it held him back, meeting +his adoring gaze with steady eyes and mouth. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear boy, don't—don't! Don't spoil this nice evening—" +</P> + +<P> +It was all that was necessary. And still so kind, so gentle with him! +No scorn, no offended dignity, no displeasure even. She, who could +punish insolence with anybody, was never hard upon the humble +admirer—only too soft, in fact, with all her basic firmness, and +incapable of the hard-hearted coquetry that so commonly makes beauty +vile. "Face of waxen angel, with paw of desert beast"—that was not +Deborah Pennycuick. +</P> + +<P> +A sob broke from him. +</P> + +<P> +"I am a damned fool!" he muttered savagely, and by a violent effort +collected himself. "I beg your pardon." +</P> + +<P> +"That's all right," she said, turning the ponies from the embankment +and whipping them to a gallop. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII. +</H3> + +<P> +There was a moon the next night also. It did not appreciably affect him +this time—down in dirty Sandridge, hobnobbing with the baby's +caretaker and the general merchant, who, shutting his shop at six, was +free to make the sailor's acquaintance, and help him to spend a +pleasant evening. But it turned Redford garden, with its fine old trees +and lawns, into the usual bit of fairyland for those who strayed +therein. +</P> + +<P> +Redford was packed with Christmas guests. The waggonette that had taken +Guthrie Carey to the train had returned full of them, and batches had +been arriving at intervals through the day. At bed-time the sisters +were sharing rooms; Rose had come to Deb's, Frances to Mary's; and the +unmarried men were all at the bachelors' quarters. +</P> + +<P> +It was a hot night, and Deb, under the circumstances, was disinclined +for sleep. She paid visits to one guest chamber and another, for +private gossips and good-nights; when she returned to her own, where +placid Rose had long composed herself, she roamed the floor like a +caged animal. +</P> + +<P> +"It is no use my coming to bed yet," she addressed her sister. "I could +not sleep. I should only kick about and disturb you. I'll sit down and +read a bit." +</P> + +<P> +She found a novel and an easy-chair, and made deliberate efforts to +tranquillise herself. Soon Rose heard sighs and phews, and sudden +rustlings and slappings, and then the bang of a book upon the floor. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't read! and the light brings the mosquitoes. It's too hot in +here. I'm going out to get cool, Rosie." +</P> + +<P> +"A'right," mumbled drowsy Rose. And the light was extinguished, and the +blind of the French window rattled up. +</P> + +<P> +Deb flung both leaves wide—like all the Redford doors, they were never +locked or barred—and drifting over the verandah, sat down on the edge +of it, with her feet on the gravel. She had tossed off her pearl +necklace and a breast-knot of wilted roses; otherwise, she sat in full +evening dress, and the night air bathed her bare neck and arms. Also +the mosquitoes found them—a delicious morsel!—so that she had to turn +her lacy skirt up over her head to be quite comfortable. From under +this hood the dark lamps of her eyes shone forth, gazing steadily into +the dim world—into the bit of future that she thought she saw +unveiled. The loom of the trees, the glimmer of flowering bushes, the +open spaces of lawn and pallid pathways, the translucent blue-green +sky, the rising moon—these things made the picture, but were to all +intents invisible to the inward sight. She really saw nothing, until +suddenly a pin-point spark appeared out of the shadows, moved along a +hedge of laurels, and fixed itself in the neighbourhood of a distant +garden-seat. Then at once she stiffened like a cat that has heard a +mouse squeak or a bird's wing rustle; she was alert on the instant, +concentrated upon the phenomenon. Instinct recognised the tip of a +cigar which had the handsome face of Claud Dalzell behind it. +</P> + +<P> +"What is he doing out of doors at this time of night?" she wondered; +and the little star began to draw her like a magnet. The world becomes +another world in these mystic hours; it has new rulers and new laws—or +rather, it has none. The moon sways more than ocean tides. In broad day +Deb would no more have stalked a man than she would a crocodile; in +this soft, free, empty, irresponsible night the primal woman was out of +her husk, one with the desert-prowling animal that calls through the +moonlit silence for its mate. Twenty times had she snubbed an ardent +lover at the behest of all sorts of reasons and so-called instincts +cultivated for her guidance by generations of wise men, now, all in a +moment, came this moon-born impulse to give herself to him unasked. She +could not resist it. +</P> + +<P> +Like Deb, Claud had not been inclined to sleep, and for much the same +reason. The guest chamber usually allotted to him being needed for a +lady, he had been sent to the bachelors' quarters—a barrack-like +dormitory amongst the outbuildings, very useful for the accommodation +of the occasional 'vet' or cattle-buyer, and to take the overflow of +company on festive occasions. Jim Urquhart, when at Redford, always +slept there; he preferred it, particularly when he had companions with +whom to smoke and talk sheep, and perhaps play cards, at liberty; for +the bachelors' quarters had its own wood-stack and supplies, and one +could sit by a blazing hearth all night, if so disposed, without +incommoding anybody. +</P> + +<P> +Generally four bachelor beds were made up, and a screened end of the +room stacked with the material for twice as many more. At Christmas all +were in use, and lined the two long walls—which Dalzell called +"herding", and disliked extremely, while recognising that it was a +necessary arrangement to which it was his duty to conform. +</P> + +<P> +The herd was undressing itself in a miscellaneous manner—yawning, +chaffing, cutting stupid jokes, some of them at his expense; until the +process was at an end, and he could reasonably assume the fellows to be +asleep, he preferred the gardens to the bachelors' quarters. +</P> + +<P> +And the free night enfolded him—the rising moon uplifted him—in the +usual way, he being, like Deb, like Guthrie Carey, an instrument fitted +to respond to their mute appeals. Perhaps even more finely fitted than +Guthrie or Deb; for he had what are called "gifts" of intellect and +imagination transcending theirs—faculties of mind which, lacking +worthy use, bred in him a sort of chronic melancholy, the poetic +discontent of the unappreciated and misunderstood—a mood to which +moonlight ministers as wine to the drinking fever, at once an exquisite +exasperation and a divine appeasement. He was a poet, a painter, a +musician—possibly a soldier, or a king—possibly anything—spoiled, +blighted by that misnamed good fortune which the lucky workers who had +to work so naturally and stupidly envied him. The proper stimulus to +the worthy development of the manhood latent in him had been taken from +him at the start. And now he wandered amongst his dilettantisms, +dissatisfied and ineffectual. He lived beneath himself in his common +intercourse with others; he ate his heart when he was alone. +</P> + +<P> +Unconsciously, by force of habit, he selected the most comfortable and +cleanly of the garden-seats, and made sure that the best of cigars was +drawing perfectly, before he gave himself to his meditations on this +particular moonlight night. Then he began to think of Deb—in the same +new way that Carey had begun to think of her after discovering a +dangerous rival in the field. To Claud, Guthrie was dangerous in his +rude bulk and strength, the knitted brute power that the sea and his +hard life had given him; to Guthrie, Claud was dangerous in the +highbred beauty and finish of his person, clothes and manners, and in +the astounding "cleverness" that he displayed. Each man feared the +force of those qualities which he lacked himself, and was secretly +ashamed of lacking. +</P> + +<P> +Claud Dalzell considered this matter of the rival—not a probable but a +possible rival—seriously, for the first time. Hitherto he had had an +easy mind in his relations with the beauty of the countryside. She was +his for all he wanted of her. And feeling this, he had taken no steps +to register his claim; he had not even yet proposed to her. Matrimony +was not a fashionable institution—it was, indeed, a jest—in his set. +A young man with a heap of money was not expected to tie himself down +as if he were a poor clerk on a hundred a year. The conditions of club +life, with as many domestic hearths to visit as he wished, and to stay +away from when he chose, the luxury and freedom of pampered +bachelorhood, had not only been deemed appropriate, but necessary to +his peculiar needs and organisation. He had not considered himself a +marrying man. But now the new idea came to him—to make his rights in +Deb secure. +</P> + +<P> +Certainly he could not contemplate the possibility of doing without +her. He had loved her that much for years. Within the last day or two +he had loved her twice that much. And now the moonlight showed him his +love enthroned above all his lesser loves—a thing of heaven, where +they were of the earth—consecrated a great passion, to lift him out of +himself. He sat and smoked, spiritually bemused, his brain running like +a fountain with melodies of music and poetry, notes and words that sang +in his ears and murmured on his lips without his hearing them. So a +distant curlew thrilled him to a more ecstatic melancholy with its call +through the moon-transfigured world, and he did not notice it. All the +influences of the gentle night contributed to his inspired mood, but +Love was the first violin in that orchestra under Nature's +conductorship—Nature, whose hour it was, walking, a god, in the Garden +of Eden in the cool of the day. +</P> + +<P> +And here came Deb, gliding towards him by a path that he could not see, +holding her lace skirts tightly bunched in her nervous hands. Youth to +youth, beauty to beauty, man to woman, woman to man, the magnet to the +steel—they were just elements of the elements, for once in their lives. +</P> + +<P> +"How fortunate that I put on black tonight," thought Deb, as she +pursued her stealthy way at the back of bushes—"and something that +does not rustle!" +</P> + +<P> +"How beautiful she was tonight!" thought Claud. "How a dark dress +throws up that superb neck of hers! I'll take her to Europe, and show +her to the sculptors and painters; but where's the hand that could +carve that shape, or the paint that could give her colour? I'll have a +London season with her, and see her snuff out the milk-and-water +debutantes. No milk-and-water about Deb—wine and fire!—and withal so +proud and unapproachable. That hulking brute imagines—but he'll find +his mistake if he attempts to cross the line. Beauty, passion, +purity—what a blend! She's a woman alone—the blue rose of women—and +she is mine." He murmured, to some cadence of a Schubert serenade: "My +Deb! My love! My love! My queen!" and suddenly stopped short in his +musings. +</P> + +<P> +Her foot crunched the gravel behind him. Without turning his head, he +sat alertly motionless for several minutes, listening, holding his +breath. Then he dropped his cigar gently. +</P> + +<P> +"Fine night, Deb," he remarked aloud. +</P> + +<P> +There was no immediate answer, but presently a low chuckle from the +laurel bushes. +</P> + +<P> +"How did you know it was me?" she asked, imitating his casual tone. +</P> + +<P> +"Couldn't explain, I'm sure. It was borne in on me, somehow." +</P> + +<P> +"You did not see me." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want to see, in your case. I feel you." +</P> + +<P> +There was another brief silence, and then she rustled off a step or two. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, good-night! I just came out to look for a book I left here +somewhere." +</P> + +<P> +"What book?" "It doesn't matter. It is too late to read tonight, +anyhow." +</P> + +<P> +"It spoils books to leave them out all night. I will help you to find +it." He got up, and pretended to look about. "It is not on this seat—" +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps Miss Keene has taken it in. She is always after me to pick up +my litters. It won't rain, anyway, so it doesn't matter." +</P> + +<P> +"No, it won't rain tonight. Awfully nice night, isn't it? I came over +here to get a quiet smoke and let those fellows subside a bit. I could +not stand their noise, and the place is stifling." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid so. I'm so sorry we have to put you there; but you know—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, of course! I don't mind a bit. It is hot indoors, wherever you +are. If it were not for the mosquitoes, it would be nice to sleep in +hammocks under the trees this weather." "I have often thought so. I +can't breathe shut up. Rose is in my room tonight, and she seems like a +whole crowd. I had to come out to cool myself." "And to get your book. +What book was it?" "The—er—Clough's poems." "How many copies have +you?—because one of them has been in my pocket for two days." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I don't want it. Good-night!" +</P> + +<P> +She put out her hand. He took it and held it. The moonlight now was +very bright, but not bright enough to reveal his smile or her blush. +However, neither could be hidden from the second sight of love. "Don't +go yet, Debbie. I never get a word with you these days, you are so +taken up with all sorts of people. And you haven't had time to get cool +yet. I know you haven't—by the feel of your hand." +</P> + +<P> +She tried to withdraw it, but did not try very hard. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear boy," she trembled, "do you know what time it is? It must be +simply ALL hours." +</P> + +<P> +"What does that matter? We are not keeping anybody up." "And there's +tomorrow to be considered. Christmas Eve is always such a busy, +tiring—" +</P> + +<P> +"Sufficient for the day. Let us take things as we can get them. +Besides, you will sleep all the better for it. Five minutes more or +less—" +</P> + +<P> +He pulled gently but firmly at the imprisoned hand. "Well, just five +minutes—although it's really—" +</P> + +<P> +She was drawn down to the bench beside him, and the man in the moon, as +he looked into their shining, happy eyes, seemed to wink knowingly. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Debbie, isn't it a heavenly night? Oh, Debbie!" His arms went +round her, and she simply melted into them. "Oh, my love!..." +</P> + +<P> +Five minutes! It ran to an hour and a half before she scudded across +the lawn to bed. +</P> + +<P> +And it was Mary, the busy housekeeper, who, on her busiest day, drove +to the station to meet Guthrie Carey and the baby, and the baby's cheap +and temporary child-nurse. +</P> + +<P> +Mary, though she was not Deb, was too sweet and good for words. She put +the little hired girl on the front seat with the groom, and sat in the +body of the waggonette to talk to Guthrie and to take care of his +child. There was no awkward shyness on her part now, and no boredom on +his. Little Harry fused them. She had remembered to bring fresh milk +and rusks for a possibly hungry baby, and he sat on her lap as she fed +him, and cooed to her when his mouth was not too full, and seemed to +forget that any other foster-mother had ever existed. His father's +relieved and astonished pleasure in the sight was only equalled by +Mary's pleasure in seeing his pleasure. "Isn't he a jolly little cuss, +Miss Pennycuick?" "He is a perfect darling," crooned Mary, kissing him. +</P> + +<P> +And, in fact, Harry Carey was a fine, clean, wholesome child, as worthy +of his old family as any born under the ancestral roof. +</P> + +<P> +Mary shouldered him as if he belonged to her when they arrived at +Redford, shortly before the dinner hour. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, Mr Carey, you must go to the bachelors' quarters, I am sorry to +say; but he will not miss you, since you have been away from him for so +long. He knows me now," said Mary proudly, "and I will take charge of +him. You may safely leave him to us now." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed, yes, I know that," said the thankful parent, and hastened to +his new quarters to receive the greetings and chaffings of the young +bachelors, and to dress himself for dinner, while Mary carried the baby +into the house, calling on Keziah Moon to come to her, the inadequate +nurse-girl trailing at her heels. +</P> + +<P> +The house party gathered in the glazed corridor of the "middle part"—a +long, narrow room, that had once been a verandah, and that led to the +new big dining-room—to await the summons to the meal. Here Deb, +beautiful in limp white silk that showed up the lovely carmine of her +cheeks, came forward to welcome the returned guest with an eager warmth +that sadly misled him. He sat down to his dinner a few minutes later +with his head in a whirl and his appetite nowhere, as an effect of that +cordial pressure of the hand, those tender eyes, and that deep-hued +blush upon him. +</P> + +<P> +Then, as he came to himself, there crept into his mind a sense that +things had been happening while he was away. All the eyes around the +table seemed continually to turn either towards Deb, who, still +flushed, and bestowing absent-minded smiles upon anybody and anything, +was certainly different from her usual stately self; or upon Claud +Dalzell, who sat beside her, and seemed to have appropriated some of +her lost dignity; or upon Mr Pennycuick, who fumbled oddly with carving +knife and gravy spoon, and gave other evidences, Guthrie thought, of +having been upset and shaken. The young man was still fumbling himself +for light upon these mysteries, when they were dispelled by a shock +that for the moment stunned him. +</P> + +<P> +Mr Pennycuick called for a certain brand of wine long famous at his +board. When it came, and the bottles were being sent round, he stood +up, with a trembling goblet in his hand. The eyes round the table +dropped—all but Guthrie's, which stared at the old man. +</P> + +<P> +"There's no time like the present," began the host, "if a thing has to +be done." He repeated this strange and embarrassing introductory +remark, and then spent some time in clearing his throat and blowing his +nose, and trying to wipe up the wine he was shaking over. When the +fidgets had seized upon the whole company, he rushed his fence. "Ahem! +I must ask you, my friends, to fill your glasses in honour of an +event—an event—that has just transpired in our midst—that—that I am +sure will interest you all—that—in short, my dear daughter +Deborah—and the man of her choice—who knows, I hope, what a lucky dog +he is—" +</P> + +<P> +"He does!" Claud interjected; and there was eager dumb-show all round +the table, everyone—again excepting Guthrie—leaning forward to cast +wreathed smiles at the seated couple. "I have given my consent," said +Mr Pennycuick—"I have given my consent. My daughter shall be happy in +her own way—and I hope he'll see to it that she gets all she bargains +for. He is the son of my oldest friend, a man that was better than a +brother to me—the whitest, straightest—But there's no words to say +what he was. Only, the son of such a man—anybody with Billy Dalzell's +blood in him—ought to be—if he isn't—" +</P> + +<P> +"He is!" sang Deb, in her rich, ringing voice. "Oh, please, don't say +any more, father!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, my dear, I know I am no hand at speech-making, but I can wish +you luck, both of you, and I do. And I want our friends here—old +friends of the family—to do the same. Good wishes mayn't bring good +fortune, but for all we know they may do something towards it; and +anyway, she may as well have all her chances. Ladies and gentlemen, +long life and happiness to Deborah Pennycuick and her husband that is +to be!" +</P> + +<P> +A general turmoil broke out, glass-clinkings, cheers, handshakings; +kissings, with a sob or two from the overwrought. And Guthrie, with no +heart upon his sleeve, bowed and drank with the rest. When the +demonstration was over, and the company back in its chairs, Dalzell was +left standing. His bride-elect sat beside him, her elbow on the table, +her face shaded by her hand. +</P> + +<P> +"On behalf of my dear wife that is to be," said Claud, with a quiet +mastery of himself that was in striking contrast to the old man's +agitation, "and as a grateful duty of my own, I beg to thank you all, +and especially Mr Pennycuick, for this great kindness—for your +generous sympathy with us in our present happiness. Mr Pennycuick seems +to have a doubt—natural to anyone in the circumstances, but inevitable +in a father—the father of such a daughter—as to my being qualified to +appreciate the gift he has just bestowed upon me; I can assure him, and +all of you, that I am overwhelmed with the sense of my good fortune, +and of my unworthiness of it. I am unworthy—I admit it; but it shall +be the business of my life to correct that fault—if it is a fault, and +not merely a misfortune that I cannot help. To the best of my power I +will prove—by deeds, not words—that I do know her value." Deb's hand +under the table here stole towards his that hung at his side, and he +stood holding it until he finished speaking. "Fortune has been kind in +granting me the means to surround her with material comfort—to give so +rare a jewel the setting appropriate to it; for the rest, I must trust +to her generosity. I feel quite safe in trusting to it. We have known +each other—I believe we have loved each other—from childhood; I hope +Mr Pennycuick will take that as some guarantee that his little +misgivings are unnecessary." The orator twisted his moustache, and +glanced down at the bowed head beside him. "She seems to be a little +taken aback by the suddenness of this public announcement, but I can +say that it does not come a moment too soon for me. Mr Pennycuick has +made me a proud man. I glory in my position as his daughter's affianced +husband; I wish to parade it as openly as possible. However, to spare +her, I will say no more just now. Ladies and gentlemen"—bowing to +right and left—"I thank you again." +</P> + +<P> +He sat down amid thunders of applause; and leaning back in his chair, +he looked straight and full at Guthrie Carey. Guthrie Carey, erect, +calm as a stone image, returned the look steadily. There was absolutely +no expression in his eyes. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII. +</H3> + +<P> +Carey junior joined the Christmas party after breakfast, and was handed +round. Mary introduced him. He was spick-and-span, with shining cheeks +and a damp and glossy top-knot, and his blue eyes stared at the strange +crowd stolidly for several minutes before he suddenly crumpled up his +face and uttered a howl of terror. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" queried Dalzell, with raised brows, pretending that he +had never seen such a thing before. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a baby," Frances explained, dancing round it. "Baby! +Baby!"—shaking the new rattle that was one of its Christmas +gifts—"look at me, baby! It is Mr Carey's baby. Oh, come and speak to +him, Mr Carey! He is frightened of so many strangers." +</P> + +<P> +The stalwart father in the background glowered upon the son disgracing +him. Red as beetroot, embarrassed and annoyed, he strode forward. The +yelling infant cast one glance at him, and yelled louder than before. +"I shouldn't have let him come," the sailor growled. He had got up from +the wrong side of the bed that morning, and was in the mood to regret +everything, even that he had been born. "I don't know what possessed me +to let you be bothered with the brat. I'll ring for his nurse." +</P> + +<P> +This was unanimously objected to. The ladies gathered round, with +honeyed words and tinkling baubles to pacify the little guest. Deborah +snatched him from her sister's arms, and ran with him into the garden, +where she tossed him, still writhing and wailing, up and down, and +dipped his face into flowers, and played other pranks calculated to +enchant the average baby. This baby turned on her for her pains, and +having slapped her cheeks, grabbed her beautiful hair and tore it down +about her ears. The next instant he felt the weight of the hand from +which his own had derived its strength. +</P> + +<P> +"You brute!" cried Deb, shielding the offending little arm from a +second blow. "A great big man like you, to strike a tender mite like +this!" +</P> + +<P> +"'Tender' is hardly the word," the irate parent sneered. "And mite as +he is, he is not to do things of that sort." Guthrie glared at her +sacred locks, dishevelled. "I'm awfully sorry. He shan't do it again. +I'll take him away tomorrow." +</P> + +<P> +"You will do nothing of the sort," flashed Deb. "You are not fit to +have the care of him. He shall stay here, where he will be treated as a +baby ought to be—not smacked and knocked about for nothing at all." +</P> + +<P> +"I admire his pluck," quoth Dalzell, sauntering up. +</P> + +<P> +"So do I," said Deb; but she handed her sobbing burden to Mary. "Here, +take him, Moll, while I put my hair up. POOR little fellow!" +</P> + +<P> +She need not have been so severe. She might have known that it was +because the cheeks and hair were hers that the baby had been punished +for his assault on them. She could have seen that she was wringing the +culprit's heart. Perhaps she did, and had no room in her own to care. +She stood on the sunny garden path and lifted her hands to her head—a +lovely pose. +</P> + +<P> +"Here, let me," said Claud Dalzell. +</P> + +<P> +She let him—which was cruellest of all. Guthrie turned his murderous +eyes from the group and sauntered away, out of the garden, out of their +sight, unrecalled, apparently unnoticed. Mary carried the crying child +into the house. +</P> + +<P> +Then for an hour the silly fellow walked alone in the most solitary +places that he could find, revelling in the thought that it was +Christmas Day, and he singled out by Fate to have no share in its happy +circumstances: no home, no friends, no love, like other men—nothing to +make life worth living, save only the baby son that he had ill-used. +Apart from the sting of Deb's comment on it, he repented him of that +blow. A great big man like him, to strike a tender mite like this—a +motherless babe, his precious Lily's bequest to him—aye, indeed! It +was the act of a brute, whatever the provocation. The mite was a waif +too, alone in the world when his father was at sea, pathetically +helpless, with no defence against blows and unkindness. The reflection +brought dimness to the man's hard blue eyes, and turned his steps +houseward. +</P> + +<P> +He arrived to find a large four-horsed brake at the door. The body was +filling with other persons—the sailor knew not, cared not whom. He +looked up at the radiant figure in front. She looked down on him with +heart-melting kindness, as if nothing had happened. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Mr Carey, aren't you coming to church?" she called to him. +"Not—not today, I think," he answered, without premeditation. +</P> + +<P> +"Christmas Day," she hinted invitingly. "You don't always get the +chance, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"I know. But—thanks—I'd rather not," he bluntly persisted, hating +himself for the churlish response, and all the time wanting to +go—certain to have gone if he had given himself time to think. +Soldiers and sailors, with their habit of unquestioning obedience to +authority, are almost always "good" churchmen, and, as she had pointed +out, this offer of Christian privileges did not come to him every year. +He had not anticipated it on this occasion, knowing Redford to be +situated at least ten miles from a church. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, well," said Deborah, scenting spite, "I daresay it IS more +comfortable in the cool house." +</P> + +<P> +And then she left him, in the position of a self-indulgent idler, +preferring comfort to duty, a foil to his more conscientious rival. +When the dust of the departure had cleared away, he sat on, not in the +cool house, but on the hot verandah, nursing his griefs in solitude. He +seemed the only person left behind, or else he seemed forgotten, as a +guest of no account. "What a Christmas Day!" was again his thought, +while he dragged before his mind's eye old pictures of his English +home, his dead mother, Santa Claus stockings, and all sorts of pathetic +things. He resolved to quit Redford on the morrow, and spend the last +hours of his leave in establishing his son elsewhere. +</P> + +<P> +Then Mary Pennycuick came out to him, with that son in her arms. Her +face was redeemed from its plainness by the tender motherliness and the +no less tender friendliness of its expression; that of little Harry was +cherubic. The heart of the lonely man warmed to both. +</P> + +<P> +"He has come to tell daddy that he is a good boy now," explained Mary +proudly. Guthrie ejaculated "Sonny boy!" and held out his arms. The +baby, bearing no malice, tumbled into them, and was at once occupied +with his father's watch-chain. The three subsided upon two cane chairs, +looking, as Mary keenly comprehended, like a self-contained family. +</P> + +<P> +"You have stayed at home because of him!" the man complained fretfully. +</P> + +<P> +But the girl hastened to perjure herself with the assertion that she +had done nothing of the kind. She then persuaded him to the half-belief +that his child was not only no nuisance to the house, but its positive +delight; and she earnestly talked him out of his cruel resolve to +return it to bad air and all sorts of domestic risks. "How can he be +any burden on us?" she pleaded. "We need never see him unless we +like—only, of course, we shall like. It is entirely an arrangement +between you and Mrs Kelsey. Unless," she bethought herself—"unless +you'd like to consider an idea of Alice Urquhart's—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no!" he broke in. "I'd rather Mrs Kelsey—a proper business +agreement—if I could feel absolutely certain—" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you can," said Mary. "The beginning and end of all the trouble +to us is our answering for Mrs Kelsey. She was once our nurse, and we +know her ways; for the rest, she is as independent of us as that lady +in Sandridge." +</P> + +<P> +"In that case—of course, I've very little time, and really I don't +know where to turn—perhaps until after this voyage—" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Then, if you are dissatisfied, you can make a change." She +assumed the matter settled, and began to go into details. "Deb saw Mrs +Kelsey while you were away; she's willing enough. She says ten +shillings a week would cover everything. The drainage is all right. +Kelsey will see that he has one cow's milk. They'll feed him well, but +they won't give him rich things; she's the most careful woman. He'll be +out in the air, getting strong, all the time. He'll want hardly any +clothes in the country. Deb says he'd be better without shoes and +socks." +</P> + +<P> +"I hope he'll be kept out of Miss Deborah's way, after that +exhibition—" +</P> + +<P> +"Nonsense! She was too rough and ready with him. And she didn't mind a +bit—of course not. She says she likes boys to be boys. He is a +thorough boy," Mary proudly declared, bending to kiss a chubby knee. +</P> + +<P> +Harry acknowledged the caress with a thumping smack of her bowed head. +</P> + +<P> +"Gently—gently!" warned the father amiably. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, what do you say to our walking over to interview Mrs Kelsey?" +Mary pushed her advantage home. "I daresay she will be busy, but she'd +give us a few minutes. It would be a satisfaction to her to speak to +you herself, and here is a good opportunity. They won't be home much +before two." +</P> + +<P> +Guthrie fetched his straw hat. Mary retied the baby's flapping +head-gear, and they set forth. +</P> + +<P> +"Let me have him," she begged, mother-like. +</P> + +<P> +"No. He is too heavy for you." +</P> + +<P> +The father carried the child, who loved the feel of the strong arms, in +which he jumped up and down, continuing to make play with his sturdy +little fists. Instead of striking back, Guthrie answered the baby +assaults with wild-beast roars and gestures that sent the little man +into fits of delight. Mary laughed in chorus, keeping touch with the +happy creature over the towering shoulder reared between them. It was +more than ever like a little self-contained family, taking its Sunday +stroll. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Kelsey had her Christmas dinner in hand, but came to them in her +big white apron and sleeves rolled to her dimpled elbows, smiling, +business-like, charming in her plain, reposeful, straightforward +attitude towards the visitors and their mission. No sooner had he +beheld her orderly and cheerful house, looked into her kind eyes, and +heard her sincere speech, than the young father was satisfied that he +had found a good place for his little son. The child seemed to know it +too, for when the strange woman drew him to her broad lap—calmly, as +if used to doing it—he surrendered himself without a protest. When +presently she gave him a drink of milk and a biscuit to munch, he +regaled himself peaceably, with the air of feeling quite at home. When +he had finished his lunch he played with a collie puppy. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll do my best for him, sir, and I'll not let these young ladies +spoil him if I can help it," said Mrs Kelsey, with a smile at Mary +Pennycuick. +</P> + +<P> +Terms had been arranged, and everything settled. +</P> + +<P> +"I hope you will be able to keep him from being any bother to them," +said Guthrie earnestly. +</P> + +<P> +"Bother!" crowed Mary, whose intention was to visit the child daily. +"We'll see to that, Mr Carey—never fear." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Kelsey suggested beginning her duties, with the aid of the little +nurse, at once; but Mary would not hear of parting the boy from his +father while they could be together. So he was carried back to Redford, +to be the plaything of the housekeeper's room for the rest of the day. +</P> + +<P> +"MY baby," Mary began to call him. She had to preside at the great +dinner, but was not visible to her family for hours before and after. +</P> + +<P> +It was a better Christmas to Guthrie Carey in the end than in the +beginning. Deb came back from church chastened in spirit, to make up to +him for her unkindness, on the score of which her warm heart had +reproached her. She made him play billiards with her after tea, while +Claud was resting after his labours; she chaffed him deliciously on his +errors in the game. She forgot to ask after his baby; but she asked +whether it would not be possible to get his leave extended. When he +said "No"—he had had more than his share already—she commended him +for his sense of duty, and in her seriousness was more enchanting than +in her fun. +</P> + +<P> +"But I do wish we could have kept you longer," she flattered him, in +her sweet way. "However, we shall have a hostage for your return." +</P> + +<P> +Several new people came to dinner, including Mr Goldsworthy and +Ruby—the latter sent at once, by Deb's command, to keep little Carey +company. Spacious Redford was taxed to the utmost to accommodate its +guests, and never was better Christmas cheer provided in the old hall +of English Redford than its son in exile dispensed under his Australian +roof. When every leaf was put into the dining-table, it was so long +that Mary at one end was beyond speaking distance of her father at the +other, and those at the sides could scarce use their elbows as they +ate. The banquet was prodigious, with speeches to wind up with (Mr +Goldsworthy, in his oration, disgusted Deb by referring to the host as +"princely", and to the ladies of the house as his "bevy of beautiful +daughters"); and if the truth must be told, the crowning ceremony of +the loving cup was a bit superfluous. It found the host already fuddled +beyond a doubt, and several of the guests under suspicion of being so. +But in the opinion of all, Redford had celebrated Christmas in an +unsurpassably proper manner. +</P> + +<P> +Two mornings later, a waggonette was packed with luggage and four +passengers—Mary Pennycuick, Guthrie Carey, the baby and the baby's +little nurse. They proceeded in a body to the overseer's house, where +the load was halved. Mary, the baby, and one box were left with Mrs +Kelsey (reinforced by the collie puppy and a plate of sugared +strawberries); the sailor and the nursemaid, after a few poignant +moments, went on to a distant railway station. +</P> + +<P> +"Have an easy mind," said Mary, outside the parlour door. "He will be +well off with her, and we shall all be looking after him." +</P> + +<P> +"How can I thank you?" said the parting guest, barely able to +articulate. He wrung her hand, and looked at her kind, red face with +feelings unspeakable. "God bless you! God reward you for your goodness +to the little chap and me." +</P> + +<P> +He was including all the family in his benediction, and it was the +father in him that was so touched and overcome. None the less, she +accepted the tribute for her own, and to her poverty-stricken womanhood +it was wealth indeed. +</P> + +<P> +She stood in the porch to watch the wheels of his departing chariot +flash through the sun and dust. She stared long at the vacant point of +disappearance, like one entranced. When she came to herself, she ran +into the house and fell upon little Harry. +</P> + +<P> +"My baby," she crooned passionately, "MY baby!" +</P> + +<P> +Carey Junior responded with his ready fist, pushing her from him. He +was feeding the puppy with a strawberry, and she put her head in the +way. +</P> + +<P> +"Fie! You mustn't do that," said Mrs Kelsey, mindful of her +responsibilities. "That's rude." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, let him," pleaded the girl, infatuated with that look of his +father in his face; and she dropped on her knees before him and kissed +a dangling foot, with which he kicked her mouth. "Let him do what he +likes, so long as he's happy." +</P> + +<P> +"Not at all," her old nurse reproved her. "I promised Mr Carey that he +should not be spoiled." +</P> + +<P> +He was not spoiled. The admirable foster-mother, brooking no +interference with her system, improved him into a well-behaved child, +as well as the healthiest and most beautiful in all that countryside. +It was a standing grievance at Redford that she would not allow him to +be always on show there, subject to Mary's indulgence, and Deb's +caprices, and the temptations of the housekeeper's store-room. Only Mr +Kelsey, who was his idol, was permitted to withdraw him from Mrs +Kelsey's eye. The man used to take the child, with a toy whip in his +little hand, on the saddle before him, and let him think he was guiding +the steady horse and doing all the business of the station as well. The +overseer confessed, in bad weather, when he had to ride alone, that he +was lost without his little mate. "Hardly weaned," he used to brag, +"and knows every beast on the place as well as I do myself." This was +gross exaggeration, yet was the infant Harry a conspicuously forward +child, with the "makings of a man" in him visible to all. His hearty +whoas and gee-ups carried as far as the overseer's gruff voice; and the +picture of the jolly boy, with his rosy, joyous face, and his fair +curls blowing in the wind, was one to kindle the admiration of all who +saw it. The phrase continually on the lips of his adopted family and +connections was: 'Won't his father be surprised when he sees him!' They +enjoyed in anticipation the grateful praises that would be heaped upon +them then. +</P> + +<P> +But Guthrie Carey never saw his son again. +</P> + +<P> +The baby went a-visiting with his foster-parents to the local township, +and it was supposed caught the infection of typhoid there from some +unknown source. Having caught it, the robust little body, unused to any +ailment, was wrecked at once, where a frail child might easily have +weathered the storm. No little prince of blood royal could have been +better nursed and more strenuously fought for; but three days after he +had visibly sickened he was dead. And then the wail went up, "Oh! what +will his father say?" +</P> + +<P> +When Guthrie came, prepared by letters from fellow-mourners as bereaved +as himself, it was but from one day to the next—only to "hear the +particulars" and to see the little grave. Deborah was away from home, +but in any case Mary would have been the one to perform the sad duties +of the occasion; they were hers by right. She took him to the family +cemetery on the only evening of his stay, and, herself speechless and +weeping, showed him the whole place renovated and made beautiful for +the sake of the latest comer. No weeds, no dead rose-bushes, no vampire +ivy now; but an orderly garden, new planted and watered, and in the +midst a small mound heaped with fresh-cut flowers. She had visited the +child daily while he lived at Mrs Kelsey's; now she almost daily +visited his grave. +</P> + +<P> +They dropped on their knees beside it, close as bride and bridegroom on +altar steps, as father and mother at the firstborn's cradle. The dusk +was melting into moonlight; they could not see each other's faces. When +his big frame heaved with heavy sobs, she laid a timid hand—her +beautiful hand—on his shoulder; and when he felt that sympathetic +woman's touch, he turned suddenly and kissed her. Afterwards he did not +remember that he had done it. +</P> + +<P> +She seemed to cling to him when, next morning, the time came for him to +go. +</P> + +<P> +"You will come again?" she implored him, in a trembling whisper. "You +will come here when you return next time?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, surely," he replied, whispering too, and to the full as deeply +moved. But when he got away it was to other lands that he turned his +eyes, in the search for new interests to occupy his lonely life. With +Lily and the baby dead, and Deborah Pennycuick given to another man, +Australia had no more hold on him. His first letter to Redford notified +that he had changed into another line, and that the name of his new +ship was the DOVEDALE. She traded to the West Indies. +</P> + +<P> +He forgot to write again when, not very long afterwards, he went back +to his old line, at the invitation of the Company, as captain of the +ship on which he had served as mate. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX. +</H3> + +<P> +"'Dovedale'—DOVEDALE—hullo!" Mr Pennycuick broke the silence of his +newspaper reading. "Why, isn't that—Well, upon my soul! it does seem +as if some folks were born unlucky. Here's that poor young +fellow—first he loses a charming wife, before he's been married any +time, and then the finest child going, and now here he's gone himself, +before his prime, with no end of a career before him—" +</P> + +<P> +"Who?" cried Deb from the tea-table, where she was helping herself to a +hot cake. +</P> + +<P> +"Young Carey—our Carey; oh, it's him all right, worse luck! His ship's +been wrecked, and only two A.B.s saved to tell the tale. Look here." +</P> + +<P> +He passed the newspaper, pressed under his broad thumb. +</P> + +<P> +Deb stood to read the indicated item, while her father watched her +face. Neither of them noticed Mary's peculiar appearance, nor marked +her departure from the room. +</P> + +<P> +"We must inquire about this," said Deb earnestly. "We must get the +names of those on board. He may have been on leave." She was a prompt +person, and as she spoke looked at the clock—a little after four—and +laid the paper down. "I'll drive you to the station, daddy, and we'll +telegraph to the shipping people and his doctor friend. We'll get +authentic information somehow, if we have to cable home for it." +</P> + +<P> +They were off in a quarter of an hour, having sent a message to Mary by +Miss Keene to explain their errand. They dined in the township while +waiting for replies, and came home late at night, heavy-hearted, with +the melancholy news confirmed. Since it happened to be the transition +moment, when Mr Carey had ceased to be a mate, and was only a +prospective commander, the authorities in Melbourne, consulting latest +advices, had no doubt of his having been on the DOVEDALE to the last. +Those of them who presently found themselves mistaken did not take the +trouble to say so. They left it to time and the newspapers. +</P> + +<P> +But meanwhile Mary Pennycuick sadly complicated the case. When Deb and +her father returned from their expedition, it was to hear from Frances +an excited story of how the elder sister had hidden behind locked +doors, and not only refused dinner but denied speech to all comers. +</P> + +<P> +"We know she's there, because she said 'Go away' to Miss Keene when she +knocked first; but since then she hasn't said a word—not for hours and +hours. I've been listening at her door since Miss Madden let me out of +school. I shouldn't be surprised," said Frances, who had a fine +imagination, "if she's committed suicide. Poor Mr Carey was her lover, +you know." +</P> + +<P> +"Pooh!" said Deb. +</P> + +<P> +SHE knew whose lover poor Mr Carey had been. But she ran to Mary's room +in some concern. She tried the handle of the door, and then rapped +sharply. +</P> + +<P> +"Molly, open this door!" she commanded. +</P> + +<P> +And there was a rustle inside, a shuffling step, and the lock clicked. +She marched in, to see Mary fling herself back on the bed from which +she had risen, with a protesting wail: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, why can't you all let me alone?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, what's the matter?" Deb climbed on the bed, and tried to lift the +half-buried head to her breast—a signal for the pent-up grief to burst +forth. "Molly, sweetheart, what's all this about?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, my love! my love!" keened Mary wildly. "Oh, Deb! oh, Deb! He was +my all, and he's dead, and I can't bear it—I can't! I can't!" +</P> + +<P> +Deb pursed her lips, and the colour rose in her clear cheek. She saw +the situation, so pathetic and so ignominious! SHE could not understand +a woman falling in love with, and then breaking her heart for, a man +who had never cared for her. But then Deb's face was not heavy and +bricky, with prominent cheek-bones, and a forehead four inches high. +</P> + +<P> +"My precious," she crooned, as tenderly as if she understood it all, +and as if her immense pity was not mixed with contempt—"don't, don't! +It doesn't matter about me, but don't let the others think—It would be +too undignified, darling—a casual acquaintance—though a dear, good +boy as ever lived—" +</P> + +<P> +"There was nobody like him, Deb, and he was my all—" +</P> + +<P> +"No, no, Mary—" +</P> + +<P> +"You don't know, Debbie—oh, nobody knows!" And wrapping her head in +her arms again, Mary abandoned herself to her despair. +</P> + +<P> +Deb got off the bed, lit dressing-table candles, and poured water and +eau de Cologne into a wash-basin. She returned with a fragrant sponge, +with which she stroked what she could reach of her sister's face. +</P> + +<P> +"Come now," said she briskly, "you must have a little pride, dear. You +mustn't give way like this—for a man who did not—and you know he did +not—" +</P> + +<P> +Mary broke in with sudden passion, lifting her distorted countenance to +the cruel light. +</P> + +<P> +"He did!" she affirmed. "You have no business to sneer and say he +didn't—he DID!" +</P> + +<P> +It was not for nothing that the heart-hungry girl had brooded for +months over a few acts and words, magnifying them through the +spectacles that Nature and her needs had provided. Deb put her pitying +arms round her sister's shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"But, my dear, I know—we all know—" +</P> + +<P> +"How could you know when you were not at home? Nobody knows—nobody but +him and me." Feeling Deb's continued scepticism in the silence of her +caresses, Mary burst out recklessly: "Would he have KISSED me if he had +not?" +</P> + +<P> +Deb's arm was withdrawn. She twisted half round to look in Mary's face. +Mary covered it with her pretty hands, weeping bitterly. +</P> + +<P> +"Is that—did he do that?" asked Deb, in a low tone. +</P> + +<P> +"That night—that last night—oh, I ought not to have spoken of +it!—when we were at our little grave. It was that precious child that +drew us together. You think he had gone away and forgotten, but I know +he had not; he would have come back—he promised to. He gave me his +dear photograph. I have not shown it to anybody, but here it is—" +</P> + +<P> +And still sobbing, and with tears running down her cheeks, she reached +to a drawer by the bedside, and dragged out this further testimony to +her claim—it was wrapped in layers of tissue-paper, like her father's +valentine—and displayed it with a touching pride. Before handing it to +Deb, she gazed at it with grotesquely distorted face, kissed it, +pressed it to her bosom, kissed it again, and moaned over it, rocking +to and fro; then, when she had pushed it from her, flung herself into +her former attitude of complete abandonment to grief. +</P> + +<P> +Very calmly Deb carried the picture to the dressing-table, and held it +behind a candle. There he was, big, strong, healthy, manly, with that +clear brow, that square chin, that steady, good mouth; and he looked +her straight in the eyes. Was it possible that a countenance could so +deceive? No more tears from Deb for his untimely fate. Had it been his +face in the flesh, it could not possibly have gazed in that undaunted +way at hers; her expression would have withered him. +</P> + +<P> +She returned to the morning-room—drawing-room also when no guests were +in the house—to report to her father. +</P> + +<P> +"Mary has gone to bed," she said quietly. "She is very much upset by +this business. It appears there was something between her and Mr Carey. +She expected him to come back for her—" +</P> + +<P> +"What! MARY?" cried Rose, waiting with Frances to say goodnight. +</P> + +<P> +"There!" triumphed Frances, "what did I say?" +</P> + +<P> +"MARY!" their father echoed Rose's surprised tone. "The dickens! You +don't say so. Poor little soul! Poor little girlie! Well, I never +thought of that. Did you, Deb?" +</P> + +<P> +"Never, father. Not for a moment." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose it was the child. It must have been the child." Mr +Pennycuick was deeply concerned. "I wonder why he never said anything," +he addressed Deb, when Rose and Frances had been sent to bed. "Eh, Deb? +Seems strange, don't it? We had so much talk together. Quite like a +sort of son, he was. Aye, I could have made a son of that fellow. Poor +lad!—poor lad! Suppose he thought it wasn't the straight thing to bind +a girl of ours till he was in a better position—it'd be just like him. +Well—but Mary, of all people!" (This was the puzzle to all.) "It must +have been the baby. She certainly did dote on that child, and 'love me, +love my dog'—eh? But to think of her keeping it so close all that +time! Afraid I'd make a fuss, I suppose. You could have told her, Deb, +that I don't stand in my children's way for the sake of my own +feelings; and a Carey of Wellwood isn't for us to sniff at either, if +he is poor. A Carey has been good enough for a Pennycuick before today. +God! I wish I'd known. I might have got him something better to do, and +saved them both from this. Poor old girl! Is she very bad, Debbie? +Shall I go and talk to her a bit?" +</P> + +<P> +"I wouldn't tonight, father, if I were you," replied Deb, with a weary +air. "She is quieter now, and I have given her something to send her to +sleep. I will keep my door open, and go and look at her through the +night. I think she will be better tomorrow." +</P> + +<P> +On the morrow Mary was at least more self-controlled. She came amongst +her family with the look of one who had passed through an illness, and +shrinking from the first words and glances. But they all gathered her +to their hearts, and murmured loving sympathy in her ears, and tenderly +fussed over her and waited upon her. Her father took her to his +sanctum, and showed her his old daguerreotype and valentine, and told +her they should be hers at his death. Miss Keene excited as an old maid +is over anybody's love affair, wanted to take over the house-keeping as +well as the doing of the flowers, in order to leave the mourner free to +enjoy the full luxury of her state. The governess, assumed to be above +love affairs, was very strict with Frances, holding her to tasks set on +purpose to prevent her from teasing her eldest sister. But Frances had +informed the servants overnight that Mr Carey was drowned, and that he +had been Miss Pennycuick's affianced husband all the time, unbeknown to +anybody. And the tale was already spreading far and wide—to the +Urquharts at Five Creeks, to Mr Thornycroft at Bundaboo, to Mr +Goldsworthy and his parishioners, to the editor of the local paper—so +that soon the family friends were arriving, to press Mary's hand and +condole with her—to show her how she had risen in the world, as a +woman in the eyes of all. +</P> + +<P> +"No, no," she protested, when the affianced husband was too literally +taken for granted; "it was not a formal engagement. It was +only"—defending herself against the puzzled stare and lifted +eyebrow—"only that we understood each other. He was coming back, if he +had lived." +</P> + +<P> +The wish was father to the thought. Good, honest girl as she was, she +had persuaded herself to this—that he would have come back if he had +lived, and that then the omitted formalities called for by that +graveside kiss would certainly have been observed. It seems incredible, +but rampant sex does stranger things every day of the week. There is, +at any rate, nothing extraordinary in the way she clung to the sweet +dignity that a similar belief on the part of others brought to her—the +poor, plain girl, who had always been "out of it". +</P> + +<P> +The long-hidden photograph was now put into a costly frame, and set up +in her room for anybody to see. Frances would often sneak in with a +visitor, to show the manner of man who would have married Molly; there +were even times when Mary herself was the exhibitor. At other times she +might have been found kneeling before it as at a shrine, and weeping +her eyes out. And she put off her colours and ornaments, and wore +black, and nobody made any objection. The hero of romance was given to +her unquestioningly, and with him a respect and consideration such as +she had never known before. Lovers talked to her of their love affairs, +feeling that she was now one of them. Her father maundered to her for +hours at a stretch of the old Mary Carey, at last secure of sympathy +and a perfect listener. Deb was reserved and silent, but otherwise as +devoted as the rest. +</P> + +<P> +And then came the inevitable discovery that Guthrie Carey was not dead, +after all. It was made at Five Creeks, while Frances was on a holiday +visit to her friend, Belle Urquhart. At Redford, nobody thought of +reading the shipping columns in the newspaper—their interest was +supposed to be gone for ever; but Jim Urquhart glanced at them daily, +looking for the arrival of a friend from overseas. And one day he saw a +ship's name that was familiar to him, and bracketed with it the name of +G. Carey as its commander. The coincidence was startling. He pointed it +out to a man staying in the house—a stranger to the Redford family and +to the district. +</P> + +<P> +"There was a mate named Carey on this ship a while ago. He changed into +that unfortunate DOVEDALE that was wrecked, and was lost with her. Odd +that the captain of his old vessel should have the same name—same +initial too. Our friend was Guthrie—" +</P> + +<P> +"Guthrie Carey? Oh, I know Guthrie Carey. Met him in London last year, +just after the DOVEDALE wreck. He told me of his narrow escape—was +really going with her on her last voyage, and only prevented at the +last moment by the offer of this captaincy from his former owners. It's +the same man. Do you know him?" +</P> + +<P> +They all told how much they knew him; and there was great commotion at +Five Creeks. Jim was for driving hot-foot to Redford to warn Mr +Pennycuick against disseminating the newspaper through the house too +rashly. Alice and her mother each volunteered to go with him, so as to +"break it" with feminine skilfulness to Mary, whose reason might be +destroyed by too sudden a gorge of joy, like the stomach of a starved +man by clumsy feeding. But while they anxiously discussed what ought to +be done, Frances was doing. The enterprising young lady slipped away, +and with Belle's help caught and saddled her pony, and was off to +Redford as if wolves were at her heels. No war correspondent on active +service ever did a smarter trick to get ahead of other papers. +</P> + +<P> +She burst into the family circle violently. +</P> + +<P> +"Mary—Mary! Deb! Rose! father! Mr Carey is alive! He wasn't drowned! +He wasn't on the DOVEDALE—he was just going; but they wanted him back, +and they made him a captain, and he's here now. His ship came in last +night, and there it is in the paper, and his name; and Mr Mills at Five +Creeks saw him himself after the Dovedale was wrecked, and he knows him +well, and he's in Melbourne now, and I expect he'll be here +directly—perhaps he's coming up now, this very minute—" +</P> + +<P> +She was checked by angry exclamations from all persons addressed, +except Mary. She, at the moment bending over a table, cutting out +needle-work, straightened herself, and stood stockstill and staring, +while first her bricky face went dark purple all over, and then seemed +drained in three seconds of every drop of blood. She heard the words: +'Mr Carey is alive,' and instantly believed them; at the same moment +her dream-palace vanished, and she saw the bare ground of her love +affair exactly as it was—as Guthrie himself would see it—and just how +she had deceived herself and others. Her healthy heart and nervous +system could not support her under the impact of such a shock. She +reeled as she stood, spun half round, and fell backwards into Deborah's +arms. +</P> + +<P> +"You little FOOL!" Deb rated the dismayed child, "to blurt it out like +that. Never mind, father, it's all right. She has fainted, but she'll +soon come round. Go and get a smelling-bottle, somebody. Tell Keziah to +bring a little brandy—don't speak to anybody else. Where's today's +ARGUS?" +</P> + +<P> +While Rose was flying for restoratives, and Frances speeding through +the house with her great news, Deb and her father exchanged significant +glances over Mary's prostrate form. +</P> + +<P> +"It is more than a year," said Deb, "and he has not even written to +her." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll write to him," said Mr Pennycuick, grinding his teeth—"I'll +write to him!" It was the tone in which he might have said, "I'll wring +his neck for him!" +</P> + +<P> +But when Mary came round and perceived his mood and intentions, she +implored him not to write—went on her knees, and almost shrieked in +her frantic fear of his doing so. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, father, don't—DON'T! If he does not remember—if he does not want +to come—you would not drag him by force? And he never bound +himself—he never really asked me; very likely he did not mean +anything, after all." +</P> + +<P> +"Not mean anything!" shouted the indignant father. "He can kiss a +girl—a daughter of mine—and not mean anything! I'll make him tell me +whether he dared not to mean anything—" +</P> + +<P> +"No, father," commanded Deb. "You must not write to him. It is not for +a Pennycuick to fling herself at any man's head. Let him alone; we +don't want him. Treat him—as I hope Molly is going to do—with the +contempt that he deserves." +</P> + +<P> +Mr Pennycuick stormed and muttered, but obeyed; and for two days +Captain Carey was left to the anathemas of Redford and the countryside +as a heartless jilt, to Mary's extreme anguish. She tried to water down +the concoction that she stood answerable for, to take blame off him and +put it on herself; but she dared not go far enough to convince anybody +that she was not sacrificing herself to shield him. +</P> + +<P> +It was a horrible position for a delicate-minded and even high-minded +girl, and the misery of it was aggravated by the constant effort to +efface its signs and evidences. She was left with no outlook in life +but to get through twenty, thirty, forty years somehow, and come to a +little peace at last, when everything would be forgotten; and her one +forlorn hope was that Guthrie would not discover her crime—would keep +up the neglect with which he had treated his old friends, and not come +near them. +</P> + +<P> +He might have done this—for the fact was that he now had a dawning +"affair" in another quarter—had not Frances intervened. To her, +inaction at such a crisis was intolerable, and since nobody else would +do it, she wrote to Guthrie Carey herself. She wrote, she said, to +welcome him back to life and to Australia, and to congratulate him on +being a captain; incidentally she mentioned other matters, and asked +innocent-seeming questions which she was well aware could only be +answered in person. +</P> + +<P> +Frances, since his first acquaintance with her, had shot up into a +slim, tall girl, exquisite in colouring and the daintiness of her +figure and face. Although unlike Deb in every way, people were +beginning to compare them as rival beauties—Frances' private opinion +being that there was no comparison. She had nearly done with +governesses, short frocks and pigtails, and was ardently anticipating +the power and glory coming to her when she should be a full-grown woman. +</P> + +<P> +Two days after the clandestine postage of her letter to Captain Carey, +a new housemaid brought Mary his visiting-card on a silver tray. Mary +knew, before looking at it—having heard nothing of the letter, and no +sound of his arrival in his hired buggy—what name it bore. Her forlorn +hope had been too forlorn to stand for anything but despair. She had +expected the catastrophe from the first. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X. +</H3> + +<P> +How she got into the room—the isolated big drawing-room, which +somebody else, who was aware of his arrival, had directed that he was +to be shown into—Mary knew not; but she was there. He stood perfectly +still, massive and inflexible, to receive her. Without approaching +him—or he her—to shake hands, without looking at his face or anywhere +near it, she perceived the adamantine set of lips, the cold gaze, more +withering than fire, which informed her that he knew all; and she sank +crouching into a chair, and hid her face. But her back was against the +wall now. The coward stage was past. In the most desperately false +position that a girl could occupy, she made no further attempt to run +away from the truth, perhaps because she saw that it was useless. When +he began, very politely, but with no beating about the bush, to say: "I +daresay you are surprised to see me, Miss Pennycuick, but I was +told—and since I came up here I have been told again by several +different persons—something that I want you to help me to understand," +she jerked herself upright, and stopped him with a swift gesture and +the cry of: "I know! I know what you have been told; and I have nothing +to say. I cannot contradict it." +</P> + +<P> +She was a piteous object, in her shaking anguish; but he looked at her, +of course, without a scrap of pity. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think you really know?" he questioned her, with cold gravity. +"Perhaps I have been given an exaggerated version. I was in hopes that +it was altogether an invention of Miss Francie's—I know of old that +she is prone to make reckless statements—" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah-h—Francie!" +</P> + +<P> +"She was kind enough to write me a long letter, to congratulate me on +my promotion. She told me all the family news. And she said—she asked +me—but really I haven't the cheek to repeat her words—" +</P> + +<P> +His cold face had become hot, and his manner agitated. +</P> + +<P> +"Go on," said she, calming under the perception that the worst had come +utterly to the worst. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, if you will forgive me—she asked me, in effect, when I was +coming to marry you, and why I had kept the engagement a secret so +long." He paused, one dark red blush, to note the effect of so brutal a +stroke. +</P> + +<P> +She said, meeting his eyes for the first time: +</P> + +<P> +"And you believed it at once—of ME?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, Miss Pennycuick. I laughed. I said to myself: 'Here is another of +Miss Francie's mare's nests.' But when I read on—she told me so many +things—they were incredible, but still I felt I had to sift the +matter; and since I came up today, other people—I've been to Five +Creeks and had a talk with Jim Urquhart—now I don't know what to +think; at least, there is but one thing that I can think." +</P> + +<P> +The chair she had taken had a high back, and against this she laid her +head, as if too weary to support it. Lack of sleep and appetite had +paled her florid colour to a sickly hue, and she looked wan and languid +as a dying woman. But still he did not pity her, as he must have done +had her face been half as beautiful as Deb's or Francie's. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Pennycuick," he continued, as she kept silence, "I want to get +the hang of this thing. Will you tell me straight—yes or no—have you +been giving it out that I left Redford two years ago engaged to you?" +</P> + +<P> +Her first impulse was to cry out: "Oh, no, no! Not quite so bad as +that!" But on second thoughts she said: +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—practically." +</P> + +<P> +Sudden rage seemed to seize him. He sat up, he crossed his knees, he +uncrossed them, he twisted this way and that, he muttered "Good God!" +as if the pious ejaculation had referred to the Other Person, and his +stare at her was cruel. +</P> + +<P> +"But—but—I have been racking my brains to remember anything—surely I +never gave you—I am perfectly convinced, I have the best reason for +being absolutely certain, that I could not have given you—" +</P> + +<P> +"Never!" she broke in. "Of course not. It was all my own invention." +</P> + +<P> +"You admit it? Thank you. You formally relieve me of the imputation I +have so long lain under without knowing it, of having run away from my +duty?" +</P> + +<P> +She said lifelessly: "We thought you were dead." +</P> + +<P> +"Hah! I see. You thought it didn't matter what you said of a dead man? +But dead men's characters should be all the more sacred because they +cannot defend them. I should be sorry indeed to leave behind me such a +reputation as I seem to have hereabouts—though, indeed, a man is very +helpless in these cases. He is at a hopeless disadvantage when a woman +is his traducer. I can see that Jim Urquhart will never be a friend of +mine again, whatever happens." +</P> + +<P> +"He shall know the truth. Everybody shall know the truth," said Mary. +</P> + +<P> +"How can everybody know the truth? Only by my own affidavit, and that +would not be believed. Besides, it is not for me to deny—at the cost +of branding a lady a liar." +</P> + +<P> +It was the straight word, regardless of manners, with this sea-bred man. +</P> + +<P> +"You need not. I know how to do it so that people will believe. I am +going to write a letter to the newspaper—a plain statement, that will +fully exonerate you." +</P> + +<P> +He nearly jumped out of his chair with the fright she gave him. +</P> + +<P> +"You will do nothing so ridiculous!" he exclaimed angrily. +</P> + +<P> +"It is the only way," said she—"the only way to make sure." +</P> + +<P> +"If you do," he menaced her, "I shall simply write another for the next +issue to flatly contradict you." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you would be a liar." +</P> + +<P> +"That doesn't matter in the least. I must be a man first. I am not +going to let you ruin yourself." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, that is done already! Nothing can make it worse—for me." +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her, taking in the words, in some sort understanding them. +She lifted her eyes to look at him, and what he saw behind the look +went to his kindly heart. He "felt" for her for the first time. +</P> + +<P> +"May I go now?" she whispered. +</P> + +<P> +His answer was to move to a seat beside her. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish you would tell me," he said, in more humane tones, "how you +came to do it. I would like to understand, and I can't, for the life of +me. You must have had some reason. DID I do anything, unknowing—" +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head hopelessly. +</P> + +<P> +"No. You were only kind and good, as you would have been to anyone." +</P> + +<P> +"Kind and good? Rubbish! It was you—all of you—who were kind and +good. Oh, I don't forget what you did for me, and never shall. I +feel"—it was the very feeling that had so oppressed him in the case of +the lady at Sandridge—"under a load of obligation to you that I can +never hope to discharge. But still—but still—though I trust I showed +some of the gratitude I felt—I cannot remember how I came to give you +the idea—I must have done something, I suppose; one is a blundering +fool without knowing it—" +</P> + +<P> +"No," she protested—"no, no! It was my own idea entirely." +</P> + +<P> +"But I can't reconcile that with your character, Miss Pennycuick." +</P> + +<P> +"Nor can I," she laughed bitterly. +</P> + +<P> +"There's a mystery somewhere. Did anybody tell you anything? Did Miss +Frances put constructions on innocent appearances? Did—" +</P> + +<P> +"No," Mary resolutely stopped him. "It is good of you to try to make +excuses, but there is no excuse for me—none. Francie only said what +she knew. I let them believe you were my lover; I am twenty-seven—I +never had one—and—and—oh, I thought that, at least, you might be +mine when you were dead! I did not mean to be a liar, as you called +me—yes, that is the right word—" +</P> + +<P> +"Forgive me for using it," he muttered. "You do not realise at first +that you are lying, when you only act lies and don't speak them. And I +DID think that perhaps, that possibly—of course, I was ridiculously +wrong—it was atrocious, unforgivable—I don't ask you to forgive me—I +don't want you to—but those dear days when our little boy—oh, you +know!—and when you kissed me that night beside his grave—" +</P> + +<P> +"WHAT!" A lightning change came over the young man, as if the word had +been an electric current suddenly shot into him. "KISSED YOU?" +</P> + +<P> +"It was nothing; you did not know you did it—" +</P> + +<P> +"But here—hold on—this is serious. DID I kiss YOU? You are sure you +are not dreaming?" +</P> + +<P> +"I would not be very likely to dream that," she said, with a strange +smile. "But of course it was only—at such a time—as you would have +kissed your sister—anybody. Your very forgetting it shows that." +</P> + +<P> +But a dim memory was awakening in him, frightfully perturbing to his +mind. +</P> + +<P> +"I KISSED you!" he repeated, and slowly realised that he had been that +consummate ass. The poor baby's dead hand had retained its old power to +entrap a simpleton unawares. +</P> + +<P> +Well, simpleton or not, Guthrie Carey was Guthrie Carey—sailor-bred, +accustomed to meet vital emergencies with boldness and promptness; +accustomed also to take his own views of what was a man's part at such +times. While she implored him to say no more about that kiss, crying +shame upon herself for mentioning it, he sat in silence, thinking hard. +As soon as she had done, he spoke: +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Pennycuick, I now understand everything. You are completely +justified. It is I who have been to blame." And he then, in precise +language, such as no real lover could have used, but still as prettily +as was possible under the circumstances, requested the honour of her +hand in marriage. +</P> + +<P> +To his astonishment, she laughed. It was a wild-sounding cackle, and +quickly turned into a wail. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah-h! Ah-h-h!" She faced him again, head up and hands down. "That, Mr +Carey, is the one way out of it that is utterly, absolutely, eternally +impossible." +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" he demanded, with his man's dull incomprehension, and went on to +demonstrate that there was no other. "I do not wish," he lied +chivalrously, "to take any other. I—I—believe me, I am not ungrateful +for your—for your thinking a great deal more of me than I deserve. I +will try to show myself worthy—" +</P> + +<P> +A magnanimous arm attempted to encircle her. She backed from it, and +rose hurriedly from her chair, with what he would have imagined a +gesture of repulsion if he had not known her, from her own showing, so +over-eager for his embraces. He rose too. +</P> + +<P> +"Do not!" she cried breathlessly, passionately. "As if I could +dream—What can you think of me, to imagine that I would for a moment—" +</P> + +<P> +She broke from him and ran towards the door, sobbing, with her +handkerchief to her eyes. In three strides he was there before her, +cutting off her retreat; so she swung back into the room, cast herself +on the floor beside a sofa, and throwing up her arms, plunged her head +down between them into the depths of a large cushion, which smothered +cries that would otherwise have been shrieks. She abandoned all effort +to control herself, except the effort to hide, which was futile. +</P> + +<P> +Guthrie Carey's first feeling was of alarm, lest anyone should hear and +come in to see what was the matter; he felt like wanting to guard the +door. But in a minute or two his soft heart was so worked upon by the +spectacle before him that he could think of nothing else. However +little he might want to marry Mary Pennycuick, he was not going to be +answerable for this sort of thing; so he marched resolutely to the +sofa, and stooped to lift the convulsed creature bodily into his arms. +</P> + +<P> +He might as well have tried to grasp a sleeping porcupine. +</P> + +<P> +"How dare you?" she cried shrilly, whirling to her feet, dilating like +a hooded snake before his astonished eyes. "How dare you touch me?" He +was too cowed to answer, and she stood a moment, all fire and fury, +glaring at him, her tear-ravaged face distorted, her hands clenched; +then she whirled out of the room, and this time he made no effort to +stop her. +</P> + +<P> +He dropped back on the sofa, and said to himself helplessly: +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm blowed!" +</P> + +<P> +There was stillness for some time. This part of the house seemed quite +empty, save for one buzzing fly, which he or Mary had let in. The +little housekeeper was very particular about flies in summer, every +window and chimney-opening being wire-netted, every door labelled with +a printed request to the user to shut it; and his dazed mind occupied +itself with the idea of how this insect would have distressed her if +she had not had so much else to think of. He had an impulse to hunt it, +for her sake, through the green-shadowed space in which it careered in +long tacks with such energy and noise; but, standing up, he was seized +with a stronger impulse to leave the house forthwith, and everything in +it. He wanted liberty to consider his position and further proceedings +before he faced the family. +</P> + +<P> +As he approached the door, it was opened from without. Deb stood on the +threshold, pale, proud, with tight lips and sombre eyes. She bowed to +him as only she could bow to a person she was offended with. +</P> + +<P> +"Would you kindly see my father in his office, Mr Carey?" she inquired, +with stony formality. "He wishes to speak to you." +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly, Miss Deborah," he replied, not daring to preface the words +with even a "How-do-you-do". "I want to see him—I want to see him +particularly." +</P> + +<P> +Deb swept round to lead the way downstairs. +</P> + +<P> +An embarrassing march it was, tandem fashion, through the long passages +of the rambling house. While trying to arrange his thoughts for the +coming interview, Captain Carey studied her imperious back and +shoulders, the haughty poise of her head; and though he was not the one +that had behaved badly, he had never felt so small. At the door of the +morning-room she dismissed him with a jerk of the hand. "You know your +way," said she, and vanished. +</P> + +<P> +"She is more beautiful than ever," was his poignant thought, as he +walked away from her, and from all the glorious life that she +suggested—to such a dull and common doom. +</P> + +<P> +Mr Pennycuick, at first, was a terrible figure, struggling between his +father-fury and his old-gentleman instincts of courtesy to a guest. +</P> + +<P> +"Sir," said he, "I am sorry that I have to speak to you under my own +roof; in another place I could better have expressed what I have to +say—" +</P> + +<P> +But before he could get to the gist of the matter, Mary intervened. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Keene has some refreshment for Mr Carey in the dining-room," she +said. "And, father, I want, if you please, to have a word with you +first." She had recovered self-possession, and wore a rigid, determined +air, contrasting with the sailor's bewilderment, which was so great +that he found himself driven from the office before he had made up his +mind whether he ought to go or stay. +</P> + +<P> +He sat down to his unnecessary meal, and tried to eat, while an +embarrassed maiden lady talked platitudes to him. Didn't he find it +very dusty in town? Miss Keene, knitting feverishly, was anxious to be +informed. And didn't he think the country looked well for the time of +year? +</P> + +<P> +He was relieved from this tedium by another summons to the office. +Fortified with a glass of good wine, he returned to the encounter, +inwardly calling upon his gods to direct him how to meet it. He found +poor old Father Pennycuick aged ten years in the hour since he had seen +him last. But he still stood in massive dignity, a true son of his old +race. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Mr Carey," said he, "I have had a great many troubles of late, +sir, but never one like this. I thought that losing money—the fruits +of a lifetime of hard work—was a thing to fret over; and then, again, +I've thought that money's no consequence so long as you've got your +children alive and well—that THAT was everything. I know better now. I +know there's things may happen to a man worse than death—worse than +losing everything belonging to him, no matter what it is. When that +child was a little thing, she had an illness, and the doctors gave her +up. Two nights her mother and I sat up watching her, expecting every +breath to be the last, and broken-hearted was no word for what we felt. +I cried like a calf, and I prayed—I never prayed like it before or +since—and fools we are to ask the Almighty for we don't know what! Now +I wish He had taken her. And I've told her so." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you have been very cruel, Mr Pennycuick," Guthrie Carey replied +sharply—"and as unjust as cruel. She has done nothing—" +</P> + +<P> +"I know what she's done," the stern parent interposed. "I wouldn't have +believed it if anybody else had told me; but I have her own word for +it. And if she has been a liar once, I still know when to believe her." +</P> + +<P> +"If you will be so good as to tell me what she has said, then I will +make MY statement." +</P> + +<P> +The old man put up his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't perjure yourself," said he, grimly smiling. "It is very kind of +you to try to let us down easily, but you can spare your breath. +Excuses only make it worse. There's nothing to be said for her, and +you'll really oblige me by not going into details. I only sent for you +to make such amends as I can—to apologise most humbly—to express my +sorrow—my shame—my unspeakable humiliation—that a child of mine—a +Pennycuick—a girl I thought was nothing if not maidenly and +self-respecting, and the very soul of honour and straightness and +proper pride—" +</P> + +<P> +"You speak as if she was not all that now—" +</P> + +<P> +"NOW!—and done a low, contemptible thing like that! Oh, I don't +understand it—I can't; it's too monstrous—except that I have her word +for it. She says she did it, and so there it is. And, sir, I beg your +pardon on behalf of the house that she has disgraced—the house that +reared her and thought her so different—" +</P> + +<P> +He gulped, coughed, and gave Guthrie a chance to put in a word. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr Pennycuick, the simple fact is that I made love to your daughter—" +</P> + +<P> +"Made her an offer of marriage?" snarled the other, wheeling round. +</P> + +<P> +"I kissed her—" +</P> + +<P> +Mr Pennycuick snapped his thumb and finger derisively. +</P> + +<P> +"THAT kind of kiss!—as good as asked for." +</P> + +<P> +"It was not as good as asked for. Your daughter is not that kind of +woman." +</P> + +<P> +"I thought not, but she says she is." +</P> + +<P> +"Pay no heed to what she says. Her morbid conscientiousness runs away +with her. I tell you the plain truth, as man to man, without any +hysterics—I kissed her of my own free will—your daughter, sir. And I +am here now to stand by my act. If she will forgive my—my +tardiness—as you know, I was in no position then to aspire to marriage +with a lady of this family; I am not now, but I am better off than I +was—will you give your consent to our engagement?" +</P> + +<P> +"No!" roared Mr Pennycuick, looking as if threatened with an apoplectic +fit. "I'll see her engaged to the devil first!" +</P> + +<P> +Like Mary, he seemed to take the generous offer as a personal insult. +Guthrie Carey, conscious of doing the duty of a gentleman at enormous +cost, could not understand why. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XI. +</H3> + +<P> +Captain Carey, while leaving it to be understood that he held himself +engaged to Mary Pennycuick until further orders, realised the welcome +fact that in the meantime he was honourably free; and he excused +himself from staying to dinner. But scarcely had he driven off in his +hired buggy than that of Mr Goldsworthy clattered into the stableyard. +It was the good man's habit, when on his parochial visitations, to +'make' Redford at meal times, or at bed-time, whenever distances +allowed; he called it, most appropriately, his second home, and walked +into the house as if it really belonged to him two or three times a +week. +</P> + +<P> +The first person that he encountered on this occasion was Frances, who +had waylaid Guthrie Carey on his departure, and whom he had left +standing under the back porch, aglow with excitement. She was a picture +in her pale blue frock—put on for his eyes—and with her mane of +burnished gold falling about her sparkling blush-rose face; but the +parson, accustomed to regard her as a child, was unaffected by the +sight. +</P> + +<P> +"Surely," he exclaimed, with agitation, "that was young Mr Carey that I +passed at the gate just now? He had his hat pulled over his eyes, and +did not stop to speak to me; but the figure—" "Was his," said Frances, +bursting to be the first to say it. "Very much in the flesh still, +isn't he? And oh, to think he's gone like this, just as we'd got him +back—SO big and handsome, and such a DEAR brother-in-law as he would +have made!" +</P> + +<P> +She stamped her foot. "What do you think, Mr Goldsworthy?—he came for +her today, just as he promised, and then she turned round and wouldn't +have him! We thought he'd jilted her, and instead of that she's jilted +him. Oh, I could smack her! To have such a chance—SHE!—and after all +the fuss she made about him—and throw it away! But I think he'll come +back before his ship sails—he said he would—and perhaps she'll be +less of an idiot by then; she'd better, unless she wants to die an old +maid. Oh, if it was ME—!" +</P> + +<P> +Mr Goldsworthy penetrated to the morning-room, where something of the +same tale was repeated to him. Yes, Guthrie Carey was alive and well, +and had been up to see them. Yes, he had asked for Mary—now that he +was a captain—but she had finally decided against marrying a sailor. +Wisely, perhaps; at any rate, it was her business; the family did not +wish to discuss the matter. +</P> + +<P> +When Mr Goldsworthy found that Mary did not come to dinner, he drew +some conclusions for himself. He told himself there was something +"fishy" in the affair—something behind, that was purposely kept from +him. But he was hungry, and the fragrant soup steamed under his nose +and glittered in his spoon—it was so admirably clear. Just now the +doings of the Redford cook were of more concern to him than Mary's +doings. +</P> + +<P> +But although he enjoyed the meal to which he had looked forward all +day, he enjoyed it much less than usual. A more sensitive person in his +place must have found it wretched. Deb was a chilling hostess. Her +frigid dignity and forced politeness caused discomfort even to him, +thereby lowering her status in his eyes, lessening the ardour of his +admiration for her. Mr Pennycuick, such a stickler for hospitality, +scarcely spoke a word to the guest. Rose was a nobody, but still might +have done something in the way of entertainment; and she quite ignored +him, looking down as if to hide eyes that had been crying. Frances was +eager to engage in conversation, but was bidden roughly by her father +to hold her tongue. The stately governess wore only more ostentatiously +than usual the detached air that always marked her out of school; and +it was left to poor Miss Keene, with her timid platitudes, to keep up +an appearance of civility. +</P> + +<P> +Mr Pennycuick vanished abruptly after dinner; it was presently rumoured +that he was not well, and had gone to bed. Frances was taken away to +prepare lessons. Rose and Deborah came and went. Coffee was served. The +parson was again left to Miss Keene, who would not be pumped for +confidences, further than to admit that Mary was keeping her room with +a headache, in consequence of the agitating visit of Captain Carey, but +laboriously talked parish to him, without appearing to know anything of +the subject. So the poor man actually became so bored that he changed +his mind about staying for the night. He remembered that there was a +good moon, and that he had an early engagement next morning, and +ordered his buggy soon after nine o'clock. Afterwards he believed that +it was the direct voice of the Lord that had called him to take his +journey home at that hour. +</P> + +<P> +He drove alone, having a steady (Redford) mare, that stood quietly at +gates and doors, and no groom—a luxury almost unknown amongst country +parsons, who must all keep horses. The night was beautiful, still, cool +and clear, the moon so full that he could see for miles. Because of +this, he took his daylight short cuts across country, preferring grass +when he could get it to the dusty summer road. And one of his short +cuts led along the top of the embankment of the big dam. +</P> + +<P> +He slackened speed at this spot, touched by the beauty of the scene, +which could hardly have appealed in vain to any man who had just had a +good dinner. How peacefully the still water lay under the shining +moon—that moon which is capable of making, not soft young lovers only, +but the toughest old stagers sentimental—nay, maudlin—at times; an +intoxicant purged of the grossness of spirituous liquors, but acting on +the brain in precisely the same way. Mr Goldsworthy, already uplifted +by good Redford wine, felt the effect of the lovely night in dim poetic +stirrings of his sordid little soul. He mused of God and heaven, and +the other things that he made sermons out of, in a disinterested, +unprofessional way, these being the lines along which his imagination +worked. "Surely the Lord is in this place," was the unspoken thought, +elevating and inspiring, with which he surveyed the placid lake and the +dreaming hills; and "it is good for me to be here," he felt, even at +the cost of a Redford bed and breakfast, and the choice vegetables that +the gardener would have put into his buggy in the morning. +</P> + +<P> +But what was this? A boat adrift! From out of the shadow of the white +shed on the further shore a black spot moved—one of the boats that +should have been locked up, since no one was allowed to use them +without Mr Pennycuick's permission. It came into the open moonlight, +into the middle of that silver mirror, and he saw that oars propelled +it, and saw the figure of the person wielding them. Who had dared to +take this liberty with sacred Redford property? he wondered, with the +indignation of a co-proprietor; and he assumed a poacher after the fish +that Mr Pennycuick had been trying with characteristic perseverance and +unsuccess to naturalise in his dam. But looking harder, the clergyman +saw the figure rise in the boat, and that it was a woman's. Almost at +the same instant he saw that it had disappeared. Seizing whip and +reins, he lashed his mare to a gallop along the embankment and down its +steep side, where she nearly upset him, and round the lake shore—the +buggy rocking like a cradle—to the point nearest to the boat, now +visibly adrift and empty. He jumped to the ground, tore off his coat +and vest (which had a valuable watch attached), flinging them and his +hat, and presently his boots, into the buggy; and with a word of +warning to the mare, he plunged into the water to the rescue of some +poor fool whom as yet he had not identified. +</P> + +<P> +He returned to shore with Mary Pennycuick in his arms. Spent and +panting from his struggle, and awed by the tragical significance of the +affair, his heart exulted at his deed. He thanked God that he had been +in time—with a fervour proportionate to her rank and consequence—and +anticipated the splendid reward awaiting him as the benefactor of the +great family, entitled to their full confidence and eternal gratitude. +But also he was filled with solicitude for the poor girl. +</P> + +<P> +She was unconscious when he laid her down on the grass, but choked and +moaned when he set to work to revive her, and realised that she was +back in life and misery after he had succeeded in getting some whisky +down her throat—contents of the flask he always carried, as a +preventive of chills and remedy for undue fatigues, and from which he +had first helped himself. They sat upon the ground side by side, his +arm round her waist, her head—feeling only that it was cushioned +somewhere—on his shoulder. The night was so warm and windless that +their wet clothes were little discomfort to them, but he kept grasping +and wringing handfuls with the hand at liberty, while he supported her +with the other. The danger of damp "things" was more terrifying to him +now than the danger of death had been a few minutes ago. +</P> + +<P> +"There, there," he said soothingly, "you feel better now—don't you? +Then I'll just put on my coat, if you don't mind. I'll wrap you up in +the buggy rug—and we'll get back to Redford as soon as we can. And in +the morning, dear, you'll wake up sorry for this—this madness, and +you'll never do it again, will you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hysteria," he said to himself. "Her head turned by this love affair. +He's treated her badly, whatever they may say, and it has unhinged her +mind." +</P> + +<P> +This thought disposed him to be gentle with her when she positively +refused to be taken back to Redford. +</P> + +<P> +"Leave me here," she implored him. "I cannot go home! I will not go +home! My father told me he wished I was dead. Oh, I should have been +dead now if you had left me alone, and then they would have been +satisfied, and I should have been out of my misery, which is more than +I can bear. Oh, Mr Goldsworthy, don't—don't!" "Mad as a hatter, poor +thing," he thought, as he desisted from his effort to raise her. "Why, +her father thinks the world of her!" +</P> + +<P> +But something had to be done. It was unwise to use force in these +cases—nor could he have brought himself to use it—and of course he +could not leave her at the dam, or leave her at all, while she was in +her present mood, and without other protection; at the same time, it +was imperatively necessary that he should get out of his wet +clothes—her also. He mentioned this latter fact, and it was touching +to see her own careful housewifely instincts assert themselves through +all her mental agony. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you ARE wet," she mourned, feeling him—it did not matter about +herself; "oh, I am so sorry! Do—do go home at once, and take them off, +and have something hot before you go to bed." +</P> + +<P> +"I will," he said, "if you will go with me." A moment's reflection +showed him that this was the best course—to take her to his own house, +and send a message to Mr Pennycuick that she was there, and safe. +</P> + +<P> +The thought of the town frightened her. She dreaded to go anywhere out +of the solitude of Nature in which she had tried to hide. But he +assured her of privacy and protection, and she was spent and beaten, +and she gave in. Like a child, she stood to be wrapped in the rug and +lifted into the buggy, and they proceeded on their way to his home, +where his old sister kept house for him and mothered his child, with +the aid of one servant. +</P> + +<P> +It was nearly midnight when they arrived, and the parsonage was dark. +Miss Goldsworthy, not expecting him, was sitting up with a sick +parishioner half a mile off; Ruby and the maid were fast asleep. When +the latter was heard stirring in her room, her master called a few +questions to her, and then bade her go back to bed. +</P> + +<P> +"We don't want her poking round," he whispered to Mary, as (when +together they had hurried the mare into her stall) he led the drooping +girl to his study—and how grateful she was to him for this +consideration! He closed the door behind them, and led her gently to +his own arm-chair—she clung to the hand that was so kind to her in her +need—bidding her keep the rug about her (so as not to wet the +furniture); and he lit a kerosene stove that was one of his private +luxuries, always available when the maid-of-all-work was not. He +exhorted his charge to comfort herself by the poor blaze while he +fetched such odds and ends of clothes as he could gather from his +sister's room; and then he told her to change her wet garments for +these dry ones while he performed the same operation for himself +elsewhere. She obeyed him as meekly as a child, and was sitting huddled +in Miss Goldsworthy's faded flannel dressing-gown when he returned, +carrying a kettle and a tray. +</P> + +<P> +"Now I will make you a nice hot cup of tea," said he cheerily, planting +the kettle on a round hole at the top of the stove and the tray on his +writing table. "You put your clothes in the passage? That's right. +We'll dry them presently. Oh, yes"—starting to cut bread and +butter—"you must have something to eat. You have had no dinner." +</P> + +<P> +He forced her to eat, and to drink the hot tea, and she did feel the +better for it. Over her cup she lifted swimming eyes to his face, +whispering: "You are good to me!" And he remarked to himself that she +was not mad, as he had thought. +</P> + +<P> +When the meal was disposed of, he felt that the time for explanations +and for considering how to deal with the extraordinary situation had +come. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, my dear," he began, taking on something of the parson air at +last, "the first thing to be done is to inform your family of your +whereabouts. I must go and find up somebody to take a message to them, +to relieve their minds." +</P> + +<P> +She roused from her semi-torpor to plead for a reprieve. Not yet—not +yet! Whatever she had to face, let her rest for a little first. They +had parted with her for the night; they would not go to her room, she +knew—outcast as she now was from the sympathy of them all; they would +not miss her before the morning. And, oh, she could not go home! She +had disgraced her family—her own father had wished her dead. She was a +wicked woman, not fit to live; but, if she must live, let it be +anywhere—anywhere—rather than at Redford now! +</P> + +<P> +At this repetition of her strange charge against a doting father, and +the mention of disgrace, a distressing suspicion came into the parson's +mind. He calculated the length of time between Guthrie Carey's visits; +he looked at her searchingly. No, there was no evidence that she had +done the special wrong. But that there was wrong of some sort somewhere +was evident enough. +</P> + +<P> +"I know your father's affection for you," he said seriously, "and I +cannot believe that he would express himself as you say he did." +</P> + +<P> +"I deserved it," she said. "I don't blame him—nobody could." +</P> + +<P> +"There must indeed have been some grave reason—" +</P> + +<P> +"There was—there was!" +</P> + +<P> +"What was it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, don't ask me!" she wailed, covering her face. But, crossing over +to her side, he took one of the shielding hands, and holding it +tenderly, assured her that she must tell him. He was her pastor—he was +her best friend; just now he was her champion, prepared to fight her +battle, whatever it was. And to do this successfully it was necessary +that he should know all. In the end she told him—not all, but the main +facts. He thought it the silliest case of making a mountain of a +molehill that he had ever heard of. He was convinced there was more in +the background, to account for the violent emotions aroused—to account +for a good girl leaving a good home in the middle of the night to drown +herself. In his conjectures he made Guthrie Carey the villain of the +piece—the young man who, after creating all the disturbance, had +significantly cleared out. Sailors were an immoral lot—a sweetheart in +every port, as the world knew. And this fellow—why, you had only to +look at his big, brawny build (Mr Goldsworthy was a small man) to see +that he had a brutal nature. +</P> + +<P> +At any rate, the parson was satisfied that the heroine of the story +remained a "pure" girl—foolish, but womanly, and very, very +unfortunate. As she sat weeping by his side, dependent solely upon his +protection, he stroked her hand and looked at it—so shapely and +high-bred, the hand of a Pennycuick of the great house—a hand that +would be full of gold some day; and his thoughts were busy. +</P> + +<P> +The beautiful Deborah was gone, and could never have been for him; he +had been an idiot to think it. She had no bent towards religion, was +ruinously dressy and extravagant, unhousewifely as a woman could be; +but Miss Pennycuick, great lady as she was, could cook and sew, was a +master hand with servants and with children, and had never failed of +interest in the church—nor in him. They had always been the best of +friends, he and she; did it not seem that Providence had decreed they +should be more? Why had he been sent to the dam in the nick of time, +when he had intended to stay at Redford until morning? Why was she +sitting here now, alone with him in his study, cut off from everybody +else in the world? The hand of the Lord was in it. Looks were of small +account when one considered her rank and the fortune she would inherit; +but, of course, he did not admit to himself that he considered any one +of these three things; nor that she was of age and her own mistress, +although she had just forced the fact upon him when, promising him to +make no further attempt upon her life, she announced an intention to +find a situation somewhere in which she would be able to support +herself apart from her family, and away from all who knew her. No, what +he considered was the will of God and the dictates of his conscience. +She had been given into his hands; he was bound to take care of her, +and there was but one way to do it. It would be wrong and cruel to +force her back to Redford. It was preposterous to think of making a +governess or companion of her, a daughter of the proud Pennycuicks. She +could not remain in his house as she was, without scandal, although he +was a clergyman, with a sister housekeeper. Here they were now—past +midnight, and practically without a soul in the house—and he so young +still, and, if he might presume to say it, so attractive! +</P> + +<P> +He put the case to her guardedly, gradually, plainly at last, and +argued it for a full hour, while she drooped and wept, gazing at the +smelly stove and shaking her head wearily. By the time dawn came, and +she was quite worn out, he had won her consent to be his wife, which +meant for her a footing somewhere, and at the same time a means to +commit suicide without violating the law. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Goldsworthy, who was but his humble slave, came home, put the +forlorn girl to bed, and made a wedding breakfast for her while she was +there; Mr Goldsworthy took the opportunity to fill up marriage papers +in his study. Ruby was sent to school, as usual. Before her return +therefrom, Mary Pennycuick had been led to the altar of the adjacent +church, the white frock in which she had tried to drown herself dried +and ironed to make her bridal robe. A neighbouring clergyman and crony +of the bridegroom's performed the ceremony. Old Miss Goldsworthy, the +chief witness, deposed, bewildered, wept bitterly. The bride was +unmoved—until little Ruby, returning during the course of the ghastly +wedding breakfast, was brought up, giggling and staring, to "kiss her +new mamma", when the new mamma snatched the child to her breast, and +went off into wild hysterics. +</P> + +<P> +"There, there," said the new husband, pleased with the maternal +gesture, but alarmed by her excitement, "you are overwrought. You have +had no sleep. You must come and rest, my dear. Come and lie down. You +can have Ruby with you, if you like—while I go and settle things at +Redford. No, I won't be long; I'll just see your father, and be back by +tea-time. Have the drawing-room opened, Charlotte"—it never was opened +except for visitors—"and we will sit there this evening. And +meanwhile, make her some tea or something, and see that she has all she +wants. Come, my love—" +</P> + +<P> +He led her to the door of a room, and she shrank back from it with a +shriek. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, well," he soothed her; "the spare room, if you like—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, promise me—promise me—!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, yes; just as you wish, darling. I would not hurry you." +</P> + +<P> +She turned to Miss Goldsworthy and clung to her. "Save me! save me!" +was what the desperate clutch meant, but what the paralysed tongue +could not articulate. +</P> + +<P> +She was in a high fever and delirious on her wedding night, and a week +later at death's door. When she came out of her illness, reconciled to +her family, meekly obedient to her husband, she was a wreck of +herself—a prisoner for life, bound hand and foot, more pitiable than +she would have been as a dead body fished out of the dam. +</P> + +<P> +The tragic disproportion between crimes and punishments in this world! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XII. +</H3> + +<P> +Mrs Goldsworthy was reconciled to her relations through her +illness—the greatest peacemaker in families, save death; and for her +sake they made a show of tolerating her husband, after they had given +him some bad hours behind her back. But the whole affair was like a +blight on Redford, which was never the same place again. Mr Pennycuick +had a slight "stroke" on hearing all the bad news at once. It was light +enough to be passed over and hushed up, but his vigour and faculties +declined from that hour with a rapidity that could be marked from day +to day. "A changed man," observed his neighbours, one to another. At +the same time, they hinted that other things were not as they used to +be—that the old man had had losses—that Redford was heavily +burdened—that the proud Pennycuicks, already humbled, were likely to +experience a further fall. Certainly, the governess was dispensed with, +and the dashing four-in-hand withdrawn from the local racecourses and +agricultural show-grounds, of which it had long been the constant and +conspicuous ornament, to be sold at public auction, without reason +given. The great, hospitable house got a character for dullness for the +first time in its history. No lights or laughter flowed from the +windows of the big drawing-room of an evening; the lawns lay dark and +still, while downstairs a rubber of whist or a hand at cribbage with +Jim Urquhart or Mr Thornycroft represented what was left of the +gaieties of the past. These men—these old fogies, as fretful Frances +styled them both—were not of those who shunned Redford because it had +grown dull; on the contrary, they now—according to Frances +again—virtually lived there. And it was the absent pleasure-seekers, +her true kindred, for whom her soul longed. +</P> + +<P> +He who most openly resented the change, having (next to Mary) been most +instrumental in causing it, was Deborah's lover, Claud Dalzell. +</P> + +<P> +He had been none too gracious a lover—although graceful enough, when +all was well—seeing that he had continued his bachelor life, with all +its social obligations, after as before his engagement, and had allowed +this to run to nearly two years, without coming to any effective +understanding about the wedding-day; but when, in the thick of her +troubles, he descended upon Redford merely to denounce the Goldsworthy +marriage as a personal affront, and, as it were, to tax her with it, +then her loving indulgence did not suffice to excuse him. +</P> + +<P> +As usual, he went to his room first, to wash and change. He hated to +pass the door of a sitting-room with the dust of travel on him; he +could not shake hands with equanimity until he had restored his person +and toilet to their normal perfection, which meant more or less the +restoring of his nerves and temper to repose. So he appeared on this +occasion, fresh and finished to the last degree, the finest gentleman +in the world—the very light of Deb's eyes, and the satisfaction of her +own fastidious taste—walking in to her where she awaited him, in the +morning-room, herself 'groomed' to match, with as much care as she had +taken when she had no more serious matter to think of than how to dress +to please him. +</P> + +<P> +He met her, apparently, as usual. She, turning to him as to a rock in a +weary land, flung herself into his arms with more than her usual +self-abandonment. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, darling!" she breathed, in that delicious voice of hers, "it is +good to see you. I have wanted you so badly." +</P> + +<P> +"I am sorry I did not come before," he replied, kissing her gravely. +"Somebody has been wanted to deal with that extraordinary girl." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, poor girl! Do you know she is very ill with brain fever? Keziah +has gone to nurse her. It must have been that coming on. She was out of +her mind." +</P> + +<P> +"I should think so—and everybody else too, apparently. What were you +all about, Debbie, not to see this Goldsworthy affair going on under +your noses?" +</P> + +<P> +"It hasn't been going on. It has been Guthrie Carey—until now." +</P> + +<P> +"I am told"—it was Frances who had told him in the passage just +now—"that she refused Carey only the day before." +</P> + +<P> +"She did." +</P> + +<P> +"In order to make a runaway match with this parson fellow. The facts +speak for themselves." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" sighed Deb, turning to the tea-table, "I expect we don't know all +the facts." +</P> + +<P> +She meant that he did not know them. He only knew what Frances knew, +and providentially they had been able to keep the episode of the dam +out of the published story. That was the secret of Mary herself, her +husband, her father, and this one sister; and they kept it close, even +from Claud Dalzell. "I will tell him some day when we are married," Deb +had promised herself; but as things fell out, she never did tell him. +And it was on account of her brother-in-law's part in the suppressed +event that she now forbore to call him behind his back what she had not +hesitated to call him before his face—that is, failed to show that she +fully shared her lover's indignation at the MESALLIANCE, and the +scandalous way that it had been brought about. +</P> + +<P> +"But, good heavens!"—Claud took his cup perfunctorily from her hand, +and at once set it down—"are more facts necessary? She has made a +clandestine marriage with a man whose bishop will turn him out of the +church, I hope. They were right, I suppose, in concluding that no one +here would consent to it; and what conceivable circumstances could +excuse such an act?" +</P> + +<P> +"Illness," said Deb. "Madness." +</P> + +<P> +"Nonsense! There's too much method in it. It is obviously but the +climax of a long intrigue—a course of duplicity that I could never +have believed possible in a girl like Mary, although I have always +thought HIM cad enough for anything." +</P> + +<P> +"Have your tea," said Deb, a trifle off-hand; "it will be cold." +</P> + +<P> +And she sat down with her own cup, and began to sip it with a leisurely +air. +</P> + +<P> +"A clandestine marriage," remarked Claud, ignoring her advice, +"logically implies a clandestine engagement. Carey was but a red +herring across the trail. And you ought to have known it, Deb." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I didn't," said she shortly. +</P> + +<P> +He took a turn up and down the room, trying to preserve his wonted +well-bred calm. But he was intensely irritated by her attitude. +</P> + +<P> +"I cannot understand you," he complained, with a hard edge to his +voice. "I should have thought that you—YOU of all people—would have +been wild—as wild as I am." +</P> + +<P> +She exasperated him with a little laugh and a truly cutting sarcasm. +"It is bad form to SHOW that you are wild, you know, even if you feel +so." +</P> + +<P> +"I am just wondering whether you feel so. You are not used to hiding +your feelings—at any rate, from me. I expected to find you out of your +mind almost." +</P> + +<P> +"What's the use? If I raved till doomsday I couldn't alter anything. +The mischief is done. It is no use crying over spilt milk, my dear." +</P> + +<P> +"You look as if you did not want to cry." "Do I?" +</P> + +<P> +"As if it did not much matter to you whether it was spilt or not." "It +doesn't matter to me, compared with what it matters to her." "Well, it +matters to ME," Claud Dalzell announced, in a high tone, the crust of +his fine manners giving to the pressure of the volcano within. "I can't +stand the connection, if you can. Carey was bad enough, but he had some +claim beside his coat to rank as a gentleman. This crawling ass, who +would lick your boots for sixpence, to have him patting me on the back +and calling himself my brother—Good God! it's too sickening." +</P> + +<P> +"Not YOUR brother," Deb gently corrected him. +</P> + +<P> +"He is mine if he is yours." "Oh, not necessarily!" +</P> + +<P> +"Deb," said Claud, with an air of desperation, planting himself before +her, "what are you going to do?" +</P> + +<P> +She looked up at him with narrowing eyes and stiffening lips. +</P> + +<P> +"What IS there to do?" she returned. "Are you going to put up with +this—this outrage—to condone everything—to tolerate that fellow at +Redford, taking the position of a son of the house, or are you going to +show them both that they have forfeited their right ever to set foot +upon the place again?" +</P> + +<P> +"My sister too, you mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly—if you can still bring yourself to call her your sister. +She belongs to him now, not to us. She has voluntarily cut herself off +from her world. Let her go. Deb, if you love me—" +</P> + +<P> +He paused, and Deb smiled into his handsome but disgusted face. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, is that to be a test of love?" she asked. "I understand. I am to +choose between you. Well"—she rose, towering, drawing the big diamond +from her engagement finger—"I am going to her now. I ought to have +been there hours ago, but waited back to receive you. Good-bye! And +pray, don't come again to this contaminated house. We have too horribly +gone down in the world. I know it, and I would not have you compromised +on any account. We Pennycuicks, we don't abandon our belongings, +especially when they may be dying; we sink or swim together." She held +the jewel out to him. +</P> + +<P> +"What rot!" he blurted vulgarly, flushing with anger that was not +unmixed with shame. "Why will you wilfully misunderstand me? Put it on, +Deb—put it on, and don't be so childish." +</P> + +<P> +"I will not put it on," said she, "until you apologise for the things +you have been saying to me, and the manner of your saying them." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear child, I do apologise humbly, if I have said what I shouldn't. +Perhaps I have; but I thought we were past the need for reserves and +for weighing words, you and I. And really, Debbie, you know—" +</P> + +<P> +"Hush!" She stopped him from further arguing; but she did not stop him +from taking her hand and cramming the diamond back into its old place. +"I must go. Father cannot—he is ill himself; and Miss Keene is too +frightfully modest to nurse him alone, so that I must send Keziah back, +and stay—" +</P> + +<P> +"Can't Miss Keene go and send her back, and stay?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, she would be no use in such an illness as Mary's. And I must see +for myself how things are—whether they are taking proper care of the +poor, unfortunate child—" +</P> + +<P> +"Is she so very ill? I did not know that." +</P> + +<P> +There was commiseration in his tone, but in his heart he hoped that the +deservedly sick woman would crown her escapades by dying as quickly as +possible. Then, perhaps, he could forgive her. +</P> + +<P> +Deb gave him sundry confidences. On his appearing to take them in a +proper spirit, she gave him some more tea. And so they lapsed into +their normal relations. When she again urged the need for her to be +getting off on her errand of mercy, he magnanimously offered to drive +her. She accepted with a full heart, and her arms about his neck. While +she was getting ready, he repacked his portmanteau, and ordered it to +be put into the buggy. +</P> + +<P> +"It's no use my going back," he said to her, when they were on the +road, "with you away, and your father too ill to see me. I'll put up at +the hotel tonight, and go on to town in the morning. You can send for +me there whenever you want me, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"Just as you like, dear," said Deb quietly; and for the rest of their +journey they talked commonplaces. +</P> + +<P> +When they reached the parsonage gate, from which the maid-of-all-work +and a group of street gossips scattered in panic at their approach, the +lovers shook hands perfunctorily. +</P> + +<P> +"Goodbye, then, for a little while," said Claud. "You don't want me to +come in, do you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly not," said she coldly. +</P> + +<P> +"You know that it is totally against my judgment—and my wishes—that +you go in yourself, Deb?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. But one's own judgment must be one's guide." +</P> + +<P> +Thus they parted, each with a grievance against the other—a root of +bitterness to be nourished by much thinking about it, and by the +circumstance that poor Mary neither died nor was repudiated. Claud +drove on to the hotel, to be further disgusted with his accommodation +and his dinner; Deb walked into the house which hitherto she had +visited in a spirit of kindly condescension, to be revolted by the new +aspect which her changed relations with it now gave to its every +feature. Ruby, neglected, with a jam-smeared face—the flustered maid, +tousled, grubby, her frock gaping—the horrible hall, with its +imitation-marble paper and staring linoleum—the prim, trivial, +unaired, unused drawing-room, with its pathetic attempts at +elegance—Deb inwardly curled up at the sight of these things as things +now belonging to the family. When the master of the house came hurrying +in to her, rusty, unshaven, abject, she would have changed places with +a Christian of old Rome facing a lion of the amphitheatre. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, this is good of you! This is kind indeed!" Mr Goldsworthy greeted +her, and threatened in his grateful emotion to fall at her feet. "I did +not dare to hope—" +</P> + +<P> +But Deb shudderingly swept him aside, with his gratitude and his +excuses and his timid justifications. He could stand up before his +other critics—he had a clear conscience, he said; but before her he +knew himself for what he was. He followed her like a dog to Mary's +room, obeyed her directions like a slave, wept when she consented to +"say no more", and stooped to beg from him a solemn vow and promise +that he would be good to his wife. This was after the doctors had +refused to permit his wife's removal to Redford to be nursed, and after +Redford had practically been in command of his establishment for seven +weeks. +</P> + +<P> +Christmas is the time for reconciliations, and by Christmas Mary was +convalescent—pale as she had never been since childhood, and wearing a +little cap over her shaved head; very humble and gentle, and strangely +docile in her attitude towards her captor, who now gave himself all the +airs of a husband of his class. He was the benevolent despot of his +women-kind—the god of the machine; she was as properly submissive as +if born in the ranks. Negatively so, that is to say; positively, her +manifestations of duty to him took the form of services and endearments +bestowed upon his child and sister. Her first occupation after she +could use her hands was to improve Ruby's wardrobe—the little girl, +now her own, appealed to her motherly heart, a saving interest in her +wrecked life. The poor old ex-housekeeper was the other prop to which +she clung for a footing in the new and alien world which was now all +her home. When Miss Goldsworthy proposed to go out into a situation, +not to "be in the way of" the new wife, and when her brother would have +approved the plan as only right and proper (and as facilitating his +schemes for the raising of the "tone" of his establishment to Redford +level), Mary protested vehemently and with tears, the only occasion of +her showing a Pennycuick spirit since renouncing the Pennycuick name. +The old maid, for her part, was enthusiastically devoted to the new +sister-in-law, whom it was her joy to pet and coddle. "I can be of use +to her," she tremblingly commended herself to her brother. "I can take +the drudgery of the housework off her, and save her in the parish." +"Well, perhaps so," said Mr Goldsworthy. And, sincerely desiring to +endear himself to his aristocratic wife, he consented to her wish. +</P> + +<P> +The whole Goldsworthy family was transferred to Redford, while, on the +pretext of disinfecting it, the parsonage was painted and papered what +Deb called "decently", and its more offensive furniture replaced. Mary +was provided with a trousseau and many useful wedding presents, a +cheque from her father for 500 pounds amongst them. They did not +forgive her, but they pretended excellently that they did. Without any +pretence at all, they tried to make the best of a bad job. To this end, +they gathered their friends together as usual at Christmas. Mr +Thornycroft and the Urquharts needed no pressing; they came to see Mary +the day she returned home, and showed her the old affection without +asking questions. Mr Thornycroft's wedding presents to her were +magnificent—a complete service of silver plate and house linen of the +finest. Deb wrote to Claud: "I suppose we shall see you, as +usual?"—for he had always spent Christmas at Redford unless away on +the other side of the world. He wrote back: "I think not, this time." +He was the only defaulter. +</P> + +<P> +"He will never have a chance to refuse again," said Deb fiercely, as +she tore up his note. +</P> + +<P> +His absence was too marked not to provoke frequent comment, and +whenever it was alluded to in her hearing, her spine stiffened and her +head went up. It was quite evident to her family that the rift in the +lute was serious, and strange to say, it was her father, who might have +been expected to hail the signs, who was most concerned to see them. He +expostulated with her when she spoke bitterly of Billy's son, as once +he had been so ready to do himself. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, my dear," said he, "I can understand it, if you can't. I +wouldn't come myself, if I was in his place, to mix-up with the sort of +thing we've got to mix up with." +</P> + +<P> +"If I can mix up with it—!" quoth proud Deborah. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, yes—I know; but you must consider the silly way that he's been +reared. I don't like his taking upon himself to criticise what we +choose to do; but no doubt Goldsworthy IS a pretty big pill to +swallow—to a chap like him, always so faddy about breeding and +manners, and that sort of thing." +</P> + +<P> +"If he is too faddy for the society that I can put up with, though it +be that of chimney-sweeps," said Deb, "he is too faddy for me, father." +</P> + +<P> +"Now, my dear, don't talk so," the old man pleaded with her, quite +agitated by her mood. "We all have our little weaknesses—we have to +make allowances for temperament and for bringing up. Don't let a trifle +like this estrange you two—don't, Debbie, for my sake. Let me go down +to my grave feeling that one of you, at least, is safe and happy, and +well provided for." +</P> + +<P> +"Decidedly," thought Deborah, "father is not the same man that he was +before his illness." +</P> + +<P> +She understood the cause of his change of views on her engagement +better a few weeks later. +</P> + +<P> +He had parted with his eldest daughter then, and the emotion of the +event had fatally affected him. Owing to some obscure working of the +"influence" which her social position had brought to her husband, the +latter had been promoted to the charge of a Melbourne parish. The +affair was arranged while they were still at Redford, and just on the +completion of the improvements to the local parsonage. In spite of all +they had done to make this first home fit for her, family and friends +were unanimous in hailing her removal to another and more distant +one—out of the buzz of the gossip of her native neighbourhood—as the +best thing that could have happened. But when it came to the point of +sending her forth to battle with her fate alone for the rest of her +life, the wrench was dreadful. She was the bravest of them all under +the ordeal. The shattered father, whose right hand she had been for so +many happy years, and whose heart was broken with the weight of his +responsibility for her misfortunes, was completely overwhelmed. She had +not been gone twelve hours when Deb found him in his office chair, +unable to rise from it, or to answer her questions. And he never spoke +again. He made signs that he wanted Claud sent for, and when the young +man quickly came, looked significant things at him and Deb, as they +stood by his bedside hand in hand. Then he lapsed into stupor and died, +without waiting for a third stroke. +</P> + +<P> +Through all the shock and sorrow of the time, Claud was Deborah's +mainstay and consolation. He took the role of nearest male relative, +the right to which was undisputed by Mr Goldsworthy, preoccupied with +the important interests of his new parish; also by Mr Thornycroft and +Jim Urquhart, who, of course, "stood by" to serve her as far as she +would allow them. It was Claud who gave the orders for the funeral, and +superintended the ceremonies, and acted as chief mourner; it was Claud +to whom the household looked for direction, as if acknowledging him to +be the new master; it was on Claud's breast that Deb wept—who so +rarely wept—and his word that she obeyed, as if he were already her +husband; and in all that he did for her, and in all that he did not do, +he showed the grace, the tact, the tenderness, the thoughtfulness of +her ideal lover and gentleman. +</P> + +<P> +But there came a day when he fell again below the indispensable +standard—when the rift in the lute, that had seemed closed, gaped +suddenly, and this time beyond repair. It was when, after close +investigation of the deceased man's affairs, and some heated interviews +with one of the executors (Deb being the other), Claud discovered that +the Pennycuick wealth was non-existent—that Redford was mortgaged to +the hilt, and that if the estate was realised and cleared, as Deb +desired it should be, nothing would be left for her and her +sisters—that is to say, a paltry three or four hundred a year amongst +them, less than Deb could spend comfortably on her clothes alone. +</P> + +<P> +He was too upset by the discovery, and a bad quarter of an hour that Mr +Thornycroft had subsequently given him, to preserve that calm demeanour +which was his study and his pride. He came in to Deb where she sat +alone, and expressed his feelings as the ordinary man is wont to do to +the woman who loves and belongs to him. +</P> + +<P> +"What could your father have been dreaming of," he rudely interrogated +her, "to let the place go to pieces like this? Drifting behind year +after year, and doing nothing to stop it—not cutting down one of the +living expenses—not giving us the least hint of how things really +were—" +</P> + +<P> +"He gave several hints," said Deb, in that voice which always grew so +portentously quiet when his was raised, "if we had had the sense to +take them. I have been putting two and two together for some time, so +that I am not altogether taken by surprise." +</P> + +<P> +"Why didn't you tell me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because you were not here, for one thing. Because it was father's +private business, for another." +</P> + +<P> +"He seems not to have made it his business to take any care of his +children's interests," said Claud bitterly. "Bringing you up as he has +done, with the right to expect that you were to be properly provided +for, and then leaving you literally paupers—" +</P> + +<P> +"Not LITERALLY paupers," corrected Deb gently. "We shall be quite +independent still. And if you want to insult my father now that he is +dead—the best of fathers, if he did have misfortunes in business and +make mistakes—do it somewhere else, not in this room." "You have no +right to take that tone with me, Deb." "No?" She raised sarcastic +eyebrows, under which her deep eyes gleamed. "Well, I suppose I +haven't—now. I forgot my new place. I am very sorry, Claud"—rising, +and making a gesture with her hands that he had seen before—"very +sorry indeed, that I did not know I was going to be a poor woman and a +nobody when you did me the honour to select me to be your wife. Now +that you have shown me that I am disqualified for the position—" she +held out the big diamond, with a cold smile. "That's vulgar, Deb," he +loftily admonished her, fending off her hand. "You know I am not +actuated by those low motives. DON'T let us have this cheap melodrama, +for pity's sake! Put it on." +</P> + +<P> +But no more would she put it on. He had revealed his disappointment +that she was not something more than herself—that beautiful and +adorable self that she quite knew the worth of—and he had permitted +himself to take liberties of speech with her that she instinctively +felt to be provoked by the circumstance that she was no longer rich and +powerful. +</P> + +<P> +Deb's love was great, but her pride was greater. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIII. +</H3> + +<P> +Deb sat amid the ruins of her home. She occupied the lid of a deal +packing-case that enclosed a few hundreds of books, and one that was +half filled stood before her, with a scatter of odd volumes on the +floor around. The floor, which was that of the once cosy morning-room, +was carpetless; its usual furniture stood about higgledy-piggledy, all +in the wrong places, naked and forlorn. Mr Thornycroft leaned against +the flowerless mantel-shelf, and surveyed the scene, or rather, the +central figure, black-gowned, holland-aproned, with sleeves turned back +from her strong wrists, and a grey smudge on her beautiful nose. +</P> + +<P> +"That cottage that you talk about," said he, "will not hold all those." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, books don't take any space," she replied brusquely. "They are no +more than tapestry or frescoes. I shall have cases made to fit flat to +the walls." +</P> + +<P> +"That will cost money." +</P> + +<P> +"One must have the bare necessaries of life. I presume I shall be able +to afford that much. Pine boards will do. I can Aspinall them." +"Aspinall is very nice, but sometimes it gets on the edges of your +books and spoils them." +</P> + +<P> +"No, it doesn't. I have an Aspinalled book-case in my room now, and not +a mark ever came off it." +</P> + +<P> +"Did you paint it?" +</P> + +<P> +"I did." +</P> + +<P> +"Are you going to leave it there?" +</P> + +<P> +"I must. It is a fixture." +</P> + +<P> +"That's all right. I am glad you are going to leave something." +"Something? I leave all." +</P> + +<P> +"Except a library of books, and a collection of forty odd pictures, +that you will have to hang over the books—" +</P> + +<P> +"You would not have us part with family portraits?" +</P> + +<P> +"And a grand piano, extra sized, calculated to fill a suburban villa +drawing-room all by itself—" +</P> + +<P> +"Pianos make nothing second-hand, and the girls must practise. Better +keep a good instrument than sell it for fifty pounds and spend the +money on a bad one." +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly, if you can stow it. But with seven easy-chairs, and the +biggest Chesterfield sofa extant, and a large writing-table—" +</P> + +<P> +"I can have that in my room." +</P> + +<P> +"Along with a six-foot dressing-table, and a nine-foot wardrobe, and I +don't know how many chests of drawers—" +</P> + +<P> +"The wardrobe will stand in a passage somewhere. We must have places to +put our clothes." +</P> + +<P> +"A house with passages of that capacity—" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, never you mind. If I can't find room for my things, I can sell +them in Melbourne as well as here." +</P> + +<P> +"Having squandered a small fortune on the carriage down. Better leave +them with me, Debbie, and let me send you what you want afterwards." +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you. You would not have them to send afterwards." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I think I would." +</P> + +<P> +"No. I shall settle everything before I leave, and the sale will be +held immediately. The furniture first, and then the place." Her mouth +closed upon the words like a steel snap. +</P> + +<P> +"Just as you please about that," he said quietly. "Any time will suit +me." +</P> + +<P> +"By public auction," she added, with a sharp glance at him—"to the +highest bidder." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," was his laconic comment. "Me." +</P> + +<P> +"Not necessarily," said she, roused by the small word that held such +large meanings. "There are a few other rich persons in the western +district, to whom Redford may appear desirable." +</P> + +<P> +"There are," he agreed easily. "I know several. But I shall outbid +them." +</P> + +<P> +She was strongly agitated. "Oh, I hope they won't let you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +At first she fenced with the question. +</P> + +<P> +"Because you don't want it. You have more land already than one man +ought to have." "I don't know about what I ought to have, but I know +that if you persist in throwing Redford away, I shall take it." He +smiled at her angry perturbation. "If I find I haven't enough money to +outbid everybody—but I think I have—I can sell Bundaboo. If you won't +have Redford, I will—yes, and every stick and stone that belongs to +it." +</P> + +<P> +"And have people talking and saying that you did it for something else, +and not business reasons." +</P> + +<P> +"People would be right, for once." +</P> + +<P> +"But I won't have it!" cried Deb. "I won't stand being an object of +your benevolence. You want to pay a lot more than the place is worth, +so as to augment our income. You as good as own it—" +</P> + +<P> +"I want to keep your home for you against you change your mind." "The +last thing I shall do, I assure you—particularly after your saying +that." Her nose, in spite of the smut on it, testified to her indignant +dignity, up in the air, with its fine nostrils quivering. "Now, look +here, godpapa—I will not have Redford put up to auction. I'll sell +privately—and to somebody else." +</P> + +<P> +"You cannot." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, indeed! Not when I am executor?" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly not—except with the permission of your fellow-executor." +</P> + +<P> +She fell to pleading. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, let me—do let me! You know what I want—to square up all the +debts and have done with them. I can't sleep for thinking of what we +owe you already. Do you know how much it is? Nearly forty thou—" +</P> + +<P> +He checked her with an impatient wave of the hand. +</P> + +<P> +"All the debts will be provided for, of course. The lawyers will adjust +those matters." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't trust you," she urged, looking at him less angrily, but still +as puzzled and distressed. "I know you have designs to benefit me +somehow—unfairly, and because it's me—and if you only knew how I +HATED to be benefited—" +</P> + +<P> +"I do—nobody better. That is why I am letting you do a lot of things +that won't benefit you, but just the opposite—things you will repent +of horribly by-and-by. Knowing your independent spirit, I do not offer +my advice—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" +</P> + +<P> +"Not effectively. I do not force it upon you. I do not bring my +undoubted powers to bear upon you for your good—" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" +</P> + +<P> +"Because I know, of course, that you would rather suffer anything than +be guided by me." +</P> + +<P> +She softened instantly. "I am not such a fool, I hope. But—but you +WILL bring friendship into business. You did things for my father that +you know you would never have dreamt of doing for strangers—that you +never ought to have done at all; and now you want to be twice as +idiotically generous to us, because we are girls, and out of pity for +us—to do us a kindness, as it is called—when, if you only knew—" +</P> + +<P> +She had risen and drifted to him where he stood, and now laid a hand on +his arm. He put a hand over it, and looked into her pleading eyes. He +seemed not to have heard her last remark, to be far away in mind from +the point of discussion, and his fixed and strange gaze perplexed and +then embarrassed her. "How he feels our going!" she thought to herself, +and turned her face from his, and tried to turn his apparently sad +thoughts. +</P> + +<P> +"If you would only let me sell Redford to somebody else, and have the +lump money to pay all the debts in a plain way that I could understand, +and take the remainder for ourselves, and know that we were straight +and free, I would do anything you liked to ask me in return!" +</P> + +<P> +He still kept silence, and that tight grasp upon her hand. So she +looked at him again; and his far-away stare was bewildering. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder," said he slowly—"I wonder, if I were to take you at your +word, whether you would stick to it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Try me," said she. +</P> + +<P> +"I will. Deborah Pennycuick, if I let you sell Redford, and pay all +debts with your own hands, will you—I am your godfather, and something +over fifty, and it is quite preposterous, of course, but still you said +anything—will you be my wife?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" This was the unexpected happening, with a vengeance. Never had +she imagined such a notion on the part of this staid and venerable +person. She flushed hotly, and wrenched her imprisoned hand free. "I +don't like stupid jokes," she muttered, overcome with confusion. "Do I +give you the impression that I am joking?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"If you are serious, that is worse," said she. "Then I know you are +only trying another way of providing for me." +</P> + +<P> +"You believe I have only just thought of it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Haven't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have thought of it since you were fifteen, my dear. But never mind. +We will call it a joke, if you think that the least of two evils. I see +you do. The incident is closed. The bargain is off. And I can buy +Redford when it is put up for sale. Goodbye, goddaughter. No, I can't +stay to lunch today; I have some business to attend to. But of course I +shall see you again before you go." +</P> + +<P> +And when he did see her again, he gave not the smallest sign of what +had happened, so that she almost grew to feel that she must have dreamt +it. +</P> + +<P> +That same afternoon, Jim Urquhart, who was always doing so, rode over +to Redford to see if he could help her pack. He wondered at her +abstracted manner, and her sudden change of mind concerning the piano +and wardrobe and other things. Having laboriously packed books and +pictures, she now proposed to unpack half of them. She wanted to see +what room she would have in her cottage first. In fact, it seemed to +him that she did not know what she wanted. She was evidently tired and +overwrought. "Oh, Jim," she moaned, from amongst the dust and litter, +"it is a wrench!" +</P> + +<P> +"What do you suppose it is for us?" he returned gloomily. "Without you +at Redford! I'm trying not to think of it." +</P> + +<P> +"So am I. But it's no use—it has got to come." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose there is no way out?" +</P> + +<P> +"None. That is all settled. I have told Mr Thornycroft, and he won't +tease me any more." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think you will be happy down there, cooped up in streets?" +</P> + +<P> +"I know I shall not. But the streets down there will be better than the +streets of a bush township." +</P> + +<P> +"Why streets at all? Why not stay about here somewhere, where you have +us all near you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Exiled from Redford? No, thank you. Besides, where could we stay? +Detached cottages don't grow in these parts." +</P> + +<P> +Then he blurted it out. +</P> + +<P> +"I have never said anything, Deb. I knew I wasn't fit for you, and. I +am not now. I've got to look after my dear old mother and the children, +who haven't got anybody else, and I couldn't give you a home worthy of +you—perhaps never, no matter how I worked and tried; but if love is +any good, and the things that after all make homes—not money and fine +furniture—" "Dear old boy, don't!" she pleaded, with twitching lips. +</P> + +<P> +"I may as well, now I have begun," said he. "I don't suppose it is any +use, but I'd just like you to know once—as far as my life is my own, +it is yours any day you like. It has been since I was a boy, and it +will be for a good while yet—I won't say for ever, because you can't +tell what's going to happen; but I'm ready to bet my soul that it will +be for ever. Now, do just what you feel inclined to, Debbie. I'm not +going to press you—I know my place too well; but if you should think +it a better plan to live with me, and have me work for you and take +care of you the best I can, why, any heaven that's coming to us +by-and-by simply won't be in it—not for me." He looked at her across +the packing-case between them, and dropped his voice to add: "But you +wouldn't, of course." +</P> + +<P> +"I would, dear Jim!" she cried, with warm impulsiveness; "that is, I +might. A good man like you is worth a worldful of money and furniture. +I don't live for those things, as you seem to think; but—but you know +how it is—I can't change about from one to another—" +</P> + +<P> +He dropped the saddest "No" into the pregnant pause. +</P> + +<P> +"No, Deb—no; I expected that. Staunch through everything—that's you +all over. Well"—with a movement as if to pull himself together—"I'm +staunch too. We're equals in that, anyhow, and don't you forget it. +I'll not bother you any more—I never have bothered you, have I?—but +I'm here when you want me, body and soul, at any hour of the day or +night. You'll remember that?" stretching his horny hand across to her, +and being in the same instant electrified by the touch of her lips upon +it. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I will! I will!" +</P> + +<P> +The evening post brought a ship letter. Guthrie Carey was in port. He +had been there long enough to hear the news that Deborah Pennycuick was +penniless, and that Claud Dalzell had deserted her. So he had written +to her at length—the longest letter of his life—ten pages. +</P> + +<P> +She took it to her bedroom and sat down to read it, while at the same +time she rested a little before dinner. She had frowned over the +envelope; now she smiled over the first pages; she sighed over the +middle ones; she even wept a little over the last. Then she wrote out +an answer and sent it by a groom to the nearest telegraph office: +</P> + +<P> +"Please do not come. Am writing." +</P> + +<P> +Thus she cast aside in one day three good men and true, heart-bound to +one who was not worthy to be ranked with any of them. But that is the +way of love. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIV. +</H3> + +<P> +There was an attic at the top of a dark flight of stairs in the +suburban villa that was now the sisters' home. It contained a fireplace +and a long dormer window—three square casements in a row, of which the +outer pair opened like doors—facing the morning sun and a country +landscape. The previous tenants had used it for a box and lumber room, +and left it cobwebbed, filthy and asphyxiating. Deb ordered a charwoman +to clean it, and a man to distemper the grubby plaster and stain the +floor, and then laid down rugs, and assembled tables and books, and +basket-chairs, and girls' odds and ends; whereby it was transformed +into a cosy boudoir and their favourite room. Hither came Mary when she +could escape from that treadmill of which she never spoke, bringing her +black-eyed boy to astonish his aunts with his cleverness, and +astonishing them herself with the heretical notions which an intimate +association with orthodoxy seemed to have implanted in her. But Bennet +was not admitted, nor any other outsider. +</P> + +<P> +The little bricked hearth, when reminiscent wood fires burned on it, +was a pleasant gathering-place in cold weather; but it was the window +in the projecting gable towards which the sisters most commonly +converged. It was about eight feet long by two feet high, and close up +under it, nearly flush with its sill, stood a substantial +six-foot-by-four table, the chairs at either end comfortably filling +the rest of the alcove. They could sit here to write or sew, or drink +afternoon tea, and look out upon as pleasant a rural landscape—the +Malvern Hills—as any suburban villa could command. It was that view, +indeed, which had decided Deb to take the house. +</P> + +<P> +There was, of course, a towny foreground to it; and this it was, rather +than the distant blue ranges, that held the gaze of Rose Pennycuick +when she looked forth—the back-yard of the villa next to their own. It +was a well-washed-and-swept enclosure, spacious and well-appointed, and +amongst its appointments displayed a semi-circular platform of +brickwork, slightly raised above the asphalted ground, and supporting +the biggest and best dog-kennel that she had ever seen. +</P> + +<P> +"Those are nice people," she remarked, "for they have given their dog +as good a house as they have given themselves. Isn't it a beauty? I +wish to goodness everybody was as considerate for the poor things. I +wonder what sort of a dear beast it is?" +</P> + +<P> +She watched so long for its appearance that she thought the kennel +untenanted, but presently saw a maid come out from the kitchen with a +tin dish. This she dumped upon the brick platform, turning her back +instantly; and a fine, ruffed, feather-tailed collie stepped over the +kennel threshold to get his dinner. +</P> + +<P> +"Chained!" cried Rose. "And she never spoke to him!" +</P> + +<P> +Deb looked over her shoulder, sympathetically concerned. "Is he really? +What a shame! I expect they are too awfully clean and tidy to stand a +dog's paws on anything; but no doubt they let him out for a run." +</P> + +<P> +Rose waited for days, and never saw this happen. The master of the +house and a dapper young man, his son, went to town every morning at a +certain hour, evidently for the day's business; a stout, smart lady, +with smart daughters, was seen going forth in the afternoons; the maids +took their little outings; but no one took the dog. He lived alone on +his patch of brick, either hidden in the kennel or lying in the sun +with his nose between his paws. He had his food regularly, for it was a +regular household; but beyond that, no notice seemed taken of him. +Rose, worked up from day to day, declared at last that she could not +stand it. "Why, what can you do?" said Deb. "He is their dog, not +yours." "Oh, I don't know; but I must do something." +</P> + +<P> +One moonlight night she heard him—always silent and supine, except +when suspicious persons came into the yard—baying softly to himself, +plainly (to her) voicing the weariness of his unhappy life. She sat up +in bed and listened to him, and to his master shouting to him at +intervals to "be quiet"; and she wept with sympathetic grief. +</P> + +<P> +It was a Saturday night. On Sunday morning she excused herself from +going to church. She saw Deb and Francie go, and she saw the family of +the next house go—heard their front door bang, and caught gleams of +smart dresses through the foliage of their front garden. Then she put +on her hat and stole forth to intercede for the collie with the cook of +his establishment, a kindly-looking person, who had once been observed +to pat his head. +</P> + +<P> +The gleaming imitation-mahogany door at which she rang with a +determined hand but a fluttering heart, was, to her dismay, opened to +her by a young man—the son of the house, whom she had seen going to +business every week-day morning, tailored beautifully, and wearing a +silk hat that dazzled one. He was now in a very old suit, +flannel-shirted and collarless, so that at first she did not recognise +him. +</P> + +<P> +The desire of each was to turn and fly, but the necessity upon them was +to face their joint mishap and see it through. Crimson, the young man +mumbled apologies for his state of unreadiness to receive ladies; +equally crimson, Rose begged him not to mention it, and apologised for +her own untimely call. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Pennycuick, I believe?" stammered he, with an awkward bow. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Rose Pennycuick—yes," said she, struggling through her +overwhelming embarrassment. "I called—I wanted—I—I—MIGHT I speak to +you for just one minute, Mr Breen?" +</P> + +<P> +She had lived beside him long enough to know his name, also his +occupation. The Breens were drapers. Their shop in the city was not to +be compared with Buckley & Nunn's or Robertson & Moffat's, but it was a +good shop in its way, as this good home of the proprietors testified. +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly," said young Mr Breen, whose name was Peter. "With pleasure. +By all means. Walk in, Miss Pennycuick." +</P> + +<P> +She walked into a gorgeous drawing-room, where all was of the best, and +wore that shining air of furniture too valuable for daily use. Mr Peter +drew up a cream linen blind that was one mass of lace insertion, and +apologised anew for his unseemly costume. +</P> + +<P> +"The fact is, Miss Pennycuick—I hope you won't be shocked at my doing +such things on Sunday—I was cleaning my gun. There is a holiday this +week, and I am going shooting with a friend. It was he I expected to +see when I went to the door in this state." "Oh," said Rose, more at +her ease, "I often do things on Sundays; I don't see why not. In fact, +I am doing something now—" +</P> + +<P> +She cast about for words wherein to explain her errand, while he shot a +stealthy glance at her. Though not beautiful, like Deb and Francie, she +was a wholesome, healthy, bonnie creature, and he was as well aware of +her position in life as she was of his. +</P> + +<P> +"I came, Mr Breen—I thought there were only servants in the house—I +am sure you must wonder how I can take such a liberty, such an utter +stranger, but I wanted to speak about that poor dog of yours—" +</P> + +<P> +"Bruce—ah!" Enlightenment seemed to come to the young man. "You have +called to complain of the row he made last night. We were only saying +at breakfast—" +</P> + +<P> +"No, no, indeed!" Rose spread out protesting hands, and ceased to feel +embarrassed. "Not to complain of him, poor dear, but—but—if you will +forgive such impertinence, to ask somebody—I thought I should see your +cook, who looks kind—to do something to make his life a little less +miserable." +</P> + +<P> +"Miserable!" Mr Breen broke in, and sat up, stiffening, as if half +inclined to be offended, even with this very nice young lady. +</P> + +<P> +"There isn't a dog in the country better off. We had his place in the +yard built on purpose for him; had his kennel made to a special +design—" +</P> + +<P> +"A lovely kennel! I never saw a better." +</P> + +<P> +"Clean straw every few days; all his food cooked—" +</P> + +<P> +"But CHAINED, Mr Breen. And a collie, too!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, we couldn't have him messing all over the place; at any rate, my +people wouldn't. Oh, I assure you, Miss Pennycuick, Bruce is in clover. +He was only baying the moon. Dogs often do that. It's only their +fun—though it isn't fun to us." +</P> + +<P> +"Fun!" sighed Rose helplessly. And she fixed her eyes upon her +companion, as they sat VIS-A-VIS on the edges of their brocaded chairs, +with no sense that he was a strange young man—a gaze that troubled and +disconcerted him. "I am sure," she answered earnestly, "that you have a +kind heart. One has only to look at you to know it." +</P> + +<P> +"The idea never occurred to me before," he mumbled, flattered by her +discernment, and no more offended with her. +</P> + +<P> +"I am sure no one could mean better by a dog than you, giving him all +those nice things," she continued. "But—but you don't THINK. You don't +try to imagine yourself chained up in one spot night and day, week in +and week out, with nothing to do—no interests, no amusements, unable +to get to your work, to go shooting with your friends, to do anything +that you were born to do—and consider how you would like it." +</P> + +<P> +Mr Peter submitted to her humbly the fact that he was not a dog. +</P> + +<P> +"And you think you are not both made of the same stuff? That's just +where people make the mistake, even the kindest of them. Mr Breen, I +once had a long talk with the curator of a zoological garden, and he +told me that animals in confinement suffer mentally, just as we should +do in their place. Unless they have occupation and companionship they +go out of their minds. They get sullen and savage, and people say they +are vicious, and punish them, when it is only misery. He said no happy +dog ever got hydrophobia unless it was bitten; and that it was to save +themselves from going mad that squirrels kept whirling their wheel and +tigers running round and round their cages. They want notice, and +change, and work, or they cannot bear it. The stagnation kills them—or +I wish it did kill them quicker than it does. Look at your Bruce, born +to work sheep, to scamper over miles of country, free as air, to be +mates with some man who would know the value of such a friend, and be +worthy of him. Oh, it is too cruel!" +</P> + +<P> +Never had Rose displayed such eloquence, and a sudden glisten in her +candid eyes put the piercing climax to it. Mr Peter's kind heart, which +had been growing softer and softer with every word she spoke, was in +melting state. +</P> + +<P> +"Upon my soul," he declared, "you put quite a new light on it; you do +indeed, Miss Pennycuick. I see your point of view exactly. But—" +</P> + +<P> +With the utmost willingness to meet her views, he was unable to see how +to do it. It was easy to say "Let him off the chain," but the mater, +who was very particular, would never stand a dog muddying the verandahs +and digging holes for his bones in the flower-beds. He, Mr Peter, was +an only son, and she would do most things for him, but he was afraid +she would draw the line at that. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you might at least take him for walks," Rose pleaded. "Nobody +could object to that." "Yes, I might take him for walks," the young man +conceded thoughtfully. "Of course, I don't get home from business till +tea-time, and I have to leave directly after breakfast—" +</P> + +<P> +"Our Pepper, when we go to town, takes us to the station and sees us +off; and you are not at business on Saturday afternoons." "I usually +play tennis or something on Saturday afternoons—" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, take him and let him see you play tennis. He'd love it." +</P> + +<P> +"I question whether my club would. But see here, Miss Pennycuick, I WAS +going to meet some lady friends this afternoon, but now I won't; I will +take him for a walk instead. And I'll get up in the mornings, and give +him a run before breakfast. There!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, how kind, how good you are!" she exclaimed delightedly. +</P> + +<P> +"Not at all," he returned, glowing. "It is you who are good, taking all +this trouble about us. I am only ashamed that you should have had to do +it, and that you should have caught me in this state"—another blushing +reference to his distressing toilet. +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind your state," she consoled him sweetly, rising from her +chair. "I like you better in this state than I do when you are smart. I +thought you were too smart to—to condescend to trouble yourself about +a poor dog." +</P> + +<P> +"I am sorry you had such a bad opinion of me. It was simply—the thing +didn't occur to me until you mentioned it." +</P> + +<P> +"I know. But it is all right now. Well, I must go. You will never get +your gun cleaned at this rate." +</P> + +<P> +"Bother the gun! This is better than—I mean—won't you take a glass of +wine?" +</P> + +<P> +She declined emphatically and with haste, and hurried into the hall. He +opened the front door for her, and they stood together for a moment on +the dustless door-mat, mathematically laid upon verandah boards as +white as new-peeled almonds. +</P> + +<P> +"What a lovely garden!" remarked Rose, as she stepped down to it. Those +were her words, but what she really said in her mind was: "Who would +think he was a draper?" +</P> + +<P> +Francie was aroused from her Sunday afternoon snooze on the +drawing-room sofa. +</P> + +<P> +"What IS the matter with that dog?" she complained pettishly. "Surely, +after howling like a starved dingo all night—be quiet, Pepper! One of +you is enough." Rose's terrier was up and fidgeting, with pricked ears. +</P> + +<P> +"They must be killing him!" cried Deb, lifting her handsome head from +her book. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no," said Rose; "that sort of bark means joy, not pain." +</P> + +<P> +"Poor, dear beast! What's making him joyful, I wonder?" +</P> + +<P> +"I must go up and see," said Rose, who had carefully refrained from +mentioning her forenoon proceedings. +</P> + +<P> +The drowsy pair sank back upon their cushions; only Pepper accompanied +her to the attic room. He jumped upon the window seat, wriggling and +yapping, and they looked forth together from the open casement upon the +spectacle of Bruce and Mr Peter apparently engaged in mortal combat. +The collie had realised that he was off the chain and about to take a +walk, and was expressing himself not merely in frenzied yells, but in +acrobatic feats that threatened to overwhelm his master. The latter, +tall-hatted, frock-coated, lavender-trousered, with a cane in his hand +and a flower in his button-hole, jumped and dodged wildly to escape the +leaping mass, his face puckered with anxiety for the results of his +experiment. Pepper's delighted comments drew his eyes upwards, and he +made shift to raise his hat, with a smile that was instantly and +generously repaid. Rose nodded and waved her hand, and Peter went off, +making gestures and casting backward glances at her, until he was a +mere dot upon the distant road, with another dot circling around him. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear fellow!" she mused, when he was out of sight. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap15"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XV. +</H3> + +<P> +Bruce went unchained, within limits, and had a run nearly every day. +Workmen came to put a railing and gate to the back verandah of his +establishment, and Mrs Breen kept a fidgety watch upon his movements; +but evidently the only son's will ruled, and he was more than faithful +to his compact with Rose. She was able to see this from her commanding +window, and to hear it from Bruce's mouth; and day by day her heart +warmed towards Bruce's master. Many were the friendly smiles and +salutes that passed between the attic window and the Breen back-yard, +all unknown to Rose's sisters. +</P> + +<P> +They were walking with her one Saturday afternoon, when they met Mr +Peter and the collie. Pepper ran forward to greet Bruce, and they +sniffed at each other's noses and wagged their respective tails in a +friendly way. Deb was remarking to Rose that their pity for the Breens' +dog had been quite misplaced, when a bow from her sister and a lift of +the hat by the young man caused her to stop short and raise her fine +brows inquiringly. +</P> + +<P> +"Rose!" +</P> + +<P> +"I—I spoke to him one day," explained Rose, pink as her pinkest +namesake. "About Bruce." +</P> + +<P> +"Who's Bruce?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's Bruce—his dog." +</P> + +<P> +Frances came running up. "Rose," said she indignantly, "did you bow to +that man?" +</P> + +<P> +"He is our neighbour next door," mumbled Rose. +</P> + +<P> +"I know that. So is the wood-carter. But is that a reason why you +should bow to him? Do you know who those people are?" +</P> + +<P> +"They are perfectly respectable people, I believe," said Rose, growing +restive. +</P> + +<P> +"DRAPERS," said Frances witheringly. +</P> + +<P> +"I shouldn't care if they were chimney-sweeps. They have a beautiful +dog, and young Mr Breen is very kind to him, and I—I thanked him for +it." "Oh, Deb!" +</P> + +<P> +"Was that necessary, my dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps not. But I did." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, be careful, Rosie. We are not at Redford now, you know. Girls +living alone and going about in public places—" +</P> + +<P> +"And that sort of person," Frances broke in crossly, "always takes +advantage of a little notice. Why, he looked at you as if you were +friends and equals, Rose!" +</P> + +<P> +Rose turned to retort again, but feeling the weight of opinion against +her, forbore. And she was glad she had never mentioned the +circumstances under which she had made poor Peter Breen's acquaintance. +</P> + +<P> +On a later afternoon she was in the attic room, sewing at a frock for +Robbie Goldsworthy—Robert Pennycuick, after the grandfather who had +been expected to leave much money—while Deb and Frances entertained +visitors downstairs. Old Keziah had brought her tea and cakes, and she +had had a pleasant time with her work and her thoughts, and her view of +Bruce and his premises, when suddenly Frances flounced in. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, madam!" exclaimed the irate young lady, "we have to thank you for +this. What did I say? Give these people an inch and they will take an +ell—a mile indeed, if they can get it." +</P> + +<P> +"What people?" inquired Rose faintly. +</P> + +<P> +"Those Breen people—those DRAPERS. They have had the cheek to come and +call on us—to call and leave their cards, 'First and third Wednesday', +as if they expected us to call back again!" +</P> + +<P> +"Who came?" +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs and Miss—with half the shop upon their backs. Debbie"—Deb was +coming in behind her—"you are NOT going to return the call of those +people, I TRUST?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I don't know," smiled Deb easily. "It would please them, and it +wouldn't hurt us. There would be no need, of course, to return a second +one." +</P> + +<P> +"I should think it would NOT hurt us," Rose spoke up, "to behave like +decent people. I never heard that it was considered high breeding and +fine manners to snub your inferiors—if they are your inferiors." "You +have to snub them," said Frances, "if they don't know manners +themselves." +</P> + +<P> +"A very GENTLE snub," said Deb. "We are not going to be rude to the +poor things. We will call once—that is, I will—in a few months' time. +After all, it was hardly their fault." +</P> + +<P> +"No; it is Rose's fault. Please, Rose, in future be so good as to +consider your family a little, as well as your neighbours' dogs." +</P> + +<P> +Rose's only reply was to start the sewing-machine and drive it +vehemently. But her heart burned within her. Evidently Peter's mother +and sister had been insulted in her house, after he had been so good to +her. +</P> + +<P> +He did not appear in the yard that evening, and next day when he did, +his face was turned from her all the time. The day after that, she +rattled the window and encouraged Pepper to bark to draw the young +man's attention, having ready for him a smile that should counteract +Francie's frowns, if smiles could do it; but again he took no notice. +Then she was sure that his feelings had been hurt. Mrs and Miss Breen +had returned to report a cool reception of the overtures that had been +made almost certainly at his instigation—had probably reproached him +for exposing them to the insolence of stuck-up snobs. Oh, it was +horrid! And doubtless he thought her as bad as the rest. She had not +gone downstairs to see his mother and sister, and how was he to know +she had been ignorant that they were there? And still he took Bruce out +for walks, before breakfast and after business in the afternoons, when +he might have been playing tennis and enjoying himself. +</P> + +<P> +She bore with this state of things for some time, then suddenly +determined to end it. "Where there's a will there's a way." One of +Deb's petticoats showed signs of fraying, and, Deb-like, she must have +fresh lace for it immediately. Rose offered to go to town to fetch it, +taking with her the money for her purchase. +</P> + +<P> +Never before had she been to "Breen's." Second-rate, if not third or +fourth, was its class amongst Melbourne shops, and the Pennycuicks had +always been accustomed to the best. But when she turned in at the +somewhat narrow and encumbered doorway, she was pleasantly surprised to +note how far the shop ran back, and how well-stocked and busy and +solidly prosperous it seemed. +</P> + +<P> +He was there—not, to her great relief, behind the counter, but in a +sort of raised office place at the farther end—attending to the books +apparently, while keeping an eye upon other matters. Hardly had she set +foot upon the carpeted aisle when his head popped up from behind his +desk, and she saw herself recognised. As it was her object to be +recognised, and to speak to him, she passed the lace department, the +ribbons, the silks, the dress stuffs, until she reached the Manchester +department, where they sold towels and table-cloths, and beautiful +satin eider-downs in all the colours of the rainbow. Here she halted +and asked sweetly for torchon lace. +</P> + +<P> +All the way had Peter watched her, but with his head down, as if +wishing to hide from her. "He fancies I shall be ashamed of him because +he keeps a shop," thought she; and that was exactly what he did fancy, +knowing the world and its funny little inconsistent social ways. So, +when informed that she had left the lace counter far behind her, and +while turning to retrace her steps, she frankly sought his eye, and +catching it, bowed and smiled with all the friendliness that could be +expressed in such fashion. +</P> + +<P> +That smile drew Peter out. But still he came with a bashful and +hesitating air, as if uncertain of his reception; so that she had to +meet him half-way, with bold hand extended. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you do, Mr Breen? How is Bruce? But I see how well he is, and +happy—thanks to you. I am so sorry I did not have the pleasure of +seeing your mother and sister when they were so kind as to call the +other day; but I did not know they were in the house till they were +gone." +</P> + +<P> +He glowed with joy. He clasped her hand with a vigour that made it +tingle for a minute afterwards. +</P> + +<P> +"I was sorry too," he said. "My old mater is a good soul. I think you +and she—I wanted her to see you. Another time, perhaps—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I hope so! We are such near neighbours." She was ready to say +anything that would make him feel he was not being treated as a +shopman. "And did you have your day's shooting? Were you successful?" +"Well," with modest pride, "I came upon snipe unexpectedly, and brought +home a couple of brace. If I had thought you would condescend to accept +them, Miss Pennycuick—if I had dared—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, thank you very much, but I could not have let you rob your +mother—" +</P> + +<P> +Conscious of heightened colour, and several pairs of watching eyes, +Rose hastily put out her hand. Peter took it respectfully, slightly +abashed. +</P> + +<P> +"Can I—is there anything—anything I can do for you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, please," she said, struggling to remember what it was. +"Some—er—lace—torchon—for my sister; that is what I came for." +</P> + +<P> +"This way," said Peter gently; and they walked down the long, narrow +shop together, closely scrutinised by the young women behind the +counters. Two or three of these, with ingratiating smirks, converged +upon the spot where their young chief halted and called aloud for +torchon lace. The favoured one brought forth the stock, unexpectedly +large and valuable, and the girl was soon able to make her choice. She +wanted one dozen yards, and there was a piece of fourteen that Peter +styled a "remnant" for her benefit. If he could have presented it to +her free of cost, he would have loved to do so; as it was, she made an +excellent bargain. +</P> + +<P> +"I only hope they won't ask me where I got it," she said to herself on +the way home. Happily, they did not. The usual Buckley was taken for +granted, and Deb slashed up the lace without noticing that she had +fourteen yards for twelve. +</P> + +<P> +But Rose was a poor schemer, and it was inevitable that she should soon +be found out. +</P> + +<P> +The sisters were gathered about their window table in the attic room on +the following afternoon. Keziah had brought their tea, and amid the +litter of their needlework they drank it leisurely, enjoying a spell of +rest. Both casements stood wide. Deb, at one end, gazed wistfully at +the Malvern Hills; Frances, at the other, looked down on objects nearer +home. Rose had purposely drawn her chair back farther into the room. A +joyous bark arose. +</P> + +<P> +"There's your young man, Rose," said Frances flippantly. "Really, the +dandy has surpassed himself. Knickerbockers and a Norfolk jacket, if +you please! Why, actually a horse! He is going out to ride. This it is +to be a counter-jumper in these levelling times!" +</P> + +<P> +"He is not a counter-jumper," said reckless Rose. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you know?" returned Frances swiftly. +</P> + +<P> +"Proprietors don't wait behind the counter." +</P> + +<P> +"That is where he has had to learn his business, of course," said Deb. +"But there is nothing disgraceful in counters. Don't be snobbish, +Francie. Every trade—profession too, for that matter—has to have a +counter of some sort." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course it has," said Rose, heartened. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but to see a man—a miserable apology for a man—measuring out +calicoes and ribbons, and tapes and buttons, and stays and garters, and +all sorts of things that a man has no right to touch—pugh!" +</P> + +<P> +"Only women sell the stays and garters," corrected Rose vehemently. +"And at least young Mr Breen is not a miserable apology for a man. He +is as much a real man as anybody else—goes out shooting—plays +tennis—" +</P> + +<P> +Again Francie's cat's-paw pounced on her. "How do you know?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why—why—you can see he is one of that sort," squirmed poor Rose. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" said Frances significantly, with a firm stare at her sister's +scarlet face. "Deb, there is more in this than meets the eye—even than +meets the eye." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care what you say," struck Rose blindly. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't tease her," Deb interposed. "And don't be putting preposterous +ideas into the child's head." +</P> + +<P> +"Please, Deb, I am not a child." +</P> + +<P> +"No, my dear, you are not; and therefore you know, as well as we do, +that young Mr Breen is nothing to us." +</P> + +<P> +"Did I say he was anything? It is Francie that makes horrid, vulgar +insinuations." +</P> + +<P> +"But how do you know that he shoots and plays tennis?" persisted +Frances, with a darkling smile. +</P> + +<P> +"Because he told me so—there!" +</P> + +<P> +In five minutes the inquisitor had drawn forth the whole innocent tale. +She fell back in her chair, while Deb seemed to congeal slowly. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," moaned Frances, "no wonder they thought they could come and call +and make friends with us! And no wonder," she added, more viciously, +"that there he stands leering up at this window, when his horse has +been ready this half hour." +</P> + +<P> +"Is he doing that?" asked Deb quickly. +</P> + +<P> +"Look at him!" +</P> + +<P> +Deb rose and looked; then, with a firm hand, closed the two little +windows and drew down the blinds. With a sob of rage, Rose jumped from +her basket-chair, almost flung her cup and saucer upon the tea-tray, +and rushed out of the room. +</P> + +<P> +Thereupon the little family resolved itself into a strong government +and one rebel. +</P> + +<P> +"When I DO want to marry a shopkeeper," said weeping Rose to her +sisters, "then it will be time enough to make yourselves ridiculous." +</P> + +<P> +But they thought not. "No use," said they, "to shut the stable door +after the steed is stolen." Danger, or the beginning of danger, had +distinctly declared itself, and it was their part to guard the +threatened point. So they took steps to guard it. The name of Breen was +not mentioned, but its flavour lurked in every mouthful of +conversation, like the taste of garlic that has been rubbed round the +salad bowl in the salad that has not touched it; it filled the domestic +atmosphere with a subtle acrimoniousness unknown to it before. And Rose +was watched—not openly, but systematically enough for her to know +it—never allowed to go out alone, or to sit in the attic after a +certain hour; driven into brooding loneliness and disaffection—in +other words, towards her fellow-victim instead of from him. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap16"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVI. +</H3> + +<P> +Now that she could no longer entertain, Deb refused to be entertained, +much to the discontent of Frances, who pined continually for a larger +and brighter life, so that the invitations fell off to nothing before +the excuse of the deep mourning was worn out. But when Mrs Urquhart, +always maternally solicitous for her poor Sally's girls, wrote to beg +them to spend Christmas at Five Creeks, Deb and Frances, who did not, +for different reasons, wish to go themselves, agreed that it would be +'the very thing' for Rose to do so. She would be absolutely safe up +there, and with her old social world about her, and old interests to +occupy her mind, would recover that respect for herself which seemed to +have been more or less impaired by association with suburban villadom. +They hoped she would stay at Five Creeks a long, long time. +</P> + +<P> +"And if only Jim would keep her altogether!" sighed Frances. "I would +be content with Jim now." +</P> + +<P> +"I wish to goodness he would!" said Deb, with fervour—not thinking +particularly of her sister as she spoke. +</P> + +<P> +The matter was put to Rose, and she consented to go. Five Creeks was +better than Lorne, which had been spoken of, and the companionship of +Alice than the shepherding sisters in the close limits of seaside +lodgings; besides, Rose was a born bush girl. +</P> + +<P> +She was tenderly escorted to Spencer Street, and put into the hands of +Jim himself, in town on station business. Alice met them at the other +end, and the two friends slept, or rather bunked, together—the house +being full for the Christmas dance—and talked the night through. But +not a word about Peter Breen passed Rose's lips, so full of words as +they were. +</P> + +<P> +Next day the trestle-tables and Chinese lanterns, the sandwiches and +creams, and what not, occupied her every moment and thought until it +was time to dress, when the interest of the ball itself became supreme. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, there's one good thing," said Alice, as, hemmed into a corner of +a small room crowded with girls, she laced Rose's bodice, "we shall not +want for men. There'll be one to each girl, and three over. The +Simpsons alone have promised to bring six." +</P> + +<P> +The Simpsons were new people at Bundaboo, which Mr Thornycroft had let. +He now lived at Redford—in a third part of the great house, the other +two-thirds being closed. He was not coming to the ball, Alice said. +"Getting too old for balls." +</P> + +<P> +In their white frocks and flowers, the friends went to the +drawing-room, and in the thick of the arrivals Jim brought up from the +bachelors' quarters the six Bundaboo young men. Mrs Simpson introduced +them to Mrs Urquhart and her bevy of assistant hostesses. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr Leader—Mr Henry Leader—down from Queensland; Mr +Parkinson—English—globe-trotter; my two sons, whom you know; my +nephew, Mr Breen." +</P> + +<P> +Thus do the sportive Fates love to make mock of the most carefully-laid +family plans! +</P> + +<P> +Rose and Peter faced each other, sharing one blush between them. Their +natural pleasure and astonishment was only equalled by their mutual +admiration. +</P> + +<P> +"What a little love she is in that pretty gown," thought he, a +connoisseur in gowns. And "Who would take him for a draper now?" +thought she, noting the vigorous frame and the perfect correctness of +its garb. As a matter of fact, no one did take him for a draper, and no +one cared what he was, since he was Mrs Simpson's nephew and a man. +</P> + +<P> +As soon as it was understood that a previous acquaintanceship existed +between them, Rose was given Peter to take care of—to show round and +introduce. They walked off, elated. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I never expected to see you here!" said she. +</P> + +<P> +"Nor I you," said he. "I thought I was never going to see you any more." +</P> + +<P> +"How is your mother? How is dear Bruce? Will anyone take him for walks +while you are away? How terribly he will miss you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it is something to be missed, even by a dog." +</P> + +<P> +"What a nice face your aunt has! Is she your father's—?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, my mother's. They are very much alike. But—you don't know my +mother—" +</P> + +<P> +The blessed Urquhart children romped up to them at this opportune +moment, thrusting forward their basket of programmes. Rose and Peter +each took a card, and Peter proceeded to business. +</P> + +<P> +"With pleasure," said Rose. And then: "Oh, if you like."—"Well, only +one more round one."—"I belong to the house, and must distribute +myself."—"No, no, that's enough; leave room for all the nice girls I +am going to introduce you to—Miss Alice Urquhart—Mr Breen, dear—Mrs +Simpson's nephew, and a friend of mine in town." +</P> + +<P> +It slipped out unawares. Peter's air, as he scribbled "Miss Urquhart" +on his card, was seraphic. Later, Alice snatched a chance to whisper to +Rose: "What a good-looking fellow! Who is he?" And Rose hastened to +explain that she knew him only very slightly. +</P> + +<P> +They had their first waltz together, and he danced delightfully. This +was a fresh agreeable surprise to Rose—as if drapers did not take +dancing lessons and make use of them like other people; she was almost +indiscreet in her eulogies on his performance. But there was not room +for all, or half, or a quarter, to dance at once; and the crowded house +was hot, and the night outside soft, dry, delicious; and the Five +Creeks garden was simply made to be sat out in. +</P> + +<P> +So presently Rose and Peter found themselves leaning over a gate at the +end of a long, sequestered path. +</P> + +<P> +"That," said Rose, nodding towards open paddock, "is the boys' cricket +ground. They play matches in the holidays with the stations round. That +fence leads to Alice's fowl-yards—" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Peter. "But now, look here, Miss Rose—tell me straight and +true—am I to understand that my position in life makes me unfit to +associate with you?" +</P> + +<P> +"What nonsense!" she protested, scarlet in the darkness. "What utter +stuff!" +</P> + +<P> +"I am in retail trade," confessed Peter mournfully, "and lots of people +think that awful. Why, even the bookmakers and Jew usurers look down on +us! Not that I care a straw—" +</P> + +<P> +"I should think not!" +</P> + +<P> +"Except when it comes to your family—" +</P> + +<P> +"What does it matter about my family—when I—" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, do you? Do you forgive me for being a shopkeeper?" +</P> + +<P> +"As if I ever thought of it!" mocked Rose, which was disingenuous of +her. "I don't mind what anybody is if he's nice himself." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think I'm nice?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am not going to pander to such egregious vanity." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think I am a gentleman? Do I pass for one—say, in a house like +this?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am not going to answer any more of those horrid, indelicate, +unnecessary questions." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, I see—you don't." +</P> + +<P> +"I DO," she flamed out, indignant with him. "You KNOW I do! Would I—if +I didn't—" +</P> + +<P> +Her mouth was stopped. In the twinkling of an eye it happened, before +either of them knew it. He was carried away, and she was overwhelmed. +An earthquake could not have given them a greater shock. +</P> + +<P> +"Forgive me," he muttered tremulously, when it was too late. "I know I +oughtn't to have—but I couldn't help it! You are not angry? It was +dashed impudence—but—oh, I say! we shall never get such a chance as +this again—could you, do you think, put up with me? Could you—I have +loved you ever since that dear morning that you came about Bruce—could +you try to care for me a little bit? I'd give up the business, if you +wished, and go into something else—" "If you mention that blessed +business again," laughed Rose hysterically, "I won't speak to you any +more." +</P> + +<P> +"I won't—I won't!" he promised, a joyful ring in his young voice. "As +long as you don't mind—and of course I wouldn't like to disappoint the +old pater—and, thank God, there's plenty of money to make you +comfortable wherever you like to live—Yes, yes, I know it's awful +cheek—I've no business to count chickens like this; but here we are, +face to face at last, no one to keep me from speaking to you—and oh, +darling, it must be time for the next dance, and I'm engaged for it—" +</P> + +<P> +"Then go—go," she urged. "The one after this is ours, and I will wait +here for you till you come back. It is only Jim, and he doesn't matter. +I must be alone to think—to make up my mind—" +</P> + +<P> +"You ANGEL!" for he knew what that meant. +</P> + +<P> +Off he went, wing-footed, to get through his duty dance as best he +could. Rose stayed behind, dodging amongst the bushes to hide her white +dress, deaf to Jim's strident calls. And then, presently, the lovers +flitted out of the gate, across the boys' cricket ground, and down the +bank of one of the five creeks, where Rose knew of a nice seat beyond +the area of possible disturbance. As they sat down on it together, they +leaned inwards, her head drooping to his shoulder, and his arm sliding +round her waist in the most natural way in the world. Then silence, +packed full. Beyond, in the moonlit waste, curlews wailing sweetly; +behind, a piano barely audible from the humming house.... +</P> + +<BR> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<BR> + +<P> +"What's the matter?" asked Alice Urquhart, when her bedfellow broke out +crying suddenly, for no reason that appeared. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I don't know," cackled Rose. "I am upset with all this—this—" +</P> + +<P> +"What has upset you? Aha! I saw you and that good-looking young Mr +Breen making off into the garden. You've been having a proposal, I +suppose?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," sobbed Rose, between two foolish laughs, and forthwith poured +out the whole story to her bosom friend. She and Peter had decided not +to disclose it to a soul until further consideration; but she was so +full that a touch caused her to run over. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Urquhart's feelings, when she realised the fact that one of the +Pennycuicks was committed to marry a draper, expressed themselves at +first in a rather chilling silence. But subsequently, having reviewed +the situation from its several sides, and weighed the pros and cons, +she decided to assist her friend to make the best of it, as against all +potential enemies. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course, they will be as mad as so many March hares," said Alice, +referring to the other Pennycuicks. "But after all, when you come to +think of it, what is there in a draper's shop any more than in a +soft-goods warehouse?—and that's quite aristocratic, if it's big +enough. Trade is trade, and why we should make chalk of one and cheese +of another passes me. Oh, you've only got to be rich nowadays to be +received anywhere. These Breens seem well off, and anyway, there are +the Simpsons—they are all right. Solid comfort, my dear, is not to be +despised, especially when a girl can't pick and choose, and may +possibly never get another chance. He is awfully presentable, too, and +most gentlemanly, I am sure. Oh, on the whole—if you ask me—I'd say, +stick to him." +</P> + +<P> +Alice's voice was sad, and she sighed inwardly. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going to stick to him," said Rose. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you may count on me. I'll get them all asked here for a picnic, +and we'll go over to Bundaboo to invite them—tomorrow. Mrs Simpson +said he was only with her for a few days." +</P> + +<P> +"You darling!" +</P> + +<P> +"And if I were in your place, Rose, I'd marry him just as soon as he +wanted me to. I'd walk out and get it done quietly, and tell them +afterwards. It would save a lot of unpleasantness, and it wouldn't +force the hostile clans to try and make one family when they never +could." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't see why they couldn't. Mrs Simpson is his mother's sister—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, well, we shall see. I don't know about Deb and Mary, but France +can be all sorts of a cat when the fit takes her; and as she is certain +to oppose it to the bitter end, she will never have done irritating his +people and setting everybody at loggerheads. However, never mind that +now." She enveloped Rose in a comforting embrace. "We'll just enjoy +ourselves while we can. And until we MUST start the fuss with the girls +at home, we'll keep things dark, shall we? Just you and I and he. You +can tell him, when you see him tomorrow, that I am his friend." +</P> + +<P> +"I will—I will! And he will adore you for your goodness." +</P> + +<P> +Alice, with still no lover of her own, was pleased with this prospect. +And so Rose had a heavenly time for a week or two—Peter extending his +visit to match hers—and went home, within a day of him, in good heart +for the inevitable struggle. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap17"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVII. +</H3> + +<P> +The starting of the fuss was thus described by the starter in her first +letter to her friend: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, my dear, it is simply awful! There is not a scrap of hope. Dear +old Deb is the worst, because she cries—fancy DEB crying! I don't care +what Francie says and does, only, if she were not my sister, I would +never speak to her again. Even Mary is antagonistic, though I don't +believe she would be if it were not for that insufferable husband of +hers; he thinks himself, and puts it into her head, that we are all +going to fall into the bottomless pit if we let trade into the +family—as if nine-tenths and more of the aristocracy of the country +were not traders, and my Peter is as good as her parson any day. But I +don't care, except for Deb. I do hate her to have to cry, through me, +and to be so kind at the same time. She scolds Francie for being +horrid—that does no good, she says, and she is quite right—and then +asks me if I have any love left for her, and all that kind of thing. It +makes me feel like a selfish brute; and yet it would not be unselfish +to sacrifice Peter. Really, I am quite distracted. I have hardly slept +a wink since I came back." +</P> + +<P> +Further details followed: +</P> + +<P> +"I did not know until I got a letter from him (by the gardener) that +Peter came this morning to call—THE call—and was not let in. Keziah +had been got at, you must know, and works against us; the old liar told +him (under instructions, of course) that none of us was at home!—she +that goes to church every Sunday, and pretends to be so pious. Old +hypocrite! Well, as I was reading Peter's letter, the door-bell rings, +and who should it be but old Daddy Breen coming to demand what we mean +by it, snubbing his precious son, whom he thinks good enough for a +princess (and so he is). HE was not going to be turned from the +door—not he; and presently I heard him and Deb at it hammer and tongs +in the drawing-room, and she came up to me afterwards simply in flames. +She WAS wild. My dear, she has left off crying and started to fight. +Papa Breen (I am afraid he is a bit bumptious for what she calls his +class in life) turned the scale, and now she is as implacable as +Francie. She says she will NOT have the house of Pennycuick disgraced +(or words to that effect) while she is alive to prevent it; and when I +ask her to be just to Peter, who is no more answerable for his family +than I am for mine, and not to judge him off-hand before she knows a +scrap about him, she simply looks at me as if she itched to box my +ears. Isn't it too hard? Other girls have such a lovely time when they +are engaged—everybody considering them and giving them opportunities +to be together. There's not going to be anything of that sort for us, I +can plainly see. Well, I shall not give him up, so they need not think +it.... +</P> + +<P> +"I have seen my poor old boy. He was much cut up, but feels better +now.... He asked me to go and see his mother.... The moment I walked in +and he said, 'Mother, here she is,' the darling opened her arms, and we +just hugged as if I was her daughter already. There is nobody like +mothers.... +</P> + +<P> +"Papa Breen came home while I was there. I thought he was going to be +aggrieved, but he was not with ME. If it is not a snobbish thing to +say, he is rather proud of his son's choice. He was a bit too fussy and +outspoken, and dear Peter got the fidgets wondering what he would say +next; but I did not mind. He talked about building us a house, but +Peter whispered to me that that would take too long, and that already +he had one in his eye (I know it—a lovely place, with the prettiest +grounds, and stables, and coach-house, and all). Nothing is too good +for me. I tried to pacify the girls by telling them I should have a +comfortable home; but they seem to think that the vulgarest feature of +the whole affair. It may be, but it's nice. Would you condescend to +come and stay with a draper's wife sometimes? We are going to have +Bruce to live with us.... +</P> + +<P> +"Then I made Peter come home with me, and I took him in myself to see +Deb. He behaved as nicely as possible, but it was no use. 'She is of +age, Mr Breen,' says Deb, with that look of hers; 'she will do as she +chooses, but she will never do this with my consent.' And I feel I +never shall. Papa Breen sticks in her throat. If only she had seen +Peter before his father came, and not after! But I daresay it would +have been the same. They are too eaten up with their prejudices to +begin to know him.... +</P> + +<P> +"It is quite hopeless! Here I live in my own home without a friend, and +he is treated like a pariah, my poor dear boy! He has been to see me +two or three times, as he has a perfect right to do, and they have just +had him shown into the drawing-room, and left him to me, neither of +them coming near. And this while Bennet Goldsworthy loafs all over the +house, as if it was his own, and presumes to look at me in a superior +sort of way, as if I was one of his dirty little Sunday-school children +in disgrace. They bring him up into the attic even—our own private +room—mine as much as theirs; they never did it before, and it is only +because he is banded with them against me. Well, I wouldn't marry +Bennet Goldsworthy if there was not another man in the world... +</P> + +<P> +"I have my ring—SUCH diamonds! too valuable, I tell Peter; but he says +nothing can be that—and I know they can't help seeing it, because the +whole room flashes when I turn it this way and that, like blue +lightning playing; but they all pretend not to. Since they find they +cannot break our engagement, the idea is to ignore it as if it was +something so low as to be beneath their notice. Perhaps they fancy that +will wear me out; but it won't.... If they had been nice, and pleaded +with me, and if Peter had not been so VERY dear and good, I might have +caved in; but not now. And indeed, I am sure I never should anyway, +only we might have agreed to differ without quarrelling, which we never +did before. Oh, it is too miserable! Poor Mr and Mrs Breen must hate +the very name of Pennycuick, and they will end by hating me if this +goes on.... Peter has bought the house, and is asking me to hurry our +marriage, to get me out of it. He says a private ceremony would not be +dishonourable under the circumstances. It seems to me a mean sort of +way to go to him, but—what do YOU think?" +</P> + +<P> +"My dear," wrote Alice Urquhart, "I think Peter is right. Next time he +asks you, you say yes. It will be a real kindness to both families, who +would never know what to do with a house wedding. Besides, then you +might have to be given away by B. G. Walk out quietly and unbeknown, +and don't come back. Write from the Blue Mountains or somewhere—'Yours +ever, Rose Breen.' And later on, when things have settled down, their +hearts will melt, and they will come and see you. Let me know what day, +and I will run down (to the dentist) to see fair play and sign the +register. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, you need not have any scruples, child, because the whole of your +husband's family approve of the match (Simpsons delighted, if a little +huffy for the moment to see solid worth looked down upon), and Deb and +the others are certain to come round when they find it is no use doing +anything else. Outsiders don't matter; and I should hate touting for +wedding presents in such a mixed concern. As for your clothes, you have +plenty; when you want more, you can get them cost price at the shop. It +is a very good shop, I hear, and I mean to be a steady customer from +this out. Oh, yes, and I will come and see you, old girl, nows and +thens, when I have to go to town. And you and Peter must spend all your +Christmases up here. While he is seeing his people at Bundaboo, you can +camp with me, like old times." +</P> + +<BR> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<BR> + +<P> +At the last moment Rose broke down, and wept upon the breast of her +favourite sister in the act of bidding her goodbye—perhaps because +Frances chanced to be absent at the time. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Debbie darling, I won't deceive you—I am not going shopping; I am +going into Melbourne to get married—to get married quietly and have +done with it, so as not to be a nuisance to you any more." +</P> + +<P> +"Married!" gasped Deb, holding the agitated creature at arm's-length. +"What—NOW? And you spring this on us without a word of warning—" +</P> + +<P> +"What was the use, Deb? You know what you would have said. I have GOT +to have him, dear—I really have—and this seemed the only way." +</P> + +<P> +"Where is he?" +</P> + +<P> +"Waiting till I'm ready. They have a carriage outside. His mother and +sister are going with us. His father will join us when we get there. +And Alice Urquhart, who is in town, and one of his cousins from +Bundaboo—quite respectable and above-board, you see, only very quiet, +so as not to trouble you and the girls and poor dear Bennet Goldsworthy +more than we can help—" +</P> + +<P> +"Not trouble us!" broke in Deb, her face, that had paled a moment ago, +flaming scarlet. "Rose, in your wildest aberrations, I did not credit +you with being capable of humiliating us to this extent." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, you always say that! If you only knew him; but some day you will, +and then you will wonder how you could have set yourself against us so. +I can't help it, Deb. I did it for the best. Marry him I must and will, +and I am only trying to do it in a way as inoffensive to you as +possible." +</P> + +<P> +"You call this an inoffensive way? But those people cannot be expected +to know—" +</P> + +<P> +"They can—they do. Don't insult them any more. They are giving me +everything they can think of to make me happy, and here I have no +home—no love—no sympathy from anybody—" +</P> + +<P> +Tears gushed from her eyes and Deb's as from the same spring; they were +instantly locked in each other's arms. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor little Rosie! Poor dear child! But you don't understand pet—you +don't know what you are doing—going right out of your class—out of +your world—" +</P> + +<P> +"But to a good husband, Debbie, and the man I love—and that's first of +all! And I must go to him now—I must not keep him waiting. Bless you, +dearest! I am happy now. Never mind the others. You can tell them after +I'm gone. But I felt that I must speak to YOU before I went. Oh, I am +so glad I did! Goodbye, darling! I must go." +</P> + +<P> +"You must NOT go," said Deb, swallowing her tears and resuming her +imperious air. "Not this way, Rose, as if your family had cast you off. +How can you treat us so, child? But perhaps we deserve it; only you +don't see what you are doing as clearly as we do—" +</P> + +<P> +"Deb, Deb, don't stop me! They are waiting. It is late now!" +</P> + +<P> +The bride-elect, pale with fright, struggled in her sister's strong +hands, which held her fast. +</P> + +<P> +"Where is Mr Breen?" demanded Deb. +</P> + +<P> +"Waiting at his house—waiting for me—" +</P> + +<P> +"I must send for him." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Deb, not now, when everything is settled, and they have had all +the expense and trouble—" +</P> + +<P> +"Will you fetch him, Rose, if I let you go? For one minute only. No, I +won't stop it. I can't, of course; but I must go with you, Rose—I +MUST." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Debbie, WOULD you? Oh, how I wish I had known before! Yes, I'll +run and bring him. We must drive faster, that's all. Oh, Deb, how happy +this will make us! But—" +</P> + +<P> +"Run away and fetch him—ask him, with my compliments if he will be so +good—and I will get my hat on while you are gone." +</P> + +<P> +How she managed it was a mystery, but by the time the bridegroom +appeared, Deb was in her best walking costume, hatted and veiled, with +a pair of new pale-coloured gloves in her hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr Breen," said she, grave and stately, "I am going to ask a favour of +you. Allow me to take my sister to the church and give her away." +</P> + +<P> +Peter was naturally flurried, besides being a trifle overawed. He +mumbled something to the effect that he was sure his family would be +"quite agreeable", and that his sister would give up her place in the +carriage and go by train; and Deb, facing him with the air of a +duchess, thought how thoroughly "shoppy" his manner was. His splendid +new clothes helped to give her that impression. Fine dressing was one +of the Breens' trifling errors of taste (as drapers) which damned them +in her eyes. But what would she have thought if he had not done all +honour to his bride in this respect? +</P> + +<P> +"WE will go by train," said she decisively. "I have already delayed you +a little, and you must be there first. The train will be quicker than +driving, so that we shall be quite in time." She smiled as she caught +his swift glance of alarm at Rose. "No, I am not going to kidnap her; I +only wish to observe the proprieties a little—for her sake." +</P> + +<P> +"If the proprieties have not been observed," retorted Peter, suddenly +bold, "it has not been ALL my fault, Miss Pennycuick." "Perhaps not," +she said gently, for she was a generous woman—"perhaps not. At any +rate," holding out her hand, "we must let bygones be bygones now. Be +good to her—that is all I ask." Peter seized her hand in his superfine +glove, and wrung it emotionally, while Rose embraced her sister's left +arm and kissed her sleeve. Then, after a hurried consultation of +timetables, the bridegroom retired, and was presently seen to clatter +past the house in the bridal carriage, which had white horses to it, to +Deb's disgust. +</P> + +<P> +She and Rose talked little on their journey. Rose was questioned about +clothes and pocket-money, and asked whether she had a safe pocket +anywhere. On Rose answering that she had, Deb pressed into it a closed +envelope, which she charged her sister not to open until away on her +honeymoon. Rose disobeyed the order, and found a hastily scrawled +cheque for one hundred pounds—money which she knew could ill be spared. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you darling!" she murmured fondly. "But I won't take it, Deb—I +WON'T. It would leave you poor for years, while I shall have heaps of +everything—" +</P> + +<P> +"If you don't," broke in Deb, tragically stern and determined—"if you +don't take it and buy your first clothes with it, I will never forgive +you as long as I live. Child, don't you see—?" +</P> + +<P> +Rose saw this much—Deb's horror of the thought of being beholden to +the Breens for a post-nuptial trousseau. Reluctantly she pocketed the +gift. +</P> + +<P> +"But I shall never want it, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care about that," said Deb. +</P> + +<P> +The bridegroom's relief of mind when he saw the bride coming was so +great as to do away with all the usual embarrassment of a man so +circumstanced. +</P> + +<P> +"Ha! now we are all right," he said to Harry Simpson, cousin and best +man; and forthwith acted as if the trouble were over instead of just +beginning. There was nothing shoppy in his demeanour now, even to Deb's +prejudiced eye. +</P> + +<P> +The sisters walked up the nave to the altar, hand in hand. Deb passed +the bridesmaid, Alice Urquhart, without a look—her people had brought +the young pair together, and were answerable for these +consequences—and similarly ignored those walking fashion-plates, Mrs +and Miss Breen. She landed her charge at the appointed hassock, and +quietly facing the clergyman, stood still and dry-eyed amid the usual +tearful flutter, apparently the calmest of the party. But poor Deb +suffered pangs unspeakable, and her excessive dignity was maintained +only by the sternest effort. +</P> + +<P> +In the vestry, after the ceremony, she was introduced by the bride to +her new relations; and Papa Breen, with a great show of magnanimity, +expressed his satisfaction at seeing Miss Pennycuick "on this +suspicious occasion", and formally invited her to what he called "a +little snack" at Menzies', where a gorgeous wedding breakfast had been +prepared at his orders. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you very much, Mr Breen," she said affably. "It would have given +me great pleasure, but if you will excuse me, I must run home to my +other sisters, whom I left in ignorance of this—this event—which +concerns them so nearly." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Deb, DO come!" pleaded the bride. +</P> + +<P> +No; the line had to be drawn somewhere. Deb was very kind, very polite, +very plausible with her excuses; but to Menzies' with those people and +their white-horsed carriage she would not go. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap18"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVIII. +</H3> + +<P> +Rose had never been reckoned a person of importance by her family, but +now that she was gone, there remained a terrible emptiness where she +had been. She was one of those unselfish, good-natured members of +households to whom falls the stocking-mending, the errand-going, the +fetching and carrying, the filling of gaps generally; and at every turn +Deb and Frances missed her unobtrusive ministrations, which they had +accepted as as much matters of course as the attentions of the butcher +and baker. It was presently perceived that Keziah missed her too—that +Keziah, who had loyally opposed the plebeian marriage, was become a +turncoat and renegade, blessing where she should have cursed, blaming +where she should have praised—yes, blaming even Queen Deborah, who, +needless to say, took her head off for it. +</P> + +<P> +It had been Keziah's own choice to follow the sisters into exile, and +to share the privations involved in their change of life. She had given +up her Redford luxuries and importance to become a general servant, +with only her kitchen to sit in, for their sakes; and she had +cheerfully abided by her choice—until Rose went. Rose was the one who +had understood the cost of the sacrifice, and who had lightened it by +sympathetic companionship. They had cleaned rooms, and made cakes and +puddings, and set hens, and stirred jam, and ironed frocks and laces +together; they had spent hours in pleasant gossip over the many homely +subjects that interested both; their relation had been more that of +mother and daughter than of servant and mistress. Regarding her as +virtually her child, Keziah had been quick to spring to the side of +authority in the matter of the irregular love-affair; the natural +parental impulse was to nip it in the bud. But "Providence" had decided +the issue in this case. And a flirtatious girl was one thing, and a +respectable married woman another. And Keziah was lonely, and felt +neglected and "put upon" when nobody came to talk to her in her +kitchen, or to help her with her cooking and ironing—and particularly +after she had told Deb that it was a shame to bear malice to Miss Rose +now, and Deb had commanded her to mind her own business. +</P> + +<P> +She was suspected of treacherous visits to the house next door; she was +known to have spent Sunday afternoons with Mrs Peter herself. The +iniquity of these proceedings was in the secrecy she observed, or tried +to observe, regarding them. It was she who knew, before anybody else, +when a baby Breen was coming—and if a married woman was a personage to +Keziah, an incipient mother was a being of the highest rank. She had +forgiven Mary everything for the sake of her black-eyed boy; now she +took the news that Rose was what she called "interesting" to Deb, and +demanded that action should be taken upon it, with an air that was +almost truculent. Deb, of course, did not believe in being spoken to, +even by Keziah, in that way. +</P> + +<P> +"Has the muffin boy been?" she inquired, with a steady look. +</P> + +<P> +"It's too soon yet—and I can tell you, Miss Deb, that if it was you in +her place, SHE wouldn't keep it up like this—and at such a time too." +</P> + +<P> +"When the muffin boy comes, Keziah, please pay him the sixpence we owe +him from last week. You will find the money on my writing-table." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I don't care—I call it a shame not to go to her—" +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps you would like to go to her yourself?" Deb swiftly changed her +tone. +</P> + +<P> +"I'd like nothing better," the old woman retorted, with spirit, "if you +are agreeable." +</P> + +<P> +"I am perfectly agreeable." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it was only the other day she said she'd give anything to have +me, if it wasn't for taking me away from you." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, pray don't consider that. I can easily get somebody else," said +Deb affably, though her surprise at the idea of Keziah wanting to leave +her was only equalled by her dismay. +</P> + +<P> +Keziah, also surprised to find herself of so much less consequence than +she had supposed, said that, if that was the case, she'd go and see +Miss Rose about it. +</P> + +<P> +"You can go now," said Deb. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you, Miss Deb, I will," said Keziah, "as soon as I have cleared +up. Would a month's notice suit you? I don't wish to put you about at +all." +</P> + +<P> +"A month will be ample," said Deb. "A week, if you like." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll see what Miss Rose says," said Keziah. +</P> + +<P> +Rose, after the interview, wrote affectionately to Deb, to say she +would not dream of taking Keziah if Deb wanted her; Deb wrote +affectionately to Rose, to say that she would be rather glad than +otherwise to make the change, as the work was too much for such an old +woman. So Keziah went over to the Breen camp, where she had comfort and +companionship, and her own way in everything; and Deb began to +experiment with the common or garden 'general' as purveyed by Melbourne +registry offices. +</P> + +<P> +She loathed these creatures, one and all. They were of a race unknown +at Redford, and she was singularly unlucky in the specimens that fell +to her; although some of them could have been made something of by a +mistress who knew how to do it. It is only fair to state that they +loathed her—for a finicking, unreasonable, stuck-up poor woman, who +gave herself the airs of a wealthy lady. They came at the rate of two a +month, and each one as she passed seemed to leave the little house +meaner, dingier, more damaged than before. It was not living, it was +"pigging", Frances said—and Deb agreed with her—although when Keziah +ventured to call one day to inquire into the state of things, Deb +calmly asserted that all was well. +</P> + +<P> +In despair she tried a lady-help, in the person of Miss Keene, dying to +return to her dear family (from relations who did not want her) on any +terms. +</P> + +<P> +"Whatever we ask her to do we must do ourselves," said Deb to grumbling +Frances, who seemed never willing to do anything; "and of course we +shall have to get a washwoman, and a charwoman to scrub; but it will be +cheaper in the end. And oh, anything rather than sticky door-handles +and greasy spoons, and those awful voices hailing one all over the +house!" +</P> + +<P> +But it was not cheaper, nor was the arrangement satisfactory in any way +after the first fortnight. Miss Keene, spoiled at Redford as they had +been, was as unfit for crude housework, and she aggravated her +incompetence by weeping over it. She had not gathered from Deb's +letters that the change in the family fortunes was as great as it now +proved to be; and Deb had not anticipated the effect of adversity upon +one so easily depressed. She had no 'heart', poor thing. She struggled +and muddled, sighing for flowers for the vases while the beds were +unmade; and when she saw a certain look on Deb's face, wept and mourned +and gave up hope. So they "pigged" still, although they did not defile +the furniture with unwashed hands, and the plate and crockery with +greasy dish-cloths. With no knowledge of cookery, they lived too much +on tinned provisions—a diet as wasteful as it was unwholesome—feeding +their wash-and-scrub-women with the same; and their efforts to support +the burden of their domestic responsibilities deprived them of outdoor +exercise and mental rest and recreation—kept them at too close +quarters with one another, each rubbing her quivering prickles upon the +irritable skins of the other two. Frances bore the strain with least +good-nature and self-control, and since she had to vent her ill-humour +on someone, naturally made Miss Keene her victim when it was a choice +between her and Deb. The poor lady grew more and more disappointed, +discouraged and tearful. She became subject to indigestion, headaches, +disordered nerves; finally fell ill and had to have the doctor. The +doctor said she was completely run down, and that rest and change of +air were indispensable. She went away to her relatives, weeping still, +wrapped in Deb's cloak, and with all Deb's ready money in her pocket; +and she did not come back. +</P> + +<P> +Then Deb tried to carry on alone. Any sort of registry office drudge +would have been welcome now, but had become an expense that she dared +not continue. Moreover, the spectre of poverty, looming so distinct and +unmistakable in the house, was a thing to hide, if possible, from +anybody who could go outside and talk about it. The thing had become a +living terror to herself—its claws Jew money-lenders, so velvety and +innocent when her wilful ignorance made first acquaintance with them; +but nobody—not even Mr Thornycroft, not even Jim, CERTAINLY not +Rose—could be allowed to play Perseus to this proud Andromeda. Until +she could free herself, they were not even to know that she was bound. +Of course, she need not have been bound; it was her own fault. She +should have managed better with the resources at her disposal than to +bring herself to such a pass, and that so soon; either Mary or Rose +would certainly have done so in her place. But Nature had not made her +or Frances—whose rapacities had been one cause of the financial +breakdown—for the role of domestic economists; they had been dowered +with their lovely faces for other purposes. +</P> + +<P> +That the fine plumage is for the sun was a fact well understood by +Frances, at any rate. And she was wild at the wrongs wrought by sordid +circumstances—her father's and sister's heedlessness—upon herself. +She thought only of herself. Deb was getting old, and she deserved to +suffer anyway; but what had Frances done to be deprived of her +birth-right, of all her chances of success in life? Eighteen, and no +coming out—beautiful, and nobody to see it—marriageable, and out of +the track of all the eligible men, amongst whom she might have had her +pick and choice. She had reason for her passionate rebelliousness +against this state of things; for, while a pretty face is theoretically +its own fortune anywhere, we all see for ourselves how many are passed +over simply for want of an attractive setting. It was quite on the +cards that she might share the fate of those beauties in humble life to +whom romantic accidents do not occur, for all her golden hair and +aristocratic profile, her figure of a sylph and complexion of a wild +rose. +</P> + +<P> +The fear of this future combined with the acute discomfort of the +present to make her desperate. She cast about for a way of escape, a +pathway to the sun. One only offered—the landlord. +</P> + +<P> +He was an elderly landlord, who had lately buried a frumpy old wife, +and he was as deeply tainted with trade as Peter Breen; but he had +retired long since from personal connection with breweries and +public-houses—and a brewer, in the social scale, was only just below a +wholesale importer, if that—and he was manifestly rolling in money, +after the manner of his kind. Half the streets around belonged to him, +and his house towered up in the midst of his other houses, a great +white block, with a pillared portico—a young palace by comparison. +Above all, he had no known children. +</P> + +<P> +From the first he had taken an interest in his pretty girl-tenants. He +had liked to call in person to inquire if the cellar kept dry and the +chimney had ceased smoking; and he had been most generous in offering +improvements and repairs before they were even asked for. Deb had +blighted these unbusiness-like overtures on her own account, and +Frances herself had said the rudest things about them and him—but not +lately. In the utter dullness and barrenness of her life, she had been +glad to accept the civilities of anything in the shape of a man—to try +her 'prentice hand on any material. All the armoury of the born beauty +was hers, and she knew as well how to use each weapon effectively as a +blind kitten knows how to suck milk. They were easily successful with +the old fool, who is ever more of a fool than the young fool; and when +she found that, she found something to entertain her. She not only +received Mr Ewing when he called, but talked to him at the gate when he +went past—and he went past several times a day. Now, when the +situation at home had grown desperate, and she was looking all ways for +means to save herself, his amusing infatuation became a matter for +serious thought. COULD she? She was a hard case, but even she wavered. +He was probably sixty, and she was eighteen. Oh, she couldn't! But +when, after Miss Keene's departure, Deb told her they could no longer +afford hired help, and that she (Frances) must give up her lazy ways +and take her share of that intolerable housework, then Frances changed +her mind. Beggars could not be choosers. +</P> + +<P> +Deb felt like the camel under the last straw when the announcement of +the proposed marriage was made to her. It was worse than Mary's—worse +than Rose's—worse than any other misfortune that had befallen the +family. She sat down and wept at the thought of what the Pennycuicks +had come to. She rated Frances furiously; she reasoned with her; she +pleaded with her; she tried to bribe her; but Frances was getting boxes +of diamonds, and sets of furs and lace, and what not, and it was +useless for Deb to attempt to outbid the giver of these things, or to +part her sister from them. She loved the old man, Frances said—he +certainly was a decently-mannered, good-natured, rather fine-looking, +and most generous old man—and he was going to take her everywhere and +give her a good time—and she would never have to go shabby again as +long as she lived; and if Deb refused her a proper wedding, law or no +law, she would run away with him, as Mary had run away with Bennet +Goldsworthy, and Rose with Peter Breen. +</P> + +<P> +Whether this dire threat prevailed, or the temptation of the money, or +whether she could not any longer fight against fate, Deb gave in. After +all, Frances was not to be judged as an ordinary girl—she was a +hard-hearted, tough-fibred, prosaic little minx, for which reason Deb +pitied the prospective husband more than she did her; and if she did +not do this bad thing now, the chances were that she would do a worse +thing later on. She was made to disport herself in the sunshine of the +world; she was of the type of woman that must have men about her; she +would get her "rights", as she called them, somehow, by fair means or +foul. Deb was sufficiently a woman of the world herself to recognise +this, and the uselessness of thinking she could alter it. Well, money +is a consolatory thing—she knew its value now; and there was that +additional comfort, which, of course, she did not own to—the thought +of where Mr Ewing would be when Mrs Ewing was in her prime. +</P> + +<P> +"You dear old thing!" the bride-elect patronised her elder sister. +"James is so pleased to have your consent, and he says he won't ask you +to give me my share of what father left us—it would be but a drop in +the bucket anyway; you are to keep it all yourself." +</P> + +<P> +Deb had had whole control of the fragments of his once large fortune +left by Mr Pennycuick to his four daughters, on behalf of any of them +unmarried or under age; but Mary and Rose—although Peter had also +protested against it—had been paid the value of their shares (whence +the Jew element in the present difficulties); and the unforeseen +marriage of Frances at eighteen threatened total bankruptcy to the +remaining sister. Yet Deb said, with fierce determination: +</P> + +<P> +"Of course you will have what is your due, like the others." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure he won't take it, Deb. He said he wouldn't." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care what he says. It concerns you and me—not him." +</P> + +<P> +"I really should not miss it, dear. I am to have a thousand a year to +draw against, for just nothing but my clothes and pocket-money." +</P> + +<P> +"I am glad to hear it," said Deb. "You can give your own income to the +poor." +</P> + +<P> +"You really won't keep it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Is it likely I would keep what doesn't belong to me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then," said Frances, her easy conscience satisfied, "we can put +it into my trousseau. I MUST have a decent trousseau mustn't I?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course!" +</P> + +<P> +Frances saw to it that she had a decent one. Now was the time, the only +time, that she should want her money, and she did not spare it. She +ordered right and left, and Deb seemed equally reckless. The bills were +left for her to settle—of course made out in her name. Mr Ewing +pressed for permission to pay them, and the cost of the wedding, and +Miss Pennycuick could hardly forgive him the deadly insult. He also +desired that she should occupy her villa rent-free, and she gave him +notice on the spot. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall not continue to keep house when I am alone," said she grandly. +"I intend to travel for a time." +</P> + +<P> +The wedding was quiet, but as "decent" as the trousseau. The other +sisters were invited, and Bennet Goldsworthy—who delighted in the +connection, and received a thumping fee—performed the ceremony. Deb +gave the bride away, but was also treated as the bridesmaid, and had a +diamond bracelet forced upon her. She sold it as soon as the donor's +back was turned, together with every article of jewellery in her +possession, every bit of silver plate, and all her furniture. The +breakfast was very elegant, and served in a private room at one of the +best hotels; the bride's handsome luggage had also been brought +thither, and it was the meeting-place of the family which so seldom +met. There, also, when she had parted from Frances, Deb parted from +Mary, so silent and constrained, and from Rose, over-dressed, for her +station, in her rich gown and Brussels lace (but nevertheless sniffed +at and condescended to by her still more wealthy sister), and from the +uncongenial brothers-in-law, to whom she was so discouragingly polite. +Their expressed anxiety to befriend and to see more of her was gently +but firmly ignored. +</P> + +<P> +"I will write," she said. "I will see you again soon. I will let you +know my plans. Good-bye!" +</P> + +<P> +And they went. There were no friends to go, for she had insisted on +inviting none—for fear of the lynx eyes and the destructive influence +upon her plans of Mr Thornycroft and Jim. She gained the one end she +had schemed for throughout—to get past the risks of the public +marriage and back to her struggle in obscurity, unmolested, unpitied, +unshamed. The Urquharts wrote, and Mr Thornycroft, when he sent his +present; but she had "bluffed" them with her implied +misrepresentations, and hurt their feelings by not wanting them at the +wedding. Jim was easily snubbed; Mr Thornycroft—though he did not +mention it—was ill at the time. +</P> + +<P> +So she got rid of all possible hindrances, and then—professing to go +travelling—went nobody knew where, and was virtually lost for years. +</P> + +<P> +Frances drove away from the hotel in her smart carriage, with her smart +luggage and smart maid, and her amorous old husband, and never thought +or cared what was to become of her abandoned sister. She could only +think of her own exciting affairs. +</P> + +<P> +Partly they were unsatisfactory, no doubt. All her rights were not hers +even now—no, not by a long way. But oh, how much better was this than +the drab and shabby and barren existence for ever left behind! She was +bound, indeed; yet she was free—freer than another might have been in +her place, and far, far less bound. One must expect to pay some tax to +Fortune for such extraordinary gifts, and Frances was not the one to +pay it in heart's blood. She was philosophically prepared to pay it in +her own coin, and be done with it, and then give herself to the +enjoyment of the pleasures of her lot. +</P> + +<P> +Her first enjoyment was in her beautiful going-away dress—grey cloth +and chinchilla fur, with flushes of pink as delicate as the rose of her +cheeks—and in her knowledge of the effect she made in that dream of a +costume. There was no hiding her light under a bushel any more. The +highway, and the middle of it, for her now—her proud husband strutting +there beside her—and every passer-by turning to look at and to admire +her. There was joy in the occupancy of the best suite of rooms in the +best hotel at every place she stopped at during her gay and well-filled +bridal holiday; joy in the dainty meals—so long unknown; in the +obsequious servants, in the plentiful theatres, in the ever-ready +carriage that took her to them, in the having one's hair done to +perfection by an expert maid, in sweeping forth with one's silks and +laces trailing, and one's diamonds on. These were the delights for +which her little soul had so long yearned; she now pursued them +greedily. She could not rest if she were not doing something to display +herself and feed her craving for what is known as seeing the world. Her +husband was almost as obsequious as the servants—doubtless because +from the first she took the beauty's high hand with him, as well as the +attitude of the superior, naturally assumed by youth towards age—and +he enjoyed the sensation she made almost as much as she did. Visibly he +swelled and preened himself when his venerable contemporaries cast the +eye of surprise, not to say of envy, upon the conjunction of his +complacent figure and that of the bride who might have been his +grand-daughter; he toiled for that pleasure, and to make pleasure for +her, as no old gentleman should toil; he gave her everything she asked +for, including his own ease and consequence, his own vital health and +strength. +</P> + +<P> +But the honeymoon waned, and the novelty wore off, and prudence and old +habits resumed their sway. He grew tired of incessant gadding about, +alarmed at his symptoms of physical overstrain, weary for his arm-chair +and his club, and his men friends and his masculine occupations. She, +on the other hand, insatiable for admiration and excitement still, was +weary of his constant company. It became the kill-joy of her festive +days, growing from a necessary bore to an intolerable irritation as the +dimensions of her little court of younger gallants enlarged about her. +Therefore she had no objection to his halting on the toilsome path, so +long as he allowed her to go on alone. +</P> + +<P> +It was not a case of allowing, however. He might object, and did; but +he was no match for her either in diplomacy or in fight, and her +cajoleries were usually sufficient for her ends, without calling out +the reserves behind them. In any contest between selfishness and +unselfishness, the result is a foregone conclusion. +</P> + +<P> +So she began to go about with miscellaneous escorts, to play the +combined parts of frisky matron and society beauty—an intoxicating +experience; while the supporter of that proud position played the +humble role of chief comer-stone, unseen and unconsidered in the +basement of the fabric. He attended to his investments and increasing +infirmities, and made secret visits to a married daughter (wife of a +big hotel-keeper), who hated her young step-mother, and whose existence +Frances ignored. +</P> + +<P> +One day, Guthrie Carey, after several voyages to other ports, appeared +again in Melbourne. He had just landed, and was strolling along Collins +Street, when he encountered a vision of loveliness that almost took +away his breath. +</P> + +<P> +"What! It is not Miss Frances, surely?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is not," smiled she, all her beauty at its conscious best as she +recognised his, which was that of a man of men, splendid in his strong +prime. And she told him who she was, and a few other things, as they +stood on the pavement—she so graceful in her mature self-possession, +he staring at her, stupidly distraught, like a bewildered school-boy. +</P> + +<P> +"I had no idea—" he mumbled. +</P> + +<P> +"That I was married? Alas, yes!"—with a sad shake of the head. "We +girls are fated, I think." +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Deb?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, not Deb; she has escaped so far." +</P> + +<P> +"Is she well?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have not seen her lately, but I am sure she is, she always is." "She +is not in Melbourne?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. I don't quite know where she is. She has got a wandering fit on. +Come and have some lunch with me, and I'll tell you all the news." +</P> + +<P> +They turned into a restaurant, and had a meal which took a long time to +get through. In the middle of the afternoon they parted, on the +understanding that he would dine with her later in her own house. At +the end of the few days that were virtually filled with him, Mrs Ewing +sat down in her fine boudoir to weep over her hard fate. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, why wasn't HE the one to have the money! Oh, why do we meet again, +now that it is too late!" +</P> + +<P> +At the end of a few more days she went to her old husband to ask him +how he was. He said he was a bit troubled with his lumbago, but +otherwise fairly well. +</P> + +<P> +"What you want," said she, "is a sea-voyage." +</P> + +<P> +He thought not. He had never found the sea suit him. And travelling was +a great fatigue. And it was the wrong time of year for it, anyhow. They +had a good home, and it was the best place. +</P> + +<P> +But she knew better. She had made up her mind, and it was useless for +him to rebel. The sea-voyage was decided on—not so much because it +would benefit his health as because his young wife had not seen England +and Europe, and was dying to do so. +</P> + +<P> +Then they discussed routes. +</P> + +<P> +"The thing to do," said Mrs Ewing, "is not to crowd up with that lot in +the mail steamers, where you can't do as you like, or have any special +attentions, but to go in a smaller vessel, where you would be of some +importance, and have your liberty, and plenty of space, and no tiresome +rules and restrictions—" +</P> + +<P> +"My dear child, you don't know those second-rate lines. I do. I assure +you you'd be very sorry for yourself if I let you travel by them. They +are not YOUR style at all." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I was talking to Captain Carey about it, and that was his advice, +and HE knows. On his ship they have accommodation for about six +passengers, and he suggested that, if we were quick about it, we might +be able to secure the whole, so as to be exactly as if we were on a +yacht of our own. They have a fair cook; but we could take any servants +we liked, and make ourselves comfortable in our own way—nobody to +interfere with us. He doesn't go through the hot canal. He will be back +from Sydney in three weeks—just nice time to get ready in." +</P> + +<P> +Of course, they went that way. And perhaps it is better to leave the +rest of the story to the imagination of the reader, who, one hopes, for +Guthrie Carey's sake, is a common-sense person, as well as a +dispassionate student of human nature. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap19"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIX. +</H3> + +<P> +Deb was at Redford once more. +</P> + +<P> +In her own room too, surrounded by familiar objects—the six-foot +dressing-table and the nine-foot wardrobe, and the Aspinalled book-case +that was a fixture, amongst other things. She had not taken them to her +suburban villa, nor sent for them afterwards. Meanwhile, Mr Thornycroft +had bought them with the place, and taken care of them, as of +everything that she had left behind. They had been in his possession +now for several years. +</P> + +<P> +The strange thing in the room was Mr Thornycroft himself—Mr +Thornycroft on the little white bed that Deb used to sleep on, his hair +white, his once stalwart frame reduced to a pale wreck of skin and bone. +</P> + +<P> +"You will forgive me for coming here," he apologised. "I have not been +using the things. But they had me moved for coolness—the south-east +aspect, and being able to get a current through—" +</P> + +<P> +"I am thankful they did. It is the best place for you this weather. But +there's one thing I shall never forgive you—that you didn't let me +know before." +</P> + +<P> +She was sitting at his bedside, holding his hand—she, too, much +changed, thinner, sadder, shabbier, or rather, less splendidly turned +out than had been her wont in earlier days; beautiful as ever, +notwithstanding—infinitely more so, in the sick man's eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Why should I bother you? I haven't been very bad—just the old asthma +off and on. It is only lately that I have felt it upsetting my heart. +And you know I am used to being alone." +</P> + +<P> +He spoke with the asthma pant, and a throb of the lean throat that she +could not bear to see. His head was propped high, so that they squarely +faced each other. His eyes were full of tenderness and content—hers of +tears. +</P> + +<P> +"You have been pretty lonely yourself, by all accounts," said he, +stroking her hand. "It's odd to think of you in that case, Debbie." +</P> + +<P> +"I've felt it odd myself," she smiled, with a whisk of her +handkerchief. "But, like you, I am getting used to it." +</P> + +<P> +"Where's Dalzell all this time?" "Don't know. Don't care. Please don't +talk of him." +</P> + +<P> +"Nobody else—?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, dear, no! Never will be. I am going to take up nursing or +something." +</P> + +<P> +"YOU!" he mocked. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you suppose I can't? Wait till I have got you over this attack, and +then tell me if I can't. I am going to stay with you, godpapa, until +you are better. I have spoken to your housekeeper, and she is quite +agreeable—if you are." +</P> + +<P> +He did not think it necessary to reply to that hint, but just smiled +and closed his eyes. She took up a palm-leaf fan and fanned him, +watching him anxiously. It was a roasting February day, and he was +breathing very badly. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you given up your house?" he asked, when he could speak. +</P> + +<P> +"Long ago. No use my staying there alone. Besides, I could not afford +it." +</P> + +<P> +"Francie not much good to you, I suppose?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I don't want her to be good to me." +</P> + +<P> +"Keziah Moon hasn't deserted you, of course?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Keziah—she was moped to death, poor old woman—I found her a +nuisance. And then those babies of Rose's were so irresistible. I +thought she'd better go. As Rose's head-nurse, I believe she is in her +element." +</P> + +<P> +"Is Rose happy with her draper?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know—I suppose so." +</P> + +<P> +"You don't see much of her?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not much." +</P> + +<P> +"And Mary?" +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't seen her for months. Her husband and I don't hit it off, +somehow." +</P> + +<P> +"Deb, how much have you to live on?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's my business, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Not the business of a doting godfather—in the absence of nearer male +relatives?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. His business is only to see that I learn the catechism and present +myself to be confirmed; and I've done both." +</P> + +<P> +"That all?" +</P> + +<P> +"Except to let his doting godchild take care of him when he is ill. +Now—don't talk any more." +</P> + +<P> +He was too exhausted to do so. And while he lay feebly fighting for +breath, the trained nurse came in and took command. +</P> + +<P> +In the evening that functionary gave a professional opinion. +</P> + +<P> +"He is worried about something," she said to Deb, "and it is very bad +for him. Do you know what it is?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not in the least," said Deb promptly. "I have not been seeing him for +years, I am sorry to say, and have not the slightest knowledge of his +affairs." +</P> + +<P> +But next day she seemed to get an inkling of what the worry was. Mr +Thornycroft, when they were alone together, begged her to tell him if +she had any money difficulties—debts, she supposed—and to be frank +with him for old times' and her father's sake. +</P> + +<P> +"What! are you bothering your mind about that?" she gently scolded him. +"I assure you I am all right. I haven't any difficulties—or hardly +any—not now. I have no rent, you see." +</P> + +<P> +"They don't charge you anything where you board?" "No. Redford never +has charged folks for board. Seriously," she hastened to add, in +earnest tones, "I have all I want. And if I try presently to earn more, +it will be because I think everybody ought to earn his living or hers. +You earned yours. I despise people who just batten on the earnings of +others, and never do a hand's turn for themselves." +</P> + +<P> +"Batten!" he murmured ironically, with a troubled smile. "You look as +if you had been battening, don't you? Debbie, I'm a business man, and I +know you can't get behindhand in money matters and pull up again just +when you want to; you can't get straight merely by anticipating income, +when there's nothing extra coming in. Tell me, if you don't mind, how +you managed?" She flushed, and her eyes dropped; then she faced him +honestly. +</P> + +<P> +"I will tell you," she declared. "I've wanted to confess it, though I'm +horribly ashamed to—and I'm afraid you'll think I did not value it. I +did indeed—I hated to part with it; but I was so hard up, and I didn't +know which way to turn, or what else to do—" +</P> + +<P> +"And never came to me!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I did—in a way. I—I sold your pearls." +</P> + +<P> +"That's right, Debbie. That's a load off my mind. It is the best thing +you could have done with them." +</P> + +<P> +"No, indeed! I have regretted it ever since." +</P> + +<P> +"How much did they give you?" "A tremendous lot—three hundred and +fifty guineas." +</P> + +<P> +"The swindlers! They were worth two thousand." +</P> + +<P> +"What!" She was thunderstruck. "You gave me a necklace worth two +thousand guineas?" +</P> + +<P> +"I only wish you'd let me give you a score or two at the same price, on +condition that you sold them for three-fifty whenever you needed a +little cash." +</P> + +<P> +She was quite upset by this remark, and what had given rise to it. +Impulsively—too impulsively, considering how weak he was—she kissed +his damp forehead, and rushed weeping from his sight. +</P> + +<P> +In the hot evening, while the trained nurse had her tea at grateful +leisure in the housekeeper's room, Deb again took that nurse's place. +She sat by the pillow of the patient, leaning against it, holding his +hand in hers. Only the sound of the cruel north wind and his more cruel +breathing disturbed the stillness that enveloped them. She hoped he was +sleeping, until he spoke suddenly in a way that showed him only too +wide awake. +</P> + +<P> +"Debbie," he said, "if I was quite sure I would not get well this time, +I should put that question to you again." +</P> + +<P> +"What question, dear?" she queried softly. +</P> + +<P> +"The question I asked you just before you left Redford." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't remember—Oh!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—that one. But if you consented, I might recover—it would be +enough to make me; then you would repent." +</P> + +<P> +She was silent, agitated in every fibre of her, but thinking hard. +</P> + +<P> +"What put that idea into your head?" she whispered, still holding his +hand. +</P> + +<P> +"It was never put in; it was there always—since you were a kiddie." +</P> + +<P> +"It seems so strange! I thought I was always a kiddie to you." "That +does seem the natural relationship, doesn't it?" There fell another +long silence, and, listening to his dragging breath, her heart smote +her. She squeezed his bony hand. +</P> + +<P> +"I will stay with you, anyway," she comforted him. +</P> + +<P> +He turned his head on the pillow. "Kiss me," he sighed, with eyes +closed. +</P> + +<P> +She did, again and again. +</P> + +<P> +The night was suffocating. She could not sleep for the heat and her +thoughts, and when, towards morning, she heard the nurse stirring, she +got up to inquire how he was. +</P> + +<P> +"Pretty bad," the nurse said. "It's this awful weather. I can't cool +the room, though I've got all the doors and windows open, and the wet +sheets hanging up. It's air he wants, and there isn't any. If it don't +change soon, I'm afraid his strength won't hold out." +</P> + +<P> +It did not change, and consequently grew worse to bear, the parching +and scorching of each day being carried over into the next. What the +newspapers call a heat-wave was drawing to its culmination, which +generally reaches the verge of the unbearable, even to the well and +strong, just before the "change"—that lightning change to coolness, +and even coldness, which comes while one draws a breath. How many a +life has hung upon the chance of the blessed moment coming in time! +</P> + +<P> +The nurse looked at the thermometer in despair. Darkness had not taken +10 degrees from yesterday's temperature of 102 degrees when another +blazing sun arose. The fierce wind had raved and calmed, and raved and +calmed, but it had not shifted. She wetted and she fanned, turn and +turn about with Deb, the livelong day, without freshening the dead air +that soaked the house and seemed to soak the world. The fagged and +perspiring doctor (a great friend of the patient's), who came twice +daily, came again, too tired to care very much even for this special +case. He looked at it, and shook his head, and begged for a cool drink +for the Lord's sake; and then, having muddled the wits he had tried to +stimulate with quarts of whisky-and-soda, went away, saying: "I can do +nothing. Send for me at once if you see a change." +</P> + +<P> +At sunset the sick man was very low, his weak heart and his distressed +lungs labouring heavily, while the sweat of agony glistened on his +forehead and plastered his white hair to his backward-tossed head. Deb +was frantic with fear and grief. She summoned the doctor again, sending +commands to him to summon more doctors—the best in Melbourne, and any +number of them—in defiance of Mr Thornycroft's known wishes to the +contrary. At the same time she sent for the clergyman. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear," she crooned in the patient's ear, when he seemed a little +easier, "Mr Bentley will be here presently." +</P> + +<P> +Mr Thornycroft's brows seemed to gather a momentary frown over his +closed eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"I'd rather not, Deb—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, not for THAT! But—the wind will change soon, and then you will +feel better; and then—you said it would help you to get well—I +will—if you like—" +</P> + +<P> +He opened his eyes and gazed at her. It took him a few seconds to +understand. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah—darling!" he breathed, between his pants, and with an effort drew +her hand to his lips. Then—they were his last words, whispered very +low—"Never mind now, Debbie—so long as you are here." +</P> + +<P> +He seemed to drowse into a kind of half-sleep, in spite of his too +obvious and audible suffering. She sat beside him, sponging and fanning +him, listening to his shallow, jerky, wheezy respiration, watching for +the subtle something in the stifling room that should announce a change +of wind, thinking of Mr Bentley's coming, and many other things. The +weary nurse came back from her brief rest and cup of tea, and sat down +at the foot of the bed. She studied the patient's face intently for +some time, and felt his feet; then she took the fan from Deborah's hand. +</P> + +<P> +"You go and lie down, Miss Pennycuick. Mrs Dobson will come and sit +with me for a while." +</P> + +<P> +"No, no," said Deb. "He wants me to be here. I cannot leave him." +</P> + +<P> +After a few more minutes of silence, the nurse said again: "You had +better go, Miss Pennycuick." When Deb repeated her refusal, the nurse +went out to fetch the housekeeper to persuade her. +</P> + +<P> +A minute afterwards, Deb lifted her head with a jerk, and sniffed +eagerly. At the same instant she heard a distant door bang. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank God!" she ejaculated, and flew to the windows that all day had +had to be shut tight against the furnace blast outside, and flung them +wide, one after the other. The trees in the old garden were bending and +rustling; the sweet, cool air came pouring in. +</P> + +<P> +"The wind has changed," she whispered, almost hysterically, to the +nurse and the housekeeper, as they stealthily crept in. "And"—as they +all gathered round the bed—"he is better already. His breathing is +easier." +</P> + +<P> +The nurse bent over the long figure on the bed. "He is not breathing at +all," said she. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap20"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XX. +</H3> + +<P> +Jim Urquhart had been fighting bush fires for several days when the +wind changed and carried them back over the burnt ground that +extinguished them. When he rode home, dead beat, from helping a +neighbour who had helped him, it was to meet the news that Mr +Thornycroft was dead, and Mrs Urquhart gone to Redford to support +Deborah Pennycuick. +</P> + +<P> +Mr Thornycroft had been ailing with his asthma so long, and making so +little fuss about it, that his friends had come to regard him as +practically ailing nothing. The death that had slowly stalked him for +years came upon them with the shock of the unexpected; so the +newspapers said. Jim's heart smote him for that he had been so taken up +with the fire epidemic as to have neglected for over a week to inquire +after the old man; it smote him more when he heard that Deb had been at +Redford through the ordeal, without "anyone" near her. He had known too +well—had made it his business to know—that she had had a struggling +life, heart-breaking to think of, for a long time, but under various +pretexts she had kept "everybody" at arm's-length and further, refusing +aid or pity; now there had come a chance to do something for her, and +he had been out of the way. And duty still detained him, to arrange +about destroyed fences and foodless stock—duty that had to be +considered first, even before her. When at last he was free to put +himself at her disposal, a dozen men had jumped his claim. +</P> + +<P> +The manager of Redford met him when a few miles from the place. "You +are behind the fair, Mr Urquhart," cried he, as they drew rein +alongside; and his tone and his face were strangely cheerful, +considering that his good employer of twenty years had been buried only +yesterday—as usual, within a few hours of his death. "But I suppose +you have heard the news. What—you haven't? Then I am the first to +congratulate you," extending a cordial hand. "The will was read this +morning, and you've got the biggest legacy—a cool five thousand, sir." +</P> + +<P> +Five thousand! Jim, never on particularly intimate terms with the +testator, had not thought of the will, and the idea that he might have +an interest in it never crossed his mind. Five thousand! It is said of +drowning people that they see the whole panorama of their lives in the +last seconds of consciousness; in the instant's pause that followed the +manager's announcement, Jim saw Five Creeks renovated and prosperous, +and Deb's children running about the old rooms and paddocks, and +calling him father—a home not quite unworthy of his goddess now, and +one that loneliness and poverty would have taught her to appreciate. He +stared at the burly manager like a man in a dream. +</P> + +<P> +"I get a nice little windfall myself, which I never expected," the +latter continued his tale. "The servants are well provided for, and +there are odd sums for a lot of English relatives—I suppose they +are—and a good bit for charities. But yours is the biggest individual +legacy; and I'm glad of it, and I'm not surprised, because I've heard +him many a time speak well of you for the way you worked to keep up +your place and look after the family." +</P> + +<P> +"But," said Jim, coming down from his clouds of glory, "I thought—I +thought there'd be more than that." "Than what? You surely didn't +expect—oh, I see!" The manager threw up his head and roared. "My good +fellow, the estate altogether is worth a quarter of a million." +</P> + +<P> +"Then who—?" +</P> + +<P> +"Gets it? Miss Pennycuick. She's here now. And couldn't believe it when +they told her—though, when you come to think of it, it was a natural +thing for him to do, having been such friends with the old man, and she +his god-daughter. A lucky young woman—my word!" Jim's swelled heart +collapsed and sank like a burst balloon. His dream-house vanished in +thin air, to be built no more. +</P> + +<P> +"That settles it," he said to himself. According to his code of manly +honour and self-respect, a man could not possibly, even with five +thousand pounds in hand, ask a girl with a quarter of a million to +marry him. +</P> + +<P> +A little more conversation, if it can be called such, when one talked +and the other did not even listen, and he parted with the garrulous +manager and rode on to the house. Deb, wet-eyed, met him with a welcome +that severely tried his Spartan fortitude, without in the least +weakening his resolve. Although she did not know it, being still filled +with grief for her lifelong friend, it was the power and command that +he had endowed her with which gave that charming air of fearless and +open affection to her manner. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, my dear, dear boy!" she addressed him, and all but kissed him +before his mother's eyes. "I am so glad to have you here. Jim dear, Mrs +Urquhart thinks you can be spared—will you stay here for a bit and +help me to settle things? There is so much to do, and it is my duty to +attend to everything myself. There are the lawyers and people, of +course—everybody is so kind—but I want a man of my own beside me." +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly, Deb," he replied, without wincing; "for as long as you want +me—if I can run home every other day or so for a look round." +</P> + +<P> +He stayed, in company with his mother, for a month; then, when he went +to live at home again, he spent at least half his days at Redford, +acting as Deb's 'own man' indoors and out—her real legal adviser, her +real station manager, her confidential major-domo, the doer of all the +'dirty work' connected with the administration of her estate; and +never—although she exposed him to almost every sort of +temptation—never once stepped off the line that he had marked for +himself. +</P> + +<P> +Another person was not so scrupulous, though, to be sure, he was not so +poor. +</P> + +<P> +Claud Dalzell, drifting from one resort of the wealthy to +another—deer-stalking in Scotland, salmon-fishing in Norway, shooting +in the Rockies, hunting in the Shires, yachting everywhere, and +everywhere adored of a crowd of women as idle as himself—was loafing +at Monte Carlo when he heard of Mr Thornycroft's death and Deb's +accession to his throne. Ennui and satiety possessed the popular young +man at the moment—for he was made for better things, and his +dissatisfied soul tormented him; and a vision of old-time Redford and +the beautiful girl who was like wine and fire, a blend of passion and +purity that now impressed him as unique, rose before his mental eyes +with the effect of water-springs in a dry land. His thoughts went back +to the days when they rode and made love together—the sunny days, +before the clouds gathered. It was that past which glorified her all at +once, not the present—not Mr Thornycroft's money—not the halo of +elegance and consequence that again adorned her; he never suspected +otherwise for a moment. And that was why he did not hesitate to book a +passage to Australia that very day. +</P> + +<P> +Deb was at Redford when he arrived. That she would never part with the +place again, she had declared on the day that it came into her +possession, and she was now establishing herself there, she said, for +life. She had gone through the whole great rambling house, sorting and +rearranging the furniture that was in it, adding the cream of the +contents of the best shops in town. She made a clean sweep of the now +'awful' fittings of the big drawing-room, replacing them with parquet +rugs and divans, and things of the softest, finest and most costly +kind; she arranged the morning-room for herself afresh; also the glazed +corridor, which became a beautiful art gallery and lounging-place; also +the remainder of the long unused rooms. She called to her all the +favourite old servants—except Keziah Moon, who was happy where she +was—and old Miss Keene to play chaperon once more, with nothing to do +but arrange flowers and doze at peace in the lap of luxury. Deb wanted +Jim for her manager, at a ridiculous salary, but he would not take the +post; he did, however, procure her an excellent substitute. She +commissioned him to buy her riding-horses—he "knew what she +liked"—regardless of expense; an English groom was given charge of +them when they arrived. So easily did the magnificent woman slide back +into her magnificent ways, for all her good taste and unpretentiousness. +</P> + +<P> +When Claud Dalzell was driven in his hired buggy from the township to +her door, his critical eye took in the many changes that the old +homestead had undergone with high approval. Used as he was to far finer +houses and the best of everything, he felt that here was as fair a +camping-place as even he could desire. Redford, with a quarter of a +million behind it, with this setting of sunshine and spaciousness +(missed so much more than he had known till now), inclined—what a +haven of rest and pleasure, after the crowded and fatiguing experiences +of his later years! +</P> + +<P> +He was shown upstairs to the big drawing-room. He hardly knew where he +was, with the grass-green carpet and festooned window-draperies and +gilding and plate-glass vanished, and these soft-coloured stuffs and +subtle harmonies around him. He could recognise nothing but a few +pictures and the old piano, the latter spread with a gem of Chinese +embroidery, on which stood a gem of a Satsuma bowl filled with fine +chrysanthemums. It was late in autumn now. +</P> + +<P> +And while he wandered about, examining this and that with the pleasure +of a satisfied connoisseur, Deb stood in the sitting-room downstairs, +with clenched hands and teeth, staring at his card on a table before +her. +</P> + +<P> +"He has the cheek," she thought, afire with indignation—never so hot +and bitter as when directed against one we love who has offended +us—"he has the unspeakable effrontery to come and see me NOW, when he +never came near me all those hard years—never cared how I muddled and +struggled, nor whether I was alive or dead!" +</P> + +<P> +But she must see him, of course. And she must maintain her proper +dignity. No descending to vulgar reproaches—still less to weak +condonation. She took a moment to calm herself, and walked forth to the +interview. Many things upheld her, but the dead hand of Mr Thornycroft +was her stoutest support. +</P> + +<P> +She needed it when she reached the top of the stairs. Facing the +drawing-room door, awaiting her, stood the figure that really seemed +the one thing wanting to complete the beauty of the beautiful house. He +had never in his younger days been so distinguished-looking as he was +now. In any company, in any part of the world, he must have attracted +notice, as a gentleman, in person and manners, of the very finest type. +And how she did love that sort! How her lonely and hungry heart longed +for him when she saw him—the only man she had ever deemed her natural +mate—and at the same time how she hated him for the disappointment and +the humiliation that he had brought her! Outraged self-respect, her +robust will-power, and her quarter of a million sufficed to save her +from a temptation she would not have fallen into for the world. +</P> + +<P> +She swept forward to shake hands with him, with the grave affability of +a great lady to a guest—any guest—and it was plain from the +expression of his sensitive face that he was as keenly appreciative of +her enhanced beauty and 'finish' as she of his. Black was not her +colour—she was too dark—and she had discarded it for pale greys and +whites, with touches of black about them; today a creamy woollen, thick +and soft, and hanging about her like the drapery of a Greek statue, was +an inspiration in becoming gowns. The maid who had dressed her hair was +a mistress of the art. And Miss Pennycuick's step and poise—well, she +WAS a great lady, and carried herself accordingly. +</P> + +<P> +Her old lover was charmed. He held her hand—and would have held it +thrice as long—and looked into her eyes, too overcome, it appeared, to +speak. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you do?" she said, evading his intense gaze. "What a man you +are for dropping on one in this unexpected, sensational way! Why didn't +you write and tell me you were around?" +</P> + +<P> +She made a movement to withdraw her hand. He held it fast. +</P> + +<P> +"Debbie," said he, in quite a tremulous voice—remarkable in one +constitutionally so self-confident and self-possessed—"Debbie, you +turned me out of your house when I came to see you last. I hope you +have a different welcome for me this time?" +</P> + +<P> +"To the best of my belief," she laughed, "you insisted upon going. I am +sure you were asked to stay—to lunch, or whatever it was. By the way, +have you lunched now?" She showed concern for her obligations as his +hostess. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, thank you—at least, it doesn't matter." +</P> + +<P> +He had to relinquish her hand, and when she immediately made towards +the bell-button, he followed and arrested her. +</P> + +<P> +"Let us have our talk first," he pleaded. "I don't want anything to eat +until I know—until I feel that you don't grudge it." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I don't grudge it," she took him literally. "Not one square meal, +at any rate. The only thing I am obliged to grudge is house-room—for +any length of time—to single gentlemen. But that is not a question of +hospitality, as you know. Sit down, and tell me all the news." +</P> + +<P> +He sat down; she also—about two yards off. Across the gulf of Persian +rug he looked at her steadily. +</P> + +<P> +"You are angry with me," he observed. "Why, Debbie? Is it still the old +quarrel—after all these years?" +</P> + +<P> +Then her face changed like a filled lamp when you put a match to it. +She said, in a deep, breathless way: +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know how many years it is?" +</P> + +<P> +More in sorrow and surprise than in anger, he guessed her meaning after +a moment's thought. +</P> + +<P> +"Is that my fault? The number of years has been of your choosing," he +pointed out forbearingly. "You sent me away, when I never wanted to go. +You broke it off, altogether against my wish. You never relented—never +made a sign. Even now I come back uninvited." +</P> + +<P> +It was a clear case, and all he asked for was bare justice. +</P> + +<P> +"Why didn't you come before—uninvited? Why didn't you come back to me +when I was poor and lonely? Claud, I have been in every sort of +trouble—my father is dead, I have lost all my sisters in one way and +another, I have been living in cheap lodgings, doing without what I +always thought were the necessaries of life, to keep Francie going and +to get debts paid off—I have been ill, I have been unhappy, I have +sometimes been penniless, and you have carefully passed by on the other +side, like that man in the Bible, and left me to my fate." +</P> + +<P> +He was genuinely shocked. He knew that she had been horribly down in +the world, but not that she had suffered to this extent. Seeing her +sitting there in her beautiful gown, in her beautiful room, without one +trace of those sordid years about her, his heart ached to think of them. +</P> + +<P> +"My darling, I never knew—" "Why not?" she said swiftly. "Because you +never tried to know—never cared to know. But now that I can be a +credit to you again—the moment you hear that I have had a great +fortune left to me—now you come back." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you mean to say," he demanded sternly, "that you think—you +honestly think I have come back to you on account of your money?" +</P> + +<P> +She returned his cold, searching gaze in kind. +</P> + +<P> +"Honestly," she said, "I do think so. There is no way out of it." +</P> + +<P> +He rose deliberately, bowed to her, and picked up his hat. He was not +really mercenary—or, if he was, he did not know it—and he was as +intensely proud as she was. He felt that he had received the deadliest +insult ever dealt him in his life, and one that he could never forget +or forgive. +</P> + +<P> +Without another word, he turned to the door and walked out. She stood +still and watched him go, a calm smile curving her lips, a very cyclone +of passion tearing through her heart; and she scorned to recall him. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap21"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXI. +</H3> + +<P> +Deb yearned to have her Australian sisters—Frances was European—with +her at Redford, as in the old days; she hated to be luxuriating there +without them. But for a time the husbands stood in the way. She could +not bring herself to ask them too. The draper she hardly knew at +all—in her correspondence with Rose his name was rarely mentioned by +either, except in comprehensive messages at the end of letters; and +Bennet Goldsworthy's company, Deb said, simply made her ill. +</P> + +<P> +It had made her ill since, after her father's death, the clergyman had +permitted himself, in her hearing, to vent his personal disappointment +at the unexpected smallness of his wife's inheritance. The man had +presumed to take the air of one reasonably aggrieved; he had even +dropped angry words about "deception" in the first heat of his chagrin. +"As if," said haughty Deb, "it was not enough for him to have married +one of us!" When he was understood to say that he had "arranged his +life" in accordance with the expectations he had been given the right +to entertain, Deb's withering comment was: "As if HIS life matters!" +</P> + +<P> +But she was intolerant in her dislikes. +</P> + +<P> +Poor Mr Goldsworthy, incurable cadger that he was, was bound to feel +the family reverses acutely. When he had married Miss Pennycuick for +her good, in that risky manner, he had naturally expected to be +rewarded for the deed. If ever it be safe to trust to appearances, it +had seemed safe then, so far as the solidity of the Pennycuicks' +position was concerned. They had imposed upon him with their careless +splendour; they had misled him by their condonation of the marriage, +which restored Mary to her privileges as a daughter of the house; most +thoroughly had they taken him in by that voluntary wedding gift of five +hundred pounds. With his habit—which he took to be the general +habit—of getting all he could and giving nothing that he was not +obliged to give, he could not understand the airy flinging away of all +that money, when there was no "call" for it, only as a proof that Mr +Pennycuick had more than he needed for all the legitimate claims on +him. And the old man had said, again and again, that his daughters +would share and share alike in whatever he had to leave. +</P> + +<P> +When Mr Bentley, the new parson, came—young, sincere, +self-sacrificing, devoted, a poor preacher and a hard worker, who +refused to batten on Redford bounty—all the old furniture of the +parsonage was made over to him (on time payment), and the Goldsworthys +began life in Melbourne on the basis of a rich wife. It was surprising +how the legend grew amongst his set that Mr Goldsworthy had a rich +wife. That she might dress the part on all occasions, so that there +would be no mistake about it, the family-provided trousseau was added +to; it was also subtracted from, for the simplicity that was her taste +and distinction was hateful in his sight. When she looked "common" in a +cotton gown, she lowered his dignity in the world and amongst his +professional fellows—supposed to be so envious of it, in spite of her +red face. Deb had had to suffer the shock of seeing her sister in silk +of a morning more than once, and it had been reported to her—though +she did not believe it—that Mary wore a jewelled necklace to church on +Sundays. Deb did not go to Bennet's church, which was, fortunately, a +long way from her suburban-villa home. +</P> + +<P> +And she had been to his Melbourne house but twice. On her first visit +she had penetrated to Mary's room, and been horrified to find the +husband's clothes hung up in it from her door-pegs, and his razors and +brushes mixed up with her things on her dressing-table. The arrangement +in the country parsonage was to be accounted for; to find it here, made +deliberately and of MALICE PREPENSE, was to see what gulfs now yawned +between Mary's old life and the new one. Deb reached forth for a comb, +and drew back her hand as if she had inadvertently touched a snake. +Mary's red face went purple as she explained that there was not space +in that house for a dressing-room. There was space enough going to +waste in the drawing-room, where Deb had her feelings hurt on her +second visit. It was a very large room, sharing the front of the house +with a large study; and behind them all the other rooms huddled as of +no account, none of them bigger than Keziah's Redford storeroom. The +study was sacred to the master of the house; the drawing-room to +"company". One look showed Deb that Mary never sat there, and that it +was not she who had chosen and arranged the furniture. The foundation +of the scheme was a costly "suite", upholstered in palish silk brocade, +the separate pieces standing at fixed intervals apart on a gorgeous +Axminster carpet. When Deb entered the room, Mr Goldsworthy was bending +over the central sofa, excited and talking loudly. Miss Goldsworthy and +Mary stood by, mute and drooping; Ruby looked on irresponsibly, with +joy in her eye. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter?" inquired Deb, advancing. +</P> + +<P> +As she was not a great lady then, but quite the contrary, Mr +Goldsworthy explained what was the matter, with scarcely any +modification of his minatory air. A caller had called yesterday, +bringing with her a little boy. Mary had thoughtlessly fed the little +boy with soft cake, and the little boy had first made his hands sticky +with it, and then pawed the sofa, which had cost him (B.G.) nearly +twenty pounds (part of Mary's 500 pounds). Greasy marks had been left +on that lovely brocade, for which he (not she) had given thirty-five +shillings a yard, and which he had forbidden children to be allowed to +sit on. As if that were not bad enough, "they"—i.e., those two poor +women—had, without telling him, tried to take the marks out with some +wretched chemist's stuff, which had not taken them out, but only spread +them more. Now the sofa was completely spoiled, and what to do he did +not know, unless he could match the brocade, which was scarcely likely. +And ill could he afford to be buying brocade—and so on. Finally he +went out to consult with a furniture repairer of his acquaintance, +banging doors behind him. Deb cast a scornful glance upon the smudged +brocade. +</P> + +<P> +"What a fuss about nothing!" she brushed the subject by. +</P> + +<P> +"My brother is very particular about this room," Miss Goldsworthy +apologised for him. +</P> + +<P> +"So I see." +</P> + +<P> +"And he is very fond of this brocade, which he chose himself. It +certainly is very pretty—don't you think so? But too delicate to wear +well. I am always frightened to see children go near it, or even +grown-up people when it has been raining, or if they have been +gathering dust—it does show every spot so! And it was the mother's +fault. I signed to Mary to give him a biscuit, but his mother picked +out that cake, which had jam in it. It is very unfortunate. I don't +wonder at his being vexed." +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't you have chintz covers, Moll?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, he wouldn't like it to be covered up," Miss Goldsworthy struck in, +and seemed shocked herself at the suggested waste. Mary lifted dull +eyes to her sister's face. +</P> + +<P> +"Come and have some tea," she said. "Come, auntie; it is no use your +worrying yourself." +</P> + +<P> +And they went into the poky living room, which smelt of meals, and had +tea, and the sort of barren talk that the presence of the third person +necessitated. Mary seemed purposely to avoid a TETE-A-TETE. When Miss +Goldsworthy went to fetch the baby, Ruby was kept at her step-mother's +side. Only when the black-eyed boy appeared did Mary brighten into a +likeness to her old self. She was a born mother, and her child consoled +her. Then, in the midst of the baby worship, back came the still +agitated husband and father, the furniture man with him; and the house +was filled anew with the affair of the soiled sofa, so that Deb's +presence, as also her departure, attracted little attention. As her +brother-in-law pushed out a valedictory hand, she noticed a shirt-cuff +that had the grime of days upon it. +</P> + +<P> +"He economises in the wash," she soliloquised, with wrinkling nostril +and curling lip. "And in those filthy cheap coals that choke the grate +with dust, and in tea that is undrinkable. Oh, what a house!" +</P> + +<P> +And she had not been there since. But now— +</P> + +<P> +Her benevolence embraced the world, and the world included Bennet +Goldsworthy. It was no longer in his power to make her feel ill. The +sun of her prosperity, shining on him at her sister's side—poor, +struggling, well-meaning little man!—gave him a pathetic and appealing +interest. In fact, it was to him that her maternal dispositions towards +her family drew her first. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank God," she said to herself, "I can now make things a bit easier +for that poor child. She won't let me, I daresay, but he will." +</P> + +<P> +She took the humble tram to their suburb, and rang at their parsonage +door. Having considerately sent word that she was coming, due +preparations had been made to receive her. She was shown into the +drawing-room, which had not a displaced chair, and where the +many-coloured Axminster and the cherished brocade still looked as good +as new. Almost her first act was to search for the grease marks on the +sofa—the spot was indicated by a bleached patch—and she sat down on +it, alone for a few minutes. On this occasion the old aunt had been +ordered to keep in the background; Ruby also, after due consideration +of her claims, had been denied the share she clamoured for of the +impending excitement, and sent out of the house; Mary had had her +directions, and remained invisible for a time. She was employed in +getting Robert ready for inspection—brushing his best jacket, tying +his best neck-tie, etc., while he jerked about under her hands, and +freely criticised her labours on his behalf. For Robert took after his +father as a knowing person. He was, in fact, a bright and clever lad, +who knew some things better than his mother did. She was ever proud to +admit it; but his own open acceptance of superiority, and readiness to +keep it before her eyes at all times, was one of the secret crosses of +her life, weighed down with so many. However, if you marry the wrong +man, you cannot expect to have the right children, and it was something +that this boy had the genuineness of his intellectual gifts to give her +an excuse to adore him. +</P> + +<P> +"There, that will do. It is very bad form, you know, to be so fussy +about people coming, and so anxious about what they may think about +you," the young authority upon etiquette instructed the fine-fibred +gentlewoman, who had done him the honour to be his mother. And Mary +took the rebuke humbly. +</P> + +<P> +Bennet Goldsworthy, alone, came softly into the drawing-room to receive +the distinguished guest. He had grown fat and tubby, and a phrase of +Claud Dalzell's flashed into Deb's memory as she marked the manner of +his approach—"that crawling ass, that would lick your boots for +sixpence". The noonday sun does not affect polished metal more +obviously than Deb's wealth affected him. +</P> + +<P> +"This is good of you," he murmured brokenly, pressing her gloved hand. +"This is indeed good of you!" "I ought to have been before," she +returned graciously—it was so easy to be gracious to him now—"I have +been wanting to come; but you cannot imagine how many hindrances I have +had." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but I can indeed!" with earnest emphasis—"I can indeed! And have +grieved that I was not able to be of some service to you in your—your +very difficult position. I did not like to seem to force myself upon +you, but I hoped—I confidently hoped that you would send for me, if it +was in my power to be of the slightest assistance to you." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes—thank you so much—if I had needed anybody. But there were +only too many kind friends." +</P> + +<P> +"Aha! Yes, I expect so." His eye lighted and his lip curled craftily. +"I have no doubt whatever of THAT. 'Where the carcase is—' You know +the rest?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am not a carcase," she rallied him playfully—for quite the first +time in her life. +</P> + +<P> +"No, indeed; I should have said 'prey'. Ah, my dear De—Miss +Pennycuick, you will find plenty and to spare of so-called friends, +professing anxiety to serve you, when their only object is to serve +themselves." +</P> + +<P> +"I expect so," she assented, smiling. +</P> + +<P> +"So young a girl"—subtle flattery this, now that Deb was in her late +thirties—"to be suddenly called to a position of such immense danger +and responsibility! But"—cheeringly—"I said when I heard of it that +Mr Thornycroft had justified my high opinion of his judgment and +character. It is not often that great wealth comes into hands so worthy +of it." +</P> + +<P> +"I am afraid they are not very worthy," sighed Deb. Mr Goldsworthy knew +better. He knew HER better—not only from personal intercourse, the +observation and intuition of a man trained to read character, but from +the loving representations of his dear wife. +</P> + +<P> +"Where is she?" Miss Pennycuick asked abruptly. "Not out, I hope?" +</P> + +<P> +"Out—hardly! She will be here in a moment. I am afraid, when you see +her, you will think her looking delicate. The state of her health is a +matter of the most anxious concern to me." +</P> + +<P> +"What is the matter with her health? She was always well at home. We +used to think her the strongest of the family—until—" +</P> + +<P> +"Until she fell into the clutches of that dreadful man," Mr Goldsworthy +concluded for her. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!"—Deb coloured and frowned—"that is not what I was going to say." +(What she had really been going to say was—"until her marriage.") "And +why do you rake up that old story? I thought it had all been forgotten +long ago." +</P> + +<P> +"It has been unpleasantly revived," said Mr Goldsworthy solemnly. "And +it is my duty to tell you about it, if you have not heard." +</P> + +<P> +Deb looked equally annoyed and alarmed. "What has been revived?" she +asked. +</P> + +<P> +He dropped his voice apologetically. +</P> + +<P> +"I have been hearing of his going on in exactly the same way with +another." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," sighed Deb, relieved that it was not Mary who had been the +reviver; "then it's no business of ours, thank goodness." +</P> + +<P> +"Pardon me—it is very much our business," he urged weightily. "I +grieve to tell you that it is your sister, Mrs Ewing, who is implicated +in the affair. Do you mean to say that you know nothing about it?" +</P> + +<P> +Deb knew something, and so she put the question by. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't encourage scandalmongers. Mrs Ewing is young and +thoughtless—and pretty—which naturally lays her open to ill—natured +gossip." "My informant is one of the least ill-natured of women; she is +a person of the highest principle." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, those high-principled women—I know them!" +</P> + +<P> +Mr Goldsworthy was nonplussed for the moment. He could not accept the +suggestion that Deb was not high-principled. But he gave up his +informant. +</P> + +<P> +"There is ample evidence that the man is Mrs Ewing's lover," he +grieved. "He has been seen with her in the most equivocal situations. I +don't wish to go into details—to mention things unfit for a young +girl's ears—" +</P> + +<P> +"I hope not," put in Deb, her patience giving out. "I am not fond of +that kind of talk. I should not believe, either, in any nasty tales +connected with my sister, or with Captain Carey. And you ought not to +listen to them, for Mary's sake. You should not pander to your +high-principled ladies. You should tell them to be more charitable, and +to mind their own business." +</P> + +<P> +A year ago the parson would have taken umbrage at this rebuke; he now +hastened to deprecate displeasure on the part of the one whom, of all +the world, he most desired to please. +</P> + +<P> +"Far be it from me to speak ill of anyone belonging to you," he +declared solemnly; but still he could not help it. +</P> + +<P> +The most good-natured person, if he be greedy, will seek to ingratiate +himself with Power by disparagement of rival suitors. He was following +an impulse that might be described as an instinct, in trying to weaken +Deb's favour towards the rest of her relatives in order to concentrate +as much as possible upon himself—to push back, as it were, the hands +that he imagined eagerly outstretched to her (palm upwards), that the +more might be dropped into his own. He asked her if she had seen Mrs +Breen, and sighed over that plebeian connection. +</P> + +<P> +"I may be poor," said he, "but I do come of a good family. It is +unfortunate, perhaps, but we cannot help our prejudices." "It is a +ridiculous prejudice," said Deb, "especially in a country like this." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it is—it is. I own it; but—well, you know—" +</P> + +<P> +She brusquely brought him back to the question of Mary's health. +</P> + +<P> +"It is Mary that I want to hear about. Tell me—before she comes +in—what is the matter with her?" +</P> + +<P> +He was willingly confidential. +</P> + +<P> +"She has worries," said he—"worries that you, my dear young lady, in +YOUR position, know nothing of—would not understand if I were to tell +you." +</P> + +<P> +"I have been in positions to understand most kinds of worries," said +Deb. "What are they? Money worries?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I have a delicacy in—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you need not have! I know, of course, that you cannot have been +too well off, and I am here on purpose to do something for you, if you +will allow me.' There was no need to beat about the bush, she knew, +since Mary was out of hearing. 'Tell me exactly, if you don't mind—in +strict confidence, of course. No need to trouble her—and I shall not +say anything." +</P> + +<P> +He told her, with fullness and fervour, when he had expressed his too +fulsome gratitude. +</P> + +<P> +"I have done my best, Miss Pennycuick. You bade me be good to her; I +gave you my solemn promise—and I can conscientiously say that I have +kept my word." Well, so he had; according to his lights he had been an +exemplary husband. "But circumstances have been against me. In the +first place, I was in error somewhat, as you know, in regard to my +wife's expectations from her father. I did not marry her for her money, +as you also know, but appearances were such that I naturally concluded +she would have a considerable income of her own. I did not care for +myself one way or the other, but I was glad to believe that there would +be the means to continue to her the mode of life that she had been used +to. I acted upon this supposition, false, as it turned out, and +anticipated, most imprudently, I confess, the little fortune that I +imagined to be secure. When we came here, where living is so much more +expensive than in the country"—with no Redford to draw upon—"I +surrounded my wife with the comforts that were her due, and which I +fully believed she had every right to." He waved his hand over the +still blooming Axminster carpet and the brocaded suite the family was +not allowed to sit on. "I spent—we spent the little capital +represented by your father's wedding present—I had an erroneous idea +that it was to be an annual allowance pending the eventual division of +the estate; and then—well, then you know what happened." +</P> + +<P> +Deb nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"Did you," she inquired feelingly, "borrow of those professional +money-lenders?" +</P> + +<P> +She was prepared to be very sympathetic in that case; but Mr +Goldsworthy repelled the suggestion with scorn. +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly not. I never borrowed money in my life. I struggled and +scraped and saved, as best I could; I endeavoured in vain to augment my +small income by little speculations—harmless little dabblings in +mining shares; I—but I won't bore you with these +disagreeables"—pulling himself up with an air of forced cheerfulness. +</P> + +<P> +"But I want to know," said Deb. "You spoke of worries—Mary's +worries—worries now; are you still—" +</P> + +<P> +He spread his hands and wagged his head. +</P> + +<P> +"I'd rather not talk about our troubles," he sighed. "I don't want to +dim the sunshine of your—" +</P> + +<P> +And suddenly his eye flashed and his brow contracted with annoyance. +Mary—somewhat hesitatingly, to be sure—walked in. +</P> + +<P> +Robert had insisted that the pater was all wrong in his idea that it +was proper for him alone to receive the visitor, and for the mistress +of the house to linger inhospitably after it was known that she must +know of the visitor's arrival. Robert had coerced his mother into doing +the correct thing. Politely he opened the drawing-room door for +her—that, of course, was absolutely the correct thing—and escorted +her forward with the aplomb of a man of the world, nicely blended with +the respectfulness appropriate to a nephew and a school-boy. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, HERE she is!" Mr Goldsworthy exclaimed heartily. +</P> + +<P> +The sisters were at once in each other's arms. Deb, pierced to the +heart by Mary's aged and faded looks, was the most demonstrative of the +two; Mary struck her after a moment as being a little reserved and +chilly—as if on the watch to repel benevolence as soon as it should +take tangible form. Deb understood, and was warned to be circumspect. +</P> + +<P> +"And this is our boy—grown out of knowledge, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +Mary stepped swiftly aside to let Robert come forward, and there was no +mistaking the sentiments held in common by the parents with regard to +their son. Their two faces were mirrors for each other, suffused with +the same tender pride. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps the child has reconciled her to the rest of it," Deb hazarded +a hope. "She may be happy." +</P> + +<P> +For Mary smiled and moved alertly about the room. She accepted her +husband's ostentatious hand and chair, and when he resumed the +conversation, or rather restarted it, on the subject of Robert's +achievements at school, she followed where he led, so long as he did +not seem leading towards Deb's pocket, backing him up in the most +wifely manner. "Can it be possible?" Deb kept asking herself, glad at +heart to see such signs, which yet lessened her pity for and interest +in her sister. But Mary, with all the pride of the Pennycuicks in her, +was not, one to "let on". Her skeleton was locked tight in the cupboard +it belonged to when visitors were about—especially such a visitor as +this—and also when they were not about, so far as she could have it so. +</P> + +<P> +So that a sort of air of entertaining "company" pervaded the room. Deb +felt a constraint with her sister, and that she was making no way with +her mission. But Robert stepped into the breach. With Mary's son the +impulsive lady of Redford was unexpectedly pleased. There was not a +trace of Pennycuick to be discerned in him; nevertheless, he was a +good-looking, intelligent and interesting boy. He sat by her on the +sacred brocaded sofa while she brightly questioned him, brightly +answering her with aptness and good sense; his parents beaming on the +pair, even the father content to play second fiddle to give the son his +chance. Here, at any rate, thought Deb, was material to hand for the +work she had come to do. +</P> + +<P> +"I love boys," she remarked—and so she did, as some people love +dogs—"and Robert and I are going to be great friends; aren't we, +Robert?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is very good of you to say so, aunt," Robert replied, with +characteristic propriety. +</P> + +<P> +"But, do you know, I don't think I shall call you Robert," she went on. +"It has a prim sound"—but it was the primness of himself that she +wanted to break down—"and it doesn't suit a boy of your tender years. +I think I'll call you Bob, if you don't mind." +</P> + +<P> +"I wish you would," he adroitly answered her. +</P> + +<P> +"What is your bent towards, in the way of a career, Bob?" +</P> + +<P> +He said he thought the law—to be a judge some day. +</P> + +<P> +"You don't care for station life?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, he does," his father eagerly interposed. "He loves it. But he has +had so few chances—" +</P> + +<P> +"Which is your school, Bob?" +</P> + +<P> +A seminary of no repute was named, and the father again intervened to +regret that it was not one of the public schools. "But they, +unfortunately, have been beyond our means—" +</P> + +<P> +Here Mary broke in with praises of the seminary. It had such an +excellent headmaster, was so conveniently situated—really better in +many ways than one of the great schools— +</P> + +<P> +And then Robert broke in. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear mother!" he ejaculated, in a compassionate and forbearing way. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, Bob knows it is not better," laughed Deb. "And it isn't, Mary; you +are no authority, my dear. Which of the public schools do you fancy, +Bob?" +</P> + +<P> +He mentioned his choice, and the University scholarships that were to +be had there. +</P> + +<P> +"Debbie!" implored Mrs Goldsworthy, under her breath. +</P> + +<P> +"Hush-sh!" hissed her husband. +</P> + +<P> +"You be quiet, Molly," Deb playfully adjured her. "This has nothing to +do with you, or with anybody except Bob and me. You come and spend your +next vacation with me at Redford, Bob, and then we can talk it all over +together." +</P> + +<P> +She nodded to him meaningly. He smiled with perfect comprehension. +</P> + +<P> +"How can we thank you," Mr Goldsworthy murmured emotionally, for he +also understood. "It is too, too—" +</P> + +<P> +"It's all right, pater," the remarkable boy silenced him. "Aunt Deborah +knows how we feel about it." +</P> + +<P> +Mary sat in stolid silence, for once indifferent to her husband's dumb +command; then tears welled into her tired eyes. She pocketed her pride +for her child's sake. It had been her hopeless longing for years to +give her darling's splendid abilities full scope. +</P> + +<P> +"He will repay you, Debbie," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, don't be so grudging—so ungenerous!" cried Deb. +</P> + +<P> +Tea and cakes were brought in, and Bob, as he was thenceforth to be +styled, waited upon his aunt in the correctest manner. He had by this +time taken on an air that seemed to say: "You and I understand the +ropes; you must excuse these poor parents of mine, who were not born +with our perceptions." And Deb, no more proof against this sort of +thing than meaner mortals, had a feeling of special proprietorship in +him which she found pleasant, although he was not exactly the +heir-on-probation that she could have wished; which, of course, it +would have been preposterous to expect in a son of Bennet +Goldsworthy's. Bennet Goldsworthy accompanied her to the gate when she +went away, forbidding Mary to expose herself, hatless, to the wind. And +there the benevolent aunt's "intentions" were more distinctly +formulated. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish to take entire charge of his education, if you will allow me. +He is a very promising boy, and should have all his chances. Let me +send him to the Melbourne Grammar after Christmas, and as a boarder, if +you don't mind. There are such advantages, both in position and for +study, in living at the school." +</P> + +<P> +"I leave everything—everything, in your hands," murmured the grateful +father. +</P> + +<P> +"By the way"—as an after-thought—"what about your little girl?" +</P> + +<P> +She was not a little girl now, and had finished with school; but, oh, +the boon that a few good lessons in music and languages would be to her! +</P> + +<P> +That matter was settled. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, now," said Deb, "we must think about Mary. She is frightfully +thin. I can see that she has had too many worries, as you say. She must +be taken out of them. I want to have her at Redford with me—as soon as +she can get ready—and give her a good long rest, and feed her up, and +make her fat and strong." +</P> + +<P> +"I only wish you could prevail on her," he sighed. "But I am afraid you +will not get her to go anywhere without me. I have a devoted wife, Miss +Pennycuick"—even if she had not tacitly forbidden "Deborah" in her +poor days, he would not have ventured upon the liberty now that she was +rich—"too devoted, if that can be. She insists upon sharing all my +burdens, though I fain would spare her. I know well that, say what I +will, she will never consent to leaving me to struggle with them alone." +</P> + +<P> +"You have not told me what they are," said Deb, who saw that he was in +dread of her going before he could do so. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, debts—debts—debts!" he answered, with a reckless air. "The +millstone that we hung about our necks when we anticipated that she +would have money, and lived accordingly, and were then left stranded. +The eternal trying to make a shilling go as far as a pound—to make +bricks without straw, like the captive Israelites of old. But why do +you ask me? I hate to talk about it." He made a gesture of putting the +miserable subject aside. +</P> + +<P> +"It was very hard on you," Deb said gently—contradicting the Deb of an +earlier time and different state of things—"to have those +expectations, which were certainly justified, and to be disappointed as +you were. I feel that we Pennycuicks were to blame in that—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, dear, no!" he earnestly assured her. +</P> + +<P> +"And that an obligation rests on me, now that I have the means, to make +some compensation to you—to Mary, rather." +</P> + +<P> +"It is like you to think of that. But really—" +</P> + +<P> +"And I put a blank cheque in my pocket, and a stylographic pen—and +will you let me"—she drew forth the articles mentioned, and made a +desk of the top rail of the gate—"will you do me the favour to accept +from me—what shall I say?—five hundred pounds? Would that relieve +you—and Mary—of the immediate worries?" +</P> + +<P> +He said it would, with the mental reservation that it did not amount to +what he had been defrauded of by Mr Pennycuick (she had made a mistake +in the designation of her gift); but the slight coolness of his +acknowledgement quickly gave place to grateful fervour as he realised +what the immediate five hundred pounds would do for him, and read in +her words an implication that the sum was but an instalment of what she +felt to be his due. He was incoherent in his thanks and benedictions as +he slipped the cheque into his pocket. +</P> + +<P> +"And you will let me have Mary at Redford?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes! She will not want to go, but I shall make her." +</P> + +<P> +"And do not tell her more than you can help about this little private +transaction. She might feel—" +</P> + +<P> +"I will tell her nothing that is likely to vex her." +</P> + +<P> +"Do not—PRAY do not. Only take these sordid worries off her shoulders, +and give her what she needs, and don't let her toil and moil. Remember, +it is for her I do it." There was a little sting in that last remark, +but he was too happy to feel it. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap22"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXII. +</H3> + +<P> +Now, what to do for Rose. +</P> + +<P> +Rose had written warm congratulations to her sister, without mentioning +any desire for a personal interview. Ever since her marriage, she had +refrained from giving invitations to her family, leaving the initiative +in social matters to them—a mark of consideration and good taste on +her part which they had quite approved of; and intercourse had been +limited to afternoon calls, more or less affectionate and informal, but +stopping short at meals in common under the roof of either party. Now, +however, Deb craved for a fuller sympathy with the sweetest-tempered +and kindest-hearted of her sisters, and now it seemed so perfectly easy +to go to her house in pursuit of it. She despatched an impulsive note: +</P> + +<P> +"DEAREST,—I want a quiet talk with you about all that has happened. +May I come to lunch tomorrow, so as to make a long afternoon of it? If +not convenient, fix a day to lunch with me; but I am not so tied as you +are, and besides, I should like to have Peter's advice on one or two +little matters of business, if it would not bother him—of course, +after he comes from town. Don't keep him at home on purpose." +</P> + +<P> +To which Rose replied by telegram: +</P> + +<P> +"Shall expect you early tomorrow for a long day. Peter delighted to +place himself at your disposal." +</P> + +<P> +So Deb set off next morning, full of benevolent intentions, to gather +poor humdrum Rose and her (in his way) truly worthy husband into the +sphere of her golden prosperity. Also, incidentally, to warm herself in +the light of faithful and familiar eyes. Since her final dismissal of +Claud Dalzell—although she was satisfied with that act, and ready to +repeat it again, if necessary—she had been conscious of a personal +loneliness, not sensibly mitigated by her crowd-attracting wealth. +"Someone of my own" was the want of her warm heart. +</P> + +<P> +And Rose, with no petty grudge for past short-comings, answered that +need with open arms. Never was hostess more cordial to honoured guest. +Peter also was at home. He had been to town and back again, and now +stood upon his spotless doorstep, and anon upon his handsome +drawing-room hearthrug, determined that his house should lack nothing +befitting the great occasion. It was all in gala dress—newly-arranged +flowers, festive lunch-table, the best foot foremost; and yet, whereas +there was no hiding the self-seeker in the ingratiating Bennet +Goldsworthy, there was no finding him in this proud host and husband, +whose desire was only to do his dear wife credit. +</P> + +<P> +Neither of them said, in word or manner, "Why didn't you come like this +before?" Deb knew that her welcome would have been the same, and had +hard work not to show too frankly her sense of their magnanimity. As it +was, she nearly kissed Peter in the hall—such a nice, warm, +comfortable, hospitable entrance to as comfortable a home (in its +undeniably middle-class style) as she had ever been inside of—the more +striking in its effect by contrast with Mary's. Peter's cuffs were like +the driven snow; he was charmingly fresh and clean, well barbered and +well tailored; grown quite handsome, too, now that he had filled out +and matured. As for Rose—"I hear," Frances wrote from Paris, "that +poor Rose has become a perfect tub." Mrs Peter was almost as broad as +she was long. But what health in the sunny face! What opulent +well-being in the full curves of her figure, gowned in a fashion to +satisfy even Deb's exigent taste. +</P> + +<P> +They did not tell her it was good of her to come to see them, but they +told her in all the languages of courtesy that they were mighty glad +she had come. She was taken into the drawing-room—full of soft chairs +and sofas that anybody might sit on, and with a fire of clear coals in +a grate that glittered with constant polishing. But everything in +Peter's establishment seemed to shine with pure cleanliness; he took +after his mother, who, modest in other things, was fond of offering a +sovereign to anybody who would find a cobweb in her house. +</P> + +<P> +Deb was peeled of her furs by Peter, with the greatest deference and +politeness, but with none of the obsequiousness that had sickened her +elsewhere; he laid down her sable cloak with the reverence of one who +knew its value, and he asked Rose in a whisper if her sister would like +a glass of wine before lunch. The smiling matron shook her head, and +whispered something else, which sent him out of the room. Then, while +he skipped about in the background, attending to the wines and beers, +she convoyed the guest to the very luxurious bedroom where head-nurse +Keziah dandled the youngest of the Breen children. The rest had had +their dinners and gone out a-walking, so as not to be made too much of +by a silly mother, if it could be helped. Warm was the greeting between +Keziah and her late mistress, and many the questions about Redford and +the old folks; but there was no hint that Mrs Moon hankered after the +big store-rooms and linen-closets, the dignities and privileges of her +former home. Her heart was with Rose's babies now. +</P> + +<P> +"There, what do you think of THIS?" she demanded, as she proudly +displayed her charge, and, being invited thereto, condescendingly laid +it in Deb's outstretched arms. +</P> + +<P> +It was a pretty, healthy creature, fat, dainty and about two months +old, still in the whitest and finest of long clothes. "Little duck!" +Deb crooned, and rubbed her cheek almost with passion on its rose-leaf +skin. Robert's nose, indeed, was dislocated on the spot. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Rosie," she presently blurted out, "I would like to have this +child!" +</P> + +<P> +"Would you?" replied Rose, all smiles. +</P> + +<P> +"No, but, seriously and without joking, I really would, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"I daresay," laughed the plump little mother, and her laugh was echoed +by Keziah as she passed into the adjoining nursery—to leave the long +parted sisters to themselves. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, look here," the guest addressed the hostess, thoughtfully and +deliberately, as soon as they were alone, "if you will give her to me, +I will bring her up and educate her as perfectly as care and money can +do it. She shall take the name of Pennycuick, and be my daughter, and +my heiress, and the future representative of the family. And," she +added, for her own inward ear, "we can live at home or somewhere, if +necessary, where Breens and such will not have the chance to interfere +with us." +</P> + +<P> +"As if I would give my baby away," Rose sweetly jeered her—"even for a +kingdom!" +</P> + +<P> +"You have five more, and may have another five—or twenty-five. It +looks like it." +</P> + +<P> +"But none to spare. Besides, you won't want other people's children +when you get your own. How about her being the heiress then?" +</P> + +<P> +"I shall never have children of my own," said Deb, with tightened lips. +"That is why I want to adopt one." Rose laughed the idea to scorn. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course you will!" cried she. "You must. All the money in the world +is nothing compared with a baby. I wouldn't give one of mine for twenty +fortunes—not if I had to earn their keep at the wash-tub." +</P> + +<P> +"Not even for the child's own advantage?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is not to any child's advantage to grow up thinking that its mother +did not care to be a mother to it," said Rose. "Nor yet—possibly—to +grow up to look down on her." +</P> + +<P> +"Rose!" Deb's guilty face flamed scarlet. +</P> + +<P> +"Or on her father," Rose continued, with soft but firm persistence. +"She must have a father too, Deb, and Peter would not give his job away +any more than I would give mine. He thinks the world of them all. He is +just as good a father as he is a husband," with a lift of head and +lighting of eye. "Come to me, my precious!" as the baby whimpered. +"Come to its own mother, then! No, no, Debbie dear, you be a mother +yourself in the natural and proper way; you will find it a deal better +than being rich. Marry some good, kind man straight away, before you +waste any more of your young years. I am sure there must be dozens +dying to have you." +</P> + +<P> +"Dying to have the handling of Mr Thornycroft's money," said Deb, with +a bitterness that surprised her sister. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no," said she; "you are sufficient attraction without that." +</P> + +<P> +"I shall never know it. But this," thought Deb, "is a very Breen-like +turn that the conversation is taking. These people—and Rose has become +one of them—have quite the tradesman's idea of marriage. Any 'good, +kind man' will do. They cannot be expected to understand." She watched +Rose billowing down into her nursing-chair, and pretended to herself +that she was not envious. "It would have been a wildly-rash experiment +to adopt this child, and I shall probably live to be thankful that my +offer was refused," she inwardly argued, while her beautiful eyes +melted at the spectacle of the happy mother snuggling the babe to her +bared breast. "It is a charming little creature now, but it would +probably grow up common, whatever its education and environment. Blood +will tell. And if she took the name of Pennycuick, she could not pass +it on. After all, a boy is best." +</P> + +<P> +So Robert Goldsworthy remained in the position his gifts had gained for +him. +</P> + +<P> +After an admirable meal—in the course of which Deb made herself most +charming to her brother-in-law, while Rose retired as much as possible +from the conversation, in order that he might shine to the best +advantage—those little matters of business that had been mentioned +were discussed. They were trifles invented for the purpose of +compliments to Mr Breen, and the serious energy with which he applied +himself to each case, and his exhaustive treatment of it, showed his +thorough enjoyment of the part alloted to him by the distinguished +woman who was so accomplished in the art of giving pleasure—especially +to men. Frankly, Deb always preferred a man to talk to, and she was +agreeably surprised to find that Peter was very intelligent, and +acquainted with several things beside shopkeeping. Rose was simply +enchanted to find herself 'cut out' by him. When she was not stealing +from the room to leave the coast clear, she was beaming over her +needlework in the background, still as a mouse. Not by word or look +would she spoil his chance of proving to Deb what he really was—how +mistaken in him she and the others had been. +</P> + +<P> +It was Peter who escorted the guest round the garden and stables, Mrs +Peter excusing herself. In the well-stocked greenhouse Miss Pennycuick, +who was fond of flowers, obtained 'wrinkles' that she declared would be +most valuable to her in the management of her Redford houses—which she +implied that he must see; in the interview with the carriage +horse—Rose had a little brougham, not, as her sisters supposed, for +paying calls on other drapers' wives, which she had small leisure for, +but for shoppings and airings and taking children to dentists and +pantomimes—Miss Pennycuick was instructive in her turn, feeling legs +and advising about firing and bandages with the recognised authority of +an expert. Old Bruce, padding at his master's heels, was greeted by +name, patted and shaken hands with, as if he had never abetted rebels; +and the discovery of a litter of choice puppies gave opportunity for +the making of a little present, which was graciously received. +</P> + +<P> +After tea, Rose was invited to show her house—a further proof of her +sister's tact and powers of divination. Now Peter was left behind—he +used the opportunity to cut flowers for Deb to take away with her—and +the little matron was in her glory. From top to bottom, and every +cupboard and corner, and the numerous up-to-date appliances, and the +stocks of silver, linen, china, the ample furnishings of every part, +the solid goodness of every bit of material—all was displayed with +modest pride, the complacence of one who knows there is nothing to hide +or apologise for. +</P> + +<P> +"Isn't it a nice home, Debbie? Could any woman wish for a better home?" +she asked again and again, unable to restrain herself. +</P> + +<P> +And Deb, with a few secret reservations, said "Yes" and "No" with +kindly warmth, thinking to herself: "Happy child, to be satisfied so +easily! How much happier than we who want the moon!" +</P> + +<P> +"I often wonder why I am so blessed," Rose said, in the midst of the +house inspection, "when poor Molly, who deserved so much more, lives +the life she does. Ah, Deb—what a marriage!" +</P> + +<P> +She spoke of it exactly as Bennet Goldsworthy had spoken of hers—in a +spirit compounded of benevolence and contempt, the former element +preponderating in him, the latter in her. At the moment she was +exhibiting the complete appointments of Peter's dressing-room. +</P> + +<P> +"My husband may be a draper," said she, "but at least he does not shave +in my room." +</P> + +<P> +The survey of the house ended at the nurseries. Rose had purposely left +the best till last. Her throwing open of the door revealed a picture so +charming that it persuaded Deb to accept an invitation to dinner in +order that she might do justice to it. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, what a delightful room!" she cried, as her eyes ran round its +pictured walls, glowing in the evening firelight. +</P> + +<P> +"Not large enough now," the smiling mother objected. "We are going to +build new ones—a wing at the back—and turn these into bedrooms for +the elder children, who will soon be old enough to have their own." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, what little loves!" Deb then exclaimed, her eyes upon the young +inhabitants—five little fat, white, vigorous creatures in various +stages of preparation for bed. +</P> + +<P> +"There is one absent," explained Rose, in accents of keen regret. +"John, the eldest; he is paying a visit to his grandparents. This is +Constance, the second"—a golden-haired girl, enjoying her nightly +treat of nursing the new baby. "And this is Kathleen"—a chubby +creature in a flannel dressing-gown, waiting for her bath; "and +Lucy"—being rubbed down by the nursery underling, Jane; "and +Pennycuick"—Deb started at the name, and was uncertain whether it +pleased her or not in this connection—the baby but one, in the tub +under the hands of old head-nurse Keziah. "ARE they not sweet?" +</P> + +<P> +They really were. Clean-blooded, clear-eyed, well-fed, well-kept, full +of life and fun—the pride of the maternal heart was amply justified. +Deb plunged into the group delightedly, kissed them, teased them, +tickled them, did everything a proper aunt should do; and Rose was in +ecstasies. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Debbie," she pleaded, "DON'T go yet! Stay with them for a little. +Stay and see baby undressed—I always do it myself—and have a bit of +dinner with us; you will, won't you? Give me my nursing apron, Jane." +</P> + +<P> +As she tied the sheet of flannel over her smart gown, she whispered to +Jane: +</P> + +<P> +"Go down and tell Mr Breen that Miss Pennycuick is going to stay to +dinner." +</P> + +<P> +Then she turned up her sleeves, settled herself upon a low chair, and, +with bath-tub and belaced toilet basket, and warming night-clothes +around her, performed the task that made this hour the happiest of her +happy day. As closely as the romping children allowed, Deb watched her, +and marvelled at her quick skill and lightness of hand. Who would have +thought that little Rose could be so clever? The healthy baby, so +deftly handled, raised no protest, but curled her toes as if she +enjoyed it; and when all was done, the snowy-robed, perfumed creature +was laid to its young mother's generous breast, and sucked itself to +sleep in five minutes. Deb, wistfully observant, began to dimly +apprehend that to wish Rose's marriage undone would be about as kind as +to wish back to earth the dead whom we believe in heaven. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile, Peter had been bustling about after such dinner arrangements +as he could attend to. Mr Thornycroft himself had never taken more +pains to please this guest. Deb enjoyed strawberries for the first time +that season, and a glass of wine that even Claud could not have carped +at. Coffee was brought to the drawing-room, from which Rose slipped +away for a whispered colloquy with her husband in the hall; the result +of which was that they came in together to ask Miss Pennycuick to do +them the honour of standing godmother to the baby. Deb put the crown +upon the gracious day by promptly consenting. +</P> + +<P> +"But that," she thought, with some chagrin, as she rolled homewards—or +rather, bedwards—with Peter's flowers in the carriage beside +her—"that is the extent of my tether in this direction. A christening +mug, and a bit of jewellery on her birthdays—I shall be allowed that; +otherwise I can be of no more use to them than if I were a workhouse +pauper. They are independent of me and of everybody." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap23"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXIII. +</H3> + +<P> +The years passed, and the destinies of our friend began to take final +shape. The bread cast upon the waters returned. The chickens came home +to roost. +</P> + +<P> +One winter's morning Captain Guthrie Carey brought his ship into +Hobson's Bay. The agents of his company sent letters to him there. He +took one from the sheaf, and read it carefully—read it four times. +Then he tore it into little pieces and dropped it over the side. The +pilot and the first officer wondered at the concentrated gravity of his +mien, at the faraway look in his cold blue eyes. Yet is was a very +short and simple letter. There were no names inside, and it merely said: +</P> + +<P> +"I returned by last mail, and am at the above address. I shall be at +home tomorrow afternoon at five. Of course I am seeing nobody, so we +shall be quite undisturbed. Be punctual, if possible." +</P> + +<P> +The "above address" was the big house that had belonged to the late Mr +Ewing. "Tomorrow afternoon" was but an hour off. +</P> + +<P> +At five precisely Captain Carey shed his ulster in the palatial +vestibule, and at the heels of a soft-footed man-servant, marched +through the warm hall and up the shallow, muffled stairs to the +familiar drawing-room—a long room, the lower end of which was in +shadow, and the upper illuminated like a shrine, with rosy lamps +projecting from a forest of chimney ornament, and a great bright red +fire twinkling upon tiles and brass. The big palms were in their big +pots, spreading and bowing over settees and cosy corners; every bowl +and vase overflowed with the choicest flowers, although it was wintry +June. And the tea-table was ready; the old seductive chairs and tables +were grouped upon the Persian hearthrug in the old way, with the +sheltering screen half round them. Indications of the desire of the +mistress of the house to give him special welcome were too marked and +many to be ignored. +</P> + +<P> +He was left here to meditate in solitude for a few minutes, and he did +all the meditating that was possible in the time. His heart thumped +rather faster than was necessary, but his strong face was a picture of +composed determination. Indeed, it was not easy to recognise the young +Guthrie Carey of old Redford days in this stern, tough, substantial +man, steady as a rock amid the winds and waves of incalculable fate. +Just now he had the look of a military commander braced for a pitched +battle. And the V.C. has been won for many a less courageous enterprise +than that on which he was now engaged. +</P> + +<P> +Leaning his broad shoulders on the ledge of the mantelpiece, and +roasting his stout calves at the glorious fire, he watched the distant +doorway with narrowed but keenly-glinting eyes. When he saw the dim +curtain lift to let in the light from the landing and a slim woman's +figure, he straightened himself, and set his teeth hard. It had to be +faced and fought, he felt, and the sooner it was over the better for +them both. +</P> + +<P> +She came fluttering up to him, with both hands held out. How white they +were against the crape! And how wonderfully her complexion and her hair +were set off by the black robe and the fine lawn bands at throat and +wrists! He loathed the mockery of the widow's weeds, but thought he had +never seen her look so lovely. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Guthrie! Oh, what YEARS it seems! Were you wondering what had +become of me? But I couldn't—somehow I didn't feel that I +COULD—before—" +</P> + +<P> +She cast herself into his arms in the most natural way in the world. He +laid one of them round her waist lightly, and kissed her brow; then, +when she lifted it for the purpose, her mouth—the sweetest woman's +mouth that ever made a pair of soft eyes omnipotent. After some seconds +of silence, she looked at him questioningly, all a-quiver with nervous +excitement. Her delicate cheek was pink like a La France rose. +</P> + +<P> +"It was so good of you to come," she murmured humbly. "It wasn't—it +didn't bother you? You were not wanting to do something else, were you, +dear?" There was revealed in tone and manner the fact that even selfish +Frances had come to care for something more than for herself. +</P> + +<P> +"No—oh, no," he replied, rather breathlessly. "I WAS going up the +country this afternoon, but fortunately I got your letter in time." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, if you had! What should I have done? I couldn't stand it any +longer, Guthrie. It is four whole months—since—though it seems like +yesterday—" +</P> + +<P> +"And how are you?" he broke in, taking a fresh grip of the sword, as it +were. +</P> + +<P> +He held her off from him, glancing at her shoulder, her skirt—anything +but her eyes, which were HER sword, two-edged and deadly. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, don't look at me!" she exclaimed, shrinking. "I hate myself in +this horrible gown—I feel so mean and hypocritical—though I do mourn +for him, Guthrie. You must not think I feel happy because he is +dead—no, indeed; I wish I could! But one must conform to a certain +extent, mustn't one? And every respect that I can possibly show to his +memory—especially after the way he has treated me! I suppose you +heard—" "What?" Guthrie had heard, but asked the question to fill time. +</P> + +<P> +"Five thousand a year," said she, "at my absolute and entire disposal, +with no restriction or condition of any sort or kind." +</P> + +<P> +She made the announcement in a level tone, and without a smile, but he +detected the triumph and satisfaction underneath; and, feeling much the +stronger for it, he observed gravely that the dead man was a good man. +"And I always knew it, Francie, worse luck!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, so did I! Far—far too good for the likes of me. But—well, we +need not talk about that now. We couldn't help ourselves, could we? And +the past is past; everything is different now. Oh, Guthrie, what it is +to kiss you without feeling that I am doing wrong!" +</P> + +<P> +She kissed him as she said it, pressing him to her. Of course he kissed +her back, but his hands on her waist were rigid, as if he wore an +evening shirt, and was afraid of her crushing the front of it. She +might have noticed this if she had not caught a glimpse of herself at +the moment in a mirror behind him. +</P> + +<P> +"One thing," she said, "I did draw the line at. I positively refused to +wear a cap. I knew—I knew you couldn't have borne THAT!" Holding her +charming head, rippled all over with goldenchestnut curls and coils, +just in front of his eyes, she pleaded for confirmation of this +statement. "You couldn't have stood seeing me in a cap, could you, +Guthrie?" "As far as I can judge," he replied, "nobody asks you to wear +caps these days, whether you're a widow or not. Why, the very +grandmothers go about in yellow fringes and things, pretending they are +thirty or forty, when everybody knows they are twice that, at the +least. When I was a youngster, there used to be old ladies—my mother +was one; but the race has died out." +</P> + +<P> +"I, at any rate, am not an old lady," Mrs Ewing remarked, with a joyous +smile. "My yellow fringes and things are all my own, and so is my +complexion, and so are my teeth." +</P> + +<P> +Her smile widened to reveal their pearly excellence. She took his hand, +and rubbed the back of it on her downy cheek, and laid the palm on her +soft, thick locks. Even yet she did not see that anything was the +matter, confident in her still young beauty, and in the fact that he +now knew for certain that the bulk of her husband's property was hers. +How often she had wondered whether he knew or not, feeling sure that he +MUST have heard the news at some of the many ports he had put into +since it had become a matter of public knowledge, and why he allowed +days and weeks, even months, to pass without making a sign. There had +always been the cables, anyway. She put it down to his delicacy, his +sense of the awkwardness of the situation, his consideration for her. +</P> + +<P> +"We will have tea first," she said, touching the bell-button. "Then we +shall not be disturbed any more. We can talk till dinner-time. Oh, how +I wish you could stay for dinner, and a long, long evening! But it is +better not to do things of that sort yet, don't you think? Better not +to run risks of making scandal now that there's no longer any need for +it." +</P> + +<P> +"Much better," said Captain Carey firmly. +</P> + +<P> +"And, after all, there are lots of ways that we can meet without doing +anything improper. I have thought of heaps. I can go to Sydney—I can +go home, for that matter; I am a perfectly free agent. And we have now +less than three-quarters of a year. Guthrie, I want you to let me have +the twelve months good. It is a long wait, I know, but we should feel +the benefit of it afterwards—" +</P> + +<P> +"Hush-sh!" +</P> + +<P> +She glanced down the room in alarm, and saw the door open to admit the +servant she had summoned. He brought teapot and kettle, hot cakes and +muffins, and arranged them with unnecessary carefulness on the little +table by the fireside. Hostess and guest watched his slow manoeuvres +with an impatient but fascinated gaze, and tried to think about +something to talk about for his edification, and could not. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you, Willis; that will do, Willis. I'll ring if I want anything +else. I don't know, Captain Carey, whether you are one of those people +who despise tea and cake—" +</P> + +<P> +They were alone once more. Captain Carey refused the proffered +refreshment. Mrs Ewing, making no effort to persuade him, took a few +mouthfuls hastily; then she set her cup down, and with a quick flirt of +the hand, extinguished the two pink lamps. They were old-fashioned +gas-lamps too. +</P> + +<P> +"We don't want lights to talk by," she said, in a casual way. "The +firelight is enough. I think firelight at this hour so much the +pleasantest, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes," he responded desperately, and indeed was glad of the shelter +of a shadow on his face; but he said to himself, with clenched hands +and a long indrawn breath, "Now comes the tug-of-war." +</P> + +<P> +A very large and wide sofa, low, deep-seated, full of springs and down +pillows, stood in the cosy firelight, a great, tall, curving screen +behind it. Mrs Ewing—as she had done many times before—crossed over +to this sofa, sank into its yielding depths, and looking up at her +companion, patted the empty seat beside her. The man hesitated for an +instant, and then—as he had done many times before—obeyed the +significant gesture. But now the time for preparation, for hesitation, +had expired; it was necessary to brace himself for the decisive deed. +Even as she clasped her hands beneath his ear, he unclasped them, +gently but firmly, and drew them down. With his back to the firelight, +she could not see his face, but he could see hers, and the swift change +in its expression. She was puzzled and surprised, but, as her hands +were still held fast in his iron fists, resting on his knee, she was +not conscious of the state of the case. +</P> + +<P> +"My girl," he said, clearing his throat—she had allowed him so many +liberties that this mode of address was quite in order—"you and I can +speak plainly to each other. There's no need for us to beat about the +bush, is there?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course not," she replied, all at sea as to what this portended, but +jumping to the conclusion that he was going to be proud about the +money. "It would be an odd thing if we took to being shy, at this time +of day." +</P> + +<P> +"It would, wouldn't it?" He cleared his throat again, and made a fresh +start. "Look here, Francie—don't do that! Listen to me child—" +</P> + +<P> +"I am not a child, sir. Allow me to inform you that I was twenty-nine +last birthday." She was so pleased to think she was only twenty-nine, +rich and free, with her life in her hands, and half a year-from thirty +still, when she might have dragged on till she was old and grey, or in +her grave! "And why am I not to do that? Since when have you lost your +taste for kisses?" Then suddenly, with an anxious cry—"Guthrie! +darling! what is the matter with you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing," he said hastily—"nothing, of course, except that we must be +serious and sensible, and—and talk things over quietly, dear. As you +say, you are not a child. No more am I. We know the ropes, Francie, +don't we? We've outgrown the delusions of boys and girls. We've had our +experiences as man and woman—eh? You know what I mean. No need to +mince matters—to go in for conventional nonsense—you and I. We can +talk straight to each other at a time like this?" +</P> + +<P> +As he laboured painfully to explain, without explaining, her face faded +like a sunny landscape when a wet fog crawls over it. For, Francie +though it was, she loved him—she loved him all she knew. +</P> + +<P> +"Guthrie," she moaned piteously, "have you left off caring for me?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, Francie. Of course I haven't." +</P> + +<P> +"Have you—while I have been away, and in so much trouble—been putting +another woman in my place?" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly not." +</P> + +<P> +"Is it that you don't like to live on his money, Guthrie?" +</P> + +<P> +"I should NOT like to live on it—decidedly not. But the fact is, I +haven't given the money a thought." "Then why—why are you like this?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll tell you, Francie—I'll tell you plainly. It seems infernally +brutal—but I'm sure you know I wouldn't say a thing to hurt you if I +could help it." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, go on!" +</P> + +<P> +There were red roses in her cheeks now, and a sparkle that was not all +firelight in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"It is this, dear—don't try to take your hands away, I am going to +keep them; I must have you listen to me till I've quite done—it is +this, Francie: Love, as we very well know—I mean our sort of love—is +one thing, and marriage another—" +</P> + +<P> +"WHAT? Oh, is THAT it? Ah, ah! I see now." +</P> + +<P> +"Take your own case," said he, with a relentless air. "Haven't you +proved it up to the hilt?" +</P> + +<P> +"Proved what?" +</P> + +<P> +"That marriage is a failure." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course, marriage is a failure when it is blundered into as I +blundered into mine, when I was too young and ignorant to know a thing +about it. That is not saying it would be a failure now." +</P> + +<P> +"It would be a dead failure, Francie. I am absolutely convinced of it." +</P> + +<P> +"Because you have grown tired of me! Because somebody else has got hold +of you behind my back! Because—oh, because you men are all alike, +thinking of nothing but the amusement of the hour, sucking a woman's +life-blood as if she were an orange, and throwing her aside like the +useless skin—without honour, without constancy, selfish, heartless, +treacherous—" +</P> + +<P> +"Hush, Francie! Don't talk rubbish. I may be like other men—I've no +doubt I am—but I'm not all that. When I make an engagement, I keep it. +When I take obligations and responsibilities upon me, I do my best to +fulfil them. Most men do—decent men; but they never have justice done +them in these cases." +</P> + +<P> +"In these cases!" she echoed scornfully. "Everybody knows what their +conduct is in these cases. The world is well used to it. Oh, I ought to +have known—if I hadn't been the most incredible fool! It was not for +want of warnings. But you seemed so different! The idea that you could +play with a woman in this way—compromise her—change all her life, and +spoil it utterly—and then back out! Oh! oh! Can you sit there and tell +me that you have incurred no responsibility in your dealings with me, +Guthrie—making me love you as I did—making me a bad woman—unfaithful +to my good husband—the most honourable, the most trustful of men—" +</P> + +<P> +"Did I do that? Honour bright now, Francie." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, this is too much!" she burst out furiously, springing from her +seat, and being dragged back by his iron grasp of her hands. "Let me +go, sir! I have had insults enough—and in my own house—with no +husband to protect me—" +</P> + +<P> +"Sit down," he commanded. "And for God's sake don't—don't go on like +that! I can't stand it. I am not insulting you, dear—not wilfully +insulting you—not more than I am forced to. I only want us both to +understand the case as it is; surely you and I are not afraid to speak +out—to face the truth? You are not crying, Francie?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, no! Indeed, I'm not! Don't you flatter yourself! I am not hurt, +and I'm not the sort of person to go begging a man to marry me, either. +I don't think—I really DON'T think that I am QUITE so poorly off as +all that comes to." Here she laughed, but only for an instant. "If you +were to go down on your knees before me, Guthrie, I would not have you +now, after the things you have said to me." +</P> + +<P> +The statement calmed and strengthened him. He felt able to say the rest. +</P> + +<P> +"Quite right, Francie. Dozens of men will come courting you as soon as +you go out again, and any one of them will make you a better husband +than I should have done; but not a better friend. I hope you will +always remember that." +</P> + +<P> +"Many thanks. Will you be so very kind as to release my hands, Captain +Carey? They ache." +</P> + +<P> +"One moment. I want to make sure of the last chance I shall get to +explain—to tell you exactly what I mean—you, who are old enough, +experienced enough, to understand. I don't want to defend myself, +Francie—not at all. I am not the cad to say, 'The woman tempted me, +and I did eat.' I don't blame you, dear—I don't blame anybody. A woman +is a woman; and a lovely woman like you—well, the way things are +managed in this world, I don't believe she can help herself. But look +here, Francie, a man is a man too, and a good deal more so. If you were +a girl, I wouldn't say this; but you knew—you knew what you were doing +when you laid yourself out to be sweet and—and kind to a fellow, as +you were to me. Did you take me for an old maid or a Social Purity +Society? You know you didn't. A man does his best, but he's too heavily +handicapped—I won't say by nature—perhaps by habit, which is second +nature—the habit of generations, inherited in his blood—and his case +is not on all-fours with your case. And especially when he is a +sailor—so cut off—so deprived—Very well. And so it happened—as it +happened. Never mind about the right and wrong. What's wrong today may +be right tomorrow; and in any case, no arguing can undo what's done. +We'll leave that." +</P> + +<P> +She sat before him, panting, and the roses in her cheeks were white. +Happily, the fire had grown a little dull by this time. +</P> + +<P> +"For myself," he continued, speaking slowly, as if trying to think +things out—"for myself, whether I ought to repent or not, I don't—I +can't. Theoretically, I know it is always the man who is in the wrong, +and I should have been foully in the wrong—I should be unfit to +live—if you had been an unmarried girl, Francie—or if I had been +the—the—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" she moaned bitterly, grasping his point of view, if not the plain +justice of it. "But I have brought it on myself—I have only myself to +thank. I made myself cheap, and must take the consequences." +</P> + +<P> +"It is not that," he said kindly, but still feeling in his +unsophisticated brain that it was. "I don't hold you cheap, my dear. I +want to disabuse your mind of that idea, that I am throwing anything in +your teeth. Good God, I should think not!—it would come ill from me. I +have no conventional views about these things—none. But look here now: +if you were my wife, I should never see you with another fellow without +thinking—well, you know what I should think—and feeling myself like +poor old Ewing—Oh, I AM a brute!" It was revealed to him all at once. +"Do—DO forgive me!" +</P> + +<P> +"Pray don't apologise!" she cried, in a high, shaking voice. "It is +best, as you say, to speak plainly—not to mince matters—especially as +there is no one to call you to account for what you say." +</P> + +<P> +"And it would be worse for you, ever so much," he continued earnestly. +"Having got into the way of—of this sort of thing—I'm afraid I might +be tempted again—that I couldn't honestly promise—in short, the fact +of the matter is that we are neither of us domesticated, so to speak—" +</P> + +<P> +"There—that will do" she broke in, coldly furious, but with a volcano +in her breast that threatened eruption and devastation shortly. "Will +you let me go, Captain Carey? Or must I call my servants to my +assistance? I have only servants now." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, yes"—and he released one hand—"I will, if you'll say you +forgive me, Francie. I've made an awful mess of it, I know—" +</P> + +<P> +They rose together, and the other hand was freed. It was the right +hand, and she returned it to him immediately. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-bye!" she said, between clenched teeth. +</P> + +<P> +He held her tightly once more. +</P> + +<P> +"May I come and see you again? May I write? I can say it better in +writing." +</P> + +<P> +"You have said all that needs to be said. There is no necessity to +write. If you write to me, I shall return the letter unopened." +</P> + +<P> +"But why? It is surely absurd for us to put on airs of dignity with one +another. Francie, you don't mean us to part like this?" +</P> + +<P> +She stepped quickly across the hearthrug and, with a passionate +gesture, pressed the button of the bell—evidently to summon Willis to +show him out. So he took up his hat, offended in his turn, and for the +first time feeling fairly easy in his mind as to the way he was +treating her. But the tragedy of the moment was turned to vulgar comedy +by her alarm at the fact that she had struck the bell before relighting +the pink lamps. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, where are the matches?" she whispered excitedly. "I can't find +them." +</P> + +<P> +"Here—here!" he cried, fumbling for his own pocket box. +</P> + +<P> +And their flurried hands got mixed as she turned the taps while he +applied the light to the burners. +</P> + +<P> +The instant after they had restored the room to its normal condition, +the butler appeared. Mrs Ewing turned to him with the amazing +self-possession of a woman accustomed to extricate herself at a +moment's notice from an awkward fix. +</P> + +<P> +"Willis," she said sweetly—and even smiled as she spoke—"will you +please have a cab fetched for Captain Carey? He is rather late for a +dinner engagement." The butler acknowledged the order and withdrew. In +the light of the pink lamps the late combatants looked strangely at one +another. +</P> + +<P> +"And you would have married MARY!" the woman commented upon the issue +of the fight. It was both a taunt and an accusation. +</P> + +<P> +The man lifted his brows questioningly, as at a loss to comprehend her +meaning. +</P> + +<P> +"Has that anything to do with it?' he asked. 'I don't see the +connection." +</P> + +<P> +The sentences were short, but signified many things. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap24"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXIV. +</H3> + +<P> +Frances Ewing was a shady name thereafter, to those "in the know". +Pennycuick blood and pride notwithstanding, she seemed to lose her own +sustaining self-respect when she lost the respect of the man she +loved—when he showed her with such barbarous and uncompromising +candour the essential difference between a mistress and a wife. Of +course, she "got over" that grievous affair, which, for a time, broke +whatever heart she had to break. Her freedom and her money, her youth +and her beauty, were still hers, and she made the most of them; and +that most was a great deal. In her cosmopolitan sets she was a popular +and distinguished figure. From one fashionably rowdy Continental resort +to another she carried her rich jewels and trappings, and her personal +magnetism, and sat down for the season to a campaign of social +stratagem and sentimental intrigue—to the indulgence of her unbridled +appetite for excitement and the admiration of men. And ever at the end, +when it was time to move on to another BIJOU apartment in another +place, there was a fresh scalp at her girdle, and nothing, as it were, +to show for it, until at last her vanity was tempted with a title, and +she married an Italian count, who, if all tales were true, paid the +debt that his sex owed her with heavy interest. But those tales did not +reach the ears of the sisters at home. To them—with the object of +suitably impressing them—she wrote an occasional note, of which half +the words were titles of nobility; and the humbler relatives accepted +the fact of her unapproachable elevation above them. The Breens made +easy jokes upon the subject; Mr Goldsworthy's jealousy of her was +overcome by his pride in the connection. "We had a letter from my +sister-in-law, the Countess, the other day," he would amiably remark, +and proceed to repeat and amplify the fashionable intelligence +contained therein, instead of taking away her character as he had been +used to do. Deborah was the only sister with whom she can be said to +have corresponded, and Deborah had a shrewd suspicion that all was not +gold that glittered in Francie's lot. Deborah had the best means of +knowing, being herself a world-traveller, and what is called a society +woman, as well known in the resorts of such as Frances herself. But +although they seemed to run so closely, and so much upon the same +lines, there was as wide a gap of social difference and non-intimacy +between them as between any two of their family. And Deb was not one to +think evil of her own flesh and blood, if it was possible to think good. +</P> + +<P> +She, too, might have filled her letters to Australia with titles of +nobility—nobility of a firmer standing than the Countess and her +friends could boast of—had she been inclined to do so. A baronial +hall, dating from the Conquest—a ducal castle, not to speak of a Royal +Presence Chamber—was nothing to Deborah Pennycuick after a while. +</P> + +<P> +To see her on a crowded London staircase, laughing with a prince or a +prime minister, was a common object of the season for a number of +years; while varnishing days and first nights would have lacked charm +for the society reporter who could not place her fine figure and her +French gowns in his pictures of these scenes. Goodwood and Cowes were +familiar with her striking face and her expert interest in horses and +yachts; Highland shooting-lodges, English hunting-fields, claimed her +for their own. Southern Europe, the Nile, Bayreuth—in short, wherever +social life was bright, comfortable and select, there she turned up +promiscuous, as the spirit moved her, to be welcomed open-armed as a +matter of course. Men, young and old, continued to pay her homage, +which was not just the sort of homage they paid to Frances; proposals +of marriage were, or might have been if not nipped in the bud, almost +as plentiful as invitations to country houses in the autumn. And she +relished it all with singular enjoyment—until she began to feel the +approach of that winter and evening of life which has so sharp a chill +for those who have loved the sun. +</P> + +<P> +Claud Dalzell was likewise a denizen of the great world that was hers +and not Francie's, and, close corporation as it is, they were never far +off each other's beat, seldom in ignorance of each other's whereabouts. +At the same time, they also did not touch. It was known throughout the +great world, which is so small, that there was a deadly feud between +them; and tactful hostesses took pains not to bring them into +juxtaposition. In public places, when meetings occurred by accident, +only the most frigid bows were interchanged. +</P> + +<P> +For, in quite early times, when the Australian heiress, as she was +improperly styled, was taking London more or less by storm, she chanced +to overhear a brief colloquy not intended for her ears. +</P> + +<P> +"Who is that glorious woman that came in with the duchess? I don't see +her just now, but she had a red frock on, with black lace over it—dark +hair and diamond stars—not half as bright and fine as her eyes, by +Jove!" +</P> + +<P> +"It must be Miss Pennycuick—an Australian lady. She is with the +duchess's party." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, is that Miss Pennycuick? Well, now I can believe what I've heard +of her being so charming. She carries it in her face." +</P> + +<P> +"She WAS charming—until she came into her money. That has quite spoilt +her." +</P> + +<P> +It was Claud Dalzell who said it, and Deb heard him say it. She moved +off out of the press that had brought her within reach of his cold +voice—not to be mistaken by her for any other voice—and she vowed +through clenched teeth that never again would she come within that +distance of him, if she could help it. +</P> + +<P> +The years as they passed only strengthened this determination. Each +proud inclination of the head, each ceremonious lift of the hat, added +bitterness to their mutual resentment—to his feeling that she was +spoiled by her money, and to her feeling that he wilfully misjudged +her. The breach was widened by their unconcealed flirtations—a +description mentally applied to the most ordinary man-and-woman +acquaintanceships on either side, but not inappropriate in all cases. +Claud ever loved the company of handsome women who appreciated him; Deb +naturally inclined to nice men in preference to the nicest women; and +each liked to show the other that he or she was still of high +importance to somebody. Rumours of impending marriage were continually +being wafted to his ears or hers, but nothing came of them. He was +confirmed in luxurious bachelorhood; she was aware of many +fortune-hunters, and could not bring herself to value any of her +disinterested suitors at the price of her freedom. So the one-time +lovers drifted more and more apart, until somehow they lost sight of +each other altogether; and meanwhile the years made them old without +their knowing it. +</P> + +<P> +She was unreasonably upset on one occasion by the offer of a specific +for grey hair from a fashionable London hair-dresser. It was absolutely +permanent, harmless and undetectable, he said. "But I am not grey," she +indignantly informed him. Whereupon she saw his keen professional eye +wander about her brow as he murmured something about the faint +beginnings that might as well be checked. At home she studied the +matter carefully in a strong light, and called Rosalie, her maid, to +aid her. The little Frenchwoman assured her that a microscope was +needed to detect a white thread in that beautiful mass of dark +nut-brown. With a microscope, no doubt, as many as half a dozen might +be discerned dimly, just where it waved back from mademoiselle's face. +</P> + +<P> +That same afternoon she and Rosalie left town for one of their +country-house visits. It was a weepy autumn day, and she was not as +fresh as usual—the hair-dresser, combined with some troublesome +shopping, had tired her—and the disquieting suspicion laid hold of her +that she was more easily fatigued than she used to be. While reading +her novel in the train, she counted her years, and compared herself +with the women she knew whose ages were recorded in the Peerage, and +who could therefore be proved to be as old as herself. Some of them +were wrinkled hags. Carelessness or ill-health, doubtless, she +reflected; and neither charge could be laid at her door. Heigh-ho! That +horrid man! +</P> + +<P> +It was dark night when they reached the little station belonging to the +mansion that was their goal. A dozen other guests and their servants +and baggage crowded the platform, and half-a-dozen carriages and +luggage-brakes the yard behind; and Deb was at once in charge of a tall +footman, Rosalie struggling through the press with jewel-case and +dressing-bag, chattering French to one of her familiars in the rear. +Distracted stationmaster and porters uncovered to the stately woman as +she passed. It was all a matter of course to her these days. +</P> + +<P> +She was too late for the big tea-party; the men had gone to the +smoking-room, the women to their own firesides. After a brief but +affectionate interview with her titled hostess, Deb was soon at hers, +slippered and dressing-gowned, sipping the jaded woman's stimulant, +warming the damp and dismalness out of her, assuring herself +confidently that she was not an old woman, and had no intention of +becoming one. +</P> + +<P> +Certainly, when Rosalie had dressed her, she was entitled to an easy +mind. The best of everything tonight, in vindication of her still +unimpaired beauty and potency. Shimmering brocade of her favourite red, +and lace like fairy work; and then that magnificent satin-white breast +and massive throat, and the stately head crowned with the famous five +stars, whose flashing made the eye wink, and which yet were dimmed by +the light of her dark eyes. She surveyed herself with full content when +the last touch had been given her, and her slow sweep a-down corridors +and grand staircase was a triumphal march. She knew that her entrance +into the crowd downstairs could no more fail of its customary effect +than could the appearance of the sun next morning—or, one should +rather say, the announcement of dinner to the tired and hungry shooting +men. +</P> + +<P> +She was met at the foot of the grand staircase by her host, and +immediately surrounded. In the close press of friends she did not +notice the strangers; time was too short and they were too many. A lord +of her acquaintance, who still hoped to make her his lady, took her +into dinner, and called upon all her powers of wit and repartee to meet +his conversational tactics during the meal. It was an exhilarating +encounter, and of sufficient interest to keep her "eyes in the boat". +Moreover, the table was immense, and the chief of the strangers sitting +on her side of it, a long way off. +</P> + +<P> +After dinner there was little comedietta played on the boards of the +toy theatre belonging to the house. Many of the ladies were in their +places before the men, still craving repose after their hard day's +work, could hoist themselves from their chairs in the dining-room. Deb, +having helped to coach one of the amateur performers, was early in her +seat in front. Some of her admirers did manage to squeeze in beside and +behind her from time to time, but the particular stranger haughtily +held aloof. +</P> + +<P> +Then, when the play was over, there was an impromptu dance, for the +theatre was an ANNEXE to the ball-room. It was the young folk who began +it, but older ladies joined in, and all the men but the hardened +sportsmen, who saw a chance to sneak to their snuggery and gun-talk +before the time. The really old women, obviously past their dancing +days, sat around, and looked on and gossiped to one another. And for a +time Deb sat with them. +</P> + +<P> +She was certainly tired—for her—and the fact struck her that she had +not danced for a long time. She had shirked balls, having only too many +entertainments to choose from. She thought it likely that she would be +stiff and heavy on her feet from want of practice—a horrible idea to +her, who had once danced like a feather in the wind. A good stone had +been added to her weight since she had last waltzed with satisfaction +to herself; that also was not a pleasing thought. So when her dinner +lord essayed to entice her, she shook her head. A dozen other men, and +the cream of them too—there was comfort in that—followed his example, +and made her charming compliments when she said laughingly that she was +"too old for these frivolities". +</P> + +<P> +"Too old—gracious heavens!" they apostrophised space. It was +heart-warming to hear them. +</P> + +<P> +But they went off easily, and were soon dancing with the young +girls—sylphs as airy and agile as she had once been. And by degrees +she drew apart from the old ladies and their talk, which she hated to +seem, even to herself, to belong to, and presently found herself in the +extraordinary position of sitting alone. She leaned back in her chair, +and with eyes half shut, looked at the whirling couples, and dreamed of +the days—the dances—the youth—that were no more. +</P> + +<P> +She saw, not this splendid saloon, but a shabby small room in an old +bush house—the walls not panelled with paintings by R.A.s and starred +with clusters of electric lights, but with wreaths of homely evergreens +and smelly kerosene lamps. And amid the happy throng that jostled for +room to dance there, a girl and a young man, newly betrothed, +anticipating an immortal paradise in each other's arms. +</P> + +<P> +And she looked up, and saw Claud Dalzell watching her. +</P> + +<P> +He was horribly aged—illness, it seemed—and had grown quite +white—that splendid lover with whom she had danced, as no girl here +knew how to dance, in the golden prime of everything! Their eyes met, +and there must have been in both pairs something that neither of them +had seen before. He crossed to her side at once, and she did not freeze +him when he got there. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you do? I have been wondering if you were going to recognise +me." +</P> + +<P> +"How do you do? I didn't know you were here. I never saw you until this +moment." +</P> + +<P> +"I have been standing there for ten minutes." +</P> + +<P> +"I did not notice. I was thinking—" "You were—deeply. I was trying to +guess what you were thinking of." +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder, did you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder. Was it, by any chance"—he dropped his voice—"Five Creeks?" +</P> + +<P> +She was quite startled and discomposed by this extraordinary +divination; having no time to decide how she would take it, she filled +the embarrassed moment with a laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"Goodness! I'd no idea that my face was such a tell-tale. I believe I +was. That funny old room, with ridges in the floor, and the ceiling +nearly on your head—how DID we manage to dance in it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, we did manage somehow, didn't we?" +</P> + +<P> +They gazed at the figures wheeling past them, blankly unresponsive to +casual stares and smiles. They seemed to hear the rotten flood-gates, +shut so long ago, creak on their rusty hinges. +</P> + +<P> +"Heard anything of the Urquharts lately?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Alice was married the other day—to a widower with fourteen +children. She has not been very happy at home, I fear, with Harold's +wife. Harold has the place now, you know. Jim gave it up to him when he +married." +</P> + +<P> +"When who married?" +</P> + +<P> +"Harold." +</P> + +<P> +"What's Jim doing?" +</P> + +<P> +"He is my manager at Redford." +</P> + +<P> +Mr Dalzell smiled darkly. "He likes that, I suppose?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know whether he likes it or not, I'm sure, but I do. I know +that everything's right when he is there." +</P> + +<P> +"Married?" "Lawks, no! The most confirmed old bachelor on the face of +the earth." +</P> + +<P> +They fell silent again, still gazing into the room. Deb lay back and +fanned herself; Claud leaned forward and nursed his knee. He ought now +to have asked news of her sisters, but he avoided mentioning any of +them. +</P> + +<P> +"Been back lately, Deb?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not for years, I am ashamed to say." +</P> + +<P> +"Anybody living at Redford?" +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Keene and a few servants only. Too bad, isn't it? Oh, I must go +soon and see the old place. But this European life—somehow, the longer +you live it the less you feel you can live any other." +</P> + +<P> +"I used to feel that. But now—one gets awfully tired of things—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I don't!" +</P> + +<P> +"But then you keep so horribly young, don't you know." +</P> + +<P> +He turned and looked at her. She flushed up like a girl. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you. That's a very pleasing compliment, although I know you +cannot mean it." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd like not to mean it. I'd like to have found you as old as I am +myself." +</P> + +<P> +"How cruel of you! Not that you are such a Methuselah as you would try +to make out—" +</P> + +<P> +"There are not five years between us," he broke in sharply. +</P> + +<P> +"I know." +</P> + +<P> +Back went memory in a flash to a succession of childish birthdays, +their love-tokens and festive celebrations. His was in November, and +his "party" was usually a picnic. Hers was in May, and was "kept" in +the house, with big fires and a tea-table crowned with a three-tiered +iced cake, and blind-man's-buff and turn-the-trencher in the evening. +She recalled wild contests with an imperious little boy, who could +never conquer her except by stooping to it; and the self-conscious +silliness of their behaviour to each other when they grew from children +into boy and girl. +</P> + +<P> +"Not much fun in birthdays now, Deb." He seemed to comment on her +thoughts. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, well!" she sighed vaguely. +</P> + +<P> +And at that instant the music stopped. Someone gave the signal to +retire from the ball-room, bedwards. They were parted by the crowd that +gathered about them when the dancing ceased, and he did not find her +again even to say good-night. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap25"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXV. +</H3> + +<P> +The shooting men were up first, to their early breakfast. It seemed to +Deb a matter of course that Claud would be of this virile company; it +was his saving grace as a man, when he was young, that he was a keen +and accomplished sportsman. After an indifferent night, she rose lazily +and late; found, as she expected, only a few more women in the +breakfast-room, and ate her own meal alone at one of the little tables. +The hostess drifted in amongst the last, and stopped a moment to shake +hands and exchange a word. +</P> + +<P> +"It seems a beautiful day," she said, "and we shall be making up a +party by-and-by to go out and lunch with the guns. You will join us, of +course?" +</P> + +<P> +But Deb thought of Claud amongst the guns, and of the horrible risk of +appearing to run after him; and she replied sweetly that, although she +would have loved the outing, she was afraid she must stay at home, +owing to important letters that had to be written for the afternoon +post. +</P> + +<P> +"All right," said the hostess, "I'll stay too—there are plenty without +me—and we'll have a drive later on." +</P> + +<P> +She passed to her breakfast-table, and Deb rose and went upstairs, to +see what she could find to attend to in the way of pressing +correspondence. +</P> + +<P> +She had the status of a married lady in this great house, as +everywhere; that is to say, a sitting-room of her own—a very cosy +place between tea and the dressing-bell. Just now, however, Rosalie was +busy in it. The maid offered to retire to the adjoining bed-chamber, +but Deb said, "Oh, never mind; go on," and gathering her blotting-book +and papers, went downstairs again to make herself comfortable in the +library. She loved a good library to sit in, and generally found +privacy therein at this time of day. +</P> + +<P> +The library here was magnificent in stately comfort—books in +thousands, busts, old masters, muffling Turkey carpets, a great, +bright, still fire, and armchairs so big and soft that it was strange +they could stand empty. She drew up one of them and sat awhile, +toasting her feet and turning precious leaves—it was the interval +covered by Claud's breakfast—and then set herself to the business she +was supposed to be engaged in. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear Francie,—I tried at half-a-dozen shops to match your Chinese +satin, but nowhere could I get the exact shade. If you like I will try +again when I go back to town, but if I were you I would not attempt to +make it go with any modern stuff, which could not help looking crude +beside it; I would have quite another material and colour. What do you +stay to—" +</P> + +<P> +She paused reflectively, the tip of her pen-handle between her teeth, +her eyes fixed absently upon the green park beyond the open window, +composing a gorgeous costume in her mind. Before she could even decide +whether to advise a ball-dress with CREPE DE CHINE, or a tea-gown with +Oriental cashmere, one of the noiseless library doors swung back, and a +man came in. Without noticing her still figure, he strolled over to a +certain shelf, opened a book that he wanted, and stood, with his back +to her, turning over the leaves. +</P> + +<P> +So he had not gone with the men. How horrid! And what a nuisance that +he should find her here! Well, she was not going to put herself out for +him. She lowered her pen softly, and began to scratch the paper, over +which she bent absorbedly. He turned round. "Oh, I beg your pardon—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it's you, Claud! Good morning! Why, I thought you would be out +with the guns this fine day." +</P> + +<P> +"Fine day, do you call it? There's a wind like a knife. And you sit +here with the window wide open—" +</P> + +<P> +He marched towards it, and shut it with violence. It was a great glass +door between stone mullions. Above it and two fellow-sheets of +glittering transparency, three coats of many quarterings enriched the +colour-scheme of the stately room. She watched him with the beginning +of a smile upon her lips. The humour of the situation appealed to her. +</P> + +<P> +"I like an open window," she remarked mildly. "If you remember, I +always did." +</P> + +<P> +He came towards her, looking at her gloomily, looking himself thin and +grey and shivery—but always like a prince. +</P> + +<P> +"You have more flesh to keep you warm than I have," said he, quite +roughly. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you!" She bridled and flushed. Her massive figure, for a woman +of her years, was perfect; but of course she was as sensitive as the +well-proportioned female always is to the suspicion that she was too +fat. "You have not lost the art of paying graceful compliments." +</P> + +<P> +"I meant it for one," said he, replying to her scoffing tone. "You put +me to shame, Deb, with your vigour and youthfulness. I know how old you +are, and you don't look it by ten years. And you are a beauty still, +let me tell you. It may not be a graceful compliment, but at least it +is sincere. Even these girls here—" +</P> + +<P> +"Nonsense about beauty—at my time of life," she broke in; but she +smiled behind her frown, and forgave him his remark about her flesh. +"You and I are too old to talk that sort of stuff now." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think I am so very old?" he asked her, standing before her +writing-table, as if inviting a serious judgment. +</P> + +<P> +She glanced quickly over him. His moustache was white, his ivory-tinted +face scratched with fine lines about the eyes; he stooped at the +shoulders, and his chest had hollowed in. Yet she could have returned +his compliment and called him a beauty still. He was so to her. Every +line and movement of his body had a distinction all his own, and "What +a shame it is," she thought, "for that profile to crumble away before +it has been carved in marble." +</P> + +<P> +"We are in the same boat," she answered him. "There are not five years +between us." +</P> + +<P> +"Five years put us out of the same boat," he rejoined, "especially when +they are virtually fifteen. Deb, I know you think me an old man—don't +you?" +</P> + +<P> +"What I think is that you are a sick man," she said kindly. "Are you, +Claud? You used to be so strong, for all your slenderness. What is the +matter with you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Everything—nothing—only that I feel old—and that I haven't been +used to feeling old—and that it's so—so loathsome—" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure it is," she laughed, rallying him. "I can understand your +being sick, if you have come to that. But why do you let yourself? Why +do you think about it? Why do you own to it—in that abject way? I +never do. I'm determined not to be an old woman—until I am obliged. +And I don't paint, either," she added, "and my hair is my own." +</P> + +<P> +He seemed to study her cheek and her hair. She coloured up, dipped her +pen, and looked at her unfinished letter. He wandered off a step or +two, and returned. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know this thing of Hamerton's?" he inquired, in a casual way, +extending the volume he held. +</P> + +<P> +She took it, laying down her pen. A considerable literary discussion +ensued, during which he fetched more books from the shelves to show +her. It began to appear that he meant to spend the whole morning with +her, possibly taking it for granted that it was her desire to have him. +That idea, if he entertained it, must be corrected at once. She resumed +her pen with a business-like air. +</P> + +<P> +"Deb," said he then, "do you mind if I read here for a little while? I +won't disturb you. It's so nice and quiet—away from those chattering +women—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, certainly!" she politely acquiesced. "But don't you think they'll +want you, with all the other men away? Now's your opportunity to be +made much of." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care to be made much of just because I am the only man." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but you would always be more than that, of course." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not more than an old fogey when the young fellows are around. They +will take no notice of me at tea-time. Well, I'm getting used to it. +I'm getting to know my place." "If that was your place, you would soon +vacate it." +</P> + +<P> +"How can I vacate it?" +</P> + +<P> +"When people begin to take me for an old fogey, they'll not have the +honour of my company in their houses." +</P> + +<P> +"That's very well for you—wait till the time comes. And I suppose you +like it, anyhow. You seem to enjoy all this"—waving a hand around—"as +if you were a girl who had never seen anything. I'm sick and tired of +the whole show." +</P> + +<P> +"Then don't have any more to do with it. Go home." +</P> + +<P> +"Home! What home have I?" +</P> + +<P> +"A lovely flat in town, they tell me, where you give the best dinners, +and ladies' theatre parties and things—" "Pshaw! I am hardly ever +there. I hate the racket of London in the season—I'm not up to it +nowadays—and you wouldn't have me stranded in Piccadilly at this time +of year, I presume? I'm obliged to spend the winter down south—and by +the same token I must soon be getting off, or these east winds and damp +mists will play the deuce with my bronchitis—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it's bronchitis, is it? I knew it was something. I suppose you've +been coddling yourself with hot rooms and all sorts of flannel things; +that's the way people make themselves tender, and get chills and chest +complaints, and get old before their time." +</P> + +<P> +"The doctors insist on flannel—the natural wool—all of them." +</P> + +<P> +"The greatest mistake in the world. I used to wear it because I thought +the doctors ought to know, and I was always getting colds. Now I never +let a bit of wool touch my skin—haven't for years and years—and never +know what it means to have a cold." +</P> + +<P> +"That is contrary to all the traditions," he remarked seriously, +addressing her handsome back; for she was still supposed to be writing +her letter. "I can't believe that it is due to not wearing flannel, +Debbie. It's your splendid vitality—your being so different from other +people—" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing of the sort! You try it. Not just now, of course, with winter +beginning, but when warm weather comes again—" +</P> + +<P> +And so on. The hostess broke in upon their TETE-A-TETE while they were +still engrossed in this interesting topic. She was drawn into it, and +made a disciple of by Deb, who attributed all her own blooming health +and practical youthfulness to linen underclothing, combined with plenty +of fresh air. And after all, since letter-writing was hopeless, she did +go out to lunch with the guns. Claud remained alone and disconsolate by +the library fire. She was due to leave the house next day, and left, +although conscious of a strange hankering to stay; and during the +interval gave Mr Dalzell no further opportunity to talk about his +bronchitis—and other things. He was not aware that she was to go so +soon until she was gone; and then he found himself with livelier +feelings than had stirred his languid being for many a day. He was not +only annoyed and disappointed at being deprived of the refreshment of +her stimulating society; he was incensed with her mode of departure, +which seemed to imply an intention to evade him. +</P> + +<P> +"Does she still think that I am after her money?" he asked himself, +with scorn of her mean suspiciousness. "Just because I was magnanimous +enough to ignore the past!" +</P> + +<P> +He went down south, to play a little at Monte Carlo and cruise a little +in the Mediterranean—to kill time through the detestable winter, which +made itself felt wherever he was; and she went to London to see about +Francie's gown, and up north to bracing Scotland, and down to Wellwood +for Christmas, and back to the racket of London in the spring; and +neither of them had spent a lonelier time in all their lives. Quite a +fresh and peculiar sense of homelessness and uncomforted old age took +possession of them both. +</P> + +<P> +All through the kaleidoscopic transformation-scenes of the "season", +through which she moved magnificently, old-maidhood notwithstanding, +she was unconsciously seeking him. It was her impression, from all she +had heard of his tastes and ways, that he could not keep away from that +common rendezvous of his class and kind. She did not find him, but all +the same he was there. He returned from his winter haunts sooner than +his wont, while still the April winds were full of menace for him, +exposed himself to those winds seeking her, caught a chill, neglected +it—a most unusual thing—and fell into an illness that confined him to +his bed for many weeks. +</P> + +<P> +It was not until June that Deb heard of it. He was truly so much of an +old fogey now in the society of which he had once been such a +distinguished ornament that his disappearance was long unnoticed. And +when at last someone noticed it, in Deb's hearing, the light and +callous way in which his trouble was referred to went to her +heart—knowing all she knew. One of her generous impulses came to her +on the spot, and an hour later she was at the door of his chambers, +inquiring after him. +</P> + +<P> +His man—a very jewel of a man—received her at the door, gravely, +cautiously, keeping it half shut. He reported his master mending, but +still weak, and not able to see anyone. Females of all kinds were +sternly discouraged by this prudent person, from force of old habit. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, of course not," said Deb off-handedly. "Just give him my card, +please, and say I'm very glad to hear he is not as ill as I feared." +</P> + +<P> +On pain of dismissal from the best service he had ever known—and he +had known it now for a long time—Manton had to find the lady's +address. As soon as it was supplied to him, Claud sent for her to come +and see him. +</P> + +<P> +"Are we not old enough now to dispense with chaperons?" he wrote; and +the sight of his hand-writing after all these long years moved her +strangely. "If you think not, bring the deafest old post of your +acquaintance. Only DO come. I haven't had anybody to speak to for a +week." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course we are old enough," commented Deb, as she read the words. +"The idea of fussing about chaperons and that nonsense at our time of +life!" And she proceeded to array herself in her most youthful summer +dress, which was also the choicest of her stock, taking the utmost +pains to match toque and gloves, while full of indignation against his +friends for so shamefully neglecting him. +</P> + +<P> +Boldly she ascended to his sitting-room in the wake of tight-lipped +Manton, who presently brought tea, and at intervals tended the fire, +apparently without once casting an eye upon her. Claud was up and +dressed in her honour, while fit only for his bed. In the midst of the +refined luxury that he had gathered about him, he looked but the ghost +of a man, worn with his illness and the fatigue of preparing for her. +It was one of those English summers that never answered to its name, +and he sat in a sable-lined overcoat—considered more respectful than a +dressing-gown—in a heat that almost choked her. +</P> + +<P> +But with swelling heart she hurried to his side, and, after greetings, +drew a chair close up to his, took the hand he silently extended, and +held it in a long, warm, maternal clasp. Manton retired and shut the +door. The invalid lay back on his cushions, and closed his eyes. The +visitor, watching him, detected an oozing tear—the first she had ever +seen there. +</P> + +<P> +"How did it happen?" she crooned, and followed the question with many +more of the same sort; to which he replied as to a mother or a nurse. +</P> + +<P> +"It's this beastly climate," he complained. "It upsets me every +time—though this is the worst bout I've had yet. I really can't stand +it, Debbie. Even in June, when you'd think you were safe—just look at +it!" +</P> + +<P> +It was raining slightly as he spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, why do you try to stand it?" said she. "Why not come back to +your own country? You'd be safe there, if anywhere." "I've been +thinking of it," said he. "It has been in my mind all winter—the +thought of that good, soaking sunshine that we used to have and think +nothing of. The Riviera isn't a patch on it. Aye, I'd get warm there. +But what a life—now. I am not like you—I've got nothing and nobody to +go back to—I should be giving up everything—the little that I have +left. And God knows life is empty enough as it is—" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm going," she broke in. "And am I nobody?" +</P> + +<P> +He sprang up in his chair. "You—YOU going?" +</P> + +<P> +"Time I did," she laughed. "I haven't set eyes on my property and my +two sisters since goodness knows when." He held out his shaking hands. +His face was working pitifully. +</P> + +<P> +"Debbie, Debbie," he wailed, like a lost child, "will you take me? Will +you have me?" +</P> + +<P> +She caught him in her strong arms. +</P> + +<P> +"Dearest, we will go together," she murmured. And he fell, sobbing, on +her breast. +</P> + +<P> +It was not in the least what she had meant to say or to do; but the +appeal was irresistible. It was too terrible to see him—HIM, her young +prince of such towering pride and beauty—brought down to this. +</P> + +<P> +But she soon had him out of his slough of despond, and climbing the +hills of hope again with something of his old gallant air. The rapidity +of his convalescence was astonishing. By the end of July he was well +enough to be married. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap26"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXVI. +</H3> + +<P> +The first letter signed "Deborah Dalzell" was addressed, strange to +say, to Guthrie Carey—not to the commander of the SS APHRODITE, via +his shipping office, but to Guthrie Carey, Esq., Wellwood Hall, Norfolk. +</P> + +<P> +For a great change had taken place in the circumstances of her old +friend. +</P> + +<P> +One day, a few years earlier, he had been called from the +sea—somewhere off the coast of South America—to take his place as a +land-owner and land-dweller amongst the great squires of England; quite +the very last thing he could have anticipated in his wildest dreams. +Three sons of the reigning Carey had been capsized in a gale while out +yachting. The reigning Carey, on hearing of the catastrophe, had been +seized with a fit that proved fatal in a few hours. His eldest son's +wife, as an effect of the same shock, had given birth to a still-born +male infant—the sole grandson. One brother had died childless; another +leaving daughters only; the third, Guthrie's father, was also dead. +Thus the unexpected happened, as it has a way of doing in this world, +and the t'penny-ha'penny mate of old Redford days had become the head +of a county family. +</P> + +<P> +His experiences had trained him for the change. He took it soberly, +without losing his head. A bristling array of blood-enemies were +gradually transformed into a circle of respectful friends; some of them +assisted him to settle himself in his unfamiliar seat, to teach him the +duties of his high station. He was teachable, but independent, not +shutting his eyes and opening his mouth to swallow all the old-world +creeds they chose to put into it, but studying every branch of the +science of landlordism in the light of his own intelligence and +beliefs. When he had fairly mastered the situation, he married one of +his cousins. +</P> + +<P> +He was in his robust middle-age, which comes so much later to men than +to women, she was well on in her thirties—a comely, sensible, +well-bred young lady, and a most excellent coadjutor to a squire new to +the business. An eminently wise selection, said his brother squires, +when the engagement was announced. The wedding was a great family +function and county event. It meant that the Careys, instead of being +split up and scattered to the winds, remained together, united in +amity; it meant that the dignity of the old house was to be kept up. +When, a year later, Wellwood rang bells and lit bonfires in honour of a +son and heir, nothing seemed wanting to confirm the general impression +that our Guthrie was not only a wise but a singularly fortunate man. +</P> + +<P> +It was an impression that Guthrie shared. From the point of view that +he had now reached in life, he believed himself favoured beyond the +common lot. He loved Wellwood, full of the memorials of his ancient +race; he enjoyed his settled and comfortable place therein, after the +homeless roving of so many years—the feel of solid land under his feet +and under his life, for which every sailor pines, despite whatever +spell the sea may lay on him. He was proud of his perfect-mannered +wife, who was also his good friend and confidante; he was egregiously +proud of his handsome boy. And the day of the young romance—of the +great passion—of those sordid "little fires" which beckon to men whose +nature craves for warmth and whose "yule is cold"—that day was past. +"Love is one thing and marriage another," he had once said, without +really meaning it; but he had spoken truer than he knew. Moreover, the +shocking statement was not nearly so awful as it seemed. The very +conditions of married life are fatal to love, as love is understood by +the yet unmarried lovers—insanely sanguine, of human necessity—asking +the impossible, and no blame to them, because they are made so; but no +matter. That thing which comes afterwards, to the right-minded and +well-intentioned, and which they don't think worth calling love—that +sober, faithful, forbearing friendship, that mutual need which endures +all the time, and is ever more deeply satisfied and satisfying instead +of less—is no bad substitute. +</P> + +<P> +Yet how the world of imagination dominates the world of fact! How much +fairer the unseen than the seen! How much more precious the good we +have not than the good we have! In his private desk in his private +study, Guthrie kept—just as old Mr Pennycuick had kept his +valentine—a faded, spotted, ochre-tinted photograph of poor little +Lily in the saucer bonnet with lace "brides" to it that she was married +in; and when Wellwood was humming with shooting parties and the like, +and its lady doing the honours of the house with all the forethought +and devotion that she could bring to the task, the stout squire would +be sitting in his sanctum under lock and key, gazing at that sweet +girl-face which had the luck to be dead and gone. Lily in the +retrospect was the faultless woman—the ideal wife and love's young +dream in one. "I have had my day," was the thought of his heart, as he +looked across the gulf of strenuous, chequered, disappointing years to +that idyll of the far past which her pictured form brought back to him. +"Whatever is lacking now, I HAVE known the fullness of love and +bliss—that there is such a thing as a perfect union between man and +woman, rare as it may be." It will be remembered that he was married to +her, actually, for a period not exceeding five weeks in all. +</P> + +<P> +And Deborah Pennycuick, who would have made such a magnificent lady of +Wellwood—who was, in fact, asked to take the post before it was +offered to the cousin—she came to spend Christmas under his roof while +still a spinster, on the tacit understanding that neither was a subject +for "nonsense" any more. Deb and Mrs Carey were close friends. Deb was +the godmother of the heir. The homelikeness of Wellwood was intensified +by her intercourse, while there, with English Redford and the +descendants of that brother with whom old Mr Pennycuick had been unable +to hit it off—humdrum persons, whose attraction for her lay in their +name and blood, and the fact that they could show her the arms and +portraits of her ancestors and the wainscotted room in which her father +was born. It was to Wellwood that she went to be married. From the old +home of the Careys she was driven to the old church of the Pennycuicks, +full of mouldering monuments to a nearly vanished race; it was buried +in its rural solitude, far from railways and gossip-mongers and +newspaper reporters, and the wedding was as quiet as quiet could be. +Guthrie was acting brother, and gave her away. He never, of course, +disclosed the secret that was his and Francie's, honest brother as he +longed to be; but perhaps, even had she known it, and her own austere +chastity notwithstanding, she might have been broad-minded enough to +judge him kindlier than is the wont of the sex which does not know all, +and have still held him worthy to be to her the friend he was. As she +knew him, she loved him sister-like, and turned to him naturally when +she needed a brother's services. And so it was to him that she wrote +first, at the end of the short wedding-day journey—just to tell him +that she and her bridegroom had arrived safely, and that Claud was +standing the fatigue much better than they could have hoped. +</P> + +<P> +She did not write to Frances until she had her husband on the high +seas. She did not write at all to Mary or Rose, not wishing them to +know of her marriage until she could personally 'break it' to them. It +was not difficult to ensure this, since for many a year they had all +been so separated by their respective circumstances that they were no +longer sisters in the old Redford sense. The business of each was her +own, and not supposed to interest the rest. Only such domestic events +as were of serious moment were formally reported amongst them, and were +never deemed serious enough to use the cable for. +</P> + +<P> +The pair came home very quietly. Sydney was the port of arrival, and +here Deb divined on the part of her husband a desire to be left in +peace—to recruit after laborious travelling in the care of his devoted +and accomplished man—while she went forward to "get the fuss over". +Those sisters were the shadows upon his now sunny path, although he did +not say so; he wanted to get to Redford without having to kiss them and +talk to their offensive men-folk on the way. So Deb proposed to do what +she felt he wished, and paid no heed to the dutiful objections which he +could not make to sound genuine in her ears. She telegraphed +instructions to Bob Goldsworthy to engage rooms for her and to meet +her, signing the message "Aunt Deborah"—her only herald. +</P> + +<P> +Bob was duly at Spencer Street—elegant in curled moustaches and a +frock-coat—become a swell young barrister since she had seen him last. +He was sure of the impression he would create upon his discriminating +aunt, and had no notion that her first flashing glance at him was +accompanied by a flashing thought of how her adopted son would too +surely be ranked by her more discriminating husband with the "bounders" +of his implacable disdain. On the platform—while explaining that he +knew it was not the proper thing to do in a public place—he embraced +the majestic figure in the splendid sable cloak. Deb said, "Bother the +proper thing!" and kissed him readily—charily, however, because +conscious of teeth that were not Pennycuick teeth, and perversely +objecting to the faultless costume. But, looking at the frock-coat, she +perceived mourning-band upon the sleeve. Another encircled his +glittering tall hat. +</P> + +<P> +"Not—oh, Bob!—not your mother?" she gasped. +</P> + +<P> +He shook his head, and asked a question about her luggage. +</P> + +<P> +"Aunt Rose—your uncle—?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Aunt Deb—don't! She is my aunt, I know, but he—" Bob spread +deprecating hands. "They are both well, I believe. I think I heard that +the fiftieth baby arrived last week. Is that your maid in the brown—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but, Bob—tell me—they haven't lost any of those nice children, I +do trust!" +</P> + +<P> +"I should hardly have been in mourning on their account. No—fat and +tough as little pigs, by the look of them. It is my father, Aunt Deb. I +thought you knew." "What!" She stopped on their way towards Rosalie and +the luggage van. "You don't say—" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—a couple of months ago. The mater wrote to you." +</P> + +<P> +"I have been wandering from place to place—the letter never reached +me." +</P> + +<P> +"Pneumonia, supervening upon influenza—that is what the doctors called +it; but it was really a complication of disorders, some of them of long +standing. Between you and me, Aunt Deb, he took a great deal more than +was good for him latterly, and that told upon him. His blood was bad. +You know he was always a self-indulgent man." +</P> + +<P> +Deb nodded, forgetting that it was a son who spoke. She was saying to +herself, "Bennet Goldsworthy, whom we made sure would live for ever! +Bennet Goldsworthy, of all people! What a relief that will be to +Claud!" And then she thought of her widowed sister, with a rush of pity +and compunction. He was her husband, after all. +</P> + +<P> +Bob's light attention to the subject was already gone. He was staring +at one of the great trunks covered with foreign labels. Rosalie was +telling him how many more Mrs Dalzell had. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes," said Deb, confused and crimson, "I forgot to mention—I +suppose you don't know—that I am married. To an old friend of our +family—your mother will know him well. By the way, Bob, I must go and +see her at once. We'll have some lunch first; I must wash and change my +clothes. Then will you stay at the hotel and settle Rosalie, and see to +things? No, I would rather go alone. Stay in town and dine with me—and +don't look so shocked, my good boy, as if I'd cut you off with a +shilling. My marriage will make no difference to you." "Aunt +Deb!"—with dignified reproach. "As if I thought of that." +</P> + +<P> +But somehow she felt sure he did think of it. +</P> + +<P> +They had luncheon together at the hotel, and sat awhile to digest it +and to talk things over. While they sipped coffee, he told her how he +had furnished his bachelor rooms—the artistic woodwork, the curios, +the colours, how he had hunted for the right shade of red, what he had +given for a particular rug which alone would blend and harmonise. She +was brightly interested in these things, and promised to go and see +them. She was to go to lunch next day—he thought he could safely +undertake not to poison her with bad cooking or unsound wine. He lived +in chambers in Parliament Place. This engagement booked, she asked him +for his mother's address. +</P> + +<P> +Mary lived in a small street in Richmond. +</P> + +<P> +"Such a slum!" said Bob disgustedly. "But she would do it, in spite of +all that I could say. And rushed there, too, when he had hardly been +dead a week. It was not decent, as I told her, to be advertising the +sale two days after the funeral. But she is a peculiar woman." +</P> + +<P> +"She is a Pennycuick," said Mrs Dalzell reprovingly. "She would not +care to go on living in a house that she had ceased to have the right +to live in. I should not myself." +</P> + +<P> +"But she might have gone to another place." +</P> + +<P> +"You must insist on her going to another." +</P> + +<P> +"I am afraid my influence is not enough to persuade her." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear boy, I am convinced that if you asked her to walk into a +burning fiery furnace, she would do it to please you, without a +moment's hesitation." +</P> + +<P> +"She is that way in some things, poor dear; but in others—I may talk +till I have no voice left, and she won't listen. And she was set on +this scheme. She has a mania for—for that sort of thing. One would +never believe that she was your sister. She would hate to live like +other people. She simply loves to be a nobody. I can't understand it. +You try your influence with her, will you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, order a carriage for me, and I will put on my things." +</P> + +<P> +He pressed her to allow him to escort her, which was obviously the +proper thing. When she refused again, and went off, like any nobody, +alone, he returned to his chambers, leaving Rosalie to the unimportant +persons whose business it was to look after her. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Breen's house was in East Melbourne, and Deb directed the coachman +to drive there first. She remembered the fiftieth baby that was but a +few days old. +</P> + +<P> +"I must see how the poor child is doing," Deb said—not alluding to the +baby. +</P> + +<P> +And soon she saw again the exquisitely-kept garden—large for that +locality—and the spacious white house almost glittering in the sun. +She had sniffed at the bourgeois villa—she thought it bourgeois +still—but who could help admiring those windowpanes like diamonds, and +that grass like velvet, and that air of perfect well-being which +pervaded every inch of the place? As the carriage entered the fine, +wrought-iron gates, a flock of little Breens, attached to a +perambulator, two nurses and five dogs, were coming out of it; and she +stopped to accost and kiss them. Each child was as fresh as a daisy, +its hair like floss silk with careful brushing, its petticoats as +dainty as its frock, its socks and boots immaculate. There was Nannie, +her godchild, shot up slim and tall from the dumpling baby that her +aunt remembered, showing plainly the milky-fair, sunny-faced, wholesome +woman that she was presently to become. Deb gazed at her with aches of +regret—she had thought them for ever stifled in Claud's all-sufficing +companionship—for her own lost motherhood, and of lesser but still +poignant regret that she had not been allowed to adopt Nannie in Bob +Goldsworthy's place. The joy of dressing and taking out a daughter of +that stamp—of having her at home with one, to make the tea, and to +chat with, and to lean on! Old Keziah came to the door—Keziah sleek +and placid, like the family she served—delighted to welcome the +distinguished traveller, but still more delighted to brag about the +last Breen baby. +</P> + +<P> +"A lovely boy, without spot or blemish," said Keziah, three times over. +"And that makes eleven, and not one too many. And Miss Rose doing fine, +thank you. I'll go and prepare her for the surprise, so it don't upset +her." +</P> + +<P> +Constance, quite a grown young lady, met her aunt on the stairs; +Kathleen and Lucy rose from the piano in the drawing-room, where they +had been entertaining their mother at a safe distance with their +latest-learned "pieces"; they too had to be greeted and kissed—and +sweeter flesh to kiss no lips could ask for. "My husband may be a +draper," Rose had often said, "but I'll trouble you to show me a duke +with a handsomer family." +</P> + +<P> +Mentally, Deb compared the cool, flower-petal cheeks of her Breen +nieces with her Goldsworthy nephew's mouth, covering those unpleasant +teeth. It would have been fairer to compare him with her Breen nephews, +but there the contrast would have been nearly as great. John, at +business with his father, and Pennycuick, learning station management +with the Simpsons at Bundaboo, had the fresh and cleanly appearance of +all Rose's children; in physical matters they were as clean as they +looked. Bob did not look unclean, but with all his excessive smartness, +he looked unfresh. That look, and the thing it meant, were his father's +legacy to him. +</P> + +<P> +At last Deb reached her sister's room. It was another addition to the +ever-growing house, and marked, like each former one, the ever-growing +prosperity of the shop supporting it. The fastidious travelled eye +appraised the rich rugs and hangings, the massive "suite", the +delicately-furnished bed, and took in the general air of warm luxury +and unstinted comfort, even before it fell upon Rose herself—Rose, fat +and fair, and the picture of content, sitting in the softest of +arm-chairs, and the smartest of gowns and slippers, by the brightest of +wood fires, with a tableful of new novels and magazines on one side of +her, and a frilly cradle on the other. +</P> + +<P> +"My husband may be a draper," she had remarked at various times, "but +he does give me a good home." +</P> + +<P> +Deb, so long homeless amid her wealth, conceded at this moment, without +a grudge, that Rose's humble little arrow of ambition had fairly hit +the mark. +</P> + +<P> +They embraced with all the warmth of the old Redford days. A few hasty +questions and answers were exchanged, and their heads met over the +cradle. +</P> + +<P> +"You poor child!" Deb exclaimed, as a matter of form. "Haven't you done +with this kind of thing yet?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," said Rose, "I should feel lost without one now. And we wanted +another boy—we have only three, you know. Isn't he a darling?" +</P> + +<P> +Number eleven, fast asleep, was fished from his downy bed and laid in +his aunt's arms, eagerly extended for him. His clothes might have been +woven by fairies, and he smelt like a violet bed in spring. +</P> + +<P> +Strange thrills—sharper than those that Nannie had set going—shook +Deb's big heart as she cuddled and kissed him. +</P> + +<P> +"The older I get," she confessed, "the greater fool I am about a baby. +And you do have such nice babies, Rose." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," simpered Rose. "They ARE nicer than most, certainly—I'm sure I +don't know why." Her eyes gloated on the white bundle; she fidgeted to +get it back. "Ah, Debbie, I wish—I wish you knew—" +</P> + +<P> +"I know you do, my dear," laughed Deb, a little queerly, and she +returned the baby in order to hunt for her handkerchief. "And if you +must know the truth, so do I. It's tantalising to see you with more +than your share, while I have none—and never shall have, worse luck! +Well"—blowing her nose cheerfully—"it's no use crying over spilt +milk, is it? And I tipped the can over myself, so I can't complain. +How's Peter?" +</P> + +<P> +Rose told her how Peter was—"so dear, so good"—and then had so much +to say about the children, one by one, through all the eleven of them, +that it was quite in a hurry at last that Deb disclosed her secret. And +Rose not only sustained no shock—which would have been bad for +her—but could see nothing in the marriage worth fussing about, except +the fact that it came too late for a family. Such a sordidly domestic +person was she! She mourned and condoled over this spilt milk—so sure +that poor Deb was but hungrily lapping up drops with the dust of the +floor—that Deb grew almost angry. She took back her own words, and +said she was glad there were no children to come between her and her +husband, who needed only each other. She implied that this union had a +higher significance than could be grasped by a mere suckler of fools +(nice fools, no doubt) and chronicler of small beer (however good the +brew). She believed it, too. Love—great, solemn, immortal Love, +passionate and suffering—was a thing unknown to comfortable, +commonplace Rose, as doubtless to Peter also. They were dear, good +people, and fortunate in their ignorance and in what it spared them; +but it was annoying when ignorance assumed superior knowledge, and +wanted to teach its grandmother to suck eggs. Was it come to this—that +marriage and a family were synonymous terms? No, indeed, nor ever +would, while intelligent men and women walked the earth. Deb reserved +the more sacred confidences for Mary's ear. Mary had loved—strangely +indeed, but tragically, with pain and loss, the dignified concomitants +of the divine state. Mary would understand. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap27"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXVII. +</H3> + +<P> +Mary's house was a chill and meagre contrast to that of Rose, but there +was nothing cold in Mary's welcome. To Deb's 'Darling! darling!' and +smothering embrace of furs, the slim woman responded with a grip and +pressure that represented all her strength. Deb, although not the +eldest, was the mother of the family, as well as the second mother of +Bob. +</P> + +<P> +"Where is he?" were Mary's first words—and Deb smiled inwardly to see +her as absurd in her mother's vanity and preoccupation as Rose herself. +But this was a case of a widow's only son, and the visitor was thankful +for such a beginning to the interview. "Where is he?" cried the anxious +voice. "He was to have met you. And he never fails—this is not like +him—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," Deb struck in easily, "he was there all right, looking after his +old aunt like a good boy. He wanted to bring me, but I told him he +could be more useful looking after Rosalie and my things. I thought +we'd rather be by ourselves, Molly—poor old girl! You know I never +heard a word until he told me just now. Your letter did not reach me." +</P> + +<P> +They kissed again, in the passage of the little house. +</P> + +<P> +"You will send away the carriage, Debbie?" Mary urged, without visible +emotion. "There are stables in the next street. You will take off your +hat and stay with me a little?" +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed I will, dearest, if you will have me. Are you alone?" +</P> + +<P> +"Quite alone." +</P> + +<P> +"Where's the old lady?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, dead—dead long ago." +</P> + +<P> +"And Ruby?" +</P> + +<P> +Mary looked confused. +</P> + +<P> +"Ruby? Ruby is—don't you know?—an actress in London. Doing very well, +they tell me—"Miss Pearla Gold" in the profession." +</P> + +<P> +"Gracious! Why, I've seen her! Burlesque. Tights. The minx! Well, she +must be coining money, anyhow. I hope she doesn't forget to make some +return for all the trouble she has been to you." +</P> + +<P> +"She forgets everything," said the step-mother, "and we are thankful +for it. Bob hates the thought; it is hard on him, who is so different. +Don't allude to it before him, please; he feels it too keenly. Debbie, +what did you think of my boy?" "Oh, splendid!" was the cordial +response. "I could hardly believe my eyes." +</P> + +<P> +"Is he not?" the fond mother urged. "And it is not only his appearance, +Debbie—they say he is the cleverest lawyer in Melbourne. He is so +learned, so acute! He has a practice already that many a barrister, +well known and of twice his age, might envy." +</P> + +<P> +The pale woman—for her bricky colour had faded out—thrilled and +glowed. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, he told me," said Deb; "and it was good hearing indeed. But I +always knew what he had in him.' To herself she said: 'Why, if he is so +well off, does he let her live like this?" +</P> + +<P> +Poverty—though decent poverty—proclaimed itself in every detail of +the mean terrace-house, which stood in the most depressing street +imaginable. It made the wealthy sister's heart ache. +</P> + +<P> +"And how are you yourself, Debbie?" Mary remembered to ask, as she shut +the door upon the departing carriage. "You look well. How is Francie? +We want you to tell us all about her grand doings. Bob is greatly +interested in his Italian aunt; he thinks he would like to take a +vacation trip to see her some day. By the way, did he tell you that +Rose has another? Isn't she a perfect little rabbit? And quite +delighted, Keziah says." +</P> + +<P> +As she talked in this detachment from her personal affairs, she led the +way up bare stairs to her small bedroom. The resplendent woman behind +her took note of the widow's excessive thinness, the greyness of her +straight, tight hair, the rigid lines of a black stuff gown that had +not a scrap of trimming on it—not even the lawn sleeve-bands widows +use—and thought of Bennet Goldsworthy's old-time annoyance when his +wife was proved to have fallen behind the mode. And as she expatiated +upon the charms of Rose's eleventh baby, Deb's bright dark eyes roved +about Mary's room, in which she recognised a few of the plainer +furnishings of the nuptial chamber of the past. +</P> + +<P> +But not a trace of the person who had been so much amongst them once. +His boots on the floor, his clothes on the door-pegs, his razors and +brushes on the toilet-table were gone; so were a basin and ewer from +the double wash-stand; so was the wide bed. In place of the latter a +small one—originally Bob's—had been set up, at the head of which lay +one large pillow fairly glistening with the shine of its fresh, +although darned, linen sheath. Carpet and curtains, essential to the +departed housefather, had disappeared; the bare windows stood open to +what fresh air there was; the floor, polished, and with one rug at the +bedside, exhaled the sweet perfume of beeswax and turpentine. It was +all so pathetic to the visitor, so eloquent of loss and change, that +she exclaimed, catching her sister in her arms: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you poor thing! You poor, poor thing!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Goldsworthy returned the embrace tenderly, but not the emotional +impulse. +</P> + +<P> +"You are so dear and kind," she said, in a gentle, but quite steady +voice. "I am so glad you came—so thankful to have you; but we won't +talk about that, if you don't mind. I think it is best not to dwell on +troubles, if you can help it. Tell me about yourself. I suppose you +have had lunch? Well, then, we will have a nice cup of tea. Take off +that heavy cloak—what lovely fur! And your hat too—what a smart +affair! You always have such taste. No, I am not wearing crape; it is +such rough, uncomfortable stuff, and so perishable; and the rule is not +hard and fast nowadays, as it used to be. It would be stupid to make it +so in a climate like this. Do you want a comb, dear? How brown your +hair keeps still! Then let us go downstairs to the fire." +</P> + +<P> +The fire was in a little bare parlour, as austerely appointed as the +bedroom. A tea-table was drawn up to the hearth, the kettle placed on +the coals. There seemed no servant on the premises, but the neatness +upstairs was repeated below; everything was speckless, polished, +smelling of its own purity. Well, it was a good thing poor Molly could +interest herself in these matters, and her resolve not to brood over +her troubles—if it was genuine, and not only a heroic pose—both noble +and wise. So Deb reflected; and such was the calmness of the emotional +atmosphere, the cheering effect of tea and rest and sisterly +companionship, the discursiveness of the talk, that she soon found +herself telling Mary the secret that she was so sure the widow would +hear with special sympathy and understanding. +</P> + +<P> +"It is awfully selfish," she began, "to bother you with my affairs at +such a time as this, but you've got to know it some time. The fact +is—some folks would say there's no fool like an old fool, and perhaps +you'll agree with them; but no, I don't think you will—not you, for +you know...the fact is—don't laugh—but I'm sure nobody can help it—I +have been and gone and got married, Molly. There!" +</P> + +<P> +And, after all, it seemed that she had not come to the right place for +sympathy and understanding. Mary did not laugh, but she stared in a +wooden manner that was even more hurtful to the feelings of the new +wife. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" she cried brusquely, after a painful pause. "Is there any just +cause or impediment that you know of? You look as if you thought I had +no business to be happy like other people." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, if you are happy! But I am so surprised. Who is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Guess," said Deb. +</P> + +<P> +"I could not. I haven't an idea. Some Englishman, of course." +</P> + +<P> +Deb shook her head. +</P> + +<P> +"European, then? Some prince or count, as big as Francie's, or bigger?" +</P> + +<P> +Deb wrinkled a disdainful nose. +</P> + +<P> +"It is no use, Moll; you would not come near it in fifty tries. I'll +tell you—Claud Dalzell." +</P> + +<P> +"What—the deadly enemy!" This time Mrs Goldsworthy did laugh. Deb +joined in. +</P> + +<P> +"Funny, isn't it? I feel"—sarcastically—"like going into fits myself +when I think of it, it is so screamingly absurd. And how it happened I +can't tell you, unless it is that we are fallen into our dotage. I +suppose it must be that." +</P> + +<P> +"You in your dotage!" Mary mocked, with an affectionate sincerity that +was grateful to her sister's ear. "You are the youngest of us all, and +always will be. Do you ever look at yourself in the glass? Upright as a +dart, and your pretty wavy hair—so thick, and scarcely a grey thread +in it! Of course, I don't know how it may be with him; I have not seen +him for such ages—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, he is a perfect badger for greyness—not that I ever saw a badger, +by the way. And he walks with a stick, and has dreadful chronic things +the matter with him, from eating and drinking too much all his life, +and never taking enough exercise. Quite the old man, I should have +called him a few months ago. But he is better now." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Goldsworthy gave a little shudder, and her unsympathetic gravity +returned. +</P> + +<P> +"I see," she sighed. "Your benevolent heart has run away with you, as +usual. His infirmities appealed to your pity. You married him so that +you might nurse and take care of him—" +</P> + +<P> +"Not at all!" Deb broke in warmly. "And don't you talk about his +infirmities in that free-and-easy way; he is no more infirm than you +are. Did I say he was? That was my joke. He always was the handsomest +man that I ever set eyes on, and he is the same still. No, my dear, I +have not married him to take care of him, but so that he may take care +of me. I'm lonely. I want somebody. I've come to the time of life when +I am of no account to the young folks—not even to Bob, who would not +give me a second thought if I was a poor woman. No, Molly dear, it is +no use your pretending; you know it as well as I do. And quite natural +too. It is the same with all of them. Nothing but money gives me +importance in their eyes. And what's money? It won't keep you warm in +the winter of your days—nothing will, except a companion that is in +the same boat. That is what I want—it may be silly, but I do—somebody +to go down into the valley of the shadow with me; and he feels the +same.' Something in Mary's face as she stared into the fire, something +in the atmosphere of the conversation, drove her into this line of +self-defence. 'Oh, there is no love-making and young nonsense in our +case—we are not quite such idiots as that comes to; it is just that we +begin to feel the cold, as it were, and are going to camp together to +keep each other warm. That's all." +</P> + +<P> +Mary remained silent. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I must go," said Deb, jumping up, as if washing her hands of a +disappointing job. "The carriage must be there, and Bob will be +starving for his dinner. No use asking you to join us, I know. But you +must come to Redford soon, Molly—or somewhere out of this—when you +feel better and able. You shall have rooms entirely to yourself, and +needn't see anybody. I will come tomorrow, and you must let me talk to +you about it." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Goldsworthy was stooping to sweep a sprinkle of ashes out of the +fender—she was like an old maid in her faddy tidiness—and when she +turned, her face was working as if to repress tears. Deb caught her up, +a moan bursting from her lips. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, what a brute I am! when you—poor, poor old girl!—have to finish +it alone. But, darling, after all, you have had the good years—a child +of your own—a home; we shall get only the dregs at the bottom of the +cup. So it is not so very unfair, is it?" Then Mary's pent emotion +issued in a laugh. With her face on her sister's shoulder, she tried +herself to silence it. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't help it," she apologised. "I would if I could. Debbie, don't +go! Oh, my dear, don't think I envy you! Don't go yet! I want to tell +you something. I may never have another chance." "Of course I won't +go—I want to stay," said Deb at once. +</P> + +<P> +And she stayed. The coachman was dismissed to get his meal, and +instructed to telephone to Bob to do the same. The sisters had a little +picnic dinner by themselves, washing up their plates and dishes in the +neat kitchen, Deb insisting upon taking part in the performance, and +sat long by the fireside afterwards. Fortunately, although the season +was late spring, it was a cold day; for the clear red fire was the one +bit of brightness to charm a visitor to that poor house. It crackled +cosily, toasting their toes outstretched upon the fender-bar, melting +their mood to such glowing confidences as they had not exchanged since +Mary was in her teens. No lamps were lighted. The widow was frugal with +gas when eyes were idle; her extravagant sister loved firelight to talk +in. +</P> + +<P> +But for a while it seemed that Mary had nothing particular to +communicate. Deb did not like to put direct questions, but again and +again led the conversation in the likely direction, to find Mary +avoiding it like a shying horse. She would not talk of her husband, but +interested herself for an hour in the subject of Guthrie Carey, +Guthrie's wife, his child, his home, discussing the matter with a +calmness that made Deb forget how delicate a one it was. Then Mary had +a hundred questions to ask (probably on Bob's account) about the +Countess, of whom she had known nothing of late years, while Deb had +learned something from time to time, and could give an approximately +true tale. Quite another hour was taken up with Francie's wrongs and +wrong-doings, as to which Deb was more frank with this sister than she +would have been with Rose. +</P> + +<P> +"It is no use blinking the fact," she said straight out, "that Francie +is no better than she should be. I can't understand it; no Pennycuick +that ever I heard of took that line before. She has a dog's life with +that ruffian, no doubt; and of course the poor child never had a chance +to enjoy the right thing in the right way—though that was her own +fault—" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think," Mary broke in, "that ANYTHING is ANYBODY'S fault." +</P> + +<P> +"That's a most dangerous heathen doctrine, my dear, but I'll admit +there's something in it. Poor Francie! she was born at a disadvantage, +with that fascinating face of hers set on the foundation of so light a +character. She was too pretty, to start with. The pretty people get so +spoiled, so filled with their own conceit, that they grow up expecting +a world made on purpose for them. They grab right and left, if the +plums don't fall into their mouths directly they open them, because it +gets to be a sort of matter of course that they should have everything, +and do exactly as they like." +</P> + +<P> +"And the plain ones—they are born at a worse disadvantage still." +</P> + +<P> +"No, they are not. Look at Rose. Francie, with her gilded wretchedness, +thinks Rosie's lot quite despicable; but I can tell you, Molly, she is +the most utterly comfortable and contented little soul on the face of +this earth. She would not change places with a queen." "But Rose is not +plain. Rose is the happy medium. And THEY are the lucky ones—the +inconspicuous people—the every-day sort—" +</P> + +<P> +"What's luck?" Deb vaguely moralised. "I suppose we make our luck. It +doesn't depend on our faces, but on ourselves." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, no!" Mrs Goldsworthy received the well-worn platitude with a +laugh. "We don't make anything—we are made. It is just a dance of +marionettes, Debbie. Poor puppets of flesh and blood, treated as if +they were just wood and nails and glue! Who set us up to make a game of +us like this? Who DOES pull the strings, Debbie? It is a mystery to me." +</P> + +<P> +Then Deb waited for what was coming next. +</P> + +<P> +"Possibly it will be cleared up some day," she murmured, putting out +her strong, beautiful hand to touch her sister's knee. "Whether it is a +fairy tale or not, one must cherish the hope—" +</P> + +<P> +"Not I," Mary cut in swiftly—that same Mary who was once conspicuous +in her family for pious orthodoxy. "No more experiments in human +existence for me! A few years of peace and cleanness, as I am—as I now +am—I hope for that, and for nothing more; I don't want anything +more—I'd rather not. To be let alone for the rest of the time, and +then to be done with it—that sums up all the hope I have, or need." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, my dear—" +</P> + +<P> +"No, Debbie, don't look at me with those eyes—don't pity me in that +tone of voice. I am only a heathen against my will—not so +broken-hearted as not to care what happens to me, which I believe is +what you think. I am not even sorry—I wish I was, but I can't be; in +fact, I am so happy, really, that I am going about in a sort of dream, +trying to realise it." +</P> + +<P> +"HAPPY!" +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps 'happy' is not the word. I should say unmiserable. I am more +unmiserable than I have ever been, I think, since I was born." +</P> + +<P> +Deb's swift intelligence grasped the truth. "Ah, then she was not so +insensate as we thought!"—but made allowance for what she diagnosed as +a morbid condition of mental health. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you happier than you were at Redford—young, and loved, and with +everything nice about you—?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Because then, although, of course, I did have everything, I had +no idea of the value of what I had. You can't be really happy unless +you know that you are happy. I did not know it then, but now I do." +</P> + +<P> +Deb's glance flashed round the poor room, and out of the window into +the squalid street; she thought of Bob, who almost openly despised the +mother who adored him; she calculated the loneliness, the poverty, +the—to her—ugliness of the existence which Mary's "as I am" was +intended to describe; and she groaned aloud. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, my dear, was it really so awful as that—that the mere relief from +it can mean so much to you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am not going to complain," said Mary. "It was not awful by anybody's +fault—certainly not by his. He did his best; he was really good to me. +It could not have happened at all, except through his being good to +me—doing what he did that night. I am not in the least bitter against +him; he was as he was made just as I am. It had to be, I suppose. The +maker of the puppets didn't care whether we belonged or not; the hand +that pulled the strings, and tangled them, jerked us into the mire +together anyhow—" "Oh, don't!" pleaded Deb. "Don't blaspheme like +that! What is religion for if not to keep us from making blunders, and +to help us to bear it when they are made—and to trust—to trust where +we cannot see—" +</P> + +<P> +Deb was unused to preaching, and broke down; but her eyes were sermons +more impressive than any of the thousands that Mary had heard. +</P> + +<P> +"Some day," said Mary, "when I get into a place where I cannot hear +religion spoken of, nor see it practised, I may learn the value of it. +I hope so. I have a chance of it now—the way is clear. I am through +the wood at last." +</P> + +<P> +Deb drew her filmy handkerchief across her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I know." Mary smiled at her sister's grief. "But it is only for +this once, Debbie dear. I did want to let you know—to have the delight +of not being a liar and a shuffler for once. I shall not say such +things again. I am not going to shock anybody else, for Bob's sake. +Bob, of course, must be considered; after all, it was his father. None +of us, even the freest, can be a free agent altogether; I understand +that. I shall hold my tongue. The blessed thing is that that will be +sufficient—a negative attitude, with the mouth shut; one is not driven +any longer to positive deceit, without even being able to say that you +can't help it. Oh, Debbie, you have been a free woman—why, why didn't +you keep so?—but with all your freedom, and all your money, you don't +know the meaning of such luxury as I live in now." +</P> + +<P> +Deb gazed at her sister's rapt face, glowing in the firelight, and +wondered if the brain behind it could be altogether sane. +</P> + +<P> +"To call that HAPPINESS!" she ejaculated, with sad irony and scorn. +</P> + +<P> +"If you must fix a name to it—yes," the widow considered thoughtfully. +</P> + +<P> +"After all, 'unmiserable' does not go far enough. I AM happy. For, +Debbie"—turning to look into the dark, troubled eyes—"I'm clean +now—I never thought to be again—to know anything so exquisitely +sweet, either in earth or heaven—I'm clean, body and soul, day and +night, inside and outside, at last." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, POOR girl!" Deb moaned, with tears, when she realised what this +meant. +</P> + +<P> +"Rich," corrected Mary—"rich, dear, with just a roof and a crust of +bread." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Deb presently, "what about that roof and crust of bread? +Since we are telling each other everything, tell me what your resources +are. Don't say it is not my business; I know it isn't, but I shall be +wretched if you don't let me make it mine a little. How much have you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know. I don't care. I haven't given money a thought. It +doesn't matter." +</P> + +<P> +"But it does matter. You can't even keep clean without a bathtub and a +bit of soap. But what am I thinking of?—of course, you will settle all +that with Bob." +</P> + +<P> +The little word of three letters brought Mrs Goldsworthy down from her +clouds at once. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no!" she cried quickly, almost fearfully. "On no account would I +interfere with his arrangements, his career. He would do everything +that was right and dutiful, I am sure, but I would sooner starve than +take charity from my own child. But there's no need to take it from +anybody. I have all I want." +</P> + +<P> +"How much?" +</P> + +<P> +"I couldn't tell you to a pound or two, but enough for my small wants." +</P> + +<P> +"They do seem small, indeed. Where are you going to live? Won't you +come to me, Molly? Redford is big enough, and it's morally yours as +much as mine. You should have your own rooms—all the privacy you +like—" +</P> + +<P> +"No, darling—thank you all the same. I have made my plans. I am going +to have a little cottage somewhere in the country, where there is no +dust, or smoke, or people—where I can walk on clean earth and grass, +and smell only trees and rain and the growing things. Alone? Oh, yes! +Of course, I shall see you sometimes—and my boy; but for a home—all +the home I can want or wish for now—that is my dream." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think," said Deb, "that I ever heard human ambition—and +happiness—expressed in such terms before." It was the final result of +Mary's experiment in the business of a woman's life. +</P> + +<P> +Deb drove back to her hotel, thoughtful and sad and tired. When Rosalie +had left her for the night, she wrote to Claud by way of comforting +herself. She told him what she had been doing—described her interviews +with Rose and Mary respectively, and the impressions they had left on +her. +</P> + +<P> +"Of all the four of us," she concluded her letter, "I am the only one +who has been fortunate in love. I found my mate in the beginning, +before there was time to make mistakes—the right man, whom I could +love in the right way—and we have been kept for each other through all +these years, although for a long time we did not know it. And now we +are together—or shall be in a few days—never to part again. It is the +only love-story in the family—I don't except Rose's, because I don't +call that a love-story—which has had a happy ending." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap28"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXVIII. +</H3> + +<P> +Down the middle of the big T-shaped wool-shed, in two rows of six pens +each, with an aisle between them, the bleating sheep were massed. They +had been driven into that aisle and thus distributed, as a crowd of +soldiers might be packed into their pews at church, and twelve little +gates had then been shut upon them. Each gate had a corresponding one +at the opposite end of the pen, opening upon a broad lane of floor, and +facing a doorway into outside pens and the sunny paddocks of the +background. Between gate and door, on his own section of the boarded +lane, a sweating, bare-armed man with shears performed prodigies of +strength and skill. Every few minutes he snatched a heavy sheep from +the pen beside him, flung it with a round turn into a sitting posture +between his knees, and with the calm indifference to its violent +objections of the spider to those of the fly that he makes into a +parcel, sliced off its coat like a cook peeling a potato. The fleece +gently fell upon the floor, as you may see an unnoticed shawl slip from +an old lady's shoulders, and before it could realise what had happened, +the poor naked animal found itself shot through the doorway, to stagger +headlong down the sloping stage that was its returning path to freedom. +Twelve of these stalwart and strenuous operators, lining the long walls +at regular intervals, six a side, were at it with might and main +(payment by results being the rule in this department of industry), and +attendant boys strolled up and down, picking the fleeces from the floor +and carrying them to the sorter's table. One was the tar-boy, whose +business it was to dab a brushful of tar upon any scarlet patch +appearing upon a white under-coat where the shears had clipped too +close. The sorter or classer stood behind his long table, above and at +right angles to the lines of sheep-pens and shearers. Near him on +either hand were racks like narrow loose-boxes, built against the +walls; behind him the hydraulic press cranked and creaked as its +attendants fed and manipulated it, and the great bales, that others +were sewing up, weighing, and branding, were mounting high in the +transepts of the building—the two arms of the capital T. The air was +thick with woolly particles and the smell of sheep; the floor was dark +and slippery, and everything one touched humid with the impalpable +grease of the silky fleeces circulating all about the shed. Strict, +downright, dirty business was the order of the day. +</P> + +<P> +The manager—Jim Urquhart, grey-bearded, in a battered felt hat and a +slouchy old tweed suit—stood by the sorter's table, his wide-ranging, +vigilant eye suddenly fixed upon it. As each fleece was brought up, +shaken out, trimmed, tested with thumb and finger, rolled into a light +bundle, inside out, and flung into one or another of the adjacent +racks, he followed the process as if it were something new to him. The +shade of difference in the texture of the staple of one fleece as +compared with another appeared of more concern to him than the absolute +difference, which seemed to shout for notice, between Deborah Dalzell +and the other features of the scene. +</P> + +<P> +A snowy, lacy petticoat all but swept the greasy floor. An equally +spotless skirt, fresh from the laundry, gathered up in one strong +pendant hand, gleamed like light against its background of greasy +woodwork and greasy wool. The majestic figure of the lady of Redford +advanced towards him. Her lord strolled behind her. Often—but not for +many a long day—had the vision of her beautiful face come to Jim in +this fashion, a radiance upon prosaic business that it was not allowed +to interfere with; now, for the first time, his eye avoided, his heart +shrank from recognising it. +</P> + +<P> +Then he lifted his gaze at last, for she was close beside him. And what +a ray of loving old-comradeship shone on him from those star-bright +orbs of hers, undulled by the years that had lightly frosted her dark +hair. She put out her hand, and held it out until he had apologised for +his greasy paw, and given it to her warm grasp. +</P> + +<P> +"Why haven't you been to see me—to see us?" she asked him, smiling. +"Didn't you know we came home last night?" +</P> + +<P> +"I thought you might be tired—or unpacking," Jim lamely excused +himself. "But whenever it is convenient to you, Deb—Mrs Dalzell—I am +always close by; I can come at any time." +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her husband. +</P> + +<P> +"Claud, you remember Jim?" +</P> + +<P> +It was so many years since the men had met that the question was not +uncalled for. They nodded to each other, across the enormous gulf that +separated them, while Deb explained to her husband what an invaluable +manager she had. Jim had grown homelier and shabbier with his advancing +years; Claud more and more exquisitely finished, until he now stood, in +his carefully-careless costume—his short, pointed beard the same tone +of silver-grey as his flannel suit, his finely-chiselled features the +hue of old ivory—a perfect model of patrician 'form'. Only there was +plenty of vigour still manifest in the bushman's bony frame, while the +man of the world wore a valetudinarian air, leaning on the arm of his +regal, upright wife. +</P> + +<P> +"Eh, isn't it like old times!" she mused aloud, as her eyes roamed +about the shed, where every sweating worker was finding time to gaze at +her. "I see some of the old faces—there's Harry Fox—and old +David—and isn't that Keziah's grandson? I must go and speak to them." +</P> + +<P> +She left her husband at the sorter's table, that he and Jim might get +reacquainted—men never learned to know each other while women were in +the way—and it seemed to them both a long time before she came back. +Claud asked questions about the clip, and other matters of business; +and he criticised the manager's management. +</P> + +<P> +"Rather behind the times—isn't it?—for a place like Redford. I +thought all the big stations sheared by machinery now." +</P> + +<P> +"I've only been waiting for Miss—Mrs Dalzell's return to advise her to +have the machines," said Jim, scrupulous to give Deb's husband all +possible information. +</P> + +<P> +"We must have them, of course. I believe in scientific methods." +</P> + +<P> +Mr Dalzell did not ask Jim how his sisters were, and how his brothers +were getting on—did not remember that he had any. And when Deb came +back, to be gently but firmly ordered out of that dirty place by her +new lord and master, the latter failed to take, although he did not +fail to perceive, the hint of her eyes that Jim should be asked to +dinner. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said he, linking his arm in hers as they left the shed, "no +outsiders, Debbie. I want you all to myself now." +</P> + +<P> +And the words and tone were so sweet to her that she could not be sorry +for the possible hurt to Jim's feelings. She was young again today, +with her world-weary husband making love to her like this. That theory +of their having come together merely to keep each other warm on the +cold road to the grave was laughingly flung to the winds. She laid her +strong right hand on his, limp upon her arm, and expanded her deep +chest to the sunny morning air. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Claud! Oh, isn't it wonderful, after all these years! You remember +that night—that night in the garden? The seat is there still—we will +go and sit on it tonight—" +</P> + +<P> +"My dear, I dare not sit out after sunset, so subject as I am to +bronchitis." +</P> + +<P> +"No, no, of course not—I forgot your bronchitis. This is the time for +you to be out—and this air will soon make another man of you, dear. +Isn't it a heavenly climate? Isn't it divine, this sun? Look here, +Claud, we've got some capital horses—or we had; I'll ask Jim. What do +you say to a ride—a long, lovely bush ride, like the old rides we used +to have together?" +</P> + +<P> +Words cannot describe the pang that went through her when he shook his +head indifferently, and said he was too old for such violent exercise +now. +</P> + +<P> +"Stuff!" she cried angrily.— +</P> + +<P> +"Besides, I haven't been on a horse for so long that I shouldn't know +how to sit him," he teased her lazily. "You wouldn't like to see me +tumble off at your hall door, before the servants, would you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Claud! And to think how you used to ride!" +</P> + +<P> +But of course she knew this was a joke, and laughed it off. +</P> + +<P> +"It's nothing but sheer indolence," said she, patting the hand on her +arm—that shapely ivory hand, with its polished filbert nails—"and I +see that my mission in life is to cure you of it. Come, we will make a +start with a real country walk." +</P> + +<P> +She began to drag him away from the bowered homestead, but he planted +his feet, and took his hand from her arm. +</P> + +<P> +"Not now, Debbie," he objected gently, but with that subtle note of +mastership that had struck so sharply into Jim's sensitiveness; "it is +mail-day, and the letters will be at the house by this time." +</P> + +<P> +"What do letters matter to us?" +</P> + +<P> +"That we can't tell until we see them." +</P> + +<P> +They went in out of the sunshine to their arm-chairs in the shade. The +English mail had arrived, and it was very interesting. Letters from +lords and ladies, piles of papers of fashionable intelligence, voices +from that world which one of the pair had already begun to hanker to be +back in, although not yet distinctly conscious of it. The bride fetched +her work-basket, and busied herself with a piece of useless embroidery, +while the bridegroom read aloud to her passages from the epistles of +his titled correspondents, and from the printed chronicles of their +doings here and there. She had dreamed of his reading again the sort of +things that he used to read, while she sewed and listened; but in the +life that he had lived and grown to there had been no room for learning +and the arts. He had dropped them, with his health and his +horsemanship, long ago. The coroneted letters and the MORNING POST +occupied them until luncheon. +</P> + +<P> +At luncheon, as at every other meal—despite the new husband's +expressed desire to have his wife to himself—his valet was present as +butler, watching over the dyspeptic's diet, and seeing that the wine +was right. Neither master nor man trusted anybody else to do this. It +was a large crumple in Deb's rose-leaf, Manton's limpet-like attachment +to Claud, who seemed unable to do anything without his servant's help, +and the latter's cool relegation of herself to the second place in the +MENAGE. It was all very well for HER to give her husband the premier +place—she did it gladly—but for Manton to take possession of Redford +as a mere appendage of his lord's was quite another matter. It was +still the honeymoon, and he might do as he liked—or rather, as Claud +liked; but it was not difficult to foresee the day when the valet who +dictated to her cook would become too much for the proud spirit of the +lady of the house, with whom it had ever been dangerous to make too +free—or to foretell what would happen then. +</P> + +<P> +Claud dozed through the afternoon—like most idle and luxurious men, he +drank a great deal of wine, which made him sleepy—and Deb took the +opportunity to go all through her house and put everything in order. +They met again at tea, and had a stroll about the garden, arm-in-arm +and happy. Dinner was a rather silent function. Deb wished for Jim, and +regretted her easy abandonment of him; Claud never talked when he was +eating—the business was too serious, and Manton was there. But while +her husband smoked over his coffee, serene and charming, she sat alone +with him, revelling in his wit and gaiety, telling herself that he was +indeed the splendid fellow she had always thought him. +</P> + +<P> +Then they went up to the big drawing-room—he was used to big +rooms—and he flung himself at full length upon one of the downy +couches, and she put silk pillows under his head. +</P> + +<P> +While she was doing it, he pulled her down to him and kissed her. +</P> + +<P> +"It's nice, isn't it?" he murmured in her ear. +</P> + +<P> +For answer, she pressed her lips to his ivory brows and his dropped +eyelids. Her big heart was too full for speech. +</P> + +<P> +"Now I am going to play to you," she whispered, and went off to the old +piano, that the tuner had prepared for this sacred purpose. +</P> + +<P> +What years it was since she had cared to touch piano keys! And never +since the love-time of her youth had she played as she did now—all the +old things that he had ever cared for, with the old passion in them.... +</P> + +<P> +And while she played—he slumbered peacefully. +</P> + +<BR> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<BR> + + +<P> +Jim, when his day of hard work was over, went back to his manager's +house—all the home he knew—had a bath, put on clean clothes, ate +perfunctorily of roast mutton, and bread and jam, and sat down with his +pipe on the top step of his verandah, where he hugged his knees and +watched the stars come out. He was a confirmed old bachelor now, "set", +his sisters said, in his bachelor ways. None of them lived with him, to +keep his house and cheer him up. It was too dull for them (with the +mistress of Redford never there), and besides, he did not want +cheering; for himself, he preferred dullness. An old working +housekeeper "did" for him, cooking his simple meals—eggs and bacon +alternating with chops for breakfast, and mutton and bread and jam for +his tea-dinner, with a fowl for Sundays—keeping his few plain rooms +clean and his socks mended. A hundred or two a year must have covered +his household expenses; the hundreds remaining of his handsome income +went to shore up the weak-kneed of his kindred, who had the habit of +falling back on him when their funds ran out, or anything else went +wrong with them. +</P> + +<P> +He was a great reader. Books lined the walls of his otherwise meagrely +furnished rooms—they represented the one personal extravagance that he +indulged in—and newspapers and magazines came by every mail. In these +and in his thoughts he lived, when not intent upon the affairs of the +estate, which in the eyes of some appeared wholly to absorb him. +Tonight his thoughts sufficed. The latest parcel from Mullens' lay +untied, the new American periodicals with wrappers intact. Deb was home +again—that was enough food for the mind at present. +</P> + +<P> +But, oh, what a home-coming! His own and only "boss" no longer, as +heretofore, but subject to a husband who clearly meant to be his +master, and as clearly meant him to have no mistress any more. Neither +in the way of business nor in the way of sentiment could she be again +to him what she had been throughout his life—the altar of his +sacrifice, the goddess of his simple worship, his guide, his goal. He +must not hope, nor try, nor even long for her now. That one last +comfort was taken from him. +</P> + +<P> +Well!... +</P> + +<P> +He walked about, while the fiercest paroxysm racked him. As some of us +in our pain-torments rush to lotion or anodyne, he sought the soothing +of the starry night, the cool darkness that had so often brought him +peace. To get away from the faintly audible tinkling of the shearers' +banjo and their songs, he strolled in the opposite direction, and that +was towards the dark mass of the trees encircling her house—her home, +in which he had no part. Mechanically he noted a garden gate open—she +had left it so—open to the rabbits against which its section of the +miles of wire-netting fencing the grounds had been so carefully +provided, and he went forward to shut it. Being there, he had a distant +view of the big drawing-room windows, thrown up and letting out wide +streams of light across the lawn. And while he stood to gaze at them, +picturing what within he could not see, he heard the piano—Debbie +playing. +</P> + +<P> +And so she had an appreciative audience, although she did not know it. +Below her windows, out of the light, Jim—poor old Jim!—sat like a +statue, his head thrown back, his eyes uplifted, tears running down his +hairy, weather-beaten face. It was the most exquisitely miserable hour +of his life—or so he thought. He did not know what a highly favoured +mortal he really was, in that his beautiful love-story was never to be +spoiled by a happy ending. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sisters, by Ada Cambridge + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SISTERS *** + +***** This file should be named 4218-h.htm or 4218-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/2/1/4218/ + +Produced by Col Choat. HTML version by Al Haines. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Sisters + +Author: Ada Cambridge + +Posting Date: July 2, 2009 [EBook #4218] +Release Date: July, 2003 +First Posted: December 8, 2001 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SISTERS *** + + + + +Produced by Col Choat. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + +SISTERS + + +by + +Ada Cambridge + +JTABLE 5 28 1 + + +CHAPTER I. + + +Guthrie Carey began life young. He was not a week over twenty-one when, +between two voyages, he married Lily Harrison, simply because she was a +poor, pretty, homeless little girl, who had to earn her living as a +nondescript lady-help in hard situations, and never had a holiday. He +saw her in a Sandridge boarding-house, slaving beyond her powers, and +made up his mind that she should rest. With sailor zeal and +promptitude, he got the consent of her father, who was glad to be rid +of her out of the way of a new wife; took the trembling, clinging child +to the nearest parson, and made her a pensioner on his small wages in a +tiny lodging of her own. They honeymooned for a fortnight, off and on, +as his ship could spare him--the happiest pair of mortals in the wide +world--and then parted in tears and anguish unspeakable for the best +part of a twelvemonth. + +He came back to find himself a father. Wonderful experience for +twenty-one! Never was such a heavenly mystery of a child! Never such an +angelic young mother!--eighteen, and with the bloom of that most +beautifying convalescence like a halo about her. He was first mate now, +with a master's certificate and a raised salary; it was time to make a +home. So while she nursed the baby in Sandridge--with the aid of a +devoted friend, the landlady's cousin--Guthrie Carey busied himself +across the way at Williamstown, fixing up a modest house. He also had a +devoted friend, in the person of a Customs officer, whose experienced +wife took charge of the operations. Lily was to see nothing until all +was ready for her. It was to be a "pleasant surprise". + +The last touches had been given--tea put in the caddy, meat and butter +in the safe, flowers in the vases. Mrs Hardacre, in her best gown, +spread a festive supper-table, and Bill, her spouse, stood by with a +Government launch to take the proud young husband to his wife, and to +bring them back together. + +Lily awaited him, trembling, tearful, wild with the joy of going home. +Her step-mother had come to Sandridge to see her off, and had brought +her a present of a macintosh, on the merits of which she dilated with +fervour as she twirled it round and round. + +"Buttons right down to the feet," she urged persuasively, "and cape +hanging below the waist"--the second Mrs Harrison was a big woman. "You +might go through a deluge in it. And so stylish, my dear! You can wear +it when you go out in threatening weather of an afternoon, and be quite +smart." + +"Well, it's pretty threatening now," said Guthrie uneasily. "I don't +know that it wouldn't be wiser--" + +"Oh, no, no!" Lily implored. "No trains tonight! No way but this, +Guthrie. I can't get wet--in this nice waterproof. I don't care how it +blows--the more the better--with you with me." + +"But baby?" + +"We can keep him safe. He is going to be rolled in your 'possum rug. We +can take him inside if it is cold. Oh, we MUST go by sea, Guthrie!" + +"Call this sea?" he mocked. + +It was sea to her, who had never been beyond the Heads. She expected to +concentrate in the fifteen-minutes' trip across the bay the interest of +years of travel on land. There was nothing like blue water to this +sailor's wife, whose heart had been upon it for so many anxious months; +the extravagance of her partiality was the joke of husband and friends +against her. + +"All right," said Guthrie; "come along, then!" + +He was impatient to get her away from these people, and under his own +roof. + +The second-hand macintosh was again pressed upon her. + +"Oh, thanks--thanks! But I think I won't put it on just yet, as it is +not raining. My dress is warm." + +Her dress was the wedding dress--chosen for use as well as beauty--a +delicate pink stuff, with a watered sash to match, in which she looked +like a school-girl on breaking-up day. She had a fancy to go to her +home in state, and also to make an appearance that would do her husband +credit before Mr and Mrs Hardacre. + +"Here is your fascinator, my dear," said the motherly landlady, +offering the wisely-selected substitute for Lily's hat. "Let me tie it +on for you--there!" + +The fascinator of white wool, made and adjusted properly, accounts for +its name; and Guthrie was sure that he had never seen a lovelier +picture than his darling's face in that soft frame. She was ready +now--as ready as she meant to be until the Customs launch had seen +her--and turned to pick up the large bundle that had the little baby in +the middle of it. + +"I'll carry him, Lily." + +"No, no, Mr Carey, I'm going to carry him," said the landlady's cousin, +a strapping young woman, whose arms were equal to the task--"as far as +the boat, at any rate." + +She did so, the elder ladies supporting her on either side. Guthrie and +Lily led the procession, hand in hand. + +Ah, how like another world it was, coming out upon that breezy platform +from the gutter-smelling streets! And how royal a proceeding it seemed +to Lily to be, the setting apart of a Government vessel solely and +entirely to convey her to her new abode, as if she were a little queen +going to her husband's kingdom. She could not help holding herself with +dignity, if not with a trifle of vaingloriousness, as, between +half-a-dozen eager hands and admiring eyes, she stepped down into it. + +"Now, have you got everything?" the landlady called from the pier. "Oh, +everything--everything in the world!" Guthrie shouted, in reply. + +"Where's your waterproof, Lily?" screeched the step-mother. "Better put +it on, my dear; and I'd advise you to sit under cover, both of you. +You'll be drenched if you don't, in this wind. Why, Mr Hardacre, it's +blowing a perfect gale!" + +"A bit fresh, ma'am," Bill admitted; "just enough to keep us lively. +All aboard, Mr Casey? Pass the word, sir, when you're ready." + +"Ready!" called Guthrie. And then he said something to the men, Bill +Hardacre and his mate Dugald Finlayson, about having everything on +board--all his life and happiness, or something to that effect--at +which they laughed and chaffed him as the launch backed from the pier, +and started off in the tearing hurry characteristic of Customs boats. + +Lily was in the cabin with the baby and the landlady's cousin, who had +'got round' Mr Hardacre to give her a return passage, after seeing the +little family safe home. Husband and wife had frowned at the suggestion +of having her with them on the launch, but when they had shut her in +out of sight and hearing, and found themselves free to follow their own +devices untrammelled by their child, they did not mind so much. + +"Hadn't you better--?" Guthrie began, when his wife reappeared, +clinging to the door-jamb; but she exclaimed again: + +"No, no! Let me be outside with you!" She wanted to feel "at sea" with +him, to bathe herself, under the shelter of his protection, in the +magnificent, tempestuous, inspiring night. To her, cooped up all her +life in streets and prosaic circumstances, there was something in the +present situation too poetical for words. No bride who had married +money, and was setting out by P. & O. upon her luxurious European tour, +could have been more keenly sensible of the romance of foreign travel +than she, crossing Hobson's Bay in a borrowed Customs launch; while the +squally darkness surrounding and isolating her and her mate +immeasurably enhanced the charm. "I want to see it--to feel it!" she +pleaded. "The air is so clean and fresh! The sea is so grand tonight! +How beautiful it smells! Guthrie, I must have been born for a sailor's +wife--I love it so!" + +"Of course you were," the sailor assented heartily. "No manner of doubt +about that. Well, sit here, if you prefer it, sweetheart"--on the stern +grating--"only mind you don't catch cold. And don't let us get that +pretty frock spoiled before the Williamstown folks have seen it." + +He steadied her while she stood to have the big macintosh drawn closely +about her--the round cape, flapping far and wide in the rough wind, was +like an unmanageable sail, he said--and when she was again seated, he +tucked it about her knees and feet. Buttons being hard to find and +fasten, he pulled the two fronts of the garment one over the other +across her lap, and she sat upon the outer one. Then he readjusted the +white fascinator, winding the fluffy ends round her neck, and finally +encircling all with his stalwart arm. There she sat, resting against +him, her left hand in his left hand, her contented eyes shining like +stars in the dark. They were practically alone in space, their deck +companions having thoughtfully turned their backs and made themselves +as remote as possible. + +A long sigh fluttered through Lily's parted lips from her surcharged +heart. Guthrie heard it through all the clamour of the gale--for it +really was a gale--and the noise of the screw and fiercely snorting +funnel. He stopped his face to hers. + +"Tired, pet?" + +"No," she murmured, "oh, no!" + +"What, then?" + +"Only happy--PERFECTLY happy." + +"Same here," he said, careless how he tempted Fate--"only more so." + +Their lips met, and were holding that sweetest kiss of lovers that are +man and wife, when a wave, driven by the wind, flung a shower of spray +at them, giving each a playful slap of the face as a hint not to be too +confident. + +"Hadn't you better get inside?" he urged, as he wiped her cheek. "It'll +be rougher still directly." + +"Oh, no, it's splendid! The rougher the better. I'm so glad it's rough. +I can't take any harm, so well wrapped up, and with you, my husband." + +"Ah, Lil!" The hug he gave her in acknowledgment of the word made her +gasp for breath. He was so carried away that he had to use both arms, +whereby a lurch of the boat nearly unseated him. "Never," he declared, +in an intense whisper--"never shall you come to harm, my precious one, +while you've got me to protect you; I can promise you that." + +"Dear," she returned, in the same kind of tone, "I know I never shall." + +And she cuddled closer up to him, and he took a firmer grip of her. +There was no rail for either to hold to, and drawing out from the +shelter of the pier, and meeting the force of the southerly swell, the +launch had begun to dance like a cork on boiling water. + +"Why, there's quite a sea on," remarked Guthrie, with a laugh. "I hope +it won't make you sea-sick." + +"Sea-sick!" she echoed, with fine scorn. "I am a sailor's wife, sir." + +"Bless your little heart, I've been sea-sick myself many a time, and +for not much more than this, either. However, it'll soon be over. +There's home waiting for us, Lil--" + +"Where? Where?" she interrupted him, with a tender eagerness. The +launch was tossed high in the air, and the lights of Williamstown +stretched across the darkness in front of them like a band of jewels. + +"Oh, you can't distinguish it," said Guthrie, "but it's there--it's one +of those lights; Mrs Hardacre said she was going to keep the blind up +and the gas flaring, so that we might see it as we came over." + +"That's what I shall do when you come back next time," said the girl, +with a voice like a dove cooing. "Make a beacon to guide you home." + +"No fear that I shall mistake the course, little woman." + +He had an irresistible impulse to hug her with both arms again, and +they happened to be on the verge of the river current. Hardacre and +Finlayson both shouted, "Look out, sir!" but he was not looking +out--his sailor eyes were otherwise occupied, and so he did not +perceive the enemy of love making the spring to seize him. Just as he +was folding his mate to his breast, he heard the warning cry for'ard, +and it was then too late to avert the catastrophe. In the same instant +a sudden wave struck the launch, and nearly turned her over, and the +young wife and husband, holding to nothing but one another, and simply +sitting upon an unprotected plank, were tipped out as easily as balls +from a capsized basket. + +"Oh, this is too absurd!" + +That was Guthrie's mental ejaculation in the astonishing first moment. +A deep-sea sailor, who had come through what he had come through, to +let himself be caught unawares by such a paltry mischance as this! +Then, what an unspeakable ass to have been so careless--to have shown +himself incapable of protecting his wife, after all his boasts! Would +he ever hear the last of it as long as he lived? Poor little woman! How +cold the water felt when he thought of her tender skin. And her pretty +dress, that she had set such store by, in which she had intended to go +to church with him on Sunday--utterly destroyed, of course! Well, he +must make shift to afford her another and smarter one, and get it made +quickly. She should have her pick and choice. As the following wave +soused his uprising head, slapping him full in the face, so as to +confuse and blind him for a second or two, the fear that she might get +"a dose of it" before they could pull her out made him sharply anxious. +If she got a bad cold, a shock to her nerves, perhaps a serious +illness, he would never forgive himself. And what a sell that would +be--what waste of this precious holiday, this second honeymoon, so much +sweeter than the first--after the weary waiting for it! + +He cleared his eyes, and had a momentary view of the surroundings +before another wave rushed upon him. Waves they were, by George! He +would not have believed it possible that such a sea would be running +right up here, in this little duck-pond of a bay. It had seemed rough +on the boat, but viewed from the surface, it might have been the middle +of Atlantic wastes. They were in the river channel--worse luck!--and +the south wind was dead on to it, bringing up the swell from outside; +and the swell, that had set that way for days, was so heavy as to drive +him back faster than his powerful limbs could propel him in the other +direction. At first the launch seemed to want to dance over him, but +when he rose on a swirl of water to take his bearings after the first +bewilderment, she was a couple of lengths away, cutting the most +extraordinary capers in her efforts to put about. Her own lights, and +those of the beacons at the river mouth, showed him all her stern +grating and bright deck fittings as she heeled over, hanging to the +side of one of those ridiculous ocean rollers out of bounds; and he +thought it no wonder that he--even he--had been tossed off under the +circumstances. The crew, who were not sitting on a skimming dish, as it +were, had their work cut out to hold on. As he looked, he measured his +drift with serious disquietude, although the preposterous idea of +anybody being drowned had not as yet occurred to him. Drowned HERE! A +good joke, indeed! Why, they were within hail of Sandridge, and +half-a-dozen ships--or they would have been, but for the noise of wind +and water, which smothered lesser sounds; and the lights of +Williamstown--amongst them that of the little home awaiting +him--studded the shore on the other hand, near and clear, like the eyes +of a host of watching friends. And in Hobson's Bay, which could hardly +cover the body of a sunk yacht; and right up by the river, which had to +be dredged all the time to keep it open! + +But where was Lily? It scared him to find himself out of arm's reach of +her, forced back by the swell, and not to see her immediately when he +was able to look. He saw the launch--which of course was entirely +occupied in her rescue--and saw two white buoys floating, and saw a +line thrown, but nothing else, except the wild water that buffeted him, +and the moonless night overhead. And he remembered that the river +channel--indeed, Hobson's Bay in any part--was just as dangerous as +mid-Atlantic to one who could not swim. The thought clutched him like a +hand at his throat. + +"Got her?" he yelled, in a fury of terror. "Got her? See her?" + +He strained to make himself heard by the men on the launch in a way to +burst his heart. They shouted something that he could not understand, +and a line came whizzing past him. He caught it as it dropped, and soon +lessened the distance between them. Then he perceived a long boat-hook +stretching out into the darkness; it went up and down with the toss of +the boat like the fishing-rod of an impatient school-boy, and a few +yards beyond its reach, where it touched water, there was a dim smudge. +He knew it for the full cape of Lily's macintosh, outspread upon the +waves. They alternately rumpled and smoothed it, flapping it into all +shapes as they tossed and toyed with it; but, by the mercy of Heaven, +it had held her up. In the middle of the mass he could see her dear +little head hanging forward and downward, just under the surface, out +of which a larger or smaller speck of her white fascinator rose and +gleamed as each roll swung her up into the light of the boat's lamp +turned upon the spot. This told him that she was already helpless and +unconscious, although ten seconds had not elapsed since she went over. +God send that she had not struck anything--that her heart was not +weak--that she was not subject to any of the mysterious consequences of +shock peculiar to the more than ordinarily complex women! At any rate, +she had not had time to drown. He had seen a man recovered after being +under for forty minutes, and in less than one they would be taking her +full speed to Williamstown, signalling for the doctor as they went. +What would the fellows ashore make of the three whistles--three times +there before they got across? They would know the launch that blew +them, and her present errand, and think, perhaps, that the crew were on +the spree. But no, they would have more sense than that; they would +look at the wild night, and conclude that something had happened. So +would the doctor, who would hear the summons from his bed. What would +they all say to him, Guthrie Carey, with his good seaman's record +behind him, when he brought his wife home in such a state of +dilapidation? However, all's well that ends well. Let him only have her +safely there, and he would not mind what anybody said; and he'd take +precious good care not to run any risks with her again. + +Water-logged as he was, and cramped in his overcoat, he made a violent +bound towards the floating cape, lunged twice, caught it at the second +try, and pulled it eagerly--alas! too eagerly. He felt the tug of +Lily's weight only just long enough to be sure that she was there, and +then--the fastenings gave way, and she slipped through! The empty +garment swam up to him on the edge of a new wave, which clapped it over +his face like a gigantic plaster. + +Oh, this was dreadful! She would be rescued eventually, of +course--amongst them they would not let her drown, not if skill and +courage had any show at all--but the fact that she was in danger could +no longer be ignored. She was a little delicate thing, already +overcome, and precious time was wasting, when every second was of the +most stupendous consequence. With a frenzied gesture, Guthrie shook off +the cloak, spluttered, spat, and made a dive to intercept her as she +went down, wondering as he did so whether breath and strength would +hold out if he missed her and had to follow her to the bottom. The +swing of the swell was awful, and the darkness of the blind night too +cruel for words. + +"If only I had this cursed coat off!" he dumbly sobbed. "If only I +could get rid of these damned laced boots!" Bad words would have been +forgivable even had he not been a sailor. + +He missed her, groped desperately, to the verge of suffocation, and +came up to cough, and groan, and pump breath enough to take him down +again. It would have cost five minutes to get his clothes off, and +there was not a single second to spare--now. + +"See her?" he shrieked. + +"Ne'er a sign," Bill Hardacre shouted. "But we'll catch her when she +rises. Take a turn o' the line round you, sir, so's we can haul you +in--" + +But there was not even time for that in the frightful race of these +vital moments. She was gone, and she must be found, and there was but +her husband to look for her. The two other men were few enough for the +safety of the launch as she was then situated; and besides, Hardacre +could be more useful to Lily above water than below. The neighbouring +ships lay undisturbed, putting off no boats to help. In all that band +of lights ringing the black welter of the bay, like stars out of the +Infinite, shining calmly upon an abandoned world, not one was moving. + +Guthrie Carey gave a last look round, identified the window of what was +to have been his home, where the fire was burning brightly, the little +supper spread, good Mrs Hardacre watching for them at the door--heard +the landlady's cousin wailing, "Lil! Lil!"--and again plunged under, +arms wide and eyes staring, and heart bursting with despair. Everything +in him seemed bursting--an agonising sensation--as his overstrained +lungs collapsed, and the power of his strong limbs failed him; then +everything seemed to break away and let in the floods of Lethe with a +rush--confusion and forgetfulness and a whirl of dreams, settling to a +strange peace, an irresistible sleep, as if he had swallowed a magic +opiate. The sea took him, as a nurse takes a helpless child, and +floated him up from the place where he had been savagely groping; +something met him half-way, floating down upon him, and his arms went +round it of their own accord. But they were powerless to clasp or hold +it. It passed him, sinking gently, and lay where it sank, under all the +turmoil, as still as the rocking tide would let it. + +The launch sounded her steam whistle furiously. From both sides of the +bay it was heard, screeching through the windy night like a fiend +possessed, and men got up hastily to ask what was the matter. Another +launch put out from Williamstown, and a police boat from Sandridge, and +the anchored ships awoke and hailed them. Soon half-a-dozen boats were +tossing about the spot; they tossed for two hours, and Bill Hardacre +dived seven times with a rope round his waist, while the widowed young +husband lay on the cabin floor between two doctors, the baby and the +landlady's cousin keening over him. + +"Well," said Dugald Finlayson, as at last they headed for Williamstown +through the now lessening storm, with a bundle in tarpaulin beside +them, "it do seem as if the Powers above take a pleasure in tripping us +up when we least expect it." + +"Aye," said Bill Hardacre, sitting crying in his wet clothes, "he said +as we were starting he'd got all he wanted now. I thinks to myself at +the time, thinks I, 'That's an unlucky thing to say.'" But who is to +judge luck in this world? Poor little Lily Harrison was a helpless +creature, and had almost 'nothing in her' except vanity. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +Sincerely he believed, when he was on his feet again, that his life was +wrecked for ever. He did suffer from insomnia, even with his splendid +sea-seasoned constitution, for months, which proved the poignant +insistency of his grief, making thinking a disease instead of a healthy +function. He performed his duties mechanically, rigidly, like an engine +stoked from the outside. He no longer had pleasure or interest in them. +The flavour was gone from life; it had become a necessary burden, to be +borne as best he could. At one time he even questioned the right of the +Moral Law to ask him to bear it, under the circumstances. He used to +look at the blue water beneath him, and long to be beneath it, sharing +the fate of his loved and lost. He did not want to live without her--he +wanted to die. At twenty-one! + +At twenty-three he was a man again, physically and mentally sound, +doing all reverence to the memory of his dead wife--a flawless angel in +the retrospect--while finding natural solace in the company of living +women who were also young and fair. The living women were much in +evidence from the first; nothing but the sea could keep them from +trying to comfort him. A big fellow, with a square, hard face, and a +fist to fell an ox--that was just the kind of man to call for coddling, +apart from the fact that he was a widower--had been married for as long +as five weeks altogether--with his heart in his wife's grave, and with +that pathetic adjunct, a baby. When he would consent to recognise the +world of affairs again, and the claims of youth and manhood against it, +he found--but of course there is no need to specify all the things he +found. + +One was a batch of invitations awaiting each arrival of his ship in +port--first two, then four, then half-a-dozen women's notes, begging +him to come to as many hospitable houses for change and rest, and to +"bring the baby". He could not bring the baby, for reasons which he did +not honestly present, as a rule, but which he reluctantly disclosed to +Alice Urquhart one night at Five Creeks. Alice had written one of the +six notes (they were six because it was Christmas time), for she was +the sister of Jim Urquhart, who was the friend of an ex-squatter down +on his luck through droughts, and reduced to balancing ledgers in a +Melbourne office, who was the friend of one of those doctors of +Williamstown whose skill had brought Guthrie Carey to life after he had +been drowned. Jim, having made the acquaintance of the latter, took his +sister to inspect the ship, and to have tea in the mate's cabin; hence +the return visit, which the captain, who loved his chief officer, +stretched a point to sanction. + +There were at Five Creeks station, besides Jim, a Mrs Urquhart and +several children; but Alice, the eldest of the family, was the general +manager of her household, ever struggling with her brother, who +maintained it, to lift it and herself out of the ruts in which her +father had left it stuck. She was close on thirty, sad to say, and +there were three girls below her; and nothing happened from year to +year, and she was weary of the monotony. "Do come and see us," she +wrote to Guthrie Carey--one of the finest-looking men she had ever +known, not excepting the splendid Claud Dalzell--"do come and see us, +and bring the baby. Country air will do it good, and the house is full +of nurses for it." + +He went himself, out of friendship for Jim, and after dinner sat in the +verandah with Alice, and explained why he had not brought the baby. Jim +had then gone off to doctor a sick horse, and Mrs Urquhart was putting +children to bed. + +"I believe," Alice rallied him, "that you thought it INFRA DIG." + +He protested earnestly that she was wrong. No, it was not that--not +THAT. + +Ignorant of the details of the tragedy of his life, she scented a +mystery about the child. Was it, perhaps, not right in its head, she +wondered--or afflicted with a hare lip? + +"Son or daughter?" she ventured cautiously. "A boy," said Guthrie +Carey, still with that unfatherly air of discontent. "Sometimes I wish +it was a girl. She could look after me by-and-by; I could have her +trained to be my housekeeper, and sew my buttons on--that sort of +thing, you know." + +"You would have to wait a long time," said Alice, turning admiring eyes +upon his comely person, noting with regret that he could not be within +several years of her own age. "It is quite a young infant, isn't it?" + +"Yes; that is--let me see--fifteen months and a little over. Yes, it +will be fifteen months on Thursday since he lost his mother." Time had +done so much for him that he could now speak of her to a stranger. "And +he was then only a few weeks old." + +"Poor, poor little thing!" sighed Alice Urquhart. + +It was, by the way, a particularly sympathetic night--soft, still, +solitary, with a full moon. They both felt it. Besides, he had had an +excellent dinner. Five Creeks was poor, but it lived well. + +"Oh," laughed the guest, without merriment in his laugh, "you needn't +waste pity on HIM, Miss Urquhart; he's all right. Rolls in fat--never +ailed a thing in his life--might take the prize at a baby show. So they +tell me. I have not seen him myself for a good while." + +"What! Why, he's in Melbourne, isn't he?" + +"Not far out." + +"And you haven't been home to see him?" + +"I haven't got a home. I gave it up when--you know. I knew I should +never be there, and you can't leave a house and a young child to +servants. The little time that I did try to carry on by myself, I made +a dismal mess of it. The woman I trusted to'--he meant Mrs +Hardacre--'started feeding it with thick arrowroot. She'd have killed +it to a certainty." + +"Indeed, yes. The idea! But it is incredible what some fools of women +can do in the way of mismanaging a baby." The remark implied expert +knowledge on the speaker's part. + +"A mother of children herself, too," said Guthrie reflectively, "and +looking it, if ever a woman did. While a girl, who'd never had any, +took to the job like a duck to water--knew just what to do and how to +do it. I will say that for her." "Instinct," Miss Urquhart remarked to +the man in the moon, who seemed to survey the couple with his tongue in +his cheek. "I'm sure, though I say it, that I could give many a mother +points myself." + +"I've no doubt you could. I heard somebody say, the other day, that +mothers are born, not made. Very true, too. You see it in the little +girls nursing their dolls. I don't think anything of a she-child that +doesn't want a doll as soon as it can speak." "I always loved them," +declared Alice casually. + +He leaned forward to look at a spider's web that the silver light had +just touched, making it shine out from its background of dark leaves +and verandah post; and there was danger of rupture to the delicate +thread of the topic that was weaving so charming a conversation. +Wherefore the young lady hastened to inquire what had become of his +little son. + +"I suppose," she said, "he is with his mother's people?" + +Slowly resuming his attitude of repose, the guest considered the +question. + +"No-o--not exactly. With a friend of his mother's, not her family. +Unfortunately, she had no family to speak of--and mine is in England. +Neither of us had a soul here who really belonged to us. That was just +the difficulty." + +"It must have been a great difficulty," murmured Alice, in a feeling +tone. + +"I believe you," assented Guthrie, with emphasis. "In fact, it put me +into the most ridiculous hole, the most confounded fix--one that I +can't for the life of me see my way out of; one that--However, I +mustn't talk about it to you. It's not a thing that one ought to talk +about to anybody." + +And yet he yearned to talk about it, and now, and to this particularly +sympathetic woman, who was not young and giddy, but, like himself, +experienced in the troubles of life, such as weighed him down. There +was "something about her" that irresistibly appealed to him, and he did +not know what; but an author, who knows everything, knows exactly what +it was. It was the moonlight night. + +A few words from her, backed by the nameless influences of the hour, +unloosed his tongue. + +"You mustn't think me an unnatural parent," he said. "It's not that at +all. I'm awfully fond of him. I've got his photograph in my +pocket--I'll show it to you when we go in--the last one for the time +being. I get a new one about every other mail, in all sorts of get-up, +clothes and no clothes; but all as fat as butter, and grinning from ear +to ear with the joy of life. You never saw such a fetching little cuss. +I'd give anything to get hold of him--if I could." + +"But surely--his own father--" + +"No. It sounds absurd to you, naturally; but that's because you don't +understand the situation." + +"I can't conceive of any situation--" + +"Of course not. It's a preposterous situation. And I just drifted into +it--I don't know how. Oh, I do know--it was for the child's own sake; +so that you really mustn't call me a heartless parent any more, Miss +Urquhart. Nobody would do that who knew what I'd suffered for him." Mr +Carey made a gesture, and sighed deeply. "Even in the beginning it +would have been difficult to get out of it, having once got in," he +continued, after a pause; "but it has been going on so long, getting +worse and worse every day and every hour, till now I'm all tangled up +like that moth in that spider's web"--pointing to a little insect +tragedy going on beside them. + +Miss Urquhart leaned forward, resting her arms on her knees, and +spreading her hands in the enchanting moonlight, which made them look +white as pearls--and made her rather worn face look as if finely carved +in ivory. It was a graceful, thoughtful, confidential pose, and her +eyes, uplifted, soft and kind, gleamed just under his eyes. + +"I'm so sorry!" she murmured. "But if I don't know what the trouble +is--oh, don't tell me if you'd rather not!--I can't help you, can I? +And I do wish I could!" + +"So do I. But I'm afraid nobody can help me. And yet, perhaps a fresh +eye--a woman's clearer insight--" He paused irresolute, then succumbed +to temptation. "Look here, Miss Urquhart, I'll just tell you how it is, +if you'll promise not to speak of it again. You are no gossip, I +know"--how did he know?--"and it will be such a blessed relief to tell +somebody. And perhaps you could advise me, after all--" + +"Let me try," she broke in encouragingly. For an instant her pearly +hand touched his sleeve. "You may trust me," she said. + +"I'm sure of it--I'm sure of it," he responded warmly. He drew his +chair closer, took a moment to collect himself, and plunged headlong. + +"You see, she was related to the people my poor wife lived with when we +were first married, and she was a lot with her--it was lonesome for +her, with me away at sea--and they got to be sort of chums. She was +with us the night I lost my poor girl--I can't talk about that now, but +some day I'll tell you--and I know she was awfully fond of her. That +was just the difficulty." + +"You are speaking," queried Alice gently, "of the person who has the +baby?" + +"Exactly. I see you begin to understand." + +"I think so," said Alice, with a smile broad enough to be visible in +moonlight. "But what was the difficulty?" + +"Well, you know, being so really fond of her, and all that--wishing to +do it for the sake of her dear friend--what could I say, especially as +those women were killing the unfortunate brat between them? She was not +so very young, and was evidently clever at managing--" + +"Yes," interposed Alice, smiling still. + +"And peculiarly situated for undertaking the job, having a good home, +and only an old mother, who let her do what she liked. And awfully set +on the baby from the first, and wanting an object in life, as she said. +But chiefly it was for Lily's sake. To see Lily's child messed about by +just anybody, and killed with arrowroot and stuff, was more than she +could stand--to tell the truth, I couldn't stand it either--and she +begged me to let her have it to look after, as there was no female +friend or relative nearer to it than she was. What COULD I do? She +lived in a nice, healthy spot, and there was the old mother with her +experience, and I was obliged to go to sea; and--and--well, I just had +to say "yes", and be thankful to say it. We got the--the doctor found +a--we engaged the sort of nurse that does everything, you know--a fine, +strapping young woman, in the pink of condition; and--and--well, there +it was. And at the first blush the worst of the trouble seemed over, +instead of just beginning. I gave up my house, and went off to sea, +miserable enough, as you may suppose, but at least with an easy mind +about the boy. As far as he was concerned--as far as my poor Lily was +concerned, I felt I had acted for the best. Indeed, I don't for the +life of me understand how any man could have acted otherwise, under the +circumstances." + +The listener, listening intently, here put a quiet question--"Did you +pay her?"--which caused the narrator to wince like a galled horse. + +"Ah, there you hit the weak spot, Miss Urquhart, right in the +bull's-eye," he declared, sighing furiously. "If I could have paid her, +of course there'd have been no difficulty at all. But she wouldn't be +paid." + +"You ought to have insisted on it," said Alice severely. + +"I did insist. I insisted all I knew. But she said it was a labour of +love for her friend, and seemed so hurt at the idea of money being +brought into the question, that I was ashamed to press her beyond a +certain point. She let me pay for the nurse's board, and that was all. +The baby didn't eat anything, you see, and they were comfortably off, +with lots of spare room in their house, and I just looked on it as a +sort of temporary visit--until I came back--until I should be able to +turn round a bit. But"--with another sigh--"he's there yet." + +Miss Urquhart nodded, with an air of utter wisdom. + +"Of course you went to see the child?" + +"Three times--whenever I was in port. And found him always the same--so +beautifully cared for that, upon my soul, I never saw a baby in my life +so sweet and clean and wholesome-looking; jolly as a little sandboy all +the time, too." + +"That means that he had a perfect constitution--inherited from you +evidently--and that you were fortunate in the nurse." + +"Very fortunate. But it appeared that beyond--beyond running the +commissariat department, so to speak, she did next to nothing for him. +Miss--the lady I spoke of--did everything. Made herself a perfect slave +to him." + +"Bought his clothes?" + +"Oh," groaned the wretched man, "I suppose so. What did I know about a +baby's clothes? And she wouldn't answer my questions--said he was all +right, and didn't want for anything, as I could see with my own eyes. I +tried making presents--used to bring her curios and things--found out +her birthday, and sent her a jewel--took every chance I could see to +work off the obligation. But it was no use. She gave ME a birthday +present after I'd given her one." + +"Well, if moths will go into spiders' webs," laughed his companion, +"they must take the consequences." + +"Sometimes they get helped out," he replied. "Some beneficent, godlike +being puts out an omnipotent finger--" + +He looked at her, and she looked at him. At this moment they seemed to +have known one another intimately for years. The moon again. + +"Tell me everything," she said, "and I'll help you out." + +So then he told her that he had not "this time" visited his son. He +might have added that he had come to Five Creeks partly to avoid being +visited by him. Cowardly and weak he frankly confessed himself. "But +the thing was too confoundedly awkward--too embarrassing altogether." + +"But she writes--she writes continually. Tells me what he weighs, and +when he's got a fresh tooth, and how he crawls about the carpet and +into her bed of a morning, and imitates the cat mewing, and drinks I +don't know how many pints of new milk a day, and all that sort of +thing. I believe the rascal has the appetite of a young tiger--and yet +I can't pay for what he eats! The nurse was long ago dispensed with, so +that I've not even her board to send a cheque for, that they might by +chance make a trifle of profit out of. It seems too late now to simply +take the child away, and there leave it. I haven't the shabby courage +to do such a thing; and besides, he might come to any sort of grief, +poor little chap, in that case. There's no doubt in the world that her +taking of him and doing for him have been the salvation of his health, +and perhaps his life. And I know, by what she tells me, that he +regularly dotes on her--as so he ought--and would howl his very head +off if I took him from her. What could I do with him if I did take him? +I've no home, and nobody to look after it if I had; and hired servants +are the deuce with a lone man at their mercy. It would be worse now +than it was at first. And so'--with another heavy sigh--'you see the +situation. I'm just swallowed up, body and bones, drowned fathoms deep +in a sea of debt and obligation that I can never by any possibility +struggle out of, except--" + +"Except," continued Alice, with the candid air of a kind and sensible +sister--"except by marrying her, you mean? Yes, I see the situation. I +appreciate your point of view. I should understand it if it were not +that she unquestionably laid the trap for you deliberately--just as +that spider laid his for moths and flies. And marriage by capture has +gone out." + +"Oh, don't say that!" the man protested, in haste. "I would not for a +moment accuse her of that. She was Lily's friend; it was for her--it +was out of pure womanly compassion for the motherless child; at any +rate, in the beginning. And even now I have no right whatever to +suppose--" + +"But you know it, all the same. Every word you have said to me tells me +that you know it. You may as well be frank." + +He squirmed a little in his chair, but confessed as required. + +"Well--but it's a caddish thing to say--I think she does expect it. And +hasn't she the right to expect it? However, that's neither here nor +there. The point is that, in common honesty and manliness, I should +repay her if I can; and there's no other way--at least, I can't see any +other way. It is my fault, and not hers, that I don't take to the +notion; for a better woman never walked, nor one that would make a +better mother to the boy. But, somehow, you DO like to have your free +choice, don't you?" He had come as far as this--that he could entertain +the idea of choice, which meant a second choice. + +"It would be utterly wrong, absolutely immoral, downright wicked, to +forego it," Alice declaimed, with energy. "It would be nothing short of +criminal, Mr Carey." + +She argued the point with eloquence, even excitedly; and when she had +brought him to reason--very willing to be brought--leaned back in her +chair with a joyous air. + +"Oh, we will arrange it!" she reassured him. "There are plenty of ways. +I'll tell you"--bending forward again and gazing earnestly into eyes +from which something that had been looking out of them seemed to have +drawn back hastily--"you shall introduce me to her, and I will bring +him away up here for a visit. He ought to be in the country in summer, +and he will come with me, I know, and won't miss her after a couple of +days. I can get you a nurse cheap from some of the selectors, and one +more or less makes not the slightest difference in a house like this; +and I will take care of him for you until you come back next voyage, or +for just as long as you will trust him to me. So the difficulty will +solve itself without any fuss. Do you see?" + +Guthrie Carey felt unable to reply. He could only murmur again and +again: "You are awfully good, Miss Urquhart. 'Pon my word, you are too +good altogether." Later, he declared more firmly that he could not +think of troubling her. + +"Nonsense!" she returned lightly. "It is all settled." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Decidedly he was a coward, with all his brawn and inches; for he dared +not protest straight-forwardly that all was not settled. He certainly +told himself that he did not know what to do, but he also told himself +that he would be a fool to do practically the same thing that he had +done before. He passed a sleepless night, poor fellow, cogitating the +matter; and in the morning, when the moon was gone, saw clearly himself +where the path of prudence lay. Still he lacked courage to make it +clear to Miss Urquhart, even while he saw her laying out, with +enthusiasm, that road of her own which his terrified imagination +pictured her marching along presently, bearing the baby aloft in her +arms, and dragging him on a dog-chain behind her. It was not until +mid-day that he suddenly became a brave man--about five minutes after +the arrival of Deborah Pennycuick. + +She rode over from Redford, all by herself, as her frequent custom was, +to see how Five Creeks was getting on, and to talk over plans for +Christmas. She wore a brown holland habit over the most beautifully +moulded form, and, entering the house, tossed aside a shady hat from +the most beautiful face that ever delighted eyes of man and virile +heart of three-and-twenty. It is in such plain terms that one must +describe this noble creature; words in half-tones are unworthy of the +theme. Being introduced by Alice Urquhart, Guthrie Carey, in a sense, +expanded on the spot into a fresh stage, a larger scope of being, with +his unleaping recognition of her inspiring greatness. It seemed to him +that he had never looked upon a woman before. Lily, of course, had been +an angel. "I thought I should just strike lunch," she said, as she came +like a sunbeam into the dim, low-ceiled, threadbare, comfortable room +where the meal was ready. "I'm as hungry as a hunter, Mrs Urquhart." + +The homely old woman uttered a cry of joy, and spread her arms. The +visitor, incarnate dignity, bent to the maternal caress with willing +affection, yet with the tolerant air of good-nature that does not run +to gush. The children gathered round her, and hung upon her, undeterred +by the fact that she had no kisses or fondlings for them. Jim stood +motionless, glowing at the back of his fixed eyes. + +When the family had done greeting her, Guthrie was brought forward. + +"This is Mr Carey, Deb, who--" + +"Oh, yes, I know"--and the frank hand, large, strong and beautiful, +like every bit of her, went out to him as if she had really known +him--"it is on Mr Carey's account that I have come, to tell you that +you must bring him over to Redford at once." + +"We were going to," said Alice; for it was the natural thing to take +every Five Creeks visitor to Redford as soon as possible. "I was +writing to you only this morning." + +"Well, we just wanted to make sure. My father--you will excuse him for +not calling on you; he is not able to get about as he used, poor old +man--hears that you belong to a family at home which was very intimate +with his family when he was young. Do you come from Norfolk?" + +"No," replied the sailor, still in his dream. + +"Oh, dear, what a pity! He will be so disappointed. We have been +hearing about the Careys of Wellwood all our lives--never were such +people, apparently--and when he heard your name, and got the idea that +you were of the clan, nothing would do but that you must be fetched at +once, to talk to him about them. Aren't you even a second cousin, or +something?" + +"My grandfather was born at Wellwood--" + +"Ah, that's right! That's all we want. That makes you a Carey of +Wellwood, of course. I hope you know the place?" "I have seen it. But +my grandfather was a younger son and a ne'er-do-weel; he was kicked +out--he quite broke off--" + +"Never mind. You needn't go into inconvenient particulars. Try and +remember all you know that's nice about the Hall and the family. Did +you ever hear of a Mary Carey? But no--she would be before your time, +of course." + +"There was an old Mary Carey; she married a Spencer. She was pointed +out to me last time I was at home--the nut-cracker type, nose and chin +together--" + +"Goodness! Keep that dark too, for mercy's sake! She is his ideal +woman. It is for her sake he wants you to talk Wellwood with. If you +spoil his pleasure with that hint of nut-crackers, I'll never forgive +you." + +"I hope I know better," Guthrie smiled, coming to himself a little. + +"I am sure you do," said she, and turned from him to take her chair at +table. + +"Then we'll bring him tomorrow," Alice said, seating herself. + +"This afternoon," said the visitor commandingly. + +Alice wanted another moonlight talk about the baby, and knew the small +chance of getting it where Deborah Pennycuick was, and she raised +obstacles, fighting for delay. Deborah calmly turned to Jim. + +"Anything to hinder your coming this afternoon, Jim?" + +"Nothing," said Mr Urquhart promptly. + +The matter was evidently settled. + +They sat down to lunch, and the talk was brisk. It was almost confined +to the visitor and Alice, although the former carefully avoided the +shutting out of the hostess from the conversation, in which she was +incapable of taking a brilliant part. Jim, in the host's place, sat +dumb and still, except for his alertness in anticipating his guest's +little wants. Guthrie Carey, on her other hand, was equally silent. +Neither of the two men heard what she talked about for listening to the +mere notes of her charming voice. + +After luncheon she put on her sensible straw hat. + +"You must drive Mr Carey," she said to Jim. "I'll just ride ahead, and +let them know you are coming." + +"Let us all go together," said Alice. "I'll drive Mr Carey, and Jim can +escort you." + +But there was no gainsaying Deborah Pennycuick when she had expressed +her views. + +"You have to get ready," she pointed out, "and you'll do it quicker if +I'm not here. Besides, I can't wait." + +They all went out with her to the gate, where her superb, high-tempered +horse pawed the gravel, and champed upon his bit. Jim sent her +springing to the saddle from his horny palm like a bird let out of it, +and they watched in silence while she crossed two paddocks, leaped two +sets of slip-rails, and disappeared as a small dot of white +handkerchief from the sun-suffused landscape. + +"What riding!" Guthrie Carey ejaculated, under his breath. + +"She's the best horsewoman in the country," Jim Urquhart commented +slowly, after a still pause. + +He was a slow--to some people a dull and heavy--man, who talked little, +and less of Deborah Pennycuick than of any subject in the world--his +world. + +"And what a howling beauty!" the sailor added, in the same whisper of +awe. + +Again the bushman spoke, muttering deeply in his beard: "She is as good +as she is beautiful." + +Mrs Urquhart took her levelled hand from her eyes, and turned to +contribute her testimony. + +"There, Mr Carey, goes the flower of the Western District. You won't +find her match amongst the best in England. I was with her mother when +she was born--not a soul else--and put her into her first clothes, that +I helped to make; and a bonny one she was, even then, with her black +eyes, that stared up at me as much as to say: 'Who are you, I'd like to +know?' Dear, it seems like yesterday, and it's nigh twenty years ago. +All poor Sally Pennycuick's girls are good girls, and the youngest is +going to be handsome too. Rose, the third, is not at all bad-looking; +poor Mary--I don't know who she takes after. The father was the one +with the good looks; but Sally was a fine woman too. Poor dear old +Sally! I wish she was here to see that girl." + +Mrs Urquhart and Mrs Pennycuick, plain, brave, working women of the +rough old times, wives of high-born husbands, incapable of companioning +them as they companioned each other, had been great friends. On them +had devolved the drudgery of the pioneer home-making without its +romance; they had had, year in, year out, the task of 'shepherding' two +headstrong and unthrifty men, who neither owned their help nor thanked +them for it--the inglorious life-work of so many obscure women--and had +strengthened each other's hands and hearts that had had so little other +support. + +"Mrs. Pennycuick--she is not living, I presume?" Guthrie enticed the +garrulous lady to proceed. + +"Dear, no. She died when Francie was a baby," and Mrs Urquhart gave the +details of her friend's last illness in full. "Deb was just a little +trot of a thing--her father's idol; he wouldn't allow her mother to +correct her the least bit, though she was a wilful puss, with a temper +of her own; ruled the house, she did, just as she does now. If she +hadn't had such a good heart, she'd have grown up unbearable. There +never was a child in this world so spoiled. But spoiling's good for +her, she says. It's to be hoped so, for spoiling she'll have to the end +of the chapter. She's born to get the best of everything, is Debbie +Pennycuick. Fortunately, her father's rich, though not so rich as he +used to be; and when she leaves her beautiful home, it'll be to go to +another as good, or better. She's got to marry well, that girl; she'd +never get along as a poor woman, with her extravagant ways. It'd never +do"--Mrs Urquhart's voice had, subtly changed, and something in it made +the blood rise to the cheeks of the listeners "it'd never do to put her +into an ordinary bush-house, where often she couldn't get servants for +love or money, because of the dull life, and might have to cook for +station hands herself, and even do the washing at a pinch--" + +Jim wheeled round suddenly, and strode back to the house--the house, as +he was quite aware, which his mother alluded to. She, agitated by the +movement, and without completing her sentence, turned and trotted after +him. Alice was left leaning over the gate, at Guthrie Carey's side. + +"You will enjoy this visit," she remarked calmly, ignoring the little +scene. "Redford is a beautiful place--quite one of the show-places of +the district--and they do things very well there. Mary is ostensibly +the housekeeper; she really does all the hard work, but it is Deb who +makes the house what it is. After she came home from school she got her +father to build the new part. Since then they have had much more +company than they used to have. Mary, who had been out for some years, +didn't care for gaieties. She is a dear girl--we are all awfully fond +of her--but she has a most curious complexion--quite bright red, as if +her skin had something the matter with it, although it hasn't. Of +course, that goes against her." + +"Miss Deborah's complexion is wonderful." + +"Yes. But oh, Deb isn't to be compared with Mary in anything except +looks. She is eaten up with vanity--one can't be surprised--and is very +dictatorial and overbearing; you could see that at lunch. But Mary is +so gentle, so unselfish--her father's right hand, and everybody's +stand-by." + +"I don't think Miss Deborah seemed--" + +"Because you don't know her. I do. She simply loathes children, while +Mary would mother all the orphan asylums in the world, if she could. I +always tell her that her mission in life is to run a creche--or should +be. Lawks! How she will envy me when I get that boy of yours to look +after!" + +Guthrie's feet seemed to take tight hold of the ground. "Really, Miss +Urquhart--er--I can't thank you for your goodness in--in asking him up +here--but I've been thinking--I've made up my mind that the best thing +I can do is to take him home to my own people." The idea was an +inspiration of the desperate moment. How to put it into practice he +knew not, and she tried to show him that it was impracticable; but he +stuck to it as to a life-buoy. He would write to his sister--all the +'people' he owned apparently--and find somebody who was going home; and +"Isn't it time to be putting our things together? Miss Pennycuick told +us we were to be there for tea at four o'clock, if possible." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Behold him at Redford, with his tea-cup in his hand. He was safe now +from talk about the baby; but he was also cut off from the lovely +Deborah, now wandering about her extensive grounds with another young +man. Old Father Pennycuick had him fast. They sat together under a +verandah of the great house. + +"There were no pilots then," said the old man, puffing comfortably at +his pipe--"there were no pilots then, and we had to feel our way along +with the cast 'o the lead. We got ashore at Williamstown, on sailors' +backs, and walked to Melbourne. Crossed the Yarra on a punt, not far +from where Prince's Bridge now is--" + +"Yes," said Guthrie Carey. + +He seemed to be listening attentively, his strong, square face set like +a mask; but his eyes roamed here and there. + +"Bread two-and-six the small loaf," Mr Pennycuick dribbled into his +dreaming ears. "Eggs sixpence apiece. Cheap enough, too, compared with +the gold prices. But gold was not thought of for ten years after that. +I tell you, sir, those were the times--before the gold brought all the +riff-raff in." + +The sailor murmured something to the effect that he supposed they were. + +"We'd got our club, and a couple of branch banks, and a post-office, +and Governor La Trobe, and Bishop Perry, and the nicest lot of fellows +that ever came together to make a new country. We were as happy as +kings. All young men. I was barely twenty-three when I took up +Redford--named after our place at home. You know our place at home, of +course?" + +"I have seen it from the road," answered the guest, arrested in his +mental wanderings by the mention of his own age. + +"You must have seen it often, living so close." + +"I never lived close myself; I am a Londoner." + +"It's all the same--your people do. The Pennycuicks and the Careys have +been neighbours for generations." + +"I am only distantly related to that family." + +"A Carey is a Carey," persisted the old man, who had determined to have +it so from the first, and he would listen to no disclaimers. + +He had already referred darkly to that Mary Carey of the hooked nose +and pointed chin. His eldest daughter, he said, had been named after +her. This eldest daughter, with her too-ruddy face, had shyly drawn +near, and taken a chair at her father's elbow, where she sat very +quietly, busily tatting. Plain though her face was, she had beautiful +hands. Her play with thread and shuttle, just under Guthrie's eyes, +held them watchful for a time--the time during which no sign of +Deborah's white gown was to be perceived upon the landscape. + +"My brother and I, we never hit it off, somehow. So when my father died +I cleared. You don't remember his funeral, I suppose? No, no--that was +before your time. They hung the church all over with black broadcloth +of the best. That was the way in those days, and the cloth was the +parson's perquisite. The funeral hangings used to keep him in coats and +trousers. And they used to deal out long silk hat-scarves to all the +mourners--silk that would stand alone, as they say--and the wives made +mantles and aprons of them. They went down from mother to daughter, +like the best china and family spoons. That's how women took care of +their clothes when I was young. They didn't want new frocks and fallals +every week, like some folks I could name." And he pinched his +daughter's ear. + +"Talk to Deb, father," said Mary. "I have not had a new frock for a +great many weeks." + +"Aye, Deb's the one! That girl's got to marry a millionaire, or I don't +know where she'll be." + +Almost Mrs Urquhart's words! And, like hers, they pricked sharply into +the feelings of our young man. His eyes went a-roaming once more, to +discover the white gown afar off, trailing unheeded along a dusty +garden path. The old man saw it too, and his genial countenance clouded +over. + +"Well," he continued, after a thoughtful pause, "poor old Billy Dalzell +and I, we emigrated together. He had a devil of a stepfather, and no +home to speak of. We were mates at school, and we made up our minds to +start out for ourselves. You remember the Dalzells of the Grange, of +course?" + +"I can't say that I do, sir." + +"Well, they're gone now. Billy's father went the pace, and the +mortgagees sold him up; and if his mother hadn't given him a bit when +we started, Billy wouldn't have had a penny. She pawned all she could +lay her hands on for him, we found out afterwards--Billy was cut up +about that--and got ill-used by Heggarty for it when he found it out. +She was a fool, that woman. Everybody could see what Heggarty was, +except her. Old Dalzell was a gentleman, anyhow, with all his faults." + +The white dress drew nearer, and its grey tweed companion. The host was +once more wasting his story on deaf ears. "So we started off; and when +we got here we went in together. He had enough to buy a mob of cattle +and a dray and team, and so had I. We loaded up with all the +necessaries, and hired three good men, and travelled till we found +country. Took us about five months. At last we came here, and put our +pegs in, and I started off to Melbourne for the license--ten pounds, +and leave to renew at the end of the year--and here I've stuck ever +since. Billy, he took up other land, and got married, and died, poor +chap! And that's his boy over there," pointing with his pipe--"and +he'll never be the man his father was, if he lives to a hundred." + +The person referred to was he in the grey tweed, who sauntered with +such assurance at white-robed Deborah's side. He was a tall, graceful +and most distinguished-looking young fellow; but Guthrie Carey was +prepared to believe heartily the statement that Dalzell junior would +never be the man his father was. + +"You shall see the identical hut," Mr Pennycuick kindly promised. "Down +by the creek, where those big willows are--I planted them myself. Not +good enough for a dog-kennel, my daughters say; but the best thing I +can wish for them is that they may be as happy in their good houses as +I was in that old shanty--aye, in spite of many a hard time I had +there, with blacks and what not. We cut the stuff, Billy and I, and set +the whole thing up; and all our furniture was our sleeping-bunks and a +few stools and a table. We washed in a tin bowl on a block outside the +door. Not so particular about tubbing and clean shirts in those days. +Our windows were holes of a handy size for gun barrels, and the +shutters we put up o' nights were squares of bark hung on to nails by +strips of green hide. Many's the time I've woke to see one of 'em +tilted up, and a pair of eyes looking in--sometimes friends, sometimes +foes; we were ready for either. When Billy went, and I thought I'd get +married too, then I built a better house--brick this time, and workmen +from Melbourne to do it; that's it over there, now the kitchens and +store-rooms--and imported furniture--er--I am not boring you, I hope?" + +"Oh, dear, no! I am deeply interested." + +"Well, Billy and I"--the tale seemed interminable--"Billy and I, we +gave sixty pounds apiece for our stock horses, and the same for a ton +of flour; and went right over Ballarat without knowing it. Camped +there, sir, and didn't see the gold we must actually have crunched +under our boot heels. And Billy had misfortunes, and died poor as a +rat. It was in the family. Mrs D. was all right, though. She used to +send a brother of hers to Melbourne market with her cattle, and cash +being scarce, he would sometimes have to take land deeds for them, and +she'd be wild with him for it. But what was the consequence? Those bits +of paper that she thought so worthless that it's a wonder she took the +trouble to save them, gave her city lots that turned out as good as +gold mines. She sold too soon, or she'd have made millions--and died of +a broken heart, they say, when she found out that mistake. Still, she +left a lot more than it's good for a young fellow to start life with. +That boy has been to Cambridge, and now he loafs about the club, +pretends to be a judge of wine, gets every stitch of clothes from +London--pah!" Mr Pennycuick spat neatly and with precision over the +verandah floor into a flower-bed. "But these mother's darlings--you +know them. If Mrs Dalzell could see him now, I daresay she'd be +bursting with pride, for there's no denying that he's a smart-looking +chap. But his father would be ashamed of him." + +"Daddy dear!" Mary gently expostulated. + +"So he would. An idle, finicking scamp, that'll never do an honest +stroke of work as long as he lives. And I wish Deb wouldn't waste her +time listening to his nonsense. Isn't it about time to be getting ready +for dinner, Moll?" + +Mary looked through a window at a clock indoors, and said it was. +Guthrie hailed the news, and rose to his feet. + +But not yet did he escape. His host, hoisting himself heavily out of +his big cane chair, hollowed like a basin under his vast weight, +extended a detaining hand. + +"Come with me to my office a minute," he half whispered. "I'd like to +show you something." + +With apparent alertness, but sighing inwardly, Guthrie followed his +host to the room in the old part of the house which he called his +office. Mr Pennycuick carefully shut the door, opened a desk full of +drawers and pigeon-holes, and brought forth a bit of cardboard with a +shy air. He had never shown it to his family, and doubtless would not +have shown it now if he had not been growing old and soft and +sentimental. It was a prim and niggling little water-colour drawing of +English Redford--a flat facade, with swallows as big as condors flying +over the roofs, and dogs that could never have got through any doorway +gambolling on the lawn in front. A tiny 'Mary Carey' in one corner was +just, and only just, visible to the naked eye. + +"This was done for me, when we were both young, by her--your aunt," +said Mr Pennycuick, gloating upon his treasure over Guthrie's shoulder. + +"Not my aunt," explained Guthrie. "I don't know what relation, but a +long way farther off than that. I am only a very small Carey, you know, +sir." + +Mr Pennycuick testily intimated, as before, that to be a Carey at all +was enough for him. It was his excuse for these confidences, of which +he was half ashamed. + +While Guthrie studied the poor picture, trying to look as interested as +he was expected to be, his host turned and stared down into the drawer +that had held it for so many years. Other things were there--the usual +dead flowers, still holding together, still fusty to the nose; the +usual yellowing ball glove, the usual dance and invitation cards, and +faded letters, with their edges frayed; a book-marker with an +embroidered 'Friendship', mixed up with forget-me-nots, in coloured +silks upon perforated card, backed by a still gleaming red satin ribbon +looped at one end and fringed out at the other; the book that it was +tucked into ("The Language of Flowers"), a large valentine in a wrapper +with many broken seals, some newspaper cuttings, half a sixpence, with +a hole in it, and a daguerreotype in a leather case. + +This last he took up, opened and gazed at steadily, until his companion +was compelled to interrupt him with an inquiring eye. Then he passed it +over, and Guthrie turned it this way and that, until he caught the +outlines of a long aquiline face between bunched ringlets, and a long +bodice with a deep point, which he understood to have belonged to his +distant relative at some period before he was born. + +"And this?" he murmured politely. + +"Yes," said Mr Pennycuick; "that's her. And I've never shown it to a +soul before--not even to my wife." + +"A--a sweet expression. Fair, was she?" + +"Fair as a lily, and as pure, and as beautiful. Gentle as a dove. With +blue eyes." + +Guthrie did not care for this type just now. He liked them dark and +flashing and spirited, like Miss Deborah. But he murmured "Hm-m-m" +sympathetically. + +"The loveliest woman in England," the old man maundered on. "Surely you +must have heard of her, in the family?" + +Guthrie had not only heard of her, as we know, he had seen her; but he +shook a denying head, and dropped another hint of his own position in +the family--outside the royal enclosure, as it were. + +"Well, now, I'll just tell you what happened," said Mr Pennycuick, +turning to the open drawer again. "Strictly between ourselves, of +course--and only because you are a Carey, you understand--somehow you +bring it all back--" + +He was fumbling with the big valentine, getting it out of its case. + +"Yes?" Guthrie encouraged him, while inwardly chafing to be gone. + +"You see this?" It was an exquisite structure of foamy paper lace, +silver doves, gauzed-winged Cupids, transfixed hearts and wreaths of +flowers, miraculously delicate. How it had kept its frail form intact +for the many years of its age was a wonder to behold. "You see this?" +said the old man. "Well, when I was a young fellow, the 14th of +February was a time, I can tell you! You fellows nowadays, you don't +know what fun is, nor how to go a-courting, nor anything.... I was at +old Redford that year, and she was at Wellwood, and all through the +sleet and snow I rode there after dark, tied my horse to a tree, crept +up that nut-walk--you know it?--and round by the east terrace to the +porch, and laid my valentine on the door-step, and clanged the bell, +and hid behind the yew-fence till the man came out to get it. Then I +went home. And last thing at night there was a clatter-clatter at the +door at Redford, and I dashed out to catch whoever it was--her brother +she sent--but wasn't quite smart enough. If only I'd seen him. I should +have known--as I ought to have, without that; but I didn't. It never +occurred to me that she'd send the answer so soon, and she had +disguised her writing in the address, and there was another girl--name +of Myrtle Vining--who used to have myrtle on her note-paper, and all +over the place--and here these flowers looked to me as if they were +meant for myrtle, and these two crossed arrows are like capital V--and +how I came to be such an egregious dolt, Lord only knows! Well, I've +paid for it--that I have--I've paid for it. Look here--don't touch! +I'll show you what I found out when it was too late--after she'd played +shy with me till I got angry and left her, and it was all over--my eyes +aren't good enough to see it now, but I suppose it's there still--" + +With infinite care and the small blade of his pocket-knife, he lifted +the tiny tip of a tiny Cupid's wing. With bent head and puckered +eyelids, Guthrie peered under, and read: "Yours, M. C.," written on a +space of paper hardly larger than a pin's head. + +"In my valentine that night," said Mr Pennycuick, "I'd asked her to +have me. I didn't hide it up in this way; I knew, while I wondered that +she took no notice, that she must have seen it. This was her answer. +And I never got it, sir, till she was married to another man--and then +by the merest accident. Then I couldn't even have the satisfaction of +telling her that I'd got it, and how it was I hadn't got it before. Of +course, I wasn't going to upset her after she was married to another +man. I've had to let her think what she liked of me." + +Guthrie was certainly interested now, but not as interested as he would +have been the day before. The day before, this story would have moved +him to pour out the tale of his own untimely and irreparable loss. He +and old Mr Pennycuick would--metaphorically speaking--have mingled +their tears together. + +"You forget, off and on," said Mr Pennycuick, as he wrapped up his +treasure with shaking hands and excessive care--"perhaps for years at a +time, while you are at work and full of affairs; but it comes +back--especially when you are old and lonely, and you think how +different your life might have been. You don't know anything about +these things yet. Perhaps, when you are an old man like me, you will." + +Guthrie did know--no one better, he believed. But he did not say. +Unknown to himself, he had reached that stage which Mr Pennycuick came +to when he began courting Sally Dimsdale, who had made him such a good +and faithful (and uninteresting) wife. + +"It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all," +says the old proverb. True enough. But one might write it this way, +with even more truth: "It is better to love and lose than to love and +gain." One means by love, romantic love, of course. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +Dinner was over. They had all gone up to the big drawing-room, which +was the feature of the 'new part'--the third house of the series which +now made one. The new part was incongruously solid and modern, with a +storey (comprising the drawing-room and its staircase only) which +overtopped the adjacent roofs. Below it was a corresponding +dining-room, and both apartments were furnished richly in the fashion +of the time--tons of solid mahogany in the latter, and a pasture of +grass-green carpet and brocade upholsterings in the former, lit up with +gilded wall-paper and curtain-cornices as by rays of a pale sun. Curly +rosewood sofas and arm-chairs, and marbled and mirrored chiffonniers, +and the like, were in such profusion upstairs as to do away with the +air of bleakness common to a right-angled chamber of large size and +middle-class arrangement. A fine grand piano stood open in a prominent +place. Four large shaded lamps and four piano candles pleasantly +irradiated the whole; while three French windows, opening on a balcony, +still stood wide to the summer night. + +By the great white marble mantelpiece, under the great gilt-framed +pier-glass, filling the huge chair specially dedicated to his use, +Father Pennycuick sat in comfortable gossip with his old friend, +Thornycroft of Bundaboo. It irked him to separate himself from pipe and +newspaper, baggy coat and slouchy slippers, and his corpulent frame +objected to stairs; but when he had guests he considered it his duty to +toil up after them, in patent shoes and dining costume, and sit amongst +them until music or card games were on the way, when he would retire as +unobtrusively as his size and heavy footstep permitted. It was the +custom to pretend not to see or hear him go, and it would have annoyed +him exceedingly had anyone bidden him good-night. + +The pair talked shop, after the manner of old squatters when they sit +apart; but the tall, spare, grey man with the thoughtful face--more +like a soldier than a sheep-farmer--was not thinking much of his flocks +and herds. His thoughts followed the direction of his quiet eyes, +focussed upon an amber silk gown and its immediate surroundings. Mr +Thornycroft was Deborah's godfather, and at forty-seven was to all the +sisters quite an elderly man, a sort of bachelor uncle to the family, +one with no concern in such youthful pastimes as love-making and +marrying, except as a benevolent onlooker and present-giver; and so the +veiled vigilance of his regard was not noticed, as it would not have +been understood, by anybody. + +But other eyes, similarly occupied, were plainer to read. + +Jim Urquhart's, of course. Jim--as ineligible for the most coveted post +in the Western District as he well could be, by reason of the family +already depending upon him, together with the load of debt left along +with it by his deceased father, a "pal" of Mr Pennycuick's in the gay +and good old times--still contrived to bring himself within the radius +of Deborah's observation whenever occasion served. And being there, +although silent and keeping to the background, his gaze followed her as +the gaze of an opossum follows a light on a dark night, with the same +still absorption. Nothing but her returning gaze could divert it from +its mark. It was so natural, so calmly customary, so unobtrusive, that +nobody cared to attach importance to it. + +He sat now, far back against the green brocade hangings of a corner +window, where he could see the beloved profile in the middle of the +room. His big, work-roughened hands clasped his big, bony knees, and +his long, loose body hung forward out of the little chair that was +never built for such as he; and he seemed given over to Rose +Pennycuick's tale of the pony that had corns, and the cat that had been +mangled in a cruel rabbit trap. He gave her wise counsel regarding the +treatment of these poor things, his deep, drawling voice an unnoticed +instrument in the orchestra of tongues; but his crude-featured, +sunburnt face held itself steadily in the one direction. From the day +that he came to manhood his soul had kept the same attitude towards the +woman to whom the profile belonged. But he never alluded to the fact, +save in this silent way. + +Then there was the Reverend Bennet Goldsworthy, "Church of England +minister", as his style and title ran. Privately, Mr Pennycuick did not +like him; but for the sake of the priestly office, and as being a +parishioner, he gave him the freedom of the house, and much besides. +The parson's buggy never went empty away. Redford hams, vegetables, +poultry, butter and eggs, etc., kept his larder supplied. His +horse-feed was derived therefrom; also his horse; also his cow. When +his cow began to fail, he promptly mentioned the fact--he was +mentioning it now to Mary Pennycuick. "Yes," he was saying, A PROPOS of +his motherless little girl--whom he often brought to Redford for change +of air, leaving her to the care of the sisters until convenient to him +to reclaim her--"yes, it will mean much to my child in after life to +have had the refining influences of this house at the most +impressionable age." Truth was, that Ruby was growing a little old for +her Kindergarten, and he wanted Redford to offer her (gratis, of +course) a share in Francie's governess. "I could not endure to see her +grow up like the daughters of so many of my brother clergy, ignorant of +the very rudiments of decent life"--meaning not decent life in the +ordinary acceptation of the term, but the life that included evening +dress and finger-glasses. "She has caught the colonial accent already +at that horrid school. 'When is the new keeow coming?' says she. And, +by the way, that reminds me--your good father promised me the cow a +fortnight ago. The one we have gives us hardly enough milk for the +table; we have had no butter from her for months." + +"I am so sorry," grieved Mary, as if Redford had failed in its sacred +duty of hospitality. "I will tell him about it. The men have all been +so busy with the shearing." + +She was also distressed that she could not definitely invite Ruby for +the impending holidays. But Deb had issued her commands that Redford +was not to be saddled with a nurseless child at Christmas, when +everybody's hands would be full. + +Mary was Ruby's willing foster-mother when Redford had her in charge; +she was also the kindest hostess of them all to Ruby's father. To her +was left the task of entertaining him, and she never neglected it. +Naturally, he gave her no thanks. When he said that what Ruby needed +was a mother's tender care, it was at Deborah he looked, who never +turned a hair's-breadth in his direction at any time, except when good +manners obliged her, and who was not tender to Ruby, whom she called +"that brat", and had smartly spanked on several occasions. + +A beautiful woman cannot help having objectionable lovers any more than +a king can help a cat looking at him. This man--a most well-meaning, +good-hearted, useful little underbred person, typical of so large a +class in the Colonial Church--was Deb's pet aversion, and did not know +it. He was not made to see his own deficiencies as she saw them. When +first she flashed upon his dazzled vision, splendid in a scarlet dinner +gown, and carrying her regal head as if the earth belonged to her, he +really saw no reason why he, with his qualifications of comparative +youth, good looks (his sort of good looks), and notorious pulpit +eloquence, should not aspire to rush in where so many feared to tread. +His rush had been checked at the outset, but he was still unaware of +the nature of the barrier that Deb held rigid between them. He +continued to gaze at her with his ardent little black eyes as if no +barrier were there. And it was because he did so that Deb, who could +not slap him for it, slapped Ruby sometimes, and called her a brat, and +would not have her asked to Redford for the holidays; thereby giving +occasion to envious Alice Urquhart for that warning to Guthrie Carey +not to trust his baby to her. + +There was still another lover present--the favoured lover. He sat with +Alice near the piano where Francie and her governess were playing +duets, listening without listening to his companion's jerky talk--those +pathetic attempts to attract him which so many second-rate girls were +not too proud to make obvious to his keen apprehension. Claud Dalzell's +distinction was that he was the most polished young man of his social +circle. He had had all the advantages that money could give and in +addition, was naturally refined and handsome. To hear Claud Dalzell +read poetry, or sing German folk-songs to his own graceful +accompaniment, was to make a poet of the listener; to dance with him +was pure enchantment (to another good dancer); he was the best horseman +in the land; and if his present host could not appreciate his many +charms--except perhaps the last named--others did. The whole race of +girls, more or less, fell down and worshipped him. + +He sat with Alice Urquhart because he could not sit with Deborah; or +rather, because he would not condescend to share her with that +"t'penny-ha'penny mate of a tramp cargo boat", as he styled Guthrie +Carey, whom she had made happy at last. She had rescued him from her +father's clutches; she had called him to a chair beside her, where +there was no room for a third chair. Her glistening skirt flowed over +his modest toes. Her firm, round arm, flung along the chair arm between +them, made him feel like Peter Ibbotson before the Venus of Milo--it +was so perfect a piece of human sculpture. She lay back, slowly fanning +herself, and smiling, her eyes wandering all the time in Dalzell's +neighbourhood, without actually touching him--a tall, deep-bosomed, +dark-eyed, dignified as well as beautiful young woman, knowing herself +to be such, and unspoiled by the knowledge. She wore her crown with the +air of feeling herself entitled to it; but it was an unconscious air, +without a trace of petty vanity behind it. Everything about her was +large and generous and incorruptibly wholesome, even her undoubted high +temper. And this was her charm to every man who knew her--not less than +her lovely face. + +Guthrie Carey--and who shall blame him?--basked in his good luck. But +every now and then he looked up and met the glower of Claud Dalzell +with a steely eye. These two men, each so fine of his kind, met with +the sentiments of rival stags in the mating season; the impulse to +fight 'on sight' and assure the non-survival of the unfittest came just +as naturally to them as to the less civilised animals. Each recognised +in the other not merely a personal rival, but an opposing type. + +It amused Deborah, who grasped the situation as surely as they did, to +note the bristling antipathy behind the careful politeness of their +mutual regard. If it did not bristle under her immediate eye, it +crawled. + +"Look out for the articles of virtue," Claud had warned her earlier in +the evening. "That big sailor of yours is rather like a bull in a china +shop; he nearly had the carved table over just now. He doesn't know +just how to judge distance in relation to his bulk. I'd like to know +his fighting weight. When he plants his hoof you can feel the floor +shake." + +"He IS a fine figure of a man," Deb commented, with a smile. + +"I can't," yawned Mr Dalzell casually, "stand a person who eats curry +with a knife and fork." + +"It was pretty tough, that curry. I expect he couldn't get it to pieces +with a spoon." + +"He did not try to." + +"I never noticed. I shouldn't remember to notice a little trifle like +that." + +"My dear girl, it is the little trifle that marks the man." + +"Oh!" said Deb. And then she sought Guthrie Carey, and brought him to +sit beside her. + +"That gentleman sings well," remarked Guthrie tepidly, at the +conclusion of a finely rendered song. "I often wish I could do those +ornamental things. Unfortunately, a man who has his work--if he sticks +to it properly--gets no time to qualify. I'm afraid I shall never shine +at drawing-room tricks." + +"Tell me about your work," said clever Deb, smiling behind her waving +fan. + +At once she had him quite happy, talking about himself. No effort was +necessary to draw him out; that she deigned to listen to him was +enough. His struggles as boy--blue-nose boy; his tough battle for the +first certificate; his complicated trials as second mate, holding +theoretically an authority that was practically none; his rise to be +qualified master and actual mate--no "t'penny-ha'penny" position in his +eyes evidently; his anticipation of the "master extra" and the pass in +steam, which might lead to anything--the whole tale was told her in +terse, straightforward fashion, but with an art new to the modest +sailor-man, who hated brag as much as cowardice. He bragged in +self-defence, in challenge of the formidable equipment of his rival. +And how interested she was! How well she understood his case--that it +was better than the swellest training-ship to make your own way by your +own exertions, and splendid to have done so much while still on the +right side of thirty. + +So much! He had done more than that--he had been a husband and father +at twenty-one. But this, his most distinguished exploit, was not +mentioned. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +He mentioned it next day, however. He had to; for after breakfast a +letter, forwarded from Five Creeks, reached him from the baby's +caretaker--the lady of whom he stood in such undignified dread. The +sight of her handwriting paled his brown face and set his stout heart +fluttering. What did she want of him? He kept the letter unopened for +some time, because he was afraid to know, although convinced beforehand +that he did know--that, of course, it was the visit he should have paid +before coming up country. When at last he drew the sheet from its +envelope, as if it had come from an infected house, and had not been +fumigated, and cast a hurried glance over the contents, he found that +the unexpected had happened once more--the wildly unexpected. + +She was going to be married. He was a "general merchant" in prosperous +business, and there was nothing to wait for--except Mr Carey's +instructions as to what was to be done with the dear little boy. She +would feel acutely the parting from him, after he had been from his +birth like a child of her own, but Mr Carey would understand that she +could not now continue her labour of love on his behalf--that she had +others to consider. But she knew of a most excellent substitute--a dear +friend of her own, who had long taken the deepest interest in darling +Harry, and with whom she was sure he would be as safe and happy as with +herself. She had expected to see Mr Carey when he arrived, to arrange +matters; she hoped he would come as soon as possible. + +In the bewilderment of his mingled elation and anxieties, the young +father did not know what to do for the moment, while recognising the +urgent need for action. He must go as soon as possible, of course; but +he could not depart suddenly without a reason, and to give the reason +would be to give himself away to Alice Urquhart. Besides, a day's +outing had been planned on purpose for him; the possibilities in +connection with it were enormous; and five days of his leave were +unexpended still. He must think it over. He must have advice. So, as a +first instalment of duty, he scrawled a recklessly affectionate letter, +full of gratitude to her who had been his good genius and the guardian +angel of his boy. He did not disguise his envy of the general merchant, +whose vows of love could not have excelled in fervent expression the +good wishes of the writer for the happiness of the betrothed pair. He +hoped to have the pleasure of seeing his dear old friend on the +following day, or the day after that at latest; and he promised himself +the satisfaction of squandering his saved pay on such a wedding present +as would at least cover the cost of the bread and milk the boy had +devoured at her expense. Guthrie dropped his letter in the post-bag +while they were calling to him that it was time to start. And he turned +the key of silence upon his secret until he could pour it into the +right ear. + +It was a wonder he did not pour it into Mary's, for she drove him to +Bundaboo, and nobody could have been more sympathetic than she. She was +the virtual mother of the family, who loved children, and she was +not--she could not be--a husband-hunter; a sensible man in domestic +difficulties could not have sought a wiser confidante. Yet he resisted +stubbornly all her gentle invitations to confide. In the first place, +he did not want to go with her in the pony-carriage, while Deb and +Dalzell rode. He did not like to see it taken for granted, as it seemed +to be by all, that a sailor on horseback must necessarily make a fool +of himself; the slight to his self-respect was enough to dull the edge +of his joy in the general merchant's proceedings--for, as the reader +will remember, he was still but three-and-twenty. + +He had to weigh down the springs of a little basket thing no better +than an invalid's wheel-chair, and see the young exquisite, whom he +could have tossed over his shoulder with one hand, show off feats of +fancy horsemanship to make Deb's dark eyes kindle. Mr Pennycuick had +carelessly asked Billy's degenerate son to "school a bit" a creature +which for weeks had not allowed a man upon his back, and had had no +exercise beyond his voluntary scamperings about the paddock from which +he had been brought, dancing with excitement and indignation. All the +stablemen had been required to get his bridle and saddle on; he now +wheeled round and round in the large space left for him, while Claud +Dalzell, in his London riding clothes, and with his air of a reigning +prince, warily turned with him. Guthrie Carey, in the waiting +pony-carriage, had but one interest in the performance--his hopeful +anticipation of a fatal, or at least a ridiculous, result. + +But there was no fear of that, and evidently Deb knew it. Sitting her +own dancing chestnut, how her beautiful eyes glowed! She gloried in the +ring of breathless witnesses to the prowess of her knight. Many a time +did she scoff and scowl at the dandyisms which she deemed effeminate; +this was one of the moments which showed the man as she desired him. +Through those fine fingers, with the polished filbert nails, the +shortened reins were drawn and held as by clamps of steel; so was the +wild-eyed head by the lock of mane in the same hand. When no one was +looking--although every eye believed itself fixed upon him--his left +foot found its stirrup, his right gave a hop, and like lightning he had +sprung up and round, without touching the horse until fairly down in +the saddle; so that the animal was robbed of his best chance of getting +the rider off, which is at the moment before he is quite on. No other +chance was offered to the baffled one, although he kicked like a demon +for nearly ten minutes. + +"I wish," Guthrie Carey ground through his strong teeth, "that the +cranky beast would break his neck." It was not the beast's neck he +meant. + +But Deb called: "Bravo! Well done, indeed!" and when the battle was +over called the victor to her with her lovely face of pride and joy. +Right willingly he went, and they sailed away together like the wind, +and were lost to view. Yes, this was Dalzell's hour. She knew nothing +of the brave deeds of sailor-men--common and constant as eating and +drinking, and performed to no audience and for no reward. + +Alice Urquhart and Rose Pennycuick, also on horseback, followed the +flying pair; then a buggy containing Jim and schoolgirl Francie (her +governess gone home for holidays today), and a load of ironwork for a +blacksmith on the route; last of all, Mary and the sailor, for all the +world like the old father and mother of the party. Mr Pennycuick +excused himself from excursions nowadays, and so did Miss Keene, the +elderly and quite uninfluential duenna of the house, when one was +needed (she "did the flowers" and knitted singlets for everybody). + +The Shetlands pattered along at a great rate, but did not come up with +the riders until they were nearly at Bundaboo. And all the way--a long +way--Guthrie Carey had to make efforts not to bore his hostess. They +talked about the clear air and the dun-coloured land--the richest +sheep-country in the colony, but now without a blade of green upon +it--and made comments upon three bullock drays piled with wool bales, +and two camping sundowners, and one Chinaman hawker's cart, which they +encountered on the way. And that was about all. + +The home-coming was a different affair. + +Tea had been served in Mr Thornycroft's cool drawing-room, hats and +gloves had been collected, orders sent to the stables; and the young +sailor, panting to emulate the prowess of his rival, and thereby compel +Miss Deborah to respect him, was asking one and another what were the +arrangements for the return journey. + +"I," said Rose, who hugged a puppy in her arms--a puppy long possessed, +but only now old enough to leave its mother--"I am going in the buggy +with Jim." + +"Wouldn't you rather go in the pony-carriage?" inquired Carey +anxiously. "You could make a better lap on the lower seat. I could ride +your horse home for you if they'll lend me a saddle; yours could be put +in the buggy--" + +Even as he spoke, Deb came round the corner from somewhere, with swift +steps and a brilliant complexion, Dalzell hurrying after her. + +"Mr Carey," she called, while the sailor was still yards away from her, +"Molly and I are going to change skirts. I am tired with my ride this +morning, and am going to drive home. Will you trust your neck to me?" + +Would he not, indeed? He was but a pawn in the game, but what did that +matter? Eighteen miles absolutely alone with her! And possibly half of +them in the dark! No saddle horse in the world could have tempted him +now. He could hardly speak his gratitude and joy. + +"Delighted, Miss Deborah!--delighted!--delighted!" + +But Dalzell, black as thunder, swung aside, muttering in his teeth. + +"Oh, oh!" Francie's loud whisper followed. "DID you hear what he said? +He said 'damn'. That's because--" + +"You cut along," Jim's drawl broke in, "and get ready if you want to +ride." + +Mr Thornycroft tucked Deb into the pony-carriage with the solicitude of +a mother fixing up a young baby going out with its nurse. He insisted +that she should wear a shawl over her linen jacket, and brought forth +an armful of softest WOOL, Indian wove. + +"Where did you get this?" she asked, fondling it, for she loved fine +fabrics. + +"Never mind," said he. "Put it on." + +"I am suspicious of these shawls and fallals that Bundaboo seems full +of. Who is the hidden lady?" + +He only smiled at her. + +"Ah, godpapa, you spoil me!" + +She drew the wrap about her, and he assisted to adjust it, with gentle +skill. Then he turned abruptly to Carey, as to a groom. + +"See that she doesn't throw that off. It will be chilly presently. No, +she'd better drive--she knows the road. But take care of her. +Good-night." + +"Isn't he an old dear?" said Deb to Carey, as they drove off. "He has +been a second father to me ever since I was a child." + +She did not hurry the ponies, being anxious not to appear to be tearing +after her offended swain. + +"The evening is the pleasantest time to be out, this weather," she +said, lolling back in her seat. "And I'm sure I don't want to look at +dinner after such a lunch as I have eaten. I don't know how you feel." + +"I feel the same," he assured her, with truth. + +So, for her own purposes, she made their drive half as long again as it +need have been. And was so friendly, so free, so intimate!--leading +that poor innocent to the belief that his great rival was already +virtually out of his way. He was an unsophisticated sailor-lad, who, +with that rival's help, had reached a certain stage and crisis--another +one--of his man's life; and--let us be honest in our diagnosis--the +bubbles of Mr Thornycroft's fine champagne still ran in his blood and +brightened his brain, lifting him above the prosaic ground-level where +a craven timidity would have smothered him. Not touching the balance of +his wits, be it understood; just heartening him--no more. + +Twice and thrice she branched off from the road to show him something +that could well have waited for another day. She was imprudent enough +to introduce him to so sentimental a spot as the family +cemetery--established at a time when there were only Dalzells and +Pennycuicks to feed it. "Their shepherds were killed by the blacks," +said Deb, as she pushed the ponies up to the wall, and he rose in the +carriage to look over the top, "and they buried them here, marking the +place with a pile of stones. There were other deaths, and they enclosed +the piece of land. Then a brother of Mr Dalzell's, and a girl; and Mr +Dalzell himself wished to be put here, beside his brother. Not his +wife, she wouldn't; she lies in the Melbourne cemetery. Then some of +our babies, then mother. She was the last. I don't suppose there will +be any more now. The State will insist on taking charge of us." + +Real English churchyard elms crowded about the wall and blightingly +overshadowed the lonely group of graves. English ivy, instead of neatly +clothing the wall, as it had been meant to do, straggled wildly over +the part of the enclosure which had once been a garden around them. Out +of it, like sea-stripped wrecks, dead sticks of rose-bushes poked up, +and ragged things that had gone to seed. The turf was parched away, +like the grass of the surrounding paddocks; the mounds were cracked; +the head-stones--several of them ornate and costly--stained with the +drip from the trees and birds, and some distinctly out of the +perpendicular. + +"It ought not to look like this," Deb apologised for it. "It ought to +have been seen to. We used to come often, and bring water from the dam. +But one forgets as time goes on; one doesn't think--or care. Poor dead +people! How out of it they are! And we shall be the same some +day--neglected and abandoned, just like this." + +"DON'T!" muttered Guthrie Carey, shivering. The ghost of his sweet Lily +seemed to reproach him with Deb's voice. But the ghost-woman fifteen +months old had no chance with the glowing live woman born into his life +but yesterday; and no blame to him either, and no wrong to the dead, if +one can look at the thing dispassionately and with an unbiased mind. + +"Let us go and see the dam," Deb cheered him, as she turned the ponies' +heads. "You haven't seen our big dam, have you? Everybody that comes to +Redford must see that, or father will want to know the reason why. +'Pennycuick's Folly' some people call it, because he spent so much +money on it; but father is not one to spoil the ship for a pen'orth of +paint. He likes to do things thoroughly. So do I." + +And soon they halted on the embankment of a mile-wide sheet of water, +shining like a mirror in a setting of soft-bosomed hills, their dun day +colour changed to a heavenly rose-purple under the poetic evening sky. + +"Why, it is a lake," said Guthrie Carey. "You could hold regattas on +it." "We do, now and then, with our little boats. We have three over +there"--pointing with her whip to a white shed on the farther shore. +"And swimming matches. We used sometimes, when we were younger, to come +down on hot nights and be mermaids. Once we moored ourselves out in the +middle, away from the mosquitoes, and slept in the bottom of the boat, +under the stars." + +"How charming!" + +"It was holiday time, and our parents were away. We took cushions and +things, and it was great fun; but Keziah reported us, and we were never +allowed to do it again." + +They sat in the pony-carriage on the dam embankment, gazing silently. A +flock of wildfowl had been scared away by their approach, and now not a +wing, not an eye was near. At a great distance curlews wailed, only to +make the stillness and solitude more exquisite, more profound. The +purple of the hills grew deeper and softer, the lake a mere pulseless +shimmer through the twilight haze. And then, last touch of magic, the +moon swam up--the same moon that had transfigured Five Creeks garden +and Alice Urquhart last night. + +He poured out his soul to Deborah Pennycuick. + +First, it was only the story of the baby--the story he had told Alice, +with some omissions and additions. He took advantage of the opportunity +to ask Deb's invaluable advice. + +Deb, well aware of the influence of a summer night and certain +accessories, tried her best to be practical. She asked straight +questions about the baby. + +"Where have you got him? Where does this friend live who has been +recommended to you?" + +"In Sandridge--all at Sandridge--" + +"That dirty, low part! That's no place to rear a boy in. Bring him into +the bush, to clean air, if you want to make a man of him. I know a +dear, nice woman--she is our overseer's wife--who has no children, and +is dying to get hold of one somehow or other. We might make some +arrangement with her, I am sure; and, if so, the little fellow would be +in clover. We'd all look after him, of course, while you were at sea--" + +"Oh! oh! oh!" The young father's heart simply exhaled itself in +gratitude too vast for words. Ah! there was no hanging back now! Not +the baby only, but the dog-chain, was laid at Deborah's feet. + +"You go and fetch him tomorrow," said she, "and I'll talk to Mrs Kelsey +while you are away. Then I'll meet you at the station on your return, +to help you with him, and tell you what Mrs Kelsey says--though I have +no doubt of what it will be. But we'll keep him at Redford for a bit, +till he gets used to everybody; and you must stay with him all you can +until your ship sails...." + +His eyes were full of tears. He laid his hand on her shawl again. He +leaned to her. It was no use--the moon and his feelings were too much +for him. They were talking of the baby, and the word "love" had not +been, and was not going to be, mentioned; but there the thing was, +unmistakable to her keen intelligence, looming like a frontier +custom-house on the road ahead. + +She grasped his big, trembling hand, and with it held him back, meeting +his adoring gaze with steady eyes and mouth. + +"My dear boy, don't--don't! Don't spoil this nice evening--" + +It was all that was necessary. And still so kind, so gentle with him! +No scorn, no offended dignity, no displeasure even. She, who could +punish insolence with anybody, was never hard upon the humble +admirer--only too soft, in fact, with all her basic firmness, and +incapable of the hard-hearted coquetry that so commonly makes beauty +vile. "Face of waxen angel, with paw of desert beast"--that was not +Deborah Pennycuick. + +A sob broke from him. + +"I am a damned fool!" he muttered savagely, and by a violent effort +collected himself. "I beg your pardon." + +"That's all right," she said, turning the ponies from the embankment +and whipping them to a gallop. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +There was a moon the next night also. It did not appreciably affect him +this time--down in dirty Sandridge, hobnobbing with the baby's +caretaker and the general merchant, who, shutting his shop at six, was +free to make the sailor's acquaintance, and help him to spend a +pleasant evening. But it turned Redford garden, with its fine old trees +and lawns, into the usual bit of fairyland for those who strayed +therein. + +Redford was packed with Christmas guests. The waggonette that had taken +Guthrie Carey to the train had returned full of them, and batches had +been arriving at intervals through the day. At bed-time the sisters +were sharing rooms; Rose had come to Deb's, Frances to Mary's; and the +unmarried men were all at the bachelors' quarters. + +It was a hot night, and Deb, under the circumstances, was disinclined +for sleep. She paid visits to one guest chamber and another, for +private gossips and good-nights; when she returned to her own, where +placid Rose had long composed herself, she roamed the floor like a +caged animal. + +"It is no use my coming to bed yet," she addressed her sister. "I could +not sleep. I should only kick about and disturb you. I'll sit down and +read a bit." + +She found a novel and an easy-chair, and made deliberate efforts to +tranquillise herself. Soon Rose heard sighs and phews, and sudden +rustlings and slappings, and then the bang of a book upon the floor. + +"I can't read! and the light brings the mosquitoes. It's too hot in +here. I'm going out to get cool, Rosie." + +"A'right," mumbled drowsy Rose. And the light was extinguished, and the +blind of the French window rattled up. + +Deb flung both leaves wide--like all the Redford doors, they were never +locked or barred--and drifting over the verandah, sat down on the edge +of it, with her feet on the gravel. She had tossed off her pearl +necklace and a breast-knot of wilted roses; otherwise, she sat in full +evening dress, and the night air bathed her bare neck and arms. Also +the mosquitoes found them--a delicious morsel!--so that she had to turn +her lacy skirt up over her head to be quite comfortable. From under +this hood the dark lamps of her eyes shone forth, gazing steadily into +the dim world--into the bit of future that she thought she saw +unveiled. The loom of the trees, the glimmer of flowering bushes, the +open spaces of lawn and pallid pathways, the translucent blue-green +sky, the rising moon--these things made the picture, but were to all +intents invisible to the inward sight. She really saw nothing, until +suddenly a pin-point spark appeared out of the shadows, moved along a +hedge of laurels, and fixed itself in the neighbourhood of a distant +garden-seat. Then at once she stiffened like a cat that has heard a +mouse squeak or a bird's wing rustle; she was alert on the instant, +concentrated upon the phenomenon. Instinct recognised the tip of a +cigar which had the handsome face of Claud Dalzell behind it. + +"What is he doing out of doors at this time of night?" she wondered; +and the little star began to draw her like a magnet. The world becomes +another world in these mystic hours; it has new rulers and new laws--or +rather, it has none. The moon sways more than ocean tides. In broad day +Deb would no more have stalked a man than she would a crocodile; in +this soft, free, empty, irresponsible night the primal woman was out of +her husk, one with the desert-prowling animal that calls through the +moonlit silence for its mate. Twenty times had she snubbed an ardent +lover at the behest of all sorts of reasons and so-called instincts +cultivated for her guidance by generations of wise men, now, all in a +moment, came this moon-born impulse to give herself to him unasked. She +could not resist it. + +Like Deb, Claud had not been inclined to sleep, and for much the same +reason. The guest chamber usually allotted to him being needed for a +lady, he had been sent to the bachelors' quarters--a barrack-like +dormitory amongst the outbuildings, very useful for the accommodation +of the occasional 'vet' or cattle-buyer, and to take the overflow of +company on festive occasions. Jim Urquhart, when at Redford, always +slept there; he preferred it, particularly when he had companions with +whom to smoke and talk sheep, and perhaps play cards, at liberty; for +the bachelors' quarters had its own wood-stack and supplies, and one +could sit by a blazing hearth all night, if so disposed, without +incommoding anybody. + +Generally four bachelor beds were made up, and a screened end of the +room stacked with the material for twice as many more. At Christmas all +were in use, and lined the two long walls--which Dalzell called +"herding", and disliked extremely, while recognising that it was a +necessary arrangement to which it was his duty to conform. + +The herd was undressing itself in a miscellaneous manner--yawning, +chaffing, cutting stupid jokes, some of them at his expense; until the +process was at an end, and he could reasonably assume the fellows to be +asleep, he preferred the gardens to the bachelors' quarters. + +And the free night enfolded him--the rising moon uplifted him--in the +usual way, he being, like Deb, like Guthrie Carey, an instrument fitted +to respond to their mute appeals. Perhaps even more finely fitted than +Guthrie or Deb; for he had what are called "gifts" of intellect and +imagination transcending theirs--faculties of mind which, lacking +worthy use, bred in him a sort of chronic melancholy, the poetic +discontent of the unappreciated and misunderstood--a mood to which +moonlight ministers as wine to the drinking fever, at once an exquisite +exasperation and a divine appeasement. He was a poet, a painter, a +musician--possibly a soldier, or a king--possibly anything--spoiled, +blighted by that misnamed good fortune which the lucky workers who had +to work so naturally and stupidly envied him. The proper stimulus to +the worthy development of the manhood latent in him had been taken from +him at the start. And now he wandered amongst his dilettantisms, +dissatisfied and ineffectual. He lived beneath himself in his common +intercourse with others; he ate his heart when he was alone. + +Unconsciously, by force of habit, he selected the most comfortable and +cleanly of the garden-seats, and made sure that the best of cigars was +drawing perfectly, before he gave himself to his meditations on this +particular moonlight night. Then he began to think of Deb--in the same +new way that Carey had begun to think of her after discovering a +dangerous rival in the field. To Claud, Guthrie was dangerous in his +rude bulk and strength, the knitted brute power that the sea and his +hard life had given him; to Guthrie, Claud was dangerous in the +highbred beauty and finish of his person, clothes and manners, and in +the astounding "cleverness" that he displayed. Each man feared the +force of those qualities which he lacked himself, and was secretly +ashamed of lacking. + +Claud Dalzell considered this matter of the rival--not a probable but a +possible rival--seriously, for the first time. Hitherto he had had an +easy mind in his relations with the beauty of the countryside. She was +his for all he wanted of her. And feeling this, he had taken no steps +to register his claim; he had not even yet proposed to her. Matrimony +was not a fashionable institution--it was, indeed, a jest--in his set. +A young man with a heap of money was not expected to tie himself down +as if he were a poor clerk on a hundred a year. The conditions of club +life, with as many domestic hearths to visit as he wished, and to stay +away from when he chose, the luxury and freedom of pampered +bachelorhood, had not only been deemed appropriate, but necessary to +his peculiar needs and organisation. He had not considered himself a +marrying man. But now the new idea came to him--to make his rights in +Deb secure. + +Certainly he could not contemplate the possibility of doing without +her. He had loved her that much for years. Within the last day or two +he had loved her twice that much. And now the moonlight showed him his +love enthroned above all his lesser loves--a thing of heaven, where +they were of the earth--consecrated a great passion, to lift him out of +himself. He sat and smoked, spiritually bemused, his brain running like +a fountain with melodies of music and poetry, notes and words that sang +in his ears and murmured on his lips without his hearing them. So a +distant curlew thrilled him to a more ecstatic melancholy with its call +through the moon-transfigured world, and he did not notice it. All the +influences of the gentle night contributed to his inspired mood, but +Love was the first violin in that orchestra under Nature's +conductorship--Nature, whose hour it was, walking, a god, in the Garden +of Eden in the cool of the day. + +And here came Deb, gliding towards him by a path that he could not see, +holding her lace skirts tightly bunched in her nervous hands. Youth to +youth, beauty to beauty, man to woman, woman to man, the magnet to the +steel--they were just elements of the elements, for once in their lives. + +"How fortunate that I put on black tonight," thought Deb, as she +pursued her stealthy way at the back of bushes--"and something that +does not rustle!" + +"How beautiful she was tonight!" thought Claud. "How a dark dress +throws up that superb neck of hers! I'll take her to Europe, and show +her to the sculptors and painters; but where's the hand that could +carve that shape, or the paint that could give her colour? I'll have a +London season with her, and see her snuff out the milk-and-water +debutantes. No milk-and-water about Deb--wine and fire!--and withal so +proud and unapproachable. That hulking brute imagines--but he'll find +his mistake if he attempts to cross the line. Beauty, passion, +purity--what a blend! She's a woman alone--the blue rose of women--and +she is mine." He murmured, to some cadence of a Schubert serenade: "My +Deb! My love! My love! My queen!" and suddenly stopped short in his +musings. + +Her foot crunched the gravel behind him. Without turning his head, he +sat alertly motionless for several minutes, listening, holding his +breath. Then he dropped his cigar gently. + +"Fine night, Deb," he remarked aloud. + +There was no immediate answer, but presently a low chuckle from the +laurel bushes. + +"How did you know it was me?" she asked, imitating his casual tone. + +"Couldn't explain, I'm sure. It was borne in on me, somehow." + +"You did not see me." + +"I don't want to see, in your case. I feel you." + +There was another brief silence, and then she rustled off a step or two. + +"Well, good-night! I just came out to look for a book I left here +somewhere." + +"What book?" "It doesn't matter. It is too late to read tonight, +anyhow." + +"It spoils books to leave them out all night. I will help you to find +it." He got up, and pretended to look about. "It is not on this seat--" + +"Perhaps Miss Keene has taken it in. She is always after me to pick up +my litters. It won't rain, anyway, so it doesn't matter." + +"No, it won't rain tonight. Awfully nice night, isn't it? I came over +here to get a quiet smoke and let those fellows subside a bit. I could +not stand their noise, and the place is stifling." + +"I'm afraid so. I'm so sorry we have to put you there; but you know--" + +"Oh, of course! I don't mind a bit. It is hot indoors, wherever you +are. If it were not for the mosquitoes, it would be nice to sleep in +hammocks under the trees this weather." "I have often thought so. I +can't breathe shut up. Rose is in my room tonight, and she seems like a +whole crowd. I had to come out to cool myself." "And to get your book. +What book was it?" "The--er--Clough's poems." "How many copies have +you?--because one of them has been in my pocket for two days." + +"Well, I don't want it. Good-night!" + +She put out her hand. He took it and held it. The moonlight now was +very bright, but not bright enough to reveal his smile or her blush. +However, neither could be hidden from the second sight of love. "Don't +go yet, Debbie. I never get a word with you these days, you are so +taken up with all sorts of people. And you haven't had time to get cool +yet. I know you haven't--by the feel of your hand." + +She tried to withdraw it, but did not try very hard. + +"My dear boy," she trembled, "do you know what time it is? It must be +simply ALL hours." + +"What does that matter? We are not keeping anybody up." "And there's +tomorrow to be considered. Christmas Eve is always such a busy, +tiring--" + +"Sufficient for the day. Let us take things as we can get them. +Besides, you will sleep all the better for it. Five minutes more or +less--" + +He pulled gently but firmly at the imprisoned hand. "Well, just five +minutes--although it's really--" + +She was drawn down to the bench beside him, and the man in the moon, as +he looked into their shining, happy eyes, seemed to wink knowingly. + +"Oh, Debbie, isn't it a heavenly night? Oh, Debbie!" His arms went +round her, and she simply melted into them. "Oh, my love!..." + +Five minutes! It ran to an hour and a half before she scudded across +the lawn to bed. + +And it was Mary, the busy housekeeper, who, on her busiest day, drove +to the station to meet Guthrie Carey and the baby, and the baby's cheap +and temporary child-nurse. + +Mary, though she was not Deb, was too sweet and good for words. She put +the little hired girl on the front seat with the groom, and sat in the +body of the waggonette to talk to Guthrie and to take care of his +child. There was no awkward shyness on her part now, and no boredom on +his. Little Harry fused them. She had remembered to bring fresh milk +and rusks for a possibly hungry baby, and he sat on her lap as she fed +him, and cooed to her when his mouth was not too full, and seemed to +forget that any other foster-mother had ever existed. His father's +relieved and astonished pleasure in the sight was only equalled by +Mary's pleasure in seeing his pleasure. "Isn't he a jolly little cuss, +Miss Pennycuick?" "He is a perfect darling," crooned Mary, kissing him. + +And, in fact, Harry Carey was a fine, clean, wholesome child, as worthy +of his old family as any born under the ancestral roof. + +Mary shouldered him as if he belonged to her when they arrived at +Redford, shortly before the dinner hour. + +"Now, Mr Carey, you must go to the bachelors' quarters, I am sorry to +say; but he will not miss you, since you have been away from him for so +long. He knows me now," said Mary proudly, "and I will take charge of +him. You may safely leave him to us now." + +"Indeed, yes, I know that," said the thankful parent, and hastened to +his new quarters to receive the greetings and chaffings of the young +bachelors, and to dress himself for dinner, while Mary carried the baby +into the house, calling on Keziah Moon to come to her, the inadequate +nurse-girl trailing at her heels. + +The house party gathered in the glazed corridor of the "middle part"--a +long, narrow room, that had once been a verandah, and that led to the +new big dining-room--to await the summons to the meal. Here Deb, +beautiful in limp white silk that showed up the lovely carmine of her +cheeks, came forward to welcome the returned guest with an eager warmth +that sadly misled him. He sat down to his dinner a few minutes later +with his head in a whirl and his appetite nowhere, as an effect of that +cordial pressure of the hand, those tender eyes, and that deep-hued +blush upon him. + +Then, as he came to himself, there crept into his mind a sense that +things had been happening while he was away. All the eyes around the +table seemed continually to turn either towards Deb, who, still +flushed, and bestowing absent-minded smiles upon anybody and anything, +was certainly different from her usual stately self; or upon Claud +Dalzell, who sat beside her, and seemed to have appropriated some of +her lost dignity; or upon Mr Pennycuick, who fumbled oddly with carving +knife and gravy spoon, and gave other evidences, Guthrie thought, of +having been upset and shaken. The young man was still fumbling himself +for light upon these mysteries, when they were dispelled by a shock +that for the moment stunned him. + +Mr Pennycuick called for a certain brand of wine long famous at his +board. When it came, and the bottles were being sent round, he stood +up, with a trembling goblet in his hand. The eyes round the table +dropped--all but Guthrie's, which stared at the old man. + +"There's no time like the present," began the host, "if a thing has to +be done." He repeated this strange and embarrassing introductory +remark, and then spent some time in clearing his throat and blowing his +nose, and trying to wipe up the wine he was shaking over. When the +fidgets had seized upon the whole company, he rushed his fence. "Ahem! +I must ask you, my friends, to fill your glasses in honour of an +event--an event--that has just transpired in our midst--that--that I am +sure will interest you all--that--in short, my dear daughter +Deborah--and the man of her choice--who knows, I hope, what a lucky dog +he is--" + +"He does!" Claud interjected; and there was eager dumb-show all round +the table, everyone--again excepting Guthrie--leaning forward to cast +wreathed smiles at the seated couple. "I have given my consent," said +Mr Pennycuick--"I have given my consent. My daughter shall be happy in +her own way--and I hope he'll see to it that she gets all she bargains +for. He is the son of my oldest friend, a man that was better than a +brother to me--the whitest, straightest--But there's no words to say +what he was. Only, the son of such a man--anybody with Billy Dalzell's +blood in him--ought to be--if he isn't--" + +"He is!" sang Deb, in her rich, ringing voice. "Oh, please, don't say +any more, father!" + +"Well, my dear, I know I am no hand at speech-making, but I can wish +you luck, both of you, and I do. And I want our friends here--old +friends of the family--to do the same. Good wishes mayn't bring good +fortune, but for all we know they may do something towards it; and +anyway, she may as well have all her chances. Ladies and gentlemen, +long life and happiness to Deborah Pennycuick and her husband that is +to be!" + +A general turmoil broke out, glass-clinkings, cheers, handshakings; +kissings, with a sob or two from the overwrought. And Guthrie, with no +heart upon his sleeve, bowed and drank with the rest. When the +demonstration was over, and the company back in its chairs, Dalzell was +left standing. His bride-elect sat beside him, her elbow on the table, +her face shaded by her hand. + +"On behalf of my dear wife that is to be," said Claud, with a quiet +mastery of himself that was in striking contrast to the old man's +agitation, "and as a grateful duty of my own, I beg to thank you all, +and especially Mr Pennycuick, for this great kindness--for your +generous sympathy with us in our present happiness. Mr Pennycuick seems +to have a doubt--natural to anyone in the circumstances, but inevitable +in a father--the father of such a daughter--as to my being qualified to +appreciate the gift he has just bestowed upon me; I can assure him, and +all of you, that I am overwhelmed with the sense of my good fortune, +and of my unworthiness of it. I am unworthy--I admit it; but it shall +be the business of my life to correct that fault--if it is a fault, and +not merely a misfortune that I cannot help. To the best of my power I +will prove--by deeds, not words--that I do know her value." Deb's hand +under the table here stole towards his that hung at his side, and he +stood holding it until he finished speaking. "Fortune has been kind in +granting me the means to surround her with material comfort--to give so +rare a jewel the setting appropriate to it; for the rest, I must trust +to her generosity. I feel quite safe in trusting to it. We have known +each other--I believe we have loved each other--from childhood; I hope +Mr Pennycuick will take that as some guarantee that his little +misgivings are unnecessary." The orator twisted his moustache, and +glanced down at the bowed head beside him. "She seems to be a little +taken aback by the suddenness of this public announcement, but I can +say that it does not come a moment too soon for me. Mr Pennycuick has +made me a proud man. I glory in my position as his daughter's affianced +husband; I wish to parade it as openly as possible. However, to spare +her, I will say no more just now. Ladies and gentlemen"--bowing to +right and left--"I thank you again." + +He sat down amid thunders of applause; and leaning back in his chair, +he looked straight and full at Guthrie Carey. Guthrie Carey, erect, +calm as a stone image, returned the look steadily. There was absolutely +no expression in his eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +Carey junior joined the Christmas party after breakfast, and was handed +round. Mary introduced him. He was spick-and-span, with shining cheeks +and a damp and glossy top-knot, and his blue eyes stared at the strange +crowd stolidly for several minutes before he suddenly crumpled up his +face and uttered a howl of terror. + +"What is it?" queried Dalzell, with raised brows, pretending that he +had never seen such a thing before. + +"It's a baby," Frances explained, dancing round it. "Baby! +Baby!"--shaking the new rattle that was one of its Christmas +gifts--"look at me, baby! It is Mr Carey's baby. Oh, come and speak to +him, Mr Carey! He is frightened of so many strangers." + +The stalwart father in the background glowered upon the son disgracing +him. Red as beetroot, embarrassed and annoyed, he strode forward. The +yelling infant cast one glance at him, and yelled louder than before. +"I shouldn't have let him come," the sailor growled. He had got up from +the wrong side of the bed that morning, and was in the mood to regret +everything, even that he had been born. "I don't know what possessed me +to let you be bothered with the brat. I'll ring for his nurse." + +This was unanimously objected to. The ladies gathered round, with +honeyed words and tinkling baubles to pacify the little guest. Deborah +snatched him from her sister's arms, and ran with him into the garden, +where she tossed him, still writhing and wailing, up and down, and +dipped his face into flowers, and played other pranks calculated to +enchant the average baby. This baby turned on her for her pains, and +having slapped her cheeks, grabbed her beautiful hair and tore it down +about her ears. The next instant he felt the weight of the hand from +which his own had derived its strength. + +"You brute!" cried Deb, shielding the offending little arm from a +second blow. "A great big man like you, to strike a tender mite like +this!" + +"'Tender' is hardly the word," the irate parent sneered. "And mite as +he is, he is not to do things of that sort." Guthrie glared at her +sacred locks, dishevelled. "I'm awfully sorry. He shan't do it again. +I'll take him away tomorrow." + +"You will do nothing of the sort," flashed Deb. "You are not fit to +have the care of him. He shall stay here, where he will be treated as a +baby ought to be--not smacked and knocked about for nothing at all." + +"I admire his pluck," quoth Dalzell, sauntering up. + +"So do I," said Deb; but she handed her sobbing burden to Mary. "Here, +take him, Moll, while I put my hair up. POOR little fellow!" + +She need not have been so severe. She might have known that it was +because the cheeks and hair were hers that the baby had been punished +for his assault on them. She could have seen that she was wringing the +culprit's heart. Perhaps she did, and had no room in her own to care. +She stood on the sunny garden path and lifted her hands to her head--a +lovely pose. + +"Here, let me," said Claud Dalzell. + +She let him--which was cruellest of all. Guthrie turned his murderous +eyes from the group and sauntered away, out of the garden, out of their +sight, unrecalled, apparently unnoticed. Mary carried the crying child +into the house. + +Then for an hour the silly fellow walked alone in the most solitary +places that he could find, revelling in the thought that it was +Christmas Day, and he singled out by Fate to have no share in its happy +circumstances: no home, no friends, no love, like other men--nothing to +make life worth living, save only the baby son that he had ill-used. +Apart from the sting of Deb's comment on it, he repented him of that +blow. A great big man like him, to strike a tender mite like this--a +motherless babe, his precious Lily's bequest to him--aye, indeed! It +was the act of a brute, whatever the provocation. The mite was a waif +too, alone in the world when his father was at sea, pathetically +helpless, with no defence against blows and unkindness. The reflection +brought dimness to the man's hard blue eyes, and turned his steps +houseward. + +He arrived to find a large four-horsed brake at the door. The body was +filling with other persons--the sailor knew not, cared not whom. He +looked up at the radiant figure in front. She looked down on him with +heart-melting kindness, as if nothing had happened. + +"Why, Mr Carey, aren't you coming to church?" she called to him. +"Not--not today, I think," he answered, without premeditation. + +"Christmas Day," she hinted invitingly. "You don't always get the +chance, you know." + +"I know. But--thanks--I'd rather not," he bluntly persisted, hating +himself for the churlish response, and all the time wanting to +go--certain to have gone if he had given himself time to think. +Soldiers and sailors, with their habit of unquestioning obedience to +authority, are almost always "good" churchmen, and, as she had pointed +out, this offer of Christian privileges did not come to him every year. +He had not anticipated it on this occasion, knowing Redford to be +situated at least ten miles from a church. + +"Oh, well," said Deborah, scenting spite, "I daresay it IS more +comfortable in the cool house." + +And then she left him, in the position of a self-indulgent idler, +preferring comfort to duty, a foil to his more conscientious rival. +When the dust of the departure had cleared away, he sat on, not in the +cool house, but on the hot verandah, nursing his griefs in solitude. He +seemed the only person left behind, or else he seemed forgotten, as a +guest of no account. "What a Christmas Day!" was again his thought, +while he dragged before his mind's eye old pictures of his English +home, his dead mother, Santa Claus stockings, and all sorts of pathetic +things. He resolved to quit Redford on the morrow, and spend the last +hours of his leave in establishing his son elsewhere. + +Then Mary Pennycuick came out to him, with that son in her arms. Her +face was redeemed from its plainness by the tender motherliness and the +no less tender friendliness of its expression; that of little Harry was +cherubic. The heart of the lonely man warmed to both. + +"He has come to tell daddy that he is a good boy now," explained Mary +proudly. Guthrie ejaculated "Sonny boy!" and held out his arms. The +baby, bearing no malice, tumbled into them, and was at once occupied +with his father's watch-chain. The three subsided upon two cane chairs, +looking, as Mary keenly comprehended, like a self-contained family. + +"You have stayed at home because of him!" the man complained fretfully. + +But the girl hastened to perjure herself with the assertion that she +had done nothing of the kind. She then persuaded him to the half-belief +that his child was not only no nuisance to the house, but its positive +delight; and she earnestly talked him out of his cruel resolve to +return it to bad air and all sorts of domestic risks. "How can he be +any burden on us?" she pleaded. "We need never see him unless we +like--only, of course, we shall like. It is entirely an arrangement +between you and Mrs Kelsey. Unless," she bethought herself--"unless +you'd like to consider an idea of Alice Urquhart's--" + +"Oh, no!" he broke in. "I'd rather Mrs Kelsey--a proper business +agreement--if I could feel absolutely certain--" + +"Well, you can," said Mary. "The beginning and end of all the trouble +to us is our answering for Mrs Kelsey. She was once our nurse, and we +know her ways; for the rest, she is as independent of us as that lady +in Sandridge." + +"In that case--of course, I've very little time, and really I don't +know where to turn--perhaps until after this voyage--" + +"Yes. Then, if you are dissatisfied, you can make a change." She +assumed the matter settled, and began to go into details. "Deb saw Mrs +Kelsey while you were away; she's willing enough. She says ten +shillings a week would cover everything. The drainage is all right. +Kelsey will see that he has one cow's milk. They'll feed him well, but +they won't give him rich things; she's the most careful woman. He'll be +out in the air, getting strong, all the time. He'll want hardly any +clothes in the country. Deb says he'd be better without shoes and +socks." + +"I hope he'll be kept out of Miss Deborah's way, after that +exhibition--" + +"Nonsense! She was too rough and ready with him. And she didn't mind a +bit--of course not. She says she likes boys to be boys. He is a +thorough boy," Mary proudly declared, bending to kiss a chubby knee. + +Harry acknowledged the caress with a thumping smack of her bowed head. + +"Gently--gently!" warned the father amiably. + +"Now, what do you say to our walking over to interview Mrs Kelsey?" +Mary pushed her advantage home. "I daresay she will be busy, but she'd +give us a few minutes. It would be a satisfaction to her to speak to +you herself, and here is a good opportunity. They won't be home much +before two." + +Guthrie fetched his straw hat. Mary retied the baby's flapping +head-gear, and they set forth. + +"Let me have him," she begged, mother-like. + +"No. He is too heavy for you." + +The father carried the child, who loved the feel of the strong arms, in +which he jumped up and down, continuing to make play with his sturdy +little fists. Instead of striking back, Guthrie answered the baby +assaults with wild-beast roars and gestures that sent the little man +into fits of delight. Mary laughed in chorus, keeping touch with the +happy creature over the towering shoulder reared between them. It was +more than ever like a little self-contained family, taking its Sunday +stroll. + +Mrs Kelsey had her Christmas dinner in hand, but came to them in her +big white apron and sleeves rolled to her dimpled elbows, smiling, +business-like, charming in her plain, reposeful, straightforward +attitude towards the visitors and their mission. No sooner had he +beheld her orderly and cheerful house, looked into her kind eyes, and +heard her sincere speech, than the young father was satisfied that he +had found a good place for his little son. The child seemed to know it +too, for when the strange woman drew him to her broad lap--calmly, as +if used to doing it--he surrendered himself without a protest. When +presently she gave him a drink of milk and a biscuit to munch, he +regaled himself peaceably, with the air of feeling quite at home. When +he had finished his lunch he played with a collie puppy. + +"I'll do my best for him, sir, and I'll not let these young ladies +spoil him if I can help it," said Mrs Kelsey, with a smile at Mary +Pennycuick. + +Terms had been arranged, and everything settled. + +"I hope you will be able to keep him from being any bother to them," +said Guthrie earnestly. + +"Bother!" crowed Mary, whose intention was to visit the child daily. +"We'll see to that, Mr Carey--never fear." + +Mrs Kelsey suggested beginning her duties, with the aid of the little +nurse, at once; but Mary would not hear of parting the boy from his +father while they could be together. So he was carried back to Redford, +to be the plaything of the housekeeper's room for the rest of the day. + +"MY baby," Mary began to call him. She had to preside at the great +dinner, but was not visible to her family for hours before and after. + +It was a better Christmas to Guthrie Carey in the end than in the +beginning. Deb came back from church chastened in spirit, to make up to +him for her unkindness, on the score of which her warm heart had +reproached her. She made him play billiards with her after tea, while +Claud was resting after his labours; she chaffed him deliciously on his +errors in the game. She forgot to ask after his baby; but she asked +whether it would not be possible to get his leave extended. When he +said "No"--he had had more than his share already--she commended him +for his sense of duty, and in her seriousness was more enchanting than +in her fun. + +"But I do wish we could have kept you longer," she flattered him, in +her sweet way. "However, we shall have a hostage for your return." + +Several new people came to dinner, including Mr Goldsworthy and +Ruby--the latter sent at once, by Deb's command, to keep little Carey +company. Spacious Redford was taxed to the utmost to accommodate its +guests, and never was better Christmas cheer provided in the old hall +of English Redford than its son in exile dispensed under his Australian +roof. When every leaf was put into the dining-table, it was so long +that Mary at one end was beyond speaking distance of her father at the +other, and those at the sides could scarce use their elbows as they +ate. The banquet was prodigious, with speeches to wind up with (Mr +Goldsworthy, in his oration, disgusted Deb by referring to the host as +"princely", and to the ladies of the house as his "bevy of beautiful +daughters"); and if the truth must be told, the crowning ceremony of +the loving cup was a bit superfluous. It found the host already fuddled +beyond a doubt, and several of the guests under suspicion of being so. +But in the opinion of all, Redford had celebrated Christmas in an +unsurpassably proper manner. + +Two mornings later, a waggonette was packed with luggage and four +passengers--Mary Pennycuick, Guthrie Carey, the baby and the baby's +little nurse. They proceeded in a body to the overseer's house, where +the load was halved. Mary, the baby, and one box were left with Mrs +Kelsey (reinforced by the collie puppy and a plate of sugared +strawberries); the sailor and the nursemaid, after a few poignant +moments, went on to a distant railway station. + +"Have an easy mind," said Mary, outside the parlour door. "He will be +well off with her, and we shall all be looking after him." + +"How can I thank you?" said the parting guest, barely able to +articulate. He wrung her hand, and looked at her kind, red face with +feelings unspeakable. "God bless you! God reward you for your goodness +to the little chap and me." + +He was including all the family in his benediction, and it was the +father in him that was so touched and overcome. None the less, she +accepted the tribute for her own, and to her poverty-stricken womanhood +it was wealth indeed. + +She stood in the porch to watch the wheels of his departing chariot +flash through the sun and dust. She stared long at the vacant point of +disappearance, like one entranced. When she came to herself, she ran +into the house and fell upon little Harry. + +"My baby," she crooned passionately, "MY baby!" + +Carey Junior responded with his ready fist, pushing her from him. He +was feeding the puppy with a strawberry, and she put her head in the +way. + +"Fie! You mustn't do that," said Mrs Kelsey, mindful of her +responsibilities. "That's rude." + +"Oh, let him," pleaded the girl, infatuated with that look of his +father in his face; and she dropped on her knees before him and kissed +a dangling foot, with which he kicked her mouth. "Let him do what he +likes, so long as he's happy." + +"Not at all," her old nurse reproved her. "I promised Mr Carey that he +should not be spoiled." + +He was not spoiled. The admirable foster-mother, brooking no +interference with her system, improved him into a well-behaved child, +as well as the healthiest and most beautiful in all that countryside. +It was a standing grievance at Redford that she would not allow him to +be always on show there, subject to Mary's indulgence, and Deb's +caprices, and the temptations of the housekeeper's store-room. Only Mr +Kelsey, who was his idol, was permitted to withdraw him from Mrs +Kelsey's eye. The man used to take the child, with a toy whip in his +little hand, on the saddle before him, and let him think he was guiding +the steady horse and doing all the business of the station as well. The +overseer confessed, in bad weather, when he had to ride alone, that he +was lost without his little mate. "Hardly weaned," he used to brag, +"and knows every beast on the place as well as I do myself." This was +gross exaggeration, yet was the infant Harry a conspicuously forward +child, with the "makings of a man" in him visible to all. His hearty +whoas and gee-ups carried as far as the overseer's gruff voice; and the +picture of the jolly boy, with his rosy, joyous face, and his fair +curls blowing in the wind, was one to kindle the admiration of all who +saw it. The phrase continually on the lips of his adopted family and +connections was: 'Won't his father be surprised when he sees him!' They +enjoyed in anticipation the grateful praises that would be heaped upon +them then. + +But Guthrie Carey never saw his son again. + +The baby went a-visiting with his foster-parents to the local township, +and it was supposed caught the infection of typhoid there from some +unknown source. Having caught it, the robust little body, unused to any +ailment, was wrecked at once, where a frail child might easily have +weathered the storm. No little prince of blood royal could have been +better nursed and more strenuously fought for; but three days after he +had visibly sickened he was dead. And then the wail went up, "Oh! what +will his father say?" + +When Guthrie came, prepared by letters from fellow-mourners as bereaved +as himself, it was but from one day to the next--only to "hear the +particulars" and to see the little grave. Deborah was away from home, +but in any case Mary would have been the one to perform the sad duties +of the occasion; they were hers by right. She took him to the family +cemetery on the only evening of his stay, and, herself speechless and +weeping, showed him the whole place renovated and made beautiful for +the sake of the latest comer. No weeds, no dead rose-bushes, no vampire +ivy now; but an orderly garden, new planted and watered, and in the +midst a small mound heaped with fresh-cut flowers. She had visited the +child daily while he lived at Mrs Kelsey's; now she almost daily +visited his grave. + +They dropped on their knees beside it, close as bride and bridegroom on +altar steps, as father and mother at the firstborn's cradle. The dusk +was melting into moonlight; they could not see each other's faces. When +his big frame heaved with heavy sobs, she laid a timid hand--her +beautiful hand--on his shoulder; and when he felt that sympathetic +woman's touch, he turned suddenly and kissed her. Afterwards he did not +remember that he had done it. + +She seemed to cling to him when, next morning, the time came for him to +go. + +"You will come again?" she implored him, in a trembling whisper. "You +will come here when you return next time?" + +"Oh, surely," he replied, whispering too, and to the full as deeply +moved. But when he got away it was to other lands that he turned his +eyes, in the search for new interests to occupy his lonely life. With +Lily and the baby dead, and Deborah Pennycuick given to another man, +Australia had no more hold on him. His first letter to Redford notified +that he had changed into another line, and that the name of his new +ship was the DOVEDALE. She traded to the West Indies. + +He forgot to write again when, not very long afterwards, he went back +to his old line, at the invitation of the Company, as captain of the +ship on which he had served as mate. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +"'Dovedale'--DOVEDALE--hullo!" Mr Pennycuick broke the silence of his +newspaper reading. "Why, isn't that--Well, upon my soul! it does seem +as if some folks were born unlucky. Here's that poor young +fellow--first he loses a charming wife, before he's been married any +time, and then the finest child going, and now here he's gone himself, +before his prime, with no end of a career before him--" + +"Who?" cried Deb from the tea-table, where she was helping herself to a +hot cake. + +"Young Carey--our Carey; oh, it's him all right, worse luck! His ship's +been wrecked, and only two A.B.s saved to tell the tale. Look here." + +He passed the newspaper, pressed under his broad thumb. + +Deb stood to read the indicated item, while her father watched her +face. Neither of them noticed Mary's peculiar appearance, nor marked +her departure from the room. + +"We must inquire about this," said Deb earnestly. "We must get the +names of those on board. He may have been on leave." She was a prompt +person, and as she spoke looked at the clock--a little after four--and +laid the paper down. "I'll drive you to the station, daddy, and we'll +telegraph to the shipping people and his doctor friend. We'll get +authentic information somehow, if we have to cable home for it." + +They were off in a quarter of an hour, having sent a message to Mary by +Miss Keene to explain their errand. They dined in the township while +waiting for replies, and came home late at night, heavy-hearted, with +the melancholy news confirmed. Since it happened to be the transition +moment, when Mr Carey had ceased to be a mate, and was only a +prospective commander, the authorities in Melbourne, consulting latest +advices, had no doubt of his having been on the DOVEDALE to the last. +Those of them who presently found themselves mistaken did not take the +trouble to say so. They left it to time and the newspapers. + +But meanwhile Mary Pennycuick sadly complicated the case. When Deb and +her father returned from their expedition, it was to hear from Frances +an excited story of how the elder sister had hidden behind locked +doors, and not only refused dinner but denied speech to all comers. + +"We know she's there, because she said 'Go away' to Miss Keene when she +knocked first; but since then she hasn't said a word--not for hours and +hours. I've been listening at her door since Miss Madden let me out of +school. I shouldn't be surprised," said Frances, who had a fine +imagination, "if she's committed suicide. Poor Mr Carey was her lover, +you know." + +"Pooh!" said Deb. + +SHE knew whose lover poor Mr Carey had been. But she ran to Mary's room +in some concern. She tried the handle of the door, and then rapped +sharply. + +"Molly, open this door!" she commanded. + +And there was a rustle inside, a shuffling step, and the lock clicked. +She marched in, to see Mary fling herself back on the bed from which +she had risen, with a protesting wail: + +"Oh, why can't you all let me alone?" + +"Why, what's the matter?" Deb climbed on the bed, and tried to lift the +half-buried head to her breast--a signal for the pent-up grief to burst +forth. "Molly, sweetheart, what's all this about?" + +"Oh, my love! my love!" keened Mary wildly. "Oh, Deb! oh, Deb! He was +my all, and he's dead, and I can't bear it--I can't! I can't!" + +Deb pursed her lips, and the colour rose in her clear cheek. She saw +the situation, so pathetic and so ignominious! SHE could not understand +a woman falling in love with, and then breaking her heart for, a man +who had never cared for her. But then Deb's face was not heavy and +bricky, with prominent cheek-bones, and a forehead four inches high. + +"My precious," she crooned, as tenderly as if she understood it all, +and as if her immense pity was not mixed with contempt--"don't, don't! +It doesn't matter about me, but don't let the others think--It would be +too undignified, darling--a casual acquaintance--though a dear, good +boy as ever lived--" + +"There was nobody like him, Deb, and he was my all--" + +"No, no, Mary--" + +"You don't know, Debbie--oh, nobody knows!" And wrapping her head in +her arms again, Mary abandoned herself to her despair. + +Deb got off the bed, lit dressing-table candles, and poured water and +eau de Cologne into a wash-basin. She returned with a fragrant sponge, +with which she stroked what she could reach of her sister's face. + +"Come now," said she briskly, "you must have a little pride, dear. You +mustn't give way like this--for a man who did not--and you know he did +not--" + +Mary broke in with sudden passion, lifting her distorted countenance to +the cruel light. + +"He did!" she affirmed. "You have no business to sneer and say he +didn't--he DID!" + +It was not for nothing that the heart-hungry girl had brooded for +months over a few acts and words, magnifying them through the +spectacles that Nature and her needs had provided. Deb put her pitying +arms round her sister's shoulders. + +"But, my dear, I know--we all know--" + +"How could you know when you were not at home? Nobody knows--nobody but +him and me." Feeling Deb's continued scepticism in the silence of her +caresses, Mary burst out recklessly: "Would he have KISSED me if he had +not?" + +Deb's arm was withdrawn. She twisted half round to look in Mary's face. +Mary covered it with her pretty hands, weeping bitterly. + +"Is that--did he do that?" asked Deb, in a low tone. + +"That night--that last night--oh, I ought not to have spoken of +it!--when we were at our little grave. It was that precious child that +drew us together. You think he had gone away and forgotten, but I know +he had not; he would have come back--he promised to. He gave me his +dear photograph. I have not shown it to anybody, but here it is--" + +And still sobbing, and with tears running down her cheeks, she reached +to a drawer by the bedside, and dragged out this further testimony to +her claim--it was wrapped in layers of tissue-paper, like her father's +valentine--and displayed it with a touching pride. Before handing it to +Deb, she gazed at it with grotesquely distorted face, kissed it, +pressed it to her bosom, kissed it again, and moaned over it, rocking +to and fro; then, when she had pushed it from her, flung herself into +her former attitude of complete abandonment to grief. + +Very calmly Deb carried the picture to the dressing-table, and held it +behind a candle. There he was, big, strong, healthy, manly, with that +clear brow, that square chin, that steady, good mouth; and he looked +her straight in the eyes. Was it possible that a countenance could so +deceive? No more tears from Deb for his untimely fate. Had it been his +face in the flesh, it could not possibly have gazed in that undaunted +way at hers; her expression would have withered him. + +She returned to the morning-room--drawing-room also when no guests were +in the house--to report to her father. + +"Mary has gone to bed," she said quietly. "She is very much upset by +this business. It appears there was something between her and Mr Carey. +She expected him to come back for her--" + +"What! MARY?" cried Rose, waiting with Frances to say goodnight. + +"There!" triumphed Frances, "what did I say?" + +"MARY!" their father echoed Rose's surprised tone. "The dickens! You +don't say so. Poor little soul! Poor little girlie! Well, I never +thought of that. Did you, Deb?" + +"Never, father. Not for a moment." + +"I suppose it was the child. It must have been the child." Mr +Pennycuick was deeply concerned. "I wonder why he never said anything," +he addressed Deb, when Rose and Frances had been sent to bed. "Eh, Deb? +Seems strange, don't it? We had so much talk together. Quite like a +sort of son, he was. Aye, I could have made a son of that fellow. Poor +lad!--poor lad! Suppose he thought it wasn't the straight thing to bind +a girl of ours till he was in a better position--it'd be just like him. +Well--but Mary, of all people!" (This was the puzzle to all.) "It must +have been the baby. She certainly did dote on that child, and 'love me, +love my dog'--eh? But to think of her keeping it so close all that +time! Afraid I'd make a fuss, I suppose. You could have told her, Deb, +that I don't stand in my children's way for the sake of my own +feelings; and a Carey of Wellwood isn't for us to sniff at either, if +he is poor. A Carey has been good enough for a Pennycuick before today. +God! I wish I'd known. I might have got him something better to do, and +saved them both from this. Poor old girl! Is she very bad, Debbie? +Shall I go and talk to her a bit?" + +"I wouldn't tonight, father, if I were you," replied Deb, with a weary +air. "She is quieter now, and I have given her something to send her to +sleep. I will keep my door open, and go and look at her through the +night. I think she will be better tomorrow." + +On the morrow Mary was at least more self-controlled. She came amongst +her family with the look of one who had passed through an illness, and +shrinking from the first words and glances. But they all gathered her +to their hearts, and murmured loving sympathy in her ears, and tenderly +fussed over her and waited upon her. Her father took her to his +sanctum, and showed her his old daguerreotype and valentine, and told +her they should be hers at his death. Miss Keene excited as an old maid +is over anybody's love affair, wanted to take over the house-keeping as +well as the doing of the flowers, in order to leave the mourner free to +enjoy the full luxury of her state. The governess, assumed to be above +love affairs, was very strict with Frances, holding her to tasks set on +purpose to prevent her from teasing her eldest sister. But Frances had +informed the servants overnight that Mr Carey was drowned, and that he +had been Miss Pennycuick's affianced husband all the time, unbeknown to +anybody. And the tale was already spreading far and wide--to the +Urquharts at Five Creeks, to Mr Thornycroft at Bundaboo, to Mr +Goldsworthy and his parishioners, to the editor of the local paper--so +that soon the family friends were arriving, to press Mary's hand and +condole with her--to show her how she had risen in the world, as a +woman in the eyes of all. + +"No, no," she protested, when the affianced husband was too literally +taken for granted; "it was not a formal engagement. It was +only"--defending herself against the puzzled stare and lifted +eyebrow--"only that we understood each other. He was coming back, if he +had lived." + +The wish was father to the thought. Good, honest girl as she was, she +had persuaded herself to this--that he would have come back if he had +lived, and that then the omitted formalities called for by that +graveside kiss would certainly have been observed. It seems incredible, +but rampant sex does stranger things every day of the week. There is, +at any rate, nothing extraordinary in the way she clung to the sweet +dignity that a similar belief on the part of others brought to her--the +poor, plain girl, who had always been "out of it". + +The long-hidden photograph was now put into a costly frame, and set up +in her room for anybody to see. Frances would often sneak in with a +visitor, to show the manner of man who would have married Molly; there +were even times when Mary herself was the exhibitor. At other times she +might have been found kneeling before it as at a shrine, and weeping +her eyes out. And she put off her colours and ornaments, and wore +black, and nobody made any objection. The hero of romance was given to +her unquestioningly, and with him a respect and consideration such as +she had never known before. Lovers talked to her of their love affairs, +feeling that she was now one of them. Her father maundered to her for +hours at a stretch of the old Mary Carey, at last secure of sympathy +and a perfect listener. Deb was reserved and silent, but otherwise as +devoted as the rest. + +And then came the inevitable discovery that Guthrie Carey was not dead, +after all. It was made at Five Creeks, while Frances was on a holiday +visit to her friend, Belle Urquhart. At Redford, nobody thought of +reading the shipping columns in the newspaper--their interest was +supposed to be gone for ever; but Jim Urquhart glanced at them daily, +looking for the arrival of a friend from overseas. And one day he saw a +ship's name that was familiar to him, and bracketed with it the name of +G. Carey as its commander. The coincidence was startling. He pointed it +out to a man staying in the house--a stranger to the Redford family and +to the district. + +"There was a mate named Carey on this ship a while ago. He changed into +that unfortunate DOVEDALE that was wrecked, and was lost with her. Odd +that the captain of his old vessel should have the same name--same +initial too. Our friend was Guthrie--" + +"Guthrie Carey? Oh, I know Guthrie Carey. Met him in London last year, +just after the DOVEDALE wreck. He told me of his narrow escape--was +really going with her on her last voyage, and only prevented at the +last moment by the offer of this captaincy from his former owners. It's +the same man. Do you know him?" + +They all told how much they knew him; and there was great commotion at +Five Creeks. Jim was for driving hot-foot to Redford to warn Mr +Pennycuick against disseminating the newspaper through the house too +rashly. Alice and her mother each volunteered to go with him, so as to +"break it" with feminine skilfulness to Mary, whose reason might be +destroyed by too sudden a gorge of joy, like the stomach of a starved +man by clumsy feeding. But while they anxiously discussed what ought to +be done, Frances was doing. The enterprising young lady slipped away, +and with Belle's help caught and saddled her pony, and was off to +Redford as if wolves were at her heels. No war correspondent on active +service ever did a smarter trick to get ahead of other papers. + +She burst into the family circle violently. + +"Mary--Mary! Deb! Rose! father! Mr Carey is alive! He wasn't drowned! +He wasn't on the DOVEDALE--he was just going; but they wanted him back, +and they made him a captain, and he's here now. His ship came in last +night, and there it is in the paper, and his name; and Mr Mills at Five +Creeks saw him himself after the Dovedale was wrecked, and he knows him +well, and he's in Melbourne now, and I expect he'll be here +directly--perhaps he's coming up now, this very minute--" + +She was checked by angry exclamations from all persons addressed, +except Mary. She, at the moment bending over a table, cutting out +needle-work, straightened herself, and stood stockstill and staring, +while first her bricky face went dark purple all over, and then seemed +drained in three seconds of every drop of blood. She heard the words: +'Mr Carey is alive,' and instantly believed them; at the same moment +her dream-palace vanished, and she saw the bare ground of her love +affair exactly as it was--as Guthrie himself would see it--and just how +she had deceived herself and others. Her healthy heart and nervous +system could not support her under the impact of such a shock. She +reeled as she stood, spun half round, and fell backwards into Deborah's +arms. + +"You little FOOL!" Deb rated the dismayed child, "to blurt it out like +that. Never mind, father, it's all right. She has fainted, but she'll +soon come round. Go and get a smelling-bottle, somebody. Tell Keziah to +bring a little brandy--don't speak to anybody else. Where's today's +ARGUS?" + +While Rose was flying for restoratives, and Frances speeding through +the house with her great news, Deb and her father exchanged significant +glances over Mary's prostrate form. + +"It is more than a year," said Deb, "and he has not even written to +her." + +"I'll write to him," said Mr Pennycuick, grinding his teeth--"I'll +write to him!" It was the tone in which he might have said, "I'll wring +his neck for him!" + +But when Mary came round and perceived his mood and intentions, she +implored him not to write--went on her knees, and almost shrieked in +her frantic fear of his doing so. + +"Oh, father, don't--DON'T! If he does not remember--if he does not want +to come--you would not drag him by force? And he never bound +himself--he never really asked me; very likely he did not mean +anything, after all." + +"Not mean anything!" shouted the indignant father. "He can kiss a +girl--a daughter of mine--and not mean anything! I'll make him tell me +whether he dared not to mean anything--" + +"No, father," commanded Deb. "You must not write to him. It is not for +a Pennycuick to fling herself at any man's head. Let him alone; we +don't want him. Treat him--as I hope Molly is going to do--with the +contempt that he deserves." + +Mr Pennycuick stormed and muttered, but obeyed; and for two days +Captain Carey was left to the anathemas of Redford and the countryside +as a heartless jilt, to Mary's extreme anguish. She tried to water down +the concoction that she stood answerable for, to take blame off him and +put it on herself; but she dared not go far enough to convince anybody +that she was not sacrificing herself to shield him. + +It was a horrible position for a delicate-minded and even high-minded +girl, and the misery of it was aggravated by the constant effort to +efface its signs and evidences. She was left with no outlook in life +but to get through twenty, thirty, forty years somehow, and come to a +little peace at last, when everything would be forgotten; and her one +forlorn hope was that Guthrie would not discover her crime--would keep +up the neglect with which he had treated his old friends, and not come +near them. + +He might have done this--for the fact was that he now had a dawning +"affair" in another quarter--had not Frances intervened. To her, +inaction at such a crisis was intolerable, and since nobody else would +do it, she wrote to Guthrie Carey herself. She wrote, she said, to +welcome him back to life and to Australia, and to congratulate him on +being a captain; incidentally she mentioned other matters, and asked +innocent-seeming questions which she was well aware could only be +answered in person. + +Frances, since his first acquaintance with her, had shot up into a +slim, tall girl, exquisite in colouring and the daintiness of her +figure and face. Although unlike Deb in every way, people were +beginning to compare them as rival beauties--Frances' private opinion +being that there was no comparison. She had nearly done with +governesses, short frocks and pigtails, and was ardently anticipating +the power and glory coming to her when she should be a full-grown woman. + +Two days after the clandestine postage of her letter to Captain Carey, +a new housemaid brought Mary his visiting-card on a silver tray. Mary +knew, before looking at it--having heard nothing of the letter, and no +sound of his arrival in his hired buggy--what name it bore. Her forlorn +hope had been too forlorn to stand for anything but despair. She had +expected the catastrophe from the first. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +How she got into the room--the isolated big drawing-room, which +somebody else, who was aware of his arrival, had directed that he was +to be shown into--Mary knew not; but she was there. He stood perfectly +still, massive and inflexible, to receive her. Without approaching +him--or he her--to shake hands, without looking at his face or anywhere +near it, she perceived the adamantine set of lips, the cold gaze, more +withering than fire, which informed her that he knew all; and she sank +crouching into a chair, and hid her face. But her back was against the +wall now. The coward stage was past. In the most desperately false +position that a girl could occupy, she made no further attempt to run +away from the truth, perhaps because she saw that it was useless. When +he began, very politely, but with no beating about the bush, to say: "I +daresay you are surprised to see me, Miss Pennycuick, but I was +told--and since I came up here I have been told again by several +different persons--something that I want you to help me to understand," +she jerked herself upright, and stopped him with a swift gesture and +the cry of: "I know! I know what you have been told; and I have nothing +to say. I cannot contradict it." + +She was a piteous object, in her shaking anguish; but he looked at her, +of course, without a scrap of pity. + +"Do you think you really know?" he questioned her, with cold gravity. +"Perhaps I have been given an exaggerated version. I was in hopes that +it was altogether an invention of Miss Francie's--I know of old that +she is prone to make reckless statements--" + +"Ah-h--Francie!" + +"She was kind enough to write me a long letter, to congratulate me on +my promotion. She told me all the family news. And she said--she asked +me--but really I haven't the cheek to repeat her words--" + +His cold face had become hot, and his manner agitated. + +"Go on," said she, calming under the perception that the worst had come +utterly to the worst. + +"Well, if you will forgive me--she asked me, in effect, when I was +coming to marry you, and why I had kept the engagement a secret so +long." He paused, one dark red blush, to note the effect of so brutal a +stroke. + +She said, meeting his eyes for the first time: + +"And you believed it at once--of ME?" + +"No, Miss Pennycuick. I laughed. I said to myself: 'Here is another of +Miss Francie's mare's nests.' But when I read on--she told me so many +things--they were incredible, but still I felt I had to sift the +matter; and since I came up today, other people--I've been to Five +Creeks and had a talk with Jim Urquhart--now I don't know what to +think; at least, there is but one thing that I can think." + +The chair she had taken had a high back, and against this she laid her +head, as if too weary to support it. Lack of sleep and appetite had +paled her florid colour to a sickly hue, and she looked wan and languid +as a dying woman. But still he did not pity her, as he must have done +had her face been half as beautiful as Deb's or Francie's. + +"Miss Pennycuick," he continued, as she kept silence, "I want to get +the hang of this thing. Will you tell me straight--yes or no--have you +been giving it out that I left Redford two years ago engaged to you?" + +Her first impulse was to cry out: "Oh, no, no! Not quite so bad as +that!" But on second thoughts she said: + +"Yes--practically." + +Sudden rage seemed to seize him. He sat up, he crossed his knees, he +uncrossed them, he twisted this way and that, he muttered "Good God!" +as if the pious ejaculation had referred to the Other Person, and his +stare at her was cruel. + +"But--but--I have been racking my brains to remember anything--surely I +never gave you--I am perfectly convinced, I have the best reason for +being absolutely certain, that I could not have given you--" + +"Never!" she broke in. "Of course not. It was all my own invention." + +"You admit it? Thank you. You formally relieve me of the imputation I +have so long lain under without knowing it, of having run away from my +duty?" + +She said lifelessly: "We thought you were dead." + +"Hah! I see. You thought it didn't matter what you said of a dead man? +But dead men's characters should be all the more sacred because they +cannot defend them. I should be sorry indeed to leave behind me such a +reputation as I seem to have hereabouts--though, indeed, a man is very +helpless in these cases. He is at a hopeless disadvantage when a woman +is his traducer. I can see that Jim Urquhart will never be a friend of +mine again, whatever happens." + +"He shall know the truth. Everybody shall know the truth," said Mary. + +"How can everybody know the truth? Only by my own affidavit, and that +would not be believed. Besides, it is not for me to deny--at the cost +of branding a lady a liar." + +It was the straight word, regardless of manners, with this sea-bred man. + +"You need not. I know how to do it so that people will believe. I am +going to write a letter to the newspaper--a plain statement, that will +fully exonerate you." + +He nearly jumped out of his chair with the fright she gave him. + +"You will do nothing so ridiculous!" he exclaimed angrily. + +"It is the only way," said she--"the only way to make sure." + +"If you do," he menaced her, "I shall simply write another for the next +issue to flatly contradict you." + +"Then you would be a liar." + +"That doesn't matter in the least. I must be a man first. I am not +going to let you ruin yourself." + +"Ah, that is done already! Nothing can make it worse--for me." + +He looked at her, taking in the words, in some sort understanding them. +She lifted her eyes to look at him, and what he saw behind the look +went to his kindly heart. He "felt" for her for the first time. + +"May I go now?" she whispered. + +His answer was to move to a seat beside her. + +"I wish you would tell me," he said, in more humane tones, "how you +came to do it. I would like to understand, and I can't, for the life of +me. You must have had some reason. DID I do anything, unknowing--" + +She shook her head hopelessly. + +"No. You were only kind and good, as you would have been to anyone." + +"Kind and good? Rubbish! It was you--all of you--who were kind and +good. Oh, I don't forget what you did for me, and never shall. I +feel"--it was the very feeling that had so oppressed him in the case of +the lady at Sandridge--"under a load of obligation to you that I can +never hope to discharge. But still--but still--though I trust I showed +some of the gratitude I felt--I cannot remember how I came to give you +the idea--I must have done something, I suppose; one is a blundering +fool without knowing it--" + +"No," she protested--"no, no! It was my own idea entirely." + +"But I can't reconcile that with your character, Miss Pennycuick." + +"Nor can I," she laughed bitterly. + +"There's a mystery somewhere. Did anybody tell you anything? Did Miss +Frances put constructions on innocent appearances? Did--" + +"No," Mary resolutely stopped him. "It is good of you to try to make +excuses, but there is no excuse for me--none. Francie only said what +she knew. I let them believe you were my lover; I am twenty-seven--I +never had one--and--and--oh, I thought that, at least, you might be +mine when you were dead! I did not mean to be a liar, as you called +me--yes, that is the right word--" + +"Forgive me for using it," he muttered. "You do not realise at first +that you are lying, when you only act lies and don't speak them. And I +DID think that perhaps, that possibly--of course, I was ridiculously +wrong--it was atrocious, unforgivable--I don't ask you to forgive me--I +don't want you to--but those dear days when our little boy--oh, you +know!--and when you kissed me that night beside his grave--" + +"WHAT!" A lightning change came over the young man, as if the word had +been an electric current suddenly shot into him. "KISSED YOU?" + +"It was nothing; you did not know you did it--" + +"But here--hold on--this is serious. DID I kiss YOU? You are sure you +are not dreaming?" + +"I would not be very likely to dream that," she said, with a strange +smile. "But of course it was only--at such a time--as you would have +kissed your sister--anybody. Your very forgetting it shows that." + +But a dim memory was awakening in him, frightfully perturbing to his +mind. + +"I KISSED you!" he repeated, and slowly realised that he had been that +consummate ass. The poor baby's dead hand had retained its old power to +entrap a simpleton unawares. + +Well, simpleton or not, Guthrie Carey was Guthrie Carey--sailor-bred, +accustomed to meet vital emergencies with boldness and promptness; +accustomed also to take his own views of what was a man's part at such +times. While she implored him to say no more about that kiss, crying +shame upon herself for mentioning it, he sat in silence, thinking hard. +As soon as she had done, he spoke: + +"Miss Pennycuick, I now understand everything. You are completely +justified. It is I who have been to blame." And he then, in precise +language, such as no real lover could have used, but still as prettily +as was possible under the circumstances, requested the honour of her +hand in marriage. + +To his astonishment, she laughed. It was a wild-sounding cackle, and +quickly turned into a wail. + +"Ah-h! Ah-h-h!" She faced him again, head up and hands down. "That, Mr +Carey, is the one way out of it that is utterly, absolutely, eternally +impossible." + +"Why?" he demanded, with his man's dull incomprehension, and went on to +demonstrate that there was no other. "I do not wish," he lied +chivalrously, "to take any other. I--I--believe me, I am not ungrateful +for your--for your thinking a great deal more of me than I deserve. I +will try to show myself worthy--" + +A magnanimous arm attempted to encircle her. She backed from it, and +rose hurriedly from her chair, with what he would have imagined a +gesture of repulsion if he had not known her, from her own showing, so +over-eager for his embraces. He rose too. + +"Do not!" she cried breathlessly, passionately. "As if I could +dream--What can you think of me, to imagine that I would for a moment--" + +She broke from him and ran towards the door, sobbing, with her +handkerchief to her eyes. In three strides he was there before her, +cutting off her retreat; so she swung back into the room, cast herself +on the floor beside a sofa, and throwing up her arms, plunged her head +down between them into the depths of a large cushion, which smothered +cries that would otherwise have been shrieks. She abandoned all effort +to control herself, except the effort to hide, which was futile. + +Guthrie Carey's first feeling was of alarm, lest anyone should hear and +come in to see what was the matter; he felt like wanting to guard the +door. But in a minute or two his soft heart was so worked upon by the +spectacle before him that he could think of nothing else. However +little he might want to marry Mary Pennycuick, he was not going to be +answerable for this sort of thing; so he marched resolutely to the +sofa, and stooped to lift the convulsed creature bodily into his arms. + +He might as well have tried to grasp a sleeping porcupine. + +"How dare you?" she cried shrilly, whirling to her feet, dilating like +a hooded snake before his astonished eyes. "How dare you touch me?" He +was too cowed to answer, and she stood a moment, all fire and fury, +glaring at him, her tear-ravaged face distorted, her hands clenched; +then she whirled out of the room, and this time he made no effort to +stop her. + +He dropped back on the sofa, and said to himself helplessly: + +"Well, I'm blowed!" + +There was stillness for some time. This part of the house seemed quite +empty, save for one buzzing fly, which he or Mary had let in. The +little housekeeper was very particular about flies in summer, every +window and chimney-opening being wire-netted, every door labelled with +a printed request to the user to shut it; and his dazed mind occupied +itself with the idea of how this insect would have distressed her if +she had not had so much else to think of. He had an impulse to hunt it, +for her sake, through the green-shadowed space in which it careered in +long tacks with such energy and noise; but, standing up, he was seized +with a stronger impulse to leave the house forthwith, and everything in +it. He wanted liberty to consider his position and further proceedings +before he faced the family. + +As he approached the door, it was opened from without. Deb stood on the +threshold, pale, proud, with tight lips and sombre eyes. She bowed to +him as only she could bow to a person she was offended with. + +"Would you kindly see my father in his office, Mr Carey?" she inquired, +with stony formality. "He wishes to speak to you." + +"Certainly, Miss Deborah," he replied, not daring to preface the words +with even a "How-do-you-do". "I want to see him--I want to see him +particularly." + +Deb swept round to lead the way downstairs. + +An embarrassing march it was, tandem fashion, through the long passages +of the rambling house. While trying to arrange his thoughts for the +coming interview, Captain Carey studied her imperious back and +shoulders, the haughty poise of her head; and though he was not the one +that had behaved badly, he had never felt so small. At the door of the +morning-room she dismissed him with a jerk of the hand. "You know your +way," said she, and vanished. + +"She is more beautiful than ever," was his poignant thought, as he +walked away from her, and from all the glorious life that she +suggested--to such a dull and common doom. + +Mr Pennycuick, at first, was a terrible figure, struggling between his +father-fury and his old-gentleman instincts of courtesy to a guest. + +"Sir," said he, "I am sorry that I have to speak to you under my own +roof; in another place I could better have expressed what I have to +say--" + +But before he could get to the gist of the matter, Mary intervened. + +"Miss Keene has some refreshment for Mr Carey in the dining-room," she +said. "And, father, I want, if you please, to have a word with you +first." She had recovered self-possession, and wore a rigid, determined +air, contrasting with the sailor's bewilderment, which was so great +that he found himself driven from the office before he had made up his +mind whether he ought to go or stay. + +He sat down to his unnecessary meal, and tried to eat, while an +embarrassed maiden lady talked platitudes to him. Didn't he find it +very dusty in town? Miss Keene, knitting feverishly, was anxious to be +informed. And didn't he think the country looked well for the time of +year? + +He was relieved from this tedium by another summons to the office. +Fortified with a glass of good wine, he returned to the encounter, +inwardly calling upon his gods to direct him how to meet it. He found +poor old Father Pennycuick aged ten years in the hour since he had seen +him last. But he still stood in massive dignity, a true son of his old +race. + +"Well, Mr Carey," said he, "I have had a great many troubles of late, +sir, but never one like this. I thought that losing money--the fruits +of a lifetime of hard work--was a thing to fret over; and then, again, +I've thought that money's no consequence so long as you've got your +children alive and well--that THAT was everything. I know better now. I +know there's things may happen to a man worse than death--worse than +losing everything belonging to him, no matter what it is. When that +child was a little thing, she had an illness, and the doctors gave her +up. Two nights her mother and I sat up watching her, expecting every +breath to be the last, and broken-hearted was no word for what we felt. +I cried like a calf, and I prayed--I never prayed like it before or +since--and fools we are to ask the Almighty for we don't know what! Now +I wish He had taken her. And I've told her so." + +"Then you have been very cruel, Mr Pennycuick," Guthrie Carey replied +sharply--"and as unjust as cruel. She has done nothing--" + +"I know what she's done," the stern parent interposed. "I wouldn't have +believed it if anybody else had told me; but I have her own word for +it. And if she has been a liar once, I still know when to believe her." + +"If you will be so good as to tell me what she has said, then I will +make MY statement." + +The old man put up his hand. + +"Don't perjure yourself," said he, grimly smiling. "It is very kind of +you to try to let us down easily, but you can spare your breath. +Excuses only make it worse. There's nothing to be said for her, and +you'll really oblige me by not going into details. I only sent for you +to make such amends as I can--to apologise most humbly--to express my +sorrow--my shame--my unspeakable humiliation--that a child of mine--a +Pennycuick--a girl I thought was nothing if not maidenly and +self-respecting, and the very soul of honour and straightness and +proper pride--" + +"You speak as if she was not all that now--" + +"NOW!--and done a low, contemptible thing like that! Oh, I don't +understand it--I can't; it's too monstrous--except that I have her word +for it. She says she did it, and so there it is. And, sir, I beg your +pardon on behalf of the house that she has disgraced--the house that +reared her and thought her so different--" + +He gulped, coughed, and gave Guthrie a chance to put in a word. + +"Mr Pennycuick, the simple fact is that I made love to your daughter--" + +"Made her an offer of marriage?" snarled the other, wheeling round. + +"I kissed her--" + +Mr Pennycuick snapped his thumb and finger derisively. + +"THAT kind of kiss!--as good as asked for." + +"It was not as good as asked for. Your daughter is not that kind of +woman." + +"I thought not, but she says she is." + +"Pay no heed to what she says. Her morbid conscientiousness runs away +with her. I tell you the plain truth, as man to man, without any +hysterics--I kissed her of my own free will--your daughter, sir. And I +am here now to stand by my act. If she will forgive my--my +tardiness--as you know, I was in no position then to aspire to marriage +with a lady of this family; I am not now, but I am better off than I +was--will you give your consent to our engagement?" + +"No!" roared Mr Pennycuick, looking as if threatened with an apoplectic +fit. "I'll see her engaged to the devil first!" + +Like Mary, he seemed to take the generous offer as a personal insult. +Guthrie Carey, conscious of doing the duty of a gentleman at enormous +cost, could not understand why. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +Captain Carey, while leaving it to be understood that he held himself +engaged to Mary Pennycuick until further orders, realised the welcome +fact that in the meantime he was honourably free; and he excused +himself from staying to dinner. But scarcely had he driven off in his +hired buggy than that of Mr Goldsworthy clattered into the stableyard. +It was the good man's habit, when on his parochial visitations, to +'make' Redford at meal times, or at bed-time, whenever distances +allowed; he called it, most appropriately, his second home, and walked +into the house as if it really belonged to him two or three times a +week. + +The first person that he encountered on this occasion was Frances, who +had waylaid Guthrie Carey on his departure, and whom he had left +standing under the back porch, aglow with excitement. She was a picture +in her pale blue frock--put on for his eyes--and with her mane of +burnished gold falling about her sparkling blush-rose face; but the +parson, accustomed to regard her as a child, was unaffected by the +sight. + +"Surely," he exclaimed, with agitation, "that was young Mr Carey that I +passed at the gate just now? He had his hat pulled over his eyes, and +did not stop to speak to me; but the figure--" "Was his," said Frances, +bursting to be the first to say it. "Very much in the flesh still, +isn't he? And oh, to think he's gone like this, just as we'd got him +back--SO big and handsome, and such a DEAR brother-in-law as he would +have made!" + +She stamped her foot. "What do you think, Mr Goldsworthy?--he came for +her today, just as he promised, and then she turned round and wouldn't +have him! We thought he'd jilted her, and instead of that she's jilted +him. Oh, I could smack her! To have such a chance--SHE!--and after all +the fuss she made about him--and throw it away! But I think he'll come +back before his ship sails--he said he would--and perhaps she'll be +less of an idiot by then; she'd better, unless she wants to die an old +maid. Oh, if it was ME--!" + +Mr Goldsworthy penetrated to the morning-room, where something of the +same tale was repeated to him. Yes, Guthrie Carey was alive and well, +and had been up to see them. Yes, he had asked for Mary--now that he +was a captain--but she had finally decided against marrying a sailor. +Wisely, perhaps; at any rate, it was her business; the family did not +wish to discuss the matter. + +When Mr Goldsworthy found that Mary did not come to dinner, he drew +some conclusions for himself. He told himself there was something +"fishy" in the affair--something behind, that was purposely kept from +him. But he was hungry, and the fragrant soup steamed under his nose +and glittered in his spoon--it was so admirably clear. Just now the +doings of the Redford cook were of more concern to him than Mary's +doings. + +But although he enjoyed the meal to which he had looked forward all +day, he enjoyed it much less than usual. A more sensitive person in his +place must have found it wretched. Deb was a chilling hostess. Her +frigid dignity and forced politeness caused discomfort even to him, +thereby lowering her status in his eyes, lessening the ardour of his +admiration for her. Mr Pennycuick, such a stickler for hospitality, +scarcely spoke a word to the guest. Rose was a nobody, but still might +have done something in the way of entertainment; and she quite ignored +him, looking down as if to hide eyes that had been crying. Frances was +eager to engage in conversation, but was bidden roughly by her father +to hold her tongue. The stately governess wore only more ostentatiously +than usual the detached air that always marked her out of school; and +it was left to poor Miss Keene, with her timid platitudes, to keep up +an appearance of civility. + +Mr Pennycuick vanished abruptly after dinner; it was presently rumoured +that he was not well, and had gone to bed. Frances was taken away to +prepare lessons. Rose and Deborah came and went. Coffee was served. The +parson was again left to Miss Keene, who would not be pumped for +confidences, further than to admit that Mary was keeping her room with +a headache, in consequence of the agitating visit of Captain Carey, but +laboriously talked parish to him, without appearing to know anything of +the subject. So the poor man actually became so bored that he changed +his mind about staying for the night. He remembered that there was a +good moon, and that he had an early engagement next morning, and +ordered his buggy soon after nine o'clock. Afterwards he believed that +it was the direct voice of the Lord that had called him to take his +journey home at that hour. + +He drove alone, having a steady (Redford) mare, that stood quietly at +gates and doors, and no groom--a luxury almost unknown amongst country +parsons, who must all keep horses. The night was beautiful, still, cool +and clear, the moon so full that he could see for miles. Because of +this, he took his daylight short cuts across country, preferring grass +when he could get it to the dusty summer road. And one of his short +cuts led along the top of the embankment of the big dam. + +He slackened speed at this spot, touched by the beauty of the scene, +which could hardly have appealed in vain to any man who had just had a +good dinner. How peacefully the still water lay under the shining +moon--that moon which is capable of making, not soft young lovers only, +but the toughest old stagers sentimental--nay, maudlin--at times; an +intoxicant purged of the grossness of spirituous liquors, but acting on +the brain in precisely the same way. Mr Goldsworthy, already uplifted +by good Redford wine, felt the effect of the lovely night in dim poetic +stirrings of his sordid little soul. He mused of God and heaven, and +the other things that he made sermons out of, in a disinterested, +unprofessional way, these being the lines along which his imagination +worked. "Surely the Lord is in this place," was the unspoken thought, +elevating and inspiring, with which he surveyed the placid lake and the +dreaming hills; and "it is good for me to be here," he felt, even at +the cost of a Redford bed and breakfast, and the choice vegetables that +the gardener would have put into his buggy in the morning. + +But what was this? A boat adrift! From out of the shadow of the white +shed on the further shore a black spot moved--one of the boats that +should have been locked up, since no one was allowed to use them +without Mr Pennycuick's permission. It came into the open moonlight, +into the middle of that silver mirror, and he saw that oars propelled +it, and saw the figure of the person wielding them. Who had dared to +take this liberty with sacred Redford property? he wondered, with the +indignation of a co-proprietor; and he assumed a poacher after the fish +that Mr Pennycuick had been trying with characteristic perseverance and +unsuccess to naturalise in his dam. But looking harder, the clergyman +saw the figure rise in the boat, and that it was a woman's. Almost at +the same instant he saw that it had disappeared. Seizing whip and +reins, he lashed his mare to a gallop along the embankment and down its +steep side, where she nearly upset him, and round the lake shore--the +buggy rocking like a cradle--to the point nearest to the boat, now +visibly adrift and empty. He jumped to the ground, tore off his coat +and vest (which had a valuable watch attached), flinging them and his +hat, and presently his boots, into the buggy; and with a word of +warning to the mare, he plunged into the water to the rescue of some +poor fool whom as yet he had not identified. + +He returned to shore with Mary Pennycuick in his arms. Spent and +panting from his struggle, and awed by the tragical significance of the +affair, his heart exulted at his deed. He thanked God that he had been +in time--with a fervour proportionate to her rank and consequence--and +anticipated the splendid reward awaiting him as the benefactor of the +great family, entitled to their full confidence and eternal gratitude. +But also he was filled with solicitude for the poor girl. + +She was unconscious when he laid her down on the grass, but choked and +moaned when he set to work to revive her, and realised that she was +back in life and misery after he had succeeded in getting some whisky +down her throat--contents of the flask he always carried, as a +preventive of chills and remedy for undue fatigues, and from which he +had first helped himself. They sat upon the ground side by side, his +arm round her waist, her head--feeling only that it was cushioned +somewhere--on his shoulder. The night was so warm and windless that +their wet clothes were little discomfort to them, but he kept grasping +and wringing handfuls with the hand at liberty, while he supported her +with the other. The danger of damp "things" was more terrifying to him +now than the danger of death had been a few minutes ago. + +"There, there," he said soothingly, "you feel better now--don't you? +Then I'll just put on my coat, if you don't mind. I'll wrap you up in +the buggy rug--and we'll get back to Redford as soon as we can. And in +the morning, dear, you'll wake up sorry for this--this madness, and +you'll never do it again, will you?" + +"Hysteria," he said to himself. "Her head turned by this love affair. +He's treated her badly, whatever they may say, and it has unhinged her +mind." + +This thought disposed him to be gentle with her when she positively +refused to be taken back to Redford. + +"Leave me here," she implored him. "I cannot go home! I will not go +home! My father told me he wished I was dead. Oh, I should have been +dead now if you had left me alone, and then they would have been +satisfied, and I should have been out of my misery, which is more than +I can bear. Oh, Mr Goldsworthy, don't--don't!" "Mad as a hatter, poor +thing," he thought, as he desisted from his effort to raise her. "Why, +her father thinks the world of her!" + +But something had to be done. It was unwise to use force in these +cases--nor could he have brought himself to use it--and of course he +could not leave her at the dam, or leave her at all, while she was in +her present mood, and without other protection; at the same time, it +was imperatively necessary that he should get out of his wet +clothes--her also. He mentioned this latter fact, and it was touching +to see her own careful housewifely instincts assert themselves through +all her mental agony. + +"Oh, you ARE wet," she mourned, feeling him--it did not matter about +herself; "oh, I am so sorry! Do--do go home at once, and take them off, +and have something hot before you go to bed." + +"I will," he said, "if you will go with me." A moment's reflection +showed him that this was the best course--to take her to his own house, +and send a message to Mr Pennycuick that she was there, and safe. + +The thought of the town frightened her. She dreaded to go anywhere out +of the solitude of Nature in which she had tried to hide. But he +assured her of privacy and protection, and she was spent and beaten, +and she gave in. Like a child, she stood to be wrapped in the rug and +lifted into the buggy, and they proceeded on their way to his home, +where his old sister kept house for him and mothered his child, with +the aid of one servant. + +It was nearly midnight when they arrived, and the parsonage was dark. +Miss Goldsworthy, not expecting him, was sitting up with a sick +parishioner half a mile off; Ruby and the maid were fast asleep. When +the latter was heard stirring in her room, her master called a few +questions to her, and then bade her go back to bed. + +"We don't want her poking round," he whispered to Mary, as (when +together they had hurried the mare into her stall) he led the drooping +girl to his study--and how grateful she was to him for this +consideration! He closed the door behind them, and led her gently to +his own arm-chair--she clung to the hand that was so kind to her in her +need--bidding her keep the rug about her (so as not to wet the +furniture); and he lit a kerosene stove that was one of his private +luxuries, always available when the maid-of-all-work was not. He +exhorted his charge to comfort herself by the poor blaze while he +fetched such odds and ends of clothes as he could gather from his +sister's room; and then he told her to change her wet garments for +these dry ones while he performed the same operation for himself +elsewhere. She obeyed him as meekly as a child, and was sitting huddled +in Miss Goldsworthy's faded flannel dressing-gown when he returned, +carrying a kettle and a tray. + +"Now I will make you a nice hot cup of tea," said he cheerily, planting +the kettle on a round hole at the top of the stove and the tray on his +writing table. "You put your clothes in the passage? That's right. +We'll dry them presently. Oh, yes"--starting to cut bread and +butter--"you must have something to eat. You have had no dinner." + +He forced her to eat, and to drink the hot tea, and she did feel the +better for it. Over her cup she lifted swimming eyes to his face, +whispering: "You are good to me!" And he remarked to himself that she +was not mad, as he had thought. + +When the meal was disposed of, he felt that the time for explanations +and for considering how to deal with the extraordinary situation had +come. + +"Now, my dear," he began, taking on something of the parson air at +last, "the first thing to be done is to inform your family of your +whereabouts. I must go and find up somebody to take a message to them, +to relieve their minds." + +She roused from her semi-torpor to plead for a reprieve. Not yet--not +yet! Whatever she had to face, let her rest for a little first. They +had parted with her for the night; they would not go to her room, she +knew--outcast as she now was from the sympathy of them all; they would +not miss her before the morning. And, oh, she could not go home! She +had disgraced her family--her own father had wished her dead. She was a +wicked woman, not fit to live; but, if she must live, let it be +anywhere--anywhere--rather than at Redford now! + +At this repetition of her strange charge against a doting father, and +the mention of disgrace, a distressing suspicion came into the parson's +mind. He calculated the length of time between Guthrie Carey's visits; +he looked at her searchingly. No, there was no evidence that she had +done the special wrong. But that there was wrong of some sort somewhere +was evident enough. + +"I know your father's affection for you," he said seriously, "and I +cannot believe that he would express himself as you say he did." + +"I deserved it," she said. "I don't blame him--nobody could." + +"There must indeed have been some grave reason--" + +"There was--there was!" + +"What was it?" + +"Oh, don't ask me!" she wailed, covering her face. But, crossing over +to her side, he took one of the shielding hands, and holding it +tenderly, assured her that she must tell him. He was her pastor--he was +her best friend; just now he was her champion, prepared to fight her +battle, whatever it was. And to do this successfully it was necessary +that he should know all. In the end she told him--not all, but the main +facts. He thought it the silliest case of making a mountain of a +molehill that he had ever heard of. He was convinced there was more in +the background, to account for the violent emotions aroused--to account +for a good girl leaving a good home in the middle of the night to drown +herself. In his conjectures he made Guthrie Carey the villain of the +piece--the young man who, after creating all the disturbance, had +significantly cleared out. Sailors were an immoral lot--a sweetheart in +every port, as the world knew. And this fellow--why, you had only to +look at his big, brawny build (Mr Goldsworthy was a small man) to see +that he had a brutal nature. + +At any rate, the parson was satisfied that the heroine of the story +remained a "pure" girl--foolish, but womanly, and very, very +unfortunate. As she sat weeping by his side, dependent solely upon his +protection, he stroked her hand and looked at it--so shapely and +high-bred, the hand of a Pennycuick of the great house--a hand that +would be full of gold some day; and his thoughts were busy. + +The beautiful Deborah was gone, and could never have been for him; he +had been an idiot to think it. She had no bent towards religion, was +ruinously dressy and extravagant, unhousewifely as a woman could be; +but Miss Pennycuick, great lady as she was, could cook and sew, was a +master hand with servants and with children, and had never failed of +interest in the church--nor in him. They had always been the best of +friends, he and she; did it not seem that Providence had decreed they +should be more? Why had he been sent to the dam in the nick of time, +when he had intended to stay at Redford until morning? Why was she +sitting here now, alone with him in his study, cut off from everybody +else in the world? The hand of the Lord was in it. Looks were of small +account when one considered her rank and the fortune she would inherit; +but, of course, he did not admit to himself that he considered any one +of these three things; nor that she was of age and her own mistress, +although she had just forced the fact upon him when, promising him to +make no further attempt upon her life, she announced an intention to +find a situation somewhere in which she would be able to support +herself apart from her family, and away from all who knew her. No, what +he considered was the will of God and the dictates of his conscience. +She had been given into his hands; he was bound to take care of her, +and there was but one way to do it. It would be wrong and cruel to +force her back to Redford. It was preposterous to think of making a +governess or companion of her, a daughter of the proud Pennycuicks. She +could not remain in his house as she was, without scandal, although he +was a clergyman, with a sister housekeeper. Here they were now--past +midnight, and practically without a soul in the house--and he so young +still, and, if he might presume to say it, so attractive! + +He put the case to her guardedly, gradually, plainly at last, and +argued it for a full hour, while she drooped and wept, gazing at the +smelly stove and shaking her head wearily. By the time dawn came, and +she was quite worn out, he had won her consent to be his wife, which +meant for her a footing somewhere, and at the same time a means to +commit suicide without violating the law. + +Miss Goldsworthy, who was but his humble slave, came home, put the +forlorn girl to bed, and made a wedding breakfast for her while she was +there; Mr Goldsworthy took the opportunity to fill up marriage papers +in his study. Ruby was sent to school, as usual. Before her return +therefrom, Mary Pennycuick had been led to the altar of the adjacent +church, the white frock in which she had tried to drown herself dried +and ironed to make her bridal robe. A neighbouring clergyman and crony +of the bridegroom's performed the ceremony. Old Miss Goldsworthy, the +chief witness, deposed, bewildered, wept bitterly. The bride was +unmoved--until little Ruby, returning during the course of the ghastly +wedding breakfast, was brought up, giggling and staring, to "kiss her +new mamma", when the new mamma snatched the child to her breast, and +went off into wild hysterics. + +"There, there," said the new husband, pleased with the maternal +gesture, but alarmed by her excitement, "you are overwrought. You have +had no sleep. You must come and rest, my dear. Come and lie down. You +can have Ruby with you, if you like--while I go and settle things at +Redford. No, I won't be long; I'll just see your father, and be back by +tea-time. Have the drawing-room opened, Charlotte"--it never was opened +except for visitors--"and we will sit there this evening. And +meanwhile, make her some tea or something, and see that she has all she +wants. Come, my love--" + +He led her to the door of a room, and she shrank back from it with a +shriek. + +"Well, well," he soothed her; "the spare room, if you like--" + +"Oh, promise me--promise me--!" + +"Yes, yes; just as you wish, darling. I would not hurry you." + +She turned to Miss Goldsworthy and clung to her. "Save me! save me!" +was what the desperate clutch meant, but what the paralysed tongue +could not articulate. + +She was in a high fever and delirious on her wedding night, and a week +later at death's door. When she came out of her illness, reconciled to +her family, meekly obedient to her husband, she was a wreck of +herself--a prisoner for life, bound hand and foot, more pitiable than +she would have been as a dead body fished out of the dam. + +The tragic disproportion between crimes and punishments in this world! + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +Mrs Goldsworthy was reconciled to her relations through her +illness--the greatest peacemaker in families, save death; and for her +sake they made a show of tolerating her husband, after they had given +him some bad hours behind her back. But the whole affair was like a +blight on Redford, which was never the same place again. Mr Pennycuick +had a slight "stroke" on hearing all the bad news at once. It was light +enough to be passed over and hushed up, but his vigour and faculties +declined from that hour with a rapidity that could be marked from day +to day. "A changed man," observed his neighbours, one to another. At +the same time, they hinted that other things were not as they used to +be--that the old man had had losses--that Redford was heavily +burdened--that the proud Pennycuicks, already humbled, were likely to +experience a further fall. Certainly, the governess was dispensed with, +and the dashing four-in-hand withdrawn from the local racecourses and +agricultural show-grounds, of which it had long been the constant and +conspicuous ornament, to be sold at public auction, without reason +given. The great, hospitable house got a character for dullness for the +first time in its history. No lights or laughter flowed from the +windows of the big drawing-room of an evening; the lawns lay dark and +still, while downstairs a rubber of whist or a hand at cribbage with +Jim Urquhart or Mr Thornycroft represented what was left of the +gaieties of the past. These men--these old fogies, as fretful Frances +styled them both--were not of those who shunned Redford because it had +grown dull; on the contrary, they now--according to Frances +again--virtually lived there. And it was the absent pleasure-seekers, +her true kindred, for whom her soul longed. + +He who most openly resented the change, having (next to Mary) been most +instrumental in causing it, was Deborah's lover, Claud Dalzell. + +He had been none too gracious a lover--although graceful enough, when +all was well--seeing that he had continued his bachelor life, with all +its social obligations, after as before his engagement, and had allowed +this to run to nearly two years, without coming to any effective +understanding about the wedding-day; but when, in the thick of her +troubles, he descended upon Redford merely to denounce the Goldsworthy +marriage as a personal affront, and, as it were, to tax her with it, +then her loving indulgence did not suffice to excuse him. + +As usual, he went to his room first, to wash and change. He hated to +pass the door of a sitting-room with the dust of travel on him; he +could not shake hands with equanimity until he had restored his person +and toilet to their normal perfection, which meant more or less the +restoring of his nerves and temper to repose. So he appeared on this +occasion, fresh and finished to the last degree, the finest gentleman +in the world--the very light of Deb's eyes, and the satisfaction of her +own fastidious taste--walking in to her where she awaited him, in the +morning-room, herself 'groomed' to match, with as much care as she had +taken when she had no more serious matter to think of than how to dress +to please him. + +He met her, apparently, as usual. She, turning to him as to a rock in a +weary land, flung herself into his arms with more than her usual +self-abandonment. + +"Oh, darling!" she breathed, in that delicious voice of hers, "it is +good to see you. I have wanted you so badly." + +"I am sorry I did not come before," he replied, kissing her gravely. +"Somebody has been wanted to deal with that extraordinary girl." + +"Ah, poor girl! Do you know she is very ill with brain fever? Keziah +has gone to nurse her. It must have been that coming on. She was out of +her mind." + +"I should think so--and everybody else too, apparently. What were you +all about, Debbie, not to see this Goldsworthy affair going on under +your noses?" + +"It hasn't been going on. It has been Guthrie Carey--until now." + +"I am told"--it was Frances who had told him in the passage just +now--"that she refused Carey only the day before." + +"She did." + +"In order to make a runaway match with this parson fellow. The facts +speak for themselves." + +"Ah!" sighed Deb, turning to the tea-table, "I expect we don't know all +the facts." + +She meant that he did not know them. He only knew what Frances knew, +and providentially they had been able to keep the episode of the dam +out of the published story. That was the secret of Mary herself, her +husband, her father, and this one sister; and they kept it close, even +from Claud Dalzell. "I will tell him some day when we are married," Deb +had promised herself; but as things fell out, she never did tell him. +And it was on account of her brother-in-law's part in the suppressed +event that she now forbore to call him behind his back what she had not +hesitated to call him before his face--that is, failed to show that she +fully shared her lover's indignation at the MESALLIANCE, and the +scandalous way that it had been brought about. + +"But, good heavens!"--Claud took his cup perfunctorily from her hand, +and at once set it down--"are more facts necessary? She has made a +clandestine marriage with a man whose bishop will turn him out of the +church, I hope. They were right, I suppose, in concluding that no one +here would consent to it; and what conceivable circumstances could +excuse such an act?" + +"Illness," said Deb. "Madness." + +"Nonsense! There's too much method in it. It is obviously but the +climax of a long intrigue--a course of duplicity that I could never +have believed possible in a girl like Mary, although I have always +thought HIM cad enough for anything." + +"Have your tea," said Deb, a trifle off-hand; "it will be cold." + +And she sat down with her own cup, and began to sip it with a leisurely +air. + +"A clandestine marriage," remarked Claud, ignoring her advice, +"logically implies a clandestine engagement. Carey was but a red +herring across the trail. And you ought to have known it, Deb." + +"Well, I didn't," said she shortly. + +He took a turn up and down the room, trying to preserve his wonted +well-bred calm. But he was intensely irritated by her attitude. + +"I cannot understand you," he complained, with a hard edge to his +voice. "I should have thought that you--YOU of all people--would have +been wild--as wild as I am." + +She exasperated him with a little laugh and a truly cutting sarcasm. +"It is bad form to SHOW that you are wild, you know, even if you feel +so." + +"I am just wondering whether you feel so. You are not used to hiding +your feelings--at any rate, from me. I expected to find you out of your +mind almost." + +"What's the use? If I raved till doomsday I couldn't alter anything. +The mischief is done. It is no use crying over spilt milk, my dear." + +"You look as if you did not want to cry." "Do I?" + +"As if it did not much matter to you whether it was spilt or not." "It +doesn't matter to me, compared with what it matters to her." "Well, it +matters to ME," Claud Dalzell announced, in a high tone, the crust of +his fine manners giving to the pressure of the volcano within. "I can't +stand the connection, if you can. Carey was bad enough, but he had some +claim beside his coat to rank as a gentleman. This crawling ass, who +would lick your boots for sixpence, to have him patting me on the back +and calling himself my brother--Good God! it's too sickening." + +"Not YOUR brother," Deb gently corrected him. + +"He is mine if he is yours." "Oh, not necessarily!" + +"Deb," said Claud, with an air of desperation, planting himself before +her, "what are you going to do?" + +She looked up at him with narrowing eyes and stiffening lips. + +"What IS there to do?" she returned. "Are you going to put up with +this--this outrage--to condone everything--to tolerate that fellow at +Redford, taking the position of a son of the house, or are you going to +show them both that they have forfeited their right ever to set foot +upon the place again?" + +"My sister too, you mean?" + +"Certainly--if you can still bring yourself to call her your sister. +She belongs to him now, not to us. She has voluntarily cut herself off +from her world. Let her go. Deb, if you love me--" + +He paused, and Deb smiled into his handsome but disgusted face. + +"Ah, is that to be a test of love?" she asked. "I understand. I am to +choose between you. Well"--she rose, towering, drawing the big diamond +from her engagement finger--"I am going to her now. I ought to have +been there hours ago, but waited back to receive you. Good-bye! And +pray, don't come again to this contaminated house. We have too horribly +gone down in the world. I know it, and I would not have you compromised +on any account. We Pennycuicks, we don't abandon our belongings, +especially when they may be dying; we sink or swim together." She held +the jewel out to him. + +"What rot!" he blurted vulgarly, flushing with anger that was not +unmixed with shame. "Why will you wilfully misunderstand me? Put it on, +Deb--put it on, and don't be so childish." + +"I will not put it on," said she, "until you apologise for the things +you have been saying to me, and the manner of your saying them." + +"My dear child, I do apologise humbly, if I have said what I shouldn't. +Perhaps I have; but I thought we were past the need for reserves and +for weighing words, you and I. And really, Debbie, you know--" + +"Hush!" She stopped him from further arguing; but she did not stop him +from taking her hand and cramming the diamond back into its old place. +"I must go. Father cannot--he is ill himself; and Miss Keene is too +frightfully modest to nurse him alone, so that I must send Keziah back, +and stay--" + +"Can't Miss Keene go and send her back, and stay?" + +"Oh, she would be no use in such an illness as Mary's. And I must see +for myself how things are--whether they are taking proper care of the +poor, unfortunate child--" + +"Is she so very ill? I did not know that." + +There was commiseration in his tone, but in his heart he hoped that the +deservedly sick woman would crown her escapades by dying as quickly as +possible. Then, perhaps, he could forgive her. + +Deb gave him sundry confidences. On his appearing to take them in a +proper spirit, she gave him some more tea. And so they lapsed into +their normal relations. When she again urged the need for her to be +getting off on her errand of mercy, he magnanimously offered to drive +her. She accepted with a full heart, and her arms about his neck. While +she was getting ready, he repacked his portmanteau, and ordered it to +be put into the buggy. + +"It's no use my going back," he said to her, when they were on the +road, "with you away, and your father too ill to see me. I'll put up at +the hotel tonight, and go on to town in the morning. You can send for +me there whenever you want me, you know." + +"Just as you like, dear," said Deb quietly; and for the rest of their +journey they talked commonplaces. + +When they reached the parsonage gate, from which the maid-of-all-work +and a group of street gossips scattered in panic at their approach, the +lovers shook hands perfunctorily. + +"Goodbye, then, for a little while," said Claud. "You don't want me to +come in, do you?" + +"Certainly not," said she coldly. + +"You know that it is totally against my judgment--and my wishes--that +you go in yourself, Deb?" + +"Yes. But one's own judgment must be one's guide." + +Thus they parted, each with a grievance against the other--a root of +bitterness to be nourished by much thinking about it, and by the +circumstance that poor Mary neither died nor was repudiated. Claud +drove on to the hotel, to be further disgusted with his accommodation +and his dinner; Deb walked into the house which hitherto she had +visited in a spirit of kindly condescension, to be revolted by the new +aspect which her changed relations with it now gave to its every +feature. Ruby, neglected, with a jam-smeared face--the flustered maid, +tousled, grubby, her frock gaping--the horrible hall, with its +imitation-marble paper and staring linoleum--the prim, trivial, +unaired, unused drawing-room, with its pathetic attempts at +elegance--Deb inwardly curled up at the sight of these things as things +now belonging to the family. When the master of the house came hurrying +in to her, rusty, unshaven, abject, she would have changed places with +a Christian of old Rome facing a lion of the amphitheatre. + +"Oh, this is good of you! This is kind indeed!" Mr Goldsworthy greeted +her, and threatened in his grateful emotion to fall at her feet. "I did +not dare to hope--" + +But Deb shudderingly swept him aside, with his gratitude and his +excuses and his timid justifications. He could stand up before his +other critics--he had a clear conscience, he said; but before her he +knew himself for what he was. He followed her like a dog to Mary's +room, obeyed her directions like a slave, wept when she consented to +"say no more", and stooped to beg from him a solemn vow and promise +that he would be good to his wife. This was after the doctors had +refused to permit his wife's removal to Redford to be nursed, and after +Redford had practically been in command of his establishment for seven +weeks. + +Christmas is the time for reconciliations, and by Christmas Mary was +convalescent--pale as she had never been since childhood, and wearing a +little cap over her shaved head; very humble and gentle, and strangely +docile in her attitude towards her captor, who now gave himself all the +airs of a husband of his class. He was the benevolent despot of his +women-kind--the god of the machine; she was as properly submissive as +if born in the ranks. Negatively so, that is to say; positively, her +manifestations of duty to him took the form of services and endearments +bestowed upon his child and sister. Her first occupation after she +could use her hands was to improve Ruby's wardrobe--the little girl, +now her own, appealed to her motherly heart, a saving interest in her +wrecked life. The poor old ex-housekeeper was the other prop to which +she clung for a footing in the new and alien world which was now all +her home. When Miss Goldsworthy proposed to go out into a situation, +not to "be in the way of" the new wife, and when her brother would have +approved the plan as only right and proper (and as facilitating his +schemes for the raising of the "tone" of his establishment to Redford +level), Mary protested vehemently and with tears, the only occasion of +her showing a Pennycuick spirit since renouncing the Pennycuick name. +The old maid, for her part, was enthusiastically devoted to the new +sister-in-law, whom it was her joy to pet and coddle. "I can be of use +to her," she tremblingly commended herself to her brother. "I can take +the drudgery of the housework off her, and save her in the parish." +"Well, perhaps so," said Mr Goldsworthy. And, sincerely desiring to +endear himself to his aristocratic wife, he consented to her wish. + +The whole Goldsworthy family was transferred to Redford, while, on the +pretext of disinfecting it, the parsonage was painted and papered what +Deb called "decently", and its more offensive furniture replaced. Mary +was provided with a trousseau and many useful wedding presents, a +cheque from her father for 500 pounds amongst them. They did not +forgive her, but they pretended excellently that they did. Without any +pretence at all, they tried to make the best of a bad job. To this end, +they gathered their friends together as usual at Christmas. Mr +Thornycroft and the Urquharts needed no pressing; they came to see Mary +the day she returned home, and showed her the old affection without +asking questions. Mr Thornycroft's wedding presents to her were +magnificent--a complete service of silver plate and house linen of the +finest. Deb wrote to Claud: "I suppose we shall see you, as +usual?"--for he had always spent Christmas at Redford unless away on +the other side of the world. He wrote back: "I think not, this time." +He was the only defaulter. + +"He will never have a chance to refuse again," said Deb fiercely, as +she tore up his note. + +His absence was too marked not to provoke frequent comment, and +whenever it was alluded to in her hearing, her spine stiffened and her +head went up. It was quite evident to her family that the rift in the +lute was serious, and strange to say, it was her father, who might have +been expected to hail the signs, who was most concerned to see them. He +expostulated with her when she spoke bitterly of Billy's son, as once +he had been so ready to do himself. + +"Well, my dear," said he, "I can understand it, if you can't. I +wouldn't come myself, if I was in his place, to mix-up with the sort of +thing we've got to mix up with." + +"If I can mix up with it--!" quoth proud Deborah. + +"Yes, yes--I know; but you must consider the silly way that he's been +reared. I don't like his taking upon himself to criticise what we +choose to do; but no doubt Goldsworthy IS a pretty big pill to +swallow--to a chap like him, always so faddy about breeding and +manners, and that sort of thing." + +"If he is too faddy for the society that I can put up with, though it +be that of chimney-sweeps," said Deb, "he is too faddy for me, father." + +"Now, my dear, don't talk so," the old man pleaded with her, quite +agitated by her mood. "We all have our little weaknesses--we have to +make allowances for temperament and for bringing up. Don't let a trifle +like this estrange you two--don't, Debbie, for my sake. Let me go down +to my grave feeling that one of you, at least, is safe and happy, and +well provided for." + +"Decidedly," thought Deborah, "father is not the same man that he was +before his illness." + +She understood the cause of his change of views on her engagement +better a few weeks later. + +He had parted with his eldest daughter then, and the emotion of the +event had fatally affected him. Owing to some obscure working of the +"influence" which her social position had brought to her husband, the +latter had been promoted to the charge of a Melbourne parish. The +affair was arranged while they were still at Redford, and just on the +completion of the improvements to the local parsonage. In spite of all +they had done to make this first home fit for her, family and friends +were unanimous in hailing her removal to another and more distant +one--out of the buzz of the gossip of her native neighbourhood--as the +best thing that could have happened. But when it came to the point of +sending her forth to battle with her fate alone for the rest of her +life, the wrench was dreadful. She was the bravest of them all under +the ordeal. The shattered father, whose right hand she had been for so +many happy years, and whose heart was broken with the weight of his +responsibility for her misfortunes, was completely overwhelmed. She had +not been gone twelve hours when Deb found him in his office chair, +unable to rise from it, or to answer her questions. And he never spoke +again. He made signs that he wanted Claud sent for, and when the young +man quickly came, looked significant things at him and Deb, as they +stood by his bedside hand in hand. Then he lapsed into stupor and died, +without waiting for a third stroke. + +Through all the shock and sorrow of the time, Claud was Deborah's +mainstay and consolation. He took the role of nearest male relative, +the right to which was undisputed by Mr Goldsworthy, preoccupied with +the important interests of his new parish; also by Mr Thornycroft and +Jim Urquhart, who, of course, "stood by" to serve her as far as she +would allow them. It was Claud who gave the orders for the funeral, and +superintended the ceremonies, and acted as chief mourner; it was Claud +to whom the household looked for direction, as if acknowledging him to +be the new master; it was on Claud's breast that Deb wept--who so +rarely wept--and his word that she obeyed, as if he were already her +husband; and in all that he did for her, and in all that he did not do, +he showed the grace, the tact, the tenderness, the thoughtfulness of +her ideal lover and gentleman. + +But there came a day when he fell again below the indispensable +standard--when the rift in the lute, that had seemed closed, gaped +suddenly, and this time beyond repair. It was when, after close +investigation of the deceased man's affairs, and some heated interviews +with one of the executors (Deb being the other), Claud discovered that +the Pennycuick wealth was non-existent--that Redford was mortgaged to +the hilt, and that if the estate was realised and cleared, as Deb +desired it should be, nothing would be left for her and her +sisters--that is to say, a paltry three or four hundred a year amongst +them, less than Deb could spend comfortably on her clothes alone. + +He was too upset by the discovery, and a bad quarter of an hour that Mr +Thornycroft had subsequently given him, to preserve that calm demeanour +which was his study and his pride. He came in to Deb where she sat +alone, and expressed his feelings as the ordinary man is wont to do to +the woman who loves and belongs to him. + +"What could your father have been dreaming of," he rudely interrogated +her, "to let the place go to pieces like this? Drifting behind year +after year, and doing nothing to stop it--not cutting down one of the +living expenses--not giving us the least hint of how things really +were--" + +"He gave several hints," said Deb, in that voice which always grew so +portentously quiet when his was raised, "if we had had the sense to +take them. I have been putting two and two together for some time, so +that I am not altogether taken by surprise." + +"Why didn't you tell me?" + +"Because you were not here, for one thing. Because it was father's +private business, for another." + +"He seems not to have made it his business to take any care of his +children's interests," said Claud bitterly. "Bringing you up as he has +done, with the right to expect that you were to be properly provided +for, and then leaving you literally paupers--" + +"Not LITERALLY paupers," corrected Deb gently. "We shall be quite +independent still. And if you want to insult my father now that he is +dead--the best of fathers, if he did have misfortunes in business and +make mistakes--do it somewhere else, not in this room." "You have no +right to take that tone with me, Deb." "No?" She raised sarcastic +eyebrows, under which her deep eyes gleamed. "Well, I suppose I +haven't--now. I forgot my new place. I am very sorry, Claud"--rising, +and making a gesture with her hands that he had seen before--"very +sorry indeed, that I did not know I was going to be a poor woman and a +nobody when you did me the honour to select me to be your wife. Now +that you have shown me that I am disqualified for the position--" she +held out the big diamond, with a cold smile. "That's vulgar, Deb," he +loftily admonished her, fending off her hand. "You know I am not +actuated by those low motives. DON'T let us have this cheap melodrama, +for pity's sake! Put it on." + +But no more would she put it on. He had revealed his disappointment +that she was not something more than herself--that beautiful and +adorable self that she quite knew the worth of--and he had permitted +himself to take liberties of speech with her that she instinctively +felt to be provoked by the circumstance that she was no longer rich and +powerful. + +Deb's love was great, but her pride was greater. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +Deb sat amid the ruins of her home. She occupied the lid of a deal +packing-case that enclosed a few hundreds of books, and one that was +half filled stood before her, with a scatter of odd volumes on the +floor around. The floor, which was that of the once cosy morning-room, +was carpetless; its usual furniture stood about higgledy-piggledy, all +in the wrong places, naked and forlorn. Mr Thornycroft leaned against +the flowerless mantel-shelf, and surveyed the scene, or rather, the +central figure, black-gowned, holland-aproned, with sleeves turned back +from her strong wrists, and a grey smudge on her beautiful nose. + +"That cottage that you talk about," said he, "will not hold all those." + +"Oh, books don't take any space," she replied brusquely. "They are no +more than tapestry or frescoes. I shall have cases made to fit flat to +the walls." + +"That will cost money." + +"One must have the bare necessaries of life. I presume I shall be able +to afford that much. Pine boards will do. I can Aspinall them." +"Aspinall is very nice, but sometimes it gets on the edges of your +books and spoils them." + +"No, it doesn't. I have an Aspinalled book-case in my room now, and not +a mark ever came off it." + +"Did you paint it?" + +"I did." + +"Are you going to leave it there?" + +"I must. It is a fixture." + +"That's all right. I am glad you are going to leave something." +"Something? I leave all." + +"Except a library of books, and a collection of forty odd pictures, +that you will have to hang over the books--" + +"You would not have us part with family portraits?" + +"And a grand piano, extra sized, calculated to fill a suburban villa +drawing-room all by itself--" + +"Pianos make nothing second-hand, and the girls must practise. Better +keep a good instrument than sell it for fifty pounds and spend the +money on a bad one." + +"Certainly, if you can stow it. But with seven easy-chairs, and the +biggest Chesterfield sofa extant, and a large writing-table--" + +"I can have that in my room." + +"Along with a six-foot dressing-table, and a nine-foot wardrobe, and I +don't know how many chests of drawers--" + +"The wardrobe will stand in a passage somewhere. We must have places to +put our clothes." + +"A house with passages of that capacity--" + +"Well, never you mind. If I can't find room for my things, I can sell +them in Melbourne as well as here." + +"Having squandered a small fortune on the carriage down. Better leave +them with me, Debbie, and let me send you what you want afterwards." + +"Thank you. You would not have them to send afterwards." + +"Oh, I think I would." + +"No. I shall settle everything before I leave, and the sale will be +held immediately. The furniture first, and then the place." Her mouth +closed upon the words like a steel snap. + +"Just as you please about that," he said quietly. "Any time will suit +me." + +"By public auction," she added, with a sharp glance at him--"to the +highest bidder." + +"Yes," was his laconic comment. "Me." + +"Not necessarily," said she, roused by the small word that held such +large meanings. "There are a few other rich persons in the western +district, to whom Redford may appear desirable." + +"There are," he agreed easily. "I know several. But I shall outbid +them." + +She was strongly agitated. "Oh, I hope they won't let you!" + +"Why?" he asked. + +At first she fenced with the question. + +"Because you don't want it. You have more land already than one man +ought to have." "I don't know about what I ought to have, but I know +that if you persist in throwing Redford away, I shall take it." He +smiled at her angry perturbation. "If I find I haven't enough money to +outbid everybody--but I think I have--I can sell Bundaboo. If you won't +have Redford, I will--yes, and every stick and stone that belongs to +it." + +"And have people talking and saying that you did it for something else, +and not business reasons." + +"People would be right, for once." + +"But I won't have it!" cried Deb. "I won't stand being an object of +your benevolence. You want to pay a lot more than the place is worth, +so as to augment our income. You as good as own it--" + +"I want to keep your home for you against you change your mind." "The +last thing I shall do, I assure you--particularly after your saying +that." Her nose, in spite of the smut on it, testified to her indignant +dignity, up in the air, with its fine nostrils quivering. "Now, look +here, godpapa--I will not have Redford put up to auction. I'll sell +privately--and to somebody else." + +"You cannot." + +"Oh, indeed! Not when I am executor?" + +"Certainly not--except with the permission of your fellow-executor." + +She fell to pleading. + +"Oh, let me--do let me! You know what I want--to square up all the +debts and have done with them. I can't sleep for thinking of what we +owe you already. Do you know how much it is? Nearly forty thou--" + +He checked her with an impatient wave of the hand. + +"All the debts will be provided for, of course. The lawyers will adjust +those matters." + +"I don't trust you," she urged, looking at him less angrily, but still +as puzzled and distressed. "I know you have designs to benefit me +somehow--unfairly, and because it's me--and if you only knew how I +HATED to be benefited--" + +"I do--nobody better. That is why I am letting you do a lot of things +that won't benefit you, but just the opposite--things you will repent +of horribly by-and-by. Knowing your independent spirit, I do not offer +my advice--" + +"Oh!" + +"Not effectively. I do not force it upon you. I do not bring my +undoubted powers to bear upon you for your good--" + +"Ah!" + +"Because I know, of course, that you would rather suffer anything than +be guided by me." + +She softened instantly. "I am not such a fool, I hope. But--but you +WILL bring friendship into business. You did things for my father that +you know you would never have dreamt of doing for strangers--that you +never ought to have done at all; and now you want to be twice as +idiotically generous to us, because we are girls, and out of pity for +us--to do us a kindness, as it is called--when, if you only knew--" + +She had risen and drifted to him where he stood, and now laid a hand on +his arm. He put a hand over it, and looked into her pleading eyes. He +seemed not to have heard her last remark, to be far away in mind from +the point of discussion, and his fixed and strange gaze perplexed and +then embarrassed her. "How he feels our going!" she thought to herself, +and turned her face from his, and tried to turn his apparently sad +thoughts. + +"If you would only let me sell Redford to somebody else, and have the +lump money to pay all the debts in a plain way that I could understand, +and take the remainder for ourselves, and know that we were straight +and free, I would do anything you liked to ask me in return!" + +He still kept silence, and that tight grasp upon her hand. So she +looked at him again; and his far-away stare was bewildering. + +"I wonder," said he slowly--"I wonder, if I were to take you at your +word, whether you would stick to it?" + +"Try me," said she. + +"I will. Deborah Pennycuick, if I let you sell Redford, and pay all +debts with your own hands, will you--I am your godfather, and something +over fifty, and it is quite preposterous, of course, but still you said +anything--will you be my wife?" + +"Oh!" This was the unexpected happening, with a vengeance. Never had +she imagined such a notion on the part of this staid and venerable +person. She flushed hotly, and wrenched her imprisoned hand free. "I +don't like stupid jokes," she muttered, overcome with confusion. "Do I +give you the impression that I am joking?" he asked. + +"If you are serious, that is worse," said she. "Then I know you are +only trying another way of providing for me." + +"You believe I have only just thought of it?" + +"Haven't you?" + +"I have thought of it since you were fifteen, my dear. But never mind. +We will call it a joke, if you think that the least of two evils. I see +you do. The incident is closed. The bargain is off. And I can buy +Redford when it is put up for sale. Goodbye, goddaughter. No, I can't +stay to lunch today; I have some business to attend to. But of course I +shall see you again before you go." + +And when he did see her again, he gave not the smallest sign of what +had happened, so that she almost grew to feel that she must have dreamt +it. + +That same afternoon, Jim Urquhart, who was always doing so, rode over +to Redford to see if he could help her pack. He wondered at her +abstracted manner, and her sudden change of mind concerning the piano +and wardrobe and other things. Having laboriously packed books and +pictures, she now proposed to unpack half of them. She wanted to see +what room she would have in her cottage first. In fact, it seemed to +him that she did not know what she wanted. She was evidently tired and +overwrought. "Oh, Jim," she moaned, from amongst the dust and litter, +"it is a wrench!" + +"What do you suppose it is for us?" he returned gloomily. "Without you +at Redford! I'm trying not to think of it." + +"So am I. But it's no use--it has got to come." + +"I suppose there is no way out?" + +"None. That is all settled. I have told Mr Thornycroft, and he won't +tease me any more." + +"Do you think you will be happy down there, cooped up in streets?" + +"I know I shall not. But the streets down there will be better than the +streets of a bush township." + +"Why streets at all? Why not stay about here somewhere, where you have +us all near you?" + +"Exiled from Redford? No, thank you. Besides, where could we stay? +Detached cottages don't grow in these parts." + +Then he blurted it out. + +"I have never said anything, Deb. I knew I wasn't fit for you, and. I +am not now. I've got to look after my dear old mother and the children, +who haven't got anybody else, and I couldn't give you a home worthy of +you--perhaps never, no matter how I worked and tried; but if love is +any good, and the things that after all make homes--not money and fine +furniture--" "Dear old boy, don't!" she pleaded, with twitching lips. + +"I may as well, now I have begun," said he. "I don't suppose it is any +use, but I'd just like you to know once--as far as my life is my own, +it is yours any day you like. It has been since I was a boy, and it +will be for a good while yet--I won't say for ever, because you can't +tell what's going to happen; but I'm ready to bet my soul that it will +be for ever. Now, do just what you feel inclined to, Debbie. I'm not +going to press you--I know my place too well; but if you should think +it a better plan to live with me, and have me work for you and take +care of you the best I can, why, any heaven that's coming to us +by-and-by simply won't be in it--not for me." He looked at her across +the packing-case between them, and dropped his voice to add: "But you +wouldn't, of course." + +"I would, dear Jim!" she cried, with warm impulsiveness; "that is, I +might. A good man like you is worth a worldful of money and furniture. +I don't live for those things, as you seem to think; but--but you know +how it is--I can't change about from one to another--" + +He dropped the saddest "No" into the pregnant pause. + +"No, Deb--no; I expected that. Staunch through everything--that's you +all over. Well"--with a movement as if to pull himself together--"I'm +staunch too. We're equals in that, anyhow, and don't you forget it. +I'll not bother you any more--I never have bothered you, have I?--but +I'm here when you want me, body and soul, at any hour of the day or +night. You'll remember that?" stretching his horny hand across to her, +and being in the same instant electrified by the touch of her lips upon +it. + +"Oh, I will! I will!" + +The evening post brought a ship letter. Guthrie Carey was in port. He +had been there long enough to hear the news that Deborah Pennycuick was +penniless, and that Claud Dalzell had deserted her. So he had written +to her at length--the longest letter of his life--ten pages. + +She took it to her bedroom and sat down to read it, while at the same +time she rested a little before dinner. She had frowned over the +envelope; now she smiled over the first pages; she sighed over the +middle ones; she even wept a little over the last. Then she wrote out +an answer and sent it by a groom to the nearest telegraph office: + +"Please do not come. Am writing." + +Thus she cast aside in one day three good men and true, heart-bound to +one who was not worthy to be ranked with any of them. But that is the +way of love. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +There was an attic at the top of a dark flight of stairs in the +suburban villa that was now the sisters' home. It contained a fireplace +and a long dormer window--three square casements in a row, of which the +outer pair opened like doors--facing the morning sun and a country +landscape. The previous tenants had used it for a box and lumber room, +and left it cobwebbed, filthy and asphyxiating. Deb ordered a charwoman +to clean it, and a man to distemper the grubby plaster and stain the +floor, and then laid down rugs, and assembled tables and books, and +basket-chairs, and girls' odds and ends; whereby it was transformed +into a cosy boudoir and their favourite room. Hither came Mary when she +could escape from that treadmill of which she never spoke, bringing her +black-eyed boy to astonish his aunts with his cleverness, and +astonishing them herself with the heretical notions which an intimate +association with orthodoxy seemed to have implanted in her. But Bennet +was not admitted, nor any other outsider. + +The little bricked hearth, when reminiscent wood fires burned on it, +was a pleasant gathering-place in cold weather; but it was the window +in the projecting gable towards which the sisters most commonly +converged. It was about eight feet long by two feet high, and close up +under it, nearly flush with its sill, stood a substantial +six-foot-by-four table, the chairs at either end comfortably filling +the rest of the alcove. They could sit here to write or sew, or drink +afternoon tea, and look out upon as pleasant a rural landscape--the +Malvern Hills--as any suburban villa could command. It was that view, +indeed, which had decided Deb to take the house. + +There was, of course, a towny foreground to it; and this it was, rather +than the distant blue ranges, that held the gaze of Rose Pennycuick +when she looked forth--the back-yard of the villa next to their own. It +was a well-washed-and-swept enclosure, spacious and well-appointed, and +amongst its appointments displayed a semi-circular platform of +brickwork, slightly raised above the asphalted ground, and supporting +the biggest and best dog-kennel that she had ever seen. + +"Those are nice people," she remarked, "for they have given their dog +as good a house as they have given themselves. Isn't it a beauty? I +wish to goodness everybody was as considerate for the poor things. I +wonder what sort of a dear beast it is?" + +She watched so long for its appearance that she thought the kennel +untenanted, but presently saw a maid come out from the kitchen with a +tin dish. This she dumped upon the brick platform, turning her back +instantly; and a fine, ruffed, feather-tailed collie stepped over the +kennel threshold to get his dinner. + +"Chained!" cried Rose. "And she never spoke to him!" + +Deb looked over her shoulder, sympathetically concerned. "Is he really? +What a shame! I expect they are too awfully clean and tidy to stand a +dog's paws on anything; but no doubt they let him out for a run." + +Rose waited for days, and never saw this happen. The master of the +house and a dapper young man, his son, went to town every morning at a +certain hour, evidently for the day's business; a stout, smart lady, +with smart daughters, was seen going forth in the afternoons; the maids +took their little outings; but no one took the dog. He lived alone on +his patch of brick, either hidden in the kennel or lying in the sun +with his nose between his paws. He had his food regularly, for it was a +regular household; but beyond that, no notice seemed taken of him. +Rose, worked up from day to day, declared at last that she could not +stand it. "Why, what can you do?" said Deb. "He is their dog, not +yours." "Oh, I don't know; but I must do something." + +One moonlight night she heard him--always silent and supine, except +when suspicious persons came into the yard--baying softly to himself, +plainly (to her) voicing the weariness of his unhappy life. She sat up +in bed and listened to him, and to his master shouting to him at +intervals to "be quiet"; and she wept with sympathetic grief. + +It was a Saturday night. On Sunday morning she excused herself from +going to church. She saw Deb and Francie go, and she saw the family of +the next house go--heard their front door bang, and caught gleams of +smart dresses through the foliage of their front garden. Then she put +on her hat and stole forth to intercede for the collie with the cook of +his establishment, a kindly-looking person, who had once been observed +to pat his head. + +The gleaming imitation-mahogany door at which she rang with a +determined hand but a fluttering heart, was, to her dismay, opened to +her by a young man--the son of the house, whom she had seen going to +business every week-day morning, tailored beautifully, and wearing a +silk hat that dazzled one. He was now in a very old suit, +flannel-shirted and collarless, so that at first she did not recognise +him. + +The desire of each was to turn and fly, but the necessity upon them was +to face their joint mishap and see it through. Crimson, the young man +mumbled apologies for his state of unreadiness to receive ladies; +equally crimson, Rose begged him not to mention it, and apologised for +her own untimely call. + +"Miss Pennycuick, I believe?" stammered he, with an awkward bow. + +"Miss Rose Pennycuick--yes," said she, struggling through her +overwhelming embarrassment. "I called--I wanted--I--I--MIGHT I speak to +you for just one minute, Mr Breen?" + +She had lived beside him long enough to know his name, also his +occupation. The Breens were drapers. Their shop in the city was not to +be compared with Buckley & Nunn's or Robertson & Moffat's, but it was a +good shop in its way, as this good home of the proprietors testified. + +"Certainly," said young Mr Breen, whose name was Peter. "With pleasure. +By all means. Walk in, Miss Pennycuick." + +She walked into a gorgeous drawing-room, where all was of the best, and +wore that shining air of furniture too valuable for daily use. Mr Peter +drew up a cream linen blind that was one mass of lace insertion, and +apologised anew for his unseemly costume. + +"The fact is, Miss Pennycuick--I hope you won't be shocked at my doing +such things on Sunday--I was cleaning my gun. There is a holiday this +week, and I am going shooting with a friend. It was he I expected to +see when I went to the door in this state." "Oh," said Rose, more at +her ease, "I often do things on Sundays; I don't see why not. In fact, +I am doing something now--" + +She cast about for words wherein to explain her errand, while he shot a +stealthy glance at her. Though not beautiful, like Deb and Francie, she +was a wholesome, healthy, bonnie creature, and he was as well aware of +her position in life as she was of his. + +"I came, Mr Breen--I thought there were only servants in the house--I +am sure you must wonder how I can take such a liberty, such an utter +stranger, but I wanted to speak about that poor dog of yours--" + +"Bruce--ah!" Enlightenment seemed to come to the young man. "You have +called to complain of the row he made last night. We were only saying +at breakfast--" + +"No, no, indeed!" Rose spread out protesting hands, and ceased to feel +embarrassed. "Not to complain of him, poor dear, but--but--if you will +forgive such impertinence, to ask somebody--I thought I should see your +cook, who looks kind--to do something to make his life a little less +miserable." + +"Miserable!" Mr Breen broke in, and sat up, stiffening, as if half +inclined to be offended, even with this very nice young lady. + +"There isn't a dog in the country better off. We had his place in the +yard built on purpose for him; had his kennel made to a special +design--" + +"A lovely kennel! I never saw a better." + +"Clean straw every few days; all his food cooked--" + +"But CHAINED, Mr Breen. And a collie, too!" + +"Well, we couldn't have him messing all over the place; at any rate, my +people wouldn't. Oh, I assure you, Miss Pennycuick, Bruce is in clover. +He was only baying the moon. Dogs often do that. It's only their +fun--though it isn't fun to us." + +"Fun!" sighed Rose helplessly. And she fixed her eyes upon her +companion, as they sat VIS-A-VIS on the edges of their brocaded chairs, +with no sense that he was a strange young man--a gaze that troubled and +disconcerted him. "I am sure," she answered earnestly, "that you have a +kind heart. One has only to look at you to know it." + +"The idea never occurred to me before," he mumbled, flattered by her +discernment, and no more offended with her. + +"I am sure no one could mean better by a dog than you, giving him all +those nice things," she continued. "But--but you don't THINK. You don't +try to imagine yourself chained up in one spot night and day, week in +and week out, with nothing to do--no interests, no amusements, unable +to get to your work, to go shooting with your friends, to do anything +that you were born to do--and consider how you would like it." + +Mr Peter submitted to her humbly the fact that he was not a dog. + +"And you think you are not both made of the same stuff? That's just +where people make the mistake, even the kindest of them. Mr Breen, I +once had a long talk with the curator of a zoological garden, and he +told me that animals in confinement suffer mentally, just as we should +do in their place. Unless they have occupation and companionship they +go out of their minds. They get sullen and savage, and people say they +are vicious, and punish them, when it is only misery. He said no happy +dog ever got hydrophobia unless it was bitten; and that it was to save +themselves from going mad that squirrels kept whirling their wheel and +tigers running round and round their cages. They want notice, and +change, and work, or they cannot bear it. The stagnation kills them--or +I wish it did kill them quicker than it does. Look at your Bruce, born +to work sheep, to scamper over miles of country, free as air, to be +mates with some man who would know the value of such a friend, and be +worthy of him. Oh, it is too cruel!" + +Never had Rose displayed such eloquence, and a sudden glisten in her +candid eyes put the piercing climax to it. Mr Peter's kind heart, which +had been growing softer and softer with every word she spoke, was in +melting state. + +"Upon my soul," he declared, "you put quite a new light on it; you do +indeed, Miss Pennycuick. I see your point of view exactly. But--" + +With the utmost willingness to meet her views, he was unable to see how +to do it. It was easy to say "Let him off the chain," but the mater, +who was very particular, would never stand a dog muddying the verandahs +and digging holes for his bones in the flower-beds. He, Mr Peter, was +an only son, and she would do most things for him, but he was afraid +she would draw the line at that. + +"Well, you might at least take him for walks," Rose pleaded. "Nobody +could object to that." "Yes, I might take him for walks," the young man +conceded thoughtfully. "Of course, I don't get home from business till +tea-time, and I have to leave directly after breakfast--" + +"Our Pepper, when we go to town, takes us to the station and sees us +off; and you are not at business on Saturday afternoons." "I usually +play tennis or something on Saturday afternoons--" + +"Well, take him and let him see you play tennis. He'd love it." + +"I question whether my club would. But see here, Miss Pennycuick, I WAS +going to meet some lady friends this afternoon, but now I won't; I will +take him for a walk instead. And I'll get up in the mornings, and give +him a run before breakfast. There!" + +"Oh, how kind, how good you are!" she exclaimed delightedly. + +"Not at all," he returned, glowing. "It is you who are good, taking all +this trouble about us. I am only ashamed that you should have had to do +it, and that you should have caught me in this state"--another blushing +reference to his distressing toilet. + +"Never mind your state," she consoled him sweetly, rising from her +chair. "I like you better in this state than I do when you are smart. I +thought you were too smart to--to condescend to trouble yourself about +a poor dog." + +"I am sorry you had such a bad opinion of me. It was simply--the thing +didn't occur to me until you mentioned it." + +"I know. But it is all right now. Well, I must go. You will never get +your gun cleaned at this rate." + +"Bother the gun! This is better than--I mean--won't you take a glass of +wine?" + +She declined emphatically and with haste, and hurried into the hall. He +opened the front door for her, and they stood together for a moment on +the dustless door-mat, mathematically laid upon verandah boards as +white as new-peeled almonds. + +"What a lovely garden!" remarked Rose, as she stepped down to it. Those +were her words, but what she really said in her mind was: "Who would +think he was a draper?" + +Francie was aroused from her Sunday afternoon snooze on the +drawing-room sofa. + +"What IS the matter with that dog?" she complained pettishly. "Surely, +after howling like a starved dingo all night--be quiet, Pepper! One of +you is enough." Rose's terrier was up and fidgeting, with pricked ears. + +"They must be killing him!" cried Deb, lifting her handsome head from +her book. + +"Oh, no," said Rose; "that sort of bark means joy, not pain." + +"Poor, dear beast! What's making him joyful, I wonder?" + +"I must go up and see," said Rose, who had carefully refrained from +mentioning her forenoon proceedings. + +The drowsy pair sank back upon their cushions; only Pepper accompanied +her to the attic room. He jumped upon the window seat, wriggling and +yapping, and they looked forth together from the open casement upon the +spectacle of Bruce and Mr Peter apparently engaged in mortal combat. +The collie had realised that he was off the chain and about to take a +walk, and was expressing himself not merely in frenzied yells, but in +acrobatic feats that threatened to overwhelm his master. The latter, +tall-hatted, frock-coated, lavender-trousered, with a cane in his hand +and a flower in his button-hole, jumped and dodged wildly to escape the +leaping mass, his face puckered with anxiety for the results of his +experiment. Pepper's delighted comments drew his eyes upwards, and he +made shift to raise his hat, with a smile that was instantly and +generously repaid. Rose nodded and waved her hand, and Peter went off, +making gestures and casting backward glances at her, until he was a +mere dot upon the distant road, with another dot circling around him. + +"Dear fellow!" she mused, when he was out of sight. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +Bruce went unchained, within limits, and had a run nearly every day. +Workmen came to put a railing and gate to the back verandah of his +establishment, and Mrs Breen kept a fidgety watch upon his movements; +but evidently the only son's will ruled, and he was more than faithful +to his compact with Rose. She was able to see this from her commanding +window, and to hear it from Bruce's mouth; and day by day her heart +warmed towards Bruce's master. Many were the friendly smiles and +salutes that passed between the attic window and the Breen back-yard, +all unknown to Rose's sisters. + +They were walking with her one Saturday afternoon, when they met Mr +Peter and the collie. Pepper ran forward to greet Bruce, and they +sniffed at each other's noses and wagged their respective tails in a +friendly way. Deb was remarking to Rose that their pity for the Breens' +dog had been quite misplaced, when a bow from her sister and a lift of +the hat by the young man caused her to stop short and raise her fine +brows inquiringly. + +"Rose!" + +"I--I spoke to him one day," explained Rose, pink as her pinkest +namesake. "About Bruce." + +"Who's Bruce?" + +"That's Bruce--his dog." + +Frances came running up. "Rose," said she indignantly, "did you bow to +that man?" + +"He is our neighbour next door," mumbled Rose. + +"I know that. So is the wood-carter. But is that a reason why you +should bow to him? Do you know who those people are?" + +"They are perfectly respectable people, I believe," said Rose, growing +restive. + +"DRAPERS," said Frances witheringly. + +"I shouldn't care if they were chimney-sweeps. They have a beautiful +dog, and young Mr Breen is very kind to him, and I--I thanked him for +it." "Oh, Deb!" + +"Was that necessary, my dear?" + +"Perhaps not. But I did." + +"Well, be careful, Rosie. We are not at Redford now, you know. Girls +living alone and going about in public places--" + +"And that sort of person," Frances broke in crossly, "always takes +advantage of a little notice. Why, he looked at you as if you were +friends and equals, Rose!" + +Rose turned to retort again, but feeling the weight of opinion against +her, forbore. And she was glad she had never mentioned the +circumstances under which she had made poor Peter Breen's acquaintance. + +On a later afternoon she was in the attic room, sewing at a frock for +Robbie Goldsworthy--Robert Pennycuick, after the grandfather who had +been expected to leave much money--while Deb and Frances entertained +visitors downstairs. Old Keziah had brought her tea and cakes, and she +had had a pleasant time with her work and her thoughts, and her view of +Bruce and his premises, when suddenly Frances flounced in. + +"Now, madam!" exclaimed the irate young lady, "we have to thank you for +this. What did I say? Give these people an inch and they will take an +ell--a mile indeed, if they can get it." + +"What people?" inquired Rose faintly. + +"Those Breen people--those DRAPERS. They have had the cheek to come and +call on us--to call and leave their cards, 'First and third Wednesday', +as if they expected us to call back again!" + +"Who came?" + +"Mrs and Miss--with half the shop upon their backs. Debbie"--Deb was +coming in behind her--"you are NOT going to return the call of those +people, I TRUST?" + +"Oh, I don't know," smiled Deb easily. "It would please them, and it +wouldn't hurt us. There would be no need, of course, to return a second +one." + +"I should think it would NOT hurt us," Rose spoke up, "to behave like +decent people. I never heard that it was considered high breeding and +fine manners to snub your inferiors--if they are your inferiors." "You +have to snub them," said Frances, "if they don't know manners +themselves." + +"A very GENTLE snub," said Deb. "We are not going to be rude to the +poor things. We will call once--that is, I will--in a few months' time. +After all, it was hardly their fault." + +"No; it is Rose's fault. Please, Rose, in future be so good as to +consider your family a little, as well as your neighbours' dogs." + +Rose's only reply was to start the sewing-machine and drive it +vehemently. But her heart burned within her. Evidently Peter's mother +and sister had been insulted in her house, after he had been so good to +her. + +He did not appear in the yard that evening, and next day when he did, +his face was turned from her all the time. The day after that, she +rattled the window and encouraged Pepper to bark to draw the young +man's attention, having ready for him a smile that should counteract +Francie's frowns, if smiles could do it; but again he took no notice. +Then she was sure that his feelings had been hurt. Mrs and Miss Breen +had returned to report a cool reception of the overtures that had been +made almost certainly at his instigation--had probably reproached him +for exposing them to the insolence of stuck-up snobs. Oh, it was +horrid! And doubtless he thought her as bad as the rest. She had not +gone downstairs to see his mother and sister, and how was he to know +she had been ignorant that they were there? And still he took Bruce out +for walks, before breakfast and after business in the afternoons, when +he might have been playing tennis and enjoying himself. + +She bore with this state of things for some time, then suddenly +determined to end it. "Where there's a will there's a way." One of +Deb's petticoats showed signs of fraying, and, Deb-like, she must have +fresh lace for it immediately. Rose offered to go to town to fetch it, +taking with her the money for her purchase. + +Never before had she been to "Breen's." Second-rate, if not third or +fourth, was its class amongst Melbourne shops, and the Pennycuicks had +always been accustomed to the best. But when she turned in at the +somewhat narrow and encumbered doorway, she was pleasantly surprised to +note how far the shop ran back, and how well-stocked and busy and +solidly prosperous it seemed. + +He was there--not, to her great relief, behind the counter, but in a +sort of raised office place at the farther end--attending to the books +apparently, while keeping an eye upon other matters. Hardly had she set +foot upon the carpeted aisle when his head popped up from behind his +desk, and she saw herself recognised. As it was her object to be +recognised, and to speak to him, she passed the lace department, the +ribbons, the silks, the dress stuffs, until she reached the Manchester +department, where they sold towels and table-cloths, and beautiful +satin eider-downs in all the colours of the rainbow. Here she halted +and asked sweetly for torchon lace. + +All the way had Peter watched her, but with his head down, as if +wishing to hide from her. "He fancies I shall be ashamed of him because +he keeps a shop," thought she; and that was exactly what he did fancy, +knowing the world and its funny little inconsistent social ways. So, +when informed that she had left the lace counter far behind her, and +while turning to retrace her steps, she frankly sought his eye, and +catching it, bowed and smiled with all the friendliness that could be +expressed in such fashion. + +That smile drew Peter out. But still he came with a bashful and +hesitating air, as if uncertain of his reception; so that she had to +meet him half-way, with bold hand extended. + +"How do you do, Mr Breen? How is Bruce? But I see how well he is, and +happy--thanks to you. I am so sorry I did not have the pleasure of +seeing your mother and sister when they were so kind as to call the +other day; but I did not know they were in the house till they were +gone." + +He glowed with joy. He clasped her hand with a vigour that made it +tingle for a minute afterwards. + +"I was sorry too," he said. "My old mater is a good soul. I think you +and she--I wanted her to see you. Another time, perhaps--" + +"Oh, I hope so! We are such near neighbours." She was ready to say +anything that would make him feel he was not being treated as a +shopman. "And did you have your day's shooting? Were you successful?" +"Well," with modest pride, "I came upon snipe unexpectedly, and brought +home a couple of brace. If I had thought you would condescend to accept +them, Miss Pennycuick--if I had dared--" + +"Oh, thank you very much, but I could not have let you rob your +mother--" + +Conscious of heightened colour, and several pairs of watching eyes, +Rose hastily put out her hand. Peter took it respectfully, slightly +abashed. + +"Can I--is there anything--anything I can do for you?" + +"Yes, please," she said, struggling to remember what it was. +"Some--er--lace--torchon--for my sister; that is what I came for." + +"This way," said Peter gently; and they walked down the long, narrow +shop together, closely scrutinised by the young women behind the +counters. Two or three of these, with ingratiating smirks, converged +upon the spot where their young chief halted and called aloud for +torchon lace. The favoured one brought forth the stock, unexpectedly +large and valuable, and the girl was soon able to make her choice. She +wanted one dozen yards, and there was a piece of fourteen that Peter +styled a "remnant" for her benefit. If he could have presented it to +her free of cost, he would have loved to do so; as it was, she made an +excellent bargain. + +"I only hope they won't ask me where I got it," she said to herself on +the way home. Happily, they did not. The usual Buckley was taken for +granted, and Deb slashed up the lace without noticing that she had +fourteen yards for twelve. + +But Rose was a poor schemer, and it was inevitable that she should soon +be found out. + +The sisters were gathered about their window table in the attic room on +the following afternoon. Keziah had brought their tea, and amid the +litter of their needlework they drank it leisurely, enjoying a spell of +rest. Both casements stood wide. Deb, at one end, gazed wistfully at +the Malvern Hills; Frances, at the other, looked down on objects nearer +home. Rose had purposely drawn her chair back farther into the room. A +joyous bark arose. + +"There's your young man, Rose," said Frances flippantly. "Really, the +dandy has surpassed himself. Knickerbockers and a Norfolk jacket, if +you please! Why, actually a horse! He is going out to ride. This it is +to be a counter-jumper in these levelling times!" + +"He is not a counter-jumper," said reckless Rose. + +"How do you know?" returned Frances swiftly. + +"Proprietors don't wait behind the counter." + +"That is where he has had to learn his business, of course," said Deb. +"But there is nothing disgraceful in counters. Don't be snobbish, +Francie. Every trade--profession too, for that matter--has to have a +counter of some sort." + +"Of course it has," said Rose, heartened. + +"Oh, but to see a man--a miserable apology for a man--measuring out +calicoes and ribbons, and tapes and buttons, and stays and garters, and +all sorts of things that a man has no right to touch--pugh!" + +"Only women sell the stays and garters," corrected Rose vehemently. +"And at least young Mr Breen is not a miserable apology for a man. He +is as much a real man as anybody else--goes out shooting--plays +tennis--" + +Again Francie's cat's-paw pounced on her. "How do you know?" + +"Why--why--you can see he is one of that sort," squirmed poor Rose. + +"Oh!" said Frances significantly, with a firm stare at her sister's +scarlet face. "Deb, there is more in this than meets the eye--even than +meets the eye." + +"I don't care what you say," struck Rose blindly. + +"Don't tease her," Deb interposed. "And don't be putting preposterous +ideas into the child's head." + +"Please, Deb, I am not a child." + +"No, my dear, you are not; and therefore you know, as well as we do, +that young Mr Breen is nothing to us." + +"Did I say he was anything? It is Francie that makes horrid, vulgar +insinuations." + +"But how do you know that he shoots and plays tennis?" persisted +Frances, with a darkling smile. + +"Because he told me so--there!" + +In five minutes the inquisitor had drawn forth the whole innocent tale. +She fell back in her chair, while Deb seemed to congeal slowly. + +"Oh," moaned Frances, "no wonder they thought they could come and call +and make friends with us! And no wonder," she added, more viciously, +"that there he stands leering up at this window, when his horse has +been ready this half hour." + +"Is he doing that?" asked Deb quickly. + +"Look at him!" + +Deb rose and looked; then, with a firm hand, closed the two little +windows and drew down the blinds. With a sob of rage, Rose jumped from +her basket-chair, almost flung her cup and saucer upon the tea-tray, +and rushed out of the room. + +Thereupon the little family resolved itself into a strong government +and one rebel. + +"When I DO want to marry a shopkeeper," said weeping Rose to her +sisters, "then it will be time enough to make yourselves ridiculous." + +But they thought not. "No use," said they, "to shut the stable door +after the steed is stolen." Danger, or the beginning of danger, had +distinctly declared itself, and it was their part to guard the +threatened point. So they took steps to guard it. The name of Breen was +not mentioned, but its flavour lurked in every mouthful of +conversation, like the taste of garlic that has been rubbed round the +salad bowl in the salad that has not touched it; it filled the domestic +atmosphere with a subtle acrimoniousness unknown to it before. And Rose +was watched--not openly, but systematically enough for her to know +it--never allowed to go out alone, or to sit in the attic after a +certain hour; driven into brooding loneliness and disaffection--in +other words, towards her fellow-victim instead of from him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +Now that she could no longer entertain, Deb refused to be entertained, +much to the discontent of Frances, who pined continually for a larger +and brighter life, so that the invitations fell off to nothing before +the excuse of the deep mourning was worn out. But when Mrs Urquhart, +always maternally solicitous for her poor Sally's girls, wrote to beg +them to spend Christmas at Five Creeks, Deb and Frances, who did not, +for different reasons, wish to go themselves, agreed that it would be +'the very thing' for Rose to do so. She would be absolutely safe up +there, and with her old social world about her, and old interests to +occupy her mind, would recover that respect for herself which seemed to +have been more or less impaired by association with suburban villadom. +They hoped she would stay at Five Creeks a long, long time. + +"And if only Jim would keep her altogether!" sighed Frances. "I would +be content with Jim now." + +"I wish to goodness he would!" said Deb, with fervour--not thinking +particularly of her sister as she spoke. + +The matter was put to Rose, and she consented to go. Five Creeks was +better than Lorne, which had been spoken of, and the companionship of +Alice than the shepherding sisters in the close limits of seaside +lodgings; besides, Rose was a born bush girl. + +She was tenderly escorted to Spencer Street, and put into the hands of +Jim himself, in town on station business. Alice met them at the other +end, and the two friends slept, or rather bunked, together--the house +being full for the Christmas dance--and talked the night through. But +not a word about Peter Breen passed Rose's lips, so full of words as +they were. + +Next day the trestle-tables and Chinese lanterns, the sandwiches and +creams, and what not, occupied her every moment and thought until it +was time to dress, when the interest of the ball itself became supreme. + +"Well, there's one good thing," said Alice, as, hemmed into a corner of +a small room crowded with girls, she laced Rose's bodice, "we shall not +want for men. There'll be one to each girl, and three over. The +Simpsons alone have promised to bring six." + +The Simpsons were new people at Bundaboo, which Mr Thornycroft had let. +He now lived at Redford--in a third part of the great house, the other +two-thirds being closed. He was not coming to the ball, Alice said. +"Getting too old for balls." + +In their white frocks and flowers, the friends went to the +drawing-room, and in the thick of the arrivals Jim brought up from the +bachelors' quarters the six Bundaboo young men. Mrs Simpson introduced +them to Mrs Urquhart and her bevy of assistant hostesses. + +"Mr Leader--Mr Henry Leader--down from Queensland; Mr +Parkinson--English--globe-trotter; my two sons, whom you know; my +nephew, Mr Breen." + +Thus do the sportive Fates love to make mock of the most carefully-laid +family plans! + +Rose and Peter faced each other, sharing one blush between them. Their +natural pleasure and astonishment was only equalled by their mutual +admiration. + +"What a little love she is in that pretty gown," thought he, a +connoisseur in gowns. And "Who would take him for a draper now?" +thought she, noting the vigorous frame and the perfect correctness of +its garb. As a matter of fact, no one did take him for a draper, and no +one cared what he was, since he was Mrs Simpson's nephew and a man. + +As soon as it was understood that a previous acquaintanceship existed +between them, Rose was given Peter to take care of--to show round and +introduce. They walked off, elated. + +"Well, I never expected to see you here!" said she. + +"Nor I you," said he. "I thought I was never going to see you any more." + +"How is your mother? How is dear Bruce? Will anyone take him for walks +while you are away? How terribly he will miss you!" + +"Well, it is something to be missed, even by a dog." + +"What a nice face your aunt has! Is she your father's--?" + +"No, my mother's. They are very much alike. But--you don't know my +mother--" + +The blessed Urquhart children romped up to them at this opportune +moment, thrusting forward their basket of programmes. Rose and Peter +each took a card, and Peter proceeded to business. + +"With pleasure," said Rose. And then: "Oh, if you like."--"Well, only +one more round one."--"I belong to the house, and must distribute +myself."--"No, no, that's enough; leave room for all the nice girls I +am going to introduce you to--Miss Alice Urquhart--Mr Breen, dear--Mrs +Simpson's nephew, and a friend of mine in town." + +It slipped out unawares. Peter's air, as he scribbled "Miss Urquhart" +on his card, was seraphic. Later, Alice snatched a chance to whisper to +Rose: "What a good-looking fellow! Who is he?" And Rose hastened to +explain that she knew him only very slightly. + +They had their first waltz together, and he danced delightfully. This +was a fresh agreeable surprise to Rose--as if drapers did not take +dancing lessons and make use of them like other people; she was almost +indiscreet in her eulogies on his performance. But there was not room +for all, or half, or a quarter, to dance at once; and the crowded house +was hot, and the night outside soft, dry, delicious; and the Five +Creeks garden was simply made to be sat out in. + +So presently Rose and Peter found themselves leaning over a gate at the +end of a long, sequestered path. + +"That," said Rose, nodding towards open paddock, "is the boys' cricket +ground. They play matches in the holidays with the stations round. That +fence leads to Alice's fowl-yards--" + +"Yes," said Peter. "But now, look here, Miss Rose--tell me straight and +true--am I to understand that my position in life makes me unfit to +associate with you?" + +"What nonsense!" she protested, scarlet in the darkness. "What utter +stuff!" + +"I am in retail trade," confessed Peter mournfully, "and lots of people +think that awful. Why, even the bookmakers and Jew usurers look down on +us! Not that I care a straw--" + +"I should think not!" + +"Except when it comes to your family--" + +"What does it matter about my family--when I--" + +"Ah, do you? Do you forgive me for being a shopkeeper?" + +"As if I ever thought of it!" mocked Rose, which was disingenuous of +her. "I don't mind what anybody is if he's nice himself." + +"Do you think I'm nice?" + +"I am not going to pander to such egregious vanity." + +"Do you think I am a gentleman? Do I pass for one--say, in a house like +this?" + +"I am not going to answer any more of those horrid, indelicate, +unnecessary questions." + +"Ah, I see--you don't." + +"I DO," she flamed out, indignant with him. "You KNOW I do! Would I--if +I didn't--" + +Her mouth was stopped. In the twinkling of an eye it happened, before +either of them knew it. He was carried away, and she was overwhelmed. +An earthquake could not have given them a greater shock. + +"Forgive me," he muttered tremulously, when it was too late. "I know I +oughtn't to have--but I couldn't help it! You are not angry? It was +dashed impudence--but--oh, I say! we shall never get such a chance as +this again--could you, do you think, put up with me? Could you--I have +loved you ever since that dear morning that you came about Bruce--could +you try to care for me a little bit? I'd give up the business, if you +wished, and go into something else--" "If you mention that blessed +business again," laughed Rose hysterically, "I won't speak to you any +more." + +"I won't--I won't!" he promised, a joyful ring in his young voice. "As +long as you don't mind--and of course I wouldn't like to disappoint the +old pater--and, thank God, there's plenty of money to make you +comfortable wherever you like to live--Yes, yes, I know it's awful +cheek--I've no business to count chickens like this; but here we are, +face to face at last, no one to keep me from speaking to you--and oh, +darling, it must be time for the next dance, and I'm engaged for it--" + +"Then go--go," she urged. "The one after this is ours, and I will wait +here for you till you come back. It is only Jim, and he doesn't matter. +I must be alone to think--to make up my mind--" + +"You ANGEL!" for he knew what that meant. + +Off he went, wing-footed, to get through his duty dance as best he +could. Rose stayed behind, dodging amongst the bushes to hide her white +dress, deaf to Jim's strident calls. And then, presently, the lovers +flitted out of the gate, across the boys' cricket ground, and down the +bank of one of the five creeks, where Rose knew of a nice seat beyond +the area of possible disturbance. As they sat down on it together, they +leaned inwards, her head drooping to his shoulder, and his arm sliding +round her waist in the most natural way in the world. Then silence, +packed full. Beyond, in the moonlit waste, curlews wailing sweetly; +behind, a piano barely audible from the humming house.... + + +* * * * * + + +"What's the matter?" asked Alice Urquhart, when her bedfellow broke out +crying suddenly, for no reason that appeared. + +"Oh, I don't know," cackled Rose. "I am upset with all this--this--" + +"What has upset you? Aha! I saw you and that good-looking young Mr +Breen making off into the garden. You've been having a proposal, I +suppose?" + +"Yes," sobbed Rose, between two foolish laughs, and forthwith poured +out the whole story to her bosom friend. She and Peter had decided not +to disclose it to a soul until further consideration; but she was so +full that a touch caused her to run over. + +Miss Urquhart's feelings, when she realised the fact that one of the +Pennycuicks was committed to marry a draper, expressed themselves at +first in a rather chilling silence. But subsequently, having reviewed +the situation from its several sides, and weighed the pros and cons, +she decided to assist her friend to make the best of it, as against all +potential enemies. + +"Of course, they will be as mad as so many March hares," said Alice, +referring to the other Pennycuicks. "But after all, when you come to +think of it, what is there in a draper's shop any more than in a +soft-goods warehouse?--and that's quite aristocratic, if it's big +enough. Trade is trade, and why we should make chalk of one and cheese +of another passes me. Oh, you've only got to be rich nowadays to be +received anywhere. These Breens seem well off, and anyway, there are +the Simpsons--they are all right. Solid comfort, my dear, is not to be +despised, especially when a girl can't pick and choose, and may +possibly never get another chance. He is awfully presentable, too, and +most gentlemanly, I am sure. Oh, on the whole--if you ask me--I'd say, +stick to him." + +Alice's voice was sad, and she sighed inwardly. + +"I'm going to stick to him," said Rose. + +"Well, you may count on me. I'll get them all asked here for a picnic, +and we'll go over to Bundaboo to invite them--tomorrow. Mrs Simpson +said he was only with her for a few days." + +"You darling!" + +"And if I were in your place, Rose, I'd marry him just as soon as he +wanted me to. I'd walk out and get it done quietly, and tell them +afterwards. It would save a lot of unpleasantness, and it wouldn't +force the hostile clans to try and make one family when they never +could." + +"I don't see why they couldn't. Mrs Simpson is his mother's sister--" + +"Oh, well, we shall see. I don't know about Deb and Mary, but France +can be all sorts of a cat when the fit takes her; and as she is certain +to oppose it to the bitter end, she will never have done irritating his +people and setting everybody at loggerheads. However, never mind that +now." She enveloped Rose in a comforting embrace. "We'll just enjoy +ourselves while we can. And until we MUST start the fuss with the girls +at home, we'll keep things dark, shall we? Just you and I and he. You +can tell him, when you see him tomorrow, that I am his friend." + +"I will--I will! And he will adore you for your goodness." + +Alice, with still no lover of her own, was pleased with this prospect. +And so Rose had a heavenly time for a week or two--Peter extending his +visit to match hers--and went home, within a day of him, in good heart +for the inevitable struggle. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +The starting of the fuss was thus described by the starter in her first +letter to her friend: + +"Oh, my dear, it is simply awful! There is not a scrap of hope. Dear +old Deb is the worst, because she cries--fancy DEB crying! I don't care +what Francie says and does, only, if she were not my sister, I would +never speak to her again. Even Mary is antagonistic, though I don't +believe she would be if it were not for that insufferable husband of +hers; he thinks himself, and puts it into her head, that we are all +going to fall into the bottomless pit if we let trade into the +family--as if nine-tenths and more of the aristocracy of the country +were not traders, and my Peter is as good as her parson any day. But I +don't care, except for Deb. I do hate her to have to cry, through me, +and to be so kind at the same time. She scolds Francie for being +horrid--that does no good, she says, and she is quite right--and then +asks me if I have any love left for her, and all that kind of thing. It +makes me feel like a selfish brute; and yet it would not be unselfish +to sacrifice Peter. Really, I am quite distracted. I have hardly slept +a wink since I came back." + +Further details followed: + +"I did not know until I got a letter from him (by the gardener) that +Peter came this morning to call--THE call--and was not let in. Keziah +had been got at, you must know, and works against us; the old liar told +him (under instructions, of course) that none of us was at home!--she +that goes to church every Sunday, and pretends to be so pious. Old +hypocrite! Well, as I was reading Peter's letter, the door-bell rings, +and who should it be but old Daddy Breen coming to demand what we mean +by it, snubbing his precious son, whom he thinks good enough for a +princess (and so he is). HE was not going to be turned from the +door--not he; and presently I heard him and Deb at it hammer and tongs +in the drawing-room, and she came up to me afterwards simply in flames. +She WAS wild. My dear, she has left off crying and started to fight. +Papa Breen (I am afraid he is a bit bumptious for what she calls his +class in life) turned the scale, and now she is as implacable as +Francie. She says she will NOT have the house of Pennycuick disgraced +(or words to that effect) while she is alive to prevent it; and when I +ask her to be just to Peter, who is no more answerable for his family +than I am for mine, and not to judge him off-hand before she knows a +scrap about him, she simply looks at me as if she itched to box my +ears. Isn't it too hard? Other girls have such a lovely time when they +are engaged--everybody considering them and giving them opportunities +to be together. There's not going to be anything of that sort for us, I +can plainly see. Well, I shall not give him up, so they need not think +it.... + +"I have seen my poor old boy. He was much cut up, but feels better +now.... He asked me to go and see his mother.... The moment I walked in +and he said, 'Mother, here she is,' the darling opened her arms, and we +just hugged as if I was her daughter already. There is nobody like +mothers.... + +"Papa Breen came home while I was there. I thought he was going to be +aggrieved, but he was not with ME. If it is not a snobbish thing to +say, he is rather proud of his son's choice. He was a bit too fussy and +outspoken, and dear Peter got the fidgets wondering what he would say +next; but I did not mind. He talked about building us a house, but +Peter whispered to me that that would take too long, and that already +he had one in his eye (I know it--a lovely place, with the prettiest +grounds, and stables, and coach-house, and all). Nothing is too good +for me. I tried to pacify the girls by telling them I should have a +comfortable home; but they seem to think that the vulgarest feature of +the whole affair. It may be, but it's nice. Would you condescend to +come and stay with a draper's wife sometimes? We are going to have +Bruce to live with us.... + +"Then I made Peter come home with me, and I took him in myself to see +Deb. He behaved as nicely as possible, but it was no use. 'She is of +age, Mr Breen,' says Deb, with that look of hers; 'she will do as she +chooses, but she will never do this with my consent.' And I feel I +never shall. Papa Breen sticks in her throat. If only she had seen +Peter before his father came, and not after! But I daresay it would +have been the same. They are too eaten up with their prejudices to +begin to know him.... + +"It is quite hopeless! Here I live in my own home without a friend, and +he is treated like a pariah, my poor dear boy! He has been to see me +two or three times, as he has a perfect right to do, and they have just +had him shown into the drawing-room, and left him to me, neither of +them coming near. And this while Bennet Goldsworthy loafs all over the +house, as if it was his own, and presumes to look at me in a superior +sort of way, as if I was one of his dirty little Sunday-school children +in disgrace. They bring him up into the attic even--our own private +room--mine as much as theirs; they never did it before, and it is only +because he is banded with them against me. Well, I wouldn't marry +Bennet Goldsworthy if there was not another man in the world... + +"I have my ring--SUCH diamonds! too valuable, I tell Peter; but he says +nothing can be that--and I know they can't help seeing it, because the +whole room flashes when I turn it this way and that, like blue +lightning playing; but they all pretend not to. Since they find they +cannot break our engagement, the idea is to ignore it as if it was +something so low as to be beneath their notice. Perhaps they fancy that +will wear me out; but it won't.... If they had been nice, and pleaded +with me, and if Peter had not been so VERY dear and good, I might have +caved in; but not now. And indeed, I am sure I never should anyway, +only we might have agreed to differ without quarrelling, which we never +did before. Oh, it is too miserable! Poor Mr and Mrs Breen must hate +the very name of Pennycuick, and they will end by hating me if this +goes on.... Peter has bought the house, and is asking me to hurry our +marriage, to get me out of it. He says a private ceremony would not be +dishonourable under the circumstances. It seems to me a mean sort of +way to go to him, but--what do YOU think?" + +"My dear," wrote Alice Urquhart, "I think Peter is right. Next time he +asks you, you say yes. It will be a real kindness to both families, who +would never know what to do with a house wedding. Besides, then you +might have to be given away by B. G. Walk out quietly and unbeknown, +and don't come back. Write from the Blue Mountains or somewhere--'Yours +ever, Rose Breen.' And later on, when things have settled down, their +hearts will melt, and they will come and see you. Let me know what day, +and I will run down (to the dentist) to see fair play and sign the +register. + +"Now, you need not have any scruples, child, because the whole of your +husband's family approve of the match (Simpsons delighted, if a little +huffy for the moment to see solid worth looked down upon), and Deb and +the others are certain to come round when they find it is no use doing +anything else. Outsiders don't matter; and I should hate touting for +wedding presents in such a mixed concern. As for your clothes, you have +plenty; when you want more, you can get them cost price at the shop. It +is a very good shop, I hear, and I mean to be a steady customer from +this out. Oh, yes, and I will come and see you, old girl, nows and +thens, when I have to go to town. And you and Peter must spend all your +Christmases up here. While he is seeing his people at Bundaboo, you can +camp with me, like old times." + + +* * * * * + + +At the last moment Rose broke down, and wept upon the breast of her +favourite sister in the act of bidding her goodbye--perhaps because +Frances chanced to be absent at the time. + +"Oh, Debbie darling, I won't deceive you--I am not going shopping; I am +going into Melbourne to get married--to get married quietly and have +done with it, so as not to be a nuisance to you any more." + +"Married!" gasped Deb, holding the agitated creature at arm's-length. +"What--NOW? And you spring this on us without a word of warning--" + +"What was the use, Deb? You know what you would have said. I have GOT +to have him, dear--I really have--and this seemed the only way." + +"Where is he?" + +"Waiting till I'm ready. They have a carriage outside. His mother and +sister are going with us. His father will join us when we get there. +And Alice Urquhart, who is in town, and one of his cousins from +Bundaboo--quite respectable and above-board, you see, only very quiet, +so as not to trouble you and the girls and poor dear Bennet Goldsworthy +more than we can help--" + +"Not trouble us!" broke in Deb, her face, that had paled a moment ago, +flaming scarlet. "Rose, in your wildest aberrations, I did not credit +you with being capable of humiliating us to this extent." + +"Ah, you always say that! If you only knew him; but some day you will, +and then you will wonder how you could have set yourself against us so. +I can't help it, Deb. I did it for the best. Marry him I must and will, +and I am only trying to do it in a way as inoffensive to you as +possible." + +"You call this an inoffensive way? But those people cannot be expected +to know--" + +"They can--they do. Don't insult them any more. They are giving me +everything they can think of to make me happy, and here I have no +home--no love--no sympathy from anybody--" + +Tears gushed from her eyes and Deb's as from the same spring; they were +instantly locked in each other's arms. + +"Poor little Rosie! Poor dear child! But you don't understand pet--you +don't know what you are doing--going right out of your class--out of +your world--" + +"But to a good husband, Debbie, and the man I love--and that's first of +all! And I must go to him now--I must not keep him waiting. Bless you, +dearest! I am happy now. Never mind the others. You can tell them after +I'm gone. But I felt that I must speak to YOU before I went. Oh, I am +so glad I did! Goodbye, darling! I must go." + +"You must NOT go," said Deb, swallowing her tears and resuming her +imperious air. "Not this way, Rose, as if your family had cast you off. +How can you treat us so, child? But perhaps we deserve it; only you +don't see what you are doing as clearly as we do--" + +"Deb, Deb, don't stop me! They are waiting. It is late now!" + +The bride-elect, pale with fright, struggled in her sister's strong +hands, which held her fast. + +"Where is Mr Breen?" demanded Deb. + +"Waiting at his house--waiting for me--" + +"I must send for him." + +"Oh, Deb, not now, when everything is settled, and they have had all +the expense and trouble--" + +"Will you fetch him, Rose, if I let you go? For one minute only. No, I +won't stop it. I can't, of course; but I must go with you, Rose--I +MUST." + +"Oh, Debbie, WOULD you? Oh, how I wish I had known before! Yes, I'll +run and bring him. We must drive faster, that's all. Oh, Deb, how happy +this will make us! But--" + +"Run away and fetch him--ask him, with my compliments if he will be so +good--and I will get my hat on while you are gone." + +How she managed it was a mystery, but by the time the bridegroom +appeared, Deb was in her best walking costume, hatted and veiled, with +a pair of new pale-coloured gloves in her hand. + +"Mr Breen," said she, grave and stately, "I am going to ask a favour of +you. Allow me to take my sister to the church and give her away." + +Peter was naturally flurried, besides being a trifle overawed. He +mumbled something to the effect that he was sure his family would be +"quite agreeable", and that his sister would give up her place in the +carriage and go by train; and Deb, facing him with the air of a +duchess, thought how thoroughly "shoppy" his manner was. His splendid +new clothes helped to give her that impression. Fine dressing was one +of the Breens' trifling errors of taste (as drapers) which damned them +in her eyes. But what would she have thought if he had not done all +honour to his bride in this respect? + +"WE will go by train," said she decisively. "I have already delayed you +a little, and you must be there first. The train will be quicker than +driving, so that we shall be quite in time." She smiled as she caught +his swift glance of alarm at Rose. "No, I am not going to kidnap her; I +only wish to observe the proprieties a little--for her sake." + +"If the proprieties have not been observed," retorted Peter, suddenly +bold, "it has not been ALL my fault, Miss Pennycuick." "Perhaps not," +she said gently, for she was a generous woman--"perhaps not. At any +rate," holding out her hand, "we must let bygones be bygones now. Be +good to her--that is all I ask." Peter seized her hand in his superfine +glove, and wrung it emotionally, while Rose embraced her sister's left +arm and kissed her sleeve. Then, after a hurried consultation of +timetables, the bridegroom retired, and was presently seen to clatter +past the house in the bridal carriage, which had white horses to it, to +Deb's disgust. + +She and Rose talked little on their journey. Rose was questioned about +clothes and pocket-money, and asked whether she had a safe pocket +anywhere. On Rose answering that she had, Deb pressed into it a closed +envelope, which she charged her sister not to open until away on her +honeymoon. Rose disobeyed the order, and found a hastily scrawled +cheque for one hundred pounds--money which she knew could ill be spared. + +"Oh, you darling!" she murmured fondly. "But I won't take it, Deb--I +WON'T. It would leave you poor for years, while I shall have heaps of +everything--" + +"If you don't," broke in Deb, tragically stern and determined--"if you +don't take it and buy your first clothes with it, I will never forgive +you as long as I live. Child, don't you see--?" + +Rose saw this much--Deb's horror of the thought of being beholden to +the Breens for a post-nuptial trousseau. Reluctantly she pocketed the +gift. + +"But I shall never want it, you know." + +"I don't care about that," said Deb. + +The bridegroom's relief of mind when he saw the bride coming was so +great as to do away with all the usual embarrassment of a man so +circumstanced. + +"Ha! now we are all right," he said to Harry Simpson, cousin and best +man; and forthwith acted as if the trouble were over instead of just +beginning. There was nothing shoppy in his demeanour now, even to Deb's +prejudiced eye. + +The sisters walked up the nave to the altar, hand in hand. Deb passed +the bridesmaid, Alice Urquhart, without a look--her people had brought +the young pair together, and were answerable for these +consequences--and similarly ignored those walking fashion-plates, Mrs +and Miss Breen. She landed her charge at the appointed hassock, and +quietly facing the clergyman, stood still and dry-eyed amid the usual +tearful flutter, apparently the calmest of the party. But poor Deb +suffered pangs unspeakable, and her excessive dignity was maintained +only by the sternest effort. + +In the vestry, after the ceremony, she was introduced by the bride to +her new relations; and Papa Breen, with a great show of magnanimity, +expressed his satisfaction at seeing Miss Pennycuick "on this +suspicious occasion", and formally invited her to what he called "a +little snack" at Menzies', where a gorgeous wedding breakfast had been +prepared at his orders. + +"Thank you very much, Mr Breen," she said affably. "It would have given +me great pleasure, but if you will excuse me, I must run home to my +other sisters, whom I left in ignorance of this--this event--which +concerns them so nearly." + +"Oh, Deb, DO come!" pleaded the bride. + +No; the line had to be drawn somewhere. Deb was very kind, very polite, +very plausible with her excuses; but to Menzies' with those people and +their white-horsed carriage she would not go. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +Rose had never been reckoned a person of importance by her family, but +now that she was gone, there remained a terrible emptiness where she +had been. She was one of those unselfish, good-natured members of +households to whom falls the stocking-mending, the errand-going, the +fetching and carrying, the filling of gaps generally; and at every turn +Deb and Frances missed her unobtrusive ministrations, which they had +accepted as as much matters of course as the attentions of the butcher +and baker. It was presently perceived that Keziah missed her too--that +Keziah, who had loyally opposed the plebeian marriage, was become a +turncoat and renegade, blessing where she should have cursed, blaming +where she should have praised--yes, blaming even Queen Deborah, who, +needless to say, took her head off for it. + +It had been Keziah's own choice to follow the sisters into exile, and +to share the privations involved in their change of life. She had given +up her Redford luxuries and importance to become a general servant, +with only her kitchen to sit in, for their sakes; and she had +cheerfully abided by her choice--until Rose went. Rose was the one who +had understood the cost of the sacrifice, and who had lightened it by +sympathetic companionship. They had cleaned rooms, and made cakes and +puddings, and set hens, and stirred jam, and ironed frocks and laces +together; they had spent hours in pleasant gossip over the many homely +subjects that interested both; their relation had been more that of +mother and daughter than of servant and mistress. Regarding her as +virtually her child, Keziah had been quick to spring to the side of +authority in the matter of the irregular love-affair; the natural +parental impulse was to nip it in the bud. But "Providence" had decided +the issue in this case. And a flirtatious girl was one thing, and a +respectable married woman another. And Keziah was lonely, and felt +neglected and "put upon" when nobody came to talk to her in her +kitchen, or to help her with her cooking and ironing--and particularly +after she had told Deb that it was a shame to bear malice to Miss Rose +now, and Deb had commanded her to mind her own business. + +She was suspected of treacherous visits to the house next door; she was +known to have spent Sunday afternoons with Mrs Peter herself. The +iniquity of these proceedings was in the secrecy she observed, or tried +to observe, regarding them. It was she who knew, before anybody else, +when a baby Breen was coming--and if a married woman was a personage to +Keziah, an incipient mother was a being of the highest rank. She had +forgiven Mary everything for the sake of her black-eyed boy; now she +took the news that Rose was what she called "interesting" to Deb, and +demanded that action should be taken upon it, with an air that was +almost truculent. Deb, of course, did not believe in being spoken to, +even by Keziah, in that way. + +"Has the muffin boy been?" she inquired, with a steady look. + +"It's too soon yet--and I can tell you, Miss Deb, that if it was you in +her place, SHE wouldn't keep it up like this--and at such a time too." + +"When the muffin boy comes, Keziah, please pay him the sixpence we owe +him from last week. You will find the money on my writing-table." + +"Well, I don't care--I call it a shame not to go to her--" + +"Perhaps you would like to go to her yourself?" Deb swiftly changed her +tone. + +"I'd like nothing better," the old woman retorted, with spirit, "if you +are agreeable." + +"I am perfectly agreeable." + +"Well, it was only the other day she said she'd give anything to have +me, if it wasn't for taking me away from you." + +"Oh, pray don't consider that. I can easily get somebody else," said +Deb affably, though her surprise at the idea of Keziah wanting to leave +her was only equalled by her dismay. + +Keziah, also surprised to find herself of so much less consequence than +she had supposed, said that, if that was the case, she'd go and see +Miss Rose about it. + +"You can go now," said Deb. + +"Thank you, Miss Deb, I will," said Keziah, "as soon as I have cleared +up. Would a month's notice suit you? I don't wish to put you about at +all." + +"A month will be ample," said Deb. "A week, if you like." + +"I'll see what Miss Rose says," said Keziah. + +Rose, after the interview, wrote affectionately to Deb, to say she +would not dream of taking Keziah if Deb wanted her; Deb wrote +affectionately to Rose, to say that she would be rather glad than +otherwise to make the change, as the work was too much for such an old +woman. So Keziah went over to the Breen camp, where she had comfort and +companionship, and her own way in everything; and Deb began to +experiment with the common or garden 'general' as purveyed by Melbourne +registry offices. + +She loathed these creatures, one and all. They were of a race unknown +at Redford, and she was singularly unlucky in the specimens that fell +to her; although some of them could have been made something of by a +mistress who knew how to do it. It is only fair to state that they +loathed her--for a finicking, unreasonable, stuck-up poor woman, who +gave herself the airs of a wealthy lady. They came at the rate of two a +month, and each one as she passed seemed to leave the little house +meaner, dingier, more damaged than before. It was not living, it was +"pigging", Frances said--and Deb agreed with her--although when Keziah +ventured to call one day to inquire into the state of things, Deb +calmly asserted that all was well. + +In despair she tried a lady-help, in the person of Miss Keene, dying to +return to her dear family (from relations who did not want her) on any +terms. + +"Whatever we ask her to do we must do ourselves," said Deb to grumbling +Frances, who seemed never willing to do anything; "and of course we +shall have to get a washwoman, and a charwoman to scrub; but it will be +cheaper in the end. And oh, anything rather than sticky door-handles +and greasy spoons, and those awful voices hailing one all over the +house!" + +But it was not cheaper, nor was the arrangement satisfactory in any way +after the first fortnight. Miss Keene, spoiled at Redford as they had +been, was as unfit for crude housework, and she aggravated her +incompetence by weeping over it. She had not gathered from Deb's +letters that the change in the family fortunes was as great as it now +proved to be; and Deb had not anticipated the effect of adversity upon +one so easily depressed. She had no 'heart', poor thing. She struggled +and muddled, sighing for flowers for the vases while the beds were +unmade; and when she saw a certain look on Deb's face, wept and mourned +and gave up hope. So they "pigged" still, although they did not defile +the furniture with unwashed hands, and the plate and crockery with +greasy dish-cloths. With no knowledge of cookery, they lived too much +on tinned provisions--a diet as wasteful as it was unwholesome--feeding +their wash-and-scrub-women with the same; and their efforts to support +the burden of their domestic responsibilities deprived them of outdoor +exercise and mental rest and recreation--kept them at too close +quarters with one another, each rubbing her quivering prickles upon the +irritable skins of the other two. Frances bore the strain with least +good-nature and self-control, and since she had to vent her ill-humour +on someone, naturally made Miss Keene her victim when it was a choice +between her and Deb. The poor lady grew more and more disappointed, +discouraged and tearful. She became subject to indigestion, headaches, +disordered nerves; finally fell ill and had to have the doctor. The +doctor said she was completely run down, and that rest and change of +air were indispensable. She went away to her relatives, weeping still, +wrapped in Deb's cloak, and with all Deb's ready money in her pocket; +and she did not come back. + +Then Deb tried to carry on alone. Any sort of registry office drudge +would have been welcome now, but had become an expense that she dared +not continue. Moreover, the spectre of poverty, looming so distinct and +unmistakable in the house, was a thing to hide, if possible, from +anybody who could go outside and talk about it. The thing had become a +living terror to herself--its claws Jew money-lenders, so velvety and +innocent when her wilful ignorance made first acquaintance with them; +but nobody--not even Mr Thornycroft, not even Jim, CERTAINLY not +Rose--could be allowed to play Perseus to this proud Andromeda. Until +she could free herself, they were not even to know that she was bound. +Of course, she need not have been bound; it was her own fault. She +should have managed better with the resources at her disposal than to +bring herself to such a pass, and that so soon; either Mary or Rose +would certainly have done so in her place. But Nature had not made her +or Frances--whose rapacities had been one cause of the financial +breakdown--for the role of domestic economists; they had been dowered +with their lovely faces for other purposes. + +That the fine plumage is for the sun was a fact well understood by +Frances, at any rate. And she was wild at the wrongs wrought by sordid +circumstances--her father's and sister's heedlessness--upon herself. +She thought only of herself. Deb was getting old, and she deserved to +suffer anyway; but what had Frances done to be deprived of her +birth-right, of all her chances of success in life? Eighteen, and no +coming out--beautiful, and nobody to see it--marriageable, and out of +the track of all the eligible men, amongst whom she might have had her +pick and choice. She had reason for her passionate rebelliousness +against this state of things; for, while a pretty face is theoretically +its own fortune anywhere, we all see for ourselves how many are passed +over simply for want of an attractive setting. It was quite on the +cards that she might share the fate of those beauties in humble life to +whom romantic accidents do not occur, for all her golden hair and +aristocratic profile, her figure of a sylph and complexion of a wild +rose. + +The fear of this future combined with the acute discomfort of the +present to make her desperate. She cast about for a way of escape, a +pathway to the sun. One only offered--the landlord. + +He was an elderly landlord, who had lately buried a frumpy old wife, +and he was as deeply tainted with trade as Peter Breen; but he had +retired long since from personal connection with breweries and +public-houses--and a brewer, in the social scale, was only just below a +wholesale importer, if that--and he was manifestly rolling in money, +after the manner of his kind. Half the streets around belonged to him, +and his house towered up in the midst of his other houses, a great +white block, with a pillared portico--a young palace by comparison. +Above all, he had no known children. + +From the first he had taken an interest in his pretty girl-tenants. He +had liked to call in person to inquire if the cellar kept dry and the +chimney had ceased smoking; and he had been most generous in offering +improvements and repairs before they were even asked for. Deb had +blighted these unbusiness-like overtures on her own account, and +Frances herself had said the rudest things about them and him--but not +lately. In the utter dullness and barrenness of her life, she had been +glad to accept the civilities of anything in the shape of a man--to try +her 'prentice hand on any material. All the armoury of the born beauty +was hers, and she knew as well how to use each weapon effectively as a +blind kitten knows how to suck milk. They were easily successful with +the old fool, who is ever more of a fool than the young fool; and when +she found that, she found something to entertain her. She not only +received Mr Ewing when he called, but talked to him at the gate when he +went past--and he went past several times a day. Now, when the +situation at home had grown desperate, and she was looking all ways for +means to save herself, his amusing infatuation became a matter for +serious thought. COULD she? She was a hard case, but even she wavered. +He was probably sixty, and she was eighteen. Oh, she couldn't! But +when, after Miss Keene's departure, Deb told her they could no longer +afford hired help, and that she (Frances) must give up her lazy ways +and take her share of that intolerable housework, then Frances changed +her mind. Beggars could not be choosers. + +Deb felt like the camel under the last straw when the announcement of +the proposed marriage was made to her. It was worse than Mary's--worse +than Rose's--worse than any other misfortune that had befallen the +family. She sat down and wept at the thought of what the Pennycuicks +had come to. She rated Frances furiously; she reasoned with her; she +pleaded with her; she tried to bribe her; but Frances was getting boxes +of diamonds, and sets of furs and lace, and what not, and it was +useless for Deb to attempt to outbid the giver of these things, or to +part her sister from them. She loved the old man, Frances said--he +certainly was a decently-mannered, good-natured, rather fine-looking, +and most generous old man--and he was going to take her everywhere and +give her a good time--and she would never have to go shabby again as +long as she lived; and if Deb refused her a proper wedding, law or no +law, she would run away with him, as Mary had run away with Bennet +Goldsworthy, and Rose with Peter Breen. + +Whether this dire threat prevailed, or the temptation of the money, or +whether she could not any longer fight against fate, Deb gave in. After +all, Frances was not to be judged as an ordinary girl--she was a +hard-hearted, tough-fibred, prosaic little minx, for which reason Deb +pitied the prospective husband more than she did her; and if she did +not do this bad thing now, the chances were that she would do a worse +thing later on. She was made to disport herself in the sunshine of the +world; she was of the type of woman that must have men about her; she +would get her "rights", as she called them, somehow, by fair means or +foul. Deb was sufficiently a woman of the world herself to recognise +this, and the uselessness of thinking she could alter it. Well, money +is a consolatory thing--she knew its value now; and there was that +additional comfort, which, of course, she did not own to--the thought +of where Mr Ewing would be when Mrs Ewing was in her prime. + +"You dear old thing!" the bride-elect patronised her elder sister. +"James is so pleased to have your consent, and he says he won't ask you +to give me my share of what father left us--it would be but a drop in +the bucket anyway; you are to keep it all yourself." + +Deb had had whole control of the fragments of his once large fortune +left by Mr Pennycuick to his four daughters, on behalf of any of them +unmarried or under age; but Mary and Rose--although Peter had also +protested against it--had been paid the value of their shares (whence +the Jew element in the present difficulties); and the unforeseen +marriage of Frances at eighteen threatened total bankruptcy to the +remaining sister. Yet Deb said, with fierce determination: + +"Of course you will have what is your due, like the others." + +"I'm sure he won't take it, Deb. He said he wouldn't." + +"I don't care what he says. It concerns you and me--not him." + +"I really should not miss it, dear. I am to have a thousand a year to +draw against, for just nothing but my clothes and pocket-money." + +"I am glad to hear it," said Deb. "You can give your own income to the +poor." + +"You really won't keep it?" + +"Is it likely I would keep what doesn't belong to me?" + +"Well, then," said Frances, her easy conscience satisfied, "we can put +it into my trousseau. I MUST have a decent trousseau mustn't I?" + +"Of course!" + +Frances saw to it that she had a decent one. Now was the time, the only +time, that she should want her money, and she did not spare it. She +ordered right and left, and Deb seemed equally reckless. The bills were +left for her to settle--of course made out in her name. Mr Ewing +pressed for permission to pay them, and the cost of the wedding, and +Miss Pennycuick could hardly forgive him the deadly insult. He also +desired that she should occupy her villa rent-free, and she gave him +notice on the spot. + +"I shall not continue to keep house when I am alone," said she grandly. +"I intend to travel for a time." + +The wedding was quiet, but as "decent" as the trousseau. The other +sisters were invited, and Bennet Goldsworthy--who delighted in the +connection, and received a thumping fee--performed the ceremony. Deb +gave the bride away, but was also treated as the bridesmaid, and had a +diamond bracelet forced upon her. She sold it as soon as the donor's +back was turned, together with every article of jewellery in her +possession, every bit of silver plate, and all her furniture. The +breakfast was very elegant, and served in a private room at one of the +best hotels; the bride's handsome luggage had also been brought +thither, and it was the meeting-place of the family which so seldom +met. There, also, when she had parted from Frances, Deb parted from +Mary, so silent and constrained, and from Rose, over-dressed, for her +station, in her rich gown and Brussels lace (but nevertheless sniffed +at and condescended to by her still more wealthy sister), and from the +uncongenial brothers-in-law, to whom she was so discouragingly polite. +Their expressed anxiety to befriend and to see more of her was gently +but firmly ignored. + +"I will write," she said. "I will see you again soon. I will let you +know my plans. Good-bye!" + +And they went. There were no friends to go, for she had insisted on +inviting none--for fear of the lynx eyes and the destructive influence +upon her plans of Mr Thornycroft and Jim. She gained the one end she +had schemed for throughout--to get past the risks of the public +marriage and back to her struggle in obscurity, unmolested, unpitied, +unshamed. The Urquharts wrote, and Mr Thornycroft, when he sent his +present; but she had "bluffed" them with her implied +misrepresentations, and hurt their feelings by not wanting them at the +wedding. Jim was easily snubbed; Mr Thornycroft--though he did not +mention it--was ill at the time. + +So she got rid of all possible hindrances, and then--professing to go +travelling--went nobody knew where, and was virtually lost for years. + +Frances drove away from the hotel in her smart carriage, with her smart +luggage and smart maid, and her amorous old husband, and never thought +or cared what was to become of her abandoned sister. She could only +think of her own exciting affairs. + +Partly they were unsatisfactory, no doubt. All her rights were not hers +even now--no, not by a long way. But oh, how much better was this than +the drab and shabby and barren existence for ever left behind! She was +bound, indeed; yet she was free--freer than another might have been in +her place, and far, far less bound. One must expect to pay some tax to +Fortune for such extraordinary gifts, and Frances was not the one to +pay it in heart's blood. She was philosophically prepared to pay it in +her own coin, and be done with it, and then give herself to the +enjoyment of the pleasures of her lot. + +Her first enjoyment was in her beautiful going-away dress--grey cloth +and chinchilla fur, with flushes of pink as delicate as the rose of her +cheeks--and in her knowledge of the effect she made in that dream of a +costume. There was no hiding her light under a bushel any more. The +highway, and the middle of it, for her now--her proud husband strutting +there beside her--and every passer-by turning to look at and to admire +her. There was joy in the occupancy of the best suite of rooms in the +best hotel at every place she stopped at during her gay and well-filled +bridal holiday; joy in the dainty meals--so long unknown; in the +obsequious servants, in the plentiful theatres, in the ever-ready +carriage that took her to them, in the having one's hair done to +perfection by an expert maid, in sweeping forth with one's silks and +laces trailing, and one's diamonds on. These were the delights for +which her little soul had so long yearned; she now pursued them +greedily. She could not rest if she were not doing something to display +herself and feed her craving for what is known as seeing the world. Her +husband was almost as obsequious as the servants--doubtless because +from the first she took the beauty's high hand with him, as well as the +attitude of the superior, naturally assumed by youth towards age--and +he enjoyed the sensation she made almost as much as she did. Visibly he +swelled and preened himself when his venerable contemporaries cast the +eye of surprise, not to say of envy, upon the conjunction of his +complacent figure and that of the bride who might have been his +grand-daughter; he toiled for that pleasure, and to make pleasure for +her, as no old gentleman should toil; he gave her everything she asked +for, including his own ease and consequence, his own vital health and +strength. + +But the honeymoon waned, and the novelty wore off, and prudence and old +habits resumed their sway. He grew tired of incessant gadding about, +alarmed at his symptoms of physical overstrain, weary for his arm-chair +and his club, and his men friends and his masculine occupations. She, +on the other hand, insatiable for admiration and excitement still, was +weary of his constant company. It became the kill-joy of her festive +days, growing from a necessary bore to an intolerable irritation as the +dimensions of her little court of younger gallants enlarged about her. +Therefore she had no objection to his halting on the toilsome path, so +long as he allowed her to go on alone. + +It was not a case of allowing, however. He might object, and did; but +he was no match for her either in diplomacy or in fight, and her +cajoleries were usually sufficient for her ends, without calling out +the reserves behind them. In any contest between selfishness and +unselfishness, the result is a foregone conclusion. + +So she began to go about with miscellaneous escorts, to play the +combined parts of frisky matron and society beauty--an intoxicating +experience; while the supporter of that proud position played the +humble role of chief comer-stone, unseen and unconsidered in the +basement of the fabric. He attended to his investments and increasing +infirmities, and made secret visits to a married daughter (wife of a +big hotel-keeper), who hated her young step-mother, and whose existence +Frances ignored. + +One day, Guthrie Carey, after several voyages to other ports, appeared +again in Melbourne. He had just landed, and was strolling along Collins +Street, when he encountered a vision of loveliness that almost took +away his breath. + +"What! It is not Miss Frances, surely?" + +"It is not," smiled she, all her beauty at its conscious best as she +recognised his, which was that of a man of men, splendid in his strong +prime. And she told him who she was, and a few other things, as they +stood on the pavement--she so graceful in her mature self-possession, +he staring at her, stupidly distraught, like a bewildered school-boy. + +"I had no idea--" he mumbled. + +"That I was married? Alas, yes!"--with a sad shake of the head. "We +girls are fated, I think." + +"Miss Deb?" + +"Oh, not Deb; she has escaped so far." + +"Is she well?" + +"I have not seen her lately, but I am sure she is, she always is." "She +is not in Melbourne?" + +"No. I don't quite know where she is. She has got a wandering fit on. +Come and have some lunch with me, and I'll tell you all the news." + +They turned into a restaurant, and had a meal which took a long time to +get through. In the middle of the afternoon they parted, on the +understanding that he would dine with her later in her own house. At +the end of the few days that were virtually filled with him, Mrs Ewing +sat down in her fine boudoir to weep over her hard fate. + +"Oh, why wasn't HE the one to have the money! Oh, why do we meet again, +now that it is too late!" + +At the end of a few more days she went to her old husband to ask him +how he was. He said he was a bit troubled with his lumbago, but +otherwise fairly well. + +"What you want," said she, "is a sea-voyage." + +He thought not. He had never found the sea suit him. And travelling was +a great fatigue. And it was the wrong time of year for it, anyhow. They +had a good home, and it was the best place. + +But she knew better. She had made up her mind, and it was useless for +him to rebel. The sea-voyage was decided on--not so much because it +would benefit his health as because his young wife had not seen England +and Europe, and was dying to do so. + +Then they discussed routes. + +"The thing to do," said Mrs Ewing, "is not to crowd up with that lot in +the mail steamers, where you can't do as you like, or have any special +attentions, but to go in a smaller vessel, where you would be of some +importance, and have your liberty, and plenty of space, and no tiresome +rules and restrictions--" + +"My dear child, you don't know those second-rate lines. I do. I assure +you you'd be very sorry for yourself if I let you travel by them. They +are not YOUR style at all." + +"Yes, I was talking to Captain Carey about it, and that was his advice, +and HE knows. On his ship they have accommodation for about six +passengers, and he suggested that, if we were quick about it, we might +be able to secure the whole, so as to be exactly as if we were on a +yacht of our own. They have a fair cook; but we could take any servants +we liked, and make ourselves comfortable in our own way--nobody to +interfere with us. He doesn't go through the hot canal. He will be back +from Sydney in three weeks--just nice time to get ready in." + +Of course, they went that way. And perhaps it is better to leave the +rest of the story to the imagination of the reader, who, one hopes, for +Guthrie Carey's sake, is a common-sense person, as well as a +dispassionate student of human nature. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +Deb was at Redford once more. + +In her own room too, surrounded by familiar objects--the six-foot +dressing-table and the nine-foot wardrobe, and the Aspinalled book-case +that was a fixture, amongst other things. She had not taken them to her +suburban villa, nor sent for them afterwards. Meanwhile, Mr Thornycroft +had bought them with the place, and taken care of them, as of +everything that she had left behind. They had been in his possession +now for several years. + +The strange thing in the room was Mr Thornycroft himself--Mr +Thornycroft on the little white bed that Deb used to sleep on, his hair +white, his once stalwart frame reduced to a pale wreck of skin and bone. + +"You will forgive me for coming here," he apologised. "I have not been +using the things. But they had me moved for coolness--the south-east +aspect, and being able to get a current through--" + +"I am thankful they did. It is the best place for you this weather. But +there's one thing I shall never forgive you--that you didn't let me +know before." + +She was sitting at his bedside, holding his hand--she, too, much +changed, thinner, sadder, shabbier, or rather, less splendidly turned +out than had been her wont in earlier days; beautiful as ever, +notwithstanding--infinitely more so, in the sick man's eyes. + +"Why should I bother you? I haven't been very bad--just the old asthma +off and on. It is only lately that I have felt it upsetting my heart. +And you know I am used to being alone." + +He spoke with the asthma pant, and a throb of the lean throat that she +could not bear to see. His head was propped high, so that they squarely +faced each other. His eyes were full of tenderness and content--hers of +tears. + +"You have been pretty lonely yourself, by all accounts," said he, +stroking her hand. "It's odd to think of you in that case, Debbie." + +"I've felt it odd myself," she smiled, with a whisk of her +handkerchief. "But, like you, I am getting used to it." + +"Where's Dalzell all this time?" "Don't know. Don't care. Please don't +talk of him." + +"Nobody else--?" + +"Oh, dear, no! Never will be. I am going to take up nursing or +something." + +"YOU!" he mocked. + +"Do you suppose I can't? Wait till I have got you over this attack, and +then tell me if I can't. I am going to stay with you, godpapa, until +you are better. I have spoken to your housekeeper, and she is quite +agreeable--if you are." + +He did not think it necessary to reply to that hint, but just smiled +and closed his eyes. She took up a palm-leaf fan and fanned him, +watching him anxiously. It was a roasting February day, and he was +breathing very badly. + +"Have you given up your house?" he asked, when he could speak. + +"Long ago. No use my staying there alone. Besides, I could not afford +it." + +"Francie not much good to you, I suppose?" + +"Oh, I don't want her to be good to me." + +"Keziah Moon hasn't deserted you, of course?" + +"Oh, Keziah--she was moped to death, poor old woman--I found her a +nuisance. And then those babies of Rose's were so irresistible. I +thought she'd better go. As Rose's head-nurse, I believe she is in her +element." + +"Is Rose happy with her draper?" + +"I don't know--I suppose so." + +"You don't see much of her?" + +"Not much." + +"And Mary?" + +"I haven't seen her for months. Her husband and I don't hit it off, +somehow." + +"Deb, how much have you to live on?" + +"That's my business, sir." + +"Not the business of a doting godfather--in the absence of nearer male +relatives?" + +"No. His business is only to see that I learn the catechism and present +myself to be confirmed; and I've done both." + +"That all?" + +"Except to let his doting godchild take care of him when he is ill. +Now--don't talk any more." + +He was too exhausted to do so. And while he lay feebly fighting for +breath, the trained nurse came in and took command. + +In the evening that functionary gave a professional opinion. + +"He is worried about something," she said to Deb, "and it is very bad +for him. Do you know what it is?" + +"Not in the least," said Deb promptly. "I have not been seeing him for +years, I am sorry to say, and have not the slightest knowledge of his +affairs." + +But next day she seemed to get an inkling of what the worry was. Mr +Thornycroft, when they were alone together, begged her to tell him if +she had any money difficulties--debts, she supposed--and to be frank +with him for old times' and her father's sake. + +"What! are you bothering your mind about that?" she gently scolded him. +"I assure you I am all right. I haven't any difficulties--or hardly +any--not now. I have no rent, you see." + +"They don't charge you anything where you board?" "No. Redford never +has charged folks for board. Seriously," she hastened to add, in +earnest tones, "I have all I want. And if I try presently to earn more, +it will be because I think everybody ought to earn his living or hers. +You earned yours. I despise people who just batten on the earnings of +others, and never do a hand's turn for themselves." + +"Batten!" he murmured ironically, with a troubled smile. "You look as +if you had been battening, don't you? Debbie, I'm a business man, and I +know you can't get behindhand in money matters and pull up again just +when you want to; you can't get straight merely by anticipating income, +when there's nothing extra coming in. Tell me, if you don't mind, how +you managed?" She flushed, and her eyes dropped; then she faced him +honestly. + +"I will tell you," she declared. "I've wanted to confess it, though I'm +horribly ashamed to--and I'm afraid you'll think I did not value it. I +did indeed--I hated to part with it; but I was so hard up, and I didn't +know which way to turn, or what else to do--" + +"And never came to me!" + +"Well, I did--in a way. I--I sold your pearls." + +"That's right, Debbie. That's a load off my mind. It is the best thing +you could have done with them." + +"No, indeed! I have regretted it ever since." + +"How much did they give you?" "A tremendous lot--three hundred and +fifty guineas." + +"The swindlers! They were worth two thousand." + +"What!" She was thunderstruck. "You gave me a necklace worth two +thousand guineas?" + +"I only wish you'd let me give you a score or two at the same price, on +condition that you sold them for three-fifty whenever you needed a +little cash." + +She was quite upset by this remark, and what had given rise to it. +Impulsively--too impulsively, considering how weak he was--she kissed +his damp forehead, and rushed weeping from his sight. + +In the hot evening, while the trained nurse had her tea at grateful +leisure in the housekeeper's room, Deb again took that nurse's place. +She sat by the pillow of the patient, leaning against it, holding his +hand in hers. Only the sound of the cruel north wind and his more cruel +breathing disturbed the stillness that enveloped them. She hoped he was +sleeping, until he spoke suddenly in a way that showed him only too +wide awake. + +"Debbie," he said, "if I was quite sure I would not get well this time, +I should put that question to you again." + +"What question, dear?" she queried softly. + +"The question I asked you just before you left Redford." + +"I don't remember--Oh!" + +"Yes--that one. But if you consented, I might recover--it would be +enough to make me; then you would repent." + +She was silent, agitated in every fibre of her, but thinking hard. + +"What put that idea into your head?" she whispered, still holding his +hand. + +"It was never put in; it was there always--since you were a kiddie." + +"It seems so strange! I thought I was always a kiddie to you." "That +does seem the natural relationship, doesn't it?" There fell another +long silence, and, listening to his dragging breath, her heart smote +her. She squeezed his bony hand. + +"I will stay with you, anyway," she comforted him. + +He turned his head on the pillow. "Kiss me," he sighed, with eyes +closed. + +She did, again and again. + +The night was suffocating. She could not sleep for the heat and her +thoughts, and when, towards morning, she heard the nurse stirring, she +got up to inquire how he was. + +"Pretty bad," the nurse said. "It's this awful weather. I can't cool +the room, though I've got all the doors and windows open, and the wet +sheets hanging up. It's air he wants, and there isn't any. If it don't +change soon, I'm afraid his strength won't hold out." + +It did not change, and consequently grew worse to bear, the parching +and scorching of each day being carried over into the next. What the +newspapers call a heat-wave was drawing to its culmination, which +generally reaches the verge of the unbearable, even to the well and +strong, just before the "change"--that lightning change to coolness, +and even coldness, which comes while one draws a breath. How many a +life has hung upon the chance of the blessed moment coming in time! + +The nurse looked at the thermometer in despair. Darkness had not taken +10 degrees from yesterday's temperature of 102 degrees when another +blazing sun arose. The fierce wind had raved and calmed, and raved and +calmed, but it had not shifted. She wetted and she fanned, turn and +turn about with Deb, the livelong day, without freshening the dead air +that soaked the house and seemed to soak the world. The fagged and +perspiring doctor (a great friend of the patient's), who came twice +daily, came again, too tired to care very much even for this special +case. He looked at it, and shook his head, and begged for a cool drink +for the Lord's sake; and then, having muddled the wits he had tried to +stimulate with quarts of whisky-and-soda, went away, saying: "I can do +nothing. Send for me at once if you see a change." + +At sunset the sick man was very low, his weak heart and his distressed +lungs labouring heavily, while the sweat of agony glistened on his +forehead and plastered his white hair to his backward-tossed head. Deb +was frantic with fear and grief. She summoned the doctor again, sending +commands to him to summon more doctors--the best in Melbourne, and any +number of them--in defiance of Mr Thornycroft's known wishes to the +contrary. At the same time she sent for the clergyman. + +"Dear," she crooned in the patient's ear, when he seemed a little +easier, "Mr Bentley will be here presently." + +Mr Thornycroft's brows seemed to gather a momentary frown over his +closed eyes. + +"I'd rather not, Deb--" + +"Oh, not for THAT! But--the wind will change soon, and then you will +feel better; and then--you said it would help you to get well--I +will--if you like--" + +He opened his eyes and gazed at her. It took him a few seconds to +understand. + +"Ah--darling!" he breathed, between his pants, and with an effort drew +her hand to his lips. Then--they were his last words, whispered very +low--"Never mind now, Debbie--so long as you are here." + +He seemed to drowse into a kind of half-sleep, in spite of his too +obvious and audible suffering. She sat beside him, sponging and fanning +him, listening to his shallow, jerky, wheezy respiration, watching for +the subtle something in the stifling room that should announce a change +of wind, thinking of Mr Bentley's coming, and many other things. The +weary nurse came back from her brief rest and cup of tea, and sat down +at the foot of the bed. She studied the patient's face intently for +some time, and felt his feet; then she took the fan from Deborah's hand. + +"You go and lie down, Miss Pennycuick. Mrs Dobson will come and sit +with me for a while." + +"No, no," said Deb. "He wants me to be here. I cannot leave him." + +After a few more minutes of silence, the nurse said again: "You had +better go, Miss Pennycuick." When Deb repeated her refusal, the nurse +went out to fetch the housekeeper to persuade her. + +A minute afterwards, Deb lifted her head with a jerk, and sniffed +eagerly. At the same instant she heard a distant door bang. + +"Thank God!" she ejaculated, and flew to the windows that all day had +had to be shut tight against the furnace blast outside, and flung them +wide, one after the other. The trees in the old garden were bending and +rustling; the sweet, cool air came pouring in. + +"The wind has changed," she whispered, almost hysterically, to the +nurse and the housekeeper, as they stealthily crept in. "And"--as they +all gathered round the bed--"he is better already. His breathing is +easier." + +The nurse bent over the long figure on the bed. "He is not breathing at +all," said she. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +Jim Urquhart had been fighting bush fires for several days when the +wind changed and carried them back over the burnt ground that +extinguished them. When he rode home, dead beat, from helping a +neighbour who had helped him, it was to meet the news that Mr +Thornycroft was dead, and Mrs Urquhart gone to Redford to support +Deborah Pennycuick. + +Mr Thornycroft had been ailing with his asthma so long, and making so +little fuss about it, that his friends had come to regard him as +practically ailing nothing. The death that had slowly stalked him for +years came upon them with the shock of the unexpected; so the +newspapers said. Jim's heart smote him for that he had been so taken up +with the fire epidemic as to have neglected for over a week to inquire +after the old man; it smote him more when he heard that Deb had been at +Redford through the ordeal, without "anyone" near her. He had known too +well--had made it his business to know--that she had had a struggling +life, heart-breaking to think of, for a long time, but under various +pretexts she had kept "everybody" at arm's-length and further, refusing +aid or pity; now there had come a chance to do something for her, and +he had been out of the way. And duty still detained him, to arrange +about destroyed fences and foodless stock--duty that had to be +considered first, even before her. When at last he was free to put +himself at her disposal, a dozen men had jumped his claim. + +The manager of Redford met him when a few miles from the place. "You +are behind the fair, Mr Urquhart," cried he, as they drew rein +alongside; and his tone and his face were strangely cheerful, +considering that his good employer of twenty years had been buried only +yesterday--as usual, within a few hours of his death. "But I suppose +you have heard the news. What--you haven't? Then I am the first to +congratulate you," extending a cordial hand. "The will was read this +morning, and you've got the biggest legacy--a cool five thousand, sir." + +Five thousand! Jim, never on particularly intimate terms with the +testator, had not thought of the will, and the idea that he might have +an interest in it never crossed his mind. Five thousand! It is said of +drowning people that they see the whole panorama of their lives in the +last seconds of consciousness; in the instant's pause that followed the +manager's announcement, Jim saw Five Creeks renovated and prosperous, +and Deb's children running about the old rooms and paddocks, and +calling him father--a home not quite unworthy of his goddess now, and +one that loneliness and poverty would have taught her to appreciate. He +stared at the burly manager like a man in a dream. + +"I get a nice little windfall myself, which I never expected," the +latter continued his tale. "The servants are well provided for, and +there are odd sums for a lot of English relatives--I suppose they +are--and a good bit for charities. But yours is the biggest individual +legacy; and I'm glad of it, and I'm not surprised, because I've heard +him many a time speak well of you for the way you worked to keep up +your place and look after the family." + +"But," said Jim, coming down from his clouds of glory, "I thought--I +thought there'd be more than that." "Than what? You surely didn't +expect--oh, I see!" The manager threw up his head and roared. "My good +fellow, the estate altogether is worth a quarter of a million." + +"Then who--?" + +"Gets it? Miss Pennycuick. She's here now. And couldn't believe it when +they told her--though, when you come to think of it, it was a natural +thing for him to do, having been such friends with the old man, and she +his god-daughter. A lucky young woman--my word!" Jim's swelled heart +collapsed and sank like a burst balloon. His dream-house vanished in +thin air, to be built no more. + +"That settles it," he said to himself. According to his code of manly +honour and self-respect, a man could not possibly, even with five +thousand pounds in hand, ask a girl with a quarter of a million to +marry him. + +A little more conversation, if it can be called such, when one talked +and the other did not even listen, and he parted with the garrulous +manager and rode on to the house. Deb, wet-eyed, met him with a welcome +that severely tried his Spartan fortitude, without in the least +weakening his resolve. Although she did not know it, being still filled +with grief for her lifelong friend, it was the power and command that +he had endowed her with which gave that charming air of fearless and +open affection to her manner. + +"Oh, my dear, dear boy!" she addressed him, and all but kissed him +before his mother's eyes. "I am so glad to have you here. Jim dear, Mrs +Urquhart thinks you can be spared--will you stay here for a bit and +help me to settle things? There is so much to do, and it is my duty to +attend to everything myself. There are the lawyers and people, of +course--everybody is so kind--but I want a man of my own beside me." + +"Certainly, Deb," he replied, without wincing; "for as long as you want +me--if I can run home every other day or so for a look round." + +He stayed, in company with his mother, for a month; then, when he went +to live at home again, he spent at least half his days at Redford, +acting as Deb's 'own man' indoors and out--her real legal adviser, her +real station manager, her confidential major-domo, the doer of all the +'dirty work' connected with the administration of her estate; and +never--although she exposed him to almost every sort of +temptation--never once stepped off the line that he had marked for +himself. + +Another person was not so scrupulous, though, to be sure, he was not so +poor. + +Claud Dalzell, drifting from one resort of the wealthy to +another--deer-stalking in Scotland, salmon-fishing in Norway, shooting +in the Rockies, hunting in the Shires, yachting everywhere, and +everywhere adored of a crowd of women as idle as himself--was loafing +at Monte Carlo when he heard of Mr Thornycroft's death and Deb's +accession to his throne. Ennui and satiety possessed the popular young +man at the moment--for he was made for better things, and his +dissatisfied soul tormented him; and a vision of old-time Redford and +the beautiful girl who was like wine and fire, a blend of passion and +purity that now impressed him as unique, rose before his mental eyes +with the effect of water-springs in a dry land. His thoughts went back +to the days when they rode and made love together--the sunny days, +before the clouds gathered. It was that past which glorified her all at +once, not the present--not Mr Thornycroft's money--not the halo of +elegance and consequence that again adorned her; he never suspected +otherwise for a moment. And that was why he did not hesitate to book a +passage to Australia that very day. + +Deb was at Redford when he arrived. That she would never part with the +place again, she had declared on the day that it came into her +possession, and she was now establishing herself there, she said, for +life. She had gone through the whole great rambling house, sorting and +rearranging the furniture that was in it, adding the cream of the +contents of the best shops in town. She made a clean sweep of the now +'awful' fittings of the big drawing-room, replacing them with parquet +rugs and divans, and things of the softest, finest and most costly +kind; she arranged the morning-room for herself afresh; also the glazed +corridor, which became a beautiful art gallery and lounging-place; also +the remainder of the long unused rooms. She called to her all the +favourite old servants--except Keziah Moon, who was happy where she +was--and old Miss Keene to play chaperon once more, with nothing to do +but arrange flowers and doze at peace in the lap of luxury. Deb wanted +Jim for her manager, at a ridiculous salary, but he would not take the +post; he did, however, procure her an excellent substitute. She +commissioned him to buy her riding-horses--he "knew what she +liked"--regardless of expense; an English groom was given charge of +them when they arrived. So easily did the magnificent woman slide back +into her magnificent ways, for all her good taste and unpretentiousness. + +When Claud Dalzell was driven in his hired buggy from the township to +her door, his critical eye took in the many changes that the old +homestead had undergone with high approval. Used as he was to far finer +houses and the best of everything, he felt that here was as fair a +camping-place as even he could desire. Redford, with a quarter of a +million behind it, with this setting of sunshine and spaciousness +(missed so much more than he had known till now), inclined--what a +haven of rest and pleasure, after the crowded and fatiguing experiences +of his later years! + +He was shown upstairs to the big drawing-room. He hardly knew where he +was, with the grass-green carpet and festooned window-draperies and +gilding and plate-glass vanished, and these soft-coloured stuffs and +subtle harmonies around him. He could recognise nothing but a few +pictures and the old piano, the latter spread with a gem of Chinese +embroidery, on which stood a gem of a Satsuma bowl filled with fine +chrysanthemums. It was late in autumn now. + +And while he wandered about, examining this and that with the pleasure +of a satisfied connoisseur, Deb stood in the sitting-room downstairs, +with clenched hands and teeth, staring at his card on a table before +her. + +"He has the cheek," she thought, afire with indignation--never so hot +and bitter as when directed against one we love who has offended +us--"he has the unspeakable effrontery to come and see me NOW, when he +never came near me all those hard years--never cared how I muddled and +struggled, nor whether I was alive or dead!" + +But she must see him, of course. And she must maintain her proper +dignity. No descending to vulgar reproaches--still less to weak +condonation. She took a moment to calm herself, and walked forth to the +interview. Many things upheld her, but the dead hand of Mr Thornycroft +was her stoutest support. + +She needed it when she reached the top of the stairs. Facing the +drawing-room door, awaiting her, stood the figure that really seemed +the one thing wanting to complete the beauty of the beautiful house. He +had never in his younger days been so distinguished-looking as he was +now. In any company, in any part of the world, he must have attracted +notice, as a gentleman, in person and manners, of the very finest type. +And how she did love that sort! How her lonely and hungry heart longed +for him when she saw him--the only man she had ever deemed her natural +mate--and at the same time how she hated him for the disappointment and +the humiliation that he had brought her! Outraged self-respect, her +robust will-power, and her quarter of a million sufficed to save her +from a temptation she would not have fallen into for the world. + +She swept forward to shake hands with him, with the grave affability of +a great lady to a guest--any guest--and it was plain from the +expression of his sensitive face that he was as keenly appreciative of +her enhanced beauty and 'finish' as she of his. Black was not her +colour--she was too dark--and she had discarded it for pale greys and +whites, with touches of black about them; today a creamy woollen, thick +and soft, and hanging about her like the drapery of a Greek statue, was +an inspiration in becoming gowns. The maid who had dressed her hair was +a mistress of the art. And Miss Pennycuick's step and poise--well, she +WAS a great lady, and carried herself accordingly. + +Her old lover was charmed. He held her hand--and would have held it +thrice as long--and looked into her eyes, too overcome, it appeared, to +speak. + +"How do you do?" she said, evading his intense gaze. "What a man you +are for dropping on one in this unexpected, sensational way! Why didn't +you write and tell me you were around?" + +She made a movement to withdraw her hand. He held it fast. + +"Debbie," said he, in quite a tremulous voice--remarkable in one +constitutionally so self-confident and self-possessed--"Debbie, you +turned me out of your house when I came to see you last. I hope you +have a different welcome for me this time?" + +"To the best of my belief," she laughed, "you insisted upon going. I am +sure you were asked to stay--to lunch, or whatever it was. By the way, +have you lunched now?" She showed concern for her obligations as his +hostess. + +"Yes, thank you--at least, it doesn't matter." + +He had to relinquish her hand, and when she immediately made towards +the bell-button, he followed and arrested her. + +"Let us have our talk first," he pleaded. "I don't want anything to eat +until I know--until I feel that you don't grudge it." + +"Oh, I don't grudge it," she took him literally. "Not one square meal, +at any rate. The only thing I am obliged to grudge is house-room--for +any length of time--to single gentlemen. But that is not a question of +hospitality, as you know. Sit down, and tell me all the news." + +He sat down; she also--about two yards off. Across the gulf of Persian +rug he looked at her steadily. + +"You are angry with me," he observed. "Why, Debbie? Is it still the old +quarrel--after all these years?" + +Then her face changed like a filled lamp when you put a match to it. +She said, in a deep, breathless way: + +"Do you know how many years it is?" + +More in sorrow and surprise than in anger, he guessed her meaning after +a moment's thought. + +"Is that my fault? The number of years has been of your choosing," he +pointed out forbearingly. "You sent me away, when I never wanted to go. +You broke it off, altogether against my wish. You never relented--never +made a sign. Even now I come back uninvited." + +It was a clear case, and all he asked for was bare justice. + +"Why didn't you come before--uninvited? Why didn't you come back to me +when I was poor and lonely? Claud, I have been in every sort of +trouble--my father is dead, I have lost all my sisters in one way and +another, I have been living in cheap lodgings, doing without what I +always thought were the necessaries of life, to keep Francie going and +to get debts paid off--I have been ill, I have been unhappy, I have +sometimes been penniless, and you have carefully passed by on the other +side, like that man in the Bible, and left me to my fate." + +He was genuinely shocked. He knew that she had been horribly down in +the world, but not that she had suffered to this extent. Seeing her +sitting there in her beautiful gown, in her beautiful room, without one +trace of those sordid years about her, his heart ached to think of them. + +"My darling, I never knew--" "Why not?" she said swiftly. "Because you +never tried to know--never cared to know. But now that I can be a +credit to you again--the moment you hear that I have had a great +fortune left to me--now you come back." + +"Do you mean to say," he demanded sternly, "that you think--you +honestly think I have come back to you on account of your money?" + +She returned his cold, searching gaze in kind. + +"Honestly," she said, "I do think so. There is no way out of it." + +He rose deliberately, bowed to her, and picked up his hat. He was not +really mercenary--or, if he was, he did not know it--and he was as +intensely proud as she was. He felt that he had received the deadliest +insult ever dealt him in his life, and one that he could never forget +or forgive. + +Without another word, he turned to the door and walked out. She stood +still and watched him go, a calm smile curving her lips, a very cyclone +of passion tearing through her heart; and she scorned to recall him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +Deb yearned to have her Australian sisters--Frances was European--with +her at Redford, as in the old days; she hated to be luxuriating there +without them. But for a time the husbands stood in the way. She could +not bring herself to ask them too. The draper she hardly knew at +all--in her correspondence with Rose his name was rarely mentioned by +either, except in comprehensive messages at the end of letters; and +Bennet Goldsworthy's company, Deb said, simply made her ill. + +It had made her ill since, after her father's death, the clergyman had +permitted himself, in her hearing, to vent his personal disappointment +at the unexpected smallness of his wife's inheritance. The man had +presumed to take the air of one reasonably aggrieved; he had even +dropped angry words about "deception" in the first heat of his chagrin. +"As if," said haughty Deb, "it was not enough for him to have married +one of us!" When he was understood to say that he had "arranged his +life" in accordance with the expectations he had been given the right +to entertain, Deb's withering comment was: "As if HIS life matters!" + +But she was intolerant in her dislikes. + +Poor Mr Goldsworthy, incurable cadger that he was, was bound to feel +the family reverses acutely. When he had married Miss Pennycuick for +her good, in that risky manner, he had naturally expected to be +rewarded for the deed. If ever it be safe to trust to appearances, it +had seemed safe then, so far as the solidity of the Pennycuicks' +position was concerned. They had imposed upon him with their careless +splendour; they had misled him by their condonation of the marriage, +which restored Mary to her privileges as a daughter of the house; most +thoroughly had they taken him in by that voluntary wedding gift of five +hundred pounds. With his habit--which he took to be the general +habit--of getting all he could and giving nothing that he was not +obliged to give, he could not understand the airy flinging away of all +that money, when there was no "call" for it, only as a proof that Mr +Pennycuick had more than he needed for all the legitimate claims on +him. And the old man had said, again and again, that his daughters +would share and share alike in whatever he had to leave. + +When Mr Bentley, the new parson, came--young, sincere, +self-sacrificing, devoted, a poor preacher and a hard worker, who +refused to batten on Redford bounty--all the old furniture of the +parsonage was made over to him (on time payment), and the Goldsworthys +began life in Melbourne on the basis of a rich wife. It was surprising +how the legend grew amongst his set that Mr Goldsworthy had a rich +wife. That she might dress the part on all occasions, so that there +would be no mistake about it, the family-provided trousseau was added +to; it was also subtracted from, for the simplicity that was her taste +and distinction was hateful in his sight. When she looked "common" in a +cotton gown, she lowered his dignity in the world and amongst his +professional fellows--supposed to be so envious of it, in spite of her +red face. Deb had had to suffer the shock of seeing her sister in silk +of a morning more than once, and it had been reported to her--though +she did not believe it--that Mary wore a jewelled necklace to church on +Sundays. Deb did not go to Bennet's church, which was, fortunately, a +long way from her suburban-villa home. + +And she had been to his Melbourne house but twice. On her first visit +she had penetrated to Mary's room, and been horrified to find the +husband's clothes hung up in it from her door-pegs, and his razors and +brushes mixed up with her things on her dressing-table. The arrangement +in the country parsonage was to be accounted for; to find it here, made +deliberately and of MALICE PREPENSE, was to see what gulfs now yawned +between Mary's old life and the new one. Deb reached forth for a comb, +and drew back her hand as if she had inadvertently touched a snake. +Mary's red face went purple as she explained that there was not space +in that house for a dressing-room. There was space enough going to +waste in the drawing-room, where Deb had her feelings hurt on her +second visit. It was a very large room, sharing the front of the house +with a large study; and behind them all the other rooms huddled as of +no account, none of them bigger than Keziah's Redford storeroom. The +study was sacred to the master of the house; the drawing-room to +"company". One look showed Deb that Mary never sat there, and that it +was not she who had chosen and arranged the furniture. The foundation +of the scheme was a costly "suite", upholstered in palish silk brocade, +the separate pieces standing at fixed intervals apart on a gorgeous +Axminster carpet. When Deb entered the room, Mr Goldsworthy was bending +over the central sofa, excited and talking loudly. Miss Goldsworthy and +Mary stood by, mute and drooping; Ruby looked on irresponsibly, with +joy in her eye. + +"What's the matter?" inquired Deb, advancing. + +As she was not a great lady then, but quite the contrary, Mr +Goldsworthy explained what was the matter, with scarcely any +modification of his minatory air. A caller had called yesterday, +bringing with her a little boy. Mary had thoughtlessly fed the little +boy with soft cake, and the little boy had first made his hands sticky +with it, and then pawed the sofa, which had cost him (B.G.) nearly +twenty pounds (part of Mary's 500 pounds). Greasy marks had been left +on that lovely brocade, for which he (not she) had given thirty-five +shillings a yard, and which he had forbidden children to be allowed to +sit on. As if that were not bad enough, "they"--i.e., those two poor +women--had, without telling him, tried to take the marks out with some +wretched chemist's stuff, which had not taken them out, but only spread +them more. Now the sofa was completely spoiled, and what to do he did +not know, unless he could match the brocade, which was scarcely likely. +And ill could he afford to be buying brocade--and so on. Finally he +went out to consult with a furniture repairer of his acquaintance, +banging doors behind him. Deb cast a scornful glance upon the smudged +brocade. + +"What a fuss about nothing!" she brushed the subject by. + +"My brother is very particular about this room," Miss Goldsworthy +apologised for him. + +"So I see." + +"And he is very fond of this brocade, which he chose himself. It +certainly is very pretty--don't you think so? But too delicate to wear +well. I am always frightened to see children go near it, or even +grown-up people when it has been raining, or if they have been +gathering dust--it does show every spot so! And it was the mother's +fault. I signed to Mary to give him a biscuit, but his mother picked +out that cake, which had jam in it. It is very unfortunate. I don't +wonder at his being vexed." + +"Why don't you have chintz covers, Moll?" + +"Oh, he wouldn't like it to be covered up," Miss Goldsworthy struck in, +and seemed shocked herself at the suggested waste. Mary lifted dull +eyes to her sister's face. + +"Come and have some tea," she said. "Come, auntie; it is no use your +worrying yourself." + +And they went into the poky living room, which smelt of meals, and had +tea, and the sort of barren talk that the presence of the third person +necessitated. Mary seemed purposely to avoid a TETE-A-TETE. When Miss +Goldsworthy went to fetch the baby, Ruby was kept at her step-mother's +side. Only when the black-eyed boy appeared did Mary brighten into a +likeness to her old self. She was a born mother, and her child consoled +her. Then, in the midst of the baby worship, back came the still +agitated husband and father, the furniture man with him; and the house +was filled anew with the affair of the soiled sofa, so that Deb's +presence, as also her departure, attracted little attention. As her +brother-in-law pushed out a valedictory hand, she noticed a shirt-cuff +that had the grime of days upon it. + +"He economises in the wash," she soliloquised, with wrinkling nostril +and curling lip. "And in those filthy cheap coals that choke the grate +with dust, and in tea that is undrinkable. Oh, what a house!" + +And she had not been there since. But now-- + +Her benevolence embraced the world, and the world included Bennet +Goldsworthy. It was no longer in his power to make her feel ill. The +sun of her prosperity, shining on him at her sister's side--poor, +struggling, well-meaning little man!--gave him a pathetic and appealing +interest. In fact, it was to him that her maternal dispositions towards +her family drew her first. + +"Thank God," she said to herself, "I can now make things a bit easier +for that poor child. She won't let me, I daresay, but he will." + +She took the humble tram to their suburb, and rang at their parsonage +door. Having considerately sent word that she was coming, due +preparations had been made to receive her. She was shown into the +drawing-room, which had not a displaced chair, and where the +many-coloured Axminster and the cherished brocade still looked as good +as new. Almost her first act was to search for the grease marks on the +sofa--the spot was indicated by a bleached patch--and she sat down on +it, alone for a few minutes. On this occasion the old aunt had been +ordered to keep in the background; Ruby also, after due consideration +of her claims, had been denied the share she clamoured for of the +impending excitement, and sent out of the house; Mary had had her +directions, and remained invisible for a time. She was employed in +getting Robert ready for inspection--brushing his best jacket, tying +his best neck-tie, etc., while he jerked about under her hands, and +freely criticised her labours on his behalf. For Robert took after his +father as a knowing person. He was, in fact, a bright and clever lad, +who knew some things better than his mother did. She was ever proud to +admit it; but his own open acceptance of superiority, and readiness to +keep it before her eyes at all times, was one of the secret crosses of +her life, weighed down with so many. However, if you marry the wrong +man, you cannot expect to have the right children, and it was something +that this boy had the genuineness of his intellectual gifts to give her +an excuse to adore him. + +"There, that will do. It is very bad form, you know, to be so fussy +about people coming, and so anxious about what they may think about +you," the young authority upon etiquette instructed the fine-fibred +gentlewoman, who had done him the honour to be his mother. And Mary +took the rebuke humbly. + +Bennet Goldsworthy, alone, came softly into the drawing-room to receive +the distinguished guest. He had grown fat and tubby, and a phrase of +Claud Dalzell's flashed into Deb's memory as she marked the manner of +his approach--"that crawling ass, that would lick your boots for +sixpence". The noonday sun does not affect polished metal more +obviously than Deb's wealth affected him. + +"This is good of you," he murmured brokenly, pressing her gloved hand. +"This is indeed good of you!" "I ought to have been before," she +returned graciously--it was so easy to be gracious to him now--"I have +been wanting to come; but you cannot imagine how many hindrances I have +had." + +"Oh, but I can indeed!" with earnest emphasis--"I can indeed! And have +grieved that I was not able to be of some service to you in your--your +very difficult position. I did not like to seem to force myself upon +you, but I hoped--I confidently hoped that you would send for me, if it +was in my power to be of the slightest assistance to you." + +"Oh, yes--thank you so much--if I had needed anybody. But there were +only too many kind friends." + +"Aha! Yes, I expect so." His eye lighted and his lip curled craftily. +"I have no doubt whatever of THAT. 'Where the carcase is--' You know +the rest?" + +"I am not a carcase," she rallied him playfully--for quite the first +time in her life. + +"No, indeed; I should have said 'prey'. Ah, my dear De--Miss +Pennycuick, you will find plenty and to spare of so-called friends, +professing anxiety to serve you, when their only object is to serve +themselves." + +"I expect so," she assented, smiling. + +"So young a girl"--subtle flattery this, now that Deb was in her late +thirties--"to be suddenly called to a position of such immense danger +and responsibility! But"--cheeringly--"I said when I heard of it that +Mr Thornycroft had justified my high opinion of his judgment and +character. It is not often that great wealth comes into hands so worthy +of it." + +"I am afraid they are not very worthy," sighed Deb. Mr Goldsworthy knew +better. He knew HER better--not only from personal intercourse, the +observation and intuition of a man trained to read character, but from +the loving representations of his dear wife. + +"Where is she?" Miss Pennycuick asked abruptly. "Not out, I hope?" + +"Out--hardly! She will be here in a moment. I am afraid, when you see +her, you will think her looking delicate. The state of her health is a +matter of the most anxious concern to me." + +"What is the matter with her health? She was always well at home. We +used to think her the strongest of the family--until--" + +"Until she fell into the clutches of that dreadful man," Mr Goldsworthy +concluded for her. + +"Oh!"--Deb coloured and frowned--"that is not what I was going to say." +(What she had really been going to say was--"until her marriage.") "And +why do you rake up that old story? I thought it had all been forgotten +long ago." + +"It has been unpleasantly revived," said Mr Goldsworthy solemnly. "And +it is my duty to tell you about it, if you have not heard." + +Deb looked equally annoyed and alarmed. "What has been revived?" she +asked. + +He dropped his voice apologetically. + +"I have been hearing of his going on in exactly the same way with +another." + +"Oh," sighed Deb, relieved that it was not Mary who had been the +reviver; "then it's no business of ours, thank goodness." + +"Pardon me--it is very much our business," he urged weightily. "I +grieve to tell you that it is your sister, Mrs Ewing, who is implicated +in the affair. Do you mean to say that you know nothing about it?" + +Deb knew something, and so she put the question by. + +"I don't encourage scandalmongers. Mrs Ewing is young and +thoughtless--and pretty--which naturally lays her open to ill--natured +gossip." "My informant is one of the least ill-natured of women; she is +a person of the highest principle." + +"Ah, those high-principled women--I know them!" + +Mr Goldsworthy was nonplussed for the moment. He could not accept the +suggestion that Deb was not high-principled. But he gave up his +informant. + +"There is ample evidence that the man is Mrs Ewing's lover," he +grieved. "He has been seen with her in the most equivocal situations. I +don't wish to go into details--to mention things unfit for a young +girl's ears--" + +"I hope not," put in Deb, her patience giving out. "I am not fond of +that kind of talk. I should not believe, either, in any nasty tales +connected with my sister, or with Captain Carey. And you ought not to +listen to them, for Mary's sake. You should not pander to your +high-principled ladies. You should tell them to be more charitable, and +to mind their own business." + +A year ago the parson would have taken umbrage at this rebuke; he now +hastened to deprecate displeasure on the part of the one whom, of all +the world, he most desired to please. + +"Far be it from me to speak ill of anyone belonging to you," he +declared solemnly; but still he could not help it. + +The most good-natured person, if he be greedy, will seek to ingratiate +himself with Power by disparagement of rival suitors. He was following +an impulse that might be described as an instinct, in trying to weaken +Deb's favour towards the rest of her relatives in order to concentrate +as much as possible upon himself--to push back, as it were, the hands +that he imagined eagerly outstretched to her (palm upwards), that the +more might be dropped into his own. He asked her if she had seen Mrs +Breen, and sighed over that plebeian connection. + +"I may be poor," said he, "but I do come of a good family. It is +unfortunate, perhaps, but we cannot help our prejudices." "It is a +ridiculous prejudice," said Deb, "especially in a country like this." + +"Oh, it is--it is. I own it; but--well, you know--" + +She brusquely brought him back to the question of Mary's health. + +"It is Mary that I want to hear about. Tell me--before she comes +in--what is the matter with her?" + +He was willingly confidential. + +"She has worries," said he--"worries that you, my dear young lady, in +YOUR position, know nothing of--would not understand if I were to tell +you." + +"I have been in positions to understand most kinds of worries," said +Deb. "What are they? Money worries?" + +"Well, I have a delicacy in--" + +"Oh, you need not have! I know, of course, that you cannot have been +too well off, and I am here on purpose to do something for you, if you +will allow me.' There was no need to beat about the bush, she knew, +since Mary was out of hearing. 'Tell me exactly, if you don't mind--in +strict confidence, of course. No need to trouble her--and I shall not +say anything." + +He told her, with fullness and fervour, when he had expressed his too +fulsome gratitude. + +"I have done my best, Miss Pennycuick. You bade me be good to her; I +gave you my solemn promise--and I can conscientiously say that I have +kept my word." Well, so he had; according to his lights he had been an +exemplary husband. "But circumstances have been against me. In the +first place, I was in error somewhat, as you know, in regard to my +wife's expectations from her father. I did not marry her for her money, +as you also know, but appearances were such that I naturally concluded +she would have a considerable income of her own. I did not care for +myself one way or the other, but I was glad to believe that there would +be the means to continue to her the mode of life that she had been used +to. I acted upon this supposition, false, as it turned out, and +anticipated, most imprudently, I confess, the little fortune that I +imagined to be secure. When we came here, where living is so much more +expensive than in the country"--with no Redford to draw upon--"I +surrounded my wife with the comforts that were her due, and which I +fully believed she had every right to." He waved his hand over the +still blooming Axminster carpet and the brocaded suite the family was +not allowed to sit on. "I spent--we spent the little capital +represented by your father's wedding present--I had an erroneous idea +that it was to be an annual allowance pending the eventual division of +the estate; and then--well, then you know what happened." + +Deb nodded. + +"Did you," she inquired feelingly, "borrow of those professional +money-lenders?" + +She was prepared to be very sympathetic in that case; but Mr +Goldsworthy repelled the suggestion with scorn. + +"Certainly not. I never borrowed money in my life. I struggled and +scraped and saved, as best I could; I endeavoured in vain to augment my +small income by little speculations--harmless little dabblings in +mining shares; I--but I won't bore you with these +disagreeables"--pulling himself up with an air of forced cheerfulness. + +"But I want to know," said Deb. "You spoke of worries--Mary's +worries--worries now; are you still--" + +He spread his hands and wagged his head. + +"I'd rather not talk about our troubles," he sighed. "I don't want to +dim the sunshine of your--" + +And suddenly his eye flashed and his brow contracted with annoyance. +Mary--somewhat hesitatingly, to be sure--walked in. + +Robert had insisted that the pater was all wrong in his idea that it +was proper for him alone to receive the visitor, and for the mistress +of the house to linger inhospitably after it was known that she must +know of the visitor's arrival. Robert had coerced his mother into doing +the correct thing. Politely he opened the drawing-room door for +her--that, of course, was absolutely the correct thing--and escorted +her forward with the aplomb of a man of the world, nicely blended with +the respectfulness appropriate to a nephew and a school-boy. + +"Ah, HERE she is!" Mr Goldsworthy exclaimed heartily. + +The sisters were at once in each other's arms. Deb, pierced to the +heart by Mary's aged and faded looks, was the most demonstrative of the +two; Mary struck her after a moment as being a little reserved and +chilly--as if on the watch to repel benevolence as soon as it should +take tangible form. Deb understood, and was warned to be circumspect. + +"And this is our boy--grown out of knowledge, eh?" + +Mary stepped swiftly aside to let Robert come forward, and there was no +mistaking the sentiments held in common by the parents with regard to +their son. Their two faces were mirrors for each other, suffused with +the same tender pride. + +"Perhaps the child has reconciled her to the rest of it," Deb hazarded +a hope. "She may be happy." + +For Mary smiled and moved alertly about the room. She accepted her +husband's ostentatious hand and chair, and when he resumed the +conversation, or rather restarted it, on the subject of Robert's +achievements at school, she followed where he led, so long as he did +not seem leading towards Deb's pocket, backing him up in the most +wifely manner. "Can it be possible?" Deb kept asking herself, glad at +heart to see such signs, which yet lessened her pity for and interest +in her sister. But Mary, with all the pride of the Pennycuicks in her, +was not, one to "let on". Her skeleton was locked tight in the cupboard +it belonged to when visitors were about--especially such a visitor as +this--and also when they were not about, so far as she could have it so. + +So that a sort of air of entertaining "company" pervaded the room. Deb +felt a constraint with her sister, and that she was making no way with +her mission. But Robert stepped into the breach. With Mary's son the +impulsive lady of Redford was unexpectedly pleased. There was not a +trace of Pennycuick to be discerned in him; nevertheless, he was a +good-looking, intelligent and interesting boy. He sat by her on the +sacred brocaded sofa while she brightly questioned him, brightly +answering her with aptness and good sense; his parents beaming on the +pair, even the father content to play second fiddle to give the son his +chance. Here, at any rate, thought Deb, was material to hand for the +work she had come to do. + +"I love boys," she remarked--and so she did, as some people love +dogs--"and Robert and I are going to be great friends; aren't we, +Robert?" + +"It is very good of you to say so, aunt," Robert replied, with +characteristic propriety. + +"But, do you know, I don't think I shall call you Robert," she went on. +"It has a prim sound"--but it was the primness of himself that she +wanted to break down--"and it doesn't suit a boy of your tender years. +I think I'll call you Bob, if you don't mind." + +"I wish you would," he adroitly answered her. + +"What is your bent towards, in the way of a career, Bob?" + +He said he thought the law--to be a judge some day. + +"You don't care for station life?" + +"Oh, he does," his father eagerly interposed. "He loves it. But he has +had so few chances--" + +"Which is your school, Bob?" + +A seminary of no repute was named, and the father again intervened to +regret that it was not one of the public schools. "But they, +unfortunately, have been beyond our means--" + +Here Mary broke in with praises of the seminary. It had such an +excellent headmaster, was so conveniently situated--really better in +many ways than one of the great schools-- + +And then Robert broke in. + +"My dear mother!" he ejaculated, in a compassionate and forbearing way. + +"Ah, Bob knows it is not better," laughed Deb. "And it isn't, Mary; you +are no authority, my dear. Which of the public schools do you fancy, +Bob?" + +He mentioned his choice, and the University scholarships that were to +be had there. + +"Debbie!" implored Mrs Goldsworthy, under her breath. + +"Hush-sh!" hissed her husband. + +"You be quiet, Molly," Deb playfully adjured her. "This has nothing to +do with you, or with anybody except Bob and me. You come and spend your +next vacation with me at Redford, Bob, and then we can talk it all over +together." + +She nodded to him meaningly. He smiled with perfect comprehension. + +"How can we thank you," Mr Goldsworthy murmured emotionally, for he +also understood. "It is too, too--" + +"It's all right, pater," the remarkable boy silenced him. "Aunt Deborah +knows how we feel about it." + +Mary sat in stolid silence, for once indifferent to her husband's dumb +command; then tears welled into her tired eyes. She pocketed her pride +for her child's sake. It had been her hopeless longing for years to +give her darling's splendid abilities full scope. + +"He will repay you, Debbie," she said. + +"Ah, don't be so grudging--so ungenerous!" cried Deb. + +Tea and cakes were brought in, and Bob, as he was thenceforth to be +styled, waited upon his aunt in the correctest manner. He had by this +time taken on an air that seemed to say: "You and I understand the +ropes; you must excuse these poor parents of mine, who were not born +with our perceptions." And Deb, no more proof against this sort of +thing than meaner mortals, had a feeling of special proprietorship in +him which she found pleasant, although he was not exactly the +heir-on-probation that she could have wished; which, of course, it +would have been preposterous to expect in a son of Bennet +Goldsworthy's. Bennet Goldsworthy accompanied her to the gate when she +went away, forbidding Mary to expose herself, hatless, to the wind. And +there the benevolent aunt's "intentions" were more distinctly +formulated. + +"I wish to take entire charge of his education, if you will allow me. +He is a very promising boy, and should have all his chances. Let me +send him to the Melbourne Grammar after Christmas, and as a boarder, if +you don't mind. There are such advantages, both in position and for +study, in living at the school." + +"I leave everything--everything, in your hands," murmured the grateful +father. + +"By the way"--as an after-thought--"what about your little girl?" + +She was not a little girl now, and had finished with school; but, oh, +the boon that a few good lessons in music and languages would be to her! + +That matter was settled. + +"Well, now," said Deb, "we must think about Mary. She is frightfully +thin. I can see that she has had too many worries, as you say. She must +be taken out of them. I want to have her at Redford with me--as soon as +she can get ready--and give her a good long rest, and feed her up, and +make her fat and strong." + +"I only wish you could prevail on her," he sighed. "But I am afraid you +will not get her to go anywhere without me. I have a devoted wife, Miss +Pennycuick"--even if she had not tacitly forbidden "Deborah" in her +poor days, he would not have ventured upon the liberty now that she was +rich--"too devoted, if that can be. She insists upon sharing all my +burdens, though I fain would spare her. I know well that, say what I +will, she will never consent to leaving me to struggle with them alone." + +"You have not told me what they are," said Deb, who saw that he was in +dread of her going before he could do so. + +"Oh, debts--debts--debts!" he answered, with a reckless air. "The +millstone that we hung about our necks when we anticipated that she +would have money, and lived accordingly, and were then left stranded. +The eternal trying to make a shilling go as far as a pound--to make +bricks without straw, like the captive Israelites of old. But why do +you ask me? I hate to talk about it." He made a gesture of putting the +miserable subject aside. + +"It was very hard on you," Deb said gently--contradicting the Deb of an +earlier time and different state of things--"to have those +expectations, which were certainly justified, and to be disappointed as +you were. I feel that we Pennycuicks were to blame in that--" + +"Oh, dear, no!" he earnestly assured her. + +"And that an obligation rests on me, now that I have the means, to make +some compensation to you--to Mary, rather." + +"It is like you to think of that. But really--" + +"And I put a blank cheque in my pocket, and a stylographic pen--and +will you let me"--she drew forth the articles mentioned, and made a +desk of the top rail of the gate--"will you do me the favour to accept +from me--what shall I say?--five hundred pounds? Would that relieve +you--and Mary--of the immediate worries?" + +He said it would, with the mental reservation that it did not amount to +what he had been defrauded of by Mr Pennycuick (she had made a mistake +in the designation of her gift); but the slight coolness of his +acknowledgement quickly gave place to grateful fervour as he realised +what the immediate five hundred pounds would do for him, and read in +her words an implication that the sum was but an instalment of what she +felt to be his due. He was incoherent in his thanks and benedictions as +he slipped the cheque into his pocket. + +"And you will let me have Mary at Redford?" + +"Oh, yes! She will not want to go, but I shall make her." + +"And do not tell her more than you can help about this little private +transaction. She might feel--" + +"I will tell her nothing that is likely to vex her." + +"Do not--PRAY do not. Only take these sordid worries off her shoulders, +and give her what she needs, and don't let her toil and moil. Remember, +it is for her I do it." There was a little sting in that last remark, +but he was too happy to feel it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +Now, what to do for Rose. + +Rose had written warm congratulations to her sister, without mentioning +any desire for a personal interview. Ever since her marriage, she had +refrained from giving invitations to her family, leaving the initiative +in social matters to them--a mark of consideration and good taste on +her part which they had quite approved of; and intercourse had been +limited to afternoon calls, more or less affectionate and informal, but +stopping short at meals in common under the roof of either party. Now, +however, Deb craved for a fuller sympathy with the sweetest-tempered +and kindest-hearted of her sisters, and now it seemed so perfectly easy +to go to her house in pursuit of it. She despatched an impulsive note: + +"DEAREST,--I want a quiet talk with you about all that has happened. +May I come to lunch tomorrow, so as to make a long afternoon of it? If +not convenient, fix a day to lunch with me; but I am not so tied as you +are, and besides, I should like to have Peter's advice on one or two +little matters of business, if it would not bother him--of course, +after he comes from town. Don't keep him at home on purpose." + +To which Rose replied by telegram: + +"Shall expect you early tomorrow for a long day. Peter delighted to +place himself at your disposal." + +So Deb set off next morning, full of benevolent intentions, to gather +poor humdrum Rose and her (in his way) truly worthy husband into the +sphere of her golden prosperity. Also, incidentally, to warm herself in +the light of faithful and familiar eyes. Since her final dismissal of +Claud Dalzell--although she was satisfied with that act, and ready to +repeat it again, if necessary--she had been conscious of a personal +loneliness, not sensibly mitigated by her crowd-attracting wealth. +"Someone of my own" was the want of her warm heart. + +And Rose, with no petty grudge for past short-comings, answered that +need with open arms. Never was hostess more cordial to honoured guest. +Peter also was at home. He had been to town and back again, and now +stood upon his spotless doorstep, and anon upon his handsome +drawing-room hearthrug, determined that his house should lack nothing +befitting the great occasion. It was all in gala dress--newly-arranged +flowers, festive lunch-table, the best foot foremost; and yet, whereas +there was no hiding the self-seeker in the ingratiating Bennet +Goldsworthy, there was no finding him in this proud host and husband, +whose desire was only to do his dear wife credit. + +Neither of them said, in word or manner, "Why didn't you come like this +before?" Deb knew that her welcome would have been the same, and had +hard work not to show too frankly her sense of their magnanimity. As it +was, she nearly kissed Peter in the hall--such a nice, warm, +comfortable, hospitable entrance to as comfortable a home (in its +undeniably middle-class style) as she had ever been inside of--the more +striking in its effect by contrast with Mary's. Peter's cuffs were like +the driven snow; he was charmingly fresh and clean, well barbered and +well tailored; grown quite handsome, too, now that he had filled out +and matured. As for Rose--"I hear," Frances wrote from Paris, "that +poor Rose has become a perfect tub." Mrs Peter was almost as broad as +she was long. But what health in the sunny face! What opulent +well-being in the full curves of her figure, gowned in a fashion to +satisfy even Deb's exigent taste. + +They did not tell her it was good of her to come to see them, but they +told her in all the languages of courtesy that they were mighty glad +she had come. She was taken into the drawing-room--full of soft chairs +and sofas that anybody might sit on, and with a fire of clear coals in +a grate that glittered with constant polishing. But everything in +Peter's establishment seemed to shine with pure cleanliness; he took +after his mother, who, modest in other things, was fond of offering a +sovereign to anybody who would find a cobweb in her house. + +Deb was peeled of her furs by Peter, with the greatest deference and +politeness, but with none of the obsequiousness that had sickened her +elsewhere; he laid down her sable cloak with the reverence of one who +knew its value, and he asked Rose in a whisper if her sister would like +a glass of wine before lunch. The smiling matron shook her head, and +whispered something else, which sent him out of the room. Then, while +he skipped about in the background, attending to the wines and beers, +she convoyed the guest to the very luxurious bedroom where head-nurse +Keziah dandled the youngest of the Breen children. The rest had had +their dinners and gone out a-walking, so as not to be made too much of +by a silly mother, if it could be helped. Warm was the greeting between +Keziah and her late mistress, and many the questions about Redford and +the old folks; but there was no hint that Mrs Moon hankered after the +big store-rooms and linen-closets, the dignities and privileges of her +former home. Her heart was with Rose's babies now. + +"There, what do you think of THIS?" she demanded, as she proudly +displayed her charge, and, being invited thereto, condescendingly laid +it in Deb's outstretched arms. + +It was a pretty, healthy creature, fat, dainty and about two months +old, still in the whitest and finest of long clothes. "Little duck!" +Deb crooned, and rubbed her cheek almost with passion on its rose-leaf +skin. Robert's nose, indeed, was dislocated on the spot. + +"Oh, Rosie," she presently blurted out, "I would like to have this +child!" + +"Would you?" replied Rose, all smiles. + +"No, but, seriously and without joking, I really would, you know." + +"I daresay," laughed the plump little mother, and her laugh was echoed +by Keziah as she passed into the adjoining nursery--to leave the long +parted sisters to themselves. + +"Now, look here," the guest addressed the hostess, thoughtfully and +deliberately, as soon as they were alone, "if you will give her to me, +I will bring her up and educate her as perfectly as care and money can +do it. She shall take the name of Pennycuick, and be my daughter, and +my heiress, and the future representative of the family. And," she +added, for her own inward ear, "we can live at home or somewhere, if +necessary, where Breens and such will not have the chance to interfere +with us." + +"As if I would give my baby away," Rose sweetly jeered her--"even for a +kingdom!" + +"You have five more, and may have another five--or twenty-five. It +looks like it." + +"But none to spare. Besides, you won't want other people's children +when you get your own. How about her being the heiress then?" + +"I shall never have children of my own," said Deb, with tightened lips. +"That is why I want to adopt one." Rose laughed the idea to scorn. + +"Of course you will!" cried she. "You must. All the money in the world +is nothing compared with a baby. I wouldn't give one of mine for twenty +fortunes--not if I had to earn their keep at the wash-tub." + +"Not even for the child's own advantage?" + +"It is not to any child's advantage to grow up thinking that its mother +did not care to be a mother to it," said Rose. "Nor yet--possibly--to +grow up to look down on her." + +"Rose!" Deb's guilty face flamed scarlet. + +"Or on her father," Rose continued, with soft but firm persistence. +"She must have a father too, Deb, and Peter would not give his job away +any more than I would give mine. He thinks the world of them all. He is +just as good a father as he is a husband," with a lift of head and +lighting of eye. "Come to me, my precious!" as the baby whimpered. +"Come to its own mother, then! No, no, Debbie dear, you be a mother +yourself in the natural and proper way; you will find it a deal better +than being rich. Marry some good, kind man straight away, before you +waste any more of your young years. I am sure there must be dozens +dying to have you." + +"Dying to have the handling of Mr Thornycroft's money," said Deb, with +a bitterness that surprised her sister. + +"Oh, no," said she; "you are sufficient attraction without that." + +"I shall never know it. But this," thought Deb, "is a very Breen-like +turn that the conversation is taking. These people--and Rose has become +one of them--have quite the tradesman's idea of marriage. Any 'good, +kind man' will do. They cannot be expected to understand." She watched +Rose billowing down into her nursing-chair, and pretended to herself +that she was not envious. "It would have been a wildly-rash experiment +to adopt this child, and I shall probably live to be thankful that my +offer was refused," she inwardly argued, while her beautiful eyes +melted at the spectacle of the happy mother snuggling the babe to her +bared breast. "It is a charming little creature now, but it would +probably grow up common, whatever its education and environment. Blood +will tell. And if she took the name of Pennycuick, she could not pass +it on. After all, a boy is best." + +So Robert Goldsworthy remained in the position his gifts had gained for +him. + +After an admirable meal--in the course of which Deb made herself most +charming to her brother-in-law, while Rose retired as much as possible +from the conversation, in order that he might shine to the best +advantage--those little matters of business that had been mentioned +were discussed. They were trifles invented for the purpose of +compliments to Mr Breen, and the serious energy with which he applied +himself to each case, and his exhaustive treatment of it, showed his +thorough enjoyment of the part alloted to him by the distinguished +woman who was so accomplished in the art of giving pleasure--especially +to men. Frankly, Deb always preferred a man to talk to, and she was +agreeably surprised to find that Peter was very intelligent, and +acquainted with several things beside shopkeeping. Rose was simply +enchanted to find herself 'cut out' by him. When she was not stealing +from the room to leave the coast clear, she was beaming over her +needlework in the background, still as a mouse. Not by word or look +would she spoil his chance of proving to Deb what he really was--how +mistaken in him she and the others had been. + +It was Peter who escorted the guest round the garden and stables, Mrs +Peter excusing herself. In the well-stocked greenhouse Miss Pennycuick, +who was fond of flowers, obtained 'wrinkles' that she declared would be +most valuable to her in the management of her Redford houses--which she +implied that he must see; in the interview with the carriage +horse--Rose had a little brougham, not, as her sisters supposed, for +paying calls on other drapers' wives, which she had small leisure for, +but for shoppings and airings and taking children to dentists and +pantomimes--Miss Pennycuick was instructive in her turn, feeling legs +and advising about firing and bandages with the recognised authority of +an expert. Old Bruce, padding at his master's heels, was greeted by +name, patted and shaken hands with, as if he had never abetted rebels; +and the discovery of a litter of choice puppies gave opportunity for +the making of a little present, which was graciously received. + +After tea, Rose was invited to show her house--a further proof of her +sister's tact and powers of divination. Now Peter was left behind--he +used the opportunity to cut flowers for Deb to take away with her--and +the little matron was in her glory. From top to bottom, and every +cupboard and corner, and the numerous up-to-date appliances, and the +stocks of silver, linen, china, the ample furnishings of every part, +the solid goodness of every bit of material--all was displayed with +modest pride, the complacence of one who knows there is nothing to hide +or apologise for. + +"Isn't it a nice home, Debbie? Could any woman wish for a better home?" +she asked again and again, unable to restrain herself. + +And Deb, with a few secret reservations, said "Yes" and "No" with +kindly warmth, thinking to herself: "Happy child, to be satisfied so +easily! How much happier than we who want the moon!" + +"I often wonder why I am so blessed," Rose said, in the midst of the +house inspection, "when poor Molly, who deserved so much more, lives +the life she does. Ah, Deb--what a marriage!" + +She spoke of it exactly as Bennet Goldsworthy had spoken of hers--in a +spirit compounded of benevolence and contempt, the former element +preponderating in him, the latter in her. At the moment she was +exhibiting the complete appointments of Peter's dressing-room. + +"My husband may be a draper," said she, "but at least he does not shave +in my room." + +The survey of the house ended at the nurseries. Rose had purposely left +the best till last. Her throwing open of the door revealed a picture so +charming that it persuaded Deb to accept an invitation to dinner in +order that she might do justice to it. + +"Oh, what a delightful room!" she cried, as her eyes ran round its +pictured walls, glowing in the evening firelight. + +"Not large enough now," the smiling mother objected. "We are going to +build new ones--a wing at the back--and turn these into bedrooms for +the elder children, who will soon be old enough to have their own." + +"Oh, what little loves!" Deb then exclaimed, her eyes upon the young +inhabitants--five little fat, white, vigorous creatures in various +stages of preparation for bed. + +"There is one absent," explained Rose, in accents of keen regret. +"John, the eldest; he is paying a visit to his grandparents. This is +Constance, the second"--a golden-haired girl, enjoying her nightly +treat of nursing the new baby. "And this is Kathleen"--a chubby +creature in a flannel dressing-gown, waiting for her bath; "and +Lucy"--being rubbed down by the nursery underling, Jane; "and +Pennycuick"--Deb started at the name, and was uncertain whether it +pleased her or not in this connection--the baby but one, in the tub +under the hands of old head-nurse Keziah. "ARE they not sweet?" + +They really were. Clean-blooded, clear-eyed, well-fed, well-kept, full +of life and fun--the pride of the maternal heart was amply justified. +Deb plunged into the group delightedly, kissed them, teased them, +tickled them, did everything a proper aunt should do; and Rose was in +ecstasies. + +"Oh, Debbie," she pleaded, "DON'T go yet! Stay with them for a little. +Stay and see baby undressed--I always do it myself--and have a bit of +dinner with us; you will, won't you? Give me my nursing apron, Jane." + +As she tied the sheet of flannel over her smart gown, she whispered to +Jane: + +"Go down and tell Mr Breen that Miss Pennycuick is going to stay to +dinner." + +Then she turned up her sleeves, settled herself upon a low chair, and, +with bath-tub and belaced toilet basket, and warming night-clothes +around her, performed the task that made this hour the happiest of her +happy day. As closely as the romping children allowed, Deb watched her, +and marvelled at her quick skill and lightness of hand. Who would have +thought that little Rose could be so clever? The healthy baby, so +deftly handled, raised no protest, but curled her toes as if she +enjoyed it; and when all was done, the snowy-robed, perfumed creature +was laid to its young mother's generous breast, and sucked itself to +sleep in five minutes. Deb, wistfully observant, began to dimly +apprehend that to wish Rose's marriage undone would be about as kind as +to wish back to earth the dead whom we believe in heaven. + +Meanwhile, Peter had been bustling about after such dinner arrangements +as he could attend to. Mr Thornycroft himself had never taken more +pains to please this guest. Deb enjoyed strawberries for the first time +that season, and a glass of wine that even Claud could not have carped +at. Coffee was brought to the drawing-room, from which Rose slipped +away for a whispered colloquy with her husband in the hall; the result +of which was that they came in together to ask Miss Pennycuick to do +them the honour of standing godmother to the baby. Deb put the crown +upon the gracious day by promptly consenting. + +"But that," she thought, with some chagrin, as she rolled homewards--or +rather, bedwards--with Peter's flowers in the carriage beside +her--"that is the extent of my tether in this direction. A christening +mug, and a bit of jewellery on her birthdays--I shall be allowed that; +otherwise I can be of no more use to them than if I were a workhouse +pauper. They are independent of me and of everybody." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +The years passed, and the destinies of our friend began to take final +shape. The bread cast upon the waters returned. The chickens came home +to roost. + +One winter's morning Captain Guthrie Carey brought his ship into +Hobson's Bay. The agents of his company sent letters to him there. He +took one from the sheaf, and read it carefully--read it four times. +Then he tore it into little pieces and dropped it over the side. The +pilot and the first officer wondered at the concentrated gravity of his +mien, at the faraway look in his cold blue eyes. Yet is was a very +short and simple letter. There were no names inside, and it merely said: + +"I returned by last mail, and am at the above address. I shall be at +home tomorrow afternoon at five. Of course I am seeing nobody, so we +shall be quite undisturbed. Be punctual, if possible." + +The "above address" was the big house that had belonged to the late Mr +Ewing. "Tomorrow afternoon" was but an hour off. + +At five precisely Captain Carey shed his ulster in the palatial +vestibule, and at the heels of a soft-footed man-servant, marched +through the warm hall and up the shallow, muffled stairs to the +familiar drawing-room--a long room, the lower end of which was in +shadow, and the upper illuminated like a shrine, with rosy lamps +projecting from a forest of chimney ornament, and a great bright red +fire twinkling upon tiles and brass. The big palms were in their big +pots, spreading and bowing over settees and cosy corners; every bowl +and vase overflowed with the choicest flowers, although it was wintry +June. And the tea-table was ready; the old seductive chairs and tables +were grouped upon the Persian hearthrug in the old way, with the +sheltering screen half round them. Indications of the desire of the +mistress of the house to give him special welcome were too marked and +many to be ignored. + +He was left here to meditate in solitude for a few minutes, and he did +all the meditating that was possible in the time. His heart thumped +rather faster than was necessary, but his strong face was a picture of +composed determination. Indeed, it was not easy to recognise the young +Guthrie Carey of old Redford days in this stern, tough, substantial +man, steady as a rock amid the winds and waves of incalculable fate. +Just now he had the look of a military commander braced for a pitched +battle. And the V.C. has been won for many a less courageous enterprise +than that on which he was now engaged. + +Leaning his broad shoulders on the ledge of the mantelpiece, and +roasting his stout calves at the glorious fire, he watched the distant +doorway with narrowed but keenly-glinting eyes. When he saw the dim +curtain lift to let in the light from the landing and a slim woman's +figure, he straightened himself, and set his teeth hard. It had to be +faced and fought, he felt, and the sooner it was over the better for +them both. + +She came fluttering up to him, with both hands held out. How white they +were against the crape! And how wonderfully her complexion and her hair +were set off by the black robe and the fine lawn bands at throat and +wrists! He loathed the mockery of the widow's weeds, but thought he had +never seen her look so lovely. + +"Oh, Guthrie! Oh, what YEARS it seems! Were you wondering what had +become of me? But I couldn't--somehow I didn't feel that I +COULD--before--" + +She cast herself into his arms in the most natural way in the world. He +laid one of them round her waist lightly, and kissed her brow; then, +when she lifted it for the purpose, her mouth--the sweetest woman's +mouth that ever made a pair of soft eyes omnipotent. After some seconds +of silence, she looked at him questioningly, all a-quiver with nervous +excitement. Her delicate cheek was pink like a La France rose. + +"It was so good of you to come," she murmured humbly. "It wasn't--it +didn't bother you? You were not wanting to do something else, were you, +dear?" There was revealed in tone and manner the fact that even selfish +Frances had come to care for something more than for herself. + +"No--oh, no," he replied, rather breathlessly. "I WAS going up the +country this afternoon, but fortunately I got your letter in time." + +"Oh, if you had! What should I have done? I couldn't stand it any +longer, Guthrie. It is four whole months--since--though it seems like +yesterday--" + +"And how are you?" he broke in, taking a fresh grip of the sword, as it +were. + +He held her off from him, glancing at her shoulder, her skirt--anything +but her eyes, which were HER sword, two-edged and deadly. + +"Oh, don't look at me!" she exclaimed, shrinking. "I hate myself in +this horrible gown--I feel so mean and hypocritical--though I do mourn +for him, Guthrie. You must not think I feel happy because he is +dead--no, indeed; I wish I could! But one must conform to a certain +extent, mustn't one? And every respect that I can possibly show to his +memory--especially after the way he has treated me! I suppose you +heard--" "What?" Guthrie had heard, but asked the question to fill time. + +"Five thousand a year," said she, "at my absolute and entire disposal, +with no restriction or condition of any sort or kind." + +She made the announcement in a level tone, and without a smile, but he +detected the triumph and satisfaction underneath; and, feeling much the +stronger for it, he observed gravely that the dead man was a good man. +"And I always knew it, Francie, worse luck!" + +"Oh, so did I! Far--far too good for the likes of me. But--well, we +need not talk about that now. We couldn't help ourselves, could we? And +the past is past; everything is different now. Oh, Guthrie, what it is +to kiss you without feeling that I am doing wrong!" + +She kissed him as she said it, pressing him to her. Of course he kissed +her back, but his hands on her waist were rigid, as if he wore an +evening shirt, and was afraid of her crushing the front of it. She +might have noticed this if she had not caught a glimpse of herself at +the moment in a mirror behind him. + +"One thing," she said, "I did draw the line at. I positively refused to +wear a cap. I knew--I knew you couldn't have borne THAT!" Holding her +charming head, rippled all over with goldenchestnut curls and coils, +just in front of his eyes, she pleaded for confirmation of this +statement. "You couldn't have stood seeing me in a cap, could you, +Guthrie?" "As far as I can judge," he replied, "nobody asks you to wear +caps these days, whether you're a widow or not. Why, the very +grandmothers go about in yellow fringes and things, pretending they are +thirty or forty, when everybody knows they are twice that, at the +least. When I was a youngster, there used to be old ladies--my mother +was one; but the race has died out." + +"I, at any rate, am not an old lady," Mrs Ewing remarked, with a joyous +smile. "My yellow fringes and things are all my own, and so is my +complexion, and so are my teeth." + +Her smile widened to reveal their pearly excellence. She took his hand, +and rubbed the back of it on her downy cheek, and laid the palm on her +soft, thick locks. Even yet she did not see that anything was the +matter, confident in her still young beauty, and in the fact that he +now knew for certain that the bulk of her husband's property was hers. +How often she had wondered whether he knew or not, feeling sure that he +MUST have heard the news at some of the many ports he had put into +since it had become a matter of public knowledge, and why he allowed +days and weeks, even months, to pass without making a sign. There had +always been the cables, anyway. She put it down to his delicacy, his +sense of the awkwardness of the situation, his consideration for her. + +"We will have tea first," she said, touching the bell-button. "Then we +shall not be disturbed any more. We can talk till dinner-time. Oh, how +I wish you could stay for dinner, and a long, long evening! But it is +better not to do things of that sort yet, don't you think? Better not +to run risks of making scandal now that there's no longer any need for +it." + +"Much better," said Captain Carey firmly. + +"And, after all, there are lots of ways that we can meet without doing +anything improper. I have thought of heaps. I can go to Sydney--I can +go home, for that matter; I am a perfectly free agent. And we have now +less than three-quarters of a year. Guthrie, I want you to let me have +the twelve months good. It is a long wait, I know, but we should feel +the benefit of it afterwards--" + +"Hush-sh!" + +She glanced down the room in alarm, and saw the door open to admit the +servant she had summoned. He brought teapot and kettle, hot cakes and +muffins, and arranged them with unnecessary carefulness on the little +table by the fireside. Hostess and guest watched his slow manoeuvres +with an impatient but fascinated gaze, and tried to think about +something to talk about for his edification, and could not. + +"Thank you, Willis; that will do, Willis. I'll ring if I want anything +else. I don't know, Captain Carey, whether you are one of those people +who despise tea and cake--" + +They were alone once more. Captain Carey refused the proffered +refreshment. Mrs Ewing, making no effort to persuade him, took a few +mouthfuls hastily; then she set her cup down, and with a quick flirt of +the hand, extinguished the two pink lamps. They were old-fashioned +gas-lamps too. + +"We don't want lights to talk by," she said, in a casual way. "The +firelight is enough. I think firelight at this hour so much the +pleasantest, don't you?" + +"Oh, yes," he responded desperately, and indeed was glad of the shelter +of a shadow on his face; but he said to himself, with clenched hands +and a long indrawn breath, "Now comes the tug-of-war." + +A very large and wide sofa, low, deep-seated, full of springs and down +pillows, stood in the cosy firelight, a great, tall, curving screen +behind it. Mrs Ewing--as she had done many times before--crossed over +to this sofa, sank into its yielding depths, and looking up at her +companion, patted the empty seat beside her. The man hesitated for an +instant, and then--as he had done many times before--obeyed the +significant gesture. But now the time for preparation, for hesitation, +had expired; it was necessary to brace himself for the decisive deed. +Even as she clasped her hands beneath his ear, he unclasped them, +gently but firmly, and drew them down. With his back to the firelight, +she could not see his face, but he could see hers, and the swift change +in its expression. She was puzzled and surprised, but, as her hands +were still held fast in his iron fists, resting on his knee, she was +not conscious of the state of the case. + +"My girl," he said, clearing his throat--she had allowed him so many +liberties that this mode of address was quite in order--"you and I can +speak plainly to each other. There's no need for us to beat about the +bush, is there?" + +"Of course not," she replied, all at sea as to what this portended, but +jumping to the conclusion that he was going to be proud about the +money. "It would be an odd thing if we took to being shy, at this time +of day." + +"It would, wouldn't it?" He cleared his throat again, and made a fresh +start. "Look here, Francie--don't do that! Listen to me child--" + +"I am not a child, sir. Allow me to inform you that I was twenty-nine +last birthday." She was so pleased to think she was only twenty-nine, +rich and free, with her life in her hands, and half a year-from thirty +still, when she might have dragged on till she was old and grey, or in +her grave! "And why am I not to do that? Since when have you lost your +taste for kisses?" Then suddenly, with an anxious cry--"Guthrie! +darling! what is the matter with you?" + +"Nothing," he said hastily--"nothing, of course, except that we must be +serious and sensible, and--and talk things over quietly, dear. As you +say, you are not a child. No more am I. We know the ropes, Francie, +don't we? We've outgrown the delusions of boys and girls. We've had our +experiences as man and woman--eh? You know what I mean. No need to +mince matters--to go in for conventional nonsense--you and I. We can +talk straight to each other at a time like this?" + +As he laboured painfully to explain, without explaining, her face faded +like a sunny landscape when a wet fog crawls over it. For, Francie +though it was, she loved him--she loved him all she knew. + +"Guthrie," she moaned piteously, "have you left off caring for me?" + +"No, Francie. Of course I haven't." + +"Have you--while I have been away, and in so much trouble--been putting +another woman in my place?" + +"Certainly not." + +"Is it that you don't like to live on his money, Guthrie?" + +"I should NOT like to live on it--decidedly not. But the fact is, I +haven't given the money a thought." "Then why--why are you like this?" + +"I'll tell you, Francie--I'll tell you plainly. It seems infernally +brutal--but I'm sure you know I wouldn't say a thing to hurt you if I +could help it." + +"Oh, go on!" + +There were red roses in her cheeks now, and a sparkle that was not all +firelight in her eyes. + +"It is this, dear--don't try to take your hands away, I am going to +keep them; I must have you listen to me till I've quite done--it is +this, Francie: Love, as we very well know--I mean our sort of love--is +one thing, and marriage another--" + +"WHAT? Oh, is THAT it? Ah, ah! I see now." + +"Take your own case," said he, with a relentless air. "Haven't you +proved it up to the hilt?" + +"Proved what?" + +"That marriage is a failure." + +"Of course, marriage is a failure when it is blundered into as I +blundered into mine, when I was too young and ignorant to know a thing +about it. That is not saying it would be a failure now." + +"It would be a dead failure, Francie. I am absolutely convinced of it." + +"Because you have grown tired of me! Because somebody else has got hold +of you behind my back! Because--oh, because you men are all alike, +thinking of nothing but the amusement of the hour, sucking a woman's +life-blood as if she were an orange, and throwing her aside like the +useless skin--without honour, without constancy, selfish, heartless, +treacherous--" + +"Hush, Francie! Don't talk rubbish. I may be like other men--I've no +doubt I am--but I'm not all that. When I make an engagement, I keep it. +When I take obligations and responsibilities upon me, I do my best to +fulfil them. Most men do--decent men; but they never have justice done +them in these cases." + +"In these cases!" she echoed scornfully. "Everybody knows what their +conduct is in these cases. The world is well used to it. Oh, I ought to +have known--if I hadn't been the most incredible fool! It was not for +want of warnings. But you seemed so different! The idea that you could +play with a woman in this way--compromise her--change all her life, and +spoil it utterly--and then back out! Oh! oh! Can you sit there and tell +me that you have incurred no responsibility in your dealings with me, +Guthrie--making me love you as I did--making me a bad woman--unfaithful +to my good husband--the most honourable, the most trustful of men--" + +"Did I do that? Honour bright now, Francie." + +"Oh, this is too much!" she burst out furiously, springing from her +seat, and being dragged back by his iron grasp of her hands. "Let me +go, sir! I have had insults enough--and in my own house--with no +husband to protect me--" + +"Sit down," he commanded. "And for God's sake don't--don't go on like +that! I can't stand it. I am not insulting you, dear--not wilfully +insulting you--not more than I am forced to. I only want us both to +understand the case as it is; surely you and I are not afraid to speak +out--to face the truth? You are not crying, Francie?" + +"No, no! Indeed, I'm not! Don't you flatter yourself! I am not hurt, +and I'm not the sort of person to go begging a man to marry me, either. +I don't think--I really DON'T think that I am QUITE so poorly off as +all that comes to." Here she laughed, but only for an instant. "If you +were to go down on your knees before me, Guthrie, I would not have you +now, after the things you have said to me." + +The statement calmed and strengthened him. He felt able to say the rest. + +"Quite right, Francie. Dozens of men will come courting you as soon as +you go out again, and any one of them will make you a better husband +than I should have done; but not a better friend. I hope you will +always remember that." + +"Many thanks. Will you be so very kind as to release my hands, Captain +Carey? They ache." + +"One moment. I want to make sure of the last chance I shall get to +explain--to tell you exactly what I mean--you, who are old enough, +experienced enough, to understand. I don't want to defend myself, +Francie--not at all. I am not the cad to say, 'The woman tempted me, +and I did eat.' I don't blame you, dear--I don't blame anybody. A woman +is a woman; and a lovely woman like you--well, the way things are +managed in this world, I don't believe she can help herself. But look +here, Francie, a man is a man too, and a good deal more so. If you were +a girl, I wouldn't say this; but you knew--you knew what you were doing +when you laid yourself out to be sweet and--and kind to a fellow, as +you were to me. Did you take me for an old maid or a Social Purity +Society? You know you didn't. A man does his best, but he's too heavily +handicapped--I won't say by nature--perhaps by habit, which is second +nature--the habit of generations, inherited in his blood--and his case +is not on all-fours with your case. And especially when he is a +sailor--so cut off--so deprived--Very well. And so it happened--as it +happened. Never mind about the right and wrong. What's wrong today may +be right tomorrow; and in any case, no arguing can undo what's done. +We'll leave that." + +She sat before him, panting, and the roses in her cheeks were white. +Happily, the fire had grown a little dull by this time. + +"For myself," he continued, speaking slowly, as if trying to think +things out--"for myself, whether I ought to repent or not, I don't--I +can't. Theoretically, I know it is always the man who is in the wrong, +and I should have been foully in the wrong--I should be unfit to +live--if you had been an unmarried girl, Francie--or if I had been +the--the--" + +"Oh!" she moaned bitterly, grasping his point of view, if not the plain +justice of it. "But I have brought it on myself--I have only myself to +thank. I made myself cheap, and must take the consequences." + +"It is not that," he said kindly, but still feeling in his +unsophisticated brain that it was. "I don't hold you cheap, my dear. I +want to disabuse your mind of that idea, that I am throwing anything in +your teeth. Good God, I should think not!--it would come ill from me. I +have no conventional views about these things--none. But look here now: +if you were my wife, I should never see you with another fellow without +thinking--well, you know what I should think--and feeling myself like +poor old Ewing--Oh, I AM a brute!" It was revealed to him all at once. +"Do--DO forgive me!" + +"Pray don't apologise!" she cried, in a high, shaking voice. "It is +best, as you say, to speak plainly--not to mince matters--especially as +there is no one to call you to account for what you say." + +"And it would be worse for you, ever so much," he continued earnestly. +"Having got into the way of--of this sort of thing--I'm afraid I might +be tempted again--that I couldn't honestly promise--in short, the fact +of the matter is that we are neither of us domesticated, so to speak--" + +"There--that will do" she broke in, coldly furious, but with a volcano +in her breast that threatened eruption and devastation shortly. "Will +you let me go, Captain Carey? Or must I call my servants to my +assistance? I have only servants now." + +"Yes, yes"--and he released one hand--"I will, if you'll say you +forgive me, Francie. I've made an awful mess of it, I know--" + +They rose together, and the other hand was freed. It was the right +hand, and she returned it to him immediately. + +"Good-bye!" she said, between clenched teeth. + +He held her tightly once more. + +"May I come and see you again? May I write? I can say it better in +writing." + +"You have said all that needs to be said. There is no necessity to +write. If you write to me, I shall return the letter unopened." + +"But why? It is surely absurd for us to put on airs of dignity with one +another. Francie, you don't mean us to part like this?" + +She stepped quickly across the hearthrug and, with a passionate +gesture, pressed the button of the bell--evidently to summon Willis to +show him out. So he took up his hat, offended in his turn, and for the +first time feeling fairly easy in his mind as to the way he was +treating her. But the tragedy of the moment was turned to vulgar comedy +by her alarm at the fact that she had struck the bell before relighting +the pink lamps. + +"Oh, where are the matches?" she whispered excitedly. "I can't find +them." + +"Here--here!" he cried, fumbling for his own pocket box. + +And their flurried hands got mixed as she turned the taps while he +applied the light to the burners. + +The instant after they had restored the room to its normal condition, +the butler appeared. Mrs Ewing turned to him with the amazing +self-possession of a woman accustomed to extricate herself at a +moment's notice from an awkward fix. + +"Willis," she said sweetly--and even smiled as she spoke--"will you +please have a cab fetched for Captain Carey? He is rather late for a +dinner engagement." The butler acknowledged the order and withdrew. In +the light of the pink lamps the late combatants looked strangely at one +another. + +"And you would have married MARY!" the woman commented upon the issue +of the fight. It was both a taunt and an accusation. + +The man lifted his brows questioningly, as at a loss to comprehend her +meaning. + +"Has that anything to do with it?' he asked. 'I don't see the +connection." + +The sentences were short, but signified many things. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +Frances Ewing was a shady name thereafter, to those "in the know". +Pennycuick blood and pride notwithstanding, she seemed to lose her own +sustaining self-respect when she lost the respect of the man she +loved--when he showed her with such barbarous and uncompromising +candour the essential difference between a mistress and a wife. Of +course, she "got over" that grievous affair, which, for a time, broke +whatever heart she had to break. Her freedom and her money, her youth +and her beauty, were still hers, and she made the most of them; and +that most was a great deal. In her cosmopolitan sets she was a popular +and distinguished figure. From one fashionably rowdy Continental resort +to another she carried her rich jewels and trappings, and her personal +magnetism, and sat down for the season to a campaign of social +stratagem and sentimental intrigue--to the indulgence of her unbridled +appetite for excitement and the admiration of men. And ever at the end, +when it was time to move on to another BIJOU apartment in another +place, there was a fresh scalp at her girdle, and nothing, as it were, +to show for it, until at last her vanity was tempted with a title, and +she married an Italian count, who, if all tales were true, paid the +debt that his sex owed her with heavy interest. But those tales did not +reach the ears of the sisters at home. To them--with the object of +suitably impressing them--she wrote an occasional note, of which half +the words were titles of nobility; and the humbler relatives accepted +the fact of her unapproachable elevation above them. The Breens made +easy jokes upon the subject; Mr Goldsworthy's jealousy of her was +overcome by his pride in the connection. "We had a letter from my +sister-in-law, the Countess, the other day," he would amiably remark, +and proceed to repeat and amplify the fashionable intelligence +contained therein, instead of taking away her character as he had been +used to do. Deborah was the only sister with whom she can be said to +have corresponded, and Deborah had a shrewd suspicion that all was not +gold that glittered in Francie's lot. Deborah had the best means of +knowing, being herself a world-traveller, and what is called a society +woman, as well known in the resorts of such as Frances herself. But +although they seemed to run so closely, and so much upon the same +lines, there was as wide a gap of social difference and non-intimacy +between them as between any two of their family. And Deb was not one to +think evil of her own flesh and blood, if it was possible to think good. + +She, too, might have filled her letters to Australia with titles of +nobility--nobility of a firmer standing than the Countess and her +friends could boast of--had she been inclined to do so. A baronial +hall, dating from the Conquest--a ducal castle, not to speak of a Royal +Presence Chamber--was nothing to Deborah Pennycuick after a while. + +To see her on a crowded London staircase, laughing with a prince or a +prime minister, was a common object of the season for a number of +years; while varnishing days and first nights would have lacked charm +for the society reporter who could not place her fine figure and her +French gowns in his pictures of these scenes. Goodwood and Cowes were +familiar with her striking face and her expert interest in horses and +yachts; Highland shooting-lodges, English hunting-fields, claimed her +for their own. Southern Europe, the Nile, Bayreuth--in short, wherever +social life was bright, comfortable and select, there she turned up +promiscuous, as the spirit moved her, to be welcomed open-armed as a +matter of course. Men, young and old, continued to pay her homage, +which was not just the sort of homage they paid to Frances; proposals +of marriage were, or might have been if not nipped in the bud, almost +as plentiful as invitations to country houses in the autumn. And she +relished it all with singular enjoyment--until she began to feel the +approach of that winter and evening of life which has so sharp a chill +for those who have loved the sun. + +Claud Dalzell was likewise a denizen of the great world that was hers +and not Francie's, and, close corporation as it is, they were never far +off each other's beat, seldom in ignorance of each other's whereabouts. +At the same time, they also did not touch. It was known throughout the +great world, which is so small, that there was a deadly feud between +them; and tactful hostesses took pains not to bring them into +juxtaposition. In public places, when meetings occurred by accident, +only the most frigid bows were interchanged. + +For, in quite early times, when the Australian heiress, as she was +improperly styled, was taking London more or less by storm, she chanced +to overhear a brief colloquy not intended for her ears. + +"Who is that glorious woman that came in with the duchess? I don't see +her just now, but she had a red frock on, with black lace over it--dark +hair and diamond stars--not half as bright and fine as her eyes, by +Jove!" + +"It must be Miss Pennycuick--an Australian lady. She is with the +duchess's party." + +"Oh, is that Miss Pennycuick? Well, now I can believe what I've heard +of her being so charming. She carries it in her face." + +"She WAS charming--until she came into her money. That has quite spoilt +her." + +It was Claud Dalzell who said it, and Deb heard him say it. She moved +off out of the press that had brought her within reach of his cold +voice--not to be mistaken by her for any other voice--and she vowed +through clenched teeth that never again would she come within that +distance of him, if she could help it. + +The years as they passed only strengthened this determination. Each +proud inclination of the head, each ceremonious lift of the hat, added +bitterness to their mutual resentment--to his feeling that she was +spoiled by her money, and to her feeling that he wilfully misjudged +her. The breach was widened by their unconcealed flirtations--a +description mentally applied to the most ordinary man-and-woman +acquaintanceships on either side, but not inappropriate in all cases. +Claud ever loved the company of handsome women who appreciated him; Deb +naturally inclined to nice men in preference to the nicest women; and +each liked to show the other that he or she was still of high +importance to somebody. Rumours of impending marriage were continually +being wafted to his ears or hers, but nothing came of them. He was +confirmed in luxurious bachelorhood; she was aware of many +fortune-hunters, and could not bring herself to value any of her +disinterested suitors at the price of her freedom. So the one-time +lovers drifted more and more apart, until somehow they lost sight of +each other altogether; and meanwhile the years made them old without +their knowing it. + +She was unreasonably upset on one occasion by the offer of a specific +for grey hair from a fashionable London hair-dresser. It was absolutely +permanent, harmless and undetectable, he said. "But I am not grey," she +indignantly informed him. Whereupon she saw his keen professional eye +wander about her brow as he murmured something about the faint +beginnings that might as well be checked. At home she studied the +matter carefully in a strong light, and called Rosalie, her maid, to +aid her. The little Frenchwoman assured her that a microscope was +needed to detect a white thread in that beautiful mass of dark +nut-brown. With a microscope, no doubt, as many as half a dozen might +be discerned dimly, just where it waved back from mademoiselle's face. + +That same afternoon she and Rosalie left town for one of their +country-house visits. It was a weepy autumn day, and she was not as +fresh as usual--the hair-dresser, combined with some troublesome +shopping, had tired her--and the disquieting suspicion laid hold of her +that she was more easily fatigued than she used to be. While reading +her novel in the train, she counted her years, and compared herself +with the women she knew whose ages were recorded in the Peerage, and +who could therefore be proved to be as old as herself. Some of them +were wrinkled hags. Carelessness or ill-health, doubtless, she +reflected; and neither charge could be laid at her door. Heigh-ho! That +horrid man! + +It was dark night when they reached the little station belonging to the +mansion that was their goal. A dozen other guests and their servants +and baggage crowded the platform, and half-a-dozen carriages and +luggage-brakes the yard behind; and Deb was at once in charge of a tall +footman, Rosalie struggling through the press with jewel-case and +dressing-bag, chattering French to one of her familiars in the rear. +Distracted stationmaster and porters uncovered to the stately woman as +she passed. It was all a matter of course to her these days. + +She was too late for the big tea-party; the men had gone to the +smoking-room, the women to their own firesides. After a brief but +affectionate interview with her titled hostess, Deb was soon at hers, +slippered and dressing-gowned, sipping the jaded woman's stimulant, +warming the damp and dismalness out of her, assuring herself +confidently that she was not an old woman, and had no intention of +becoming one. + +Certainly, when Rosalie had dressed her, she was entitled to an easy +mind. The best of everything tonight, in vindication of her still +unimpaired beauty and potency. Shimmering brocade of her favourite red, +and lace like fairy work; and then that magnificent satin-white breast +and massive throat, and the stately head crowned with the famous five +stars, whose flashing made the eye wink, and which yet were dimmed by +the light of her dark eyes. She surveyed herself with full content when +the last touch had been given her, and her slow sweep a-down corridors +and grand staircase was a triumphal march. She knew that her entrance +into the crowd downstairs could no more fail of its customary effect +than could the appearance of the sun next morning--or, one should +rather say, the announcement of dinner to the tired and hungry shooting +men. + +She was met at the foot of the grand staircase by her host, and +immediately surrounded. In the close press of friends she did not +notice the strangers; time was too short and they were too many. A lord +of her acquaintance, who still hoped to make her his lady, took her +into dinner, and called upon all her powers of wit and repartee to meet +his conversational tactics during the meal. It was an exhilarating +encounter, and of sufficient interest to keep her "eyes in the boat". +Moreover, the table was immense, and the chief of the strangers sitting +on her side of it, a long way off. + +After dinner there was little comedietta played on the boards of the +toy theatre belonging to the house. Many of the ladies were in their +places before the men, still craving repose after their hard day's +work, could hoist themselves from their chairs in the dining-room. Deb, +having helped to coach one of the amateur performers, was early in her +seat in front. Some of her admirers did manage to squeeze in beside and +behind her from time to time, but the particular stranger haughtily +held aloof. + +Then, when the play was over, there was an impromptu dance, for the +theatre was an ANNEXE to the ball-room. It was the young folk who began +it, but older ladies joined in, and all the men but the hardened +sportsmen, who saw a chance to sneak to their snuggery and gun-talk +before the time. The really old women, obviously past their dancing +days, sat around, and looked on and gossiped to one another. And for a +time Deb sat with them. + +She was certainly tired--for her--and the fact struck her that she had +not danced for a long time. She had shirked balls, having only too many +entertainments to choose from. She thought it likely that she would be +stiff and heavy on her feet from want of practice--a horrible idea to +her, who had once danced like a feather in the wind. A good stone had +been added to her weight since she had last waltzed with satisfaction +to herself; that also was not a pleasing thought. So when her dinner +lord essayed to entice her, she shook her head. A dozen other men, and +the cream of them too--there was comfort in that--followed his example, +and made her charming compliments when she said laughingly that she was +"too old for these frivolities". + +"Too old--gracious heavens!" they apostrophised space. It was +heart-warming to hear them. + +But they went off easily, and were soon dancing with the young +girls--sylphs as airy and agile as she had once been. And by degrees +she drew apart from the old ladies and their talk, which she hated to +seem, even to herself, to belong to, and presently found herself in the +extraordinary position of sitting alone. She leaned back in her chair, +and with eyes half shut, looked at the whirling couples, and dreamed of +the days--the dances--the youth--that were no more. + +She saw, not this splendid saloon, but a shabby small room in an old +bush house--the walls not panelled with paintings by R.A.s and starred +with clusters of electric lights, but with wreaths of homely evergreens +and smelly kerosene lamps. And amid the happy throng that jostled for +room to dance there, a girl and a young man, newly betrothed, +anticipating an immortal paradise in each other's arms. + +And she looked up, and saw Claud Dalzell watching her. + +He was horribly aged--illness, it seemed--and had grown quite +white--that splendid lover with whom she had danced, as no girl here +knew how to dance, in the golden prime of everything! Their eyes met, +and there must have been in both pairs something that neither of them +had seen before. He crossed to her side at once, and she did not freeze +him when he got there. + +"How do you do? I have been wondering if you were going to recognise +me." + +"How do you do? I didn't know you were here. I never saw you until this +moment." + +"I have been standing there for ten minutes." + +"I did not notice. I was thinking--" "You were--deeply. I was trying to +guess what you were thinking of." + +"I wonder, did you?" + +"I wonder. Was it, by any chance"--he dropped his voice--"Five Creeks?" + +She was quite startled and discomposed by this extraordinary +divination; having no time to decide how she would take it, she filled +the embarrassed moment with a laugh. + +"Goodness! I'd no idea that my face was such a tell-tale. I believe I +was. That funny old room, with ridges in the floor, and the ceiling +nearly on your head--how DID we manage to dance in it?" + +"Well, we did manage somehow, didn't we?" + +They gazed at the figures wheeling past them, blankly unresponsive to +casual stares and smiles. They seemed to hear the rotten flood-gates, +shut so long ago, creak on their rusty hinges. + +"Heard anything of the Urquharts lately?" + +"Yes. Alice was married the other day--to a widower with fourteen +children. She has not been very happy at home, I fear, with Harold's +wife. Harold has the place now, you know. Jim gave it up to him when he +married." + +"When who married?" + +"Harold." + +"What's Jim doing?" + +"He is my manager at Redford." + +Mr Dalzell smiled darkly. "He likes that, I suppose?" + +"I don't know whether he likes it or not, I'm sure, but I do. I know +that everything's right when he is there." + +"Married?" "Lawks, no! The most confirmed old bachelor on the face of +the earth." + +They fell silent again, still gazing into the room. Deb lay back and +fanned herself; Claud leaned forward and nursed his knee. He ought now +to have asked news of her sisters, but he avoided mentioning any of +them. + +"Been back lately, Deb?" + +"Not for years, I am ashamed to say." + +"Anybody living at Redford?" + +"Miss Keene and a few servants only. Too bad, isn't it? Oh, I must go +soon and see the old place. But this European life--somehow, the longer +you live it the less you feel you can live any other." + +"I used to feel that. But now--one gets awfully tired of things--" + +"Oh, I don't!" + +"But then you keep so horribly young, don't you know." + +He turned and looked at her. She flushed up like a girl. + +"Thank you. That's a very pleasing compliment, although I know you +cannot mean it." + +"I'd like not to mean it. I'd like to have found you as old as I am +myself." + +"How cruel of you! Not that you are such a Methuselah as you would try +to make out--" + +"There are not five years between us," he broke in sharply. + +"I know." + +Back went memory in a flash to a succession of childish birthdays, +their love-tokens and festive celebrations. His was in November, and +his "party" was usually a picnic. Hers was in May, and was "kept" in +the house, with big fires and a tea-table crowned with a three-tiered +iced cake, and blind-man's-buff and turn-the-trencher in the evening. +She recalled wild contests with an imperious little boy, who could +never conquer her except by stooping to it; and the self-conscious +silliness of their behaviour to each other when they grew from children +into boy and girl. + +"Not much fun in birthdays now, Deb." He seemed to comment on her +thoughts. + +"Oh, well!" she sighed vaguely. + +And at that instant the music stopped. Someone gave the signal to +retire from the ball-room, bedwards. They were parted by the crowd that +gathered about them when the dancing ceased, and he did not find her +again even to say good-night. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +The shooting men were up first, to their early breakfast. It seemed to +Deb a matter of course that Claud would be of this virile company; it +was his saving grace as a man, when he was young, that he was a keen +and accomplished sportsman. After an indifferent night, she rose lazily +and late; found, as she expected, only a few more women in the +breakfast-room, and ate her own meal alone at one of the little tables. +The hostess drifted in amongst the last, and stopped a moment to shake +hands and exchange a word. + +"It seems a beautiful day," she said, "and we shall be making up a +party by-and-by to go out and lunch with the guns. You will join us, of +course?" + +But Deb thought of Claud amongst the guns, and of the horrible risk of +appearing to run after him; and she replied sweetly that, although she +would have loved the outing, she was afraid she must stay at home, +owing to important letters that had to be written for the afternoon +post. + +"All right," said the hostess, "I'll stay too--there are plenty without +me--and we'll have a drive later on." + +She passed to her breakfast-table, and Deb rose and went upstairs, to +see what she could find to attend to in the way of pressing +correspondence. + +She had the status of a married lady in this great house, as +everywhere; that is to say, a sitting-room of her own--a very cosy +place between tea and the dressing-bell. Just now, however, Rosalie was +busy in it. The maid offered to retire to the adjoining bed-chamber, +but Deb said, "Oh, never mind; go on," and gathering her blotting-book +and papers, went downstairs again to make herself comfortable in the +library. She loved a good library to sit in, and generally found +privacy therein at this time of day. + +The library here was magnificent in stately comfort--books in +thousands, busts, old masters, muffling Turkey carpets, a great, +bright, still fire, and armchairs so big and soft that it was strange +they could stand empty. She drew up one of them and sat awhile, +toasting her feet and turning precious leaves--it was the interval +covered by Claud's breakfast--and then set herself to the business she +was supposed to be engaged in. + +"Dear Francie,--I tried at half-a-dozen shops to match your Chinese +satin, but nowhere could I get the exact shade. If you like I will try +again when I go back to town, but if I were you I would not attempt to +make it go with any modern stuff, which could not help looking crude +beside it; I would have quite another material and colour. What do you +stay to--" + +She paused reflectively, the tip of her pen-handle between her teeth, +her eyes fixed absently upon the green park beyond the open window, +composing a gorgeous costume in her mind. Before she could even decide +whether to advise a ball-dress with CREPE DE CHINE, or a tea-gown with +Oriental cashmere, one of the noiseless library doors swung back, and a +man came in. Without noticing her still figure, he strolled over to a +certain shelf, opened a book that he wanted, and stood, with his back +to her, turning over the leaves. + +So he had not gone with the men. How horrid! And what a nuisance that +he should find her here! Well, she was not going to put herself out for +him. She lowered her pen softly, and began to scratch the paper, over +which she bent absorbedly. He turned round. "Oh, I beg your pardon--" + +"Oh, it's you, Claud! Good morning! Why, I thought you would be out +with the guns this fine day." + +"Fine day, do you call it? There's a wind like a knife. And you sit +here with the window wide open--" + +He marched towards it, and shut it with violence. It was a great glass +door between stone mullions. Above it and two fellow-sheets of +glittering transparency, three coats of many quarterings enriched the +colour-scheme of the stately room. She watched him with the beginning +of a smile upon her lips. The humour of the situation appealed to her. + +"I like an open window," she remarked mildly. "If you remember, I +always did." + +He came towards her, looking at her gloomily, looking himself thin and +grey and shivery--but always like a prince. + +"You have more flesh to keep you warm than I have," said he, quite +roughly. + +"Thank you!" She bridled and flushed. Her massive figure, for a woman +of her years, was perfect; but of course she was as sensitive as the +well-proportioned female always is to the suspicion that she was too +fat. "You have not lost the art of paying graceful compliments." + +"I meant it for one," said he, replying to her scoffing tone. "You put +me to shame, Deb, with your vigour and youthfulness. I know how old you +are, and you don't look it by ten years. And you are a beauty still, +let me tell you. It may not be a graceful compliment, but at least it +is sincere. Even these girls here--" + +"Nonsense about beauty--at my time of life," she broke in; but she +smiled behind her frown, and forgave him his remark about her flesh. +"You and I are too old to talk that sort of stuff now." + +"Do you think I am so very old?" he asked her, standing before her +writing-table, as if inviting a serious judgment. + +She glanced quickly over him. His moustache was white, his ivory-tinted +face scratched with fine lines about the eyes; he stooped at the +shoulders, and his chest had hollowed in. Yet she could have returned +his compliment and called him a beauty still. He was so to her. Every +line and movement of his body had a distinction all his own, and "What +a shame it is," she thought, "for that profile to crumble away before +it has been carved in marble." + +"We are in the same boat," she answered him. "There are not five years +between us." + +"Five years put us out of the same boat," he rejoined, "especially when +they are virtually fifteen. Deb, I know you think me an old man--don't +you?" + +"What I think is that you are a sick man," she said kindly. "Are you, +Claud? You used to be so strong, for all your slenderness. What is the +matter with you?" + +"Everything--nothing--only that I feel old--and that I haven't been +used to feeling old--and that it's so--so loathsome--" + +"I'm sure it is," she laughed, rallying him. "I can understand your +being sick, if you have come to that. But why do you let yourself? Why +do you think about it? Why do you own to it--in that abject way? I +never do. I'm determined not to be an old woman--until I am obliged. +And I don't paint, either," she added, "and my hair is my own." + +He seemed to study her cheek and her hair. She coloured up, dipped her +pen, and looked at her unfinished letter. He wandered off a step or +two, and returned. + +"Do you know this thing of Hamerton's?" he inquired, in a casual way, +extending the volume he held. + +She took it, laying down her pen. A considerable literary discussion +ensued, during which he fetched more books from the shelves to show +her. It began to appear that he meant to spend the whole morning with +her, possibly taking it for granted that it was her desire to have him. +That idea, if he entertained it, must be corrected at once. She resumed +her pen with a business-like air. + +"Deb," said he then, "do you mind if I read here for a little while? I +won't disturb you. It's so nice and quiet--away from those chattering +women--" + +"Oh, certainly!" she politely acquiesced. "But don't you think they'll +want you, with all the other men away? Now's your opportunity to be +made much of." + +"I don't care to be made much of just because I am the only man." + +"Oh, but you would always be more than that, of course." + +"I'm not more than an old fogey when the young fellows are around. They +will take no notice of me at tea-time. Well, I'm getting used to it. +I'm getting to know my place." "If that was your place, you would soon +vacate it." + +"How can I vacate it?" + +"When people begin to take me for an old fogey, they'll not have the +honour of my company in their houses." + +"That's very well for you--wait till the time comes. And I suppose you +like it, anyhow. You seem to enjoy all this"--waving a hand around--"as +if you were a girl who had never seen anything. I'm sick and tired of +the whole show." + +"Then don't have any more to do with it. Go home." + +"Home! What home have I?" + +"A lovely flat in town, they tell me, where you give the best dinners, +and ladies' theatre parties and things--" "Pshaw! I am hardly ever +there. I hate the racket of London in the season--I'm not up to it +nowadays--and you wouldn't have me stranded in Piccadilly at this time +of year, I presume? I'm obliged to spend the winter down south--and by +the same token I must soon be getting off, or these east winds and damp +mists will play the deuce with my bronchitis--" + +"Oh, it's bronchitis, is it? I knew it was something. I suppose you've +been coddling yourself with hot rooms and all sorts of flannel things; +that's the way people make themselves tender, and get chills and chest +complaints, and get old before their time." + +"The doctors insist on flannel--the natural wool--all of them." + +"The greatest mistake in the world. I used to wear it because I thought +the doctors ought to know, and I was always getting colds. Now I never +let a bit of wool touch my skin--haven't for years and years--and never +know what it means to have a cold." + +"That is contrary to all the traditions," he remarked seriously, +addressing her handsome back; for she was still supposed to be writing +her letter. "I can't believe that it is due to not wearing flannel, +Debbie. It's your splendid vitality--your being so different from other +people--" + +"Nothing of the sort! You try it. Not just now, of course, with winter +beginning, but when warm weather comes again--" + +And so on. The hostess broke in upon their TETE-A-TETE while they were +still engrossed in this interesting topic. She was drawn into it, and +made a disciple of by Deb, who attributed all her own blooming health +and practical youthfulness to linen underclothing, combined with plenty +of fresh air. And after all, since letter-writing was hopeless, she did +go out to lunch with the guns. Claud remained alone and disconsolate by +the library fire. She was due to leave the house next day, and left, +although conscious of a strange hankering to stay; and during the +interval gave Mr Dalzell no further opportunity to talk about his +bronchitis--and other things. He was not aware that she was to go so +soon until she was gone; and then he found himself with livelier +feelings than had stirred his languid being for many a day. He was not +only annoyed and disappointed at being deprived of the refreshment of +her stimulating society; he was incensed with her mode of departure, +which seemed to imply an intention to evade him. + +"Does she still think that I am after her money?" he asked himself, +with scorn of her mean suspiciousness. "Just because I was magnanimous +enough to ignore the past!" + +He went down south, to play a little at Monte Carlo and cruise a little +in the Mediterranean--to kill time through the detestable winter, which +made itself felt wherever he was; and she went to London to see about +Francie's gown, and up north to bracing Scotland, and down to Wellwood +for Christmas, and back to the racket of London in the spring; and +neither of them had spent a lonelier time in all their lives. Quite a +fresh and peculiar sense of homelessness and uncomforted old age took +possession of them both. + +All through the kaleidoscopic transformation-scenes of the "season", +through which she moved magnificently, old-maidhood notwithstanding, +she was unconsciously seeking him. It was her impression, from all she +had heard of his tastes and ways, that he could not keep away from that +common rendezvous of his class and kind. She did not find him, but all +the same he was there. He returned from his winter haunts sooner than +his wont, while still the April winds were full of menace for him, +exposed himself to those winds seeking her, caught a chill, neglected +it--a most unusual thing--and fell into an illness that confined him to +his bed for many weeks. + +It was not until June that Deb heard of it. He was truly so much of an +old fogey now in the society of which he had once been such a +distinguished ornament that his disappearance was long unnoticed. And +when at last someone noticed it, in Deb's hearing, the light and +callous way in which his trouble was referred to went to her +heart--knowing all she knew. One of her generous impulses came to her +on the spot, and an hour later she was at the door of his chambers, +inquiring after him. + +His man--a very jewel of a man--received her at the door, gravely, +cautiously, keeping it half shut. He reported his master mending, but +still weak, and not able to see anyone. Females of all kinds were +sternly discouraged by this prudent person, from force of old habit. + +"Oh, of course not," said Deb off-handedly. "Just give him my card, +please, and say I'm very glad to hear he is not as ill as I feared." + +On pain of dismissal from the best service he had ever known--and he +had known it now for a long time--Manton had to find the lady's +address. As soon as it was supplied to him, Claud sent for her to come +and see him. + +"Are we not old enough now to dispense with chaperons?" he wrote; and +the sight of his hand-writing after all these long years moved her +strangely. "If you think not, bring the deafest old post of your +acquaintance. Only DO come. I haven't had anybody to speak to for a +week." + +"Of course we are old enough," commented Deb, as she read the words. +"The idea of fussing about chaperons and that nonsense at our time of +life!" And she proceeded to array herself in her most youthful summer +dress, which was also the choicest of her stock, taking the utmost +pains to match toque and gloves, while full of indignation against his +friends for so shamefully neglecting him. + +Boldly she ascended to his sitting-room in the wake of tight-lipped +Manton, who presently brought tea, and at intervals tended the fire, +apparently without once casting an eye upon her. Claud was up and +dressed in her honour, while fit only for his bed. In the midst of the +refined luxury that he had gathered about him, he looked but the ghost +of a man, worn with his illness and the fatigue of preparing for her. +It was one of those English summers that never answered to its name, +and he sat in a sable-lined overcoat--considered more respectful than a +dressing-gown--in a heat that almost choked her. + +But with swelling heart she hurried to his side, and, after greetings, +drew a chair close up to his, took the hand he silently extended, and +held it in a long, warm, maternal clasp. Manton retired and shut the +door. The invalid lay back on his cushions, and closed his eyes. The +visitor, watching him, detected an oozing tear--the first she had ever +seen there. + +"How did it happen?" she crooned, and followed the question with many +more of the same sort; to which he replied as to a mother or a nurse. + +"It's this beastly climate," he complained. "It upsets me every +time--though this is the worst bout I've had yet. I really can't stand +it, Debbie. Even in June, when you'd think you were safe--just look at +it!" + +It was raining slightly as he spoke. + +"Well, why do you try to stand it?" said she. "Why not come back to +your own country? You'd be safe there, if anywhere." "I've been +thinking of it," said he. "It has been in my mind all winter--the +thought of that good, soaking sunshine that we used to have and think +nothing of. The Riviera isn't a patch on it. Aye, I'd get warm there. +But what a life--now. I am not like you--I've got nothing and nobody to +go back to--I should be giving up everything--the little that I have +left. And God knows life is empty enough as it is--" + +"Well, I'm going," she broke in. "And am I nobody?" + +He sprang up in his chair. "You--YOU going?" + +"Time I did," she laughed. "I haven't set eyes on my property and my +two sisters since goodness knows when." He held out his shaking hands. +His face was working pitifully. + +"Debbie, Debbie," he wailed, like a lost child, "will you take me? Will +you have me?" + +She caught him in her strong arms. + +"Dearest, we will go together," she murmured. And he fell, sobbing, on +her breast. + +It was not in the least what she had meant to say or to do; but the +appeal was irresistible. It was too terrible to see him--HIM, her young +prince of such towering pride and beauty--brought down to this. + +But she soon had him out of his slough of despond, and climbing the +hills of hope again with something of his old gallant air. The rapidity +of his convalescence was astonishing. By the end of July he was well +enough to be married. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +The first letter signed "Deborah Dalzell" was addressed, strange to +say, to Guthrie Carey--not to the commander of the SS APHRODITE, via +his shipping office, but to Guthrie Carey, Esq., Wellwood Hall, Norfolk. + +For a great change had taken place in the circumstances of her old +friend. + +One day, a few years earlier, he had been called from the +sea--somewhere off the coast of South America--to take his place as a +land-owner and land-dweller amongst the great squires of England; quite +the very last thing he could have anticipated in his wildest dreams. +Three sons of the reigning Carey had been capsized in a gale while out +yachting. The reigning Carey, on hearing of the catastrophe, had been +seized with a fit that proved fatal in a few hours. His eldest son's +wife, as an effect of the same shock, had given birth to a still-born +male infant--the sole grandson. One brother had died childless; another +leaving daughters only; the third, Guthrie's father, was also dead. +Thus the unexpected happened, as it has a way of doing in this world, +and the t'penny-ha'penny mate of old Redford days had become the head +of a county family. + +His experiences had trained him for the change. He took it soberly, +without losing his head. A bristling array of blood-enemies were +gradually transformed into a circle of respectful friends; some of them +assisted him to settle himself in his unfamiliar seat, to teach him the +duties of his high station. He was teachable, but independent, not +shutting his eyes and opening his mouth to swallow all the old-world +creeds they chose to put into it, but studying every branch of the +science of landlordism in the light of his own intelligence and +beliefs. When he had fairly mastered the situation, he married one of +his cousins. + +He was in his robust middle-age, which comes so much later to men than +to women, she was well on in her thirties--a comely, sensible, +well-bred young lady, and a most excellent coadjutor to a squire new to +the business. An eminently wise selection, said his brother squires, +when the engagement was announced. The wedding was a great family +function and county event. It meant that the Careys, instead of being +split up and scattered to the winds, remained together, united in +amity; it meant that the dignity of the old house was to be kept up. +When, a year later, Wellwood rang bells and lit bonfires in honour of a +son and heir, nothing seemed wanting to confirm the general impression +that our Guthrie was not only a wise but a singularly fortunate man. + +It was an impression that Guthrie shared. From the point of view that +he had now reached in life, he believed himself favoured beyond the +common lot. He loved Wellwood, full of the memorials of his ancient +race; he enjoyed his settled and comfortable place therein, after the +homeless roving of so many years--the feel of solid land under his feet +and under his life, for which every sailor pines, despite whatever +spell the sea may lay on him. He was proud of his perfect-mannered +wife, who was also his good friend and confidante; he was egregiously +proud of his handsome boy. And the day of the young romance--of the +great passion--of those sordid "little fires" which beckon to men whose +nature craves for warmth and whose "yule is cold"--that day was past. +"Love is one thing and marriage another," he had once said, without +really meaning it; but he had spoken truer than he knew. Moreover, the +shocking statement was not nearly so awful as it seemed. The very +conditions of married life are fatal to love, as love is understood by +the yet unmarried lovers--insanely sanguine, of human necessity--asking +the impossible, and no blame to them, because they are made so; but no +matter. That thing which comes afterwards, to the right-minded and +well-intentioned, and which they don't think worth calling love--that +sober, faithful, forbearing friendship, that mutual need which endures +all the time, and is ever more deeply satisfied and satisfying instead +of less--is no bad substitute. + +Yet how the world of imagination dominates the world of fact! How much +fairer the unseen than the seen! How much more precious the good we +have not than the good we have! In his private desk in his private +study, Guthrie kept--just as old Mr Pennycuick had kept his +valentine--a faded, spotted, ochre-tinted photograph of poor little +Lily in the saucer bonnet with lace "brides" to it that she was married +in; and when Wellwood was humming with shooting parties and the like, +and its lady doing the honours of the house with all the forethought +and devotion that she could bring to the task, the stout squire would +be sitting in his sanctum under lock and key, gazing at that sweet +girl-face which had the luck to be dead and gone. Lily in the +retrospect was the faultless woman--the ideal wife and love's young +dream in one. "I have had my day," was the thought of his heart, as he +looked across the gulf of strenuous, chequered, disappointing years to +that idyll of the far past which her pictured form brought back to him. +"Whatever is lacking now, I HAVE known the fullness of love and +bliss--that there is such a thing as a perfect union between man and +woman, rare as it may be." It will be remembered that he was married to +her, actually, for a period not exceeding five weeks in all. + +And Deborah Pennycuick, who would have made such a magnificent lady of +Wellwood--who was, in fact, asked to take the post before it was +offered to the cousin--she came to spend Christmas under his roof while +still a spinster, on the tacit understanding that neither was a subject +for "nonsense" any more. Deb and Mrs Carey were close friends. Deb was +the godmother of the heir. The homelikeness of Wellwood was intensified +by her intercourse, while there, with English Redford and the +descendants of that brother with whom old Mr Pennycuick had been unable +to hit it off--humdrum persons, whose attraction for her lay in their +name and blood, and the fact that they could show her the arms and +portraits of her ancestors and the wainscotted room in which her father +was born. It was to Wellwood that she went to be married. From the old +home of the Careys she was driven to the old church of the Pennycuicks, +full of mouldering monuments to a nearly vanished race; it was buried +in its rural solitude, far from railways and gossip-mongers and +newspaper reporters, and the wedding was as quiet as quiet could be. +Guthrie was acting brother, and gave her away. He never, of course, +disclosed the secret that was his and Francie's, honest brother as he +longed to be; but perhaps, even had she known it, and her own austere +chastity notwithstanding, she might have been broad-minded enough to +judge him kindlier than is the wont of the sex which does not know all, +and have still held him worthy to be to her the friend he was. As she +knew him, she loved him sister-like, and turned to him naturally when +she needed a brother's services. And so it was to him that she wrote +first, at the end of the short wedding-day journey--just to tell him +that she and her bridegroom had arrived safely, and that Claud was +standing the fatigue much better than they could have hoped. + +She did not write to Frances until she had her husband on the high +seas. She did not write at all to Mary or Rose, not wishing them to +know of her marriage until she could personally 'break it' to them. It +was not difficult to ensure this, since for many a year they had all +been so separated by their respective circumstances that they were no +longer sisters in the old Redford sense. The business of each was her +own, and not supposed to interest the rest. Only such domestic events +as were of serious moment were formally reported amongst them, and were +never deemed serious enough to use the cable for. + +The pair came home very quietly. Sydney was the port of arrival, and +here Deb divined on the part of her husband a desire to be left in +peace--to recruit after laborious travelling in the care of his devoted +and accomplished man--while she went forward to "get the fuss over". +Those sisters were the shadows upon his now sunny path, although he did +not say so; he wanted to get to Redford without having to kiss them and +talk to their offensive men-folk on the way. So Deb proposed to do what +she felt he wished, and paid no heed to the dutiful objections which he +could not make to sound genuine in her ears. She telegraphed +instructions to Bob Goldsworthy to engage rooms for her and to meet +her, signing the message "Aunt Deborah"--her only herald. + +Bob was duly at Spencer Street--elegant in curled moustaches and a +frock-coat--become a swell young barrister since she had seen him last. +He was sure of the impression he would create upon his discriminating +aunt, and had no notion that her first flashing glance at him was +accompanied by a flashing thought of how her adopted son would too +surely be ranked by her more discriminating husband with the "bounders" +of his implacable disdain. On the platform--while explaining that he +knew it was not the proper thing to do in a public place--he embraced +the majestic figure in the splendid sable cloak. Deb said, "Bother the +proper thing!" and kissed him readily--charily, however, because +conscious of teeth that were not Pennycuick teeth, and perversely +objecting to the faultless costume. But, looking at the frock-coat, she +perceived mourning-band upon the sleeve. Another encircled his +glittering tall hat. + +"Not--oh, Bob!--not your mother?" she gasped. + +He shook his head, and asked a question about her luggage. + +"Aunt Rose--your uncle--?" + +"Oh, Aunt Deb--don't! She is my aunt, I know, but he--" Bob spread +deprecating hands. "They are both well, I believe. I think I heard that +the fiftieth baby arrived last week. Is that your maid in the brown--" + +"Oh, but, Bob--tell me--they haven't lost any of those nice children, I +do trust!" + +"I should hardly have been in mourning on their account. No--fat and +tough as little pigs, by the look of them. It is my father, Aunt Deb. I +thought you knew." "What!" She stopped on their way towards Rosalie and +the luggage van. "You don't say--" + +"Yes--a couple of months ago. The mater wrote to you." + +"I have been wandering from place to place--the letter never reached +me." + +"Pneumonia, supervening upon influenza--that is what the doctors called +it; but it was really a complication of disorders, some of them of long +standing. Between you and me, Aunt Deb, he took a great deal more than +was good for him latterly, and that told upon him. His blood was bad. +You know he was always a self-indulgent man." + +Deb nodded, forgetting that it was a son who spoke. She was saying to +herself, "Bennet Goldsworthy, whom we made sure would live for ever! +Bennet Goldsworthy, of all people! What a relief that will be to +Claud!" And then she thought of her widowed sister, with a rush of pity +and compunction. He was her husband, after all. + +Bob's light attention to the subject was already gone. He was staring +at one of the great trunks covered with foreign labels. Rosalie was +telling him how many more Mrs Dalzell had. + +"Oh, yes," said Deb, confused and crimson, "I forgot to mention--I +suppose you don't know--that I am married. To an old friend of our +family--your mother will know him well. By the way, Bob, I must go and +see her at once. We'll have some lunch first; I must wash and change my +clothes. Then will you stay at the hotel and settle Rosalie, and see to +things? No, I would rather go alone. Stay in town and dine with me--and +don't look so shocked, my good boy, as if I'd cut you off with a +shilling. My marriage will make no difference to you." "Aunt +Deb!"--with dignified reproach. "As if I thought of that." + +But somehow she felt sure he did think of it. + +They had luncheon together at the hotel, and sat awhile to digest it +and to talk things over. While they sipped coffee, he told her how he +had furnished his bachelor rooms--the artistic woodwork, the curios, +the colours, how he had hunted for the right shade of red, what he had +given for a particular rug which alone would blend and harmonise. She +was brightly interested in these things, and promised to go and see +them. She was to go to lunch next day--he thought he could safely +undertake not to poison her with bad cooking or unsound wine. He lived +in chambers in Parliament Place. This engagement booked, she asked him +for his mother's address. + +Mary lived in a small street in Richmond. + +"Such a slum!" said Bob disgustedly. "But she would do it, in spite of +all that I could say. And rushed there, too, when he had hardly been +dead a week. It was not decent, as I told her, to be advertising the +sale two days after the funeral. But she is a peculiar woman." + +"She is a Pennycuick," said Mrs Dalzell reprovingly. "She would not +care to go on living in a house that she had ceased to have the right +to live in. I should not myself." + +"But she might have gone to another place." + +"You must insist on her going to another." + +"I am afraid my influence is not enough to persuade her." + +"My dear boy, I am convinced that if you asked her to walk into a +burning fiery furnace, she would do it to please you, without a +moment's hesitation." + +"She is that way in some things, poor dear; but in others--I may talk +till I have no voice left, and she won't listen. And she was set on +this scheme. She has a mania for--for that sort of thing. One would +never believe that she was your sister. She would hate to live like +other people. She simply loves to be a nobody. I can't understand it. +You try your influence with her, will you?" + +"Well, order a carriage for me, and I will put on my things." + +He pressed her to allow him to escort her, which was obviously the +proper thing. When she refused again, and went off, like any nobody, +alone, he returned to his chambers, leaving Rosalie to the unimportant +persons whose business it was to look after her. + +Mrs Breen's house was in East Melbourne, and Deb directed the coachman +to drive there first. She remembered the fiftieth baby that was but a +few days old. + +"I must see how the poor child is doing," Deb said--not alluding to the +baby. + +And soon she saw again the exquisitely-kept garden--large for that +locality--and the spacious white house almost glittering in the sun. +She had sniffed at the bourgeois villa--she thought it bourgeois +still--but who could help admiring those windowpanes like diamonds, and +that grass like velvet, and that air of perfect well-being which +pervaded every inch of the place? As the carriage entered the fine, +wrought-iron gates, a flock of little Breens, attached to a +perambulator, two nurses and five dogs, were coming out of it; and she +stopped to accost and kiss them. Each child was as fresh as a daisy, +its hair like floss silk with careful brushing, its petticoats as +dainty as its frock, its socks and boots immaculate. There was Nannie, +her godchild, shot up slim and tall from the dumpling baby that her +aunt remembered, showing plainly the milky-fair, sunny-faced, wholesome +woman that she was presently to become. Deb gazed at her with aches of +regret--she had thought them for ever stifled in Claud's all-sufficing +companionship--for her own lost motherhood, and of lesser but still +poignant regret that she had not been allowed to adopt Nannie in Bob +Goldsworthy's place. The joy of dressing and taking out a daughter of +that stamp--of having her at home with one, to make the tea, and to +chat with, and to lean on! Old Keziah came to the door--Keziah sleek +and placid, like the family she served--delighted to welcome the +distinguished traveller, but still more delighted to brag about the +last Breen baby. + +"A lovely boy, without spot or blemish," said Keziah, three times over. +"And that makes eleven, and not one too many. And Miss Rose doing fine, +thank you. I'll go and prepare her for the surprise, so it don't upset +her." + +Constance, quite a grown young lady, met her aunt on the stairs; +Kathleen and Lucy rose from the piano in the drawing-room, where they +had been entertaining their mother at a safe distance with their +latest-learned "pieces"; they too had to be greeted and kissed--and +sweeter flesh to kiss no lips could ask for. "My husband may be a +draper," Rose had often said, "but I'll trouble you to show me a duke +with a handsomer family." + +Mentally, Deb compared the cool, flower-petal cheeks of her Breen +nieces with her Goldsworthy nephew's mouth, covering those unpleasant +teeth. It would have been fairer to compare him with her Breen nephews, +but there the contrast would have been nearly as great. John, at +business with his father, and Pennycuick, learning station management +with the Simpsons at Bundaboo, had the fresh and cleanly appearance of +all Rose's children; in physical matters they were as clean as they +looked. Bob did not look unclean, but with all his excessive smartness, +he looked unfresh. That look, and the thing it meant, were his father's +legacy to him. + +At last Deb reached her sister's room. It was another addition to the +ever-growing house, and marked, like each former one, the ever-growing +prosperity of the shop supporting it. The fastidious travelled eye +appraised the rich rugs and hangings, the massive "suite", the +delicately-furnished bed, and took in the general air of warm luxury +and unstinted comfort, even before it fell upon Rose herself--Rose, fat +and fair, and the picture of content, sitting in the softest of +arm-chairs, and the smartest of gowns and slippers, by the brightest of +wood fires, with a tableful of new novels and magazines on one side of +her, and a frilly cradle on the other. + +"My husband may be a draper," she had remarked at various times, "but +he does give me a good home." + +Deb, so long homeless amid her wealth, conceded at this moment, without +a grudge, that Rose's humble little arrow of ambition had fairly hit +the mark. + +They embraced with all the warmth of the old Redford days. A few hasty +questions and answers were exchanged, and their heads met over the +cradle. + +"You poor child!" Deb exclaimed, as a matter of form. "Haven't you done +with this kind of thing yet?" + +"Oh," said Rose, "I should feel lost without one now. And we wanted +another boy--we have only three, you know. Isn't he a darling?" + +Number eleven, fast asleep, was fished from his downy bed and laid in +his aunt's arms, eagerly extended for him. His clothes might have been +woven by fairies, and he smelt like a violet bed in spring. + +Strange thrills--sharper than those that Nannie had set going--shook +Deb's big heart as she cuddled and kissed him. + +"The older I get," she confessed, "the greater fool I am about a baby. +And you do have such nice babies, Rose." + +"Yes," simpered Rose. "They ARE nicer than most, certainly--I'm sure I +don't know why." Her eyes gloated on the white bundle; she fidgeted to +get it back. "Ah, Debbie, I wish--I wish you knew--" + +"I know you do, my dear," laughed Deb, a little queerly, and she +returned the baby in order to hunt for her handkerchief. "And if you +must know the truth, so do I. It's tantalising to see you with more +than your share, while I have none--and never shall have, worse luck! +Well"--blowing her nose cheerfully--"it's no use crying over spilt +milk, is it? And I tipped the can over myself, so I can't complain. +How's Peter?" + +Rose told her how Peter was--"so dear, so good"--and then had so much +to say about the children, one by one, through all the eleven of them, +that it was quite in a hurry at last that Deb disclosed her secret. And +Rose not only sustained no shock--which would have been bad for +her--but could see nothing in the marriage worth fussing about, except +the fact that it came too late for a family. Such a sordidly domestic +person was she! She mourned and condoled over this spilt milk--so sure +that poor Deb was but hungrily lapping up drops with the dust of the +floor--that Deb grew almost angry. She took back her own words, and +said she was glad there were no children to come between her and her +husband, who needed only each other. She implied that this union had a +higher significance than could be grasped by a mere suckler of fools +(nice fools, no doubt) and chronicler of small beer (however good the +brew). She believed it, too. Love--great, solemn, immortal Love, +passionate and suffering--was a thing unknown to comfortable, +commonplace Rose, as doubtless to Peter also. They were dear, good +people, and fortunate in their ignorance and in what it spared them; +but it was annoying when ignorance assumed superior knowledge, and +wanted to teach its grandmother to suck eggs. Was it come to this--that +marriage and a family were synonymous terms? No, indeed, nor ever +would, while intelligent men and women walked the earth. Deb reserved +the more sacred confidences for Mary's ear. Mary had loved--strangely +indeed, but tragically, with pain and loss, the dignified concomitants +of the divine state. Mary would understand. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +Mary's house was a chill and meagre contrast to that of Rose, but there +was nothing cold in Mary's welcome. To Deb's 'Darling! darling!' and +smothering embrace of furs, the slim woman responded with a grip and +pressure that represented all her strength. Deb, although not the +eldest, was the mother of the family, as well as the second mother of +Bob. + +"Where is he?" were Mary's first words--and Deb smiled inwardly to see +her as absurd in her mother's vanity and preoccupation as Rose herself. +But this was a case of a widow's only son, and the visitor was thankful +for such a beginning to the interview. "Where is he?" cried the anxious +voice. "He was to have met you. And he never fails--this is not like +him--" + +"Oh," Deb struck in easily, "he was there all right, looking after his +old aunt like a good boy. He wanted to bring me, but I told him he +could be more useful looking after Rosalie and my things. I thought +we'd rather be by ourselves, Molly--poor old girl! You know I never +heard a word until he told me just now. Your letter did not reach me." + +They kissed again, in the passage of the little house. + +"You will send away the carriage, Debbie?" Mary urged, without visible +emotion. "There are stables in the next street. You will take off your +hat and stay with me a little?" + +"Indeed I will, dearest, if you will have me. Are you alone?" + +"Quite alone." + +"Where's the old lady?" + +"Oh, dead--dead long ago." + +"And Ruby?" + +Mary looked confused. + +"Ruby? Ruby is--don't you know?--an actress in London. Doing very well, +they tell me--"Miss Pearla Gold" in the profession." + +"Gracious! Why, I've seen her! Burlesque. Tights. The minx! Well, she +must be coining money, anyhow. I hope she doesn't forget to make some +return for all the trouble she has been to you." + +"She forgets everything," said the step-mother, "and we are thankful +for it. Bob hates the thought; it is hard on him, who is so different. +Don't allude to it before him, please; he feels it too keenly. Debbie, +what did you think of my boy?" "Oh, splendid!" was the cordial +response. "I could hardly believe my eyes." + +"Is he not?" the fond mother urged. "And it is not only his appearance, +Debbie--they say he is the cleverest lawyer in Melbourne. He is so +learned, so acute! He has a practice already that many a barrister, +well known and of twice his age, might envy." + +The pale woman--for her bricky colour had faded out--thrilled and +glowed. + +"Yes, he told me," said Deb; "and it was good hearing indeed. But I +always knew what he had in him.' To herself she said: 'Why, if he is so +well off, does he let her live like this?" + +Poverty--though decent poverty--proclaimed itself in every detail of +the mean terrace-house, which stood in the most depressing street +imaginable. It made the wealthy sister's heart ache. + +"And how are you yourself, Debbie?" Mary remembered to ask, as she shut +the door upon the departing carriage. "You look well. How is Francie? +We want you to tell us all about her grand doings. Bob is greatly +interested in his Italian aunt; he thinks he would like to take a +vacation trip to see her some day. By the way, did he tell you that +Rose has another? Isn't she a perfect little rabbit? And quite +delighted, Keziah says." + +As she talked in this detachment from her personal affairs, she led the +way up bare stairs to her small bedroom. The resplendent woman behind +her took note of the widow's excessive thinness, the greyness of her +straight, tight hair, the rigid lines of a black stuff gown that had +not a scrap of trimming on it--not even the lawn sleeve-bands widows +use--and thought of Bennet Goldsworthy's old-time annoyance when his +wife was proved to have fallen behind the mode. And as she expatiated +upon the charms of Rose's eleventh baby, Deb's bright dark eyes roved +about Mary's room, in which she recognised a few of the plainer +furnishings of the nuptial chamber of the past. + +But not a trace of the person who had been so much amongst them once. +His boots on the floor, his clothes on the door-pegs, his razors and +brushes on the toilet-table were gone; so were a basin and ewer from +the double wash-stand; so was the wide bed. In place of the latter a +small one--originally Bob's--had been set up, at the head of which lay +one large pillow fairly glistening with the shine of its fresh, +although darned, linen sheath. Carpet and curtains, essential to the +departed housefather, had disappeared; the bare windows stood open to +what fresh air there was; the floor, polished, and with one rug at the +bedside, exhaled the sweet perfume of beeswax and turpentine. It was +all so pathetic to the visitor, so eloquent of loss and change, that +she exclaimed, catching her sister in her arms: + +"Oh, you poor thing! You poor, poor thing!" + +Mrs Goldsworthy returned the embrace tenderly, but not the emotional +impulse. + +"You are so dear and kind," she said, in a gentle, but quite steady +voice. "I am so glad you came--so thankful to have you; but we won't +talk about that, if you don't mind. I think it is best not to dwell on +troubles, if you can help it. Tell me about yourself. I suppose you +have had lunch? Well, then, we will have a nice cup of tea. Take off +that heavy cloak--what lovely fur! And your hat too--what a smart +affair! You always have such taste. No, I am not wearing crape; it is +such rough, uncomfortable stuff, and so perishable; and the rule is not +hard and fast nowadays, as it used to be. It would be stupid to make it +so in a climate like this. Do you want a comb, dear? How brown your +hair keeps still! Then let us go downstairs to the fire." + +The fire was in a little bare parlour, as austerely appointed as the +bedroom. A tea-table was drawn up to the hearth, the kettle placed on +the coals. There seemed no servant on the premises, but the neatness +upstairs was repeated below; everything was speckless, polished, +smelling of its own purity. Well, it was a good thing poor Molly could +interest herself in these matters, and her resolve not to brood over +her troubles--if it was genuine, and not only a heroic pose--both noble +and wise. So Deb reflected; and such was the calmness of the emotional +atmosphere, the cheering effect of tea and rest and sisterly +companionship, the discursiveness of the talk, that she soon found +herself telling Mary the secret that she was so sure the widow would +hear with special sympathy and understanding. + +"It is awfully selfish," she began, "to bother you with my affairs at +such a time as this, but you've got to know it some time. The fact +is--some folks would say there's no fool like an old fool, and perhaps +you'll agree with them; but no, I don't think you will--not you, for +you know...the fact is--don't laugh--but I'm sure nobody can help it--I +have been and gone and got married, Molly. There!" + +And, after all, it seemed that she had not come to the right place for +sympathy and understanding. Mary did not laugh, but she stared in a +wooden manner that was even more hurtful to the feelings of the new +wife. + +"Well?" she cried brusquely, after a painful pause. "Is there any just +cause or impediment that you know of? You look as if you thought I had +no business to be happy like other people." + +"Oh, if you are happy! But I am so surprised. Who is it?" + +"Guess," said Deb. + +"I could not. I haven't an idea. Some Englishman, of course." + +Deb shook her head. + +"European, then? Some prince or count, as big as Francie's, or bigger?" + +Deb wrinkled a disdainful nose. + +"It is no use, Moll; you would not come near it in fifty tries. I'll +tell you--Claud Dalzell." + +"What--the deadly enemy!" This time Mrs Goldsworthy did laugh. Deb +joined in. + +"Funny, isn't it? I feel"--sarcastically--"like going into fits myself +when I think of it, it is so screamingly absurd. And how it happened I +can't tell you, unless it is that we are fallen into our dotage. I +suppose it must be that." + +"You in your dotage!" Mary mocked, with an affectionate sincerity that +was grateful to her sister's ear. "You are the youngest of us all, and +always will be. Do you ever look at yourself in the glass? Upright as a +dart, and your pretty wavy hair--so thick, and scarcely a grey thread +in it! Of course, I don't know how it may be with him; I have not seen +him for such ages--" + +"Oh, he is a perfect badger for greyness--not that I ever saw a badger, +by the way. And he walks with a stick, and has dreadful chronic things +the matter with him, from eating and drinking too much all his life, +and never taking enough exercise. Quite the old man, I should have +called him a few months ago. But he is better now." + +Mrs Goldsworthy gave a little shudder, and her unsympathetic gravity +returned. + +"I see," she sighed. "Your benevolent heart has run away with you, as +usual. His infirmities appealed to your pity. You married him so that +you might nurse and take care of him--" + +"Not at all!" Deb broke in warmly. "And don't you talk about his +infirmities in that free-and-easy way; he is no more infirm than you +are. Did I say he was? That was my joke. He always was the handsomest +man that I ever set eyes on, and he is the same still. No, my dear, I +have not married him to take care of him, but so that he may take care +of me. I'm lonely. I want somebody. I've come to the time of life when +I am of no account to the young folks--not even to Bob, who would not +give me a second thought if I was a poor woman. No, Molly dear, it is +no use your pretending; you know it as well as I do. And quite natural +too. It is the same with all of them. Nothing but money gives me +importance in their eyes. And what's money? It won't keep you warm in +the winter of your days--nothing will, except a companion that is in +the same boat. That is what I want--it may be silly, but I do--somebody +to go down into the valley of the shadow with me; and he feels the +same.' Something in Mary's face as she stared into the fire, something +in the atmosphere of the conversation, drove her into this line of +self-defence. 'Oh, there is no love-making and young nonsense in our +case--we are not quite such idiots as that comes to; it is just that we +begin to feel the cold, as it were, and are going to camp together to +keep each other warm. That's all." + +Mary remained silent. + +"Well, I must go," said Deb, jumping up, as if washing her hands of a +disappointing job. "The carriage must be there, and Bob will be +starving for his dinner. No use asking you to join us, I know. But you +must come to Redford soon, Molly--or somewhere out of this--when you +feel better and able. You shall have rooms entirely to yourself, and +needn't see anybody. I will come tomorrow, and you must let me talk to +you about it." + +Mrs Goldsworthy was stooping to sweep a sprinkle of ashes out of the +fender--she was like an old maid in her faddy tidiness--and when she +turned, her face was working as if to repress tears. Deb caught her up, +a moan bursting from her lips. + +"Oh, what a brute I am! when you--poor, poor old girl!--have to finish +it alone. But, darling, after all, you have had the good years--a child +of your own--a home; we shall get only the dregs at the bottom of the +cup. So it is not so very unfair, is it?" Then Mary's pent emotion +issued in a laugh. With her face on her sister's shoulder, she tried +herself to silence it. + +"I can't help it," she apologised. "I would if I could. Debbie, don't +go! Oh, my dear, don't think I envy you! Don't go yet! I want to tell +you something. I may never have another chance." "Of course I won't +go--I want to stay," said Deb at once. + +And she stayed. The coachman was dismissed to get his meal, and +instructed to telephone to Bob to do the same. The sisters had a little +picnic dinner by themselves, washing up their plates and dishes in the +neat kitchen, Deb insisting upon taking part in the performance, and +sat long by the fireside afterwards. Fortunately, although the season +was late spring, it was a cold day; for the clear red fire was the one +bit of brightness to charm a visitor to that poor house. It crackled +cosily, toasting their toes outstretched upon the fender-bar, melting +their mood to such glowing confidences as they had not exchanged since +Mary was in her teens. No lamps were lighted. The widow was frugal with +gas when eyes were idle; her extravagant sister loved firelight to talk +in. + +But for a while it seemed that Mary had nothing particular to +communicate. Deb did not like to put direct questions, but again and +again led the conversation in the likely direction, to find Mary +avoiding it like a shying horse. She would not talk of her husband, but +interested herself for an hour in the subject of Guthrie Carey, +Guthrie's wife, his child, his home, discussing the matter with a +calmness that made Deb forget how delicate a one it was. Then Mary had +a hundred questions to ask (probably on Bob's account) about the +Countess, of whom she had known nothing of late years, while Deb had +learned something from time to time, and could give an approximately +true tale. Quite another hour was taken up with Francie's wrongs and +wrong-doings, as to which Deb was more frank with this sister than she +would have been with Rose. + +"It is no use blinking the fact," she said straight out, "that Francie +is no better than she should be. I can't understand it; no Pennycuick +that ever I heard of took that line before. She has a dog's life with +that ruffian, no doubt; and of course the poor child never had a chance +to enjoy the right thing in the right way--though that was her own +fault--" + +"I don't think," Mary broke in, "that ANYTHING is ANYBODY'S fault." + +"That's a most dangerous heathen doctrine, my dear, but I'll admit +there's something in it. Poor Francie! she was born at a disadvantage, +with that fascinating face of hers set on the foundation of so light a +character. She was too pretty, to start with. The pretty people get so +spoiled, so filled with their own conceit, that they grow up expecting +a world made on purpose for them. They grab right and left, if the +plums don't fall into their mouths directly they open them, because it +gets to be a sort of matter of course that they should have everything, +and do exactly as they like." + +"And the plain ones--they are born at a worse disadvantage still." + +"No, they are not. Look at Rose. Francie, with her gilded wretchedness, +thinks Rosie's lot quite despicable; but I can tell you, Molly, she is +the most utterly comfortable and contented little soul on the face of +this earth. She would not change places with a queen." "But Rose is not +plain. Rose is the happy medium. And THEY are the lucky ones--the +inconspicuous people--the every-day sort--" + +"What's luck?" Deb vaguely moralised. "I suppose we make our luck. It +doesn't depend on our faces, but on ourselves." + +"Ah, no!" Mrs Goldsworthy received the well-worn platitude with a +laugh. "We don't make anything--we are made. It is just a dance of +marionettes, Debbie. Poor puppets of flesh and blood, treated as if +they were just wood and nails and glue! Who set us up to make a game of +us like this? Who DOES pull the strings, Debbie? It is a mystery to me." + +Then Deb waited for what was coming next. + +"Possibly it will be cleared up some day," she murmured, putting out +her strong, beautiful hand to touch her sister's knee. "Whether it is a +fairy tale or not, one must cherish the hope--" + +"Not I," Mary cut in swiftly--that same Mary who was once conspicuous +in her family for pious orthodoxy. "No more experiments in human +existence for me! A few years of peace and cleanness, as I am--as I now +am--I hope for that, and for nothing more; I don't want anything +more--I'd rather not. To be let alone for the rest of the time, and +then to be done with it--that sums up all the hope I have, or need." + +"Ah, my dear--" + +"No, Debbie, don't look at me with those eyes--don't pity me in that +tone of voice. I am only a heathen against my will--not so +broken-hearted as not to care what happens to me, which I believe is +what you think. I am not even sorry--I wish I was, but I can't be; in +fact, I am so happy, really, that I am going about in a sort of dream, +trying to realise it." + +"HAPPY!" + +"Perhaps 'happy' is not the word. I should say unmiserable. I am more +unmiserable than I have ever been, I think, since I was born." + +Deb's swift intelligence grasped the truth. "Ah, then she was not so +insensate as we thought!"--but made allowance for what she diagnosed as +a morbid condition of mental health. + +"Are you happier than you were at Redford--young, and loved, and with +everything nice about you--?" + +"Yes. Because then, although, of course, I did have everything, I had +no idea of the value of what I had. You can't be really happy unless +you know that you are happy. I did not know it then, but now I do." + +Deb's glance flashed round the poor room, and out of the window into +the squalid street; she thought of Bob, who almost openly despised the +mother who adored him; she calculated the loneliness, the poverty, +the--to her--ugliness of the existence which Mary's "as I am" was +intended to describe; and she groaned aloud. + +"Oh, my dear, was it really so awful as that--that the mere relief from +it can mean so much to you?" + +"I am not going to complain," said Mary. "It was not awful by anybody's +fault--certainly not by his. He did his best; he was really good to me. +It could not have happened at all, except through his being good to +me--doing what he did that night. I am not in the least bitter against +him; he was as he was made just as I am. It had to be, I suppose. The +maker of the puppets didn't care whether we belonged or not; the hand +that pulled the strings, and tangled them, jerked us into the mire +together anyhow--" "Oh, don't!" pleaded Deb. "Don't blaspheme like +that! What is religion for if not to keep us from making blunders, and +to help us to bear it when they are made--and to trust--to trust where +we cannot see--" + +Deb was unused to preaching, and broke down; but her eyes were sermons +more impressive than any of the thousands that Mary had heard. + +"Some day," said Mary, "when I get into a place where I cannot hear +religion spoken of, nor see it practised, I may learn the value of it. +I hope so. I have a chance of it now--the way is clear. I am through +the wood at last." + +Deb drew her filmy handkerchief across her eyes. + +"Yes, I know." Mary smiled at her sister's grief. "But it is only for +this once, Debbie dear. I did want to let you know--to have the delight +of not being a liar and a shuffler for once. I shall not say such +things again. I am not going to shock anybody else, for Bob's sake. +Bob, of course, must be considered; after all, it was his father. None +of us, even the freest, can be a free agent altogether; I understand +that. I shall hold my tongue. The blessed thing is that that will be +sufficient--a negative attitude, with the mouth shut; one is not driven +any longer to positive deceit, without even being able to say that you +can't help it. Oh, Debbie, you have been a free woman--why, why didn't +you keep so?--but with all your freedom, and all your money, you don't +know the meaning of such luxury as I live in now." + +Deb gazed at her sister's rapt face, glowing in the firelight, and +wondered if the brain behind it could be altogether sane. + +"To call that HAPPINESS!" she ejaculated, with sad irony and scorn. + +"If you must fix a name to it--yes," the widow considered thoughtfully. + +"After all, 'unmiserable' does not go far enough. I AM happy. For, +Debbie"--turning to look into the dark, troubled eyes--"I'm clean +now--I never thought to be again--to know anything so exquisitely +sweet, either in earth or heaven--I'm clean, body and soul, day and +night, inside and outside, at last." + +"Oh, POOR girl!" Deb moaned, with tears, when she realised what this +meant. + +"Rich," corrected Mary--"rich, dear, with just a roof and a crust of +bread." + +"Well," said Deb presently, "what about that roof and crust of bread? +Since we are telling each other everything, tell me what your resources +are. Don't say it is not my business; I know it isn't, but I shall be +wretched if you don't let me make it mine a little. How much have you?" + +"I don't know. I don't care. I haven't given money a thought. It +doesn't matter." + +"But it does matter. You can't even keep clean without a bathtub and a +bit of soap. But what am I thinking of?--of course, you will settle all +that with Bob." + +The little word of three letters brought Mrs Goldsworthy down from her +clouds at once. + +"Oh, no!" she cried quickly, almost fearfully. "On no account would I +interfere with his arrangements, his career. He would do everything +that was right and dutiful, I am sure, but I would sooner starve than +take charity from my own child. But there's no need to take it from +anybody. I have all I want." + +"How much?" + +"I couldn't tell you to a pound or two, but enough for my small wants." + +"They do seem small, indeed. Where are you going to live? Won't you +come to me, Molly? Redford is big enough, and it's morally yours as +much as mine. You should have your own rooms--all the privacy you +like--" + +"No, darling--thank you all the same. I have made my plans. I am going +to have a little cottage somewhere in the country, where there is no +dust, or smoke, or people--where I can walk on clean earth and grass, +and smell only trees and rain and the growing things. Alone? Oh, yes! +Of course, I shall see you sometimes--and my boy; but for a home--all +the home I can want or wish for now--that is my dream." + +"I don't think," said Deb, "that I ever heard human ambition--and +happiness--expressed in such terms before." It was the final result of +Mary's experiment in the business of a woman's life. + +Deb drove back to her hotel, thoughtful and sad and tired. When Rosalie +had left her for the night, she wrote to Claud by way of comforting +herself. She told him what she had been doing--described her interviews +with Rose and Mary respectively, and the impressions they had left on +her. + +"Of all the four of us," she concluded her letter, "I am the only one +who has been fortunate in love. I found my mate in the beginning, +before there was time to make mistakes--the right man, whom I could +love in the right way--and we have been kept for each other through all +these years, although for a long time we did not know it. And now we +are together--or shall be in a few days--never to part again. It is the +only love-story in the family--I don't except Rose's, because I don't +call that a love-story--which has had a happy ending." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + +Down the middle of the big T-shaped wool-shed, in two rows of six pens +each, with an aisle between them, the bleating sheep were massed. They +had been driven into that aisle and thus distributed, as a crowd of +soldiers might be packed into their pews at church, and twelve little +gates had then been shut upon them. Each gate had a corresponding one +at the opposite end of the pen, opening upon a broad lane of floor, and +facing a doorway into outside pens and the sunny paddocks of the +background. Between gate and door, on his own section of the boarded +lane, a sweating, bare-armed man with shears performed prodigies of +strength and skill. Every few minutes he snatched a heavy sheep from +the pen beside him, flung it with a round turn into a sitting posture +between his knees, and with the calm indifference to its violent +objections of the spider to those of the fly that he makes into a +parcel, sliced off its coat like a cook peeling a potato. The fleece +gently fell upon the floor, as you may see an unnoticed shawl slip from +an old lady's shoulders, and before it could realise what had happened, +the poor naked animal found itself shot through the doorway, to stagger +headlong down the sloping stage that was its returning path to freedom. +Twelve of these stalwart and strenuous operators, lining the long walls +at regular intervals, six a side, were at it with might and main +(payment by results being the rule in this department of industry), and +attendant boys strolled up and down, picking the fleeces from the floor +and carrying them to the sorter's table. One was the tar-boy, whose +business it was to dab a brushful of tar upon any scarlet patch +appearing upon a white under-coat where the shears had clipped too +close. The sorter or classer stood behind his long table, above and at +right angles to the lines of sheep-pens and shearers. Near him on +either hand were racks like narrow loose-boxes, built against the +walls; behind him the hydraulic press cranked and creaked as its +attendants fed and manipulated it, and the great bales, that others +were sewing up, weighing, and branding, were mounting high in the +transepts of the building--the two arms of the capital T. The air was +thick with woolly particles and the smell of sheep; the floor was dark +and slippery, and everything one touched humid with the impalpable +grease of the silky fleeces circulating all about the shed. Strict, +downright, dirty business was the order of the day. + +The manager--Jim Urquhart, grey-bearded, in a battered felt hat and a +slouchy old tweed suit--stood by the sorter's table, his wide-ranging, +vigilant eye suddenly fixed upon it. As each fleece was brought up, +shaken out, trimmed, tested with thumb and finger, rolled into a light +bundle, inside out, and flung into one or another of the adjacent +racks, he followed the process as if it were something new to him. The +shade of difference in the texture of the staple of one fleece as +compared with another appeared of more concern to him than the absolute +difference, which seemed to shout for notice, between Deborah Dalzell +and the other features of the scene. + +A snowy, lacy petticoat all but swept the greasy floor. An equally +spotless skirt, fresh from the laundry, gathered up in one strong +pendant hand, gleamed like light against its background of greasy +woodwork and greasy wool. The majestic figure of the lady of Redford +advanced towards him. Her lord strolled behind her. Often--but not for +many a long day--had the vision of her beautiful face come to Jim in +this fashion, a radiance upon prosaic business that it was not allowed +to interfere with; now, for the first time, his eye avoided, his heart +shrank from recognising it. + +Then he lifted his gaze at last, for she was close beside him. And what +a ray of loving old-comradeship shone on him from those star-bright +orbs of hers, undulled by the years that had lightly frosted her dark +hair. She put out her hand, and held it out until he had apologised for +his greasy paw, and given it to her warm grasp. + +"Why haven't you been to see me--to see us?" she asked him, smiling. +"Didn't you know we came home last night?" + +"I thought you might be tired--or unpacking," Jim lamely excused +himself. "But whenever it is convenient to you, Deb--Mrs Dalzell--I am +always close by; I can come at any time." + +He looked at her husband. + +"Claud, you remember Jim?" + +It was so many years since the men had met that the question was not +uncalled for. They nodded to each other, across the enormous gulf that +separated them, while Deb explained to her husband what an invaluable +manager she had. Jim had grown homelier and shabbier with his advancing +years; Claud more and more exquisitely finished, until he now stood, in +his carefully-careless costume--his short, pointed beard the same tone +of silver-grey as his flannel suit, his finely-chiselled features the +hue of old ivory--a perfect model of patrician 'form'. Only there was +plenty of vigour still manifest in the bushman's bony frame, while the +man of the world wore a valetudinarian air, leaning on the arm of his +regal, upright wife. + +"Eh, isn't it like old times!" she mused aloud, as her eyes roamed +about the shed, where every sweating worker was finding time to gaze at +her. "I see some of the old faces--there's Harry Fox--and old +David--and isn't that Keziah's grandson? I must go and speak to them." + +She left her husband at the sorter's table, that he and Jim might get +reacquainted--men never learned to know each other while women were in +the way--and it seemed to them both a long time before she came back. +Claud asked questions about the clip, and other matters of business; +and he criticised the manager's management. + +"Rather behind the times--isn't it?--for a place like Redford. I +thought all the big stations sheared by machinery now." + +"I've only been waiting for Miss--Mrs Dalzell's return to advise her to +have the machines," said Jim, scrupulous to give Deb's husband all +possible information. + +"We must have them, of course. I believe in scientific methods." + +Mr Dalzell did not ask Jim how his sisters were, and how his brothers +were getting on--did not remember that he had any. And when Deb came +back, to be gently but firmly ordered out of that dirty place by her +new lord and master, the latter failed to take, although he did not +fail to perceive, the hint of her eyes that Jim should be asked to +dinner. + +"No," said he, linking his arm in hers as they left the shed, "no +outsiders, Debbie. I want you all to myself now." + +And the words and tone were so sweet to her that she could not be sorry +for the possible hurt to Jim's feelings. She was young again today, +with her world-weary husband making love to her like this. That theory +of their having come together merely to keep each other warm on the +cold road to the grave was laughingly flung to the winds. She laid her +strong right hand on his, limp upon her arm, and expanded her deep +chest to the sunny morning air. + +"Oh, Claud! Oh, isn't it wonderful, after all these years! You remember +that night--that night in the garden? The seat is there still--we will +go and sit on it tonight--" + +"My dear, I dare not sit out after sunset, so subject as I am to +bronchitis." + +"No, no, of course not--I forgot your bronchitis. This is the time for +you to be out--and this air will soon make another man of you, dear. +Isn't it a heavenly climate? Isn't it divine, this sun? Look here, +Claud, we've got some capital horses--or we had; I'll ask Jim. What do +you say to a ride--a long, lovely bush ride, like the old rides we used +to have together?" + +Words cannot describe the pang that went through her when he shook his +head indifferently, and said he was too old for such violent exercise +now. + +"Stuff!" she cried angrily.-- + +"Besides, I haven't been on a horse for so long that I shouldn't know +how to sit him," he teased her lazily. "You wouldn't like to see me +tumble off at your hall door, before the servants, would you?" + +"Oh, Claud! And to think how you used to ride!" + +But of course she knew this was a joke, and laughed it off. + +"It's nothing but sheer indolence," said she, patting the hand on her +arm--that shapely ivory hand, with its polished filbert nails--"and I +see that my mission in life is to cure you of it. Come, we will make a +start with a real country walk." + +She began to drag him away from the bowered homestead, but he planted +his feet, and took his hand from her arm. + +"Not now, Debbie," he objected gently, but with that subtle note of +mastership that had struck so sharply into Jim's sensitiveness; "it is +mail-day, and the letters will be at the house by this time." + +"What do letters matter to us?" + +"That we can't tell until we see them." + +They went in out of the sunshine to their arm-chairs in the shade. The +English mail had arrived, and it was very interesting. Letters from +lords and ladies, piles of papers of fashionable intelligence, voices +from that world which one of the pair had already begun to hanker to be +back in, although not yet distinctly conscious of it. The bride fetched +her work-basket, and busied herself with a piece of useless embroidery, +while the bridegroom read aloud to her passages from the epistles of +his titled correspondents, and from the printed chronicles of their +doings here and there. She had dreamed of his reading again the sort of +things that he used to read, while she sewed and listened; but in the +life that he had lived and grown to there had been no room for learning +and the arts. He had dropped them, with his health and his +horsemanship, long ago. The coroneted letters and the MORNING POST +occupied them until luncheon. + +At luncheon, as at every other meal--despite the new husband's +expressed desire to have his wife to himself--his valet was present as +butler, watching over the dyspeptic's diet, and seeing that the wine +was right. Neither master nor man trusted anybody else to do this. It +was a large crumple in Deb's rose-leaf, Manton's limpet-like attachment +to Claud, who seemed unable to do anything without his servant's help, +and the latter's cool relegation of herself to the second place in the +MENAGE. It was all very well for HER to give her husband the premier +place--she did it gladly--but for Manton to take possession of Redford +as a mere appendage of his lord's was quite another matter. It was +still the honeymoon, and he might do as he liked--or rather, as Claud +liked; but it was not difficult to foresee the day when the valet who +dictated to her cook would become too much for the proud spirit of the +lady of the house, with whom it had ever been dangerous to make too +free--or to foretell what would happen then. + +Claud dozed through the afternoon--like most idle and luxurious men, he +drank a great deal of wine, which made him sleepy--and Deb took the +opportunity to go all through her house and put everything in order. +They met again at tea, and had a stroll about the garden, arm-in-arm +and happy. Dinner was a rather silent function. Deb wished for Jim, and +regretted her easy abandonment of him; Claud never talked when he was +eating--the business was too serious, and Manton was there. But while +her husband smoked over his coffee, serene and charming, she sat alone +with him, revelling in his wit and gaiety, telling herself that he was +indeed the splendid fellow she had always thought him. + +Then they went up to the big drawing-room--he was used to big +rooms--and he flung himself at full length upon one of the downy +couches, and she put silk pillows under his head. + +While she was doing it, he pulled her down to him and kissed her. + +"It's nice, isn't it?" he murmured in her ear. + +For answer, she pressed her lips to his ivory brows and his dropped +eyelids. Her big heart was too full for speech. + +"Now I am going to play to you," she whispered, and went off to the old +piano, that the tuner had prepared for this sacred purpose. + +What years it was since she had cared to touch piano keys! And never +since the love-time of her youth had she played as she did now--all the +old things that he had ever cared for, with the old passion in them.... + +And while she played--he slumbered peacefully. + + +* * * * * + + +Jim, when his day of hard work was over, went back to his manager's +house--all the home he knew--had a bath, put on clean clothes, ate +perfunctorily of roast mutton, and bread and jam, and sat down with his +pipe on the top step of his verandah, where he hugged his knees and +watched the stars come out. He was a confirmed old bachelor now, "set", +his sisters said, in his bachelor ways. None of them lived with him, to +keep his house and cheer him up. It was too dull for them (with the +mistress of Redford never there), and besides, he did not want +cheering; for himself, he preferred dullness. An old working +housekeeper "did" for him, cooking his simple meals--eggs and bacon +alternating with chops for breakfast, and mutton and bread and jam for +his tea-dinner, with a fowl for Sundays--keeping his few plain rooms +clean and his socks mended. A hundred or two a year must have covered +his household expenses; the hundreds remaining of his handsome income +went to shore up the weak-kneed of his kindred, who had the habit of +falling back on him when their funds ran out, or anything else went +wrong with them. + +He was a great reader. Books lined the walls of his otherwise meagrely +furnished rooms--they represented the one personal extravagance that he +indulged in--and newspapers and magazines came by every mail. In these +and in his thoughts he lived, when not intent upon the affairs of the +estate, which in the eyes of some appeared wholly to absorb him. +Tonight his thoughts sufficed. The latest parcel from Mullens' lay +untied, the new American periodicals with wrappers intact. Deb was home +again--that was enough food for the mind at present. + +But, oh, what a home-coming! His own and only "boss" no longer, as +heretofore, but subject to a husband who clearly meant to be his +master, and as clearly meant him to have no mistress any more. Neither +in the way of business nor in the way of sentiment could she be again +to him what she had been throughout his life--the altar of his +sacrifice, the goddess of his simple worship, his guide, his goal. He +must not hope, nor try, nor even long for her now. That one last +comfort was taken from him. + +Well!... + +He walked about, while the fiercest paroxysm racked him. As some of us +in our pain-torments rush to lotion or anodyne, he sought the soothing +of the starry night, the cool darkness that had so often brought him +peace. To get away from the faintly audible tinkling of the shearers' +banjo and their songs, he strolled in the opposite direction, and that +was towards the dark mass of the trees encircling her house--her home, +in which he had no part. Mechanically he noted a garden gate open--she +had left it so--open to the rabbits against which its section of the +miles of wire-netting fencing the grounds had been so carefully +provided, and he went forward to shut it. Being there, he had a distant +view of the big drawing-room windows, thrown up and letting out wide +streams of light across the lawn. And while he stood to gaze at them, +picturing what within he could not see, he heard the piano--Debbie +playing. + +And so she had an appreciative audience, although she did not know it. +Below her windows, out of the light, Jim--poor old Jim!--sat like a +statue, his head thrown back, his eyes uplifted, tears running down his +hairy, weather-beaten face. It was the most exquisitely miserable hour +of his life--or so he thought. He did not know what a highly favoured +mortal he really was, in that his beautiful love-story was never to be +spoiled by a happy ending. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sisters, by Ada Cambridge + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SISTERS *** + +***** This file should be named 4218.txt or 4218.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/2/1/4218/ + +Produced by Col Choat. HTML version by Al Haines. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by Col Choat colchoat@yahoo.com.au + + + + +SISTERS by Ada Cambridge + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + + +Guthrie Carey began life young. He was not a week over twenty-one when, +between two voyages, he married Lily Harrison, simply because she was a +poor, pretty, homeless little girl, who had to earn her living as a +nondescript lady-help in hard situations, and never had a holiday. He +saw her in a Sandridge boarding-house, slaving beyond her powers, and +made up his mind that she should rest. With sailor zeal and +promptitude, he got the consent of her father, who was glad to be rid +of her out of the way of a new wife; took the trembling, clinging child +to the nearest parson, and made her a pensioner on his small wages in a +tiny lodging of her own. They honeymooned for a fortnight, off and on, +as his ship could spare him--the happiest pair of mortals in the wide +world--and then parted in tears and anguish unspeakable for the best +part of a twelvemonth. + +He came back to find himself a father. Wonderful experience for +twenty-one! Never was such a heavenly mystery of a child! Never such an +angelic young mother!--eighteen, and with the bloom of that most +beautifying convalescence like a halo about her. He was first mate now, +with a master's certificate and a raised salary; it was time to make a +home. So while she nursed the baby in Sandridge--with the aid of a +devoted friend, the landlady's cousin--Guthrie Carey busied himself +across the way at Williamstown, fixing up a modest house. He also had a +devoted friend, in the person of a Customs officer, whose experienced +wife took charge of the operations. Lily was to see nothing until all +was ready for her. It was to be a "pleasant surprise". + +The last touches had been given--tea put in the caddy, meat and butter +in the safe, flowers in the vases. Mrs Hardacre, in her best gown, +spread a festive supper-table, and Bill, her spouse, stood by with a +Government launch to take the proud young husband to his wife, and to +bring them back together. + +Lily awaited him, trembling, tearful, wild with the joy of going home. +Her step-mother had come to Sandridge to see her off, and had brought +her a present of a macintosh, on the merits of which she dilated with +fervour as she twirled it round and round. + +"Buttons right down to the feet," she urged persuasively, "and cape +hanging below the waist"--the second Mrs Harrison was a big woman. +"You might go through a deluge in it. And so stylish, my dear! You can +wear it when you go out in threatening weather of an afternoon, and be +quite smart." + +"Well, it's pretty threatening now," said Guthrie uneasily. "I don't +know that it wouldn't be wiser--" + +"Oh, no, no!" Lily implored. "No trains tonight! No way but this, +Guthrie. I can't get wet--in this nice waterproof. I don't care how it +blows--the more the better--with you with me." + +"But baby?" + +"We can keep him safe. He is going to be rolled in your 'possum rug. We +can take him inside if it is cold. Oh, we MUST go by sea, Guthrie!" + +"Call this sea?" he mocked. + +It was sea to her, who had never been beyond the Heads. She expected to +concentrate in the fifteen-minutes' trip across the bay the interest of +years of travel on land. There was nothing like blue water to this +sailor's wife, whose heart had been upon it for so many anxious months; +the extravagance of her partiality was the joke of husband and friends +against her. + +"All right," said Guthrie; "come along, then!" + +He was impatient to get her away from these people, and under his own +roof. + +The second-hand macintosh was again pressed upon her. + +"Oh, thanks--thanks! But I think I won't put it on just yet, as it is +not raining. My dress is warm." + +Her dress was the wedding dress--chosen for use as well as beauty--a +delicate pink stuff, with a watered sash to match, in which she looked +like a school-girl on breaking-up day. She had a fancy to go to her +home in state, and also to make an appearance that would do her husband +credit before Mr and Mrs Hardacre. + +"Here is your fascinator, my dear," said the motherly landlady, +offering the wisely-selected substitute for Lily's hat. "Let me tie it +on for you--there!" + +The fascinator of white wool, made and adjusted properly, +accounts for its name; and Guthrie was sure that he had never seen a +lovelier picture than his darling's face in that soft frame. She was +ready now--as ready as she meant to be until the Customs launch had +seen her--and turned to pick up the large bundle that had the little +baby in the middle of it. + +"I'll carry him, Lily." + +"No, no, Mr Carey, I'm going to carry him," said the landlady's cousin, +a strapping young woman, whose arms were equal to the task--"as far as +the boat, at any rate." + +She did so, the elder ladies supporting her on either side. Guthrie and +Lily led the procession, hand in hand. + +Ah, how like another world it was, coming out upon that breezy platform +from the gutter-smelling streets! And how royal a proceeding it seemed +to Lily to be, the setting apart of a Government vessel solely and +entirely to convey her to her new abode, as if she were a little queen +going to her husband's kingdom. She could not help holding herself with +dignity, if not with a trifle of vaingloriousness, as, between +half-a-dozen eager hands and admiring eyes, she stepped down into it. + +"Now, have you got everything?" the landlady called from the pier. "Oh, +everything--everything in the world!" Guthrie shouted, in reply. + +"Where's your waterproof, Lily?" screeched the step-mother. "Better put +it on, my dear; and I'd advise you to sit under cover, both of you. +You'll be drenched if you don't, in this wind. Why, Mr Hardacre, it's +blowing a perfect gale!" + +"A bit fresh, ma'am," Bill admitted; "just enough to keep us +lively. All aboard, Mr Casey? Pass the word, sir, when you're ready." + +"Ready!" called Guthrie. And then he said something to the men, Bill +Hardacre and his mate Dugald Finlayson, about having everything on +board--all his life and happiness, or something to that effect--at +which they laughed and chaffed him as the launch backed from the pier, +and started off in the tearing hurry characteristic of Customs boats. + +Lily was in the cabin with the baby and the landlady's cousin, who had +'got round' Mr Hardacre to give her a return passage, after seeing the +little family safe home. Husband and wife had frowned at the suggestion +of having her with them on the launch, but when they had shut her in +out of sight and hearing, and found themselves free to follow their own +devices untrammelled by their child, they did not mind so much. + +"Hadn't you better--?" Guthrie began, when his wife reappeared, +clinging to the door-jamb; but she exclaimed again: + +"No, no! Let me be outside with you!" She wanted to feel "at sea" with +him, to bathe herself, under the shelter of his protection, in the +magnificent, tempestuous, inspiring night. To her, cooped up all her +life in streets and prosaic circumstances, there was something in the +present situation too poetical for words. No bride who had married +money, and was setting out by P. & O. upon her luxurious European tour, +could have been more keenly sensible of the romance of foreign travel +than she, crossing Hobson's Bay in a borrowed Customs launch; while the +squally darkness surrounding and isolating her and her mate +immeasurably enhanced the charm. "I want to see it--to feel it!" she +pleaded. "The air is so clean and fresh! The sea is so grand tonight! +How beautiful it smells! Guthrie, I must have been born for a sailor's +wife--I love it so!" + +"Of course you were," the sailor assented heartily. "No manner of doubt +about that. Well, sit here, if you prefer it, sweetheart"--on the +stern grating--"only mind you don't catch cold. And don't let us get +that pretty frock spoiled before the Williamstown folks have seen it." + +He steadied her while she stood to have the big macintosh drawn closely +about her--the round cape, flapping far and wide in the rough wind, +was like an unmanageable sail, he said--and when she was again seated, +he tucked it about her knees and feet. Buttons being hard to find and +fasten, he pulled the two fronts of the garment one over the other +across her lap, and she sat upon the outer one. Then he readjusted the +white fascinator, winding the fluffy ends round her neck, and finally +encircling all with his stalwart arm. There she sat, resting against +him, her left hand in his left hand, her contented eyes shining like +stars in the dark. They were practically alone in space, their deck +companions having thoughtfully turned their backs and made themselves +as remote as possible. + +A long sigh fluttered through Lily's parted lips from her surcharged +heart. Guthrie heard it through all the clamour of the gale--for it +really was a gale--and the noise of the screw and fiercely snorting +funnel. He stopped his face to hers. + +"Tired, pet?" + +"No," she murmured, "oh, no!" + +"What, then?" + +"Only happy--PERFECTLY happy." + +"Same here," he said, careless how he tempted Fate--"only more so." + +Their lips met, and were holding that sweetest kiss of lovers that are +man and wife, when a wave, driven by the wind, flung a shower of spray +at them, giving each a playful slap of the face as a hint not to be too +confident. + +"Hadn't you better get inside?" he urged, as he wiped her cheek. + +"It'll be rougher still directly." "Oh, no, it's splendid! The rougher +the better. I'm so glad it's rough. I can't take any harm, so well +wrapped up, and with you, my husband." + +"Ah, Lil!" The hug he gave her in acknowledgment of the word made her +gasp for breath. He was so carried away that he had to use both arms, +whereby a lurch of the boat nearly unseated him. "Never," he declared, +in an intense whisper--"never shall you come to harm, my precious one, +while you've got me to protect you; I can promise you that." + +"Dear," she returned, in the same kind of tone, "I know I never shall." + +And she cuddled closer up to him, and he took a firmer grip of her. +There was no rail for either to hold to, and drawing out from the +shelter of the pier, and meeting the force of the southerly swell, the +launch had begun to dance like a cork on boiling water. + +"Why, there's quite a sea on," remarked Guthrie, with a laugh. "I hope +it won't make you sea-sick." + +"Sea-sick!" she echoed, with fine scorn. "I am a sailor's wife, sir." + +"Bless your little heart, I've been sea-sick myself many a time, +and for not much more than this, either. However, it'll soon be over. +There's home waiting for us, Lil--" + +"Where? Where?" she interrupted him, with a tender eagerness. The +launch was tossed high in the air, and the lights of Williamstown +stretched across the darkness in front of them like a band of jewels. + +"Oh, you can't distinguish it," said Guthrie, "but it's there--it's +one of those lights; Mrs Hardacre said she was going to keep the blind +up and the gas flaring, so that we might see it as we came over." + +"That's what I shall do when you come back next time," said the girl, +with a voice like a dove cooing. "Make a beacon to guide you home." + +"No fear that I shall mistake the course, little woman." + +He had an irresistible impulse to hug her with both arms again, and +they happened to be on the verge of the river current. Hardacre and +Finlayson both shouted, "Look out, sir!" but he was not looking out-- +his sailor eyes were otherwise occupied, and so he did not perceive the +enemy of love making the spring to seize him. Just as he was folding +his mate to his breast, he heard the warning cry for'ard, and it was +then too late to avert the catastrophe. In the same instant a sudden +wave struck the launch, and nearly turned her over, and the young wife +and husband, holding to nothing but one another, and simply sitting +upon an unprotected plank, were tipped out as easily as balls from a +capsized basket. + +"Oh, this is too absurd!" + +That was Guthrie's mental ejaculation in the astonishing first +moment. A deep-sea sailor, who had come through what he had come +through, to let himself be caught unawares by such a paltry mischance +as this! Then, what an unspeakable ass to have been so careless--to +have shown himself incapable of protecting his wife, after all his +boasts! Would he ever hear the last of it as long as he lived? Poor +little woman! How cold the water felt when he thought of her tender +skin. And her pretty dress, that she had set such store by, in which +she had intended to go to church with him on Sunday--utterly +destroyed, of course! Well, he must make shift to afford her another +and smarter one, and get it made quickly. She should have her pick and +choice. As the following wave soused his uprising head, slapping him +full in the face, so as to confuse and blind him for a second or two, +the fear that she might get "a dose of it" before they could pull her +out made him sharply anxious. If she got a bad cold, a shock to her +nerves, perhaps a serious illness, he would never forgive himself. And +what a sell that would be--what waste of this precious holiday, this +second honeymoon, so much sweeter than the first--after the weary +waiting for it! + +He cleared his eyes, and had a momentary view of the surroundings +before another wave rushed upon him. Waves they were, by George! He +would not have believed it possible that such a sea would be running +right up here, in this little duck-pond of a bay. It had seemed rough +on the boat, but viewed from the surface, it might have been the middle +of Atlantic wastes. They were in the river channel--worse luck!--and +the south wind was dead on to it, bringing up the swell from outside; +and the swell, that had set that way for days, was so heavy as +to drive him back faster than his powerful limbs could propel him in +the other direction. At first the launch seemed to want to dance over +him, but when he rose on a swirl of water to take his bearings after +the first bewilderment, she was a couple of lengths away, cutting the +most extraordinary capers in her efforts to put about. Her own lights, +and those of the beacons at the river mouth, showed him all her stern +grating and bright deck fittings as she heeled over, hanging to the +side of one of those ridiculous ocean rollers out of bounds; and he +thought it no wonder that he--even he--had been tossed off under the +circumstances. The crew, who were not sitting on a skimming dish, as it +were, had their work cut out to hold on. As he looked, he measured his +drift with serious disquietude, although the preposterous idea of +anybody being drowned had not as yet occurred to him. Drowned HERE! A +good joke, indeed! Why, they were within hail of Sandridge, and +half-a-dozen ships--or they would have been, but for the noise of wind +and water, which smothered lesser sounds; and the lights of +Williamstown--amongst them that of the little home awaiting him-- +studded the shore on the other hand, near and clear, like the eyes of a +host of watching friends. And in Hobson's Bay, which could hardly cover +the body of a sunk yacht; and right up by the river, which had to be +dredged all the time to keep it open! + +But where was Lily? It scared him to find himself out of arm's reach of +her, forced back by the swell, and not to see her immediately when he +was able to look. He saw the launch--which of course was entirely +occupied in her rescue--and saw two white buoys floating, and +saw a line thrown, but nothing else, except the wild water that +buffeted him, and the moonless night overhead. And he remembered that +the river channel--indeed, Hobson's Bay in any part--was just as +dangerous as mid-Atlantic to one who could not swim. The thought +clutched him like a hand at his throat. + +"Got her?" he yelled, in a fury of terror. "Got her? See her?" + +He strained to make himself heard by the men on the launch in a way to +burst his heart. They shouted something that he could not understand, +and a line came whizzing past him. He caught it as it dropped, and soon +lessened the distance between them. Then he perceived a long boat-hook +stretching out into the darkness; it went up and down with the toss of +the boat like the fishing-rod of an impatient school-boy, and a few +yards beyond its reach, where it touched water, there was a dim smudge. +He knew it for the full cape of Lily's macintosh, outspread upon the +waves. They alternately rumpled and smoothed it, flapping it into all +shapes as they tossed and toyed with it; but, by the mercy of Heaven, +it had held her up. In the middle of the mass he could see her dear +little head hanging forward and downward, just under the surface, out +of which a larger or smaller speck of her white fascinator rose and +gleamed as each roll swung her up into the light of the boat's lamp +turned upon the spot. This told him that she was already helpless and +unconscious, although ten seconds had not elapsed since she went over. +God send that she had not struck anything--that her heart was not weak +--that she was not subject to any of the mysterious consequences +of shock peculiar to the more than ordinarily complex women! At any +rate, she had not had time to drown. He had seen a man recovered after +being under for forty minutes, and in less than one they would be +taking her full speed to Williamstown, signalling for the doctor as +they went. What would the fellows ashore make of the three whistles-- +three times there before they got across? They would know the launch +that blew them, and her present errand, and think, perhaps, that the +crew were on the spree. But no, they would have more sense than that; +they would look at the wild night, and conclude that something had +happened. So would the doctor, who would hear the summons from his bed. +What would they all say to him, Guthrie Carey, with his good seaman's +record behind him, when he brought his wife home in such a state of +dilapidation? However, all's well that ends well. Let him only have her +safely there, and he would not mind what anybody said; and he'd take +precious good care not to run any risks with her again. + +Water-logged as he was, and cramped in his overcoat, he made a violent +bound towards the floating cape, lunged twice, caught it at the second +try, and pulled it eagerly--alas! too eagerly. He felt the tug of +Lily's weight only just long enough to be sure that she was there, and +then--the fastenings gave way, and she slipped through! The empty +garment swam up to him on the edge of a new wave, which clapped it over +his face like a gigantic plaster. + +Oh, this was dreadful! She would be rescued eventually, of course-- +amongst them they would not let her drown, not if skill and +courage had any show at all--but the fact that she was in danger could +no longer be ignored. She was a little delicate thing, already +overcome, and precious time was wasting, when every second was of the +most stupendous consequence. With a frenzied gesture, Guthrie shook off +the cloak, spluttered, spat, and made a dive to intercept her as she +went down, wondering as he did so whether breath and strength would +hold out if he missed her and had to follow her to the bottom. The +swing of the swell was awful, and the darkness of the blind night too +cruel for words. + +"If only I had this cursed coat off!" he dumbly sobbed. "If only I +could get rid of these damned laced boots!" Bad words would have been +forgivable even had he not been a sailor. + +He missed her, groped desperately, to the verge of suffocation, and +came up to cough, and groan, and pump breath enough to take him down +again. It would have cost five minutes to get his clothes off, and +there was not a single second to spare--now. + +"See her?" he shrieked. + +"Ne'er a sign," Bill Hardacre shouted. "But we'll catch her when she +rises. Take a turn o' the line round you, sir, so's we can haul you in--" + +But there was not even time for that in the frightful race of these +vital moments. She was gone, and she must be found, and there was but +her husband to look for her. The two other men were few enough for the +safety of the launch as she was then situated; and besides, Hardacre +could be more useful to Lily above water than below. The neighbouring +ships lay undisturbed, putting off no boats to help. In all that +band of lights ringing the black welter of the bay, like stars out of +the Infinite, shining calmly upon an abandoned world, not one was +moving. + +Guthrie Carey gave a last look round, identified the window of what was +to have been his home, where the fire was burning brightly, the little +supper spread, good Mrs Hardacre watching for them at the door--heard +the landlady's cousin wailing, "Lil! Lil!"--and again plunged under, +arms wide and eyes staring, and heart bursting with despair. Everything +in him seemed bursting--an agonising sensation--as his overstrained +lungs collapsed, and the power of his strong limbs failed him; then +everything seemed to break away and let in the floods of Lethe with a +rush--confusion and forgetfulness and a whirl of dreams, settling to a +strange peace, an irresistible sleep, as if he had swallowed a magic +opiate. The sea took him, as a nurse takes a helpless child, and +floated him up from the place where he had been savagely groping; +something met him half-way, floating down upon him, and his arms went +round it of their own accord. But they were powerless to clasp or hold +it. It passed him, sinking gently, and lay where it sank, under all the +turmoil, as still as the rocking tide would let it. + +The launch sounded her steam whistle furiously. From both sides of the +bay it was heard, screeching through the windy night like a fiend +possessed, and men got up hastily to ask what was the matter. Another +launch put out from Williamstown, and a police boat from Sandridge, and +the anchored ships awoke and hailed them. Soon half-a-dozen boats were +tossing about the spot; they tossed for two hours, and Bill Hardacre +dived seven times with a rope round his waist, while the widowed +young husband lay on the cabin floor between two doctors, the baby and +the landlady's cousin keening over him. + +"Well," said Dugald Finlayson, as at last they headed for Williamstown +through the now lessening storm, with a bundle in tarpaulin beside +them, "it do seem as if the Powers above take a pleasure in tripping us +up when we least expect it." + +"Aye," said Bill Hardacre, sitting crying in his wet clothes, "he said +as we were starting he'd got all he wanted now. I thinks to myself at +the time, thinks I, 'That's an unlucky thing to say.'" But who is to +judge luck in this world? Poor little Lily Harrison was a helpless +creature, and had almost 'nothing in her' except vanity. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + + +Sincerely he believed, when he was on his feet again, that his life was +wrecked for ever. He did suffer from insomnia, even with his splendid +sea-seasoned constitution, for months, which proved the poignant +insistency of his grief, making thinking a disease instead of a healthy +function. He performed his duties mechanically, rigidly, like an engine +stoked from the outside. He no longer had pleasure or interest in them. +The flavour was gone from life; it had become a necessary burden, to be +borne as best he could. At one time he even questioned the right of the +Moral Law to ask him to bear it, under the circumstances. He used to +look at the blue water beneath him, and long to be beneath it, sharing +the fate of his loved and lost. He did not want to live without her-- +he wanted to die. At twenty-one! + +At twenty-three he was a man again, physically and mentally sound, +doing all reverence to the memory of his dead wife--a flawless angel +in the retrospect--while finding natural solace in the company of +living women who were also young and fair. The living women were much +in evidence from the first; nothing but the sea could keep them from +trying to comfort him. A big fellow, with a square, hard face, and a +fist to fell an ox--that was just the kind of man to call for +coddling, apart from the fact that he was a widower--had been +married for as long as five weeks altogether--with his heart in his +wife's grave, and with that pathetic adjunct, a baby. When he would +consent to recognise the world of affairs again, and the claims of +youth and manhood against it, he found--but of course there is no need +to specify all the things he found. + +One was a batch of invitations awaiting each arrival of his ship in +port--first two, then four, then half-a-dozen women's notes, begging +him to come to as many hospitable houses for change and rest, and to +"bring the baby". He could not bring the baby, for reasons which he did +not honestly present, as a rule, but which he reluctantly disclosed to +Alice Urquhart one night at Five Creeks. Alice had written one of the +six notes (they were six because it was Christmas time), for she was +the sister of Jim Urquhart, who was the friend of an ex-squatter down +on his luck through droughts, and reduced to balancing ledgers in a +Melbourne office, who was the friend of one of those doctors of +Williamstown whose skill had brought Guthrie Carey to life after he had +been drowned. Jim, having made the acquaintance of the latter, took his +sister to inspect the ship, and to have tea in the mate's cabin; hence +the return visit, which the captain, who loved his chief officer, +stretched a point to sanction. + +There were at Five Creeks station, besides Jim, a Mrs Urquhart and +several children; but Alice, the eldest of the family, was the general +manager of her household, ever struggling with her brother, who +maintained it, to lift it and herself out of the ruts in which her +father had left it stuck. She was close on thirty, sad to say, and +there were three girls below her; and nothing happened from year +to year, and she was weary of the monotony. "Do come and see us," she +wrote to Guthrie Carey--one of the finest-looking men she had ever +known, not excepting the splendid Claud Dalzell--"do come and see us, +and bring the baby. Country air will do it good, and the house is full +of nurses for it." + +He went himself, out of friendship for Jim, and after dinner sat in the +verandah with Alice, and explained why he had not brought the baby. Jim +had then gone off to doctor a sick horse, and Mrs Urquhart was putting +children to bed. + +"I believe," Alice rallied him, "that you thought it INFRA DIG." + +He protested earnestly that she was wrong. No, it was not that--not +THAT. + +Ignorant of the details of the tragedy of his life, she scented a +mystery about the child. Was it, perhaps, not right in its head, she +wondered--or afflicted with a hare lip? + +"Son or daughter?" she ventured cautiously. "A boy," said Guthrie +Carey, still with that unfatherly air of discontent. "Sometimes I wish +it was a girl. She could look after me by-and-by; I could have her +trained to be my housekeeper, and sew my buttons on--that sort of +thing, you know." + +"You would have to wait a long time," said Alice, turning admiring eyes +upon his comely person, noting with regret that he could not be within +several years of her own age. "It is quite a young infant, isn't it?" + +"Yes; that is--let me see--fifteen months and a little over. Yes, it +will be fifteen months on Thursday since he lost his mother." Time had +done so much for him that he could now speak of her to a +stranger. "And he was then only a few weeks old." + +"Poor, poor little thing!" sighed Alice Urquhart. + +It was, by the way, a particularly sympathetic night--soft, still, +solitary, with a full moon. They both felt it. Besides, he had had an +excellent dinner. Five Creeks was poor, but it lived well. + +"Oh," laughed the guest, without merriment in his laugh, "you needn't +waste pity on HIM, Miss Urquhart; he's all right. Rolls in fat--never +ailed a thing in his life--might take the prize at a baby show. So +they tell me. I have not seen him myself for a good while." + +"What! Why, he's in Melbourne, isn't he?" + +"Not far out." + +"And you haven't been home to see him?" + +"I haven't got a home. I gave it up when--you know. I knew I should +never be there, and you can't leave a house and a young child to +servants. The little time that I did try to carry on by myself, I made +a dismal mess of it. The woman I trusted to'--he meant Mrs Hardacre-- +'started feeding it with thick arrowroot. She'd have killed it to a +certainty." + +"Indeed, yes. The idea! But it is incredible what some fools of women +can do in the way of mismanaging a baby." The remark implied expert +knowledge on the speaker's part. + +"A mother of children herself, too," said Guthrie reflectively, "and +looking it, if ever a woman did. While a girl, who'd never had any, +took to the job like a duck to water--knew just what to do and how to +do it. I will say that for her." "Instinct," Miss Urquhart remarked to +the man in the moon, who seemed to survey the couple with his +tongue in his cheek. "I'm sure, though I say it, that I could give many +a mother points myself." + +"I've no doubt you could. I heard somebody say, the other day, that +mothers are born, not made. Very true, too. You see it in the little +girls nursing their dolls. I don't think anything of a she-child that +doesn't want a doll as soon as it can speak." "I always loved them," +declared Alice casually. + +He leaned forward to look at a spider's web that the silver light had +just touched, making it shine out from its background of dark leaves +and verandah post; and there was danger of rupture to the delicate +thread of the topic that was weaving so charming a conversation. +Wherefore the young lady hastened to inquire what had become of his +little son. + +"I suppose," she said, "he is with his mother's people?" + +Slowly resuming his attitude of repose, the guest considered the +question. + +"No-o--not exactly. With a friend of his mother's, not her family. +Unfortunately, she had no family to speak of--and mine is in England. +Neither of us had a soul here who really belonged to us. That was just +the difficulty." + +"It must have been a great difficulty," murmured Alice, in a feeling +tone. + +"I believe you," assented Guthrie, with emphasis. "In fact, it put me +into the most ridiculous hole, the most confounded fix--one that I +can't for the life of me see my way out of; one that--However, I +mustn't talk about it to you. It's not a thing that one ought to talk +about to anybody." + +And yet he yearned to talk about it, and now, and to this particularly +sympathetic woman, who was not young and giddy, but, like +himself, experienced in the troubles of life, such as weighed him down. +There was "something about her" that irresistibly appealed to him, and +he did not know what; but an author, who knows everything, knows +exactly what it was. It was the moonlight night. + +A few words from her, backed by the nameless influences of the hour, +unloosed his tongue. + +"You mustn't think me an unnatural parent," he said. "It's not that at +all. I'm awfully fond of him. I've got his photograph in my pocket-- +I'll show it to you when we go in--the last one for the time being. I +get a new one about every other mail, in all sorts of get-up, clothes +and no clothes; but all as fat as butter, and grinning from ear to ear +with the joy of life. You never saw such a fetching little cuss. I'd +give anything to get hold of him--if I could." + +"But surely--his own father--" + +"No. It sounds absurd to you, naturally; but that's because you don't +understand the situation." + +"I can't conceive of any situation--" + +"Of course not. It's a preposterous situation. And I just drifted into +it--I don't know how. Oh, I do know--it was for the child's own sake; +so that you really mustn't call me a heartless parent any more, Miss +Urquhart. Nobody would do that who knew what I'd suffered for him." Mr +Carey made a gesture, and sighed deeply. "Even in the beginning it +would have been difficult to get out of it, having once got in," he +continued, after a pause; "but it has been going on so long, getting +worse and worse every day and every hour, till now I'm all tangled up +like that moth in that spider's web"--pointing to a little insect +tragedy going on beside them. + +Miss Urquhart leaned forward, resting her arms on her knees, and +spreading her hands in the enchanting moonlight, which made them look +white as pearls--and made her rather worn face look as if finely +carved in ivory. It was a graceful, thoughtful, confidential pose, and +her eyes, uplifted, soft and kind, gleamed just under his eyes. + +"I'm so sorry!" she murmured. "But if I don't know what the trouble is +--oh, don't tell me if you'd rather not!--I can't help you, can I? And +I do wish I could!" + +"So do I. But I'm afraid nobody can help me. And yet, perhaps a fresh +eye--a woman's clearer insight--" He paused irresolute, then +succumbed to temptation. "Look here, Miss Urquhart, I'll just tell you +how it is, if you'll promise not to speak of it again. You are no +gossip, I know"--how did he know?--"and it will be such a blessed +relief to tell somebody. And perhaps you could advise me, after all--" + +"Let me try," she broke in encouragingly. For an instant her pearly +hand touched his sleeve. "You may trust me," she said. + +"I'm sure of it--I'm sure of it," he responded warmly. He drew his +chair closer, took a moment to collect himself, and plunged headlong. + +"You see, she was related to the people my poor wife lived with when we +were first married, and she was a lot with her--it was lonesome for +her, with me away at sea--and they got to be sort of chums. She was +with us the night I lost my poor girl--I can't talk about that now, +but some day I'll tell you--and I know she was awfully fond of her. +That was just the difficulty." + +"You are speaking," queried Alice gently, "of the person who has +the baby?" + +"Exactly. I see you begin to understand." + +"I think so," said Alice, with a smile broad enough to be visible in +moonlight. "But what was the difficulty?" + +"Well, you know, being so really fond of her, and all that--wishing to +do it for the sake of her dear friend--what could I say, especially as +those women were killing the unfortunate brat between them? She was not +so very young, and was evidently clever at managing--" + +"Yes," interposed Alice, smiling still. + +"And peculiarly situated for undertaking the job, having a good home, +and only an old mother, who let her do what she liked. And awfully set +on the baby from the first, and wanting an object in life, as she said. +But chiefly it was for Lily's sake. To see Lily's child messed about by +just anybody, and killed with arrowroot and stuff, was more than she +could stand--to tell the truth, I couldn't stand it either--and she +begged me to let her have it to look after, as there was no female +friend or relative nearer to it than she was. What COULD I do? She +lived in a nice, healthy spot, and there was the old mother with her +experience, and I was obliged to go to sea; and--and--well, I just +had to say "yes", and be thankful to say it. We got the--the doctor +found a--we engaged the sort of nurse that does everything, you know-- +a fine, strapping young woman, in the pink of condition; and--and-- +well, there it was. And at the first blush the worst of the trouble +seemed over, instead of just beginning. I gave up my house, and went +off to sea, miserable enough, as you may suppose, but at least +with an easy mind about the boy. As far as he was concerned--as far as +my poor Lily was concerned, I felt I had acted for the best. Indeed, I +don't for the life of me understand how any man could have acted +otherwise, under the circumstances." + +The listener, listening intently, here put a quiet question--"Did you +pay her?"--which caused the narrator to wince like a galled horse. + +"Ah, there you hit the weak spot, Miss Urquhart, right in the +bull's-eye," he declared, sighing furiously. "If I could have paid her, +of course there'd have been no difficulty at all. But she wouldn't be +paid." + +"You ought to have insisted on it," said Alice severely. + +"I did insist. I insisted all I knew. But she said it was a labour of +love for her friend, and seemed so hurt at the idea of money being +brought into the question, that I was ashamed to press her beyond a +certain point. She let me pay for the nurse's board, and that was all. +The baby didn't eat anything, you see, and they were comfortably off, +with lots of spare room in their house, and I just looked on it as a +sort of temporary visit--until I came back--until I should be able to +turn round a bit. But"--with another sigh--"he's there yet." + +Miss Urquhart nodded, with an air of utter wisdom. + +"Of course you went to see the child?" + +"Three times--whenever I was in port. And found him always the same-- +so beautifully cared for that, upon my soul, I never saw a baby in my +life so sweet and clean and wholesome-looking; jolly as a little +sandboy all the time, too." + +"That means that he had a perfect constitution--inherited from +you evidently--and that you were fortunate in the nurse." + +"Very fortunate. But it appeared that beyond--beyond running the +commissariat department, so to speak, she did next to nothing for him. +Miss--the lady I spoke of--did everything. Made herself a perfect +slave to him." + +"Bought his clothes?" + +"Oh," groaned the wretched man, "I suppose so. What did I know about a +baby's clothes? And she wouldn't answer my questions--said he was all +right, and didn't want for anything, as I could see with my own eyes. I +tried making presents--used to bring her curios and things--found out +her birthday, and sent her a jewel--took every chance I could see to +work off the obligation. But it was no use. She gave ME a birthday +present after I'd given her one." + +"Well, if moths will go into spiders' webs," laughed his companion, +"they must take the consequences." + +"Sometimes they get helped out," he replied. "Some beneficent, godlike +being puts out an omnipotent finger--" + +He looked at her, and she looked at him. At this moment they seemed to +have known one another intimately for years. The moon again. + +"Tell me everything," she said, "and I'll help you out." + +So then he told her that he had not "this time" visited his son. He +might have added that he had come to Five Creeks partly to avoid being +visited by him. Cowardly and weak he frankly confessed himself. "But +the thing was too confoundedly awkward--too embarrassing altogether." + +"But she writes--she writes continually. Tells me what he +weighs, and when he's got a fresh tooth, and how he crawls about the +carpet and into her bed of a morning, and imitates the cat mewing, and +drinks I don't know how many pints of new milk a day, and all that sort +of thing. I believe the rascal has the appetite of a young tiger--and +yet I can't pay for what he eats! The nurse was long ago dispensed +with, so that I've not even her board to send a cheque for, that they +might by chance make a trifle of profit out of. It seems too late now +to simply take the child away, and there leave it. I haven't the shabby +courage to do such a thing; and besides, he might come to any sort of +grief, poor little chap, in that case. There's no doubt in the world +that her taking of him and doing for him have been the salvation of his +health, and perhaps his life. And I know, by what she tells me, that he +regularly dotes on her--as so he ought--and would howl his very head +off if I took him from her. What could I do with him if I did take him? +I've no home, and nobody to look after it if I had; and hired servants +are the deuce with a lone man at their mercy. It would be worse now +than it was at first. And so'--with another heavy sigh--'you see the +situation. I'm just swallowed up, body and bones, drowned fathoms deep +in a sea of debt and obligation that I can never by any possibility +struggle out of, except--" + +"Except," continued Alice, with the candid air of a kind and sensible +sister--"except by marrying her, you mean? Yes, I see the situation. I +appreciate your point of view. I should understand it if it were not +that she unquestionably laid the trap for you deliberately--just as +that spider laid his for moths and flies. And marriage by capture has +gone out." + +"Oh, don't say that!" the man protested, in haste. "I would not +for a moment accuse her of that. She was Lily's friend; it was for her +--it was out of pure womanly compassion for the motherless child; at +any rate, in the beginning. And even now I have no right whatever to +suppose--" + +"But you know it, all the same. Every word you have said to me tells me +that you know it. You may as well be frank." + +He squirmed a little in his chair, but confessed as required. + +"Well--but it's a caddish thing to say--I think she does expect it. +And hasn't she the right to expect it? However, that's neither here nor +there. The point is that, in common honesty and manliness, I should +repay her if I can; and there's no other way--at least, I can't see +any other way. It is my fault, and not hers, that I don't take to the +notion; for a better woman never walked, nor one that would make a +better mother to the boy. But, somehow, you DO like to have your free +choice, don't you?" He had come as far as this--that he could +entertain the idea of choice, which meant a second choice. + +"It would be utterly wrong, absolutely immoral, downright wicked, to +forego it," Alice declaimed, with energy. "It would be nothing short of +criminal, Mr Carey." + +She argued the point with eloquence, even excitedly; and when she had +brought him to reason--very willing to be brought--leaned back in her +chair with a joyous air. + +"Oh, we will arrange it!" she reassured him. "There are plenty of ways. +I'll tell you"--bending forward again and gazing earnestly into eyes +from which something that had been looking out of them seemed to +have drawn back hastily--"you shall introduce me to her, and I will +bring him away up here for a visit. He ought to be in the country in +summer, and he will come with me, I know, and won't miss her after a +couple of days. I can get you a nurse cheap from some of the selectors, +and one more or less makes not the slightest difference in a house like +this; and I will take care of him for you until you come back next +voyage, or for just as long as you will trust him to me. So the +difficulty will solve itself without any fuss. Do you see?" + +Guthrie Carey felt unable to reply. He could only murmur again and +again: "You are awfully good, Miss Urquhart. 'Pon my word, you are too +good altogether." Later, he declared more firmly that he could not +think of troubling her. + +"Nonsense!" she returned lightly. "It is all settled." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + + +Decidedly he was a coward, with all his brawn and inches; for he dared +not protest straight-forwardly that all was not settled. He certainly +told himself that he did not know what to do, but he also told himself +that he would be a fool to do practically the same thing that he had +done before. He passed a sleepless night, poor fellow, cogitating the +matter; and in the morning, when the moon was gone, saw clearly himself +where the path of prudence lay. Still he lacked courage to make it +clear to Miss Urquhart, even while he saw her laying out, with +enthusiasm, that road of her own which his terrified imagination +pictured her marching along presently, bearing the baby aloft in her +arms, and dragging him on a dog-chain behind her. It was not until +mid-day that he suddenly became a brave man--about five minutes after +the arrival of Deborah Pennycuick. + +She rode over from Redford, all by herself, as her frequent custom was, +to see how Five Creeks was getting on, and to talk over plans for +Christmas. She wore a brown holland habit over the most beautifully +moulded form, and, entering the house, tossed aside a shady hat from +the most beautiful face that ever delighted eyes of man and virile +heart of three-and-twenty. It is in such plain terms that one +must describe this noble creature; words in half-tones are unworthy of +the theme. Being introduced by Alice Urquhart, Guthrie Carey, in a +sense, expanded on the spot into a fresh stage, a larger scope of +being, with his unleaping recognition of her inspiring greatness. It +seemed to him that he had never looked upon a woman before. Lily, of +course, had been an angel. "I thought I should just strike lunch," she +said, as she came like a sunbeam into the dim, low-ceiled, threadbare, +comfortable room where the meal was ready. "I'm as hungry as a hunter, +Mrs Urquhart." + +The homely old woman uttered a cry of joy, and spread her arms. The +visitor, incarnate dignity, bent to the maternal caress with willing +affection, yet with the tolerant air of good-nature that does not run +to gush. The children gathered round her, and hung upon her, undeterred +by the fact that she had no kisses or fondlings for them. Jim stood +motionless, glowing at the back of his fixed eyes. + +When the family had done greeting her, Guthrie was brought forward. + +"This is Mr Carey, Deb, who--" + +"Oh, yes, I know"--and the frank hand, large, strong and beautiful, +like every bit of her, went out to him as if she had really known him-- +"it is on Mr Carey's account that I have come, to tell you that you +must bring him over to Redford at once." + +"We were going to," said Alice; for it was the natural thing to take +every Five Creeks visitor to Redford as soon as possible. "I was +writing to you only this morning." + +"Well, we just wanted to make sure. My father--you will excuse him for +not calling on you; he is not able to get about as he used, poor +old man--hears that you belong to a family at home which was very +intimate with his family when he was young. Do you come from Norfolk?" + +"No," replied the sailor, still in his dream. + +"Oh, dear, what a pity! He will be so disappointed. We have been +hearing about the Careys of Wellwood all our lives--never were such +people, apparently--and when he heard your name, and got the idea that +you were of the clan, nothing would do but that you must be fetched at +once, to talk to him about them. Aren't you even a second cousin, or +something?" + +"My grandfather was born at Wellwood--" + +"Ah, that's right! That's all we want. That makes you a Carey of +Wellwood, of course. I hope you know the place?" "I have seen it. But +my grandfather was a younger son and a ne'er-do-weel; he was kicked out +--he quite broke off--" + +"Never mind. You needn't go into inconvenient particulars. Try and +remember all you know that's nice about the Hall and the family. Did +you ever hear of a Mary Carey? But no--she would be before your time, +of course." + +"There was an old Mary Carey; she married a Spencer. She was pointed +out to me last time I was at home--the nut-cracker type, nose and chin +together--" + +"Goodness! Keep that dark too, for mercy's sake! She is his ideal +woman. It is for her sake he wants you to talk Wellwood with. If you +spoil his pleasure with that hint of nut-crackers, I'll never forgive +you." + +"I hope I know better," Guthrie smiled, coming to himself a +little. + +"I am sure you do," said she, and turned from him to take her chair at +table. + +"Then we'll bring him tomorrow," Alice said, seating herself. + +"This afternoon," said the visitor commandingly. + +Alice wanted another moonlight talk about the baby, and knew the small +chance of getting it where Deborah Pennycuick was, and she raised +obstacles, fighting for delay. Deborah calmly turned to Jim. + +"Anything to hinder your coming this afternoon, Jim?" + +"Nothing," said Mr Urquhart promptly. + +The matter was evidently settled. + +They sat down to lunch, and the talk was brisk. It was almost confined +to the visitor and Alice, although the former carefully avoided the +shutting out of the hostess from the conversation, in which she was +incapable of taking a brilliant part. Jim, in the host's place, sat +dumb and still, except for his alertness in anticipating his guest's +little wants. Guthrie Carey, on her other hand, was equally silent. +Neither of the two men heard what she talked about for listening to the +mere notes of her charming voice. + +After luncheon she put on her sensible straw hat. + +"You must drive Mr Carey," she said to Jim. "I'll just ride ahead, and +let them know you are coming." + +"Let us all go together," said Alice. "I'll drive Mr Carey, and Jim can +escort you." + +But there was no gainsaying Deborah Pennycuick when she had expressed +her views. + +"You have to get ready," she pointed out, "and you'll do it +quicker if I'm not here. Besides, I can't wait." + +They all went out with her to the gate, where her superb, high-tempered +horse pawed the gravel, and champed upon his bit. Jim sent her +springing to the saddle from his horny palm like a bird let out of it, +and they watched in silence while she crossed two paddocks, leaped two +sets of slip-rails, and disappeared as a small dot of white +handkerchief from the sun-suffused landscape. + +"What riding!" Guthrie Carey ejaculated, under his breath. + +"She's the best horsewoman in the country," Jim Urquhart commented +slowly, after a still pause. + +He was a slow--to some people a dull and heavy--man, who talked +little, and less of Deborah Pennycuick than of any subject in the world +--his world. + +"And what a howling beauty!" the sailor added, in the same whisper of +awe. + +Again the bushman spoke, muttering deeply in his beard: "She is as good +as she is beautiful." + +Mrs Urquhart took her levelled hand from her eyes, and turned to +contribute her testimony. + +"There, Mr Carey, goes the flower of the Western District. You won't +find her match amongst the best in England. I was with her mother when +she was born--not a soul else--and put her into her first clothes, +that I helped to make; and a bonny one she was, even then, with her +black eyes, that stared up at me as much as to say: 'Who are you, I'd +like to know?' Dear, it seems like yesterday, and it's nigh twenty +years ago. All poor Sally Pennycuick's girls are good girls, and the +youngest is going to be handsome too. Rose, the third, is not at all +bad-looking; poor Mary--I don't know who she takes after. The +father was the one with the good looks; but Sally was a fine woman too. +Poor dear old Sally! I wish she was here to see that girl." + +Mrs Urquhart and Mrs Pennycuick, plain, brave, working women of the +rough old times, wives of high-born husbands, incapable of companioning +them as they companioned each other, had been great friends. On them +had devolved the drudgery of the pioneer home-making without its +romance; they had had, year in, year out, the task of 'shepherding' two +headstrong and unthrifty men, who neither owned their help nor thanked +them for it--the inglorious life-work of so many obscure women--and +had strengthened each other's hands and hearts that had had so little +other support. + +"Mrs. Pennycuick--she is not living, I presume?" Guthrie enticed the +garrulous lady to proceed. + +"Dear, no. She died when Francie was a baby," and Mrs Urquhart gave the +details of her friend's last illness in full. "Deb was just a little +trot of a thing--her father's idol; he wouldn't allow her mother to +correct her the least bit, though she was a wilful puss, with a temper +of her own; ruled the house, she did, just as she does now. If she +hadn't had such a good heart, she'd have grown up unbearable. There +never was a child in this world so spoiled. But spoiling's good for +her, she says. It's to be hoped so, for spoiling she'll have to the end +of the chapter. She's born to get the best of everything, is Debbie +Pennycuick. Fortunately, her father's rich, though not so rich as he +used to be; and when she leaves her beautiful home, it'll be to go to +another as good, or better. She's got to marry well, that girl; +she'd never get along as a poor woman, with her extravagant ways. It'd +never do"--Mrs Urquhart's voice had, subtly changed, and something in +it made the blood rise to the cheeks of the listeners "it'd never do to +put her into an ordinary bush-house, where often she couldn't get +servants for love or money, because of the dull life, and might have to +cook for station hands herself, and even do the washing at a pinch--" + +Jim wheeled round suddenly, and strode back to the house--the house, +as he was quite aware, which his mother alluded to. She, agitated by +the movement, and without completing her sentence, turned and trotted +after him. Alice was left leaning over the gate, at Guthrie Carey's +side. + +"You will enjoy this visit," she remarked calmly, ignoring the little +scene. "Redford is a beautiful place--quite one of the show-places of +the district--and they do things very well there. Mary is ostensibly +the housekeeper; she really does all the hard work, but it is Deb who +makes the house what it is. After she came home from school she got her +father to build the new part. Since then they have had much more +company than they used to have. Mary, who had been out for some years, +didn't care for gaieties. She is a dear girl--we are all awfully fond +of her--but she has a most curious complexion--quite bright red, as +if her skin had something the matter with it, although it hasn't. Of +course, that goes against her." + +"Miss Deborah's complexion is wonderful." + +"Yes. But oh, Deb isn't to be compared with Mary in anything except +looks. She is eaten up with vanity--one can't be surprised--and is +very dictatorial and overbearing; you could see that at lunch. +But Mary is so gentle, so unselfish--her father's right hand, and +everybody's stand-by." + +"I don't think Miss Deborah seemed--" + +"Because you don't know her. I do. She simply loathes children, while +Mary would mother all the orphan asylums in the world, if she could. I +always tell her that her mission in life is to run a creche--or should +be. Lawks! How she will envy me when I get that boy of yours to look +after!" + +Guthrie's feet seemed to take tight hold of the ground. "Really, Miss +Urquhart--er--I can't thank you for your goodness in--in asking him +up here--but I've been thinking--I've made up my mind that the best +thing I can do is to take him home to my own people." The idea was an +inspiration of the desperate moment. How to put it into practice he +knew not, and she tried to show him that it was impracticable; but he +stuck to it as to a life-buoy. He would write to his sister--all the +'people' he owned apparently--and find somebody who was going home; +and "Isn't it time to be putting our things together? Miss Pennycuick +told us we were to be there for tea at four o'clock, if possible." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + + +Behold him at Redford, with his tea-cup in his hand. He was safe now +from talk about the baby; but he was also cut off from the lovely +Deborah, now wandering about her extensive grounds with another young +man. Old Father Pennycuick had him fast. They sat together under a +verandah of the great house. + +"There were no pilots then," said the old man, puffing comfortably at +his pipe--"there were no pilots then, and we had to feel our way along +with the cast 'o the lead. We got ashore at Williamstown, on sailors' +backs, and walked to Melbourne. Crossed the Yarra on a punt, not far +from where Prince's Bridge now is--" + +"Yes," said Guthrie Carey. + +He seemed to be listening attentively, his strong, square face set like +a mask; but his eyes roamed here and there. + +"Bread two-and-six the small loaf," Mr Pennycuick dribbled into his +dreaming ears. "Eggs sixpence apiece. Cheap enough, too, compared with +the gold prices. But gold was not thought of for ten years after that. +I tell you, sir, those were the times--before the gold brought all the +riff-raff in." + +The sailor murmured something to the effect that he supposed they were. + +"We'd got our club, and a couple of branch banks, and a +post-office, and Governor La Trobe, and Bishop Perry, and the nicest +lot of fellows that ever came together to make a new country. We were +as happy as kings. All young men. I was barely twenty-three when I took +up Redford--named after our place at home. You know our place at home, +of course?" + +"I have seen it from the road," answered the guest, arrested in his +mental wanderings by the mention of his own age. + +"You must have seen it often, living so close." + +"I never lived close myself; I am a Londoner." + +"It's all the same--your people do. The Pennycuicks and the Careys +have been neighbours for generations." + +"I am only distantly related to that family." + +"A Carey is a Carey," persisted the old man, who had determined to have +it so from the first, and he would listen to no disclaimers. + +He had already referred darkly to that Mary Carey of the hooked nose +and pointed chin. His eldest daughter, he said, had been named after +her. This eldest daughter, with her too-ruddy face, had shyly drawn +near, and taken a chair at her father's elbow, where she sat very +quietly, busily tatting. Plain though her face was, she had beautiful +hands. Her play with thread and shuttle, just under Guthrie's eyes, +held them watchful for a time--the time during which no sign of +Deborah's white gown was to be perceived upon the landscape. + +"My brother and I, we never hit it off, somehow. So when my father died +I cleared. You don't remember his funeral, I suppose? No, no--that was +before your time. They hung the church all over with black +broadcloth of the best. That was the way in those days, and the cloth +was the parson's perquisite. The funeral hangings used to keep him in +coats and trousers. And they used to deal out long silk hat-scarves to +all the mourners--silk that would stand alone, as they say--and the +wives made mantles and aprons of them. They went down from mother to +daughter, like the best china and family spoons. That's how women took +care of their clothes when I was young. They didn't want new frocks and +fallals every week, like some folks I could name." And he pinched his +daughter's ear. + +"Talk to Deb, father," said Mary. "I have not had a new frock for a +great many weeks." + +"Aye, Deb's the one! That girl's got to marry a millionaire, or I don't +know where she'll be." + +Almost Mrs Urquhart's words! And, like hers, they pricked sharply into +the feelings of our young man. His eyes went a-roaming once more, to +discover the white gown afar off, trailing unheeded along a dusty +garden path. The old man saw it too, and his genial countenance clouded +over. + +"Well," he continued, after a thoughtful pause, "poor old Billy Dalzell +and I, we emigrated together. He had a devil of a stepfather, and no +home to speak of. We were mates at school, and we made up our minds to +start out for ourselves. You remember the Dalzells of the Grange, of +course?" + +"I can't say that I do, sir." + +"Well, they're gone now. Billy's father went the pace, and the +mortgagees sold him up; and if his mother hadn't given him a bit when +we started, Billy wouldn't have had a penny. She pawned all she +could lay her hands on for him, we found out afterwards--Billy was cut +up about that--and got ill-used by Heggarty for it when he found it +out. She was a fool, that woman. Everybody could see what Heggarty was, +except her. Old Dalzell was a gentleman, anyhow, with all his faults." + +The white dress drew nearer, and its grey tweed companion. The host was +once more wasting his story on deaf ears. "So we started off; and when +we got here we went in together. He had enough to buy a mob of cattle +and a dray and team, and so had I. We loaded up with all the +necessaries, and hired three good men, and travelled till we found +country. Took us about five months. At last we came here, and put our +pegs in, and I started off to Melbourne for the license--ten pounds, +and leave to renew at the end of the year--and here I've stuck ever +since. Billy, he took up other land, and got married, and died, poor +chap! And that's his boy over there," pointing with his pipe--"and +he'll never be the man his father was, if he lives to a hundred." + +The person referred to was he in the grey tweed, who sauntered with +such assurance at white-robed Deborah's side. He was a tall, graceful +and most distinguished-looking young fellow; but Guthrie Carey was +prepared to believe heartily the statement that Dalzell junior would +never be the man his father was. + +"You shall see the identical hut," Mr Pennycuick kindly promised. "Down +by the creek, where those big willows are--I planted them myself. Not +good enough for a dog-kennel, my daughters say; but the best thing I +can wish for them is that they may be as happy in their good +houses as I was in that old shanty--aye, in spite of many a hard time +I had there, with blacks and what not. We cut the stuff, Billy and I, +and set the whole thing up; and all our furniture was our +sleeping-bunks and a few stools and a table. We washed in a tin bowl on +a block outside the door. Not so particular about tubbing and clean +shirts in those days. Our windows were holes of a handy size for gun +barrels, and the shutters we put up o' nights were squares of bark hung +on to nails by strips of green hide. Many's the time I've woke to see +one of 'em tilted up, and a pair of eyes looking in--sometimes +friends, sometimes foes; we were ready for either. When Billy went, and +I thought I'd get married too, then I built a better house--brick this +time, and workmen from Melbourne to do it; that's it over there, now +the kitchens and store-rooms--and imported furniture--er--I am not +boring you, I hope?" + +"Oh, dear, no! I am deeply interested." + +"Well, Billy and I"--the tale seemed interminable--"Billy and I, we +gave sixty pounds apiece for our stock horses, and the same for a ton +of flour; and went right over Ballarat without knowing it. Camped +there, sir, and didn't see the gold we must actually have crunched +under our boot heels. And Billy had misfortunes, and died poor as a +rat. It was in the family. Mrs D. was all right, though. She used to +send a brother of hers to Melbourne market with her cattle, and cash +being scarce, he would sometimes have to take land deeds for them, and +she'd be wild with him for it. But what was the consequence? Those bits +of paper that she thought so worthless that it's a wonder she +took the trouble to save them, gave her city lots that turned out as +good as gold mines. She sold too soon, or she'd have made millions-- +and died of a broken heart, they say, when she found out that mistake. +Still, she left a lot more than it's good for a young fellow to start +life with. That boy has been to Cambridge, and now he loafs about the +club, pretends to be a judge of wine, gets every stitch of clothes from +London--pah!" Mr Pennycuick spat neatly and with precision over the +verandah floor into a flower-bed. "But these mother's darlings--you +know them. If Mrs Dalzell could see him now, I daresay she'd be +bursting with pride, for there's no denying that he's a smart-looking +chap. But his father would be ashamed of him." + +"Daddy dear!" Mary gently expostulated. + +"So he would. An idle, finicking scamp, that'll never do an honest +stroke of work as long as he lives. And I wish Deb wouldn't waste her +time listening to his nonsense. Isn't it about time to be getting ready +for dinner, Moll?" + +Mary looked through a window at a clock indoors, and said it was. +Guthrie hailed the news, and rose to his feet. + +But not yet did he escape. His host, hoisting himself heavily out of +his big cane chair, hollowed like a basin under his vast weight, +extended a detaining hand. + +"Come with me to my office a minute," he half whispered. "I'd like to +show you something." + +With apparent alertness, but sighing inwardly, Guthrie followed his +host to the room in the old part of the house which he called his +office. Mr Pennycuick carefully shut the door, opened a desk +full of drawers and pigeon-holes, and brought forth a bit of cardboard +with a shy air. He had never shown it to his family, and doubtless +would not have shown it now if he had not been growing old and soft and +sentimental. It was a prim and niggling little water-colour drawing of +English Redford--a flat facade, with swallows as big as condors flying +over the roofs, and dogs that could never have got through any doorway +gambolling on the lawn in front. A tiny 'Mary Carey' in one corner was +just, and only just, visible to the naked eye. + +"This was done for me, when we were both young, by her--your aunt," +said Mr Pennycuick, gloating upon his treasure over Guthrie's shoulder. + +"Not my aunt," explained Guthrie. "I don't know what relation, but a +long way farther off than that. I am only a very small Carey, you know, +sir." + +Mr Pennycuick testily intimated, as before, that to be a Carey at all +was enough for him. It was his excuse for these confidences, of which +he was half ashamed. + +While Guthrie studied the poor picture, trying to look as interested as +he was expected to be, his host turned and stared down into the drawer +that had held it for so many years. Other things were there--the usual +dead flowers, still holding together, still fusty to the nose; the +usual yellowing ball glove, the usual dance and invitation cards, and +faded letters, with their edges frayed; a book-marker with an +embroidered 'Friendship', mixed up with forget-me-nots, in coloured +silks upon perforated card, backed by a still gleaming red satin ribbon +looped at one end and fringed out at the other; the book that it +was tucked into ("The Language of Flowers"), a large valentine in a +wrapper with many broken seals, some newspaper cuttings, half a +sixpence, with a hole in it, and a daguerreotype in a leather case. + +This last he took up, opened and gazed at steadily, until his companion +was compelled to interrupt him with an inquiring eye. Then he passed it +over, and Guthrie turned it this way and that, until he caught the +outlines of a long aquiline face between bunched ringlets, and a long +bodice with a deep point, which he understood to have belonged to his +distant relative at some period before he was born. + +"And this?" he murmured politely. + +"Yes," said Mr Pennycuick; "that's her. And I've never shown it to a +soul before--not even to my wife." + +"A--a sweet expression. Fair, was she?" + +"Fair as a lily, and as pure, and as beautiful. Gentle as a dove. With +blue eyes." + +Guthrie did not care for this type just now. He liked them dark and +flashing and spirited, like Miss Deborah. But he murmured "Hm-m-m" +sympathetically. + +"The loveliest woman in England," the old man maundered on. "Surely you +must have heard of her, in the family?" + +Guthrie had not only heard of her, as we know, he had seen her; but he +shook a denying head, and dropped another hint of his own position in +the family--outside the royal enclosure, as it were. + +"Well, now, I'll just tell you what happened," said Mr Pennycuick, +turning to the open drawer again. "Strictly between ourselves, of +course--and only because you are a Carey, you understand-- +somehow you bring it all back--" + +He was fumbling with the big valentine, getting it out of its case. + +"Yes?" Guthrie encouraged him, while inwardly chafing to be gone. + +"You see this?" It was an exquisite structure of foamy paper lace, +silver doves, gauzed-winged Cupids, transfixed hearts and wreaths of +flowers, miraculously delicate. How it had kept its frail form intact +for the many years of its age was a wonder to behold. "You see this?" +said the old man. "Well, when I was a young fellow, the 14th of +February was a time, I can tell you! You fellows nowadays, you don't +know what fun is, nor how to go a-courting, nor anything. . . .I was at +old Redford that year, and she was at Wellwood, and all through the +sleet and snow I rode there after dark, tied my horse to a tree, crept +up that nut-walk--you know it?--and round by the east terrace to the +porch, and laid my valentine on the door-step, and clanged the bell, +and hid behind the yew-fence till the man came out to get it. Then I +went home. And last thing at night there was a clatter-clatter at the +door at Redford, and I dashed out to catch whoever it was--her brother +she sent--but wasn't quite smart enough. If only I'd seen him. I +should have known--as I ought to have, without that; but I didn't. It +never occurred to me that she'd send the answer so soon, and she had +disguised her writing in the address, and there was another girl--name +of Myrtle Vining--who used to have myrtle on her note-paper, and all +over the place--and here these flowers looked to me as if they were +meant for myrtle, and these two crossed arrows are like capital +V--and how I came to be such an egregious dolt, Lord only knows! Well, +I've paid for it--that I have--I've paid for it. Look here--don't +touch! I'll show you what I found out when it was too late--after +she'd played shy with me till I got angry and left her, and it was all +over--my eyes aren't good enough to see it now, but I suppose it's +there still--" + +With infinite care and the small blade of his pocket-knife, he lifted +the tiny tip of a tiny Cupid's wing. With bent head and puckered +eyelids, Guthrie peered under, and read: "Yours, M. C.," written on a +space of paper hardly larger than a pin's head. + +"In my valentine that night," said Mr Pennycuick, "I'd asked her to +have me. I didn't hide it up in this way; I knew, while I wondered that +she took no notice, that she must have seen it. This was her answer. +And I never got it, sir, till she was married to another man--and then +by the merest accident. Then I couldn't even have the satisfaction of +telling her that I'd got it, and how it was I hadn't got it before. Of +course, I wasn't going to upset her after she was married to another +man. I've had to let her think what she liked of me." + +Guthrie was certainly interested now, but not as interested as he would +have been the day before. The day before, this story would have moved +him to pour out the tale of his own untimely and irreparable loss. He +and old Mr Pennycuick would--metaphorically speaking--have mingled +their tears together. + +"You forget, off and on," said Mr Pennycuick, as he wrapped up his +treasure with shaking hands and excessive care--"perhaps for +years at a time, while you are at work and full of affairs; but it +comes back--especially when you are old and lonely, and you think how +different your life might have been. You don't know anything about +these things yet. Perhaps, when you are an old man like me, you will." + +Guthrie did know--no one better, he believed. But he did not say. +Unknown to himself, he had reached that stage which Mr Pennycuick came +to when he began courting Sally Dimsdale, who had made him such a good +and faithful (and uninteresting) wife. + +"It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all," +says the old proverb. True enough. But one might write it this way, +with even more truth: "It is better to love and lose than to love and +gain." One means by love, romantic love, of course. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + + +Dinner was over. They had all gone up to the big drawing-room, which +was the feature of the 'new part'--the third house of the series which +now made one. The new part was incongruously solid and modern, with a +storey (comprising the drawing-room and its staircase only) which +overtopped the adjacent roofs. Below it was a corresponding +dining-room, and both apartments were furnished richly in the fashion +of the time--tons of solid mahogany in the latter, and a pasture of +grass-green carpet and brocade upholsterings in the former, lit up with +gilded wall-paper and curtain-cornices as by rays of a pale sun. Curly +rosewood sofas and arm-chairs, and marbled and mirrored chiffonniers, +and the like, were in such profusion upstairs as to do away with the +air of bleakness common to a right-angled chamber of large size and +middle-class arrangement. A fine grand piano stood open in a prominent +place. Four large shaded lamps and four piano candles pleasantly +irradiated the whole; while three French windows, opening on a balcony, +still stood wide to the summer night. + +By the great white marble mantelpiece, under the great gilt-framed +pier-glass, filling the huge chair specially dedicated to his use, +Father Pennycuick sat in comfortable gossip with his old friend, +Thornycroft of Bundaboo. It irked him to separate himself from +pipe and newspaper, baggy coat and slouchy slippers, and his corpulent +frame objected to stairs; but when he had guests he considered it his +duty to toil up after them, in patent shoes and dining costume, and sit +amongst them until music or card games were on the way, when he would +retire as unobtrusively as his size and heavy footstep permitted. It +was the custom to pretend not to see or hear him go, and it would have +annoyed him exceedingly had anyone bidden him good-night. + +The pair talked shop, after the manner of old squatters when they sit +apart; but the tall, spare, grey man with the thoughtful face--more +like a soldier than a sheep-farmer--was not thinking much of his +flocks and herds. His thoughts followed the direction of his quiet +eyes, focussed upon an amber silk gown and its immediate surroundings. +Mr Thornycroft was Deborah's godfather, and at forty-seven was to all +the sisters quite an elderly man, a sort of bachelor uncle to the +family, one with no concern in such youthful pastimes as love-making +and marrying, except as a benevolent onlooker and present-giver; and so +the veiled vigilance of his regard was not noticed, as it would not +have been understood, by anybody. + +But other eyes, similarly occupied, were plainer to read. + +Jim Urquhart's, of course. Jim--as ineligible for the most coveted +post in the Western District as he well could be, by reason of the +family already depending upon him, together with the load of debt left +along with it by his deceased father, a "pal" of Mr Pennycuick's in the +gay and good old times--still contrived to bring himself within +the radius of Deborah's observation whenever occasion served. And being +there, although silent and keeping to the background, his gaze followed +her as the gaze of an opossum follows a light on a dark night, with the +same still absorption. Nothing but her returning gaze could divert it +from its mark. It was so natural, so calmly customary, so unobtrusive, +that nobody cared to attach importance to it. + +He sat now, far back against the green brocade hangings of a corner +window, where he could see the beloved profile in the middle of the +room. His big, work-roughened hands clasped his big, bony knees, and +his long, loose body hung forward out of the little chair that was +never built for such as he; and he seemed given over to Rose +Pennycuick's tale of the pony that had corns, and the cat that had been +mangled in a cruel rabbit trap. He gave her wise counsel regarding the +treatment of these poor things, his deep, drawling voice an unnoticed +instrument in the orchestra of tongues; but his crude-featured, +sunburnt face held itself steadily in the one direction. From the day +that he came to manhood his soul had kept the same attitude towards the +woman to whom the profile belonged. But he never alluded to the fact, +save in this silent way. + +Then there was the Reverend Bennet Goldsworthy, "Church of England +minister", as his style and title ran. Privately, Mr Pennycuick did not +like him; but for the sake of the priestly office, and as being a +parishioner, he gave him the freedom of the house, and much besides. +The parson's buggy never went empty away. Redford hams, vegetables, +poultry, butter and eggs, etc., kept his larder supplied. His +horse-feed was derived therefrom; also his horse; also his cow. When +his cow began to fail, he promptly mentioned the fact--he was +mentioning it now to Mary Pennycuick. "Yes," he was saying, A PROPOS of +his motherless little girl--whom he often brought to Redford for +change of air, leaving her to the care of the sisters until convenient +to him to reclaim her--"yes, it will mean much to my child in after +life to have had the refining influences of this house at the most +impressionable age." Truth was, that Ruby was growing a little old for +her Kindergarten, and he wanted Redford to offer her (gratis, of +course) a share in Francie's governess. "I could not endure to see her +grow up like the daughters of so many of my brother clergy, ignorant of +the very rudiments of decent life"--meaning not decent life in the +ordinary acceptation of the term, but the life that included evening +dress and finger-glasses. "She has caught the colonial accent already +at that horrid school. 'When is the new keeow coming?' says she. And, +by the way, that reminds me--your good father promised me the cow a +fortnight ago. The one we have gives us hardly enough milk for the +table; we have had no butter from her for months." + +"I am so sorry," grieved Mary, as if Redford had failed in its sacred +duty of hospitality. "I will tell him about it. The men have all been +so busy with the shearing." + +She was also distressed that she could not definitely invite Ruby for +the impending holidays. But Deb had issued her commands that Redford +was not to be saddled with a nurseless child at Christmas, when +everybody's hands would be full. + +Mary was Ruby's willing foster-mother when Redford had her in +charge; she was also the kindest hostess of them all to Ruby's father. +To her was left the task of entertaining him, and she never neglected +it. Naturally, he gave her no thanks. When he said that what Ruby +needed was a mother's tender care, it was at Deborah he looked, who +never turned a hair's-breadth in his direction at any time, except when +good manners obliged her, and who was not tender to Ruby, whom she +called "that brat", and had smartly spanked on several occasions. + +A beautiful woman cannot help having objectionable lovers any more than +a king can help a cat looking at him. This man--a most well-meaning, +good-hearted, useful little underbred person, typical of so large a +class in the Colonial Church--was Deb's pet aversion, and did not know +it. He was not made to see his own deficiencies as she saw them. When +first she flashed upon his dazzled vision, splendid in a scarlet dinner +gown, and carrying her regal head as if the earth belonged to her, he +really saw no reason why he, with his qualifications of comparative +youth, good looks (his sort of good looks), and notorious pulpit +eloquence, should not aspire to rush in where so many feared to tread. +His rush had been checked at the outset, but he was still unaware of +the nature of the barrier that Deb held rigid between them. He +continued to gaze at her with his ardent little black eyes as if no +barrier were there. And it was because he did so that Deb, who could +not slap him for it, slapped Ruby sometimes, and called her a brat, and +would not have her asked to Redford for the holidays; thereby giving +occasion to envious Alice Urquhart for that warning to Guthrie +Carey not to trust his baby to her. + +There was still another lover present--the favoured lover. He sat with +Alice near the piano where Francie and her governess were playing +duets, listening without listening to his companion's jerky talk-- +those pathetic attempts to attract him which so many second-rate girls +were not too proud to make obvious to his keen apprehension. Claud +Dalzell's distinction was that he was the most polished young man of +his social circle. He had had all the advantages that money could give +and in addition, was naturally refined and handsome. To hear Claud +Dalzell read poetry, or sing German folk-songs to his own graceful +accompaniment, was to make a poet of the listener; to dance with him +was pure enchantment (to another good dancer); he was the best horseman +in the land; and if his present host could not appreciate his many +charms--except perhaps the last named--others did. The whole race of +girls, more or less, fell down and worshipped him. + +He sat with Alice Urquhart because he could not sit with Deborah; or +rather, because he would not condescend to share her with that +"t'penny-ha'penny mate of a tramp cargo boat", as he styled Guthrie +Carey, whom she had made happy at last. She had rescued him from her +father's clutches; she had called him to a chair beside her, where +there was no room for a third chair. Her glistening skirt flowed over +his modest toes. Her firm, round arm, flung along the chair arm between +them, made him feel like Peter Ibbotson before the Venus of Milo--it +was so perfect a piece of human sculpture. She lay back, slowly fanning +herself, and smiling, her eyes wandering all the time in +Dalzell's neighbourhood, without actually touching him--a tall, +deep-bosomed, dark-eyed, dignified as well as beautiful young woman, +knowing herself to be such, and unspoiled by the knowledge. She wore +her crown with the air of feeling herself entitled to it; but it was an +unconscious air, without a trace of petty vanity behind it. Everything +about her was large and generous and incorruptibly wholesome, even her +undoubted high temper. And this was her charm to every man who knew her +--not less than her lovely face. + +Guthrie Carey--and who shall blame him?--basked in his good luck. But +every now and then he looked up and met the glower of Claud Dalzell +with a steely eye. These two men, each so fine of his kind, met with +the sentiments of rival stags in the mating season; the impulse to +fight 'on sight' and assure the non-survival of the unfittest came just +as naturally to them as to the less civilised animals. Each recognised +in the other not merely a personal rival, but an opposing type. + +It amused Deborah, who grasped the situation as surely as they did, to +note the bristling antipathy behind the careful politeness of their +mutual regard. If it did not bristle under her immediate eye, it +crawled. + +"Look out for the articles of virtue," Claud had warned her earlier in +the evening. "That big sailor of yours is rather like a bull in a china +shop; he nearly had the carved table over just now. He doesn't know +just how to judge distance in relation to his bulk. I'd like to know +his fighting weight. When he plants his hoof you can feel the floor +shake." + +"He IS a fine figure of a man," Deb commented, with a smile. + +"I can't," yawned Mr Dalzell casually, "stand a person who eats curry +with a knife and fork." + +"It was pretty tough, that curry. I expect he couldn't get it to pieces +with a spoon." + +"He did not try to." + +"I never noticed. I shouldn't remember to notice a little trifle like +that." + +"My dear girl, it is the little trifle that marks the man." + +"Oh!" said Deb. And then she sought Guthrie Carey, and brought him to +sit beside her. + +"That gentleman sings well," remarked Guthrie tepidly, at the +conclusion of a finely rendered song. "I often wish I could do those +ornamental things. Unfortunately, a man who has his work--if he sticks +to it properly--gets no time to qualify. I'm afraid I shall never +shine at drawing-room tricks." + +"Tell me about your work," said clever Deb, smiling behind her waving +fan. + +At once she had him quite happy, talking about himself. No effort was +necessary to draw him out; that she deigned to listen to him was +enough. His struggles as boy--blue-nose boy; his tough battle for the +first certificate; his complicated trials as second mate, holding +theoretically an authority that was practically none; his rise to be +qualified master and actual mate--no "t'penny-ha'penny" position in +his eyes evidently; his anticipation of the "master extra" and the pass +in steam, which might lead to anything--the whole tale was told her in +terse, straightforward fashion, but with an art new to the modest +sailor-man, who hated brag as much as cowardice. He bragged in +self-defence, in challenge of the formidable equipment of his rival. +And how interested she was! How well she understood his case--that it +was better than the swellest training-ship to make your own way by your +own exertions, and splendid to have done so much while still on the +right side of thirty. + +So much! He had done more than that--he had been a husband and father +at twenty-one. But this, his most distinguished exploit, was not +mentioned. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + + +He mentioned it next day, however. He had to; for after breakfast a +letter, forwarded from Five Creeks, reached him from the baby's +caretaker--the lady of whom he stood in such undignified dread. The +sight of her handwriting paled his brown face and set his stout heart +fluttering. What did she want of him? He kept the letter unopened for +some time, because he was afraid to know, although convinced beforehand +that he did know--that, of course, it was the visit he should have +paid before coming up country. When at last he drew the sheet from its +envelope, as if it had come from an infected house, and had not been +fumigated, and cast a hurried glance over the contents, he found that +the unexpected had happened once more--the wildly unexpected. + +She was going to be married. He was a "general merchant" in prosperous +business, and there was nothing to wait for--except Mr Carey's +instructions as to what was to be done with the dear little boy. She +would feel acutely the parting from him, after he had been from his +birth like a child of her own, but Mr Carey would understand that she +could not now continue her labour of love on his behalf--that she had +others to consider. But she knew of a most excellent substitute--a +dear friend of her own, who had long taken the deepest interest +in darling Harry, and with whom she was sure he would be as safe and +happy as with herself. She had expected to see Mr Carey when he +arrived, to arrange matters; she hoped he would come as soon as +possible. + +In the bewilderment of his mingled elation and anxieties, the young +father did not know what to do for the moment, while recognising the +urgent need for action. He must go as soon as possible, of course; but +he could not depart suddenly without a reason, and to give the reason +would be to give himself away to Alice Urquhart. Besides, a day's +outing had been planned on purpose for him; the possibilities in +connection with it were enormous; and five days of his leave were +unexpended still. He must think it over. He must have advice. So, as a +first instalment of duty, he scrawled a recklessly affectionate letter, +full of gratitude to her who had been his good genius and the guardian +angel of his boy. He did not disguise his envy of the general merchant, +whose vows of love could not have excelled in fervent expression the +good wishes of the writer for the happiness of the betrothed pair. He +hoped to have the pleasure of seeing his dear old friend on the +following day, or the day after that at latest; and he promised himself +the satisfaction of squandering his saved pay on such a wedding present +as would at least cover the cost of the bread and milk the boy had +devoured at her expense. Guthrie dropped his letter in the post-bag +while they were calling to him that it was time to start. And he turned +the key of silence upon his secret until he could pour it into the +right ear. + +It was a wonder he did not pour it into Mary's, for she drove +him to Bundaboo, and nobody could have been more sympathetic than she. +She was the virtual mother of the family, who loved children, and she +was not--she could not be--a husband-hunter; a sensible man in +domestic difficulties could not have sought a wiser confidante. Yet he +resisted stubbornly all her gentle invitations to confide. In the first +place, he did not want to go with her in the pony-carriage, while Deb +and Dalzell rode. He did not like to see it taken for granted, as it +seemed to be by all, that a sailor on horseback must necessarily make a +fool of himself; the slight to his self-respect was enough to dull the +edge of his joy in the general merchant's proceedings--for, as the +reader will remember, he was still but three-and-twenty. + +He had to weigh down the springs of a little basket thing no better +than an invalid's wheel-chair, and see the young exquisite, whom he +could have tossed over his shoulder with one hand, show off feats of +fancy horsemanship to make Deb's dark eyes kindle. Mr Pennycuick had +carelessly asked Billy's degenerate son to "school a bit" a creature +which for weeks had not allowed a man upon his back, and had had no +exercise beyond his voluntary scamperings about the paddock from which +he had been brought, dancing with excitement and indignation. All the +stablemen had been required to get his bridle and saddle on; he now +wheeled round and round in the large space left for him, while Claud +Dalzell, in his London riding clothes, and with his air of a reigning +prince, warily turned with him. Guthrie Carey, in the waiting +pony-carriage, had but one interest in the performance--his hopeful +anticipation of a fatal, or at least a ridiculous, result. + +But there was no fear of that, and evidently Deb knew it. +Sitting her own dancing chestnut, how her beautiful eyes glowed! She +gloried in the ring of breathless witnesses to the prowess of her +knight. Many a time did she scoff and scowl at the dandyisms which she +deemed effeminate; this was one of the moments which showed the man as +she desired him. Through those fine fingers, with the polished filbert +nails, the shortened reins were drawn and held as by clamps of steel; +so was the wild-eyed head by the lock of mane in the same hand. When no +one was looking--although every eye believed itself fixed upon him-- +his left foot found its stirrup, his right gave a hop, and like +lightning he had sprung up and round, without touching the horse until +fairly down in the saddle; so that the animal was robbed of his best +chance of getting the rider off, which is at the moment before he is +quite on. No other chance was offered to the baffled one, although he +kicked like a demon for nearly ten minutes. + +"I wish," Guthrie Carey ground through his strong teeth, "that the +cranky beast would break his neck." It was not the beast's neck he +meant. + +But Deb called: "Bravo! Well done, indeed!" and when the battle was +over called the victor to her with her lovely face of pride and joy. +Right willingly he went, and they sailed away together like the wind, +and were lost to view. Yes, this was Dalzell's hour. She knew nothing +of the brave deeds of sailor-men--common and constant as eating and +drinking, and performed to no audience and for no reward. + +Alice Urquhart and Rose Pennycuick, also on horseback, followed the +flying pair; then a buggy containing Jim and schoolgirl Francie +(her governess gone home for holidays today), and a load of ironwork +for a blacksmith on the route; last of all, Mary and the sailor, for +all the world like the old father and mother of the party. Mr +Pennycuick excused himself from excursions nowadays, and so did Miss +Keene, the elderly and quite uninfluential duenna of the house, when +one was needed (she "did the flowers" and knitted singlets for +everybody). + +The Shetlands pattered along at a great rate, but did not come up with +the riders until they were nearly at Bundaboo. And all the way--a long +way--Guthrie Carey had to make efforts not to bore his hostess. They +talked about the clear air and the dun-coloured land--the richest +sheep-country in the colony, but now without a blade of green upon it-- +and made comments upon three bullock drays piled with wool bales, and +two camping sundowners, and one Chinaman hawker's cart, which they +encountered on the way. And that was about all. + +The home-coming was a different affair. + +Tea had been served in Mr Thornycroft's cool drawing-room, hats and +gloves had been collected, orders sent to the stables; and the young +sailor, panting to emulate the prowess of his rival, and thereby compel +Miss Deborah to respect him, was asking one and another what were the +arrangements for the return journey. + +"I," said Rose, who hugged a puppy in her arms--a puppy long +possessed, but only now old enough to leave its mother--"I am going in +the buggy with Jim." + +"Wouldn't you rather go in the pony-carriage?" inquired Carey +anxiously. "You could make a better lap on the lower seat. I +could ride your horse home for you if they'll lend me a saddle; yours +could be put in the buggy--" + +Even as he spoke, Deb came round the corner from somewhere, with swift +steps and a brilliant complexion, Dalzell hurrying after her. + +"Mr Carey," she called, while the sailor was still yards away from her, +"Molly and I are going to change skirts. I am tired with my ride this +morning, and am going to drive home. Will you trust your neck to me?" + +Would he not, indeed? He was but a pawn in the game, but what did that +matter? Eighteen miles absolutely alone with her! And possibly half of +them in the dark! No saddle horse in the world could have tempted him +now. He could hardly speak his gratitude and joy. + +"Delighted, Miss Deborah!--delighted!--delighted!" + +But Dalzell, black as thunder, swung aside, muttering in his teeth. + +"Oh, oh!" Francie's loud whisper followed. "DID you hear what he said? +He said 'damn'. That's because--" + +"You cut along," Jim's drawl broke in, "and get ready if you want to +ride." + +Mr Thornycroft tucked Deb into the pony-carriage with the solicitude of +a mother fixing up a young baby going out with its nurse. He insisted +that she should wear a shawl over her linen jacket, and brought forth +an armful of softest WOOL, Indian wove. + +"Where did you get this?" she asked, fondling it, for she loved fine +fabrics. + +"Never mind," said he. "Put it on." + +"I am suspicious of these shawls and fallals that Bundaboo seems +full of. Who is the hidden lady?" + +He only smiled at her. + +"Ah, godpapa, you spoil me!" + +She drew the wrap about her, and he assisted to adjust it, with gentle +skill. Then he turned abruptly to Carey, as to a groom. + +"See that she doesn't throw that off. It will be chilly presently. No, +she'd better drive--she knows the road. But take care of her. +Good-night." + +"Isn't he an old dear?" said Deb to Carey, as they drove off. "He has +been a second father to me ever since I was a child." + +She did not hurry the ponies, being anxious not to appear to be tearing +after her offended swain. + +"The evening is the pleasantest time to be out, this weather," she +said, lolling back in her seat. "And I'm sure I don't want to look at +dinner after such a lunch as I have eaten. I don't know how you feel." + +"I feel the same," he assured her, with truth. + +So, for her own purposes, she made their drive half as long again as it +need have been. And was so friendly, so free, so intimate!--leading +that poor innocent to the belief that his great rival was already +virtually out of his way. He was an unsophisticated sailor-lad, who, +with that rival's help, had reached a certain stage and crisis-- +another one--of his man's life; and--let us be honest in our +diagnosis--the bubbles of Mr Thornycroft's fine champagne still ran in +his blood and brightened his brain, lifting him above the prosaic +ground-level where a craven timidity would have smothered him. Not +touching the balance of his wits, be it understood; just +heartening him--no more. + +Twice and thrice she branched off from the road to show him something +that could well have waited for another day. She was imprudent enough +to introduce him to so sentimental a spot as the family cemetery-- +established at a time when there were only Dalzells and Pennycuicks to +feed it. "Their shepherds were killed by the blacks," said Deb, as she +pushed the ponies up to the wall, and he rose in the carriage to look +over the top, "and they buried them here, marking the place with a pile +of stones. There were other deaths, and they enclosed the piece of +land. Then a brother of Mr Dalzell's, and a girl; and Mr Dalzell +himself wished to be put here, beside his brother. Not his wife, she +wouldn't; she lies in the Melbourne cemetery. Then some of our babies, +then mother. She was the last. I don't suppose there will be any more +now. The State will insist on taking charge of us." + +Real English churchyard elms crowded about the wall and blightingly +overshadowed the lonely group of graves. English ivy, instead of neatly +clothing the wall, as it had been meant to do, straggled wildly over +the part of the enclosure which had once been a garden around them. Out +of it, like sea-stripped wrecks, dead sticks of rose-bushes poked up, +and ragged things that had gone to seed. The turf was parched away, +like the grass of the surrounding paddocks; the mounds were cracked; +the head-stones--several of them ornate and costly--stained with the +drip from the trees and birds, and some distinctly out of the +perpendicular. + +"It ought not to look like this," Deb apologised for it. "It +ought to have been seen to. We used to come often, and bring water from +the dam. But one forgets as time goes on; one doesn't think--or care. +Poor dead people! How out of it they are! And we shall be the same some +day--neglected and abandoned, just like this." + +"DON'T!" muttered Guthrie Carey, shivering. The ghost of his sweet Lily +seemed to reproach him with Deb's voice. But the ghost-woman fifteen +months old had no chance with the glowing live woman born into his life +but yesterday; and no blame to him either, and no wrong to the dead, if +one can look at the thing dispassionately and with an unbiased mind. + +"Let us go and see the dam," Deb cheered him, as she turned the ponies' +heads. "You haven't seen our big dam, have you? Everybody that comes to +Redford must see that, or father will want to know the reason why. +'Pennycuick's Folly' some people call it, because he spent so much +money on it; but father is not one to spoil the ship for a pen'orth of +paint. He likes to do things thoroughly. So do I." + +And soon they halted on the embankment of a mile-wide sheet of water, +shining like a mirror in a setting of soft-bosomed hills, their dun day +colour changed to a heavenly rose-purple under the poetic evening sky. + +"Why, it is a lake," said Guthrie Carey. "You could hold regattas on +it." "We do, now and then, with our little boats. We have three over +there"--pointing with her whip to a white shed on the farther shore. +"And swimming matches. We used sometimes, when we were younger, to come +down on hot nights and be mermaids. Once we moored ourselves out +in the middle, away from the mosquitoes, and slept in the bottom of the +boat, under the stars." + +"How charming!" + +"It was holiday time, and our parents were away. We took cushions and +things, and it was great fun; but Keziah reported us, and we were never +allowed to do it again." + +They sat in the pony-carriage on the dam embankment, gazing silently. A +flock of wildfowl had been scared away by their approach, and now not a +wing, not an eye was near. At a great distance curlews wailed, only to +make the stillness and solitude more exquisite, more profound. The +purple of the hills grew deeper and softer, the lake a mere pulseless +shimmer through the twilight haze. And then, last touch of magic, the +moon swam up--the same moon that had transfigured Five Creeks garden +and Alice Urquhart last night. + +He poured out his soul to Deborah Pennycuick. + +First, it was only the story of the baby--the story he had told Alice, +with some omissions and additions. He took advantage of the opportunity +to ask Deb's invaluable advice. + +Deb, well aware of the influence of a summer night and certain +accessories, tried her best to be practical. She asked straight +questions about the baby. + +"Where have you got him? Where does this friend live who has been +recommended to you?" + +"In Sandridge--all at Sandridge--" + +"That dirty, low part! That's no place to rear a boy in. Bring him into +the bush, to clean air, if you want to make a man of him. I know a +dear, nice woman--she is our overseer's wife--who has no +children, and is dying to get hold of one somehow or other. We might +make some arrangement with her, I am sure; and, if so, the little +fellow would be in clover. We'd all look after him, of course, while +you were at sea--" + +"Oh! oh! oh!" The young father's heart simply exhaled itself in +gratitude too vast for words. Ah! there was no hanging back now! Not +the baby only, but the dog-chain, was laid at Deborah's feet. + +"You go and fetch him tomorrow," said she, "and I'll talk to Mrs Kelsey +while you are away. Then I'll meet you at the station on your return, +to help you with him, and tell you what Mrs Kelsey says--though I have +no doubt of what it will be. But we'll keep him at Redford for a bit, +till he gets used to everybody; and you must stay with him all you can +until your ship sails. . . ." + +His eyes were full of tears. He laid his hand on her shawl again. He +leaned to her. It was no use--the moon and his feelings were too much +for him. They were talking of the baby, and the word "love" had not +been, and was not going to be, mentioned; but there the thing was, +unmistakable to her keen intelligence, looming like a frontier +custom-house on the road ahead. + +She grasped his big, trembling hand, and with it held him back, meeting +his adoring gaze with steady eyes and mouth. + +"My dear boy, don't--don't! Don't spoil this nice evening--" + +It was all that was necessary. And still so kind, so gentle with him! +No scorn, no offended dignity, no displeasure even. She, who could +punish insolence with anybody, was never hard upon the humble +admirer--only too soft, in fact, with all her basic firmness, and +incapable of the hard-hearted coquetry that so commonly makes beauty +vile. "Face of waxen angel, with paw of desert beast"--that was not +Deborah Pennycuick. + +A sob broke from him. + +"I am a damned fool!" he muttered savagely, and by a violent effort +collected himself. "I beg your pardon." + +"That's all right," she said, turning the ponies from the embankment +and whipping them to a gallop. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + + +There was a moon the next night also. It did not appreciably affect him +this time--down in dirty Sandridge, hobnobbing with the baby's +caretaker and the general merchant, who, shutting his shop at six, was +free to make the sailor's acquaintance, and help him to spend a +pleasant evening. But it turned Redford garden, with its fine old trees +and lawns, into the usual bit of fairyland for those who strayed +therein. + +Redford was packed with Christmas guests. The waggonette that had taken +Guthrie Carey to the train had returned full of them, and batches had +been arriving at intervals through the day. At bed-time the sisters +were sharing rooms; Rose had come to Deb's, Frances to Mary's; and the +unmarried men were all at the bachelors' quarters. + +It was a hot night, and Deb, under the circumstances, was disinclined +for sleep. She paid visits to one guest chamber and another, for +private gossips and good-nights; when she returned to her own, where +placid Rose had long composed herself, she roamed the floor like a +caged animal. + +"It is no use my coming to bed yet," she addressed her sister. "I could +not sleep. I should only kick about and disturb you. I'll sit down and +read a bit." + +She found a novel and an easy-chair, and made deliberate efforts +to tranquillise herself. Soon Rose heard sighs and phews, and sudden +rustlings and slappings, and then the bang of a book upon the floor. + +"I can't read! and the light brings the mosquitoes. It's too hot in +here. I'm going out to get cool, Rosie." + +"A'right," mumbled drowsy Rose. And the light was extinguished, and the +blind of the French window rattled up. + +Deb flung both leaves wide--like all the Redford doors, they were +never locked or barred--and drifting over the verandah, sat down on +the edge of it, with her feet on the gravel. She had tossed off her +pearl necklace and a breast-knot of wilted roses; otherwise, she sat in +full evening dress, and the night air bathed her bare neck and arms. +Also the mosquitoes found them--a delicious morsel!--so that she had +to turn her lacy skirt up over her head to be quite comfortable. From +under this hood the dark lamps of her eyes shone forth, gazing steadily +into the dim world--into the bit of future that she thought she saw +unveiled. The loom of the trees, the glimmer of flowering bushes, the +open spaces of lawn and pallid pathways, the translucent blue-green +sky, the rising moon--these things made the picture, but were to all +intents invisible to the inward sight. She really saw nothing, until +suddenly a pin-point spark appeared out of the shadows, moved along a +hedge of laurels, and fixed itself in the neighbourhood of a distant +garden-seat. Then at once she stiffened like a cat that has heard a +mouse squeak or a bird's wing rustle; she was alert on the +instant, concentrated upon the phenomenon. Instinct recognised the tip +of a cigar which had the handsome face of Claud Dalzell behind it. + +"What is he doing out of doors at this time of night?" she wondered; +and the little star began to draw her like a magnet. The world becomes +another world in these mystic hours; it has new rulers and new laws-- +or rather, it has none. The moon sways more than ocean tides. In broad +day Deb would no more have stalked a man than she would a crocodile; in +this soft, free, empty, irresponsible night the primal woman was out of +her husk, one with the desert-prowling animal that calls through the +moonlit silence for its mate. Twenty times had she snubbed an ardent +lover at the behest of all sorts of reasons and so-called instincts +cultivated for her guidance by generations of wise men, now, all in a +moment, came this moon-born impulse to give herself to him unasked. She +could not resist it. + +Like Deb, Claud had not been inclined to sleep, and for much the same +reason. The guest chamber usually allotted to him being needed for a +lady, he had been sent to the bachelors' quarters--a barrack-like +dormitory amongst the outbuildings, very useful for the accommodation +of the occasional 'vet' or cattle-buyer, and to take the overflow of +company on festive occasions. Jim Urquhart, when at Redford, always +slept there; he preferred it, particularly when he had companions with +whom to smoke and talk sheep, and perhaps play cards, at liberty; for +the bachelors' quarters had its own wood-stack and supplies, and one +could sit by a blazing hearth all night, if so disposed, without +incommoding anybody. + +Generally four bachelor beds were made up, and a screened end of +the room stacked with the material for twice as many more. At Christmas +all were in use, and lined the two long walls--which Dalzell called +"herding", and disliked extremely, while recognising that it was a +necessary arrangement to which it was his duty to conform. + +The herd was undressing itself in a miscellaneous manner--yawning, +chaffing, cutting stupid jokes, some of them at his expense; until the +process was at an end, and he could reasonably assume the fellows to be +asleep, he preferred the gardens to the bachelors' quarters. + +And the free night enfolded him--the rising moon uplifted him--in the +usual way, he being, like Deb, like Guthrie Carey, an instrument fitted +to respond to their mute appeals. Perhaps even more finely fitted than +Guthrie or Deb; for he had what are called "gifts" of intellect and +imagination transcending theirs--faculties of mind which, lacking +worthy use, bred in him a sort of chronic melancholy, the poetic +discontent of the unappreciated and misunderstood--a mood to which +moonlight ministers as wine to the drinking fever, at once an exquisite +exasperation and a divine appeasement. He was a poet, a painter, a +musician--possibly a soldier, or a king--possibly anything--spoiled, +blighted by that misnamed good fortune which the lucky workers who had +to work so naturally and stupidly envied him. The proper stimulus to +the worthy development of the manhood latent in him had been taken from +him at the start. And now he wandered amongst his dilettantisms, +dissatisfied and ineffectual. He lived beneath himself in his common +intercourse with others; he ate his heart when he was alone. + +Unconsciously, by force of habit, he selected the most +comfortable and cleanly of the garden-seats, and made sure that the +best of cigars was drawing perfectly, before he gave himself to his +meditations on this particular moonlight night. Then he began to think +of Deb--in the same new way that Carey had begun to think of her after +discovering a dangerous rival in the field. To Claud, Guthrie was +dangerous in his rude bulk and strength, the knitted brute power that +the sea and his hard life had given him; to Guthrie, Claud was +dangerous in the highbred beauty and finish of his person, clothes and +manners, and in the astounding "cleverness" that he displayed. Each man +feared the force of those qualities which he lacked himself, and was +secretly ashamed of lacking. + +Claud Dalzell considered this matter of the rival--not a probable but +a possible rival--seriously, for the first time. Hitherto he had had +an easy mind in his relations with the beauty of the countryside. She +was his for all he wanted of her. And feeling this, he had taken no +steps to register his claim; he had not even yet proposed to her. +Matrimony was not a fashionable institution--it was, indeed, a jest-- +in his set. A young man with a heap of money was not expected to tie +himself down as if he were a poor clerk on a hundred a year. The +conditions of club life, with as many domestic hearths to visit as he +wished, and to stay away from when he chose, the luxury and freedom of +pampered bachelorhood, had not only been deemed appropriate, but +necessary to his peculiar needs and organisation. He had not considered +himself a marrying man. But now the new idea came to him--to make his +rights in Deb secure. + +Certainly he could not contemplate the possibility of doing +without her. He had loved her that much for years. Within the last day +or two he had loved her twice that much. And now the moonlight showed +him his love enthroned above all his lesser loves--a thing of heaven, +where they were of the earth--consecrated a great passion, to lift him +out of himself. He sat and smoked, spiritually bemused, his brain +running like a fountain with melodies of music and poetry, notes and +words that sang in his ears and murmured on his lips without his +hearing them. So a distant curlew thrilled him to a more ecstatic +melancholy with its call through the moon-transfigured world, and he +did not notice it. All the influences of the gentle night contributed +to his inspired mood, but Love was the first violin in that orchestra +under Nature's conductorship--Nature, whose hour it was, walking, a +god, in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day. + +And here came Deb, gliding towards him by a path that he could not see, +holding her lace skirts tightly bunched in her nervous hands. Youth to +youth, beauty to beauty, man to woman, woman to man, the magnet to the +steel--they were just elements of the elements, for once in their +lives. + +"How fortunate that I put on black tonight," thought Deb, as she +pursued her stealthy way at the back of bushes--"and something that +does not rustle!" + +"How beautiful she was tonight!" thought Claud. "How a dark dress +throws up that superb neck of hers! I'll take her to Europe, and show +her to the sculptors and painters; but where's the hand that could +carve that shape, or the paint that could give her colour? I'll +have a London season with her, and see her snuff out the milk-and-water +debutantes. No milk-and-water about Deb--wine and fire!--and withal +so proud and unapproachable. That hulking brute imagines--but he'll +find his mistake if he attempts to cross the line. Beauty, passion, +purity--what a blend! She's a woman alone--the blue rose of women-- +and she is mine." He murmured, to some cadence of a Schubert serenade: +"My Deb! My love! My love! My queen!" and suddenly stopped short in his +musings. + +Her foot crunched the gravel behind him. Without turning his head, he +sat alertly motionless for several minutes, listening, holding his +breath. Then he dropped his cigar gently. + +"Fine night, Deb," he remarked aloud. + +There was no immediate answer, but presently a low chuckle from the +laurel bushes. + +"How did you know it was me?" she asked, imitating his casual tone. + +"Couldn't explain, I'm sure. It was borne in on me, somehow." + +"You did not see me." + +"I don't want to see, in your case. I feel you." + +There was another brief silence, and then she rustled off a step or +two. + +"Well, good-night! I just came out to look for a book I left here +somewhere." + +"What book?" "It doesn't matter. It is too late to read tonight, +anyhow." + +"It spoils books to leave them out all night. I will help you to find +it." He got up, and pretended to look about. "It is not on this seat--" + +"Perhaps Miss Keene has taken it in. She is always after me to +pick up my litters. It won't rain, anyway, so it doesn't matter." + +"No, it won't rain tonight. Awfully nice night, isn't it? I came over +here to get a quiet smoke and let those fellows subside a bit. I could +not stand their noise, and the place is stifling." + +"I'm afraid so. I'm so sorry we have to put you there; but you know--" + +"Oh, of course! I don't mind a bit. It is hot indoors, wherever you +are. If it were not for the mosquitoes, it would be nice to sleep in +hammocks under the trees this weather." "I have often thought so. I +can't breathe shut up. Rose is in my room tonight, and she seems like a +whole crowd. I had to come out to cool myself." "And to get your book. +What book was it?" "The--er--Clough's poems." "How many copies have +you?--because one of them has been in my pocket for two days." + +"Well, I don't want it. Good-night!" + +She put out her hand. He took it and held it. The moonlight now was +very bright, but not bright enough to reveal his smile or her blush. +However, neither could be hidden from the second sight of love. "Don't +go yet, Debbie. I never get a word with you these days, you are so +taken up with all sorts of people. And you haven't had time to get cool +yet. I know you haven't--by the feel of your hand." + +She tried to withdraw it, but did not try very hard. + +"My dear boy," she trembled, "do you know what time it is? It must be +simply ALL hours." + +"What does that matter? We are not keeping anybody up." "And +there's tomorrow to be considered. Christmas Eve is always such a busy, +tiring--" + +"Sufficient for the day. Let us take things as we can get them. +Besides, you will sleep all the better for it. Five minutes more or +less--" + +He pulled gently but firmly at the imprisoned hand. "Well, just five +minutes--although it's really--" + +She was drawn down to the bench beside him, and the man in the moon, as +he looked into their shining, happy eyes, seemed to wink knowingly. + +"Oh, Debbie, isn't it a heavenly night? Oh, Debbie!" His arms went +round her, and she simply melted into them. "Oh, my love!..." + +Five minutes! It ran to an hour and a half before she scudded across +the lawn to bed. + +And it was Mary, the busy housekeeper, who, on her busiest day, drove +to the station to meet Guthrie Carey and the baby, and the baby's cheap +and temporary child-nurse. + +Mary, though she was not Deb, was too sweet and good for words. She put +the little hired girl on the front seat with the groom, and sat in the +body of the waggonette to talk to Guthrie and to take care of his +child. There was no awkward shyness on her part now, and no boredom on +his. Little Harry fused them. She had remembered to bring fresh milk +and rusks for a possibly hungry baby, and he sat on her lap as she fed +him, and cooed to her when his mouth was not too full, and seemed to +forget that any other foster-mother had ever existed. His father's +relieved and astonished pleasure in the sight was only equalled by +Mary's pleasure in seeing his pleasure. "Isn't he a jolly little +cuss, Miss Pennycuick?" "He is a perfect darling," crooned Mary, +kissing him. + +And, in fact, Harry Carey was a fine, clean, wholesome child, as worthy +of his old family as any born under the ancestral roof. + +Mary shouldered him as if he belonged to her when they arrived at +Redford, shortly before the dinner hour. + +"Now, Mr Carey, you must go to the bachelors' quarters, I am sorry to +say; but he will not miss you, since you have been away from him for so +long. He knows me now," said Mary proudly, "and I will take charge of +him. You may safely leave him to us now." + +"Indeed, yes, I know that," said the thankful parent, and hastened to +his new quarters to receive the greetings and chaffings of the young +bachelors, and to dress himself for dinner, while Mary carried the baby +into the house, calling on Keziah Moon to come to her, the inadequate +nurse-girl trailing at her heels. + +The house party gathered in the glazed corridor of the "middle part"-- +a long, narrow room, that had once been a verandah, and that led to the +new big dining-room--to await the summons to the meal. Here Deb, +beautiful in limp white silk that showed up the lovely carmine of her +cheeks, came forward to welcome the returned guest with an eager warmth +that sadly misled him. He sat down to his dinner a few minutes later +with his head in a whirl and his appetite nowhere, as an effect of that +cordial pressure of the hand, those tender eyes, and that deep-hued +blush upon him. + +Then, as he came to himself, there crept into his mind a sense +that things had been happening while he was away. All the eyes around +the table seemed continually to turn either towards Deb, who, still +flushed, and bestowing absent-minded smiles upon anybody and anything, +was certainly different from her usual stately self; or upon Claud +Dalzell, who sat beside her, and seemed to have appropriated some of +her lost dignity; or upon Mr Pennycuick, who fumbled oddly with carving +knife and gravy spoon, and gave other evidences, Guthrie thought, of +having been upset and shaken. The young man was still fumbling himself +for light upon these mysteries, when they were dispelled by a shock +that for the moment stunned him. + +Mr Pennycuick called for a certain brand of wine long famous at his +board. When it came, and the bottles were being sent round, he stood +up, with a trembling goblet in his hand. The eyes round the table +dropped--all but Guthrie's, which stared at the old man. + +"There's no time like the present," began the host, "if a thing has to +be done." He repeated this strange and embarrassing introductory +remark, and then spent some time in clearing his throat and blowing his +nose, and trying to wipe up the wine he was shaking over. When the +fidgets had seized upon the whole company, he rushed his fence. "Ahem! +I must ask you, my friends, to fill your glasses in honour of an event +--an event--that has just transpired in our midst--that--that I am +sure will interest you all--that--in short, my dear daughter Deborah +--and the man of her choice--who knows, I hope, what a lucky dog he is--" + +"He does!" Claud interjected; and there was eager dumb-show all +round the table, everyone--again excepting Guthrie--leaning forward +to cast wreathed smiles at the seated couple. "I have given my +consent," said Mr Pennycuick--"I have given my consent. My daughter +shall be happy in her own way--and I hope he'll see to it that she +gets all she bargains for. He is the son of my oldest friend, a man +that was better than a brother to me--the whitest, straightest--But +there's no words to say what he was. Only, the son of such a man-- +anybody with Billy Dalzell's blood in him--ought to be--if he isn't--" + +"He is!" sang Deb, in her rich, ringing voice. "Oh, please, don't say +any more, father!" + +"Well, my dear, I know I am no hand at speech-making, but I can wish +you luck, both of you, and I do. And I want our friends here--old +friends of the family--to do the same. Good wishes mayn't bring good +fortune, but for all we know they may do something towards it; and +anyway, she may as well have all her chances. Ladies and gentlemen, +long life and happiness to Deborah Pennycuick and her husband that is +to be!" + +A general turmoil broke out, glass-clinkings, cheers, handshakings; +kissings, with a sob or two from the overwrought. And Guthrie, with no +heart upon his sleeve, bowed and drank with the rest. When the +demonstration was over, and the company back in its chairs, Dalzell was +left standing. His bride-elect sat beside him, her elbow on the table, +her face shaded by her hand. + +"On behalf of my dear wife that is to be," said Claud, with a quiet +mastery of himself that was in striking contrast to the old man's +agitation, "and as a grateful duty of my own, I beg to thank you +all, and especially Mr Pennycuick, for this great kindness--for your +generous sympathy with us in our present happiness. Mr Pennycuick seems +to have a doubt--natural to anyone in the circumstances, but +inevitable in a father--the father of such a daughter--as to my being +qualified to appreciate the gift he has just bestowed upon me; I can +assure him, and all of you, that I am overwhelmed with the sense of my +good fortune, and of my unworthiness of it. I am unworthy--I admit it; +but it shall be the business of my life to correct that fault--if it +is a fault, and not merely a misfortune that I cannot help. To the best +of my power I will prove--by deeds, not words--that I do know her +value." Deb's hand under the table here stole towards his that hung at +his side, and he stood holding it until he finished speaking. "Fortune +has been kind in granting me the means to surround her with material +comfort--to give so rare a jewel the setting appropriate to it; for +the rest, I must trust to her generosity. I feel quite safe in trusting +to it. We have known each other--I believe we have loved each other-- +from childhood; I hope Mr Pennycuick will take that as some guarantee +that his little misgivings are unnecessary." The orator twisted his +moustache, and glanced down at the bowed head beside him. "She seems to +be a little taken aback by the suddenness of this public announcement, +but I can say that it does not come a moment too soon for me. Mr +Pennycuick has made me a proud man. I glory in my position as his +daughter's affianced husband; I wish to parade it as openly as +possible. However, to spare her, I will say no more just now. Ladies +and gentlemen"--bowing to right and left--"I thank you again." + +He sat down amid thunders of applause; and leaning back in his chair, +he looked straight and full at Guthrie Carey. Guthrie Carey, erect, +calm as a stone image, returned the look steadily. There was absolutely +no expression in his eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + + +Carey junior joined the Christmas party after breakfast, and was handed +round. Mary introduced him. He was spick-and-span, with shining cheeks +and a damp and glossy top-knot, and his blue eyes stared at the strange +crowd stolidly for several minutes before he suddenly crumpled up his +face and uttered a howl of terror. + +"What is it?" queried Dalzell, with raised brows, pretending that he +had never seen such a thing before. + +"It's a baby," Frances explained, dancing round it. "Baby! Baby!"-- +shaking the new rattle that was one of its Christmas gifts--"look at +me, baby! It is Mr Carey's baby. Oh, come and speak to him, Mr Carey! +He is frightened of so many strangers." + +The stalwart father in the background glowered upon the son disgracing +him. Red as beetroot, embarrassed and annoyed, he strode forward. The +yelling infant cast one glance at him, and yelled louder than before. +"I shouldn't have let him come," the sailor growled. He had got up from +the wrong side of the bed that morning, and was in the mood to regret +everything, even that he had been born. "I don't know what possessed me +to let you be bothered with the brat. I'll ring for his nurse." + +This was unanimously objected to. The ladies gathered round, +with honeyed words and tinkling baubles to pacify the little guest. +Deborah snatched him from her sister's arms, and ran with him into the +garden, where she tossed him, still writhing and wailing, up and down, +and dipped his face into flowers, and played other pranks calculated to +enchant the average baby. This baby turned on her for her pains, and +having slapped her cheeks, grabbed her beautiful hair and tore it down +about her ears. The next instant he felt the weight of the hand from +which his own had derived its strength. + +"You brute!" cried Deb, shielding the offending little arm from a +second blow. "A great big man like you, to strike a tender mite like +this!" + +"'Tender' is hardly the word," the irate parent sneered. "And mite as +he is, he is not to do things of that sort." Guthrie glared at her +sacred locks, dishevelled. "I'm awfully sorry. He shan't do it again. +I'll take him away tomorrow." + +"You will do nothing of the sort," flashed Deb. "You are not fit to +have the care of him. He shall stay here, where he will be treated as a +baby ought to be--not smacked and knocked about for nothing at all." + +"I admire his pluck," quoth Dalzell, sauntering up. + +"So do I," said Deb; but she handed her sobbing burden to Mary. "Here, +take him, Moll, while I put my hair up. POOR little fellow!" + +She need not have been so severe. She might have known that it was +because the cheeks and hair were hers that the baby had been punished +for his assault on them. She could have seen that she was wringing the +culprit's heart. Perhaps she did, and had no room in her own to +care. She stood on the sunny garden path and lifted her hands to her +head--a lovely pose. + +"Here, let me," said Claud Dalzell. + +She let him--which was cruellest of all. Guthrie turned his murderous +eyes from the group and sauntered away, out of the garden, out of their +sight, unrecalled, apparently unnoticed. Mary carried the crying child +into the house. + +Then for an hour the silly fellow walked alone in the most solitary +places that he could find, revelling in the thought that it was +Christmas Day, and he singled out by Fate to have no share in its happy +circumstances: no home, no friends, no love, like other men--nothing +to make life worth living, save only the baby son that he had ill-used. +Apart from the sting of Deb's comment on it, he repented him of that +blow. A great big man like him, to strike a tender mite like this--a +motherless babe, his precious Lily's bequest to him--aye, indeed! It +was the act of a brute, whatever the provocation. The mite was a waif +too, alone in the world when his father was at sea, pathetically +helpless, with no defence against blows and unkindness. The reflection +brought dimness to the man's hard blue eyes, and turned his steps +houseward. + +He arrived to find a large four-horsed brake at the door. The body was +filling with other persons--the sailor knew not, cared not whom. He +looked up at the radiant figure in front. She looked down on him with +heart-melting kindness, as if nothing had happened. + +"Why, Mr Carey, aren't you coming to church?" she called to him. +"Not--not today, I think," he answered, without premeditation. + +"Christmas Day," she hinted invitingly. "You don't always get the +chance, you know." + +"I know. But--thanks--I'd rather not," he bluntly persisted, hating +himself for the churlish response, and all the time wanting to go-- +certain to have gone if he had given himself time to think. Soldiers +and sailors, with their habit of unquestioning obedience to authority, +are almost always "good" churchmen, and, as she had pointed out, this +offer of Christian privileges did not come to him every year. He had +not anticipated it on this occasion, knowing Redford to be situated at +least ten miles from a church. + +"Oh, well," said Deborah, scenting spite, "I daresay it IS more +comfortable in the cool house." + +And then she left him, in the position of a self-indulgent idler, +preferring comfort to duty, a foil to his more conscientious rival. +When the dust of the departure had cleared away, he sat on, not in the +cool house, but on the hot verandah, nursing his griefs in solitude. He +seemed the only person left behind, or else he seemed forgotten, as a +guest of no account. "What a Christmas Day!" was again his thought, +while he dragged before his mind's eye old pictures of his English +home, his dead mother, Santa Claus stockings, and all sorts of pathetic +things. He resolved to quit Redford on the morrow, and spend the last +hours of his leave in establishing his son elsewhere. + +Then Mary Pennycuick came out to him, with that son in her arms. Her +face was redeemed from its plainness by the tender motherliness and the +no less tender friendliness of its expression; that of little Harry was +cherubic. The heart of the lonely man warmed to both. + +"He has come to tell daddy that he is a good boy now," explained Mary +proudly. Guthrie ejaculated "Sonny boy!" and held out his arms. The +baby, bearing no malice, tumbled into them, and was at once occupied +with his father's watch-chain. The three subsided upon two cane chairs, +looking, as Mary keenly comprehended, like a self-contained family. + +"You have stayed at home because of him!" the man complained fretfully. + +But the girl hastened to perjure herself with the assertion that she +had done nothing of the kind. She then persuaded him to the half-belief +that his child was not only no nuisance to the house, but its positive +delight; and she earnestly talked him out of his cruel resolve to +return it to bad air and all sorts of domestic risks. "How can he be +any burden on us?" she pleaded. "We need never see him unless we like-- +only, of course, we shall like. It is entirely an arrangement between +you and Mrs Kelsey. Unless," she bethought herself--"unless you'd like +to consider an idea of Alice Urquhart's--" + +"Oh, no!" he broke in. "I'd rather Mrs Kelsey--a proper business +agreement--if I could feel absolutely certain--" + +"Well, you can," said Mary. "The beginning and end of all the trouble +to us is our answering for Mrs Kelsey. She was once our nurse, and we +know her ways; for the rest, she is as independent of us as that lady +in Sandridge." + +"In that case--of course, I've very little time, and really I +don't know where to turn--perhaps until after this voyage--" + +"Yes. Then, if you are dissatisfied, you can make a change." She +assumed the matter settled, and began to go into details. "Deb saw Mrs +Kelsey while you were away; she's willing enough. She says ten +shillings a week would cover everything. The drainage is all right. +Kelsey will see that he has one cow's milk. They'll feed him well, but +they won't give him rich things; she's the most careful woman. He'll be +out in the air, getting strong, all the time. He'll want hardly any +clothes in the country. Deb says he'd be better without shoes and +socks." + +"I hope he'll be kept out of Miss Deborah's way, after that exhibition +--" "Nonsense! She was too rough and ready with him. And she didn't +mind a bit--of course not. She says she likes boys to be boys. He is a +thorough boy," Mary proudly declared, bending to kiss a chubby knee. + +Harry acknowledged the caress with a thumping smack of her bowed head. + +"Gently--gently!" warned the father amiably. + +"Now, what do you say to our walking over to interview Mrs Kelsey?" +Mary pushed her advantage home. "I daresay she will be busy, but she'd +give us a few minutes. It would be a satisfaction to her to speak to +you herself, and here is a good opportunity. They won't be home much +before two." + +Guthrie fetched his straw hat. Mary retied the baby's flapping +head-gear, and they set forth. + +"Let me have him," she begged, mother-like. + +"No. He is too heavy for you." + +The father carried the child, who loved the feel of the strong arms, in +which he jumped up and down, continuing to make play with his sturdy +little fists. Instead of striking back, Guthrie answered the baby +assaults with wild-beast roars and gestures that sent the little man +into fits of delight. Mary laughed in chorus, keeping touch with the +happy creature over the towering shoulder reared between them. It was +more than ever like a little self-contained family, taking its Sunday +stroll. + +Mrs Kelsey had her Christmas dinner in hand, but came to them in her +big white apron and sleeves rolled to her dimpled elbows, smiling, +business-like, charming in her plain, reposeful, straightforward +attitude towards the visitors and their mission. No sooner had he +beheld her orderly and cheerful house, looked into her kind eyes, and +heard her sincere speech, than the young father was satisfied that he +had found a good place for his little son. The child seemed to know it +too, for when the strange woman drew him to her broad lap--calmly, as +if used to doing it--he surrendered himself without a protest. When +presently she gave him a drink of milk and a biscuit to munch, he +regaled himself peaceably, with the air of feeling quite at home. When +he had finished his lunch he played with a collie puppy. + +"I'll do my best for him, sir, and I'll not let these young ladies +spoil him if I can help it," said Mrs Kelsey, with a smile at Mary +Pennycuick. + +Terms had been arranged, and everything settled. + +"I hope you will be able to keep him from being any bother to them," +said Guthrie earnestly. + +"Bother!" crowed Mary, whose intention was to visit the child +daily. "We'll see to that, Mr Carey--never fear." + +Mrs Kelsey suggested beginning her duties, with the aid of the little +nurse, at once; but Mary would not hear of parting the boy from his +father while they could be together. So he was carried back to Redford, +to be the plaything of the housekeeper's room for the rest of the day. + +"MY baby," Mary began to call him. She had to preside at the great +dinner, but was not visible to her family for hours before and after. + +It was a better Christmas to Guthrie Carey in the end than in the +beginning. Deb came back from church chastened in spirit, to make up to +him for her unkindness, on the score of which her warm heart had +reproached her. She made him play billiards with her after tea, while +Claud was resting after his labours; she chaffed him deliciously on his +errors in the game. She forgot to ask after his baby; but she asked +whether it would not be possible to get his leave extended. When he +said "No"--he had had more than his share already--she commended him +for his sense of duty, and in her seriousness was more enchanting than +in her fun. + +"But I do wish we could have kept you longer," she flattered him, in +her sweet way. "However, we shall have a hostage for your return." + +Several new people came to dinner, including Mr Goldsworthy and Ruby-- +the latter sent at once, by Deb's command, to keep little Carey +company. Spacious Redford was taxed to the utmost to accommodate its +guests, and never was better Christmas cheer provided in the old hall +of English Redford than its son in exile dispensed under his +Australian roof. When every leaf was put into the dining-table, it was +so long that Mary at one end was beyond speaking distance of her father +at the other, and those at the sides could scarce use their elbows as +they ate. The banquet was prodigious, with speeches to wind up with (Mr +Goldsworthy, in his oration, disgusted Deb by referring to the host as +"princely", and to the ladies of the house as his "bevy of beautiful +daughters"); and if the truth must be told, the crowning ceremony of +the loving cup was a bit superfluous. It found the host already fuddled +beyond a doubt, and several of the guests under suspicion of being so. +But in the opinion of all, Redford had celebrated Christmas in an +unsurpassably proper manner. + +Two mornings later, a waggonette was packed with luggage and four +passengers--Mary Pennycuick, Guthrie Carey, the baby and the baby's +little nurse. They proceeded in a body to the overseer's house, where +the load was halved. Mary, the baby, and one box were left with Mrs +Kelsey (reinforced by the collie puppy and a plate of sugared +strawberries); the sailor and the nursemaid, after a few poignant +moments, went on to a distant railway station. + +"Have an easy mind," said Mary, outside the parlour door. "He will be +well off with her, and we shall all be looking after him." + +"How can I thank you?" said the parting guest, barely able to +articulate. He wrung her hand, and looked at her kind, red face with +feelings unspeakable. "God bless you! God reward you for your goodness +to the little chap and me." + +He was including all the family in his benediction, and it was +the father in him that was so touched and overcome. None the less, she +accepted the tribute for her own, and to her poverty-stricken womanhood +it was wealth indeed. + +She stood in the porch to watch the wheels of his departing chariot +flash through the sun and dust. She stared long at the vacant point of +disappearance, like one entranced. When she came to herself, she ran +into the house and fell upon little Harry. + +"My baby," she crooned passionately, "MY baby!" + +Carey Junior responded with his ready fist, pushing her from him. He +was feeding the puppy with a strawberry, and she put her head in the +way. + +"Fie! You mustn't do that," said Mrs Kelsey, mindful of her +responsibilities. "That's rude." + +"Oh, let him," pleaded the girl, infatuated with that look of his +father in his face; and she dropped on her knees before him and kissed +a dangling foot, with which he kicked her mouth. "Let him do what he +likes, so long as he's happy." + +"Not at all," her old nurse reproved her. "I promised Mr Carey that he +should not be spoiled." + +He was not spoiled. The admirable foster-mother, brooking no +interference with her system, improved him into a well-behaved child, +as well as the healthiest and most beautiful in all that countryside. +It was a standing grievance at Redford that she would not allow him to +be always on show there, subject to Mary's indulgence, and Deb's +caprices, and the temptations of the housekeeper's store-room. Only Mr +Kelsey, who was his idol, was permitted to withdraw him from Mrs +Kelsey's eye. The man used to take the child, with a toy whip in his +little hand, on the saddle before him, and let him think he was +guiding the steady horse and doing all the business of the station as +well. The overseer confessed, in bad weather, when he had to ride +alone, that he was lost without his little mate. "Hardly weaned," he +used to brag, "and knows every beast on the place as well as I do +myself." This was gross exaggeration, yet was the infant Harry a +conspicuously forward child, with the "makings of a man" in him visible +to all. His hearty whoas and gee-ups carried as far as the overseer's +gruff voice; and the picture of the jolly boy, with his rosy, joyous +face, and his fair curls blowing in the wind, was one to kindle the +admiration of all who saw it. The phrase continually on the lips of his +adopted family and connections was: 'Won't his father be surprised when +he sees him!' They enjoyed in anticipation the grateful praises that +would be heaped upon them then. + +But Guthrie Carey never saw his son again. + +The baby went a-visiting with his foster-parents to the local township, +and it was supposed caught the infection of typhoid there from some +unknown source. Having caught it, the robust little body, unused to any +ailment, was wrecked at once, where a frail child might easily have +weathered the storm. No little prince of blood royal could have been +better nursed and more strenuously fought for; but three days after he +had visibly sickened he was dead. And then the wail went up, "Oh! what +will his father say?" + +When Guthrie came, prepared by letters from fellow-mourners as bereaved +as himself, it was but from one day to the next--only to "hear the +particulars" and to see the little grave. Deborah was away from home, +but in any case Mary would have been the one to perform the sad duties +of the occasion; they were hers by right. She took him to the +family cemetery on the only evening of his stay, and, herself +speechless and weeping, showed him the whole place renovated and made +beautiful for the sake of the latest comer. No weeds, no dead +rose-bushes, no vampire ivy now; but an orderly garden, new planted and +watered, and in the midst a small mound heaped with fresh-cut flowers. +She had visited the child daily while he lived at Mrs Kelsey's; now she +almost daily visited his grave. + +They dropped on their knees beside it, close as bride and bridegroom on +altar steps, as father and mother at the firstborn's cradle. The dusk +was melting into moonlight; they could not see each other's faces. When +his big frame heaved with heavy sobs, she laid a timid hand--her +beautiful hand--on his shoulder; and when he felt that sympathetic +woman's touch, he turned suddenly and kissed her. Afterwards he did not +remember that he had done it. + +She seemed to cling to him when, next morning, the time came for him to +go. + +"You will come again?" she implored him, in a trembling whisper. "You +will come here when you return next time?" + +"Oh, surely," he replied, whispering too, and to the full as deeply +moved. But when he got away it was to other lands that he turned his +eyes, in the search for new interests to occupy his lonely life. With +Lily and the baby dead, and Deborah Pennycuick given to another man, +Australia had no more hold on him. His first letter to Redford notified +that he had changed into another line, and that the name of his new +ship was the DOVEDALE. She traded to the West Indies. + +He forgot to write again when, not very long afterwards, he went +back to his old line, at the invitation of the Company, as captain of +the ship on which he had served as mate. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + + +"'Dovedale'--DOVEDALE--hullo!" Mr Pennycuick broke the silence of his +newspaper reading. "Why, isn't that--Well, upon my soul! it does seem +as if some folks were born unlucky. Here's that poor young fellow-- +first he loses a charming wife, before he's been married any time, and +then the finest child going, and now here he's gone himself, before his +prime, with no end of a career before him--" + +"Who?" cried Deb from the tea-table, where she was helping herself to a +hot cake. + +"Young Carey--our Carey; oh, it's him all right, worse luck! His +ship's been wrecked, and only two A.B.s saved to tell the tale. Look +here." + +He passed the newspaper, pressed under his broad thumb. + +Deb stood to read the indicated item, while her father watched her +face. Neither of them noticed Mary's peculiar appearance, nor marked +her departure from the room. + +"We must inquire about this," said Deb earnestly. "We must get the +names of those on board. He may have been on leave." She was a prompt +person, and as she spoke looked at the clock--a little after four-- +and laid the paper down. "I'll drive you to the station, daddy, and +we'll telegraph to the shipping people and his doctor friend. We'll get +authentic information somehow, if we have to cable home for it." + +They were off in a quarter of an hour, having sent a message to Mary by +Miss Keene to explain their errand. They dined in the township while +waiting for replies, and came home late at night, heavy-hearted, with +the melancholy news confirmed. Since it happened to be the transition +moment, when Mr Carey had ceased to be a mate, and was only a +prospective commander, the authorities in Melbourne, consulting latest +advices, had no doubt of his having been on the DOVEDALE to the last. +Those of them who presently found themselves mistaken did not take the +trouble to say so. They left it to time and the newspapers. + +But meanwhile Mary Pennycuick sadly complicated the case. When Deb and +her father returned from their expedition, it was to hear from Frances +an excited story of how the elder sister had hidden behind locked +doors, and not only refused dinner but denied speech to all comers. + +"We know she's there, because she said 'Go away' to Miss Keene when she +knocked first; but since then she hasn't said a word--not for hours +and hours. I've been listening at her door since Miss Madden let me out +of school. I shouldn't be surprised," said Frances, who had a fine +imagination, "if she's committed suicide. Poor Mr Carey was her lover, +you know." + +"Pooh!" said Deb. + +SHE knew whose lover poor Mr Carey had been. But she ran to Mary's room +in some concern. She tried the handle of the door, and then rapped +sharply. + +"Molly, open this door!" she commanded. + +And there was a rustle inside, a shuffling step, and the lock +clicked. She marched in, to see Mary fling herself back on the bed from +which she had risen, with a protesting wail: + +"Oh, why can't you all let me alone?" + +"Why, what's the matter?" Deb climbed on the bed, and tried to lift the +half-buried head to her breast--a signal for the pent-up grief to +burst forth. "Molly, sweetheart, what's all this about?" + +"Oh, my love! my love!" keened Mary wildly. "Oh, Deb! oh, Deb! He was +my all, and he's dead, and I can't bear it--I can't! I can't!" + +Deb pursed her lips, and the colour rose in her clear cheek. She saw +the situation, so pathetic and so ignominious! SHE could not understand +a woman falling in love with, and then breaking her heart for, a man +who had never cared for her. But then Deb's face was not heavy and +bricky, with prominent cheek-bones, and a forehead four inches high. + +"My precious," she crooned, as tenderly as if she understood it all, +and as if her immense pity was not mixed with contempt--"don't, don't! +It doesn't matter about me, but don't let the others think--It would +be too undignified, darling--a casual acquaintance--though a dear, +good boy as ever lived--" + +"There was nobody like him, Deb, and he was my all--" + +"No, no, Mary--" + +"You don't know, Debbie--oh, nobody knows!" And wrapping her head in +her arms again, Mary abandoned herself to her despair. + +Deb got off the bed, lit dressing-table candles, and poured water and +eau de Cologne into a wash-basin. She returned with a fragrant +sponge, with which she stroked what she could reach of her sister's +face. + +"Come now," said she briskly, "you must have a little pride, dear. You +mustn't give way like this--for a man who did not--and you know he +did not--" + +Mary broke in with sudden passion, lifting her distorted countenance to +the cruel light. + +"He did!" she affirmed. "You have no business to sneer and say he +didn't--he DID!" + +It was not for nothing that the heart-hungry girl had brooded for +months over a few acts and words, magnifying them through the +spectacles that Nature and her needs had provided. Deb put her pitying +arms round her sister's shoulders. + +"But, my dear, I know--we all know--" + +"How could you know when you were not at home? Nobody knows--nobody +but him and me." Feeling Deb's continued scepticism in the silence of +her caresses, Mary burst out recklessly: "Would he have KISSED me if he +had not?" + +Deb's arm was withdrawn. She twisted half round to look in Mary's face. +Mary covered it with her pretty hands, weeping bitterly. + +"Is that--did he do that?" asked Deb, in a low tone. + +"That night--that last night--oh, I ought not to have spoken of it!-- +when we were at our little grave. It was that precious child that drew +us together. You think he had gone away and forgotten, but I know he +had not; he would have come back--he promised to. He gave me his dear +photograph. I have not shown it to anybody, but here it is--" + +And still sobbing, and with tears running down her cheeks, she +reached to a drawer by the bedside, and dragged out this further +testimony to her claim--it was wrapped in layers of tissue-paper, like +her father's valentine--and displayed it with a touching pride. Before +handing it to Deb, she gazed at it with grotesquely distorted face, +kissed it, pressed it to her bosom, kissed it again, and moaned over +it, rocking to and fro; then, when she had pushed it from her, flung +herself into her former attitude of complete abandonment to grief. + +Very calmly Deb carried the picture to the dressing-table, and held it +behind a candle. There he was, big, strong, healthy, manly, with that +clear brow, that square chin, that steady, good mouth; and he looked +her straight in the eyes. Was it possible that a countenance could so +deceive? No more tears from Deb for his untimely fate. Had it been his +face in the flesh, it could not possibly have gazed in that undaunted +way at hers; her expression would have withered him. + +She returned to the morning-room--drawing-room also when no guests +were in the house--to report to her father. + +"Mary has gone to bed," she said quietly. "She is very much upset by +this business. It appears there was something between her and Mr Carey. +She expected him to come back for her--" + +"What! MARY?" cried Rose, waiting with Frances to say goodnight. + +"There!" triumphed Frances, "what did I say?" + +"MARY!" their father echoed Rose's surprised tone. "The dickens! You +don't say so. Poor little soul! Poor little girlie! Well, I never +thought of that. Did you, Deb?" + +"Never, father. Not for a moment." + +"I suppose it was the child. It must have been the child." Mr +Pennycuick was deeply concerned. "I wonder why he never said anything," +he addressed Deb, when Rose and Frances had been sent to bed. "Eh, Deb? +Seems strange, don't it? We had so much talk together. Quite like a +sort of son, he was. Aye, I could have made a son of that fellow. Poor +lad!--poor lad! Suppose he thought it wasn't the straight thing to +bind a girl of ours till he was in a better position--it'd be just +like him. Well--but Mary, of all people!" (This was the puzzle to +all.) "It must have been the baby. She certainly did dote on that +child, and 'love me, love my dog'--eh? But to think of her keeping it +so close all that time! Afraid I'd make a fuss, I suppose. You could +have told her, Deb, that I don't stand in my children's way for the +sake of my own feelings; and a Carey of Wellwood isn't for us to sniff +at either, if he is poor. A Carey has been good enough for a Pennycuick +before today. God! I wish I'd known. I might have got him something +better to do, and saved them both from this. Poor old girl! Is she very +bad, Debbie? Shall I go and talk to her a bit?" + +"I wouldn't tonight, father, if I were you," replied Deb, with a weary +air. "She is quieter now, and I have given her something to send her to +sleep. I will keep my door open, and go and look at her through the +night. I think she will be better tomorrow." + +On the morrow Mary was at least more self-controlled. She came amongst +her family with the look of one who had passed through an illness, and +shrinking from the first words and glances. But they all +gathered her to their hearts, and murmured loving sympathy in her ears, +and tenderly fussed over her and waited upon her. Her father took her +to his sanctum, and showed her his old daguerreotype and valentine, and +told her they should be hers at his death. Miss Keene excited as an old +maid is over anybody's love affair, wanted to take over the +house-keeping as well as the doing of the flowers, in order to leave +the mourner free to enjoy the full luxury of her state. The governess, +assumed to be above love affairs, was very strict with Frances, holding +her to tasks set on purpose to prevent her from teasing her eldest +sister. But Frances had informed the servants overnight that Mr Carey +was drowned, and that he had been Miss Pennycuick's affianced husband +all the time, unbeknown to anybody. And the tale was already spreading +far and wide--to the Urquharts at Five Creeks, to Mr Thornycroft at +Bundaboo, to Mr Goldsworthy and his parishioners, to the editor of the +local paper--so that soon the family friends were arriving, to press +Mary's hand and condole with her--to show her how she had risen in the +world, as a woman in the eyes of all. + +"No, no," she protested, when the affianced husband was too literally +taken for granted; "it was not a formal engagement. It was only"-- +defending herself against the puzzled stare and lifted eyebrow--"only +that we understood each other. He was coming back, if he had lived." + +The wish was father to the thought. Good, honest girl as she was, she +had persuaded herself to this--that he would have come back if he had +lived, and that then the omitted formalities called for by that +graveside kiss would certainly have been observed. It seems incredible, +but rampant sex does stranger things every day of the week. There is, +at any rate, nothing extraordinary in the way she clung to the sweet +dignity that a similar belief on the part of others brought to her-- +the poor, plain girl, who had always been "out of it". + +The long-hidden photograph was now put into a costly frame, and set up +in her room for anybody to see. Frances would often sneak in with a +visitor, to show the manner of man who would have married Molly; there +were even times when Mary herself was the exhibitor. At other times she +might have been found kneeling before it as at a shrine, and weeping +her eyes out. And she put off her colours and ornaments, and wore +black, and nobody made any objection. The hero of romance was given to +her unquestioningly, and with him a respect and consideration such as +she had never known before. Lovers talked to her of their love affairs, +feeling that she was now one of them. Her father maundered to her for +hours at a stretch of the old Mary Carey, at last secure of sympathy +and a perfect listener. Deb was reserved and silent, but otherwise as +devoted as the rest. + +And then came the inevitable discovery that Guthrie Carey was not dead, +after all. It was made at Five Creeks, while Frances was on a holiday +visit to her friend, Belle Urquhart. At Redford, nobody thought of +reading the shipping columns in the newspaper--their interest was +supposed to be gone for ever; but Jim Urquhart glanced at them daily, +looking for the arrival of a friend from overseas. And one day he saw a +ship's name that was familiar to him, and bracketed with it the name of +G. Carey as its commander. The coincidence was startling. He +pointed it out to a man staying in the house--a stranger to the +Redford family and to the district. + +"There was a mate named Carey on this ship a while ago. He changed into +that unfortunate DOVEDALE that was wrecked, and was lost with her. Odd +that the captain of his old vessel should have the same name--same +initial too. Our friend was Guthrie--" + +"Guthrie Carey? Oh, I know Guthrie Carey. Met him in London last year, +just after the DOVEDALE wreck. He told me of his narrow escape--was +really going with her on her last voyage, and only prevented at the +last moment by the offer of this captaincy from his former owners. It's +the same man. Do you know him?" + +They all told how much they knew him; and there was great commotion at +Five Creeks. Jim was for driving hot-foot to Redford to warn Mr +Pennycuick against disseminating the newspaper through the house too +rashly. Alice and her mother each volunteered to go with him, so as to +"break it" with feminine skilfulness to Mary, whose reason might be +destroyed by too sudden a gorge of joy, like the stomach of a starved +man by clumsy feeding. But while they anxiously discussed what ought to +be done, Frances was doing. The enterprising young lady slipped away, +and with Belle's help caught and saddled her pony, and was off to +Redford as if wolves were at her heels. No war correspondent on active +service ever did a smarter trick to get ahead of other papers. + +She burst into the family circle violently. + +"Mary--Mary! Deb! Rose! father! Mr Carey is alive! He wasn't +drowned! He wasn't on the DOVEDALE--he was just going; but they wanted +him back, and they made him a captain, and he's here now. His ship came +in last night, and there it is in the paper, and his name; and Mr Mills +at Five Creeks saw him himself after the Dovedale was wrecked, and he +knows him well, and he's in Melbourne now, and I expect he'll be here +directly--perhaps he's coming up now, this very minute--" + +She was checked by angry exclamations from all persons addressed, +except Mary. She, at the moment bending over a table, cutting out +needle-work, straightened herself, and stood stockstill and staring, +while first her bricky face went dark purple all over, and then seemed +drained in three seconds of every drop of blood. She heard the words: +'Mr Carey is alive,' and instantly believed them; at the same moment +her dream-palace vanished, and she saw the bare ground of her love +affair exactly as it was--as Guthrie himself would see it--and just +how she had deceived herself and others. Her healthy heart and nervous +system could not support her under the impact of such a shock. She +reeled as she stood, spun half round, and fell backwards into Deborah's +arms. + +"You little FOOL!" Deb rated the dismayed child, "to blurt it out like +that. Never mind, father, it's all right. She has fainted, but she'll +soon come round. Go and get a smelling-bottle, somebody. Tell Keziah to +bring a little brandy--don't speak to anybody else. Where's today's +ARGUS?" + +While Rose was flying for restoratives, and Frances speeding through +the house with her great news, Deb and her father exchanged +significant glances over Mary's prostrate form. + +"It is more than a year," said Deb, "and he has not even written to +her." + +"I'll write to him," said Mr Pennycuick, grinding his teeth--"I'll +write to him!" It was the tone in which he might have said, "I'll wring +his neck for him!" + +But when Mary came round and perceived his mood and intentions, she +implored him not to write--went on her knees, and almost shrieked in +her frantic fear of his doing so. + +"Oh, father, don't--DON'T! If he does not remember--if he does not +want to come--you would not drag him by force? And he never bound +himself--he never really asked me; very likely he did not mean +anything, after all." + +"Not mean anything!" shouted the indignant father. "He can kiss a girl +--a daughter of mine--and not mean anything! I'll make him tell me +whether he dared not to mean anything--" + +"No, father," commanded Deb. "You must not write to him. It is not for +a Pennycuick to fling herself at any man's head. Let him alone; we +don't want him. Treat him--as I hope Molly is going to do--with the +contempt that he deserves." + +Mr Pennycuick stormed and muttered, but obeyed; and for two days +Captain Carey was left to the anathemas of Redford and the countryside +as a heartless jilt, to Mary's extreme anguish. She tried to water down +the concoction that she stood answerable for, to take blame off him and +put it on herself; but she dared not go far enough to convince anybody +that she was not sacrificing herself to shield him. + +It was a horrible position for a delicate-minded and even +high-minded girl, and the misery of it was aggravated by the constant +effort to efface its signs and evidences. She was left with no outlook +in life but to get through twenty, thirty, forty years somehow, and +come to a little peace at last, when everything would be forgotten; and +her one forlorn hope was that Guthrie would not discover her crime-- +would keep up the neglect with which he had treated his old friends, +and not come near them. + +He might have done this--for the fact was that he now had a dawning +"affair" in another quarter--had not Frances intervened. To her, +inaction at such a crisis was intolerable, and since nobody else would +do it, she wrote to Guthrie Carey herself. She wrote, she said, to +welcome him back to life and to Australia, and to congratulate him on +being a captain; incidentally she mentioned other matters, and asked +innocent-seeming questions which she was well aware could only be +answered in person. + +Frances, since his first acquaintance with her, had shot up into a +slim, tall girl, exquisite in colouring and the daintiness of her +figure and face. Although unlike Deb in every way, people were +beginning to compare them as rival beauties--Frances' private opinion +being that there was no comparison. She had nearly done with +governesses, short frocks and pigtails, and was ardently anticipating +the power and glory coming to her when she should be a full-grown +woman. + +Two days after the clandestine postage of her letter to Captain Carey, +a new housemaid brought Mary his visiting-card on a silver tray. Mary +knew, before looking at it--having heard nothing of the +letter, and no sound of his arrival in his hired buggy--what name it +bore. Her forlorn hope had been too forlorn to stand for anything but +despair. She had expected the catastrophe from the first. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + + +How she got into the room--the isolated big drawing-room, which +somebody else, who was aware of his arrival, had directed that he was +to be shown into--Mary knew not; but she was there. He stood perfectly +still, massive and inflexible, to receive her. Without approaching him +--or he her--to shake hands, without looking at his face or anywhere +near it, she perceived the adamantine set of lips, the cold gaze, more +withering than fire, which informed her that he knew all; and she sank +crouching into a chair, and hid her face. But her back was against the +wall now. The coward stage was past. In the most desperately false +position that a girl could occupy, she made no further attempt to run +away from the truth, perhaps because she saw that it was useless. When +he began, very politely, but with no beating about the bush, to say: "I +daresay you are surprised to see me, Miss Pennycuick, but I was told-- +and since I came up here I have been told again by several different +persons--something that I want you to help me to understand," she +jerked herself upright, and stopped him with a swift gesture and the +cry of: "I know! I know what you have been told; and I have nothing to +say. I cannot contradict it." + +She was a piteous object, in her shaking anguish; but he looked +at her, of course, without a scrap of pity. + +"Do you think you really know?" he questioned her, with cold gravity. +"Perhaps I have been given an exaggerated version. I was in hopes that +it was altogether an invention of Miss Francie's--I know of old that +she is prone to make reckless statements--" + +"Ah-h--Francie!" + +"She was kind enough to write me a long letter, to congratulate me on +my promotion. She told me all the family news. And she said--she asked +me--but really I haven't the cheek to repeat her words--" + +His cold face had become hot, and his manner agitated. + +"Go on," said she, calming under the perception that the worst had come +utterly to the worst. + +"Well, if you will forgive me--she asked me, in effect, when I was +coming to marry you, and why I had kept the engagement a secret so +long." He paused, one dark red blush, to note the effect of so brutal a +stroke. + +She said, meeting his eyes for the first time: + +"And you believed it at once--of ME?" + +"No, Miss Pennycuick. I laughed. I said to myself: 'Here is another of +Miss Francie's mare's nests.' But when I read on--she told me so many +things--they were incredible, but still I felt I had to sift the +matter; and since I came up today, other people--I've been to Five +Creeks and had a talk with Jim Urquhart--now I don't know what to +think; at least, there is but one thing that I can think." + +The chair she had taken had a high back, and against this she +laid her head, as if too weary to support it. Lack of sleep and +appetite had paled her florid colour to a sickly hue, and she looked +wan and languid as a dying woman. But still he did not pity her, as he +must have done had her face been half as beautiful as Deb's or +Francie's. + +"Miss Pennycuick," he continued, as she kept silence, "I want to get +the hang of this thing. Will you tell me straight--yes or no--have +you been giving it out that I left Redford two years ago engaged to +you?" + +Her first impulse was to cry out: "Oh, no, no! Not quite so bad as +that!" But on second thoughts she said: + +"Yes--practically." + +Sudden rage seemed to seize him. He sat up, he crossed his knees, he +uncrossed them, he twisted this way and that, he muttered "Good God!" +as if the pious ejaculation had referred to the Other Person, and his +stare at her was cruel. + +"But--but--I have been racking my brains to remember anything-- +surely I never gave you--I am perfectly convinced, I have the best +reason for being absolutely certain, that I could not have given you-- +" + +"Never!" she broke in. "Of course not. It was all my own invention." + +"You admit it? Thank you. You formally relieve me of the imputation I +have so long lain under without knowing it, of having run away from my +duty?" + +She said lifelessly: "We thought you were dead." + +"Hah! I see. You thought it didn't matter what you said of a +dead man? But dead men's characters should be all the more sacred +because they cannot defend them. I should be sorry indeed to leave +behind me such a reputation as I seem to have hereabouts--though, +indeed, a man is very helpless in these cases. He is at a hopeless +disadvantage when a woman is his traducer. I can see that Jim Urquhart +will never be a friend of mine again, whatever happens." + +"He shall know the truth. Everybody shall know the truth," said Mary. + +"How can everybody know the truth? Only by my own affidavit, and that +would not be believed. Besides, it is not for me to deny--at the cost +of branding a lady a liar." + +It was the straight word, regardless of manners, with this sea-bred +man. + +"You need not. I know how to do it so that people will believe. I am +going to write a letter to the newspaper--a plain statement, that will +fully exonerate you." + +He nearly jumped out of his chair with the fright she gave him. + +"You will do nothing so ridiculous!" he exclaimed angrily. + +"It is the only way," said she--"the only way to make sure." + +"If you do," he menaced her, "I shall simply write another for the next +issue to flatly contradict you." + +"Then you would be a liar." + +"That doesn't matter in the least. I must be a man first. I am not +going to let you ruin yourself." + +"Ah, that is done already! Nothing can make it worse--for me." + +He looked at her, taking in the words, in some sort +understanding them. She lifted her eyes to look at him, and what he saw +behind the look went to his kindly heart. He "felt" for her for the +first time. + +"May I go now?" she whispered. + +His answer was to move to a seat beside her. + +"I wish you would tell me," he said, in more humane tones, "how you +came to do it. I would like to understand, and I can't, for the life of +me. You must have had some reason. DID I do anything, unknowing--" + +She shook her head hopelessly. + +"No. You were only kind and good, as you would have been to anyone." + +"Kind and good? Rubbish! It was you--all of you--who were kind and +good. Oh, I don't forget what you did for me, and never shall. I feel" +--it was the very feeling that had so oppressed him in the case of the +lady at Sandridge--"under a load of obligation to you that I can never +hope to discharge. But still--but still--though I trust I showed some +of the gratitude I felt--I cannot remember how I came to give you the +idea--I must have done something, I suppose; one is a blundering fool +without knowing it--" + +"No," she protested--"no, no! It was my own idea entirely." + +"But I can't reconcile that with your character, Miss Pennycuick." + +"Nor can I," she laughed bitterly. + +"There's a mystery somewhere. Did anybody tell you anything? Did Miss +Frances put constructions on innocent appearances? Did--" + +"No," Mary resolutely stopped him. "It is good of you to try to +make excuses, but there is no excuse for me--none. Francie only said +what she knew. I let them believe you were my lover; I am twenty-seven +--I never had one--and--and--oh, I thought that, at least, you might +be mine when you were dead! I did not mean to be a liar, as you called +me--yes, that is the right word--" + +"Forgive me for using it," he muttered. "You do not realise at first +that you are lying, when you only act lies and don't speak them. And I +DID think that perhaps, that possibly--of course, I was ridiculously +wrong--it was atrocious, unforgivable--I don't ask you to forgive me +--I don't want you to--but those dear days when our little boy--oh, +you know!--and when you kissed me that night beside his grave--" + +"WHAT!" A lightning change came over the young man, as if the word had +been an electric current suddenly shot into him. "KISSED YOU?" + +"It was nothing; you did not know you did it--" + +"But here--hold on--this is serious. DID I kiss YOU? You are sure you +are not dreaming?" + +"I would not be very likely to dream that," she said, with a strange +smile. "But of course it was only--at such a time--as you would have +kissed your sister--anybody. Your very forgetting it shows that." + +But a dim memory was awakening in him, frightfully perturbing to his +mind. + +"I KISSED you!" he repeated, and slowly realised that he had been that +consummate ass. The poor baby's dead hand had retained its old power to +entrap a simpleton unawares. + +Well, simpleton or not, Guthrie Carey was Guthrie Carey-- +sailor-bred, accustomed to meet vital emergencies with boldness and +promptness; accustomed also to take his own views of what was a man's +part at such times. While she implored him to say no more about that +kiss, crying shame upon herself for mentioning it, he sat in silence, +thinking hard. As soon as she had done, he spoke: + +"Miss Pennycuick, I now understand everything. You are completely +justified. It is I who have been to blame." And he then, in precise +language, such as no real lover could have used, but still as prettily +as was possible under the circumstances, requested the honour of her +hand in marriage. + +To his astonishment, she laughed. It was a wild-sounding cackle, and +quickly turned into a wail. + +"Ah-h! Ah-h-h!" She faced him again, head up and hands down. "That, Mr +Carey, is the one way out of it that is utterly, absolutely, eternally +impossible." + +"Why?" he demanded, with his man's dull incomprehension, and went on to +demonstrate that there was no other. "I do not wish," he lied +chivalrously, "to take any other. I--I--believe me, I am not +ungrateful for your--for your thinking a great deal more of me than I +deserve. I will try to show myself worthy--" + +A magnanimous arm attempted to encircle her. She backed from it, and +rose hurriedly from her chair, with what he would have imagined a +gesture of repulsion if he had not known her, from her own showing, so +over-eager for his embraces. He rose too. + +"Do not!" she cried breathlessly, passionately. "As if I could +dream--What can you think of me, to imagine that I would for a moment +--" + +She broke from him and ran towards the door, sobbing, with her +handkerchief to her eyes. In three strides he was there before her, +cutting off her retreat; so she swung back into the room, cast herself +on the floor beside a sofa, and throwing up her arms, plunged her head +down between them into the depths of a large cushion, which smothered +cries that would otherwise have been shrieks. She abandoned all effort +to control herself, except the effort to hide, which was futile. + +Guthrie Carey's first feeling was of alarm, lest anyone should hear and +come in to see what was the matter; he felt like wanting to guard the +door. But in a minute or two his soft heart was so worked upon by the +spectacle before him that he could think of nothing else. However +little he might want to marry Mary Pennycuick, he was not going to be +answerable for this sort of thing; so he marched resolutely to the +sofa, and stooped to lift the convulsed creature bodily into his arms. + +He might as well have tried to grasp a sleeping porcupine. + +"How dare you?" she cried shrilly, whirling to her feet, dilating like +a hooded snake before his astonished eyes. "How dare you touch me?" He +was too cowed to answer, and she stood a moment, all fire and fury, +glaring at him, her tear-ravaged face distorted, her hands clenched; +then she whirled out of the room, and this time he made no effort to +stop her. + +He dropped back on the sofa, and said to himself helplessly: + +"Well, I'm blowed!" + +There was stillness for some time. This part of the house +seemed quite empty, save for one buzzing fly, which he or Mary had let +in. The little housekeeper was very particular about flies in summer, +every window and chimney-opening being wire-netted, every door labelled +with a printed request to the user to shut it; and his dazed mind +occupied itself with the idea of how this insect would have distressed +her if she had not had so much else to think of. He had an impulse to +hunt it, for her sake, through the green-shadowed space in which it +careered in long tacks with such energy and noise; but, standing up, he +was seized with a stronger impulse to leave the house forthwith, and +everything in it. He wanted liberty to consider his position and +further proceedings before he faced the family. + +As he approached the door, it was opened from without. Deb stood on the +threshold, pale, proud, with tight lips and sombre eyes. She bowed to +him as only she could bow to a person she was offended with. + +"Would you kindly see my father in his office, Mr Carey?" she inquired, +with stony formality. "He wishes to speak to you." + +"Certainly, Miss Deborah," he replied, not daring to preface the words +with even a "How-do-you-do". "I want to see him--I want to see him +particularly." + +Deb swept round to lead the way downstairs. + +An embarrassing march it was, tandem fashion, through the long passages +of the rambling house. While trying to arrange his thoughts for the +coming interview, Captain Carey studied her imperious back and +shoulders, the haughty poise of her head; and though he was not the one +that had behaved badly, he had never felt so small. At the door +of the morning-room she dismissed him with a jerk of the hand. "You +know your way," said she, and vanished. + +"She is more beautiful than ever," was his poignant thought, as he +walked away from her, and from all the glorious life that she suggested +--to such a dull and common doom. + +Mr Pennycuick, at first, was a terrible figure, struggling between his +father-fury and his old-gentleman instincts of courtesy to a guest. + +"Sir," said he, "I am sorry that I have to speak to you under my own +roof; in another place I could better have expressed what I have to say +--" + +But before he could get to the gist of the matter, Mary intervened. + +"Miss Keene has some refreshment for Mr Carey in the dining-room," she +said. "And, father, I want, if you please, to have a word with you +first." She had recovered self-possession, and wore a rigid, determined +air, contrasting with the sailor's bewilderment, which was so great +that he found himself driven from the office before he had made up his +mind whether he ought to go or stay. + +He sat down to his unnecessary meal, and tried to eat, while an +embarrassed maiden lady talked platitudes to him. Didn't he find it +very dusty in town? Miss Keene, knitting feverishly, was anxious to be +informed. And didn't he think the country looked well for the time of +year? + +He was relieved from this tedium by another summons to the office. +Fortified with a glass of good wine, he returned to the encounter, +inwardly calling upon his gods to direct him how to meet it. He found +poor old Father Pennycuick aged ten years in the hour since he +had seen him last. But he still stood in massive dignity, a true son of +his old race. + +"Well, Mr Carey," said he, "I have had a great many troubles of late, +sir, but never one like this. I thought that losing money--the fruits +of a lifetime of hard work--was a thing to fret over; and then, again, +I've thought that money's no consequence so long as you've got your +children alive and well--that THAT was everything. I know better now. +I know there's things may happen to a man worse than death--worse than +losing everything belonging to him, no matter what it is. When that +child was a little thing, she had an illness, and the doctors gave her +up. Two nights her mother and I sat up watching her, expecting every +breath to be the last, and broken-hearted was no word for what we felt. +I cried like a calf, and I prayed--I never prayed like it before or +since--and fools we are to ask the Almighty for we don't know what! +Now I wish He had taken her. And I've told her so." + +"Then you have been very cruel, Mr Pennycuick," Guthrie Carey replied +sharply--"and as unjust as cruel. She has done nothing--" + +"I know what she's done," the stern parent interposed. "I wouldn't have +believed it if anybody else had told me; but I have her own word for +it. And if she has been a liar once, I still know when to believe her." + +"If you will be so good as to tell me what she has said, then I will +make MY statement." + +The old man put up his hand. + +"Don't perjure yourself," said he, grimly smiling. "It is very kind of +you to try to let us down easily, but you can spare your breath. +Excuses only make it worse. There's nothing to be said for her, +and you'll really oblige me by not going into details. I only sent for +you to make such amends as I can--to apologise most humbly--to +express my sorrow--my shame--my unspeakable humiliation--that a +child of mine--a Pennycuick--a girl I thought was nothing if not +maidenly and self-respecting, and the very soul of honour and +straightness and proper pride--" + +"You speak as if she was not all that now--" + +"NOW!--and done a low, contemptible thing like that! Oh, I don't +understand it--I can't; it's too monstrous--except that I have her +word for it. She says she did it, and so there it is. And, sir, I beg +your pardon on behalf of the house that she has disgraced--the house +that reared her and thought her so different--" + +He gulped, coughed, and gave Guthrie a chance to put in a word. + +"Mr Pennycuick, the simple fact is that I made love to your daughter-- +" + +"Made her an offer of marriage?" snarled the other, wheeling round. + +"I kissed her--" + +Mr Pennycuick snapped his thumb and finger derisively. + +"THAT kind of kiss!--as good as asked for." + +"It was not as good as asked for. Your daughter is not that kind of +woman." + +"I thought not, but she says she is." + +"Pay no heed to what she says. Her morbid conscientiousness runs away +with her. I tell you the plain truth, as man to man, without any +hysterics--I kissed her of my own free will--your daughter, sir. And +I am here now to stand by my act. If she will forgive my--my +tardiness--as you know, I was in no position then to aspire to +marriage with a lady of this family; I am not now, but I am better off +than I was--will you give your consent to our engagement?" + +"No!" roared Mr Pennycuick, looking as if threatened with an apoplectic +fit. "I'll see her engaged to the devil first!" + +Like Mary, he seemed to take the generous offer as a personal insult. +Guthrie Carey, conscious of doing the duty of a gentleman at enormous +cost, could not understand why. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + + +Captain Carey, while leaving it to be understood that he held himself +engaged to Mary Pennycuick until further orders, realised the welcome +fact that in the meantime he was honourably free; and he excused +himself from staying to dinner. But scarcely had he driven off in his +hired buggy than that of Mr Goldsworthy clattered into the stableyard. +It was the good man's habit, when on his parochial visitations, to +'make' Redford at meal times, or at bed-time, whenever distances +allowed; he called it, most appropriately, his second home, and walked +into the house as if it really belonged to him two or three times a +week. + +The first person that he encountered on this occasion was Frances, who +had waylaid Guthrie Carey on his departure, and whom he had left +standing under the back porch, aglow with excitement. She was a picture +in her pale blue frock--put on for his eyes--and with her mane of +burnished gold falling about her sparkling blush-rose face; but the +parson, accustomed to regard her as a child, was unaffected by the +sight. + +"Surely," he exclaimed, with agitation, "that was young Mr Carey that I +passed at the gate just now? He had his hat pulled over his eyes, and +did not stop to speak to me; but the figure--" "Was his," said +Frances, bursting to be the first to say it. "Very much in the flesh +still, isn't he? And oh, to think he's gone like this, just as we'd got +him back--SO big and handsome, and such a DEAR brother-in-law as he +would have made!" + +She stamped her foot. "What do you think, Mr Goldsworthy?--he came for +her today, just as he promised, and then she turned round and wouldn't +have him! We thought he'd jilted her, and instead of that she's jilted +him. Oh, I could smack her! To have such a chance--SHE!--and after +all the fuss she made about him--and throw it away! But I think he'll +come back before his ship sails--he said he would--and perhaps she'll +be less of an idiot by then; she'd better, unless she wants to die an +old maid. Oh, if it was ME--!" + +Mr Goldsworthy penetrated to the morning-room, where something of the +same tale was repeated to him. Yes, Guthrie Carey was alive and well, +and had been up to see them. Yes, he had asked for Mary--now that he +was a captain--but she had finally decided against marrying a sailor. +Wisely, perhaps; at any rate, it was her business; the family did not +wish to discuss the matter. + +When Mr Goldsworthy found that Mary did not come to dinner, he drew +some conclusions for himself. He told himself there was something +"fishy" in the affair--something behind, that was purposely kept from +him. But he was hungry, and the fragrant soup steamed under his nose +and glittered in his spoon--it was so admirably clear. Just now the +doings of the Redford cook were of more concern to him than Mary's +doings. + +But although he enjoyed the meal to which he had looked forward +all day, he enjoyed it much less than usual. A more sensitive person in +his place must have found it wretched. Deb was a chilling hostess. Her +frigid dignity and forced politeness caused discomfort even to him, +thereby lowering her status in his eyes, lessening the ardour of his +admiration for her. Mr Pennycuick, such a stickler for hospitality, +scarcely spoke a word to the guest. Rose was a nobody, but still might +have done something in the way of entertainment; and she quite ignored +him, looking down as if to hide eyes that had been crying. Frances was +eager to engage in conversation, but was bidden roughly by her father +to hold her tongue. The stately governess wore only more ostentatiously +than usual the detached air that always marked her out of school; and +it was left to poor Miss Keene, with her timid platitudes, to keep up +an appearance of civility. + +Mr Pennycuick vanished abruptly after dinner; it was presently rumoured +that he was not well, and had gone to bed. Frances was taken away to +prepare lessons. Rose and Deborah came and went. Coffee was served. The +parson was again left to Miss Keene, who would not be pumped for +confidences, further than to admit that Mary was keeping her room with +a headache, in consequence of the agitating visit of Captain Carey, but +laboriously talked parish to him, without appearing to know anything of +the subject. So the poor man actually became so bored that he changed +his mind about staying for the night. He remembered that there was a +good moon, and that he had an early engagement next morning, and +ordered his buggy soon after nine o'clock. Afterwards he believed that +it was the direct voice of the Lord that had called him to take +his journey home at that hour. + +He drove alone, having a steady (Redford) mare, that stood quietly at +gates and doors, and no groom--a luxury almost unknown amongst country +parsons, who must all keep horses. The night was beautiful, still, cool +and clear, the moon so full that he could see for miles. Because of +this, he took his daylight short cuts across country, preferring grass +when he could get it to the dusty summer road. And one of his short +cuts led along the top of the embankment of the big dam. + +He slackened speed at this spot, touched by the beauty of the scene, +which could hardly have appealed in vain to any man who had just had a +good dinner. How peacefully the still water lay under the shining moon +--that moon which is capable of making, not soft young lovers only, but +the toughest old stagers sentimental--nay, maudlin--at times; an +intoxicant purged of the grossness of spirituous liquors, but acting on +the brain in precisely the same way. Mr Goldsworthy, already uplifted +by good Redford wine, felt the effect of the lovely night in dim poetic +stirrings of his sordid little soul. He mused of God and heaven, and +the other things that he made sermons out of, in a disinterested, +unprofessional way, these being the lines along which his imagination +worked. "Surely the Lord is in this place," was the unspoken thought, +elevating and inspiring, with which he surveyed the placid lake and the +dreaming hills; and "it is good for me to be here," he felt, even at +the cost of a Redford bed and breakfast, and the choice vegetables that +the gardener would have put into his buggy in the morning. + +But what was this? A boat adrift! From out of the shadow of the +white shed on the further shore a black spot moved--one of the boats +that should have been locked up, since no one was allowed to use them +without Mr Pennycuick's permission. It came into the open moonlight, +into the middle of that silver mirror, and he saw that oars propelled +it, and saw the figure of the person wielding them. Who had dared to +take this liberty with sacred Redford property? he wondered, with the +indignation of a co-proprietor; and he assumed a poacher after the fish +that Mr Pennycuick had been trying with characteristic perseverance and +unsuccess to naturalise in his dam. But looking harder, the clergyman +saw the figure rise in the boat, and that it was a woman's. Almost at +the same instant he saw that it had disappeared. Seizing whip and +reins, he lashed his mare to a gallop along the embankment and down its +steep side, where she nearly upset him, and round the lake shore--the +buggy rocking like a cradle--to the point nearest to the boat, now +visibly adrift and empty. He jumped to the ground, tore off his coat +and vest (which had a valuable watch attached), flinging them and his +hat, and presently his boots, into the buggy; and with a word of +warning to the mare, he plunged into the water to the rescue of some +poor fool whom as yet he had not identified. + +He returned to shore with Mary Pennycuick in his arms. Spent and +panting from his struggle, and awed by the tragical significance of the +affair, his heart exulted at his deed. He thanked God that he had been +in time--with a fervour proportionate to her rank and consequence-- +and anticipated the splendid reward awaiting him as the +benefactor of the great family, entitled to their full confidence and +eternal gratitude. But also he was filled with solicitude for the poor +girl. + +She was unconscious when he laid her down on the grass, but choked and +moaned when he set to work to revive her, and realised that she was +back in life and misery after he had succeeded in getting some whisky +down her throat--contents of the flask he always carried, as a +preventive of chills and remedy for undue fatigues, and from which he +had first helped himself. They sat upon the ground side by side, his +arm round her waist, her head--feeling only that it was cushioned +somewhere--on his shoulder. The night was so warm and windless that +their wet clothes were little discomfort to them, but he kept grasping +and wringing handfuls with the hand at liberty, while he supported her +with the other. The danger of damp "things" was more terrifying to him +now than the danger of death had been a few minutes ago. + +"There, there," he said soothingly, "you feel better now--don't you? +Then I'll just put on my coat, if you don't mind. I'll wrap you up in +the buggy rug--and we'll get back to Redford as soon as we can. And in +the morning, dear, you'll wake up sorry for this--this madness, and +you'll never do it again, will you?" + +"Hysteria," he said to himself. "Her head turned by this love affair. +He's treated her badly, whatever they may say, and it has unhinged her +mind." + +This thought disposed him to be gentle with her when she positively +refused to be taken back to Redford. + +"Leave me here," she implored him. "I cannot go home! I will +not go home! My father told me he wished I was dead. Oh, I should have +been dead now if you had left me alone, and then they would have been +satisfied, and I should have been out of my misery, which is more than +I can bear. Oh, Mr Goldsworthy, don't--don't!" "Mad as a hatter, poor +thing," he thought, as he desisted from his effort to raise her. "Why, +her father thinks the world of her!" + +But something had to be done. It was unwise to use force in these cases +--nor could he have brought himself to use it--and of course he could +not leave her at the dam, or leave her at all, while she was in her +present mood, and without other protection; at the same time, it was +imperatively necessary that he should get out of his wet clothes--her +also. He mentioned this latter fact, and it was touching to see her own +careful housewifely instincts assert themselves through all her mental +agony. + +"Oh, you ARE wet," she mourned, feeling him--it did not matter about +herself; "oh, I am so sorry! Do--do go home at once, and take them +off, and have something hot before you go to bed." + +"I will," he said, "if you will go with me." A moment's reflection +showed him that this was the best course--to take her to his own +house, and send a message to Mr Pennycuick that she was there, and +safe. + +The thought of the town frightened her. She dreaded to go anywhere out +of the solitude of Nature in which she had tried to hide. But he +assured her of privacy and protection, and she was spent and beaten, +and she gave in. Like a child, she stood to be wrapped in the +rug and lifted into the buggy, and they proceeded on their way to his +home, where his old sister kept house for him and mothered his child, +with the aid of one servant. + +It was nearly midnight when they arrived, and the parsonage was dark. +Miss Goldsworthy, not expecting him, was sitting up with a sick +parishioner half a mile off; Ruby and the maid were fast asleep. When +the latter was heard stirring in her room, her master called a few +questions to her, and then bade her go back to bed. + +"We don't want her poking round," he whispered to Mary, as (when +together they had hurried the mare into her stall) he led the drooping +girl to his study--and how grateful she was to him for this +consideration! He closed the door behind them, and led her gently to +his own arm-chair--she clung to the hand that was so kind to her in +her need--bidding her keep the rug about her (so as not to wet the +furniture); and he lit a kerosene stove that was one of his private +luxuries, always available when the maid-of-all-work was not. He +exhorted his charge to comfort herself by the poor blaze while he +fetched such odds and ends of clothes as he could gather from his +sister's room; and then he told her to change her wet garments for +these dry ones while he performed the same operation for himself +elsewhere. She obeyed him as meekly as a child, and was sitting huddled +in Miss Goldsworthy's faded flannel dressing-gown when he returned, +carrying a kettle and a tray. + +"Now I will make you a nice hot cup of tea," said he cheerily, planting +the kettle on a round hole at the top of the stove and the tray on his +writing table. "You put your clothes in the passage? That's +right. We'll dry them presently. Oh, yes"--starting to cut bread and +butter--"you must have something to eat. You have had no dinner." + +He forced her to eat, and to drink the hot tea, and she did feel the +better for it. Over her cup she lifted swimming eyes to his face, +whispering: "You are good to me!" And he remarked to himself that she +was not mad, as he had thought. + +When the meal was disposed of, he felt that the time for explanations +and for considering how to deal with the extraordinary situation had +come. + +"Now, my dear," he began, taking on something of the parson air at +last, "the first thing to be done is to inform your family of your +whereabouts. I must go and find up somebody to take a message to them, +to relieve their minds." + +She roused from her semi-torpor to plead for a reprieve. Not yet--not +yet! Whatever she had to face, let her rest for a little first. They +had parted with her for the night; they would not go to her room, she +knew--outcast as she now was from the sympathy of them all; they would +not miss her before the morning. And, oh, she could not go home! She +had disgraced her family--her own father had wished her dead. She was +a wicked woman, not fit to live; but, if she must live, let it be +anywhere--anywhere--rather than at Redford now! + +At this repetition of her strange charge against a doting father, and +the mention of disgrace, a distressing suspicion came into the parson's +mind. He calculated the length of time between Guthrie Carey's visits; +he looked at her searchingly. No, there was no evidence that she had +done the special wrong. But that there was wrong of some sort +somewhere was evident enough. + +"I know your father's affection for you," he said seriously, "and I +cannot believe that he would express himself as you say he did." + +"I deserved it," she said. "I don't blame him--nobody could." + +"There must indeed have been some grave reason--" + +"There was--there was!" + +"What was it?" + +"Oh, don't ask me!" she wailed, covering her face. But, crossing over +to her side, he took one of the shielding hands, and holding it +tenderly, assured her that she must tell him. He was her pastor--he +was her best friend; just now he was her champion, prepared to fight +her battle, whatever it was. And to do this successfully it was +necessary that he should know all. In the end she told him--not all, +but the main facts. He thought it the silliest case of making a +mountain of a molehill that he had ever heard of. He was convinced +there was more in the background, to account for the violent emotions +aroused--to account for a good girl leaving a good home in the middle +of the night to drown herself. In his conjectures he made Guthrie Carey +the villain of the piece--the young man who, after creating all the +disturbance, had significantly cleared out. Sailors were an immoral lot +--a sweetheart in every port, as the world knew. And this fellow--why, +you had only to look at his big, brawny build (Mr Goldsworthy was a +small man) to see that he had a brutal nature. + +At any rate, the parson was satisfied that the heroine of the +story remained a "pure" girl--foolish, but womanly, and very, very +unfortunate. As she sat weeping by his side, dependent solely upon his +protection, he stroked her hand and looked at it--so shapely and +high-bred, the hand of a Pennycuick of the great house--a hand that +would be full of gold some day; and his thoughts were busy. + +The beautiful Deborah was gone, and could never have been for him; he +had been an idiot to think it. She had no bent towards religion, was +ruinously dressy and extravagant, unhousewifely as a woman could be; +but Miss Pennycuick, great lady as she was, could cook and sew, was a +master hand with servants and with children, and had never failed of +interest in the church--nor in him. They had always been the best of +friends, he and she; did it not seem that Providence had decreed they +should be more? Why had he been sent to the dam in the nick of time, +when he had intended to stay at Redford until morning? Why was she +sitting here now, alone with him in his study, cut off from everybody +else in the world? The hand of the Lord was in it. Looks were of small +account when one considered her rank and the fortune she would inherit; +but, of course, he did not admit to himself that he considered any one +of these three things; nor that she was of age and her own mistress, +although she had just forced the fact upon him when, promising him to +make no further attempt upon her life, she announced an intention to +find a situation somewhere in which she would be able to support +herself apart from her family, and away from all who knew her. No, what +he considered was the will of God and the dictates of his conscience. +She had been given into his hands; he was bound to take care of +her, and there was but one way to do it. It would be wrong and cruel to +force her back to Redford. It was preposterous to think of making a +governess or companion of her, a daughter of the proud Pennycuicks. She +could not remain in his house as she was, without scandal, although he +was a clergyman, with a sister housekeeper. Here they were now--past +midnight, and practically without a soul in the house--and he so young +still, and, if he might presume to say it, so attractive! + +He put the case to her guardedly, gradually, plainly at last, and +argued it for a full hour, while she drooped and wept, gazing at the +smelly stove and shaking her head wearily. By the time dawn came, and +she was quite worn out, he had won her consent to be his wife, which +meant for her a footing somewhere, and at the same time a means to +commit suicide without violating the law. + +Miss Goldsworthy, who was but his humble slave, came home, put the +forlorn girl to bed, and made a wedding breakfast for her while she was +there; Mr Goldsworthy took the opportunity to fill up marriage papers +in his study. Ruby was sent to school, as usual. Before her return +therefrom, Mary Pennycuick had been led to the altar of the adjacent +church, the white frock in which she had tried to drown herself dried +and ironed to make her bridal robe. A neighbouring clergyman and crony +of the bridegroom's performed the ceremony. Old Miss Goldsworthy, the +chief witness, deposed, bewildered, wept bitterly. The bride was +unmoved--until little Ruby, returning during the course of the ghastly +wedding breakfast, was brought up, giggling and staring, to "kiss her +new mamma", when the new mamma snatched the child to her +breast, and went off into wild hysterics. + +"There, there," said the new husband, pleased with the maternal +gesture, but alarmed by her excitement, "you are overwrought. You have +had no sleep. You must come and rest, my dear. Come and lie down. You +can have Ruby with you, if you like--while I go and settle things at +Redford. No, I won't be long; I'll just see your father, and be back by +tea-time. Have the drawing-room opened, Charlotte"--it never was +opened except for visitors--"and we will sit there this evening. And +meanwhile, make her some tea or something, and see that she has all she +wants. Come, my love--" + +He led her to the door of a room, and she shrank back from it with a +shriek. + +"Well, well," he soothed her; "the spare room, if you like--" + +"Oh, promise me--promise me--!" + +"Yes, yes; just as you wish, darling. I would not hurry you." + +She turned to Miss Goldsworthy and clung to her. "Save me! save me!" +was what the desperate clutch meant, but what the paralysed tongue +could not articulate. + +She was in a high fever and delirious on her wedding night, and a week +later at death's door. When she came out of her illness, reconciled to +her family, meekly obedient to her husband, she was a wreck of herself +--a prisoner for life, bound hand and foot, more pitiable than she +would have been as a dead body fished out of the dam. + +The tragic disproportion between crimes and punishments in this world! + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + + +Mrs Goldsworthy was reconciled to her relations through her illness-- +the greatest peacemaker in families, save death; and for her sake they +made a show of tolerating her husband, after they had given him some +bad hours behind her back. But the whole affair was like a blight on +Redford, which was never the same place again. Mr Pennycuick had a +slight "stroke" on hearing all the bad news at once. It was light +enough to be passed over and hushed up, but his vigour and faculties +declined from that hour with a rapidity that could be marked from day +to day. "A changed man," observed his neighbours, one to another. At +the same time, they hinted that other things were not as they used to +be--that the old man had had losses--that Redford was heavily +burdened--that the proud Pennycuicks, already humbled, were likely to +experience a further fall. Certainly, the governess was dispensed with, +and the dashing four-in-hand withdrawn from the local racecourses and +agricultural show-grounds, of which it had long been the constant and +conspicuous ornament, to be sold at public auction, without reason +given. The great, hospitable house got a character for dullness for the +first time in its history. No lights or laughter flowed from the +windows of the big drawing-room of an evening; the lawns lay +dark and still, while downstairs a rubber of whist or a hand at +cribbage with Jim Urquhart or Mr Thornycroft represented what was left +of the gaieties of the past. These men--these old fogies, as fretful +Frances styled them both--were not of those who shunned Redford +because it had grown dull; on the contrary, they now--according to +Frances again--virtually lived there. And it was the absent +pleasure-seekers, her true kindred, for whom her soul longed. + +He who most openly resented the change, having (next to Mary) been most +instrumental in causing it, was Deborah's lover, Claud Dalzell. + +He had been none too gracious a lover--although graceful enough, when +all was well--seeing that he had continued his bachelor life, with all +its social obligations, after as before his engagement, and had allowed +this to run to nearly two years, without coming to any effective +understanding about the wedding-day; but when, in the thick of her +troubles, he descended upon Redford merely to denounce the Goldsworthy +marriage as a personal affront, and, as it were, to tax her with it, +then her loving indulgence did not suffice to excuse him. + +As usual, he went to his room first, to wash and change. He hated to +pass the door of a sitting-room with the dust of travel on him; he +could not shake hands with equanimity until he had restored his person +and toilet to their normal perfection, which meant more or less the +restoring of his nerves and temper to repose. So he appeared on this +occasion, fresh and finished to the last degree, the finest gentleman +in the world--the very light of Deb's eyes, and the satisfaction of +her own fastidious taste--walking in to her where she awaited +him, in the morning-room, herself 'groomed' to match, with as much care +as she had taken when she had no more serious matter to think of than +how to dress to please him. + +He met her, apparently, as usual. She, turning to him as to a rock in a +weary land, flung herself into his arms with more than her usual +self-abandonment. + +"Oh, darling!" she breathed, in that delicious voice of hers, "it is +good to see you. I have wanted you so badly." + +"I am sorry I did not come before," he replied, kissing her gravely. +"Somebody has been wanted to deal with that extraordinary girl." + +"Ah, poor girl! Do you know she is very ill with brain fever? Keziah +has gone to nurse her. It must have been that coming on. She was out of +her mind." + +"I should think so--and everybody else too, apparently. What were you +all about, Debbie, not to see this Goldsworthy affair going on under +your noses?" + +"It hasn't been going on. It has been Guthrie Carey--until now." + +"I am told"--it was Frances who had told him in the passage just now-- +"that she refused Carey only the day before." + +"She did." + +"In order to make a runaway match with this parson fellow. The facts +speak for themselves." + +"Ah!" sighed Deb, turning to the tea-table, "I expect we don't know all +the facts." + +She meant that he did not know them. He only knew what Frances knew, +and providentially they had been able to keep the episode of +the dam out of the published story. That was the secret of Mary +herself, her husband, her father, and this one sister; and they kept it +close, even from Claud Dalzell. "I will tell him some day when we are +married," Deb had promised herself; but as things fell out, she never +did tell him. And it was on account of her brother-in-law's part in the +suppressed event that she now forbore to call him behind his back what +she had not hesitated to call him before his face--that is, failed to +show that she fully shared her lover's indignation at the MESALLIANCE, +and the scandalous way that it had been brought about. + +"But, good heavens!"--Claud took his cup perfunctorily from her hand, +and at once set it down--"are more facts necessary? She has made a +clandestine marriage with a man whose bishop will turn him out of the +church, I hope. They were right, I suppose, in concluding that no one +here would consent to it; and what conceivable circumstances could +excuse such an act?" + +"Illness," said Deb. "Madness." + +"Nonsense! There's too much method in it. It is obviously but the +climax of a long intrigue--a course of duplicity that I could never +have believed possible in a girl like Mary, although I have always +thought HIM cad enough for anything." + +"Have your tea," said Deb, a trifle off-hand; "it will be cold." + +And she sat down with her own cup, and began to sip it with a leisurely +air. + +"A clandestine marriage," remarked Claud, ignoring her advice, +"logically implies a clandestine engagement. Carey was but a red +herring across the trail. And you ought to have known it, Deb." + +"Well, I didn't," said she shortly. + +He took a turn up and down the room, trying to preserve his wonted +well-bred calm. But he was intensely irritated by her attitude. + +"I cannot understand you," he complained, with a hard edge to his +voice. "I should have thought that you--YOU of all people--would have +been wild--as wild as I am." + +She exasperated him with a little laugh and a truly cutting sarcasm. +"It is bad form to SHOW that you are wild, you know, even if you feel +so." + +"I am just wondering whether you feel so. You are not used to hiding +your feelings--at any rate, from me. I expected to find you out of +your mind almost." + +"What's the use? If I raved till doomsday I couldn't alter anything. +The mischief is done. It is no use crying over spilt milk, my dear." + +"You look as if you did not want to cry." "Do I?" + +"As if it did not much matter to you whether it was spilt or not." "It +doesn't matter to me, compared with what it matters to her." "Well, it +matters to ME," Claud Dalzell announced, in a high tone, the crust of +his fine manners giving to the pressure of the volcano within. "I can't +stand the connection, if you can. Carey was bad enough, but he had some +claim beside his coat to rank as a gentleman. This crawling ass, who +would lick your boots for sixpence, to have him patting me on the back +and calling himself my brother--Good God! it's too sickening." + +"Not YOUR brother," Deb gently corrected him. + +"He is mine if he is yours." "Oh, not necessarily!" + +"Deb," said Claud, with an air of desperation, planting himself before +her, "what are you going to do?" + +She looked up at him with narrowing eyes and stiffening lips. + +"What IS there to do?" she returned. "Are you going to put up with this +--this outrage--to condone everything--to tolerate that fellow at +Redford, taking the position of a son of the house, or are you going to +show them both that they have forfeited their right ever to set foot +upon the place again?" + +"My sister too, you mean?" + +"Certainly--if you can still bring yourself to call her your sister. +She belongs to him now, not to us. She has voluntarily cut herself off +from her world. Let her go. Deb, if you love me--" + +He paused, and Deb smiled into his handsome but disgusted face. + +"Ah, is that to be a test of love?" she asked. "I understand. I am to +choose between you. Well"--she rose, towering, drawing the big diamond +from her engagement finger--"I am going to her now. I ought to have +been there hours ago, but waited back to receive you. Good-bye! And +pray, don't come again to this contaminated house. We have too horribly +gone down in the world. I know it, and I would not have you compromised +on any account. We Pennycuicks, we don't abandon our belongings, +especially when they may be dying; we sink or swim together." She held +the jewel out to him. + +"What rot!" he blurted vulgarly, flushing with anger that was +not unmixed with shame. "Why will you wilfully misunderstand me? Put it +on, Deb--put it on, and don't be so childish." + +"I will not put it on," said she, "until you apologise for the things +you have been saying to me, and the manner of your saying them." + +"My dear child, I do apologise humbly, if I have said what I shouldn't. +Perhaps I have; but I thought we were past the need for reserves and +for weighing words, you and I. And really, Debbie, you know--" + +"Hush!" She stopped him from further arguing; but she did not stop him +from taking her hand and cramming the diamond back into its old place. +"I must go. Father cannot--he is ill himself; and Miss Keene is too +frightfully modest to nurse him alone, so that I must send Keziah back, +and stay--" + +"Can't Miss Keene go and send her back, and stay?" + +"Oh, she would be no use in such an illness as Mary's. And I must see +for myself how things are--whether they are taking proper care of the +poor, unfortunate child--" + +"Is she so very ill? I did not know that." + +There was commiseration in his tone, but in his heart he hoped that the +deservedly sick woman would crown her escapades by dying as quickly as +possible. Then, perhaps, he could forgive her. + +Deb gave him sundry confidences. On his appearing to take them in a +proper spirit, she gave him some more tea. And so they lapsed into +their normal relations. When she again urged the need for her to be +getting off on her errand of mercy, he magnanimously offered to drive +her. She accepted with a full heart, and her arms about his +neck. While she was getting ready, he repacked his portmanteau, and +ordered it to be put into the buggy. + +"It's no use my going back," he said to her, when they were on the +road, "with you away, and your father too ill to see me. I'll put up at +the hotel tonight, and go on to town in the morning. You can send for +me there whenever you want me, you know." + +"Just as you like, dear," said Deb quietly; and for the rest of their +journey they talked commonplaces. + +When they reached the parsonage gate, from which the maid-of-all-work +and a group of street gossips scattered in panic at their approach, the +lovers shook hands perfunctorily. + +"Goodbye, then, for a little while," said Claud. "You don't want me to +come in, do you?" + +"Certainly not," said she coldly. + +"You know that it is totally against my judgment--and my wishes--that +you go in yourself, Deb?" + +"Yes. But one's own judgment must be one's guide." + +Thus they parted, each with a grievance against the other--a root of +bitterness to be nourished by much thinking about it, and by the +circumstance that poor Mary neither died nor was repudiated. Claud +drove on to the hotel, to be further disgusted with his accommodation +and his dinner; Deb walked into the house which hitherto she had +visited in a spirit of kindly condescension, to be revolted by the new +aspect which her changed relations with it now gave to its every +feature. Ruby, neglected, with a jam-smeared face--the flustered maid, +tousled, grubby, her frock gaping--the horrible hall, with its +imitation-marble paper and staring linoleum--the prim, trivial, +unaired, unused drawing-room, with its pathetic attempts at elegance-- +Deb inwardly curled up at the sight of these things as things now +belonging to the family. When the master of the house came hurrying in +to her, rusty, unshaven, abject, she would have changed places with a +Christian of old Rome facing a lion of the amphitheatre. + +"Oh, this is good of you! This is kind indeed!" Mr Goldsworthy greeted +her, and threatened in his grateful emotion to fall at her feet. "I did +not dare to hope--" + +But Deb shudderingly swept him aside, with his gratitude and his +excuses and his timid justifications. He could stand up before his +other critics--he had a clear conscience, he said; but before her he +knew himself for what he was. He followed her like a dog to Mary's +room, obeyed her directions like a slave, wept when she consented to +"say no more", and stooped to beg from him a solemn vow and promise +that he would be good to his wife. This was after the doctors had +refused to permit his wife's removal to Redford to be nursed, and after +Redford had practically been in command of his establishment for seven +weeks. + +Christmas is the time for reconciliations, and by Christmas Mary was +convalescent--pale as she had never been since childhood, and wearing +a little cap over her shaved head; very humble and gentle, and +strangely docile in her attitude towards her captor, who now gave +himself all the airs of a husband of his class. He was the benevolent +despot of his women-kind--the god of the machine; she was as properly +submissive as if born in the ranks. Negatively so, that is to +say; positively, her manifestations of duty to him took the form of +services and endearments bestowed upon his child and sister. Her first +occupation after she could use her hands was to improve Ruby's wardrobe +--the little girl, now her own, appealed to her motherly heart, a +saving interest in her wrecked life. The poor old ex-housekeeper was +the other prop to which she clung for a footing in the new and alien +world which was now all her home. When Miss Goldsworthy proposed to go +out into a situation, not to "be in the way of" the new wife, and when +her brother would have approved the plan as only right and proper (and +as facilitating his schemes for the raising of the "tone" of his +establishment to Redford level), Mary protested vehemently and with +tears, the only occasion of her showing a Pennycuick spirit since +renouncing the Pennycuick name. The old maid, for her part, was +enthusiastically devoted to the new sister-in-law, whom it was her joy +to pet and coddle. "I can be of use to her," she tremblingly commended +herself to her brother. "I can take the drudgery of the housework off +her, and save her in the parish." "Well, perhaps so," said Mr +Goldsworthy. And, sincerely desiring to endear himself to his +aristocratic wife, he consented to her wish. + +The whole Goldsworthy family was transferred to Redford, while, on the +pretext of disinfecting it, the parsonage was painted and papered what +Deb called "decently", and its more offensive furniture replaced. Mary +was provided with a trousseau and many useful wedding presents, a +cheque from her father for 500 pounds amongst them. They did not forgive +her, but they pretended excellently that they did. Without any +pretence at all, they tried to make the best of a bad job. To this end, +they gathered their friends together as usual at Christmas. Mr +Thornycroft and the Urquharts needed no pressing; they came to see Mary +the day she returned home, and showed her the old affection without +asking questions. Mr Thornycroft's wedding presents to her were +magnificent--a complete service of silver plate and house linen of the +finest. Deb wrote to Claud: "I suppose we shall see you, as usual?"-- +for he had always spent Christmas at Redford unless away on the other +side of the world. He wrote back: "I think not, this time." He was the +only defaulter. + +"He will never have a chance to refuse again," said Deb fiercely, as +she tore up his note. + +His absence was too marked not to provoke frequent comment, and +whenever it was alluded to in her hearing, her spine stiffened and her +head went up. It was quite evident to her family that the rift in the +lute was serious, and strange to say, it was her father, who might have +been expected to hail the signs, who was most concerned to see them. He +expostulated with her when she spoke bitterly of Billy's son, as once +he had been so ready to do himself. + +"Well, my dear," said he, "I can understand it, if you can't. I +wouldn't come myself, if I was in his place, to mix-up with the sort of +thing we've got to mix up with." + +"If I can mix up with it--!" quoth proud Deborah. + +"Yes, yes--I know; but you must consider the silly way that he's been +reared. I don't like his taking upon himself to criticise what +we choose to do; but no doubt Goldsworthy IS a pretty big pill to +swallow--to a chap like him, always so faddy about breeding and +manners, and that sort of thing." + +"If he is too faddy for the society that I can put up with, though it +be that of chimney-sweeps," said Deb, "he is too faddy for me, father." + +"Now, my dear, don't talk so," the old man pleaded with her, quite +agitated by her mood. "We all have our little weaknesses--we have to +make allowances for temperament and for bringing up. Don't let a trifle +like this estrange you two--don't, Debbie, for my sake. Let me go down +to my grave feeling that one of you, at least, is safe and happy, and +well provided for." + +"Decidedly," thought Deborah, "father is not the same man that he was +before his illness." + +She understood the cause of his change of views on her engagement +better a few weeks later. + +He had parted with his eldest daughter then, and the emotion of the +event had fatally affected him. Owing to some obscure working of the +"influence" which her social position had brought to her husband, the +latter had been promoted to the charge of a Melbourne parish. The +affair was arranged while they were still at Redford, and just on the +completion of the improvements to the local parsonage. In spite of all +they had done to make this first home fit for her, family and friends +were unanimous in hailing her removal to another and more distant one-- +out of the buzz of the gossip of her native neighbourhood--as the best +thing that could have happened. But when it came to the point of +sending her forth to battle with her fate alone for the rest of her +life, the wrench was dreadful. She was the bravest of them all +under the ordeal. The shattered father, whose right hand she had been +for so many happy years, and whose heart was broken with the weight of +his responsibility for her misfortunes, was completely overwhelmed. She +had not been gone twelve hours when Deb found him in his office chair, +unable to rise from it, or to answer her questions. And he never spoke +again. He made signs that he wanted Claud sent for, and when the young +man quickly came, looked significant things at him and Deb, as they +stood by his bedside hand in hand. Then he lapsed into stupor and died, +without waiting for a third stroke. + +Through all the shock and sorrow of the time, Claud was Deborah's +mainstay and consolation. He took the role of nearest male relative, +the right to which was undisputed by Mr Goldsworthy, preoccupied with +the important interests of his new parish; also by Mr Thornycroft and +Jim Urquhart, who, of course, "stood by" to serve her as far as she +would allow them. It was Claud who gave the orders for the funeral, and +superintended the ceremonies, and acted as chief mourner; it was Claud +to whom the household looked for direction, as if acknowledging him to +be the new master; it was on Claud's breast that Deb wept--who so +rarely wept--and his word that she obeyed, as if he were already her +husband; and in all that he did for her, and in all that he did not do, +he showed the grace, the tact, the tenderness, the thoughtfulness of +her ideal lover and gentleman. + +But there came a day when he fell again below the indispensable +standard--when the rift in the lute, that had seemed closed, +gaped suddenly, and this time beyond repair. It was when, after close +investigation of the deceased man's affairs, and some heated interviews +with one of the executors (Deb being the other), Claud discovered that +the Pennycuick wealth was non-existent--that Redford was mortgaged to +the hilt, and that if the estate was realised and cleared, as Deb +desired it should be, nothing would be left for her and her sisters-- +that is to say, a paltry three or four hundred a year amongst them, +less than Deb could spend comfortably on her clothes alone. + +He was too upset by the discovery, and a bad quarter of an hour that Mr +Thornycroft had subsequently given him, to preserve that calm demeanour +which was his study and his pride. He came in to Deb where she sat +alone, and expressed his feelings as the ordinary man is wont to do to +the woman who loves and belongs to him. + +"What could your father have been dreaming of," he rudely interrogated +her, "to let the place go to pieces like this? Drifting behind year +after year, and doing nothing to stop it--not cutting down one of the +living expenses--not giving us the least hint of how things really +were--" + +"He gave several hints," said Deb, in that voice which always grew so +portentously quiet when his was raised, "if we had had the sense to +take them. I have been putting two and two together for some time, so +that I am not altogether taken by surprise." + +"Why didn't you tell me?" + +"Because you were not here, for one thing. Because it was father's +private business, for another." + +"He seems not to have made it his business to take any care of +his children's interests," said Claud bitterly. "Bringing you up as he +has done, with the right to expect that you were to be properly +provided for, and then leaving you literally paupers--" + +"Not LITERALLY paupers," corrected Deb gently. "We shall be quite +independent still. And if you want to insult my father now that he is +dead--the best of fathers, if he did have misfortunes in business and +make mistakes--do it somewhere else, not in this room." "You have no +right to take that tone with me, Deb." "No?" She raised sarcastic +eyebrows, under which her deep eyes gleamed. "Well, I suppose I haven't +--now. I forgot my new place. I am very sorry, Claud"--rising, and +making a gesture with her hands that he had seen before--"very sorry +indeed, that I did not know I was going to be a poor woman and a nobody +when you did me the honour to select me to be your wife. Now that you +have shown me that I am disqualified for the position--" she held out +the big diamond, with a cold smile. "That's vulgar, Deb," he loftily +admonished her, fending off her hand. "You know I am not actuated by +those low motives. DON'T let us have this cheap melodrama, for pity's +sake! Put it on." + +But no more would she put it on. He had revealed his disappointment +that she was not something more than herself--that beautiful and +adorable self that she quite knew the worth of--and he had +permitted himself to take liberties of speech with her that she +instinctively felt to be provoked by the circumstance that she was no +longer rich and powerful. + +Deb's love was great, but her pride was greater. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + + +Deb sat amid the ruins of her home. She occupied the lid of a deal +packing-case that enclosed a few hundreds of books, and one that was +half filled stood before her, with a scatter of odd volumes on the +floor around. The floor, which was that of the once cosy morning-room, +was carpetless; its usual furniture stood about higgledy-piggledy, all +in the wrong places, naked and forlorn. Mr Thornycroft leaned against +the flowerless mantel-shelf, and surveyed the scene, or rather, the +central figure, black-gowned, holland-aproned, with sleeves turned back +from her strong wrists, and a grey smudge on her beautiful nose. + +"That cottage that you talk about," said he, "will not hold all those." + +"Oh, books don't take any space," she replied brusquely. "They are no +more than tapestry or frescoes. I shall have cases made to fit flat to +the walls." + +"That will cost money." + +"One must have the bare necessaries of life. I presume I shall be able +to afford that much. Pine boards will do. I can Aspinall them." +"Aspinall is very nice, but sometimes it gets on the edges of your +books and spoils them." + +"No, it doesn't. I have an Aspinalled book-case in my room now, +and not a mark ever came off it." + +"Did you paint it?" + +"I did." + +"Are you going to leave it there?" + +"I must. It is a fixture." + +"That's all right. I am glad you are going to leave something." +"Something? I leave all." + +"Except a library of books, and a collection of forty odd pictures, +that you will have to hang over the books--" + +"You would not have us part with family portraits?" + +"And a grand piano, extra sized, calculated to fill a suburban villa +drawing-room all by itself--" + +"Pianos make nothing second-hand, and the girls must practise. Better +keep a good instrument than sell it for fifty pounds and spend the +money on a bad one." + +"Certainly, if you can stow it. But with seven easy-chairs, and the +biggest Chesterfield sofa extant, and a large writing-table--" + +"I can have that in my room." + +"Along with a six-foot dressing-table, and a nine-foot wardrobe, and I +don't know how many chests of drawers--" + +"The wardrobe will stand in a passage somewhere. We must have places to +put our clothes." + +"A house with passages of that capacity--" + +"Well, never you mind. If I can't find room for my things, I can sell +them in Melbourne as well as here." + +"Having squandered a small fortune on the carriage down. Better +leave them with me, Debbie, and let me send you what you want +afterwards." + +"Thank you. You would not have them to send afterwards." + +"Oh, I think I would." + +"No. I shall settle everything before I leave, and the sale will be +held immediately. The furniture first, and then the place." Her mouth +closed upon the words like a steel snap. + +"Just as you please about that," he said quietly. "Any time will suit +me." + +"By public auction," she added, with a sharp glance at him--"to the +highest bidder." + +"Yes," was his laconic comment. "Me." + +"Not necessarily," said she, roused by the small word that held such +large meanings. "There are a few other rich persons in the western +district, to whom Redford may appear desirable." + +"There are," he agreed easily. "I know several. But I shall outbid +them." + +She was strongly agitated. "Oh, I hope they won't let you!" + +"Why?" he asked. + +At first she fenced with the question. + +"Because you don't want it. You have more land already than one man +ought to have." "I don't know about what I ought to have, but I know +that if you persist in throwing Redford away, I shall take it." He +smiled at her angry perturbation. "If I find I haven't enough money to +outbid everybody--but I think I have--I can sell Bundaboo. If you +won't have Redford, I will--yes, and every stick and stone that +belongs to it." + +"And have people talking and saying that you did it for +something else, and not business reasons." + +"People would be right, for once." + +"But I won't have it!" cried Deb. "I won't stand being an object of +your benevolence. You want to pay a lot more than the place is worth, +so as to augment our income. You as good as own it--" + +"I want to keep your home for you against you change your mind." "The +last thing I shall do, I assure you--particularly after your saying +that." Her nose, in spite of the smut on it, testified to her indignant +dignity, up in the air, with its fine nostrils quivering. "Now, look +here, godpapa--I will not have Redford put up to auction. I'll sell +privately--and to somebody else." + +"You cannot." + +"Oh, indeed! Not when I am executor?" + +"Certainly not--except with the permission of your fellow-executor." + +She fell to pleading. + +"Oh, let me--do let me! You know what I want--to square up all the +debts and have done with them. I can't sleep for thinking of what we +owe you already. Do you know how much it is? Nearly forty thou--" + +He checked her with an impatient wave of the hand. + +"All the debts will be provided for, of course. The lawyers will adjust +those matters." + +"I don't trust you," she urged, looking at him less angrily, but still +as puzzled and distressed. "I know you have designs to benefit me +somehow--unfairly, and because it's me--and if you only knew +how I HATED to be benefited--" + +"I do--nobody better. That is why I am letting you do a lot of things +that won't benefit you, but just the opposite--things you will repent +of horribly by-and-by. Knowing your independent spirit, I do not offer +my advice--" + +"Oh!" + +"Not effectively. I do not force it upon you. I do not bring my +undoubted powers to bear upon you for your good--" + +"Ah!" + +"Because I know, of course, that you would rather suffer anything than +be guided by me." + +She softened instantly. "I am not such a fool, I hope. But--but you +WILL bring friendship into business. You did things for my father that +you know you would never have dreamt of doing for strangers--that you +never ought to have done at all; and now you want to be twice as +idiotically generous to us, because we are girls, and out of pity for +us--to do us a kindness, as it is called--when, if you only knew--" + +She had risen and drifted to him where he stood, and now laid a hand on +his arm. He put a hand over it, and looked into her pleading eyes. He +seemed not to have heard her last remark, to be far away in mind from +the point of discussion, and his fixed and strange gaze perplexed and +then embarrassed her. "How he feels our going!" she thought to herself, +and turned her face from his, and tried to turn his apparently sad +thoughts. + +"If you would only let me sell Redford to somebody else, and have the +lump money to pay all the debts in a plain way that I could +understand, and take the remainder for ourselves, and know that we were +straight and free, I would do anything you liked to ask me in return!" + +He still kept silence, and that tight grasp upon her hand. So she +looked at him again; and his far-away stare was bewildering. + +"I wonder," said he slowly--"I wonder, if I were to take you at your +word, whether you would stick to it?" + +"Try me," said she. + +"I will. Deborah Pennycuick, if I let you sell Redford, and pay all +debts with your own hands, will you--I am your godfather, and +something over fifty, and it is quite preposterous, of course, but +still you said anything--will you be my wife?" + +"Oh!" This was the unexpected happening, with a vengeance. Never had +she imagined such a notion on the part of this staid and venerable +person. She flushed hotly, and wrenched her imprisoned hand free. "I +don't like stupid jokes," she muttered, overcome with confusion. "Do I +give you the impression that I am joking?" he asked. + +"If you are serious, that is worse," said she. "Then I know you are +only trying another way of providing for me." + +"You believe I have only just thought of it?" + +"Haven't you?" + +"I have thought of it since you were fifteen, my dear. But never mind. +We will call it a joke, if you think that the least of two evils. I see +you do. The incident is closed. The bargain is off. And I can buy +Redford when it is put up for sale. Goodbye, goddaughter. No, I +can't stay to lunch today; I have some business to attend to. But of +course I shall see you again before you go." + +And when he did see her again, he gave not the smallest sign of what +had happened, so that she almost grew to feel that she must have dreamt +it. + +That same afternoon, Jim Urquhart, who was always doing so, rode over +to Redford to see if he could help her pack. He wondered at her +abstracted manner, and her sudden change of mind concerning the piano +and wardrobe and other things. Having laboriously packed books and +pictures, she now proposed to unpack half of them. She wanted to see +what room she would have in her cottage first. In fact, it seemed to +him that she did not know what she wanted. She was evidently tired and +overwrought. "Oh, Jim," she moaned, from amongst the dust and litter, +"it is a wrench!" + +"What do you suppose it is for us?" he returned gloomily. "Without you +at Redford! I'm trying not to think of it." + +"So am I. But it's no use--it has got to come." + +"I suppose there is no way out?" + +"None. That is all settled. I have told Mr Thornycroft, and he won't +tease me any more." + +"Do you think you will be happy down there, cooped up in streets?" + +"I know I shall not. But the streets down there will be better than the +streets of a bush township." + +"Why streets at all? Why not stay about here somewhere, where you have +us all near you?" + +"Exiled from Redford? No, thank you. Besides, where could we stay? +Detached cottages don't grow in these parts." + +Then he blurted it out. + +"I have never said anything, Deb. I knew I wasn't fit for you, and. I +am not now. I've got to look after my dear old mother and the children, +who haven't got anybody else, and I couldn't give you a home worthy of +you--perhaps never, no matter how I worked and tried; but if love is +any good, and the things that after all make homes--not money and fine +furniture--" "Dear old boy, don't!" she pleaded, with twitching lips. + +"I may as well, now I have begun," said he. "I don't suppose it is any +use, but I'd just like you to know once--as far as my life is my own, +it is yours any day you like. It has been since I was a boy, and it +will be for a good while yet--I won't say for ever, because you can't +tell what's going to happen; but I'm ready to bet my soul that it will +be for ever. Now, do just what you feel inclined to, Debbie. I'm not +going to press you--I know my place too well; but if you should think +it a better plan to live with me, and have me work for you and take +care of you the best I can, why, any heaven that's coming to us +by-and-by simply won't be in it--not for me." He looked at her across +the packing-case between them, and dropped his voice to add: "But you +wouldn't, of course." + +"I would, dear Jim!" she cried, with warm impulsiveness; "that is, I +might. A good man like you is worth a worldful of money and furniture. +I don't live for those things, as you seem to think; but--but you know +how it is--I can't change about from one to another--" + +He dropped the saddest "No" into the pregnant pause. + +"No, Deb--no; I expected that. Staunch through everything-- +that's you all over. Well"--with a movement as if to pull himself +together--"I'm staunch too. We're equals in that, anyhow, and don't +you forget it. I'll not bother you any more--I never have bothered +you, have I?--but I'm here when you want me, body and soul, at any +hour of the day or night. You'll remember that?" stretching his horny +hand across to her, and being in the same instant electrified by the +touch of her lips upon it. + +"Oh, I will! I will!" + +The evening post brought a ship letter. Guthrie Carey was in port. He +had been there long enough to hear the news that Deborah Pennycuick was +penniless, and that Claud Dalzell had deserted her. So he had written +to her at length--the longest letter of his life--ten pages. + +She took it to her bedroom and sat down to read it, while at the same +time she rested a little before dinner. She had frowned over the +envelope; now she smiled over the first pages; she sighed over the +middle ones; she even wept a little over the last. Then she wrote out +an answer and sent it by a groom to the nearest telegraph office: + +"Please do not come. Am writing." + +Thus she cast aside in one day three good men and true, heart-bound to +one who was not worthy to be ranked with any of them. But that is the +way of love. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + + +There was an attic at the top of a dark flight of stairs in the +suburban villa that was now the sisters' home. It contained a fireplace +and a long dormer window--three square casements in a row, of which +the outer pair opened like doors--facing the morning sun and a country +landscape. The previous tenants had used it for a box and lumber room, +and left it cobwebbed, filthy and asphyxiating. Deb ordered a charwoman +to clean it, and a man to distemper the grubby plaster and stain the +floor, and then laid down rugs, and assembled tables and books, and +basket-chairs, and girls' odds and ends; whereby it was transformed +into a cosy boudoir and their favourite room. Hither came Mary when she +could escape from that treadmill of which she never spoke, bringing her +black-eyed boy to astonish his aunts with his cleverness, and +astonishing them herself with the heretical notions which an intimate +association with orthodoxy seemed to have implanted in her. But Bennet +was not admitted, nor any other outsider. + +The little bricked hearth, when reminiscent wood fires burned on it, +was a pleasant gathering-place in cold weather; but it was the window +in the projecting gable towards which the sisters most commonly +converged. It was about eight feet long by two feet high, and +close up under it, nearly flush with its sill, stood a substantial +six-foot-by-four table, the chairs at either end comfortably filling +the rest of the alcove. They could sit here to write or sew, or drink +afternoon tea, and look out upon as pleasant a rural landscape--the +Malvern Hills--as any suburban villa could command. It was that view, +indeed, which had decided Deb to take the house. + +There was, of course, a towny foreground to it; and this it was, rather +than the distant blue ranges, that held the gaze of Rose Pennycuick +when she looked forth--the back-yard of the villa next to their own. +It was a well-washed-and-swept enclosure, spacious and well-appointed, +and amongst its appointments displayed a semi-circular platform of +brickwork, slightly raised above the asphalted ground, and supporting +the biggest and best dog-kennel that she had ever seen. + +"Those are nice people," she remarked, "for they have given their dog +as good a house as they have given themselves. Isn't it a beauty? I +wish to goodness everybody was as considerate for the poor things. I +wonder what sort of a dear beast it is?" + +She watched so long for its appearance that she thought the kennel +untenanted, but presently saw a maid come out from the kitchen with a +tin dish. This she dumped upon the brick platform, turning her back +instantly; and a fine, ruffed, feather-tailed collie stepped over the +kennel threshold to get his dinner. + +"Chained!" cried Rose. "And she never spoke to him!" + +Deb looked over her shoulder, sympathetically concerned. "Is he +really? What a shame! I expect they are too awfully clean and tidy to +stand a dog's paws on anything; but no doubt they let him out for a +run." + +Rose waited for days, and never saw this happen. The master of the +house and a dapper young man, his son, went to town every morning at a +certain hour, evidently for the day's business; a stout, smart lady, +with smart daughters, was seen going forth in the afternoons; the maids +took their little outings; but no one took the dog. He lived alone on +his patch of brick, either hidden in the kennel or lying in the sun +with his nose between his paws. He had his food regularly, for it was a +regular household; but beyond that, no notice seemed taken of him. +Rose, worked up from day to day, declared at last that she could not +stand it. "Why, what can you do?" said Deb. "He is their dog, not +yours." "Oh, I don't know; but I must do something." + +One moonlight night she heard him--always silent and supine, except +when suspicious persons came into the yard--baying softly to himself, +plainly (to her) voicing the weariness of his unhappy life. She sat up +in bed and listened to him, and to his master shouting to him at +intervals to "be quiet"; and she wept with sympathetic grief. + +It was a Saturday night. On Sunday morning she excused herself from +going to church. She saw Deb and Francie go, and she saw the family of +the next house go--heard their front door bang, and caught gleams of +smart dresses through the foliage of their front garden. Then +she put on her hat and stole forth to intercede for the collie with the +cook of his establishment, a kindly-looking person, who had once been +observed to pat his head. + +The gleaming imitation-mahogany door at which she rang with a +determined hand but a fluttering heart, was, to her dismay, opened to +her by a young man--the son of the house, whom she had seen going to +business every week-day morning, tailored beautifully, and wearing a +silk hat that dazzled one. He was now in a very old suit, +flannel-shirted and collarless, so that at first she did not recognise +him. + +The desire of each was to turn and fly, but the necessity upon them was +to face their joint mishap and see it through. Crimson, the young man +mumbled apologies for his state of unreadiness to receive ladies; +equally crimson, Rose begged him not to mention it, and apologised for +her own untimely call. + +"Miss Pennycuick, I believe?" stammered he, with an awkward bow. + +"Miss Rose Pennycuick--yes," said she, struggling through her +overwhelming embarrassment. "I called--I wanted--I--I--MIGHT I +speak to you for just one minute, Mr Breen?" + +She had lived beside him long enough to know his name, also his +occupation. The Breens were drapers. Their shop in the city was not to +be compared with Buckley & Nunn's or Robertson & Moffat's, but it was a +good shop in its way, as this good home of the proprietors testified. + +"Certainly," said young Mr Breen, whose name was Peter. "With pleasure. +By all means. Walk in, Miss Pennycuick." + +She walked into a gorgeous drawing-room, where all was of the +best, and wore that shining air of furniture too valuable for daily +use. Mr Peter drew up a cream linen blind that was one mass of lace +insertion, and apologised anew for his unseemly costume. + +"The fact is, Miss Pennycuick--I hope you won't be shocked at my doing +such things on Sunday--I was cleaning my gun. There is a holiday this +week, and I am going shooting with a friend. It was he I expected to +see when I went to the door in this state." "Oh," said Rose, more at +her ease, "I often do things on Sundays; I don't see why not. In fact, +I am doing something now--" + +She cast about for words wherein to explain her errand, while he shot a +stealthy glance at her. Though not beautiful, like Deb and Francie, she +was a wholesome, healthy, bonnie creature, and he was as well aware of +her position in life as she was of his. + +"I came, Mr Breen--I thought there were only servants in the house--I +am sure you must wonder how I can take such a liberty, such an utter +stranger, but I wanted to speak about that poor dog of yours--" + +"Bruce--ah!" Enlightenment seemed to come to the young man. "You have +called to complain of the row he made last night. We were only saying +at breakfast--" + +"No, no, indeed!" Rose spread out protesting hands, and ceased to feel +embarrassed. "Not to complain of him, poor dear, but--but--if you +will forgive such impertinence, to ask somebody--I thought I should +see your cook, who looks kind--to do something to make his life a +little less miserable." + +"Miserable!" Mr Breen broke in, and sat up, stiffening, as if +half inclined to be offended, even with this very nice young lady. + +"There isn't a dog in the country better off. We had his place in the +yard built on purpose for him; had his kennel made to a special design +--" "A lovely kennel! I never saw a better." + +"Clean straw every few days; all his food cooked--" + +"But CHAINED, Mr Breen. And a collie, too!" + +"Well, we couldn't have him messing all over the place; at any rate, my +people wouldn't. Oh, I assure you, Miss Pennycuick, Bruce is in clover. +He was only baying the moon. Dogs often do that. It's only their fun-- +though it isn't fun to us." + +"Fun!" sighed Rose helplessly. And she fixed her eyes upon her +companion, as they sat VIS-A-VIS on the edges of their brocaded chairs, +with no sense that he was a strange young man--a gaze that troubled +and disconcerted him. "I am sure," she answered earnestly, "that you +have a kind heart. One has only to look at you to know it." + +"The idea never occurred to me before," he mumbled, flattered by her +discernment, and no more offended with her. + +"I am sure no one could mean better by a dog than you, giving him all +those nice things," she continued. "But--but you don't THINK. You +don't try to imagine yourself chained up in one spot night and day, +week in and week out, with nothing to do--no interests, no amusements, +unable to get to your work, to go shooting with your friends, to do +anything that you were born to do--and consider how you would like +it." + +Mr Peter submitted to her humbly the fact that he was not a +dog. + +"And you think you are not both made of the same stuff? That's just +where people make the mistake, even the kindest of them. Mr Breen, I +once had a long talk with the curator of a zoological garden, and he +told me that animals in confinement suffer mentally, just as we should +do in their place. Unless they have occupation and companionship they +go out of their minds. They get sullen and savage, and people say they +are vicious, and punish them, when it is only misery. He said no happy +dog ever got hydrophobia unless it was bitten; and that it was to save +themselves from going mad that squirrels kept whirling their wheel and +tigers running round and round their cages. They want notice, and +change, and work, or they cannot bear it. The stagnation kills them-- +or I wish it did kill them quicker than it does. Look at your Bruce, +born to work sheep, to scamper over miles of country, free as air, to +be mates with some man who would know the value of such a friend, and +be worthy of him. Oh, it is too cruel!" + +Never had Rose displayed such eloquence, and a sudden glisten in her +candid eyes put the piercing climax to it. Mr Peter's kind heart, which +had been growing softer and softer with every word she spoke, was in +melting state. + +"Upon my soul," he declared, "you put quite a new light on it; you do +indeed, Miss Pennycuick. I see your point of view exactly. But--" + +With the utmost willingness to meet her views, he was unable to see how +to do it. It was easy to say "Let him off the chain," but the mater, +who was very particular, would never stand a dog muddying the +verandahs and digging holes for his bones in the flower-beds. He, Mr +Peter, was an only son, and she would do most things for him, but he +was afraid she would draw the line at that. + +"Well, you might at least take him for walks," Rose pleaded. "Nobody +could object to that." "Yes, I might take him for walks," the young man +conceded thoughtfully. "Of course, I don't get home from business till +tea-time, and I have to leave directly after breakfast--" + +"Our Pepper, when we go to town, takes us to the station and sees us +off; and you are not at business on Saturday afternoons." "I usually +play tennis or something on Saturday afternoons--" + +"Well, take him and let him see you play tennis. He'd love it." + +"I question whether my club would. But see here, Miss Pennycuick, I WAS +going to meet some lady friends this afternoon, but now I won't; I will +take him for a walk instead. And I'll get up in the mornings, and give +him a run before breakfast. There!" + +"Oh, how kind, how good you are!" she exclaimed delightedly. + +"Not at all," he returned, glowing. "It is you who are good, taking all +this trouble about us. I am only ashamed that you should have had to do +it, and that you should have caught me in this state"--another +blushing reference to his distressing toilet. + +"Never mind your state," she consoled him sweetly, rising from her +chair. "I like you better in this state than I do when you are smart. I +thought you were too smart to--to condescend to trouble +yourself about a poor dog." + +"I am sorry you had such a bad opinion of me. It was simply--the thing +didn't occur to me until you mentioned it." + +"I know. But it is all right now. Well, I must go. You will never get +your gun cleaned at this rate." + +"Bother the gun! This is better than--I mean--won't you take a glass +of wine?" + +She declined emphatically and with haste, and hurried into the hall. He +opened the front door for her, and they stood together for a moment on +the dustless door-mat, mathematically laid upon verandah boards as +white as new-peeled almonds. + +"What a lovely garden!" remarked Rose, as she stepped down to it. Those +were her words, but what she really said in her mind was: "Who would +think he was a draper?" + +Francie was aroused from her Sunday afternoon snooze on the +drawing-room sofa. + +"What IS the matter with that dog?" she complained pettishly. "Surely, +after howling like a starved dingo all night--be quiet, Pepper! One of +you is enough." Rose's terrier was up and fidgeting, with pricked ears. + +"They must be killing him!" cried Deb, lifting her handsome head from +her book. + +"Oh, no," said Rose; "that sort of bark means joy, not pain." + +"Poor, dear beast! What's making him joyful, I wonder?" + +"I must go up and see," said Rose, who had carefully refrained from +mentioning her forenoon proceedings. + +The drowsy pair sank back upon their cushions; only Pepper +accompanied her to the attic room. He jumped upon the window seat, +wriggling and yapping, and they looked forth together from the open +casement upon the spectacle of Bruce and Mr Peter apparently engaged in +mortal combat. The collie had realised that he was off the chain and +about to take a walk, and was expressing himself not merely in frenzied +yells, but in acrobatic feats that threatened to overwhelm his master. +The latter, tall-hatted, frock-coated, lavender-trousered, with a cane +in his hand and a flower in his button-hole, jumped and dodged wildly +to escape the leaping mass, his face puckered with anxiety for the +results of his experiment. Pepper's delighted comments drew his eyes +upwards, and he made shift to raise his hat, with a smile that was +instantly and generously repaid. Rose nodded and waved her hand, and +Peter went off, making gestures and casting backward glances at her, +until he was a mere dot upon the distant road, with another dot +circling around him. + +"Dear fellow!" she mused, when he was out of sight. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + + +Bruce went unchained, within limits, and had a run nearly every day. +Workmen came to put a railing and gate to the back verandah of his +establishment, and Mrs Breen kept a fidgety watch upon his movements; +but evidently the only son's will ruled, and he was more than faithful +to his compact with Rose. She was able to see this from her commanding +window, and to hear it from Bruce's mouth; and day by day her heart +warmed towards Bruce's master. Many were the friendly smiles and +salutes that passed between the attic window and the Breen back-yard, +all unknown to Rose's sisters. + +They were walking with her one Saturday afternoon, when they met Mr +Peter and the collie. Pepper ran forward to greet Bruce, and they +sniffed at each other's noses and wagged their respective tails in a +friendly way. Deb was remarking to Rose that their pity for the Breens' +dog had been quite misplaced, when a bow from her sister and a lift of +the hat by the young man caused her to stop short and raise her fine +brows inquiringly. + +"Rose!" + +"I--I spoke to him one day," explained Rose, pink as her pinkest +namesake. "About Bruce." + +"Who's Bruce?" + +"That's Bruce--his dog." + +Frances came running up. "Rose," said she indignantly, "did you +bow to that man?" + +"He is our neighbour next door," mumbled Rose. + +"I know that. So is the wood-carter. But is that a reason why you +should bow to him? Do you know who those people are?" + +"They are perfectly respectable people, I believe," said Rose, growing +restive. + +"DRAPERS," said Frances witheringly. + +"I shouldn't care if they were chimney-sweeps. They have a beautiful +dog, and young Mr Breen is very kind to him, and I--I thanked him for +it." "Oh, Deb!" + +"Was that necessary, my dear?" + +"Perhaps not. But I did." + +"Well, be careful, Rosie. We are not at Redford now, you know. Girls +living alone and going about in public places--" + +"And that sort of person," Frances broke in crossly, "always takes +advantage of a little notice. Why, he looked at you as if you were +friends and equals, Rose!" + +Rose turned to retort again, but feeling the weight of opinion against +her, forbore. And she was glad she had never mentioned the +circumstances under which she had made poor Peter Breen's acquaintance. + +On a later afternoon she was in the attic room, sewing at a frock for +Robbie Goldsworthy--Robert Pennycuick, after the grandfather who had +been expected to leave much money--while Deb and Frances entertained +visitors downstairs. Old Keziah had brought her tea and cakes, and she +had had a pleasant time with her work and her thoughts, and her +view of Bruce and his premises, when suddenly Frances flounced in. + +"Now, madam!" exclaimed the irate young lady, "we have to thank you for +this. What did I say? Give these people an inch and they will take an +ell--a mile indeed, if they can get it." + +"What people?" inquired Rose faintly. + +"Those Breen people--those DRAPERS. They have had the cheek to come +and call on us--to call and leave their cards, 'First and third +Wednesday', as if they expected us to call back again!" + +"Who came?" + +"Mrs and Miss--with half the shop upon their backs. Debbie"--Deb was +coming in behind her--"you are NOT going to return the call of those +people, I TRUST?" + +"Oh, I don't know," smiled Deb easily. "It would please them, and it +wouldn't hurt us. There would be no need, of course, to return a second +one." + +"I should think it would NOT hurt us," Rose spoke up, "to behave like +decent people. I never heard that it was considered high breeding and +fine manners to snub your inferiors--if they are your inferiors." "You +have to snub them," said Frances, "if they don't know manners +themselves." + +"A very GENTLE snub," said Deb. "We are not going to be rude to the +poor things. We will call once--that is, I will--in a few months' +time. After all, it was hardly their fault." + +"No; it is Rose's fault. Please, Rose, in future be so good as to +consider your family a little, as well as your neighbours' dogs." + +Rose's only reply was to start the sewing-machine and drive it +vehemently. But her heart burned within her. Evidently Peter's +mother and sister had been insulted in her house, after he had been so +good to her. + +He did not appear in the yard that evening, and next day when he did, +his face was turned from her all the time. The day after that, she +rattled the window and encouraged Pepper to bark to draw the young +man's attention, having ready for him a smile that should counteract +Francie's frowns, if smiles could do it; but again he took no notice. +Then she was sure that his feelings had been hurt. Mrs and Miss Breen +had returned to report a cool reception of the overtures that had been +made almost certainly at his instigation--had probably reproached him +for exposing them to the insolence of stuck-up snobs. Oh, it was +horrid! And doubtless he thought her as bad as the rest. She had not +gone downstairs to see his mother and sister, and how was he to know +she had been ignorant that they were there? And still he took Bruce out +for walks, before breakfast and after business in the afternoons, when +he might have been playing tennis and enjoying himself. + +She bore with this state of things for some time, then suddenly +determined to end it. "Where there's a will there's a way." One of +Deb's petticoats showed signs of fraying, and, Deb-like, she must have +fresh lace for it immediately. Rose offered to go to town to fetch it, +taking with her the money for her purchase. + +Never before had she been to "Breen's." Second-rate, if not third or +fourth, was its class amongst Melbourne shops, and the Pennycuicks had +always been accustomed to the best. But when she turned in at the +somewhat narrow and encumbered doorway, she was pleasantly +surprised to note how far the shop ran back, and how well-stocked and +busy and solidly prosperous it seemed. + +He was there--not, to her great relief, behind the counter, but in a +sort of raised office place at the farther end--attending to the books +apparently, while keeping an eye upon other matters. Hardly had she set +foot upon the carpeted aisle when his head popped up from behind his +desk, and she saw herself recognised. As it was her object to be +recognised, and to speak to him, she passed the lace department, the +ribbons, the silks, the dress stuffs, until she reached the Manchester +department, where they sold towels and table-cloths, and beautiful +satin eider-downs in all the colours of the rainbow. Here she halted +and asked sweetly for torchon lace. + +All the way had Peter watched her, but with his head down, as if +wishing to hide from her. "He fancies I shall be ashamed of him because +he keeps a shop," thought she; and that was exactly what he did fancy, +knowing the world and its funny little inconsistent social ways. So, +when informed that she had left the lace counter far behind her, and +while turning to retrace her steps, she frankly sought his eye, and +catching it, bowed and smiled with all the friendliness that could be +expressed in such fashion. + +That smile drew Peter out. But still he came with a bashful and +hesitating air, as if uncertain of his reception; so that she had to +meet him half-way, with bold hand extended. + +"How do you do, Mr Breen? How is Bruce? But I see how well he is, and +happy--thanks to you. I am so sorry I did not have the pleasure of +seeing your mother and sister when they were so kind as to call +the other day; but I did not know they were in the house till they were +gone." + +He glowed with joy. He clasped her hand with a vigour that made it +tingle for a minute afterwards. + +"I was sorry too," he said. "My old mater is a good soul. I think you +and she--I wanted her to see you. Another time, perhaps--" + +"Oh, I hope so! We are such near neighbours." She was ready to say +anything that would make him feel he was not being treated as a +shopman. "And did you have your day's shooting? Were you successful?" +"Well," with modest pride, "I came upon snipe unexpectedly, and brought +home a couple of brace. If I had thought you would condescend to accept +them, Miss Pennycuick--if I had dared--" + +"Oh, thank you very much, but I could not have let you rob your mother--" + +Conscious of heightened colour, and several pairs of watching eyes, +Rose hastily put out her hand. Peter took it respectfully, slightly +abashed. + +"Can I--is there anything--anything I can do for you?" + +"Yes, please," she said, struggling to remember what it was. "Some--er +--lace--torchon--for my sister; that is what I came for." "This way," +said Peter gently; and they walked down the long, narrow shop together, +closely scrutinised by the young women behind the counters. Two or +three of these, with ingratiating smirks, converged upon the spot where +their young chief halted and called aloud for torchon lace. The +favoured one brought forth the stock, unexpectedly large and +valuable, and the girl was soon able to make her choice. She wanted one +dozen yards, and there was a piece of fourteen that Peter styled a +"remnant" for her benefit. If he could have presented it to her free of +cost, he would have loved to do so; as it was, she made an excellent +bargain. + +"I only hope they won't ask me where I got it," she said to herself on +the way home. Happily, they did not. The usual Buckley was taken for +granted, and Deb slashed up the lace without noticing that she had +fourteen yards for twelve. + +But Rose was a poor schemer, and it was inevitable that she should soon +be found out. + +The sisters were gathered about their window table in the attic room on +the following afternoon. Keziah had brought their tea, and amid the +litter of their needlework they drank it leisurely, enjoying a spell of +rest. Both casements stood wide. Deb, at one end, gazed wistfully at +the Malvern Hills; Frances, at the other, looked down on objects nearer +home. Rose had purposely drawn her chair back farther into the room. A +joyous bark arose. + +"There's your young man, Rose," said Frances flippantly. "Really, the +dandy has surpassed himself. Knickerbockers and a Norfolk jacket, if +you please! Why, actually a horse! He is going out to ride. This it is +to be a counter-jumper in these levelling times!" + +"He is not a counter-jumper," said reckless Rose. + +"How do you know?" returned Frances swiftly. + +"Proprietors don't wait behind the counter." + +"That is where he has had to learn his business, of course," said Deb. +"But there is nothing disgraceful in counters. Don't be snobbish, +Francie. Every trade--profession too, for that matter--has to +have a counter of some sort." + +"Of course it has," said Rose, heartened. + +"Oh, but to see a man--a miserable apology for a man--measuring out +calicoes and ribbons, and tapes and buttons, and stays and garters, and +all sorts of things that a man has no right to touch--pugh!" + +"Only women sell the stays and garters," corrected Rose vehemently. +"And at least young Mr Breen is not a miserable apology for a man. He +is as much a real man as anybody else--goes out shooting--plays +tennis--" + +Again Francie's cat's-paw pounced on her. "How do you know?" + +"Why--why--you can see he is one of that sort," squirmed poor Rose. + +"Oh!" said Frances significantly, with a firm stare at her sister's +scarlet face. "Deb, there is more in this than meets the eye--even +than meets the eye." + +"I don't care what you say," struck Rose blindly. + +"Don't tease her," Deb interposed. "And don't be putting preposterous +ideas into the child's head." + +"Please, Deb, I am not a child." + +"No, my dear, you are not; and therefore you know, as well as we do, +that young Mr Breen is nothing to us." + +"Did I say he was anything? It is Francie that makes horrid, vulgar +insinuations." + +"But how do you know that he shoots and plays tennis?" persisted +Frances, with a darkling smile. + +"Because he told me so--there!" + +In five minutes the inquisitor had drawn forth the whole innocent tale. +She fell back in her chair, while Deb seemed to congeal slowly. + +"Oh," moaned Frances, "no wonder they thought they could come +and call and make friends with us! And no wonder," she added, more +viciously, "that there he stands leering up at this window, when his +horse has been ready this half hour." + +"Is he doing that?" asked Deb quickly. + +"Look at him!" + +Deb rose and looked; then, with a firm hand, closed the two little +windows and drew down the blinds. With a sob of rage, Rose jumped from +her basket-chair, almost flung her cup and saucer upon the tea-tray, +and rushed out of the room. + +Thereupon the little family resolved itself into a strong government +and one rebel. + +"When I DO want to marry a shopkeeper," said weeping Rose to her +sisters, "then it will be time enough to make yourselves ridiculous." + +But they thought not. "No use," said they, "to shut the stable door +after the steed is stolen." Danger, or the beginning of danger, had +distinctly declared itself, and it was their part to guard the +threatened point. So they took steps to guard it. The name of Breen was +not mentioned, but its flavour lurked in every mouthful of +conversation, like the taste of garlic that has been rubbed round the +salad bowl in the salad that has not touched it; it filled the domestic +atmosphere with a subtle acrimoniousness unknown to it before. And Rose +was watched--not openly, but systematically enough for her to know it +--never allowed to go out alone, or to sit in the attic after a certain +hour; driven into brooding loneliness and disaffection--in other +words, towards her fellow-victim instead of from him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + + +Now that she could no longer entertain, Deb refused to be entertained, +much to the discontent of Frances, who pined continually for a larger +and brighter life, so that the invitations fell off to nothing before +the excuse of the deep mourning was worn out. But when Mrs Urquhart, +always maternally solicitous for her poor Sally's girls, wrote to beg +them to spend Christmas at Five Creeks, Deb and Frances, who did not, +for different reasons, wish to go themselves, agreed that it would be +'the very thing' for Rose to do so. She would be absolutely safe up +there, and with her old social world about her, and old interests to +occupy her mind, would recover that respect for herself which seemed to +have been more or less impaired by association with suburban villadom. +They hoped she would stay at Five Creeks a long, long time. + +"And if only Jim would keep her altogether!" sighed Frances. "I would +be content with Jim now." + +"I wish to goodness he would!" said Deb, with fervour--not thinking +particularly of her sister as she spoke. + +The matter was put to Rose, and she consented to go. Five Creeks was +better than Lorne, which had been spoken of, and the companionship of +Alice than the shepherding sisters in the close limits of +seaside lodgings; besides, Rose was a born bush girl. + +She was tenderly escorted to Spencer Street, and put into the hands of +Jim himself, in town on station business. Alice met them at the other +end, and the two friends slept, or rather bunked, together--the house +being full for the Christmas dance--and talked the night through. But +not a word about Peter Breen passed Rose's lips, so full of words as +they were. + +Next day the trestle-tables and Chinese lanterns, the sandwiches and +creams, and what not, occupied her every moment and thought until it +was time to dress, when the interest of the ball itself became supreme. + +"Well, there's one good thing," said Alice, as, hemmed into a corner of +a small room crowded with girls, she laced Rose's bodice, "we shall not +want for men. There'll be one to each girl, and three over. The +Simpsons alone have promised to bring six." + +The Simpsons were new people at Bundaboo, which Mr Thornycroft had let. +He now lived at Redford--in a third part of the great house, the other +two-thirds being closed. He was not coming to the ball, Alice said. +"Getting too old for balls." + +In their white frocks and flowers, the friends went to the +drawing-room, and in the thick of the arrivals Jim brought up from the +bachelors' quarters the six Bundaboo young men. Mrs Simpson introduced +them to Mrs Urquhart and her bevy of assistant hostesses. + +"Mr Leader--Mr Henry Leader--down from Queensland; Mr Parkinson-- +English--globe-trotter; my two sons, whom you know; my nephew, +Mr Breen." + +Thus do the sportive Fates love to make mock of the most carefully-laid +family plans! + +Rose and Peter faced each other, sharing one blush between them. Their +natural pleasure and astonishment was only equalled by their mutual +admiration. + +"What a little love she is in that pretty gown," thought he, a +connoisseur in gowns. And "Who would take him for a draper now?" +thought she, noting the vigorous frame and the perfect correctness of +its garb. As a matter of fact, no one did take him for a draper, and no +one cared what he was, since he was Mrs Simpson's nephew and a man. + +As soon as it was understood that a previous acquaintanceship existed +between them, Rose was given Peter to take care of--to show round and +introduce. They walked off, elated. + +"Well, I never expected to see you here!" said she. + +"Nor I you," said he. "I thought I was never going to see you any +more." + +"How is your mother? How is dear Bruce? Will anyone take him for walks +while you are away? How terribly he will miss you!" + +"Well, it is something to be missed, even by a dog." + +"What a nice face your aunt has! Is she your father's--?" + +"No, my mother's. They are very much alike. But--you don't know my +mother--" + +The blessed Urquhart children romped up to them at this opportune +moment, thrusting forward their basket of programmes. Rose and +Peter each took a card, and Peter proceeded to business. + +"With pleasure," said Rose. And then: "Oh, if you like."--"Well, only +one more round one."--"I belong to the house, and must distribute +myself."--"No, no, that's enough; leave room for all the nice girls I +am going to introduce you to--Miss Alice Urquhart--Mr Breen, dear-- +Mrs Simpson's nephew, and a friend of mine in town." + +It slipped out unawares. Peter's air, as he scribbled "Miss Urquhart" +on his card, was seraphic. Later, Alice snatched a chance to whisper to +Rose: "What a good-looking fellow! Who is he?" And Rose hastened to +explain that she knew him only very slightly. + +They had their first waltz together, and he danced delightfully. This +was a fresh agreeable surprise to Rose--as if drapers did not take +dancing lessons and make use of them like other people; she was almost +indiscreet in her eulogies on his performance. But there was not room +for all, or half, or a quarter, to dance at once; and the crowded house +was hot, and the night outside soft, dry, delicious; and the Five +Creeks garden was simply made to be sat out in. + +So presently Rose and Peter found themselves leaning over a gate at the +end of a long, sequestered path. + +"That," said Rose, nodding towards open paddock, "is the boys' cricket +ground. They play matches in the holidays with the stations round. That +fence leads to Alice's fowl-yards--" + +"Yes," said Peter. "But now, look here, Miss Rose--tell me straight +and true--am I to understand that my position in life makes me +unfit to associate with you?" + +"What nonsense!" she protested, scarlet in the darkness. "What utter +stuff!" + +"I am in retail trade," confessed Peter mournfully, "and lots of people +think that awful. Why, even the bookmakers and Jew usurers look down on +us! Not that I care a straw--" + +"I should think not!" + +"Except when it comes to your family--" + +"What does it matter about my family--when I--" + +"Ah, do you? Do you forgive me for being a shopkeeper?" + +"As if I ever thought of it!" mocked Rose, which was disingenuous of +her. "I don't mind what anybody is if he's nice himself." + +"Do you think I'm nice?" + +"I am not going to pander to such egregious vanity." + +"Do you think I am a gentleman? Do I pass for one--say, in a house +like this?" + +"I am not going to answer any more of those horrid, indelicate, +unnecessary questions." + +"Ah, I see--you don't." + +"I DO," she flamed out, indignant with him. "You KNOW I do! Would I-- +if I didn't--" + +Her mouth was stopped. In the twinkling of an eye it happened, before +either of them knew it. He was carried away, and she was overwhelmed. +An earthquake could not have given them a greater shock. + +"Forgive me," he muttered tremulously, when it was too late. "I know I +oughtn't to have--but I couldn't help it! You are not angry? It was +dashed impudence--but--oh, I say! we shall never get such a +chance as this again--could you, do you think, put up with me? Could +you--I have loved you ever since that dear morning that you came about +Bruce--could you try to care for me a little bit? I'd give up the +business, if you wished, and go into something else--" "If you mention +that blessed business again," laughed Rose hysterically, "I won't speak +to you any more." + +"I won't--I won't!" he promised, a joyful ring in his young voice. "As +long as you don't mind--and of course I wouldn't like to disappoint +the old pater--and, thank God, there's plenty of money to make you +comfortable wherever you like to live--Yes, yes, I know it's awful +cheek--I've no business to count chickens like this; but here we are, +face to face at last, no one to keep me from speaking to you--and oh, +darling, it must be time for the next dance, and I'm engaged for it--" + +"Then go--go," she urged. "The one after this is ours, and I will wait +here for you till you come back. It is only Jim, and he doesn't matter. +I must be alone to think--to make up my mind--" + +"You ANGEL!" for he knew what that meant. + +Off he went, wing-footed, to get through his duty dance as best he +could. Rose stayed behind, dodging amongst the bushes to hide her white +dress, deaf to Jim's strident calls. And then, presently, the lovers +flitted out of the gate, across the boys' cricket ground, and down the +bank of one of the five creeks, where Rose knew of a nice seat beyond +the area of possible disturbance. As they sat down on it together, they +leaned inwards, her head drooping to his shoulder, and his arm +sliding round her waist in the most natural way in the world. Then +silence, packed full. Beyond, in the moonlit waste, curlews wailing +sweetly; behind, a piano barely audible from the humming house. . . . + + +* * * * * + + +"What's the matter?" asked Alice Urquhart, when her bedfellow broke out +crying suddenly, for no reason that appeared. + +"Oh, I don't know," cackled Rose. "I am upset with all this--this--" + +"What has upset you? Aha! I saw you and that good-looking young Mr +Breen making off into the garden. You've been having a proposal, I +suppose?" + +"Yes," sobbed Rose, between two foolish laughs, and forthwith poured +out the whole story to her bosom friend. She and Peter had decided not +to disclose it to a soul until further consideration; but she was so +full that a touch caused her to run over. + +Miss Urquhart's feelings, when she realised the fact that one of the +Pennycuicks was committed to marry a draper, expressed themselves at +first in a rather chilling silence. But subsequently, having reviewed +the situation from its several sides, and weighed the pros and cons, +she decided to assist her friend to make the best of it, as against all +potential enemies. + +"Of course, they will be as mad as so many March hares," said Alice, +referring to the other Pennycuicks. "But after all, when you come to +think of it, what is there in a draper's shop any more than in a +soft-goods warehouse?--and that's quite aristocratic, if it's big +enough. Trade is trade, and why we should make chalk of one and +cheese of another passes me. Oh, you've only got to be rich nowadays to +be received anywhere. These Breens seem well off, and anyway, there are +the Simpsons--they are all right. Solid comfort, my dear, is not to be +despised, especially when a girl can't pick and choose, and may +possibly never get another chance. He is awfully presentable, too, and +most gentlemanly, I am sure. Oh, on the whole--if you ask me--I'd +say, stick to him." + +Alice's voice was sad, and she sighed inwardly. + +"I'm going to stick to him," said Rose. + +"Well, you may count on me. I'll get them all asked here for a picnic, +and we'll go over to Bundaboo to invite them--tomorrow. Mrs Simpson +said he was only with her for a few days." + +"You darling!" + +"And if I were in your place, Rose, I'd marry him just as soon as he +wanted me to. I'd walk out and get it done quietly, and tell them +afterwards. It would save a lot of unpleasantness, and it wouldn't +force the hostile clans to try and make one family when they never +could." + +"I don't see why they couldn't. Mrs Simpson is his mother's sister--" + +"Oh, well, we shall see. I don't know about Deb and Mary, but France +can be all sorts of a cat when the fit takes her; and as she is certain +to oppose it to the bitter end, she will never have done irritating his +people and setting everybody at loggerheads. However, never mind that +now." She enveloped Rose in a comforting embrace. "We'll just enjoy +ourselves while we can. And until we MUST start the fuss with the girls +at home, we'll keep things dark, shall we? Just you and I and +he. You can tell him, when you see him tomorrow, that I am his friend." + +"I will--I will! And he will adore you for your goodness." + +Alice, with still no lover of her own, was pleased with this prospect. +And so Rose had a heavenly time for a week or two--Peter extending his +visit to match hers--and went home, within a day of him, in good heart +for the inevitable struggle. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + + +The starting of the fuss was thus described by the starter in her first +letter to her friend: + +"Oh, my dear, it is simply awful! There is not a scrap of hope. Dear +old Deb is the worst, because she cries--fancy DEB crying! I don't +care what Francie says and does, only, if she were not my sister, I +would never speak to her again. Even Mary is antagonistic, though I +don't believe she would be if it were not for that insufferable husband +of hers; he thinks himself, and puts it into her head, that we are all +going to fall into the bottomless pit if we let trade into the family-- +as if nine-tenths and more of the aristocracy of the country were not +traders, and my Peter is as good as her parson any day. But I don't +care, except for Deb. I do hate her to have to cry, through me, and to +be so kind at the same time. She scolds Francie for being horrid--that +does no good, she says, and she is quite right--and then asks me if I +have any love left for her, and all that kind of thing. It makes me +feel like a selfish brute; and yet it would not be unselfish to +sacrifice Peter. Really, I am quite distacted. I have hardly slept a +wink since I came back." + +Further details followed: + +"I did not know until I got a letter from him (by the gardener) +that Peter came this morning to call--THE call--and was not let in. +Keziah had been got at, you must know, and works against us; the old +liar told him (under instructions, of course) that none of us was at +home!--she that goes to church every Sunday, and pretends to be so +pious. Old hypocrite! Well, as I was reading Peter's letter, the +door-bell rings, and who should it be but old Daddy Breen coming to +demand what we mean by it, snubbing his precious son, whom he thinks +good enough for a princess (and so he is). HE was not going to be +turned from the door--not he; and presently I heard him and Deb at it +hammer and tongs in the drawing-room, and she came up to me afterwards +simply in flames. She WAS wild. My dear, she has left off crying and +started to fight. Papa Breen (I am afraid he is a bit bumptious for +what she calls his class in life) turned the scale, and now she is as +implacable as Francie. She says she will NOT have the house of +Pennycuick disgraced (or words to that effect) while she is alive to +prevent it; and when I ask her to be just to Peter, who is no more +answerable for his family than I am for mine, and not to judge him +off-hand before she knows a scrap about him, she simply looks at me as +if she itched to box my ears. Isn't it too hard? Other girls have such +a lovely time when they are engaged--everybody considering them and +giving them opportunities to be together. There's not going to be +anything of that sort for us, I can plainly see. Well, I shall not give +him up, so they need not think it. . . . + +"I have seen my poor old boy. He was much cut up, but feels better now. +. . . He asked me to go and see his mother. . . .The moment I walked in +and he said, 'Mother, here she is,' the darling opened her +arms, and we just hugged as if I was her daughter already. There is +nobody like mothers. . . . + +"Papa Breen came home while I was there. I thought he was going to be +aggrieved, but he was not with ME. If it is not a snobbish thing to +say, he is rather proud of his son's choice. He was a bit too fussy and +outspoken, and dear Peter got the fidgets wondering what he would say +next; but I did not mind. He talked about building us a house, but +Peter whispered to me that that would take too long, and that already +he had one in his eye (I know it--a lovely place, with the prettiest +grounds, and stables, and coach-house, and all). Nothing is too good +for me. I tried to pacify the girls by telling them I should have a +comfortable home; but they seem to think that the vulgarest feature of +the whole affair. It may be, but it's nice. Would you condescend to +come and stay with a draper's wife sometimes? We are going to have +Bruce to live with us. . . . + +"Then I made Peter come home with me, and I took him in myself to see +Deb. He behaved as nicely as possible, but it was no use. 'She is of +age, Mr Breen,' says Deb, with that look of hers; 'she will do as she +chooses, but she will never do this with my consent.' And I feel I +never shall. Papa Breen sticks in her throat. If only she had seen +Peter before his father came, and not after! But I daresay it would +have been the same. They are too eaten up with their prejudices to +begin to know him. . . . + +"It is quite hopeless! Here I live in my own home without a friend, and +he is treated like a pariah, my poor dear boy! He has been to see me +two or three times, as he has a perfect right to do, and they +have just had him shown into the drawing-room, and left him to me, +neither of them coming near. And this while Bennet Goldsworthy loafs +all over the house, as if it was his own, and presumes to look at me in +a superior sort of way, as if I was one of his dirty little +Sunday-school children in disgrace. They bring him up into the attic +even--our own private room--mine as much as theirs; they never did it +before, and it is only because he is banded with them against me. Well, +I wouldn't marry Bennet Goldsworthy if there was not another man in the +world... + +"I have my ring--SUCH diamonds! too valuable, I tell Peter; but he +says nothing can be that--and I know they can't help seeing it, +because the whole room flashes when I turn it this way and that, like +blue lightning playing; but they all pretend not to. Since they find +they cannot break our engagement, the idea is to ignore it as if it was +something so low as to be beneath their notice. Perhaps they fancy that +will wear me out; but it won't. . . . If they had been nice, and +pleaded with me, and if Peter had not been so VERY dear and good, I +might have caved in; but not now. And indeed, I am sure I never should +anyway, only we might have agreed to differ without quarrelling, which +we never did before. Oh, it is too miserable! Poor Mr and Mrs Breen +must hate the very name of Pennycuick, and they will end by hating me +if this goes on. . . .Peter has bought the house, and is asking me to +hurry our marriage, to get me out of it. He says a private ceremony +would not be dishonourable under the circumstances. It seems to me a +mean sort of way to go to him, but--what do YOU think?" + +"My dear," wrote Alice Urquhart, "I think Peter is right. Next +time he asks you, you say yes. It will be a real kindness to both +families, who would never know what to do with a house wedding. +Besides, then you might have to be given away by B. G. Walk out quietly +and unbeknown, and don't come back. Write from the Blue Mountains or +somewhere--'Yours ever, Rose Breen.' And later on, when things have +settled down, their hearts will melt, and they will come and see you. +Let me know what day, and I will run down (to the dentist) to see fair +play and sign the register. + +"Now, you need not have any scruples, child, because the whole of your +husband's family approve of the match (Simpsons delighted, if a little +huffy for the moment to see solid worth looked down upon), and Deb and +the others are certain to come round when they find it is no use doing +anything else. Outsiders don't matter; and I should hate touting for +wedding presents in such a mixed concern. As for your clothes, you have +plenty; when you want more, you can get them cost price at the shop. It +is a very good shop, I hear, and I mean to be a steady customer from +this out. Oh, yes, and I will come and see you, old girl, nows and +thens, when I have to go to town. And you and Peter must spend all your +Christmases up here. While he is seeing his people at Bundaboo, you can +camp with me, like old times." + + +* * * * * + + +At the last moment Rose broke down, and wept upon the breast of her +favourite sister in the act of bidding her goodbye--perhaps because +Frances chanced to be absent at the time. + +"Oh, Debbie darling, I won't deceive you--I am not going +shopping; I am going into Melbourne to get married--to get married +quietly and have done with it, so as not to be a nuisance to you any +more." + +"Married!" gasped Deb, holding the agitated creature at arm's-length. +"What--NOW? And you spring this on us without a word of warning--" + +"What was the use, Deb? You know what you would have said. I have GOT +to have him, dear--I really have--and this seemed the only way." + +"Where is he?" + +"Waiting till I'm ready. They have a carriage outside. His mother and +sister are going with us. His father will join us when we get there. +And Alice Urquhart, who is in town, and one of his cousins from +Bundaboo--quite respectable and above-board, you see, only very quiet, +so as not to trouble you and the girls and poor dear Bennet Goldsworthy +more than we can help--" + +"Not trouble us!" broke in Deb, her face, that had paled a moment ago, +flaming scarlet. "Rose, in your wildest aberrations, I did not credit +you with being capable of humiliating us to this extent." + +"Ah, you always say that! If you only knew him; but some day you will, +and then you will wonder how you could have set yourself against us so. +I can't help it, Deb. I did it for the best. Marry him I must and will, +and I am only trying to do it in a way as inoffensive to you as +possible." + +"You call this an inoffensive way? But those people cannot be expected +to know--" + +"They can--they do. Don't insult them any more. They are giving me +everything they can think of to make me happy, and here I have +no home--no love--no sympathy from anybody--" + +Tears gushed from her eyes and Deb's as from the same spring; they were +instantly locked in each other's arms. + +"Poor little Rosie! Poor dear child! But you don't understand pet--you +don't know what you are doing--going right out of your class--out of +your world--" + +"But to a good husband, Debbie, and the man I love--and that's first +of all! And I must go to him now--I must not keep him waiting. Bless +you, dearest! I am happy now. Never mind the others. You can tell them +after I'm gone. But I felt that I must speak to YOU before I went. Oh, +I am so glad I did! Goodbye, darling! I must go." + +"You must NOT go," said Deb, swallowing her tears and resuming her +imperious air. "Not this way, Rose, as if your family had cast you off. +How can you treat us so, child? But perhaps we deserve it; only you +don't see what you are doing as clearly as we do--" + +"Deb, Deb, don't stop me! They are waiting. It is late now!" + +The bride-elect, pale with fright, struggled in her sister's strong +hands, which held her fast. + +"Where is Mr Breen?" demanded Deb. + +"Waiting at his house--waiting for me--" + +"I must send for him." + +"Oh, Deb, not now, when everything is settled, and they have had all +the expense and trouble--" + +"Will you fetch him, Rose, if I let you go? For one minute only. No, I +won't stop it. I can't, of course; but I must go with you, Rose--I +MUST." + +"Oh, Debbie, WOULD you? Oh, how I wish I had known before! Yes, +I'll run and bring him. We must drive faster, that's all. Oh, Deb, how +happy this will make us! But--" + +"Run away and fetch him--ask him, with my compliments if he will be so +good--and I will get my hat on while you are gone." + +How she managed it was a mystery, but by the time the bridegroom +appeared, Deb was in her best walking costume, hatted and veiled, with +a pair of new pale-coloured gloves in her hand. + +"Mr Breen," said she, grave and stately, "I am going to ask a favour of +you. Allow me to take my sister to the church and give her away." + +Peter was naturally flurried, besides being a trifle overawed. He +mumbled something to the effect that he was sure his family would be +"quite agreeable", and that his sister would give up her place in the +carriage and go by train; and Deb, facing him with the air of a +duchess, thought how thoroughly "shoppy" his manner was. His splendid +new clothes helped to give her that impression. Fine dressing was one +of the Breens' trifling errors of taste (as drapers) which damned them +in her eyes. But what would she have thought if he had not done all +honour to his bride in this respect? + +"WE will go by train," said she decisively. "I have already delayed you +a little, and you must be there first. The train will be quicker than +driving, so that we shall be quite in time." She smiled as she caught +his swift glance of alarm at Rose. "No, I am not going to kidnap her; I +only wish to observe the proprieties a little--for her sake." + +"If the proprieties have not been observed," retorted Peter, +suddenly bold, "it has not been ALL my fault, Miss Pennycuick." +"Perhaps not," she said gently, for she was a generous woman--"perhaps +not. At any rate," holding out her hand, "we must let bygones be +bygones now. Be good to her--that is all I ask." Peter seized her hand +in his superfine glove, and wrung it emotionally, while Rose embraced +her sister's left arm and kissed her sleeve. Then, after a hurried +consultation of timetables, the bridegroom retired, and was presently +seen to clatter past the house in the bridal carriage, which had white +horses to it, to Deb's disgust. + +She and Rose talked little on their journey. Rose was questioned about +clothes and pocket-money, and asked whether she had a safe pocket +anywhere. On Rose answering that she had, Deb pressed into it a closed +envelope, which she charged her sister not to open until away on her +honeymoon. Rose disobeyed the order, and found a hastily scrawled +cheque for one hundred pounds--money which she knew could ill be +spared. + +"Oh, you darling!" she murmured fondly. "But I won't take it, Deb--I +WON'T. It would leave you poor for years, while I shall have heaps of +everything--" + +"If you don't," broke in Deb, tragically stern and determined--"if you +don't take it and buy your first clothes with it, I will never forgive +you as long as I live. Child, don't you see--?" + +Rose saw this much--Deb's horror of the thought of being beholden to +the Breens for a post-nuptial trousseau. Reluctantly she pocketed the +gift. + +"But I shall never want it, you know." + +"I don't care about that," said Deb. + +The bridegroom's relief of mind when he saw the bride coming was so +great as to do away with all the usual embarrassment of a man so +circumstanced. + +"Ha! now we are all right," he said to Harry Simpson, cousin and best +man; and forthwith acted as if the trouble were over instead of just +beginning. There was nothing shoppy in his demeanour now, even to Deb's +prejudiced eye. + +The sisters walked up the nave to the altar, hand in hand. Deb passed +the bridesmaid, Alice Urquhart, without a look--her people had brought +the young pair together, and were answerable for these consequences-- +and similarly ignored those walking fashion-plates, Mrs and Miss Breen. +She landed her charge at the appointed hassock, and quietly facing the +clergyman, stood still and dry-eyed amid the usual tearful flutter, +apparently the calmest of the party. But poor Deb suffered pangs +unspeakable, and her excessive dignity was maintained only by the +sternest effort. + +In the vestry, after the ceremony, she was introduced by the bride to +her new relations; and Papa Breen, with a great show of magnanimity, +expressed his satisfaction at seeing Miss Pennycuick "on this +suspicious occasion", and formally invited her to what he called "a +little snack" at Menzies', where a gorgeous wedding breakfast had been +prepared at his orders. + +"Thank you very much, Mr Breen," she said affably. "It would have given +me great pleasure, but if you will excuse me, I must run home to my +other sisters, whom I left in ignorance of this--this event--which +concerns them so nearly." + +"Oh, Deb, DO come!" pleaded the bride. + +No; the line had to be drawn somewhere. Deb was very kind, very polite, +very plausible with her excuses; but to Menzies' with those people and +their white-horsed carriage she would not go. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + + +Rose had never been reckoned a person of importance by her family, but +now that she was gone, there remained a terrible emptiness where she +had been. She was one of those unselfish, good-natured members of +households to whom falls the stocking-mending, the errand-going, the +fetching and carrying, the filling of gaps generally; and at every turn +Deb and Frances missed her unobtrusive ministrations, which they had +accepted as as much matters of course as the attentions of the butcher +and baker. It was presently perceived that Keziah missed her too--that +Keziah, who had loyally opposed the plebeian marriage, was become a +turncoat and renegade, blessing where she should have cursed, blaming +where she should have praised--yes, blaming even Queen Deborah, who, +needless to say, took her head off for it. + +It had been Keziah's own choice to follow the sisters into exile, and +to share the privations involved in their change of life. She had given +up her Redford luxuries and importance to become a general servant, +with only her kitchen to sit in, for their sakes; and she had +cheerfully abided by her choice--until Rose went. Rose was the one who +had understood the cost of the sacrifice, and who had lightened it by +sympathetic companionship. They had cleaned rooms, and made +cakes and puddings, and set hens, and stirred jam, and ironed frocks +and laces together; they had spent hours in pleasant gossip over the +many homely subjects that interested both; their relation had been more +that of mother and daughter than of servant and mistress. Regarding her +as virtually her child, Keziah had been quick to spring to the side of +authority in the matter of the irregular love-affair; the natural +parental impulse was to nip it in the bud. But "Providence" had decided +the issue in this case. And a flirtatious girl was one thing, and a +respectable married woman another. And Keziah was lonely, and felt +neglected and "put upon" when nobody came to talk to her in her +kitchen, or to help her with her cooking and ironing--and particularly +after she had told Deb that it was a shame to bear malice to Miss Rose +now, and Deb had commanded her to mind her own business. + +She was suspected of treacherous visits to the house next door; she was +known to have spent Sunday afternoons with Mrs Peter herself. The +iniquity of these proceedings was in the secrecy she observed, or tried +to observe, regarding them. It was she who knew, before anybody else, +when a baby Breen was coming--and if a married woman was a personage +to Keziah, an incipient mother was a being of the highest rank. She had +forgiven Mary everything for the sake of her black-eyed boy; now she +took the news that Rose was what she called "interesting" to Deb, and +demanded that action should be taken upon it, with an air that was +almost truculent. Deb, of course, did not believe in being +spoken to, even by Keziah, in that way. + +"Has the muffin boy been?" she inquired, with a steady look. + +"It's too soon yet--and I can tell you, Miss Deb, that if it was you +in her place, SHE wouldn't keep it up like this--and at such a time too." + +"When the muffin boy comes, Keziah, please pay him the sixpence we owe +him from last week. You will find the money on my writing-table." + +"Well, I don't care--I call it a shame not to go to her--" + +"Perhaps you would like to go to her yourself?" Deb swiftly changed her +tone. + +"I'd like nothing better," the old woman retorted, with spirit, "if you +are agreeable." + +"I am perfectly agreeable." + +"Well, it was only the other day she said she'd give anything to have +me, if it wasn't for taking me away from you." + +"Oh, pray don't consider that. I can easily get somebody else," said +Deb affably, though her surprise at the idea of Keziah wanting to leave +her was only equalled by her dismay. + +Keziah, also surprised to find herself of so much less consequence than +she had supposed, said that, if that was the case, she'd go and see +Miss Rose about it. + +"You can go now," said Deb. + +"Thank you, Miss Deb, I will," said Keziah, "as soon as I have cleared +up. Would a month's notice suit you? I don't wish to put you about at +all." + +"A month will be ample," said Deb. "A week, if you like." + +"I'll see what Miss Rose says," said Keziah. + +Rose, after the interview, wrote affectionately to Deb, to say she +would not dream of taking Keziah if Deb wanted her; Deb wrote +affectionately to Rose, to say that she would be rather glad than +otherwise to make the change, as the work was too much for such an old +woman. So Keziah went over to the Breen camp, where she had comfort and +companionship, and her own way in everything; and Deb began to +experiment with the common or garden 'general' as purveyed by Melbourne +registry offices. + +She loathed these creatures, one and all. They were of a race unknown +at Redford, and she was singularly unlucky in the specimens that fell +to her; although some of them could have been made something of by a +mistress who knew how to do it. It is only fair to state that they +loathed her--for a finicking, unreasonable, stuck-up poor woman, who +gave herself the airs of a wealthy lady. They came at the rate of two a +month, and each one as she passed seemed to leave the little house +meaner, dingier, more damaged than before. It was not living, it was +"pigging", Frances said--and Deb agreed with her--although when +Keziah ventured to call one day to inquire into the state of things, +Deb calmly asserted that all was well. + +In despair she tried a lady-help, in the person of Miss Keene, dying to +return to her dear family (from relations who did not want her) on any +terms. + +"Whatever we ask her to do we must do ourselves," said Deb to grumbling +Frances, who seemed never willing to do anything; "and of course we +shall have to get a washwoman, and a charwoman to scrub; but it will be +cheaper in the end. And oh, anything rather than sticky +door-handles and greasy spoons, and those awful voices hailing one all +over the house!" + +But it was not cheaper, nor was the arrangement satisfactory in any way +after the first fortnight. Miss Keene, spoiled at Redford as they had +been, was as unfit for crude housework, and she aggravated her +incompetence by weeping over it. She had not gathered from Deb's +letters that the change in the family fortunes was as great as it now +proved to be; and Deb had not anticipated the effect of adversity upon +one so easily depressed. She had no 'heart', poor thing. She struggled +and muddled, sighing for flowers for the vases while the beds were +unmade; and when she saw a certain look on Deb's face, wept and mourned +and gave up hope. So they "pigged" still, although they did not defile +the furniture with unwashed hands, and the plate and crockery with +greasy dish-cloths. With no knowledge of cookery, they lived too much +on tinned provisions--a diet as wasteful as it was unwholesome-- +feeding their wash-and-scrub-women with the same; and their efforts to +support the burden of their domestic responsibilities deprived them of +outdoor exercise and mental rest and recreation--kept them at too +close quarters with one another, each rubbing her quivering prickles +upon the irritable skins of the other two. Frances bore the strain with +least good-nature and self-control, and since she had to vent her +ill-humour on someone, naturally made Miss Keene her victim when it was +a choice between her and Deb. The poor lady grew more and more +disappointed, discouraged and tearful. She became subject to +indigestion, headaches, disordered nerves; finally fell ill and had to +have the doctor. The doctor said she was completely run down, +and that rest and change of air were indispensable. She went away to +her relatives, weeping still, wrapped in Deb's cloak, and with all +Deb's ready money in her pocket; and she did not come back. + +Then Deb tried to carry on alone. Any sort of registry office drudge +would have been welcome now, but had become an expense that she dared +not continue. Moreover, the spectre of poverty, looming so distinct and +unmistakable in the house, was a thing to hide, if possible, from +anybody who could go outside and talk about it. The thing had become a +living terror to herself--its claws Jew money-lenders, so velvety and +innocent when her wilful ignorance made first acquaintance with them; +but nobody--not even Mr Thornycroft, not even Jim, CERTAINLY not Rose +--could be allowed to play Perseus to this proud Andromeda. Until she +could free herself, they were not even to know that she was bound. Of +course, she need not have been bound; it was her own fault. She should +have managed better with the resources at her disposal than to bring +herself to such a pass, and that so soon; either Mary or Rose would +certainly have done so in her place. But Nature had not made her or +Frances--whose rapacities had been one cause of the financial +breakdown--for the role of domestic economists; they had been dowered +with their lovely faces for other purposes. + +That the fine plumage is for the sun was a fact well understood by +Frances, at any rate. And she was wild at the wrongs wrought by sordid +circumstances--her father's and sister's heedlessness--upon herself. +She thought only of herself. Deb was getting old, and she +deserved to suffer anyway; but what had Frances done to be deprived of +her birth-right, of all her chances of success in life? Eighteen, and +no coming out--beautiful, and nobody to see it--marriageable, and out +of the track of all the eligible men, amongst whom she might have had +her pick and choice. She had reason for her passionate rebelliousness +against this state of things; for, while a pretty face is theoretically +its own fortune anywhere, we all see for ourselves how many are passed +over simply for want of an attractive setting. It was quite on the +cards that she might share the fate of those beauties in humble life to +whom romantic accidents do not occur, for all her golden hair and +aristocratic profile, her figure of a sylph and complexion of a wild +rose. + +The fear of this future combined with the acute discomfort of the +present to make her desperate. She cast about for a way of escape, a +pathway to the sun. One only offered--the landlord. + +He was an elderly landlord, who had lately buried a frumpy old wife, +and he was as deeply tainted with trade as Peter Breen; but he had +retired long since from personal connection with breweries and +public-houses--and a brewer, in the social scale, was only just below +a wholesale importer, if that--and he was manifestly rolling in money, +after the manner of his kind. Half the streets around belonged to him, +and his house towered up in the midst of his other houses, a great +white block, with a pillared portico--a young palace by comparison. +Above all, he had no known children. + +From the first he had taken an interest in his pretty girl-tenants. He +had liked to call in person to inquire if the cellar kept dry +and the chimney had ceased smoking; and he had been most generous in +offering improvements and repairs before they were even asked for. Deb +had blighted these unbusiness-like overtures on her own account, and +Frances herself had said the rudest things about them and him--but not +lately. In the utter dullness and barrenness of her life, she had been +glad to accept the civilities of anything in the shape of a man--to +try her 'prentice hand on any material. All the armoury of the born +beauty was hers, and she knew as well how to use each weapon +effectively as a blind kitten knows how to suck milk. They were easily +successful with the old fool, who is ever more of a fool than the young +fool; and when she found that, she found something to entertain her. +She not only received Mr Ewing when he called, but talked to him at the +gate when he went past--and he went past several times a day. Now, +when the situation at home had grown desperate, and she was looking all +ways for means to save herself, his amusing infatuation became a matter +for serious thought. COULD she? She was a hard case, but even she +wavered. He was probably sixty, and she was eighteen. Oh, she couldn't! +But when, after Miss Keene's departure, Deb told her they could no +longer afford hired help, and that she (Frances) must give up her lazy +ways and take her share of that intolerable housework, then Frances +changed her mind. Beggars could not be choosers. + +Deb felt like the camel under the last straw when the announcement of +the proposed marriage was made to her. It was worse than Mary's--worse +than Rose's--worse than any other misfortune that had befallen +the family. She sat down and wept at the thought of what the +Pennycuicks had come to. She rated Frances furiously; she reasoned with +her; she pleaded with her; she tried to bribe her; but Frances was +getting boxes of diamonds, and sets of furs and lace, and what not, and +it was useless for Deb to attempt to outbid the giver of these things, +or to part her sister from them. She loved the old man, Frances said-- +he certainly was a decently-mannered, good-natured, rather +fine-looking, and most generous old man--and he was going to take her +everywhere and give her a good time--and she would never have to go +shabby again as long as she lived; and if Deb refused her a proper +wedding, law or no law, she would run away with him, as Mary had run +away with Bennet Goldsworthy, and Rose with Peter Breen. + +Whether this dire threat prevailed, or the temptation of the money, or +whether she could not any longer fight against fate, Deb gave in. After +all, Frances was not to be judged as an ordinary girl--she was a +hard-hearted, tough-fibred, prosaic little minx, for which reason Deb +pitied the prospective husband more than she did her; and if she did +not do this bad thing now, the chances were that she would do a worse +thing later on. She was made to disport herself in the sunshine of the +world; she was of the type of woman that must have men about her; she +would get her "rights", as she called them, somehow, by fair means or +foul. Deb was sufficiently a woman of the world herself to recognise +this, and the uselessness of thinking she could alter it. Well, money +is a consolatory thing--she knew its value now; and there was that +additional comfort, which, of course, she did not own to--the +thought of where Mr Ewing would be when Mrs Ewing was in her prime. + +"You dear old thing!" the bride-elect patronised her elder sister. +"James is so pleased to have your consent, and he says he won't ask you +to give me my share of what father left us--it would be but a drop in +the bucket anyway; you are to keep it all yourself." + +Deb had had whole control of the fragments of his once large fortune +left by Mr Pennycuick to his four daughters, on behalf of any of them +unmarried or under age; but Mary and Rose--although Peter had also +protested against it--had been paid the value of their shares (whence +the Jew element in the present difficulties); and the unforeseen +marriage of Frances at eighteen threatened total bankruptcy to the +remaining sister. Yet Deb said, with fierce determination: + +"Of course you will have what is your due, like the others." + +"I'm sure he won't take it, Deb. He said he wouldn't." + +"I don't care what he says. It concerns you and me--not him." + +"I really should not miss it, dear. I am to have a thousand a year to +draw against, for just nothing but my clothes and pocket-money." + +"I am glad to hear it," said Deb. "You can give your own income to the +poor." + +"You really won't keep it?" + +"Is it likely I would keep what doesn't belong to me?" + +"Well, then," said Frances, her easy conscience satisfied, "we +can put it into my trousseau. I MUST have a decent trousseau mustn't I?" + +"Of course!" + +Frances saw to it that she had a decent one. Now was the time, the only +time, that she should want her money, and she did not spare it. She +ordered right and left, and Deb seemed equally reckless. The bills were +left for her to settle--of course made out in her name. Mr Ewing +pressed for permission to pay them, and the cost of the wedding, and +Miss Pennycuick could hardly forgive him the deadly insult. He also +desired that she should occupy her villa rent-free, and she gave him +notice on the spot. + +"I shall not continue to keep house when I am alone," said she grandly. +"I intend to travel for a time." + +The wedding was quiet, but as "decent" as the trousseau. The other +sisters were invited, and Bennet Goldsworthy--who delighted in the +connection, and received a thumping fee--performed the ceremony. Deb +gave the bride away, but was also treated as the bridesmaid, and had a +diamond bracelet forced upon her. She sold it as soon as the donor's +back was turned, together with every article of jewellery in her +possession, every bit of silver plate, and all her furniture. The +breakfast was very elegant, and served in a private room at one of the +best hotels; the bride's handsome luggage had also been brought +thither, and it was the meeting-place of the family which so seldom +met. There, also, when she had parted from Frances, Deb parted from +Mary, so silent and constrained, and from Rose, over-dressed, for her +station, in her rich gown and Brussels lace (but nevertheless sniffed +at and condescended to by her still more wealthy sister), and +from the uncongenial brothers-in-law, to whom she was so discouragingly +polite. Their expressed anxiety to befriend and to see more of her was +gently but firmly ignored. + +"I will write," she said. "I will see you again soon. I will let you +know my plans. Good-bye!" + +And they went. There were no friends to go, for she had insisted on +inviting none--for fear of the lynx eyes and the destructive influence +upon her plans of Mr Thornycroft and Jim. She gained the one end she +had schemed for throughout--to get past the risks of the public +marriage and back to her struggle in obscurity, unmolested, unpitied, +unshamed. The Urquharts wrote, and Mr Thornycroft, when he sent his +present; but she had "bluffed" them with her implied +misrepresentations, and hurt their feelings by not wanting them at the +wedding. Jim was easily snubbed; Mr Thornycroft--though he did not +mention it--was ill at the time. + +So she got rid of all possible hindrances, and then--professing to go +travelling--went nobody knew where, and was virtually lost for years. + +Frances drove away from the hotel in her smart carriage, with her smart +luggage and smart maid, and her amorous old husband, and never thought +or cared what was to become of her abandoned sister. She could only +think of her own exciting affairs. + +Partly they were unsatisfactory, no doubt. All her rights were not hers +even now--no, not by a long way. But oh, how much better was this than +the drab and shabby and barren existence for ever left behind! She was +bound, indeed; yet she was free--freer than another might have been in +her place, and far, far less bound. One must expect to pay some +tax to Fortune for such extraordinary gifts, and Frances was not the +one to pay it in heart's blood. She was philosophically prepared to pay +it in her own coin, and be done with it, and then give herself to the +enjoyment of the pleasures of her lot. + +Her first enjoyment was in her beautiful going-away dress--grey cloth +and chinchilla fur, with flushes of pink as delicate as the rose of her +cheeks--and in her knowledge of the effect she made in that dream of a +costume. There was no hiding her light under a bushel any more. The +highway, and the middle of it, for her now--her proud husband +strutting there beside her--and every passer-by turning to look at and +to admire her. There was joy in the occupancy of the best suite of +rooms in the best hotel at every place she stopped at during her gay +and well-filled bridal holiday; joy in the dainty meals--so long +unknown; in the obsequious servants, in the plentiful theatres, in the +ever-ready carriage that took her to them, in the having one's hair +done to perfection by an expert maid, in sweeping forth with one's +silks and laces trailing, and one's diamonds on. These were the +delights for which her little soul had so long yearned; she now pursued +them greedily. She could not rest if she were not doing something to +display herself and feed her craving for what is known as seeing the +world. Her husband was almost as obsequious as the servants--doubtless +because from the first she took the beauty's high hand with him, as +well as the attitude of the superior, naturally assumed by youth +towards age--and he enjoyed the sensation she made almost as much as +she did. Visibly he swelled and preened himself when his venerable +contemporaries cast the eye of surprise, not to say of envy, +upon the conjunction of his complacent figure and that of the bride who +might have been his grand-daughter; he toiled for that pleasure, and to +make pleasure for her, as no old gentleman should toil; he gave her +everything she asked for, including his own ease and consequence, his +own vital health and strength. + +But the honeymoon waned, and the novelty wore off, and prudence and old +habits resumed their sway. He grew tired of incessant gadding about, +alarmed at his symptoms of physical overstrain, weary for his arm-chair +and his club, and his men friends and his masculine occupations. She, +on the other hand, insatiable for admiration and excitement still, was +weary of his constant company. It became the kill-joy of her festive +days, growing from a necessary bore to an intolerable irritation as the +dimensions of her little court of younger gallants enlarged about her. +Therefore she had no objection to his halting on the toilsome path, so +long as he allowed her to go on alone. + +It was not a case of allowing, however. He might object, and did; but +he was no match for her either in diplomacy or in fight, and her +cajoleries were usually sufficient for her ends, without calling out +the reserves behind them. In any contest between selfishness and +unselfishness, the result is a foregone conclusion. + +So she began to go about with miscellaneous escorts, to play the +combined parts of frisky matron and society beauty--an intoxicating +experience; while the supporter of that proud position played the +humble role of chief comer-stone, unseen and unconsidered in +the basement of the fabric. He attended to his investments and +increasing infirmities, and made secret visits to a married daughter +(wife of a big hotel-keeper), who hated her young step-mother, and +whose existence Frances ignored. + +One day, Guthrie Carey, after several voyages to other ports, appeared +again in Melbourne. He had just landed, and was strolling along Collins +Street, when he encountered a vision of loveliness that almost took +away his breath. + +"What! It is not Miss Frances, surely?" + +"It is not," smiled she, all her beauty at its conscious best as she +recognised his, which was that of a man of men, splendid in his strong +prime. And she told him who she was, and a few other things, as they +stood on the pavement--she so graceful in her mature self-possession, +he staring at her, stupidly distraught, like a bewildered school-boy. + +"I had no idea--" he mumbled. + +"That I was married? Alas, yes!"--with a sad shake of the head. "We +girls are fated, I think." + +"Miss Deb?" + +"Oh, not Deb; she has escaped so far." + +"Is she well?" + +"I have not seen her lately, but I am sure she is, she always is." "She +is not in Melbourne?" + +"No. I don't quite know where she is. She has got a wandering fit on. +Come and have some lunch with me, and I'll tell you all the news." + +They turned into a restaurant, and had a meal which took a long time to +get through. In the middle of the afternoon they parted, on the +understanding that he would dine with her later in her own +house. At the end of the few days that were virtually filled with him, +Mrs Ewing sat down in her fine boudoir to weep over her hard fate. + +"Oh, why wasn't HE the one to have the money! Oh, why do we meet again, +now that it is too late!" + +At the end of a few more days she went to her old husband to ask him +how he was. He said he was a bit troubled with his lumbago, but +otherwise fairly well. + +"What you want," said she, "is a sea-voyage." + +He thought not. He had never found the sea suit him. And travelling was +a great fatigue. And it was the wrong time of year for it, anyhow. They +had a good home, and it was the best place. + +But she knew better. She had made up her mind, and it was useless for +him to rebel. The sea-voyage was decided on--not so much because it +would benefit his health as because his young wife had not seen England +and Europe, and was dying to do so. + +Then they discussed routes. + +"The thing to do," said Mrs Ewing, "is not to crowd up with that lot in +the mail steamers, where you can't do as you like, or have any special +attentions, but to go in a smaller vessel, where you would be of some +importance, and have your liberty, and plenty of space, and no tiresome +rules and restrictions--" + +"My dear child, you don't know those second-rate lines. I do. I assure +you you'd be very sorry for yourself if I let you travel by them. They +are not YOUR style at all." + +"Yes, I was talking to Captain Carey about it, and that was his advice, +and HE knows. On his ship they have accommodation for about six +passengers, and he suggested that, if we were quick about it, +we might be able to secure the whole, so as to be exactly as if we were +on a yacht of our own. They have a fair cook; but we could take any +servants we liked, and make ourselves comfortable in our own way-- +nobody to interfere with us. He doesn't go through the hot canal. He +will be back from Sydney in three weeks--just nice time to get ready +in." + +Of course, they went that way. And perhaps it is better to leave the +rest of the story to the imagination of the reader, who, one hopes, for +Guthrie Carey's sake, is a common-sense person, as well as a +dispassionate student of human nature. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + + +Deb was at Redford once more. + +In her own room too, surrounded by familiar objects--the six-foot +dressing-table and the nine-foot wardrobe, and the Aspinalled book-case +that was a fixture, amongst other things. She had not taken them to her +suburban villa, nor sent for them afterwards. Meanwhile, Mr Thornycroft +had bought them with the place, and taken care of them, as of +everything that she had left behind. They had been in his possession +now for several years. + +The strange thing in the room was Mr Thornycroft himself--Mr +Thornycroft on the little white bed that Deb used to sleep on, his hair +white, his once stalwart frame reduced to a pale wreck of skin and +bone. + +"You will forgive me for coming here," he apologised. "I have not been +using the things. But they had me moved for coolness--the south-east +aspect, and being able to get a current through--" + +"I am thankful they did. It is the best place for you this weather. But +there's one thing I shall never forgive you--that you didn't let me +know before." + +She was sitting at his bedside, holding his hand--she, too, much +changed, thinner, sadder, shabbier, or rather, less splendidly turned +out than had been her wont in earlier days; beautiful as ever, +notwithstanding--infinitely more so, in the sick man's eyes. + +"Why should I bother you? I haven't been very bad--just the +old asthma off and on. It is only lately that I have felt it upsetting +my heart. And you know I am used to being alone." + +He spoke with the asthma pant, and a throb of the lean throat that she +could not bear to see. His head was propped high, so that they squarely +faced each other. His eyes were full of tenderness and content--hers +of tears. + +"You have been pretty lonely yourself, by all accounts," said he, +stroking her hand. "It's odd to think of you in that case, Debbie." + +"I've felt it odd myself," she smiled, with a whisk of her +handkerchief. "But, like you, I am getting used to it." + +"Where's Dalzell all this time?" "Don't know. Don't care. Please don't +talk of him." + +"Nobody else--?" + +"Oh, dear, no! Never will be. I am going to take up nursing or +something." + +"YOU!" he mocked. + +"Do you suppose I can't? Wait till I have got you over this attack, and +then tell me if I can't. I am going to stay with you, godpapa, until +you are better. I have spoken to your housekeeper, and she is quite +agreeable--if you are." + +He did not think it necessary to reply to that hint, but just smiled +and closed his eyes. She took up a palm-leaf fan and fanned him, +watching him anxiously. It was a roasting February day, and he was +breathing very badly. + +"Have you given up your house?" he asked, when he could speak. + +"Long ago. No use my staying there alone. Besides, I could not +afford it." + +"Francie not much good to you, I suppose?" + +"Oh, I don't want her to be good to me." + +"Keziah Moon hasn't deserted you, of course?" + +"Oh, Keziah--she was moped to death, poor old woman--I found her a +nuisance. And then those babies of Rose's were so irresistible. I +thought she'd better go. As Rose's head-nurse, I believe she is in her +element." + +"Is Rose happy with her draper?" + +"I don't know--I suppose so." + +"You don't see much of her?" + +"Not much." + +"And Mary?" + +"I haven't seen her for months. Her husband and I don't hit it off, +somehow." + +"Deb, how much have you to live on?" + +"That's my business, sir." + +"Not the business of a doting godfather--in the absence of nearer male +relatives?" + +"No. His business is only to see that I learn the catechism and present +myself to be confirmed; and I've done both." + +"That all?" + +"Except to let his doting godchild take care of him when he is ill. Now +--don't talk any more." + +He was too exhausted to do so. And while he lay feebly fighting for +breath, the trained nurse came in and took command. + +In the evening that functionary gave a professional opinion. + +"He is worried about something," she said to Deb, "and it is +very bad for him. Do you know what it is?" + +"Not in the least," said Deb promptly. "I have not been seeing him for +years, I am sorry to say, and have not the slightest knowledge of his +affairs." + +But next day she seemed to get an inkling of what the worry was. Mr +Thornycroft, when they were alone together, begged her to tell him if +she had any money difficulties--debts, she supposed--and to be frank +with him for old times' and her father's sake. + +"What! are you bothering your mind about that?" she gently scolded him. +"I assure you I am all right. I haven't any difficulties--or hardly +any--not now. I have no rent, you see." + +"They don't charge you anything where you board?" "No. Redford never +has charged folks for board. Seriously," she hastened to add, in +earnest tones, "I have all I want. And if I try presently to earn more, +it will be because I think everybody ought to earn his living or hers. +You earned yours. I despise people who just batten on the earnings of +others, and never do a hand's turn for themselves." + +"Batten!" he murmured ironically, with a troubled smile. "You look as +if you had been battening, don't you? Debbie, I'm a business man, and I +know you can't get behindhand in money matters and pull up again just +when you want to; you can't get straight merely by anticipating income, +when there's nothing extra coming in. Tell me, if you don't mind, how +you managed?" She flushed, and her eyes dropped; then she faced him +honestly. + +"I will tell you," she declared. "I've wanted to confess it, +though I'm horribly ashamed to--and I'm afraid you'll think I did not +value it. I did indeed--I hated to part with it; but I was so hard up, +and I didn't know which way to turn, or what else to do--" + +"And never came to me!" + +"Well, I did--in a way. I--I sold your pearls." + +"That's right, Debbie. That's a load off my mind. It is the best thing +you could have done with them." + +"No, indeed! I have regretted it ever since." + +"How much did they give you?" "A tremendous lot--three hundred and +fifty guineas." + +"The swindlers! They were worth two thousand." + +"What!" She was thunderstruck. "You gave me a necklace worth two +thousand guineas?" + +"I only wish you'd let me give you a score or two at the same price, on +condition that you sold them for three-fifty whenever you needed a +little cash." + +She was quite upset by this remark, and what had given rise to it. +Impulsively--too impulsively, considering how weak he was--she kissed +his damp forehead, and rushed weeping from his sight. + +In the hot evening, while the trained nurse had her tea at grateful +leisure in the housekeeper's room, Deb again took that nurse's place. +She sat by the pillow of the patient, leaning against it, holding his +hand in hers. Only the sound of the cruel north wind and his more cruel +breathing disturbed the stillness that enveloped them. She hoped he was +sleeping, until he spoke suddenly in a way that showed him only too +wide awake. + +"Debbie," he said, "if I was quite sure I would not get well +this time, I should put that question to you again." + +"What question, dear?" she queried softly. + +"The question I asked you just before you left Redford." + +"I don't remember--Oh!" + +"Yes--that one. But if you consented, I might recover--it would be +enough to make me; then you would repent." + +She was silent, agitated in every fibre of her, but thinking hard. + +"What put that idea into your head?" she whispered, still holding his +hand. + +"It was never put in; it was there always--since you were a kiddie." + +"It seems so strange! I thought I was always a kiddie to you." "That +does seem the natural relationship, doesn't it?" There fell another +long silence, and, listening to his dragging breath, her heart smote +her. She squeezed his bony hand. + +"I will stay with you, anyway," she comforted him. + +He turned his head on the pillow. "Kiss me," he sighed, with eyes +closed. + +She did, again and again. + +The night was suffocating. She could not sleep for the heat and her +thoughts, and when, towards morning, she heard the nurse stirring, she +got up to inquire how he was. + +"Pretty bad," the nurse said. "It's this awful weather. I can't cool +the room, though I've got all the doors and windows open, and the wet +sheets hanging up. It's air he wants, and there isn't any. If +it don't change soon, I'm afraid his strength won't hold out." + +It did not change, and consequently grew worse to bear, the parching +and scorching of each day being carried over into the next. What the +newspapers call a heat-wave was drawing to its culmination, which +generally reaches the verge of the unbearable, even to the well and +strong, just before the "change"--that lightning change to coolness, +and even coldness, which comes while one draws a breath. How many a +life has hung upon the chance of the blessed moment coming in time! + +The nurse looked at the thermometer in despair. Darkness had not taken +10 degrees from yesterday's temperature of 102 degrees when another +blazing sun arose. The fierce wind had raved and calmed, and raved and +calmed, but it had not shifted. She wetted and she fanned, turn and turn +about with Deb, the livelong day, without freshening the dead air that +soaked the house and seemed to soak the world. The fagged and perspiring +doctor (a great friend of the patient's), who came twice daily, came +again, too tired to care very much even for this special case. He looked +at it, and shook his head, and begged for a cool drink for the Lord's +sake; and then, having muddled the wits he had tried to stimulate with +quarts of whisky-and-soda, went away, saying: "I can do nothing. Send for +me at once if you see a change." + +At sunset the sick man was very low, his weak heart and his distressed +lungs labouring heavily, while the sweat of agony glistened on his +forehead and plastered his white hair to his backward-tossed head. Deb +was frantic with fear and grief. She summoned the doctor again, sending +commands to him to summon more doctors--the best in Melbourne, +and any number of them--in defiance of Mr Thornycroft's known wishes +to the contrary. At the same time she sent for the clergyman. + +"Dear," she crooned in the patient's ear, when he seemed a little +easier, "Mr Bentley will be here presently." + +Mr Thornycroft's brows seemed to gather a momentary frown over his +closed eyes. + +"I'd rather not, Deb--" + +"Oh, not for THAT! But--the wind will change soon, and then you will +feel better; and then--you said it would help you to get well--I will +--if you like--" + +He opened his eyes and gazed at her. It took him a few seconds to +understand. + +"Ah--darling!" he breathed, between his pants, and with an effort drew +her hand to his lips. Then--they were his last words, whispered very +low--"Never mind now, Debbie--so long as you are here." + +He seemed to drowse into a kind of half-sleep, in spite of his too +obvious and audible suffering. She sat beside him, sponging and fanning +him, listening to his shallow, jerky, wheezy respiration, watching for +the subtle something in the stifling room that should announce a change +of wind, thinking of Mr Bentley's coming, and many other things. The +weary nurse came back from her brief rest and cup of tea, and sat down +at the foot of the bed. She studied the patient's face intently for +some time, and felt his feet; then she took the fan from Deborah's +hand. + +"You go and lie down, Miss Pennycuick. Mrs Dobson will come and sit +with me for a while." + +"No, no," said Deb. "He wants me to be here. I cannot leave him." + +After a few more minutes of silence, the nurse said again: "You had +better go, Miss Pennycuick." When Deb repeated her refusal, the nurse +went out to fetch the housekeeper to persuade her. + +A minute afterwards, Deb lifted her head with a jerk, and sniffed +eagerly. At the same instant she heard a distant door bang. + +"Thank God!" she ejaculated, and flew to the windows that all day had +had to be shut tight against the furnace blast outside, and flung them +wide, one after the other. The trees in the old garden were bending and +rustling; the sweet, cool air came pouring in. + +"The wind has changed," she whispered, almost hysterically, to the +nurse and the housekeeper, as they stealthily crept in. "And"--as they +all gathered round the bed--"he is better already. His breathing is +easier." + +The nurse bent over the long figure on the bed. "He is not breathing at +all," said she. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + + +Jim Urquhart had been fighting bush fires for several days when the +wind changed and carried them back over the burnt ground that +extinguished them. When he rode home, dead beat, from helping a +neighbour who had helped him, it was to meet the news that Mr +Thornycroft was dead, and Mrs Urquhart gone to Redford to support +Deborah Pennycuick. + +Mr Thornycroft had been ailing with his asthma so long, and making so +little fuss about it, that his friends had come to regard him as +practically ailing nothing. The death that had slowly stalked him for +years came upon them with the shock of the unexpected; so the +newspapers said. Jim's heart smote him for that he had been so taken up +with the fire epidemic as to have neglected for over a week to inquire +after the old man; it smote him more when he heard that Deb had been at +Redford through the ordeal, without "anyone" near her. He had known too +well--had made it his business to know--that she had had a struggling +life, heart-breaking to think of, for a long time, but under various +pretexts she had kept "everybody" at arm's-length and further, refusing +aid or pity; now there had come a chance to do something for her, and +he had been out of the way. And duty still detained him, to +arrange about destroyed fences and foodless stock--duty that had to be +considered first, even before her. When at last he was free to put +himself at her disposal, a dozen men had jumped his claim. + +The manager of Redford met him when a few miles from the place. "You +are behind the fair, Mr Urquhart," cried he, as they drew rein +alongside; and his tone and his face were strangely cheerful, +considering that his good employer of twenty years had been buried only +yesterday--as usual, within a few hours of his death. "But I suppose +you have heard the news. What--you haven't? Then I am the first to +congratulate you," extending a cordial hand. "The will was read this +morning, and you've got the biggest legacy--a cool five thousand, +sir." + +Five thousand! Jim, never on particularly intimate terms with the +testator, had not thought of the will, and the idea that he might have +an interest in it never crossed his mind. Five thousand! It is said of +drowning people that they see the whole panorama of their lives in the +last seconds of consciousness; in the instant's pause that followed the +manager's announcement, Jim saw Five Creeks renovated and prosperous, +and Deb's children running about the old rooms and paddocks, and +calling him father--a home not quite unworthy of his goddess now, and +one that loneliness and poverty would have taught her to appreciate. He +stared at the burly manager like a man in a dream. + +"I get a nice little windfall myself, which I never expected," the +latter continued his tale. "The servants are well provided for, and +there are odd sums for a lot of English relatives--I suppose they +are--and a good bit for charities. But yours is the biggest +individual legacy; and I'm glad of it, and I'm not surprised, because +I've heard him many a time speak well of you for the way you worked to +keep up your place and look after the family." + +"But," said Jim, coming down from his clouds of glory, "I thought--I +thought there'd be more than that." "Than what? You surely didn't +expect--oh, I see!" The manager threw up his head and roared. "My good +fellow, the estate altogether is worth a quarter of a million." + +"Then who--?" + +"Gets it? Miss Pennycuick. She's here now. And couldn't believe it when +they told her--though, when you come to think of it, it was a natural +thing for him to do, having been such friends with the old man, and she +his god-daughter. A lucky young woman--my word!" Jim's swelled heart +collapsed and sank like a burst balloon. His dream-house vanished in +thin air, to be built no more. + +"That settles it," he said to himself. According to his code of manly +honour and self-respect, a man could not possibly, even with five +thousand pounds in hand, ask a girl with a quarter of a million to +marry him. + +A little more conversation, if it can be called such, when one talked +and the other did not even listen, and he parted with the garrulous +manager and rode on to the house. Deb, wet-eyed, met him with a welcome +that severely tried his Spartan fortitude, without in the least +weakening his resolve. Although she did not know it, being still filled +with grief for her lifelong friend, it was the power and +command that he had endowed her with which gave that charming air of +fearless and open affection to her manner. + +"Oh, my dear, dear boy!" she addressed him, and all but kissed him +before his mother's eyes. "I am so glad to have you here. Jim dear, Mrs +Urquhart thinks you can be spared--will you stay here for a bit and +help me to settle things? There is so much to do, and it is my duty to +attend to everything myself. There are the lawyers and people, of +course--everybody is so kind--but I want a man of my own beside me." + +"Certainly, Deb," he replied, without wincing; "for as long as you want +me--if I can run home every other day or so for a look round." + +He stayed, in company with his mother, for a month; then, when he went +to live at home again, he spent at least half his days at Redford, +acting as Deb's 'own man' indoors and out--her real legal adviser, her +real station manager, her confidential major-domo, the doer of all the +'dirty work' connected with the administration of her estate; and never +--although she exposed him to almost every sort of temptation--never +once stepped off the line that he had marked for himself. + +Another person was not so scrupulous, though, to be sure, he was not so +poor. + +Claud Dalzell, drifting from one resort of the wealthy to another-- +deer-stalking in Scotland, salmon-fishing in Norway, shooting in the +Rockies, hunting in the Shires, yachting everywhere, and everywhere +adored of a crowd of women as idle as himself--was loafing at Monte +Carlo when he heard of Mr Thornycroft's death and Deb's +accession to his throne. Ennui and satiety possessed the popular young +man at the moment--for he was made for better things, and his +dissatisfied soul tormented him; and a vision of old-time Redford and +the beautiful girl who was like wine and fire, a blend of passion and +purity that now impressed him as unique, rose before his mental eyes +with the effect of water-springs in a dry land. His thoughts went back +to the days when they rode and made love together--the sunny days, +before the clouds gathered. It was that past which glorified her all at +once, not the present--not Mr Thornycroft's money--not the halo of +elegance and consequence that again adorned her; he never suspected +otherwise for a moment. And that was why he did not hesitate to book a +passage to Australia that very day. + +Deb was at Redford when he arrived. That she would never part with the +place again, she had declared on the day that it came into her +possession, and she was now establishing herself there, she said, for +life. She had gone through the whole great rambling house, sorting and +rearranging the furniture that was in it, adding the cream of the +contents of the best shops in town. She made a clean sweep of the now +'awful' fittings of the big drawing-room, replacing them with parquet +rugs and divans, and things of the softest, finest and most costly +kind; she arranged the morning-room for herself afresh; also the glazed +corridor, which became a beautiful art gallery and lounging-place; also +the remainder of the long unused rooms. She called to her all the +favourite old servants--except Keziah Moon, who was happy where she +was--and old Miss Keene to play chaperon once more, with +nothing to do but arrange flowers and doze at peace in the lap of +luxury. Deb wanted Jim for her manager, at a ridiculous salary, but he +would not take the post; he did, however, procure her an excellent +substitute. She commissioned him to buy her riding-horses--he "knew +what she liked"--regardless of expense; an English groom was given +charge of them when they arrived. So easily did the magnificent woman +slide back into her magnificent ways, for all her good taste and +unpretentiousness. + +When Claud Dalzell was driven in his hired buggy from the township to +her door, his critical eye took in the many changes that the old +homestead had undergone with high approval. Used as he was to far finer +houses and the best of everything, he felt that here was as fair a +camping-place as even he could desire. Redford, with a quarter of a +million behind it, with this setting of sunshine and spaciousness +(missed so much more than he had known till now), inclined--what a +haven of rest and pleasure, after the crowded and fatiguing experiences +of his later years! + +He was shown upstairs to the big drawing-room. He hardly knew where he +was, with the grass-green carpet and festooned window-draperies and +gilding and plate-glass vanished, and these soft-coloured stuffs and +subtle harmonies around him. He could recognise nothing but a few +pictures and the old piano, the latter spread with a gem of Chinese +embroidery, on which stood a gem of a Satsuma bowl filled with fine +chrysanthemums. It was late in autumn now. + +And while he wandered about, examining this and that with the +pleasure of a satisfied connoisseur, Deb stood in the sitting-room +downstairs, with clenched hands and teeth, staring at his card on a +table before her. + +"He has the cheek," she thought, afire with indignation--never so hot +and bitter as when directed against one we love who has offended us-- +"he has the unspeakable effrontery to come and see me NOW, when he +never came near me all those hard years--never cared how I muddled and +struggled, nor whether I was alive or dead!" + +But she must see him, of course. And she must maintain her proper +dignity. No descending to vulgar reproaches--still less to weak +condonation. She took a moment to calm herself, and walked forth to the +interview. Many things upheld her, but the dead hand of Mr Thornycroft +was her stoutest support. + +She needed it when she reached the top of the stairs. Facing the +drawing-room door, awaiting her, stood the figure that really seemed +the one thing wanting to complete the beauty of the beautiful house. He +had never in his younger days been so distinguished-looking as he was +now. In any company, in any part of the world, he must have attracted +notice, as a gentleman, in person and manners, of the very finest type. +And how she did love that sort! How her lonely and hungry heart longed +for him when she saw him--the only man she had ever deemed her natural +mate--and at the same time how she hated him for the disappointment +and the humiliation that he had brought her! Outraged self-respect, her +robust will-power, and her quarter of a million sufficed to +save her from a temptation she would not have fallen into for the +world. + +She swept forward to shake hands with him, with the grave affability of +a great lady to a guest--any guest--and it was plain from the +expression of his sensitive face that he was as keenly appreciative of +her enhanced beauty and 'finish' as she of his. Black was not her +colour--she was too dark--and she had discarded it for pale greys and +whites, with touches of black about them; today a creamy woollen, thick +and soft, and hanging about her like the drapery of a Greek statue, was +an inspiration in becoming gowns. The maid who had dressed her hair was +a mistress of the art. And Miss Pennycuick's step and poise--well, she +WAS a great lady, and carried herself accordingly. + +Her old lover was charmed. He held her hand--and would have held it +thrice as long--and looked into her eyes, too overcome, it appeared, +to speak. + +"How do you do?" she said, evading his intense gaze. "What a man you +are for dropping on one in this unexpected, sensational way! Why didn't +you write and tell me you were around?" + +She made a movement to withdraw her hand. He held it fast. + +"Debbie," said he, in quite a tremulous voice--remarkable in one +constitutionally so self-confident and self-possessed--"Debbie, you +turned me out of your house when I came to see you last. I hope you +have a different welcome for me this time?" + +"To the best of my belief," she laughed, "you insisted upon going. I am +sure you were asked to stay--to lunch, or whatever it was. By the way, +have you lunched now?" She showed concern for her obligations +as his hostess. + +"Yes, thank you--at least, it doesn't matter." + +He had to relinquish her hand, and when she immediately made towards +the bell-button, he followed and arrested her. + +"Let us have our talk first," he pleaded. "I don't want anything to eat +until I know--until I feel that you don't grudge it." + +"Oh, I don't grudge it," she took him literally. "Not one square meal, +at any rate. The only thing I am obliged to grudge is house-room--for +any length of time--to single gentlemen. But that is not a question of +hospitality, as you know. Sit down, and tell me all the news." + +He sat down; she also--about two yards off. Across the gulf of Persian +rug he looked at her steadily. + +"You are angry with me," he observed. "Why, Debbie? Is it still the old +quarrel--after all these years?" + +Then her face changed like a filled lamp when you put a match to it. +She said, in a deep, breathless way: + +"Do you know how many years it is?" + +More in sorrow and surprise than in anger, he guessed her meaning after +a moment's thought. + +"Is that my fault? The number of years has been of your choosing," he +pointed out forbearingly. "You sent me away, when I never wanted to go. +You broke it off, altogether against my wish. You never relented-- +never made a sign. Even now I come back uninvited." + +It was a clear case, and all he asked for was bare justice. + +"Why didn't you come before--uninvited? Why didn't you come +back to me when I was poor and lonely? Claud, I have been in every sort +of trouble--my father is dead, I have lost all my sisters in one way +and another, I have been living in cheap lodgings, doing without what I +always thought were the necessaries of life, to keep Francie going and +to get debts paid off--I have been ill, I have been unhappy, I have +sometimes been penniless, and you have carefully passed by on the other +side, like that man in the Bible, and left me to my fate." + +He was genuinely shocked. He knew that she had been horribly down in +the world, but not that she had suffered to this extent. Seeing her +sitting there in her beautiful gown, in her beautiful room, without one +trace of those sordid years about her, his heart ached to think of +them. + +"My darling, I never knew--" "Why not?" she said swiftly. "Because you +never tried to know--never cared to know. But now that I can be a +credit to you again--the moment you hear that I have had a great +fortune left to me--now you come back." + +"Do you mean to say," he demanded sternly, "that you think--you +honestly think I have come back to you on account of your money?" + +She returned his cold, searching gaze in kind. + +"Honestly," she said, "I do think so. There is no way out of it." + +He rose deliberately, bowed to her, and picked up his hat. He was not +really mercenary--or, if he was, he did not know it--and he was as +intensely proud as she was. He felt that he had received the +deadliest insult ever dealt him in his life, and one that he could +never forget or forgive. + +Without another word, he turned to the door and walked out. She stood +still and watched him go, a calm smile curving her lips, a very cyclone +of passion tearing through her heart; and she scorned to recall him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + + +Deb yearned to have her Australian sisters--Frances was European-- +with her at Redford, as in the old days; she hated to be luxuriating +there without them. But for a time the husbands stood in the way. She +could not bring herself to ask them too. The draper she hardly knew at +all--in her correspondence with Rose his name was rarely mentioned by +either, except in comprehensive messages at the end of letters; and +Bennet Goldsworthy's company, Deb said, simply made her ill. + +It had made her ill since, after her father's death, the clergyman had +permitted himself, in her hearing, to vent his personal disappointment +at the unexpected smallness of his wife's inheritance. The man had +presumed to take the air of one reasonably aggrieved; he had even +dropped angry words about "deception" in the first heat of his chagrin. +"As if," said haughty Deb, "it was not enough for him to have married +one of us!" When he was understood to say that he had "arranged his +life" in accordance with the expectations he had been given the right +to entertain, Deb's withering comment was: "As if HIS life matters!" + +But she was intolerant in her dislikes. + +Poor Mr Goldsworthy, incurable cadger that he was, was bound to feel +the family reverses acutely. When he had married Miss Pennycuick for +her good, in that risky manner, he had naturally expected to be +rewarded for the deed. If ever it be safe to trust to appearances, it +had seemed safe then, so far as the solidity of the Pennycuicks' +position was concerned. They had imposed upon him with their careless +splendour; they had misled him by their condonation of the marriage, +which restored Mary to her privileges as a daughter of the house; most +thoroughly had they taken him in by that voluntary wedding gift of five +hundred pounds. With his habit--which he took to be the general habit +--of getting all he could and giving nothing that he was not obliged to +give, he could not understand the airy flinging away of all that money, +when there was no "call" for it, only as a proof that Mr Pennycuick had +more than he needed for all the legitimate claims on him. And the old +man had said, again and again, that his daughters would share and share +alike in whatever he had to leave. + +When Mr Bentley, the new parson, came--young, sincere, +self-sacrificing, devoted, a poor preacher and a hard worker, who +refused to batten on Redford bounty--all the old furniture of the +parsonage was made over to him (on time payment), and the Goldsworthys +began life in Melbourne on the basis of a rich wife. It was surprising +how the legend grew amongst his set that Mr Goldsworthy had a rich +wife. That she might dress the part on all occasions, so that there +would be no mistake about it, the family-provided trousseau was added +to; it was also subtracted from, for the simplicity that was her taste +and distinction was hateful in his sight. When she looked "common" in a +cotton gown, she lowered his dignity in the world and amongst his +professional fellows--supposed to be so envious of it, in +spite of her red face. Deb had had to suffer the shock of seeing her +sister in silk of a morning more than once, and it had been reported to +her--though she did not believe it--that Mary wore a jewelled +necklace to church on Sundays. Deb did not go to Bennet's church, which +was, fortunately, a long way from her suburban-villa home. + +And she had been to his Melbourne house but twice. On her first visit +she had penetrated to Mary's room, and been horrified to find the +husband's clothes hung up in it from her door-pegs, and his razors and +brushes mixed up with her things on her dressing-table. The arrangement +in the country parsonage was to be accounted for; to find it here, made +deliberately and of MALICE PREPENSE, was to see what gulfs now yawned +between Mary's old life and the new one. Deb reached forth for a comb, +and drew back her hand as if she had inadvertently touched a snake. +Mary's red face went purple as she explained that there was not space +in that house for a dressing-room. There was space enough going to +waste in the drawing-room, where Deb had her feelings hurt on her +second visit. It was a very large room, sharing the front of the house +with a large study; and behind them all the other rooms huddled as of +no account, none of them bigger than Keziah's Redford storeroom. The +study was sacred to the master of the house; the drawing-room to +"company". One look showed Deb that Mary never sat there, and that it +was not she who had chosen and arranged the furniture. The foundation +of the scheme was a costly "suite", upholstered in palish silk brocade, +the separate pieces standing at fixed intervals apart on a +gorgeous Axminster carpet. When Deb entered the room, Mr Goldsworthy +was bending over the central sofa, excited and talking loudly. Miss +Goldsworthy and Mary stood by, mute and drooping; Ruby looked on +irresponsibly, with joy in her eye. + +"What's the matter?" inquired Deb, advancing. + +As she was not a great lady then, but quite the contrary, Mr +Goldsworthy explained what was the matter, with scarcely any +modification of his minatory air. A caller had called yesterday, +bringing with her a little boy. Mary had thoughtlessly fed the little +boy with soft cake, and the little boy had first made his hands sticky +with it, and then pawed the sofa, which had cost him (B.G.) nearly +twenty pounds (part of Mary's 500 pounds). Greasy marks had been left on +that lovely brocade, for which he (not she) had given thirty-five +shillings a yard, and which he had forbidden children to be allowed to sit +on. As if that were not bad enough, "they"--i.e., those two poor +women--had, without telling him, tried to take the marks out with some +wretched chemist's stuff, which had not taken them out, but only spread +them more. Now the sofa was completely spoiled, and what to do he did not +know, unless he could match the brocade, which was scarcely likely. And +ill could he afford to be buying brocade--and so on. Finally he went +out to consult with a furniture repairer of his acquaintance, banging +doors behind him. Deb cast a scornful glance upon the smudged brocade. + +"What a fuss about nothing!" she brushed the subject by. + +"My brother is very particular about this room," Miss +Goldsworthy apologised for him. + +"So I see." + +"And he is very fond of this brocade, which he chose himself. It +certainly is very pretty--don't you think so? But too delicate to wear +well. I am always frightened to see children go near it, or even +grown-up people when it has been raining, or if they have been +gathering dust--it does show every spot so! And it was the mother's +fault. I signed to Mary to give him a biscuit, but his mother picked +out that cake, which had jam in it. It is very unfortunate. I don't +wonder at his being vexed." + +"Why don't you have chintz covers, Moll?" + +"Oh, he wouldn't like it to be covered up," Miss Goldsworthy struck in, +and seemed shocked herself at the suggested waste. Mary lifted dull +eyes to her sister's face. + +"Come and have some tea," she said. "Come, auntie; it is no use your +worrying yourself." + +And they went into the poky living room, which smelt of meals, and had +tea, and the sort of barren talk that the presence of the third person +necessitated. Mary seemed purposely to avoid a TETE-A-TETE. When Miss +Goldsworthy went to fetch the baby, Ruby was kept at her step-mother's +side. Only when the black-eyed boy appeared did Mary brighten into a +likeness to her old self. She was a born mother, and her child consoled +her. Then, in the midst of the baby worship, back came the still +agitated husband and father, the furniture man with him; and the house +was filled anew with the affair of the soiled sofa, so that Deb's +presence, as also her departure, attracted little attention. As her +brother-in-law pushed out a valedictory hand, she noticed a +shirt-cuff that had the grime of days upon it. + +"He economises in the wash," she soliloquised, with wrinkling nostril +and curling lip. "And in those filthy cheap coals that choke the grate +with dust, and in tea that is undrinkable. Oh, what a house!" + +And she had not been there since. But now-- + +Her benevolence embraced the world, and the world included Bennet +Goldsworthy. It was no longer in his power to make her feel ill. The +sun of her prosperity, shining on him at her sister's side--poor, +struggling, well-meaning little man!--gave him a pathetic and +appealing interest. In fact, it was to him that her maternal +dispositions towards her family drew her first. + +"Thank God," she said to herself, "I can now make things a bit easier +for that poor child. She won't let me, I daresay, but he will." + +She took the humble tram to their suburb, and rang at their parsonage +door. Having considerately sent word that she was coming, due +preparations had been made to receive her. She was shown into the +drawing-room, which had not a displaced chair, and where the +many-coloured Axminster and the cherished brocade still looked as good +as new. Almost her first act was to search for the grease marks on the +sofa--the spot was indicated by a bleached patch--and she sat down on +it, alone for a few minutes. On this occasion the old aunt had been +ordered to keep in the background; Ruby also, after due consideration +of her claims, had been denied the share she clamoured for of the +impending excitement, and sent out of the house; Mary had had her +directions, and remained invisible for a time. She was employed +in getting Robert ready for inspection--brushing his best jacket, +tying his best neck-tie, etc., while he jerked about under her hands, +and freely criticised her labours on his behalf. For Robert took after +his father as a knowing person. He was, in fact, a bright and clever +lad, who knew some things better than his mother did. She was ever +proud to admit it; but his own open acceptance of superiority, and +readiness to keep it before her eyes at all times, was one of the +secret crosses of her life, weighed down with so many. However, if you +marry the wrong man, you cannot expect to have the right children, and +it was something that this boy had the genuineness of his intellectual +gifts to give her an excuse to adore him. + +"There, that will do. It is very bad form, you know, to be so fussy +about people coming, and so anxious about what they may think about +you," the young authority upon etiquette instructed the fine-fibred +gentlewoman, who had done him the honour to be his mother. And Mary +took the rebuke humbly. + +Bennet Goldsworthy, alone, came softly into the drawing-room to receive +the distinguished guest. He had grown fat and tubby, and a phrase of +Claud Dalzell's flashed into Deb's memory as she marked the manner of +his approach--"that crawling ass, that would lick your boots for +sixpence". The noonday sun does not affect polished metal more +obviously than Deb's wealth affected him. + +"This is good of you," he murmured brokenly, pressing her gloved hand. +"This is indeed good of you!" "I ought to have been before," +she returned graciously--it was so easy to be gracious to him now--"I +have been wanting to come; but you cannot imagine how many hindrances I +have had." + +"Oh, but I can indeed!" with earnest emphasis--"I can indeed! And have +grieved that I was not able to be of some service to you in your--your +very difficult position. I did not like to seem to force myself upon +you, but I hoped--I confidently hoped that you would send for me, if +it was in my power to be of the slightest assistance to you." + +"Oh, yes--thank you so much--if I had needed anybody. But there were +only too many kind friends." + +"Aha! Yes, I expect so." His eye lighted and his lip curled craftily. +"I have no doubt whatever of THAT. 'Where the carcase is--' You know +the rest?" + +"I am not a carcase," she rallied him playfully--for quite the first +time in her life. + +"No, indeed; I should have said 'prey'. Ah, my dear De--Miss +Pennycuick, you will find plenty and to spare of so-called friends, +professing anxiety to serve you, when their only object is to serve +themselves." + +"I expect so," she assented, smiling. + +"So young a girl"--subtle flattery this, now that Deb was in her late +thirties--"to be suddenly called to a position of such immense danger +and responsibility! But"--cheeringly--"I said when I heard of it that +Mr Thornycroft had justified my high opinion of his judgment and +character. It is not often that great wealth comes into hands so worthy +of it." + +"I am afraid they are not very worthy," sighed Deb. Mr +Goldsworthy knew better. He knew HER better--not only from personal +intercourse, the observation and intuition of a man trained to read +character, but from the loving representations of his dear wife. + +"Where is she?" Miss Pennycuick asked abruptly. "Not out, I hope?" + +"Out--hardly! She will be here in a moment. I am afraid, when you see +her, you will think her looking delicate. The state of her health is a +matter of the most anxious concern to me." + +"What is the matter with her health? She was always well at home. We +used to think her the strongest of the family--until--" + +"Until she fell into the clutches of that dreadful man," Mr Goldsworthy +concluded for her. + +"Oh!"--Deb coloured and frowned--"that is not what I was going to +say." (What she had really been going to say was--"until her +marriage.") "And why do you rake up that old story? I thought it had +all been forgotten long ago." + +"It has been unpleasantly revived," said Mr Goldsworthy solemnly. "And +it is my duty to tell you about it, if you have not heard." + +Deb looked equally annoyed and alarmed. "What has been revived?" she +asked. + +He dropped his voice apologetically. + +"I have been hearing of his going on in exactly the same way with +another." + +"Oh," sighed Deb, relieved that it was not Mary who had been the +reviver; "then it's no business of ours, thank goodness." + +"Pardon me--it is very much our business," he urged weightily. +"I grieve to tell you that it is your sister, Mrs Ewing, who is +implicated in the affair. Do you mean to say that you know nothing +about it?" + +Deb knew something, and so she put the question by. + +"I don't encourage scandalmongers. Mrs Ewing is young and thoughtless-- +and pretty--which naturally lays her open to ill--natured gossip." +"My informant is one of the least ill-natured of women; she is a person +of the highest principle." + +"Ah, those high-principled women--I know them!" + +Mr Goldsworthy was nonplussed for the moment. He could not accept the +suggestion that Deb was not high-principled. But he gave up his +informant. + +"There is ample evidence that the man is Mrs Ewing's lover," he +grieved. "He has been seen with her in the most equivocal situations. I +don't wish to go into details--to mention things unfit for a young +girl's ears--" + +"I hope not," put in Deb, her patience giving out. "I am not fond of +that kind of talk. I should not believe, either, in any nasty tales +connected with my sister, or with Captain Carey. And you ought not to +listen to them, for Mary's sake. You should not pander to your +high-principled ladies. You should tell them to be more charitable, and +to mind their own business." + +A year ago the parson would have taken umbrage at this rebuke; he now +hastened to deprecate displeasure on the part of the one whom, of all +the world, he most desired to please. + +"Far be it from me to speak ill of anyone belonging to you," he +declared solemnly; but still he could not help it. + +The most good-natured person, if he be greedy, will seek to ingratiate +himself with Power by disparagement of rival suitors. He was following +an impulse that might be described as an instinct, in trying to weaken +Deb's favour towards the rest of her relatives in order to concentrate +as much as possible upon himself--to push back, as it were, the hands +that he imagined eagerly outstretched to her (palm upwards), that the +more might be dropped into his own. He asked her if she had seen Mrs +Breen, and sighed over that plebeian connection. + +"I may be poor," said he, "but I do come of a good family. It is +unfortunate, perhaps, but we cannot help our prejudices." "It is a +ridiculous prejudice," said Deb, "especially in a country like this." + +"Oh, it is--it is. I own it; but--well, you know--" + +She brusquely brought him back to the question of Mary's health. + +"It is Mary that I want to hear about. Tell me--before she comes in-- +what is the matter with her?" + +He was willingly confidential. + +"She has worries," said he--"worries that you, my dear young lady, in +YOUR position, know nothing of--would not understand if I were to tell +you." + +"I have been in positions to understand most kinds of worries," said +Deb. "What are they? Money worries?" + +"Well, I have a delicacy in--" + +"Oh, you need not have! I know, of course, that you cannot have +been too well off, and I am here on purpose to do something for you, if +you will allow me.' There was no need to beat about the bush, she knew, +since Mary was out of hearing. 'Tell me exactly, if you don't mind--in +strict confidence, of course. No need to trouble her--and I shall not +say anything." + +He told her, with fullness and fervour, when he had expressed his too +fulsome gratitude. + +"I have done my best, Miss Pennycuick. You bade me be good to her; I +gave you my solemn promise--and I can conscientiously say that I have +kept my word." Well, so he had; according to his lights he had been an +exemplary husband. "But circumstances have been against me. In the +first place, I was in error somewhat, as you know, in regard to my +wife's expectations from her father. I did not marry her for her money, +as you also know, but appearances were such that I naturally concluded +she would have a considerable income of her own. I did not care for +myself one way or the other, but I was glad to believe that there would +be the means to continue to her the mode of life that she had been used +to. I acted upon this supposition, false, as it turned out, and +anticipated, most imprudently, I confess, the little fortune that I +imagined to be secure. When we came here, where living is so much more +expensive than in the country"--with no Redford to draw upon--"I +surrounded my wife with the comforts that were her due, and which I +fully believed she had every right to." He waved his hand over the +still blooming Axminster carpet and the brocaded suite the family was +not allowed to sit on. "I spent--we spent the little capital +represented by your father's wedding present--I had an erroneous idea +that it was to be an annual allowance pending the eventual division of +the estate; and then--well, then you know what happened." + +Deb nodded. + +"Did you," she inquired feelingly, "borrow of those professional +money-lenders?" + +She was prepared to be very sympathetic in that case; but Mr +Goldsworthy repelled the suggestion with scorn. + +"Certainly not. I never borrowed money in my life. I struggled and +scraped and saved, as best I could; I endeavoured in vain to augment my +small income by little speculations--harmless little dabblings in +mining shares; I--but I won't bore you with these disagreeables"-- +pulling himself up with an air of forced cheerfulness. + +"But I want to know," said Deb. "You spoke of worries--Mary's worries +--worries now; are you still--" + +He spread his hands and wagged his head. + +"I'd rather not talk about our troubles," he sighed. "I don't want to +dim the sunshine of your--" + +And suddenly his eye flashed and his brow contracted with annoyance. +Mary--somewhat hesitatingly, to be sure--walked in. + +Robert had insisted that the pater was all wrong in his idea that it +was proper for him alone to receive the visitor, and for the mistress +of the house to linger inhospitably after it was known that she must +know of the visitor's arrival. Robert had coerced his mother into doing +the correct thing. Politely he opened the drawing-room door for her-- +that, of course, was absolutely the correct thing--and +escorted her forward with the aplomb of a man of the world, nicely +blended with the respectfulness appropriate to a nephew and a +school-boy. + +"Ah, HERE she is!" Mr Goldsworthy exclaimed heartily. + +The sisters were at once in each other's arms. Deb, pierced to the +heart by Mary's aged and faded looks, was the most demonstrative of the +two; Mary struck her after a moment as being a little reserved and +chilly--as if on the watch to repel benevolence as soon as it should +take tangible form. Deb understood, and was warned to be circumspect. + +"And this is our boy--grown out of knowledge, eh?" + +Mary stepped swiftly aside to let Robert come forward, and there was no +mistaking the sentiments held in common by the parents with regard to +their son. Their two faces were mirrors for each other, suffused with +the same tender pride. + +"Perhaps the child has reconciled her to the rest of it," Deb hazarded +a hope. "She may be happy." + +For Mary smiled and moved alertly about the room. She accepted her +husband's ostentatious hand and chair, and when he resumed the +conversation, or rather restarted it, on the subject of Robert's +achievements at school, she followed where he led, so long as he did +not seem leading towards Deb's pocket, backing him up in the most +wifely manner. "Can it be possible?" Deb kept asking herself, glad at +heart to see such signs, which yet lessened her pity for and interest +in her sister. But Mary, with all the pride of the Pennycuicks in her, +was not, one to "let on". Her skeleton was locked tight in the +cupboard it belonged to when visitors were about--especially such a +visitor as this--and also when they were not about, so far as she +could have it so. + +So that a sort of air of entertaining "company" pervaded the room. Deb +felt a constraint with her sister, and that she was making no way with +her mission. But Robert stepped into the breach. With Mary's son the +impulsive lady of Redford was unexpectedly pleased. There was not a +trace of Pennycuick to be discerned in him; nevertheless, he was a +good-looking, intelligent and interesting boy. He sat by her on the +sacred brocaded sofa while she brightly questioned him, brightly +answering her with aptness and good sense; his parents beaming on the +pair, even the father content to play second fiddle to give the son his +chance. Here, at any rate, thought Deb, was material to hand for the +work she had come to do. + +"I love boys," she remarked--and so she did, as some people love dogs +--"and Robert and I are going to be great friends; aren't we, Robert?" + +"It is very good of you to say so, aunt," Robert replied, with +characteristic propriety. + +"But, do you know, I don't think I shall call you Robert," she went on. +"It has a prim sound"--but it was the primness of himself that she +wanted to break down--"and it doesn't suit a boy of your tender years. +I think I'll call you Bob, if you don't mind." + +"I wish you would," he adroitly answered her. + +"What is your bent towards, in the way of a career, Bob?" + +He said he thought the law--to be a judge some day. + +"You don't care for station life?" + +"Oh, he does," his father eagerly interposed. "He loves it. But +he has had so few chances--" + +"Which is your school, Bob?" + +A seminary of no repute was named, and the father again intervened to +regret that it was not one of the public schools. "But they, +unfortunately, have been beyond our means--" + +Here Mary broke in with praises of the seminary. It had such an +excellent headmaster, was so conveniently situated--really better in +many ways than one of the great schools-- + +And then Robert broke in. + +"My dear mother!" he ejaculated, in a compassionate and forbearing way. + +"Ah, Bob knows it is not better," laughed Deb. "And it isn't, Mary; you +are no authority, my dear. Which of the public schools do you fancy, +Bob?" + +He mentioned his choice, and the University scholarships that were to +be had there. + +"Debbie!" implored Mrs Goldsworthy, under her breath. + +"Hush-sh!" hissed her husband. + +"You be quiet, Molly," Deb playfully adjured her. "This has nothing to +do with you, or with anybody except Bob and me. You come and spend your +next vacation with me at Redford, Bob, and then we can talk it all over +together." + +She nodded to him meaningly. He smiled with perfect comprehension. + +"How can we thank you," Mr Goldsworthy murmured emotionally, for he +also understood. "It is too, too--" + +"It's all right, pater," the remarkable boy silenced him. "Aunt Deborah +knows how we feel about it." + +Mary sat in stolid silence, for once indifferent to her +husband's dumb command; then tears welled into her tired eyes. She +pocketed her pride for her child's sake. It had been her hopeless +longing for years to give her darling's splendid abilities full scope. + +"He will repay you, Debbie," she said. + +"Ah, don't be so grudging--so ungenerous!" cried Deb. + +Tea and cakes were brought in, and Bob, as he was thenceforth to be +styled, waited upon his aunt in the correctest manner. He had by this +time taken on an air that seemed to say: "You and I understand the +ropes; you must excuse these poor parents of mine, who were not born +with our perceptions." And Deb, no more proof against this sort of +thing than meaner mortals, had a feeling of special proprietorship in +him which she found pleasant, although he was not exactly the +heir-on-probation that she could have wished; which, of course, it +would have been preposterous to expect in a son of Bennet +Goldsworthy's. Bennet Goldsworthy accompanied her to the gate when she +went away, forbidding Mary to expose herself, hatless, to the wind. And +there the benevolent aunt's "intentions" were more distinctly +formulated. + +"I wish to take entire charge of his education, if you will allow me. +He is a very promising boy, and should have all his chances. Let me +send him to the Melbourne Grammar after Christmas, and as a boarder, if +you don't mind. There are such advantages, both in position and for +study, in living at the school." + +"I leave everything--everything, in your hands," murmured the +grateful father. + +"By the way"--as an after-thought--"what about your little girl?" + +She was not a little girl now, and had finished with school; but, oh, +the boon that a few good lessons in music and languages would be to +her! + +That matter was settled. + +"Well, now," said Deb, "we must think about Mary. She is frightfully +thin. I can see that she has had too many worries, as you say. She must +be taken out of them. I want to have her at Redford with me--as soon +as she can get ready--and give her a good long rest, and feed her up, +and make her fat and strong." + +"I only wish you could prevail on her," he sighed. "But I am afraid you +will not get her to go anywhere without me. I have a devoted wife, Miss +Pennycuick"--even if she had not tacitly forbidden "Deborah" in her +poor days, he would not have ventured upon the liberty now that she was +rich--"too devoted, if that can be. She insists upon sharing all my +burdens, though I fain would spare her. I know well that, say what I +will, she will never consent to leaving me to struggle with them +alone." + +"You have not told me what they are," said Deb, who saw that he was in +dread of her going before he could do so. + +"Oh, debts--debts--debts!" he answered, with a reckless air. "The +millstone that we hung about our necks when we anticipated that she +would have money, and lived accordingly, and were then left stranded. +The eternal trying to make a shilling go as far as a pound--to make +bricks without straw, like the captive Israelites of old. But +why do you ask me? I hate to talk about it." He made a gesture of +putting the miserable subject aside. + +"It was very hard on you," Deb said gently--contradicting the Deb of +an earlier time and different state of things--"to have those +expectations, which were certainly justified, and to be disappointed as +you were. I feel that we Pennycuicks were to blame in that--" + +"Oh, dear, no!" he earnestly assured her. + +"And that an obligation rests on me, now that I have the means, to make +some compensation to you--to Mary, rather." + +"It is like you to think of that. But really--" + +"And I put a blank cheque in my pocket, and a stylographic pen--and +will you let me"--she drew forth the articles mentioned, and made a +desk of the top rail of the gate--"will you do me the favour to accept +from me--what shall I say?--five hundred pounds? Would that relieve +you--and Mary--of the immediate worries?" + +He said it would, with the mental reservation that it did not amount to +what he had been defrauded of by Mr Pennycuick (she had made a mistake +in the designation of her gift); but the slight coolness of his +acknowledgement quickly gave place to grateful fervour as he realised +what the immediate five hundred pounds would do for him, and read in +her words an implication that the sum was but an instalment of what she +felt to be his due. He was incoherent in his thanks and benedictions as +he slipped the cheque into his pocket. + +"And you will let me have Mary at Redford?" + +"Oh, yes! She will not want to go, but I shall make her." + +"And do not tell her more than you can help about this little private +transaction. She might feel--" + +"I will tell her nothing that is likely to vex her." + +"Do not--PRAY do not. Only take these sordid worries off her +shoulders, and give her what she needs, and don't let her toil and +moil. Remember, it is for her I do it." There was a little sting in +that last remark, but he was too happy to feel it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + + +Now, what to do for Rose. + +Rose had written warm congratulations to her sister, without mentioning +any desire for a personal interview. Ever since her marriage, she had +refrained from giving invitations to her family, leaving the initiative +in social matters to them--a mark of consideration and good taste on +her part which they had quite approved of; and intercourse had been +limited to afternoon calls, more or less affectionate and informal, but +stopping short at meals in common under the roof of either party. Now, +however, Deb craved for a fuller sympathy with the sweetest-tempered +and kindest-hearted of her sisters, and now it seemed so perfectly easy +to go to her house in pursuit of it. She despatched an impulsive note: + +"DEAREST,--I want a quiet talk with you about all that has happened. +May I come to lunch tomorrow, so as to make a long afternoon of it? If +not convenient, fix a day to lunch with me; but I am not so tied as you +are, and besides, I should like to have Peter's advice on one or two +little matters of business, if it would not bother him--of course, +after he comes from town. Don't keep him at home on purpose." + +To which Rose replied by telegram: + +"Shall expect you early tomorrow for a long day. Peter +delighted to place himself at your disposal." + +So Deb set off next morning, full of benevolent intentions, to gather +poor humdrum Rose and her (in his way) truly worthy husband into the +sphere of her golden prosperity. Also, incidentally, to warm herself in +the light of faithful and familiar eyes. Since her final dismissal of +Claud Dalzell--although she was satisfied with that act, and ready to +repeat it again, if necessary--she had been conscious of a personal +loneliness, not sensibly mitigated by her crowd-attracting wealth. +"Someone of my own" was the want of her warm heart. + +And Rose, with no petty grudge for past short-comings, answered that +need with open arms. Never was hostess more cordial to honoured guest. +Peter also was at home. He had been to town and back again, and now +stood upon his spotless doorstep, and anon upon his handsome +drawing-room hearthrug, determined that his house should lack nothing +befitting the great occasion. It was all in gala dress--newly-arranged +flowers, festive lunch-table, the best foot foremost; and yet, whereas +there was no hiding the self-seeker in the ingratiating Bennet +Goldsworthy, there was no finding him in this proud host and husband, +whose desire was only to do his dear wife credit. + +Neither of them said, in word or manner, "Why didn't you come like this +before?" Deb knew that her welcome would have been the same, and had +hard work not to show too frankly her sense of their magnanimity. As it +was, she nearly kissed Peter in the hall--such a nice, warm, +comfortable, hospitable entrance to as comfortable a home (in +its undeniably middle-class style) as she had ever been inside of--the +more striking in its effect by contrast with Mary's. Peter's cuffs were +like the driven snow; he was charmingly fresh and clean, well barbered +and well tailored; grown quite handsome, too, now that he had filled +out and matured. As for Rose--"I hear," Frances wrote from Paris, +"that poor Rose has become a perfect tub." Mrs Peter was almost as +broad as she was long. But what health in the sunny face! What opulent +well-being in the full curves of her figure, gowned in a fashion to +satisfy even Deb's exigent taste. + +They did not tell her it was good of her to come to see them, but they +told her in all the languages of courtesy that they were mighty glad +she had come. She was taken into the drawing-room--full of soft chairs +and sofas that anybody might sit on, and with a fire of clear coals in +a grate that glittered with constant polishing. But everything in +Peter's establishment seemed to shine with pure cleanliness; he took +after his mother, who, modest in other things, was fond of offering a +sovereign to anybody who would find a cobweb in her house. + +Deb was peeled of her furs by Peter, with the greatest deference and +politeness, but with none of the obsequiousness that had sickened her +elsewhere; he laid down her sable cloak with the reverence of one who +knew its value, and he asked Rose in a whisper if her sister would like +a glass of wine before lunch. The smiling matron shook her head, and +whispered something else, which sent him out of the room. Then, while +he skipped about in the background, attending to the wines and beers, +she convoyed the guest to the very luxurious bedroom where +head-nurse Keziah dandled the youngest of the Breen children. The rest +had had their dinners and gone out a-walking, so as not to be made too +much of by a silly mother, if it could be helped. Warm was the greeting +between Keziah and her late mistress, and many the questions about +Redford and the old folks; but there was no hint that Mrs Moon hankered +after the big store-rooms and linen-closets, the dignities and +privileges of her former home. Her heart was with Rose's babies now. + +"There, what do you think of THIS?" she demanded, as she proudly +displayed her charge, and, being invited thereto, condescendingly laid +it in Deb's outstretched arms. + +It was a pretty, healthy creature, fat, dainty and about two months +old, still in the whitest and finest of long clothes. "Little duck!" +Deb crooned, and rubbed her cheek almost with passion on its rose-leaf +skin. Robert's nose, indeed, was dislocated on the spot. + +"Oh, Rosie," she presently blurted out, "I would like to have this +child!" + +"Would you?" replied Rose, all smiles. + +"No, but, seriously and without joking, I really would, you know." + +"I daresay," laughed the plump little mother, and her laugh was echoed +by Keziah as she passed into the adjoining nursery--to leave the long +parted sisters to themselves. + +"Now, look here," the guest addressed the hostess, thoughtfully and +deliberately, as soon as they were alone, "if you will give her to me, +I will bring her up and educate her as perfectly as care and money can +do it. She shall take the name of Pennycuick, and be my +daughter, and my heiress, and the future representative of the family. +And," she added, for her own inward ear, "we can live at home or +somewhere, if necessary, where Breens and such will not have the chance +to interfere with us." + +"As if I would give my baby away," Rose sweetly jeered her--"even for +a kingdom!" + +"You have five more, and may have another five--or twenty-five. It +looks like it." + +"But none to spare. Besides, you won't want other people's children +when you get your own. How about her being the heiress then?" + +"I shall never have children of my own," said Deb, with tightened lips. +"That is why I want to adopt one." Rose laughed the idea to scorn. + +"Of course you will!" cried she. "You must. All the money in the world +is nothing compared with a baby. I wouldn't give one of mine for twenty +fortunes--not if I had to earn their keep at the wash-tub." + +"Not even for the child's own advantage?" + +"It is not to any child's advantage to grow up thinking that its mother +did not care to be a mother to it," said Rose. "Nor yet--possibly--to +grow up to look down on her." + +"Rose!" Deb's guilty face flamed scarlet. + +"Or on her father," Rose continued, with soft but firm persistence. +"She must have a father too, Deb, and Peter would not give his job away +any more than I would give mine. He thinks the world of them all. He is +just as good a father as he is a husband," with a lift of head and +lighting of eye. "Come to me, my precious!" as the baby +whimpered. "Come to its own mother, then! No, no, Debbie dear, you be a +mother yourself in the natural and proper way; you will find it a deal +better than being rich. Marry some good, kind man straight away, before +you waste any more of your young years. I am sure there must be dozens +dying to have you." + +"Dying to have the handling of Mr Thornycroft's money," said Deb, with +a bitterness that surprised her sister. + +"Oh, no," said she; "you are sufficient attraction without that." + +"I shall never know it. But this," thought Deb, "is a very Breen-like +turn that the conversation is taking. These people--and Rose has +become one of them--have quite the tradesman's idea of marriage. Any +'good, kind man' will do. They cannot be expected to understand." She +watched Rose billowing down into her nursing-chair, and pretended to +herself that she was not envious. "It would have been a wildly-rash +experiment to adopt this child, and I shall probably live to be +thankful that my offer was refused," she inwardly argued, while her +beautiful eyes melted at the spectacle of the happy mother snuggling +the babe to her bared breast. "It is a charming little creature now, +but it would probably grow up common, whatever its education and +environment. Blood will tell. And if she took the name of Pennycuick, +she could not pass it on. After all, a boy is best." + +So Robert Goldsworthy remained in the position his gifts had gained for +him. + +After an admirable meal--in the course of which Deb made herself most +charming to her brother-in-law, while Rose retired as much as +possible from the conversation, in order that he might shine to the +best advantage--those little matters of business that had been +mentioned were discussed. They were trifles invented for the purpose of +compliments to Mr Breen, and the serious energy with which he applied +himself to each case, and his exhaustive treatment of it, showed his +thorough enjoyment of the part alloted to him by the distinguished +woman who was so accomplished in the art of giving pleasure-- +especially to men. Frankly, Deb always preferred a man to talk to, and +she was agreeably surprised to find that Peter was very intelligent, +and acquainted with several things beside shopkeeping. Rose was simply +enchanted to find herself 'cut out' by him. When she was not stealing +from the room to leave the coast clear, she was beaming over her +needlework in the background, still as a mouse. Not by word or look +would she spoil his chance of proving to Deb what he really was--how +mistaken in him she and the others had been. + +It was Peter who escorted the guest round the garden and stables, Mrs +Peter excusing herself. In the well-stocked greenhouse Miss Pennycuick, +who was fond of flowers, obtained 'wrinkles' that she declared would be +most valuable to her in the management of her Redford houses--which +she implied that he must see; in the interview with the carriage horse +--Rose had a little brougham, not, as her sisters supposed, for paying +calls on other drapers' wives, which she had small leisure for, but for +shoppings and airings and taking children to dentists and pantomimes-- +Miss Pennycuick was instructive in her turn, feeling legs and advising +about firing and bandages with the recognised authority of an +expert. Old Bruce, padding at his master's heels, was greeted by name, +patted and shaken hands with, as if he had never abetted rebels; and +the discovery of a litter of choice puppies gave opportunity for the +making of a little present, which was graciously received. + +After tea, Rose was invited to show her house--a further proof of her +sister's tact and powers of divination. Now Peter was left behind--he +used the opportunity to cut flowers for Deb to take away with her--and +the little matron was in her glory. From top to bottom, and every +cupboard and corner, and the numerous up-to-date appliances, and the +stocks of silver, linen, china, the ample furnishings of every part, +the solid goodness of every bit of material--all was displayed with +modest pride, the complacence of one who knows there is nothing to hide +or apologise for. + +"Isn't it a nice home, Debbie? Could any woman wish for a better home?" +she asked again and again, unable to restrain herself. + +And Deb, with a few secret reservations, said "Yes" and "No" with +kindly warmth, thinking to herself: "Happy child, to be satisfied so +easily! How much happier than we who want the moon!" + +"I often wonder why I am so blessed," Rose said, in the midst of the +house inspection, "when poor Molly, who deserved so much more, lives +the life she does. Ah, Deb--what a marriage!" + +She spoke of it exactly as Bennet Goldsworthy had spoken of hers--in a +spirit compounded of benevolence and contempt, the former element +preponderating in him, the latter in her. At the moment she was +exhibiting the complete appointments of Peter's dressing-room. + +"My husband may be a draper," said she, "but at least he does not shave +in my room." + +The survey of the house ended at the nurseries. Rose had purposely left +the best till last. Her throwing open of the door revealed a picture so +charming that it persuaded Deb to accept an invitation to dinner in +order that she might do justice to it. + +"Oh, what a delightful room!" she cried, as her eyes ran round its +pictured walls, glowing in the evening firelight. + +"Not large enough now," the smiling mother objected. "We are going to +build new ones--a wing at the back--and turn these into bedrooms for +the elder children, who will soon be old enough to have their own." + +"Oh, what little loves!" Deb then exclaimed, her eyes upon the young +inhabitants--five little fat, white, vigorous creatures in various +stages of preparation for bed. + +"There is one absent," explained Rose, in accents of keen regret. +"John, the eldest; he is paying a visit to his grandparents. This is +Constance, the second"--a golden-haired girl, enjoying her nightly +treat of nursing the new baby. "And this is Kathleen"--a chubby +creature in a flannel dressing-gown, waiting for her bath; "and Lucy"-- +being rubbed down by the nursery underling, Jane; "and Pennycuick"-- +Deb started at the name, and was uncertain whether it pleased her or +not in this connection--the baby but one, in the tub under the hands +of old head-nurse Keziah. "ARE they not sweet?" + +They really were. Clean-blooded, clear-eyed, well-fed, +well-kept, full of life and fun--the pride of the maternal heart was +amply justified. Deb plunged into the group delightedly, kissed them, +teased them, tickled them, did everything a proper aunt should do; and +Rose was in ecstasies. + +"Oh, Debbie," she pleaded, "DON'T go yet! Stay with them for a little. +Stay and see baby undressed--I always do it myself--and have a bit of +dinner with us; you will, won't you? Give me my nursing apron, Jane." + +As she tied the sheet of flannel over her smart gown, she whispered to +Jane: + +"Go down and tell Mr Breen that Miss Pennycuick is going to stay to +dinner." + +Then she turned up her sleeves, settled herself upon a low chair, and, +with bath-tub and belaced toilet basket, and warming night-clothes +around her, performed the task that made this hour the happiest of her +happy day. As closely as the romping children allowed, Deb watched her, +and marvelled at her quick skill and lightness of hand. Who would have +thought that little Rose could be so clever? The healthy baby, so +deftly handled, raised no protest, but curled her toes as if she +enjoyed it; and when all was done, the snowy-robed, perfumed creature +was laid to its young mother's generous breast, and sucked itself to +sleep in five minutes. Deb, wistfully observant, began to dimly +apprehend that to wish Rose's marriage undone would be about as kind as +to wish back to earth the dead whom we believe in heaven. + +Meanwhile, Peter had been bustling about after such dinner arrangements +as he could attend to. Mr Thornycroft himself had never taken +more pains to please this guest. Deb enjoyed strawberries for the first +time that season, and a glass of wine that even Claud could not have +carped at. Coffee was brought to the drawing-room, from which Rose +slipped away for a whispered colloquy with her husband in the hall; the +result of which was that they came in together to ask Miss Pennycuick +to do them the honour of standing godmother to the baby. Deb put the +crown upon the gracious day by promptly consenting. + +"But that," she thought, with some chagrin, as she rolled homewards-- +or rather, bedwards--with Peter's flowers in the carriage beside her-- +"that is the extent of my tether in this direction. A christening mug, +and a bit of jewellery on her birthdays--I shall be allowed that; +otherwise I can be of no more use to them than if I were a workhouse +pauper. They are independent of me and of everybody." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + + +The years passed, and the destinies of our friend began to take final +shape. The bread cast upon the waters returned. The chickens came home +to roost. + +One winter's morning Captain Guthrie Carey brought his ship into +Hobson's Bay. The agents of his company sent letters to him there. He +took one from the sheaf, and read it carefully--read it four times. +Then he tore it into little pieces and dropped it over the side. The +pilot and the first officer wondered at the concentrated gravity of his +mien, at the faraway look in his cold blue eyes. Yet is was a very +short and simple letter. There were no names inside, and it merely +said: + +"I returned by last mail, and am at the above address. I shall be at +home tomorrow afternoon at five. Of course I am seeing nobody, so we +shall be quite undisturbed. Be punctual, if possible." + +The "above address" was the big house that had belonged to the late Mr +Ewing. "Tomorrow afternoon" was but an hour off. + +At five precisely Captain Carey shed his ulster in the palatial +vestibule, and at the heels of a soft-footed man-servant, marched +through the warm hall and up the shallow, muffled stairs to the +familiar drawing-room--a long room, the lower end of which was in +shadow, and the upper illuminated like a shrine, with rosy lamps +projecting from a forest of chimney ornament, and a great bright red +fire twinkling upon tiles and brass. The big palms were in their big +pots, spreading and bowing over settees and cosy corners; every bowl +and vase overflowed with the choicest flowers, although it was wintry +June. And the tea-table was ready; the old seductive chairs and tables +were grouped upon the Persian hearthrug in the old way, with the +sheltering screen half round them. Indications of the desire of the +mistress of the house to give him special welcome were too marked and +many to be ignored. + +He was left here to meditate in solitude for a few minutes, and he did +all the meditating that was possible in the time. His heart thumped +rather faster than was necessary, but his strong face was a picture of +composed determination. Indeed, it was not easy to recognise the young +Guthrie Carey of old Redford days in this stern, tough, substantial +man, steady as a rock amid the winds and waves of incalculable fate. +Just now he had the look of a military commander braced for a pitched +battle. And the V.C. has been won for many a less courageous enterprise +than that on which he was now engaged. + +Leaning his broad shoulders on the ledge of the mantelpiece, and +roasting his stout calves at the glorious fire, he watched the distant +doorway with narrowed but keenly-glinting eyes. When he saw the dim +curtain lift to let in the light from the landing and a slim woman's +figure, he straightened himself, and set his teeth hard. It had +to be faced and fought, he felt, and the sooner it was over the better +for them both. + +She came fluttering up to him, with both hands held out. How white they +were against the crape! And how wonderfully her complexion and her hair +were set off by the black robe and the fine lawn bands at throat and +wrists! He loathed the mockery of the widow's weeds, but thought he had +never seen her look so lovely. + +"Oh, Guthrie! Oh, what YEARS it seems! Were you wondering what had +become of me? But I couldn't--somehow I didn't feel that I COULD-- +before--" + +She cast herself into his arms in the most natural way in the world. He +laid one of them round her waist lightly, and kissed her brow; then, +when she lifted it for the purpose, her mouth--the sweetest woman's +mouth that ever made a pair of soft eyes omnipotent. After some seconds +of silence, she looked at him questioningly, all a-quiver with nervous +excitement. Her delicate cheek was pink like a La France rose. + +"It was so good of you to come," she murmured humbly. "It wasn't--it +didn't bother you? You were not wanting to do something else, were you, +dear?" There was revealed in tone and manner the fact that even selfish +Frances had come to care for something more than for herself. + +"No--oh, no," he replied, rather breathlessly. "I WAS going up the +country this afternoon, but fortunately I got your letter in time." + +"Oh, if you had! What should I have done? I couldn't stand it any +longer, Guthrie. It is four whole months--since--though it +seems like yesterday--" + +"And how are you?" he broke in, taking a fresh grip of the sword, as it +were. + +He held her off from him, glancing at her shoulder, her skirt-- +anything but her eyes, which were HER sword, two-edged and deadly. + +"Oh, don't look at me!" she exclaimed, shrinking. "I hate myself in +this horrible gown--I feel so mean and hypocritical--though I do +mourn for him, Guthrie. You must not think I feel happy because he is +dead--no, indeed; I wish I could! But one must conform to a certain +extent, mustn't one? And every respect that I can possibly show to his +memory--especially after the way he has treated me! I suppose you +heard--" "What?" Guthrie had heard, but asked the question to fill +time. + +"Five thousand a year," said she, "at my absolute and entire disposal, +with no restriction or condition of any sort or kind." + +She made the announcement in a level tone, and without a smile, but he +detected the triumph and satisfaction underneath; and, feeling much the +stronger for it, he observed gravely that the dead man was a good man. +"And I always knew it, Francie, worse luck!" + +"Oh, so did I! Far--far too good for the likes of me. But--well, we +need not talk about that now. We couldn't help ourselves, could we? And +the past is past; everything is different now. Oh, Guthrie, what it is +to kiss you without feeling that I am doing wrong!" + +She kissed him as she said it, pressing him to her. Of course +he kissed her back, but his hands on her waist were rigid, as if he +wore an evening shirt, and was afraid of her crushing the front of it. +She might have noticed this if she had not caught a glimpse of herself +at the moment in a mirror behind him. + +"One thing," she said, "I did draw the line at. I positively refused to +wear a cap. I knew--I knew you couldn't have borne THAT!" Holding her +charming head, rippled all over with goldenchestnut curls and coils, +just in front of his eyes, she pleaded for confirmation of this +statement. "You couldn't have stood seeing me in a cap, could you, +Guthrie?" "As far as I can judge," he replied, "nobody asks you to wear +caps these days, whether you're a widow or not. Why, the very +grandmothers go about in yellow fringes and things, pretending they are +thirty or forty, when everybody knows they are twice that, at the +least. When I was a youngster, there used to be old ladies--my mother +was one; but the race has died out." + +"I, at any rate, am not an old lady," Mrs Ewing remarked, with a joyous +smile. "My yellow fringes and things are all my own, and so is my +complexion, and so are my teeth." + +Her smile widened to reveal their pearly excellence. She took his hand, +and rubbed the back of it on her downy cheek, and laid the palm on her +soft, thick locks. Even yet she did not see that anything was the +matter, confident in her still young beauty, and in the fact that he +now knew for certain that the bulk of her husband's property was hers. +How often she had wondered whether he knew or not, feeling sure that he +MUST have heard the news at some of the many ports he had put +into since it had become a matter of public knowledge, and why he +allowed days and weeks, even months, to pass without making a sign. +There had always been the cables, anyway. She put it down to his +delicacy, his sense of the awkwardness of the situation, his +consideration for her. + +"We will have tea first," she said, touching the bell-button. "Then we +shall not be disturbed any more. We can talk till dinner-time. Oh, how +I wish you could stay for dinner, and a long, long evening! But it is +better not to do things of that sort yet, don't you think? Better not +to run risks of making scandal now that there's no longer any need for +it." + +"Much better," said Captain Carey firmly. + +"And, after all, there are lots of ways that we can meet without doing +anything improper. I have thought of heaps. I can go to Sydney--I can +go home, for that matter; I am a perfectly free agent. And we have now +less than three-quarters of a year. Guthrie, I want you to let me have +the twelve months good. It is a long wait, I know, but we should feel +the benefit of it afterwards--" + +"Hush-sh!" + +She glanced down the room in alarm, and saw the door open to admit the +servant she had summoned. He brought teapot and kettle, hot cakes and +muffins, and arranged them with unnecessary carefulness on the little +table by the fireside. Hostess and guest watched his slow manoeuvres +with an impatient but fascinated gaze, and tried to think about +something to talk about for his edification, and could not. + +"Thank you, Willis; that will do, Willis. I'll ring if I want anything +else. I don't know, Captain Carey, whether you are one of those +people who despise tea and cake--" + +They were alone once more. Captain Carey refused the proffered +refreshment. Mrs Ewing, making no effort to persuade him, took a few +mouthfuls hastily; then she set her cup down, and with a quick flirt of +the hand, extinguished the two pink lamps. They were old-fashioned +gas-lamps too. + +"We don't want lights to talk by," she said, in a casual way. "The +firelight is enough. I think firelight at this hour so much the +pleasantest, don't you?" + +"Oh, yes," he responded desperately, and indeed was glad of the shelter +of a shadow on his face; but he said to himself, with clenched hands +and a long indrawn breath, "Now comes the tug-of-war." + +A very large and wide sofa, low, deep-seated, full of springs and down +pillows, stood in the cosy firelight, a great, tall, curving screen +behind it. Mrs Ewing--as she had done many times before--crossed over +to this sofa, sank into its yielding depths, and looking up at her +companion, patted the empty seat beside her. The man hesitated for an +instant, and then--as he had done many times before--obeyed the +significant gesture. But now the time for preparation, for hesitation, +had expired; it was necessary to brace himself for the decisive deed. +Even as she clasped her hands beneath his ear, he unclasped them, +gently but firmly, and drew them down. With his back to the firelight, +she could not see his face, but he could see hers, and the swift change +in its expression. She was puzzled and surprised, but, as her hands +were still held fast in his iron fists, resting on his knee, she was +not conscious of the state of the case. + +"My girl," he said, clearing his throat--she had allowed him +so many liberties that this mode of address was quite in order--"you +and I can speak plainly to each other. There's no need for us to beat +about the bush, is there?" + +"Of course not," she replied, all at sea as to what this portended, but +jumping to the conclusion that he was going to be proud about the +money. "It would be an odd thing if we took to being shy, at this time +of day." + +"It would, wouldn't it?" He cleared his throat again, and made a fresh +start. "Look here, Francie--don't do that! Listen to me child--" + +"I am not a child, sir. Allow me to inform you that I was twenty-nine +last birthday." She was so pleased to think she was only twenty-nine, +rich and free, with her life in her hands, and half a year-from thirty +still, when she might have dragged on till she was old and grey, or in +her grave! "And why am I not to do that? Since when have you lost your +taste for kisses?" Then suddenly, with an anxious cry--"Guthrie! +darling! what is the matter with you?" + +"Nothing," he said hastily--"nothing, of course, except that we must +be serious and sensible, and--and talk things over quietly, dear. As +you say, you are not a child. No more am I. We know the ropes, Francie, +don't we? We've outgrown the delusions of boys and girls. We've had our +experiences as man and woman--eh? You know what I mean. No need to +mince matters--to go in for conventional nonsense--you and I. We can +talk straight to each other at a time like this?" + +As he laboured painfully to explain, without explaining, her +face faded like a sunny landscape when a wet fog crawls over it. For, +Francie though it was, she loved him--she loved him all she knew. + +"Guthrie," she moaned piteously, "have you left off caring for me?" + +"No, Francie. Of course I haven't." + +"Have you--while I have been away, and in so much trouble--been +putting another woman in my place?" + +"Certainly not." + +"Is it that you don't like to live on his money, Guthrie?" + +"I should NOT like to live on it--decidedly not. But the fact is, I +haven't given the money a thought." "Then why--why are you like this?" + +"I'll tell you, Francie--I'll tell you plainly. It seems infernally +brutal--but I'm sure you know I wouldn't say a thing to hurt you if I +could help it." + +"Oh, go on!" + +There were red roses in her cheeks now, and a sparkle that was not all +firelight in her eyes. + +"It is this, dear--don't try to take your hands away, I am going to +keep them; I must have you listen to me till I've quite done--it is +this, Francie: Love, as we very well know--I mean our sort of love-- +is one thing, and marriage another--" + +"WHAT? Oh, is THAT it? Ah, ah! I see now." + +"Take your own case," said he, with a relentless air. "Haven't you +proved it up to the hilt?" + +"Proved what?" + +"That marriage is a failure." + +"Of course, marriage is a failure when it is blundered into as I +blundered into mine, when I was too young and ignorant to know +a thing about it. That is not saying it would be a failure now." + +"It would be a dead failure, Francie. I am absolutely convinced of it." + +"Because you have grown tired of me! Because somebody else has got hold +of you behind my back! Because--oh, because you men are all alike, +thinking of nothing but the amusement of the hour, sucking a woman's +life-blood as if she were an orange, and throwing her aside like the +useless skin--without honour, without constancy, selfish, heartless, +treacherous--" + +"Hush, Francie! Don't talk rubbish. I may be like other men--I've no +doubt I am--but I'm not all that. When I make an engagement, I keep +it. When I take obligations and responsibilities upon me, I do my best +to fulfil them. Most men do--decent men; but they never have justice +done them in these cases." + +"In these cases!" she echoed scornfully. "Everybody knows what their +conduct is in these cases. The world is well used to it. Oh, I ought to +have known--if I hadn't been the most incredible fool! It was not for +want of warnings. But you seemed so different! The idea that you could +play with a woman in this way--compromise her--change all her life, +and spoil it utterly--and then back out! Oh! oh! Can you sit there and +tell me that you have incurred no responsibility in your dealings with +me, Guthrie--making me love you as I did--making me a bad woman-- +unfaithful to my good husband--the most honourable, the most trustful +of men--" + +"Did I do that? Honour bright now, Francie." + +"Oh, this is too much!" she burst out furiously, springing from +her seat, and being dragged back by his iron grasp of her hands. "Let +me go, sir! I have had insults enough--and in my own house--with no +husband to protect me--" + +"Sit down," he commanded. "And for God's sake don't--don't go on like +that! I can't stand it. I am not insulting you, dear--not wilfully +insulting you--not more than I am forced to. I only want us both to +understand the case as it is; surely you and I are not afraid to speak +out--to face the truth? You are not crying, Francie?" + +"No, no! Indeed, I'm not! Don't you flatter yourself! I am not hurt, +and I'm not the sort of person to go begging a man to marry me, either. +I don't think--I really DON'T think that I am QUITE so poorly off as +all that comes to." Here she laughed, but only for an instant. "If you +were to go down on your knees before me, Guthrie, I would not have you +now, after the things you have said to me." + +The statement calmed and strengthened him. He felt able to say the +rest. + +"Quite right, Francie. Dozens of men will come courting you as soon as +you go out again, and any one of them will make you a better husband +than I should have done; but not a better friend. I hope you will +always remember that." + +"Many thanks. Will you be so very kind as to release my hands, Captain +Carey? They ache." + +"One moment. I want to make sure of the last chance I shall get to +explain--to tell you exactly what I mean--you, who are old enough, +experienced enough, to understand. I don't want to defend myself, +Francie--not at all. I am not the cad to say, 'The woman +tempted me, and I did eat.' I don't blame you, dear--I don't blame +anybody. A woman is a woman; and a lovely woman like you--well, the +way things are managed in this world, I don't believe she can help +herself. But look here, Francie, a man is a man too, and a good deal +more so. If you were a girl, I wouldn't say this; but you knew--you +knew what you were doing when you laid yourself out to be sweet and-- +and kind to a fellow, as you were to me. Did you take me for an old +maid or a Social Purity Society? You know you didn't. A man does his +best, but he's too heavily handicapped--I won't say by nature-- +perhaps by habit, which is second nature--the habit of generations, +inherited in his blood--and his case is not on all-fours with your +case. And especially when he is a sailor--so cut off--so deprived-- +Very well. And so it happened--as it happened. Never mind about the +right and wrong. What's wrong today may be right tomorrow; and in any +case, no arguing can undo what's done. We'll leave that." + +She sat before him, panting, and the roses in her cheeks were white. +Happily, the fire had grown a little dull by this time. + +"For myself," he continued, speaking slowly, as if trying to think +things out--"for myself, whether I ought to repent or not, I don't--I +can't. Theoretically, I know it is always the man who is in the wrong, +and I should have been foully in the wrong--I should be unfit to live +--if you had been an unmarried girl, Francie--or if I had been the-- +the--" + +"Oh!" she moaned bitterly, grasping his point of view, if not the plain +justice of it. "But I have brought it on myself--I have only myself to +thank. I made myself cheap, and must take the consequences." + +"It is not that," he said kindly, but still feeling in his +unsophisticated brain that it was. "I don't hold you cheap, my dear. I +want to disabuse your mind of that idea, that I am throwing anything in +your teeth. Good God, I should think not!--it would come ill from me. +I have no conventional views about these things--none. But look here +now: if you were my wife, I should never see you with another fellow +without thinking--well, you know what I should think--and feeling +myself like poor old Ewing--Oh, I AM a brute!" It was revealed to him +all at once. "Do--DO forgive me!" + +"Pray don't apologise!" she cried, in a high, shaking voice. "It is +best, as you say, to speak plainly--not to mince matters--especially +as there is no one to call you to account for what you say." + +"And it would be worse for you, ever so much," he continued earnestly. +"Having got into the way of--of this sort of thing--I'm afraid I +might be tempted again--that I couldn't honestly promise--in short, +the fact of the matter is that we are neither of us domesticated, so to +speak--" + +"There--that will do" she broke in, coldly furious, but with a volcano +in her breast that threatened eruption and devastation shortly. "Will +you let me go, Captain Carey? Or must I call my servants to my +assistance? I have only servants now." + +"Yes, yes"--and he released one hand--"I will, if you'll say you +forgive me, Francie. I've made an awful mess of it, I know--" + +They rose together, and the other hand was freed. It was the +right hand, and she returned it to him immediately. + +"Good-bye!" she said, between clenched teeth. + +He held her tightly once more. + +"May I come and see you again? May I write? I can say it better in +writing." + +"You have said all that needs to be said. There is no necessity to +write. If you write to me, I shall return the letter unopened." + +"But why? It is surely absurd for us to put on airs of dignity with one +another. Francie, you don't mean us to part like this?" + +She stepped quickly across the hearthrug and, with a passionate +gesture, pressed the button of the bell--evidently to summon Willis to +show him out. So he took up his hat, offended in his turn, and for the +first time feeling fairly easy in his mind as to the way he was +treating her. But the tragedy of the moment was turned to vulgar comedy +by her alarm at the fact that she had struck the bell before relighting +the pink lamps. + +"Oh, where are the matches?" she whispered excitedly. "I can't find +them." + +"Here--here!" he cried, fumbling for his own pocket box. + +And their flurried hands got mixed as she turned the taps while he +applied the light to the burners. + +The instant after they had restored the room to its normal condition, +the butler appeared. Mrs Ewing turned to him with the amazing +self-possession of a woman accustomed to extricate herself at a +moment's notice from an awkward fix. + +"Willis," she said sweetly--and even smiled as she spoke--"will you +please have a cab fetched for Captain Carey? He is rather late +for a dinner engagement." The butler acknowledged the order and +withdrew. In the light of the pink lamps the late combatants looked +strangely at one another. + +"And you would have married MARY!" the woman commented upon the issue +of the fight. It was both a taunt and an accusation. + +The man lifted his brows questioningly, as at a loss to comprehend her +meaning. + +"Has that anything to do with it?' he asked. 'I don't see the +connection." + +The sentences were short, but signified many things. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + + +Frances Ewing was a shady name thereafter, to those "in the know". +Pennycuick blood and pride notwithstanding, she seemed to lose her own +sustaining self-respect when she lost the respect of the man she loved +--when he showed her with such barbarous and uncompromising candour the +essential difference between a mistress and a wife. Of course, she "got +over" that grievous affair, which, for a time, broke whatever heart she +had to break. Her freedom and her money, her youth and her beauty, were +still hers, and she made the most of them; and that most was a great +deal. In her cosmopolitan sets she was a popular and distinguished +figure. From one fashionably rowdy Continental resort to another she +carried her rich jewels and trappings, and her personal magnetism, and +sat down for the season to a campaign of social stratagem and +sentimental intrigue--to the indulgence of her unbridled appetite for +excitement and the admiration of men. And ever at the end, when it was +time to move on to another BIJOU apartment in another place, there was +a fresh scalp at her girdle, and nothing, as it were, to show for it, +until at last her vanity was tempted with a title, and she married an +Italian count, who, if all tales were true, paid the debt that his sex +owed her with heavy interest. But those tales did not reach the +ears of the sisters at home. To them--with the object of suitably +impressing them--she wrote an occasional note, of which half the words +were titles of nobility; and the humbler relatives accepted the fact of +her unapproachable elevation above them. The Breens made easy jokes +upon the subject; Mr Goldsworthy's jealousy of her was overcome by his +pride in the connection. "We had a letter from my sister-in-law, the +Countess, the other day," he would amiably remark, and proceed to +repeat and amplify the fashionable intelligence contained therein, +instead of taking away her character as he had been used to do. Deborah +was the only sister with whom she can be said to have corresponded, and +Deborah had a shrewd suspicion that all was not gold that glittered in +Francie's lot. Deborah had the best means of knowing, being herself a +world-traveller, and what is called a society woman, as well known in +the resorts of such as Frances herself. But although they seemed to run +so closely, and so much upon the same lines, there was as wide a gap of +social difference and non-intimacy between them as between any two of +their family. And Deb was not one to think evil of her own flesh and +blood, if it was possible to think good. + +She, too, might have filled her letters to Australia with titles of +nobility--nobility of a firmer standing than the Countess and her +friends could boast of--had she been inclined to do so. A baronial +hall, dating from the Conquest--a ducal castle, not to speak of a +Royal Presence Chamber--was nothing to Deborah Pennycuick after a +while. + +To see her on a crowded London staircase, laughing with a prince or a +prime minister, was a common object of the season for a number +of years; while varnishing days and first nights would have lacked +charm for the society reporter who could not place her fine figure and +her French gowns in his pictures of these scenes. Goodwood and Cowes +were familiar with her striking face and her expert interest in horses +and yachts; Highland shooting-lodges, English hunting-fields, claimed +her for their own. Southern Europe, the Nile, Bayreuth--in short, +wherever social life was bright, comfortable and select, there she +turned up promiscuous, as the spirit moved her, to be welcomed +open-armed as a matter of course. Men, young and old, continued to pay +her homage, which was not just the sort of homage they paid to Frances; +proposals of marriage were, or might have been if not nipped in the +bud, almost as plentiful as invitations to country houses in the +autumn. And she relished it all with singular enjoyment--until she +began to feel the approach of that winter and evening of life which has +so sharp a chill for those who have loved the sun. + +Claud Dalzell was likewise a denizen of the great world that was hers +and not Francie's, and, close corporation as it is, they were never far +off each other's beat, seldom in ignorance of each other's whereabouts. +At the same time, they also did not touch. It was known throughout the +great world, which is so small, that there was a deadly feud between +them; and tactful hostesses took pains not to bring them into +juxtaposition. In public places, when meetings occurred by accident, +only the most frigid bows were interchanged. + +For, in quite early times, when the Australian heiress, as she was +improperly styled, was taking London more or less by storm, she +chanced to overhear a brief colloquy not intended for her ears. + +"Who is that glorious woman that came in with the duchess? I don't see +her just now, but she had a red frock on, with black lace over it-- +dark hair and diamond stars--not half as bright and fine as her eyes, +by Jove!" + +"It must be Miss Pennycuick--an Australian lady. She is with the +duchess's party." + +"Oh, is that Miss Pennycuick? Well, now I can believe what I've heard +of her being so charming. She carries it in her face." + +"She WAS charming--until she came into her money. That has quite +spoilt her." + +It was Claud Dalzell who said it, and Deb heard him say it. She moved +off out of the press that had brought her within reach of his cold +voice--not to be mistaken by her for any other voice--and she vowed +through clenched teeth that never again would she come within that +distance of him, if she could help it. + +The years as they passed only strengthened this determination. Each +proud inclination of the head, each ceremonious lift of the hat, added +bitterness to their mutual resentment--to his feeling that she was +spoiled by her money, and to her feeling that he wilfully misjudged +her. The breach was widened by their unconcealed flirtations--a +description mentally applied to the most ordinary man-and-woman +acquaintanceships on either side, but not inappropriate in all cases. +Claud ever loved the company of handsome women who appreciated him; Deb +naturally inclined to nice men in preference to the nicest women; and +each liked to show the other that he or she was still of high +importance to somebody. Rumours of impending marriage were continually +being wafted to his ears or hers, but nothing came of them. He was +confirmed in luxurious bachelorhood; she was aware of many +fortune-hunters, and could not bring herself to value any of her +disinterested suitors at the price of her freedom. So the one-time +lovers drifted more and more apart, until somehow they lost sight of +each other altogether; and meanwhile the years made them old without +their knowing it. + +She was unreasonably upset on one occasion by the offer of a specific +for grey hair from a fashionable London hair-dresser. It was absolutely +permanent, harmless and undetectable, he said. "But I am not grey," she +indignantly informed him. Whereupon she saw his keen professional eye +wander about her brow as he murmured something about the faint +beginnings that might as well be checked. At home she studied the +matter carefully in a strong light, and called Rosalie, her maid, to +aid her. The little Frenchwoman assured her that a microscope was +needed to detect a white thread in that beautiful mass of dark +nut-brown. With a microscope, no doubt, as many as half a dozen might +be discerned dimly, just where it waved back from mademoiselle's face. + +That same afternoon she and Rosalie left town for one of their +country-house visits. It was a weepy autumn day, and she was not as +fresh as usual--the hair-dresser, combined with some troublesome +shopping, had tired her--and the disquieting suspicion laid hold of +her that she was more easily fatigued than she used to be. While +reading her novel in the train, she counted her years, and +compared herself with the women she knew whose ages were recorded in +the Peerage, and who could therefore be proved to be as old as herself. +Some of them were wrinkled hags. Carelessness or ill-health, doubtless, +she reflected; and neither charge could be laid at her door. Heigh-ho! +That horrid man! + +It was dark night when they reached the little station belonging to the +mansion that was their goal. A dozen other guests and their servants +and baggage crowded the platform, and half-a-dozen carriages and +luggage-brakes the yard behind; and Deb was at once in charge of a tall +footman, Rosalie struggling through the press with jewel-case and +dressing-bag, chattering French to one of her familiars in the rear. +Distracted stationmaster and porters uncovered to the stately woman as +she passed. It was all a matter of course to her these days. + +She was too late for the big tea-party; the men had gone to the +smoking-room, the women to their own firesides. After a brief but +affectionate interview with her titled hostess, Deb was soon at hers, +slippered and dressing-gowned, sipping the jaded woman's stimulant, +warming the damp and dismalness out of her, assuring herself +confidently that she was not an old woman, and had no intention of +becoming one. + +Certainly, when Rosalie had dressed her, she was entitled to an easy +mind. The best of everything tonight, in vindication of her still +unimpaired beauty and potency. Shimmering brocade of her favourite red, +and lace like fairy work; and then that magnificent satin-white breast +and massive throat, and the stately head crowned with the famous five +stars, whose flashing made the eye wink, and which yet were +dimmed by the light of her dark eyes. She surveyed herself with full +content when the last touch had been given her, and her slow sweep +a-down corridors and grand staircase was a triumphal march. She knew +that her entrance into the crowd downstairs could no more fail of its +customary effect than could the appearance of the sun next morning-- +or, one should rather say, the announcement of dinner to the tired and +hungry shooting men. + +She was met at the foot of the grand staircase by her host, and +immediately surrounded. In the close press of friends she did not +notice the strangers; time was too short and they were too many. A lord +of her acquaintance, who still hoped to make her his lady, took her +into dinner, and called upon all her powers of wit and repartee to meet +his conversational tactics during the meal. It was an exhilarating +encounter, and of sufficient interest to keep her "eyes in the boat". +Moreover, the table was immense, and the chief of the strangers sitting +on her side of it, a long way off. + +After dinner there was little comedietta played on the boards of the +toy theatre belonging to the house. Many of the ladies were in their +places before the men, still craving repose after their hard day's +work, could hoist themselves from their chairs in the dining-room. Deb, +having helped to coach one of the amateur performers, was early in her +seat in front. Some of her admirers did manage to squeeze in beside and +behind her from time to time, but the particular stranger haughtily +held aloof. + +Then, when the play was over, there was an impromptu dance, for the +theatre was an ANNEXE to the ball-room. It was the young folk who began +it, but older ladies joined in, and all the men but the +hardened sportsmen, who saw a chance to sneak to their snuggery and +gun-talk before the time. The really old women, obviously past their +dancing days, sat around, and looked on and gossiped to one another. +And for a time Deb sat with them. + +She was certainly tired--for her--and the fact struck her that she +had not danced for a long time. She had shirked balls, having only too +many entertainments to choose from. She thought it likely that she +would be stiff and heavy on her feet from want of practice--a horrible +idea to her, who had once danced like a feather in the wind. A good +stone had been added to her weight since she had last waltzed with +satisfaction to herself; that also was not a pleasing thought. So when +her dinner lord essayed to entice her, she shook her head. A dozen +other men, and the cream of them too--there was comfort in that-- +followed his example, and made her charming compliments when she said +laughingly that she was "too old for these frivolities". + +"Too old--gracious heavens!" they apostrophised space. It was +heart-warming to hear them. + +But they went off easily, and were soon dancing with the young girls-- +sylphs as airy and agile as she had once been. And by degrees she drew +apart from the old ladies and their talk, which she hated to seem, even +to herself, to belong to, and presently found herself in the +extraordinary position of sitting alone. She leaned back in her chair, +and with eyes half shut, looked at the whirling couples, and dreamed of +the days--the dances--the youth--that were no more. + +She saw, not this splendid saloon, but a shabby small room in +an old bush house--the walls not panelled with paintings by R.A.s and +starred with clusters of electric lights, but with wreaths of homely +evergreens and smelly kerosene lamps. And amid the happy throng that +jostled for room to dance there, a girl and a young man, newly +betrothed, anticipating an immortal paradise in each other's arms. + +And she looked up, and saw Claud Dalzell watching her. + +He was horribly aged--illness, it seemed--and had grown quite white-- +that splendid lover with whom she had danced, as no girl here knew how +to dance, in the golden prime of everything! Their eyes met, and there +must have been in both pairs something that neither of them had seen +before. He crossed to her side at once, and she did not freeze him when +he got there. + +"How do you do? I have been wondering if you were going to recognise +me." + +"How do you do? I didn't know you were here. I never saw you until this +moment." + +"I have been standing there for ten minutes." + +"I did not notice. I was thinking--" "You were--deeply. I was trying +to guess what you were thinking of." + +"I wonder, did you?" + +"I wonder. Was it, by any chance"--he dropped his voice--"Five +Creeks?" + +She was quite startled and discomposed by this extraordinary +divination; having no time to decide how she would take it, she filled +the embarrassed moment with a laugh. + +"Goodness! I'd no idea that my face was such a tell-tale. I +believe I was. That funny old room, with ridges in the floor, and the +ceiling nearly on your head--how DID we manage to dance in it?" + +"Well, we did manage somehow, didn't we?" + +They gazed at the figures wheeling past them, blankly unresponsive to +casual stares and smiles. They seemed to hear the rotten flood-gates, +shut so long ago, creak on their rusty hinges. + +"Heard anything of the Urquharts lately?" + +"Yes. Alice was married the other day--to a widower with fourteen +children. She has not been very happy at home, I fear, with Harold's +wife. Harold has the place now, you know. Jim gave it up to him when he +married." + +"When who married?" + +"Harold." + +"What's Jim doing?" + +"He is my manager at Redford." + +Mr Dalzell smiled darkly. "He likes that, I suppose?" + +"I don't know whether he likes it or not, I'm sure, but I do. I know +that everything's right when he is there." + +"Married?" "Lawks, no! The most confirmed old bachelor on the face of +the earth." + +They fell silent again, still gazing into the room. Deb lay back and +fanned herself; Claud leaned forward and nursed his knee. He ought now +to have asked news of her sisters, but he avoided mentioning any of +them. + +"Been back lately, Deb?" + +"Not for years, I am ashamed to say." + +"Anybody living at Redford?" + +"Miss Keene and a few servants only. Too bad, isn't it? Oh, I +must go soon and see the old place. But this European life--somehow, +the longer you live it the less you feel you can live any other." + +"I used to feel that. But now--one gets awfully tired of things--" + +"Oh, I don't!" + +"But then you keep so horribly young, don't you know." + +He turned and looked at her. She flushed up like a girl. + +"Thank you. That's a very pleasing compliment, although I know you +cannot mean it." + +"I'd like not to mean it. I'd like to have found you as old as I am +myself." + +"How cruel of you! Not that you are such a Methuselah as you would try +to make out--" + +"There are not five years between us," he broke in sharply. + +"I know." + +Back went memory in a flash to a succession of childish birthdays, +their love-tokens and festive celebrations. His was in November, and +his "party" was usually a picnic. Hers was in May, and was "kept" in +the house, with big fires and a tea-table crowned with a three-tiered +iced cake, and blind-man's-buff and turn-the-trencher in the evening. +She recalled wild contests with an imperious little boy, who could +never conquer her except by stooping to it; and the self-conscious +silliness of their behaviour to each other when they grew from children +into boy and girl. + +"Not much fun in birthdays now, Deb." He seemed to comment on her +thoughts. + +"Oh, well!" she sighed vaguely. + +And at that instant the music stopped. Someone gave the signal to +retire from the ball-room, bedwards. They were parted by the crowd that +gathered about them when the dancing ceased, and he did not find her +again even to say good-night. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + + +The shooting men were up first, to their early breakfast. It seemed to +Deb a matter of course that Claud would be of this virile company; it +was his saving grace as a man, when he was young, that he was a keen +and accomplished sportsman. After an indifferent night, she rose lazily +and late; found, as she expected, only a few more women in the +breakfast-room, and ate her own meal alone at one of the little tables. +The hostess drifted in amongst the last, and stopped a moment to shake +hands and exchange a word. + +"It seems a beautiful day," she said, "and we shall be making up a +party by-and-by to go out and lunch with the guns. You will join us, of +course?" + +But Deb thought of Claud amongst the guns, and of the horrible risk of +appearing to run after him; and she replied sweetly that, although she +would have loved the outing, she was afraid she must stay at home, +owing to important letters that had to be written for the afternoon +post. + +"All right," said the hostess, "I'll stay too--there are plenty +without me--and we'll have a drive later on." + +She passed to her breakfast-table, and Deb rose and went upstairs, to +see what she could find to attend to in the way of pressing +correspondence. + +She had the status of a married lady in this great house, as +everywhere; that is to say, a sitting-room of her own--a very cosy +place between tea and the dressing-bell. Just now, however, Rosalie was +busy in it. The maid offered to retire to the adjoining bed-chamber, +but Deb said, "Oh, never mind; go on," and gathering her blotting-book +and papers, went downstairs again to make herself comfortable in the +library. She loved a good library to sit in, and generally found +privacy therein at this time of day. + +The library here was magnificent in stately comfort--books in +thousands, busts, old masters, muffling Turkey carpets, a great, +bright, still fire, and armchairs so big and soft that it was strange +they could stand empty. She drew up one of them and sat awhile, +toasting her feet and turning precious leaves--it was the interval +covered by Claud's breakfast--and then set herself to the business she +was supposed to be engaged in. + +"Dear Francie,--I tried at half-a-dozen shops to match your Chinese +satin, but nowhere could I get the exact shade. If you like I will try +again when I go back to town, but if I were you I would not attempt to +make it go with any modern stuff, which could not help looking crude +beside it; I would have quite another material and colour. What do you +stay to--" + +She paused reflectively, the tip of her pen-handle between her teeth, +her eyes fixed absently upon the green park beyond the open window, +composing a gorgeous costume in her mind. Before she could even +decide whether to advise a ball-dress with CREPE DE CHINE, or a +tea-gown with Oriental cashmere, one of the noiseless library doors +swung back, and a man came in. Without noticing her still figure, he +strolled over to a certain shelf, opened a book that he wanted, and +stood, with his back to her, turning over the leaves. + +So he had not gone with the men. How horrid! And what a nuisance that +he should find her here! Well, she was not going to put herself out for +him. She lowered her pen softly, and began to scratch the paper, over +which she bent absorbedly. He turned round. "Oh, I beg your pardon--" + +"Oh, it's you, Claud! Good morning! Why, I thought you would be out +with the guns this fine day." + +"Fine day, do you call it? There's a wind like a knife. And you sit +here with the window wide open--" + +He marched towards it, and shut it with violence. It was a great glass +door between stone mullions. Above it and two fellow-sheets of +glittering transparency, three coats of many quarterings enriched the +colour-scheme of the stately room. She watched him with the beginning +of a smile upon her lips. The humour of the situation appealed to her. + +"I like an open window," she remarked mildly. "If you remember, I +always did." + +He came towards her, looking at her gloomily, looking himself thin and +grey and shivery--but always like a prince. + +"You have more flesh to keep you warm than I have," said he, quite +roughly. + +"Thank you!" She bridled and flushed. Her massive figure, for a +woman of her years, was perfect; but of course she was as sensitive as +the well-proportioned female always is to the suspicion that she was +too fat. "You have not lost the art of paying graceful compliments." + +"I meant it for one," said he, replying to her scoffing tone. "You put +me to shame, Deb, with your vigour and youthfulness. I know how old you +are, and you don't look it by ten years. And you are a beauty still, +let me tell you. It may not be a graceful compliment, but at least it +is sincere. Even these girls here--" + +"Nonsense about beauty--at my time of life," she broke in; but she +smiled behind her frown, and forgave him his remark about her flesh. +"You and I are too old to talk that sort of stuff now." + +"Do you think I am so very old?" he asked her, standing before her +writing-table, as if inviting a serious judgment. + +She glanced quickly over him. His moustache was white, his ivory-tinted +face scratched with fine lines about the eyes; he stooped at the +shoulders, and his chest had hollowed in. Yet she could have returned +his compliment and called him a beauty still. He was so to her. Every +line and movement of his body had a distinction all his own, and "What +a shame it is," she thought, "for that profile to crumble away before +it has been carved in marble." + +"We are in the same boat," she answered him. "There are not five years +between us." + +"Five years put us out of the same boat," he rejoined, "especially when +they are virtually fifteen. Deb, I know you think me an old man--don't +you?" + +"What I think is that you are a sick man," she said kindly. +"Are you, Claud? You used to be so strong, for all your slenderness. +What is the matter with you?" + +"Everything--nothing--only that I feel old--and that I haven't been +used to feeling old--and that it's so--so loathsome--" + +"I'm sure it is," she laughed, rallying him. "I can understand your +being sick, if you have come to that. But why do you let yourself? Why +do you think about it? Why do you own to it--in that abject way? I +never do. I'm determined not to be an old woman--until I am obliged. +And I don't paint, either," she added, "and my hair is my own." + +He seemed to study her cheek and her hair. She coloured up, dipped her +pen, and looked at her unfinished letter. He wandered off a step or +two, and returned. + +"Do you know this thing of Hamerton's?" he inquired, in a casual way, +extending the volume he held. + +She took it, laying down her pen. A considerable literary discussion +ensued, during which he fetched more books from the shelves to show +her. It began to appear that he meant to spend the whole morning with +her, possibly taking it for granted that it was her desire to have him. +That idea, if he entertained it, must be corrected at once. She resumed +her pen with a business-like air. + +"Deb," said he then, "do you mind if I read here for a little while? I +won't disturb you. It's so nice and quiet--away from those chattering +women--" + +"Oh, certainly!" she politely acquiesced. "But don't you think +they'll want you, with all the other men away? Now's your opportunity +to be made much of." + +"I don't care to be made much of just because I am the only man." + +"Oh, but you would always be more than that, of course." + +"I'm not more than an old fogey when the young fellows are around. They +will take no notice of me at tea-time. Well, I'm getting used to it. +I'm getting to know my place." "If that was your place, you would soon +vacate it." + +"How can I vacate it?" + +"When people begin to take me for an old fogey, they'll not have the +honour of my company in their houses." + +"That's very well for you--wait till the time comes. And I suppose you +like it, anyhow. You seem to enjoy all this"--waving a hand around-- +"as if you were a girl who had never seen anything. I'm sick and tired +of the whole show." + +"Then don't have any more to do with it. Go home." + +"Home! What home have I?" + +"A lovely flat in town, they tell me, where you give the best dinners, +and ladies' theatre parties and things--" "Pshaw! I am hardly ever +there. I hate the racket of London in the season--I'm not up to it +nowadays--and you wouldn't have me stranded in Piccadilly at this time +of year, I presume? I'm obliged to spend the winter down south--and by +the same token I must soon be getting off, or these east winds +and damp mists will play the deuce with my bronchitis--" + +"Oh, it's bronchitis, is it? I knew it was something. I suppose you've +been coddling yourself with hot rooms and all sorts of flannel things; +that's the way people make themselves tender, and get chills and chest +complaints, and get old before their time." + +"The doctors insist on flannel--the natural wool--all of them." + +"The greatest mistake in the world. I used to wear it because I thought +the doctors ought to know, and I was always getting colds. Now I never +let a bit of wool touch my skin--haven't for years and years--and +never know what it means to have a cold." + +"That is contrary to all the traditions," he remarked seriously, +addressing her handsome back; for she was still supposed to be writing +her letter. "I can't believe that it is due to not wearing flannel, +Debbie. It's your splendid vitality--your being so different from +other people--" + +"Nothing of the sort! You try it. Not just now, of course, with winter +beginning, but when warm weather comes again--" + +And so on. The hostess broke in upon their TETE-A-TETE while they were +still engrossed in this interesting topic. She was drawn into it, and +made a disciple of by Deb, who attributed all her own blooming health +and practical youthfulness to linen underclothing, combined with plenty +of fresh air. And after all, since letter-writing was hopeless, she did +go out to lunch with the guns. Claud remained alone and disconsolate by +the library fire. She was due to leave the house next day, and +left, although conscious of a strange hankering to stay; and during the +interval gave Mr Dalzell no further opportunity to talk about his +bronchitis--and other things. He was not aware that she was to go so +soon until she was gone; and then he found himself with livelier +feelings than had stirred his languid being for many a day. He was not +only annoyed and disappointed at being deprived of the refreshment of +her stimulating society; he was incensed with her mode of departure, +which seemed to imply an intention to evade him. + +"Does she still think that I am after her money?" he asked himself, +with scorn of her mean suspiciousness. "Just because I was magnanimous +enough to ignore the past!" + +He went down south, to play a little at Monte Carlo and cruise a little +in the Mediterranean--to kill time through the detestable winter, +which made itself felt wherever he was; and she went to London to see +about Francie's gown, and up north to bracing Scotland, and down to +Wellwood for Christmas, and back to the racket of London in the spring; +and neither of them had spent a lonelier time in all their lives. Quite +a fresh and peculiar sense of homelessness and uncomforted old age took +possession of them both. + +All through the kaleidoscopic transformation-scenes of the "season", +through which she moved magnificently, old-maidhood notwithstanding, +she was unconsciously seeking him. It was her impression, from all she +had heard of his tastes and ways, that he could not keep away from that +common rendezvous of his class and kind. She did not find him, +but all the same he was there. He returned from his winter haunts +sooner than his wont, while still the April winds were full of menace +for him, exposed himself to those winds seeking her, caught a chill, +neglected it--a most unusual thing--and fell into an illness that +confined him to his bed for many weeks. + +It was not until June that Deb heard of it. He was truly so much of an +old fogey now in the society of which he had once been such a +distinguished ornament that his disappearance was long unnoticed. And +when at last someone noticed it, in Deb's hearing, the light and +callous way in which his trouble was referred to went to her heart-- +knowing all she knew. One of her generous impulses came to her on the +spot, and an hour later she was at the door of his chambers, inquiring +after him. + +His man--a very jewel of a man--received her at the door, gravely, +cautiously, keeping it half shut. He reported his master mending, but +still weak, and not able to see anyone. Females of all kinds were +sternly discouraged by this prudent person, from force of old habit. + +"Oh, of course not," said Deb off-handedly. "Just give him my card, +please, and say I'm very glad to hear he is not as ill as I feared." + +On pain of dismissal from the best service he had ever known--and he +had known it now for a long time--Manton had to find the lady's +address. As soon as it was supplied to him, Claud sent for her to come +and see him. + +"Are we not old enough now to dispense with chaperons?" he wrote; and +the sight of his hand-writing after all these long years moved +her strangely. "If you think not, bring the deafest old post of your +acquaintance. Only DO come. I haven't had anybody to speak to for a +week." + +"Of course we are old enough," commented Deb, as she read the words. +"The idea of fussing about chaperons and that nonsense at our time of +life!" And she proceeded to array herself in her most youthful summer +dress, which was also the choicest of her stock, taking the utmost +pains to match toque and gloves, while full of indignation against his +friends for so shamefully neglecting him. + +Boldly she ascended to his sitting-room in the wake of tight-lipped +Manton, who presently brought tea, and at intervals tended the fire, +apparently without once casting an eye upon her. Claud was up and +dressed in her honour, while fit only for his bed. In the midst of the +refined luxury that he had gathered about him, he looked but the ghost +of a man, worn with his illness and the fatigue of preparing for her. +It was one of those English summers that never answered to its name, +and he sat in a sable-lined overcoat--considered more respectful than +a dressing-gown--in a heat that almost choked her. + +But with swelling heart she hurried to his side, and, after greetings, +drew a chair close up to his, took the hand he silently extended, and +held it in a long, warm, maternal clasp. Manton retired and shut the +door. The invalid lay back on his cushions, and closed his eyes. The +visitor, watching him, detected an oozing tear--the first she had ever +seen there. + +"How did it happen?" she crooned, and followed the question +with many more of the same sort; to which he replied as to a mother or +a nurse. + +"It's this beastly climate," he complained. "It upsets me every time-- +though this is the worst bout I've had yet. I really can't stand it, +Debbie. Even in June, when you'd think you were safe--just look at it!" + +It was raining slightly as he spoke. + +"Well, why do you try to stand it?" said she. "Why not come back to +your own country? You'd be safe there, if anywhere." "I've been +thinking of it," said he. "It has been in my mind all winter--the +thought of that good, soaking sunshine that we used to have and think +nothing of. The Riviera isn't a patch on it. Aye, I'd get warm there. +But what a life--now. I am not like you--I've got nothing and nobody +to go back to--I should be giving up everything--the little that I +have left. And God knows life is empty enough as it is--" + +"Well, I'm going," she broke in. "And am I nobody?" + +He sprang up in his chair. "You--YOU going?" + +"Time I did," she laughed. "I haven't set eyes on my property and my +two sisters since goodness knows when." He held out his shaking hands. +His face was working pitifully. + +"Debbie, Debbie," he wailed, like a lost child, "will you take me? Will +you have me?" + +She caught him in her strong arms. + +"Dearest, we will go together," she murmured. And he fell, sobbing, on +her breast. + +It was not in the least what she had meant to say or to do; but +the appeal was irresistible. It was too terrible to see him--HIM, her +young prince of such towering pride and beauty--brought down to this. + +But she soon had him out of his slough of despond, and climbing the +hills of hope again with something of his old gallant air. The rapidity +of his convalescence was astonishing. By the end of July he was well +enough to be married. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + + +The first letter signed "Deborah Dalzell" was addressed, strange to +say, to Guthrie Carey--not to the commander of the SS APHRODITE, via +his shipping office, but to Guthrie Carey, Esq., Wellwood Hall, +Norfolk. + +For a great change had taken place in the circumstances of her old +friend. + +One day, a few years earlier, he had been called from the sea-- +somewhere off the coast of South America--to take his place as a +land-owner and land-dweller amongst the great squires of England; quite +the very last thing he could have anticipated in his wildest dreams. +Three sons of the reigning Carey had been capsized in a gale while out +yachting. The reigning Carey, on hearing of the catastrophe, had been +seized with a fit that proved fatal in a few hours. His eldest son's +wife, as an effect of the same shock, had given birth to a still-born +male infant--the sole grandson. One brother had died childless; +another leaving daughters only; the third, Guthrie's father, was also +dead. Thus the unexpected happened, as it has a way of doing in this +world, and the t'penny-ha'penny mate of old Redford days had become the +head of a county family. + +His experiences had trained him for the change. He took it soberly, +without losing his head. A bristling array of blood-enemies +were gradually transformed into a circle of respectful friends; some of +them assisted him to settle himself in his unfamiliar seat, to teach +him the duties of his high station. He was teachable, but independent, +not shutting his eyes and opening his mouth to swallow all the +old-world creeds they chose to put into it, but studying every branch +of the science of landlordism in the light of his own intelligence and +beliefs. When he had fairly mastered the situation, he married one of +his cousins. + +He was in his robust middle-age, which comes so much later to men than +to women, she was well on in her thirties--a comely, sensible, +well-bred young lady, and a most excellent coadjutor to a squire new to +the business. An eminently wise selection, said his brother squires, +when the engagement was announced. The wedding was a great family +function and county event. It meant that the Careys, instead of being +split up and scattered to the winds, remained together, united in +amity; it meant that the dignity of the old house was to be kept up. +When, a year later, Wellwood rang bells and lit bonfires in honour of a +son and heir, nothing seemed wanting to confirm the general impression +that our Guthrie was not only a wise but a singularly fortunate man. + +It was an impression that Guthrie shared. From the point of view that +he had now reached in life, he believed himself favoured beyond the +common lot. He loved Wellwood, full of the memorials of his ancient +race; he enjoyed his settled and comfortable place therein, after the +homeless roving of so many years--the feel of solid land under his +feet and under his life, for which every sailor pines, despite whatever +spell the sea may lay on him. He was proud of his +perfect-mannered wife, who was also his good friend and confidante; he +was egregiously proud of his handsome boy. And the day of the young +romance--of the great passion--of those sordid "little fires" which +beckon to men whose nature craves for warmth and whose "yule is cold"-- +that day was past. "Love is one thing and marriage another," he had +once said, without really meaning it; but he had spoken truer than he +knew. Moreover, the shocking statement was not nearly so awful as it +seemed. The very conditions of married life are fatal to love, as love +is understood by the yet unmarried lovers--insanely sanguine, of human +necessity--asking the impossible, and no blame to them, because they +are made so; but no matter. That thing which comes afterwards, to the +right-minded and well-intentioned, and which they don't think worth +calling love--that sober, faithful, forbearing friendship, that mutual +need which endures all the time, and is ever more deeply satisfied and +satisfying instead of less--is no bad substitute. + +Yet how the world of imagination dominates the world of fact! How much +fairer the unseen than the seen! How much more precious the good we +have not than the good we have! In his private desk in his private +study, Guthrie kept--just as old Mr Pennycuick had kept his valentine +--a faded, spotted, ochre-tinted photograph of poor little Lily in the +saucer bonnet with lace "brides" to it that she was married in; and +when Wellwood was humming with shooting parties and the like, and its +lady doing the honours of the house with all the forethought and +devotion that she could bring to the task, the stout squire +would be sitting in his sanctum under lock and key, gazing at that +sweet girl-face which had the luck to be dead and gone. Lily in the +retrospect was the faultless woman--the ideal wife and love's young +dream in one. "I have had my day," was the thought of his heart, as he +looked across the gulf of strenuous, chequered, disappointing years to +that idyll of the far past which her pictured form brought back to him. +"Whatever is lacking now, I HAVE known the fullness of love and bliss-- +that there is such a thing as a perfect union between man and woman, +rare as it may be." It will be remembered that he was married to her, +actually, for a period not exceeding five weeks in all. + +And Deborah Pennycuick, who would have made such a magnificent lady of +Wellwood--who was, in fact, asked to take the post before it was +offered to the cousin--she came to spend Christmas under his roof +while still a spinster, on the tacit understanding that neither was a +subject for "nonsense" any more. Deb and Mrs Carey were close friends. +Deb was the godmother of the heir. The homelikeness of Wellwood was +intensified by her intercourse, while there, with English Redford and +the descendants of that brother with whom old Mr Pennycuick had been +unable to hit it off--humdrum persons, whose attraction for her lay in +their name and blood, and the fact that they could show her the arms +and portraits of her ancestors and the wainscotted room in which her +father was born. It was to Wellwood that she went to be married. From +the old home of the Careys she was driven to the old church of the +Pennycuicks, full of mouldering monuments to a nearly vanished race; it +was buried in its rural solitude, far from railways and +gossip-mongers and newspaper reporters, and the wedding was as quiet as +quiet could be. Guthrie was acting brother, and gave her away. He +never, of course, disclosed the secret that was his and Francie's, +honest brother as he longed to be; but perhaps, even had she known it, +and her own austere chastity notwithstanding, she might have been +broad-minded enough to judge him kindlier than is the wont of the sex +which does not know all, and have still held him worthy to be to her +the friend he was. As she knew him, she loved him sister-like, and +turned to him naturally when she needed a brother's services. And so it +was to him that she wrote first, at the end of the short wedding-day +journey--just to tell him that she and her bridegroom had arrived +safely, and that Claud was standing the fatigue much better than they +could have hoped. + +She did not write to Frances until she had her husband on the high +seas. She did not write at all to Mary or Rose, not wishing them to +know of her marriage until she could personally 'break it' to them. It +was not difficult to ensure this, since for many a year they had all +been so separated by their respective circumstances that they were no +longer sisters in the old Redford sense. The business of each was her +own, and not supposed to interest the rest. Only such domestic events +as were of serious moment were formally reported amongst them, and were +never deemed serious enough to use the cable for. + +The pair came home very quietly. Sydney was the port of arrival, and +here Deb divined on the part of her husband a desire to be left in +peace--to recruit after laborious travelling in the care of +his devoted and accomplished man--while she went forward to "get the +fuss over". Those sisters were the shadows upon his now sunny path, +although he did not say so; he wanted to get to Redford without having +to kiss them and talk to their offensive men-folk on the way. So Deb +proposed to do what she felt he wished, and paid no heed to the dutiful +objections which he could not make to sound genuine in her ears. She +telegraphed instructions to Bob Goldsworthy to engage rooms for her and +to meet her, signing the message "Aunt Deborah"--her only herald. + +Bob was duly at Spencer Street--elegant in curled moustaches and a +frock-coat--become a swell young barrister since she had seen him +last. He was sure of the impression he would create upon his +discriminating aunt, and had no notion that her first flashing glance +at him was accompanied by a flashing thought of how her adopted son +would too surely be ranked by her more discriminating husband with the +"bounders" of his implacable disdain. On the platform--while +explaining that he knew it was not the proper thing to do in a public +place--he embraced the majestic figure in the splendid sable cloak. +Deb said, "Bother the proper thing!" and kissed him readily--charily, +however, because conscious of teeth that were not Pennycuick teeth, and +perversely objecting to the faultless costume. But, looking at the +frock-coat, she perceived mourning-band upon the sleeve. Another +encircled his glittering tall hat. + +"Not--oh, Bob!--not your mother?" she gasped. + +He shook his head, and asked a question about her luggage. + +"Aunt Rose--your uncle--?" + +"Oh, Aunt Deb--don't! She is my aunt, I know, but he--" Bob spread +deprecating hands. "They are both well, I believe. I think I heard that +the fiftieth baby arrived last week. Is that your maid in the brown--" + +"Oh, but, Bob--tell me--they haven't lost any of those nice children, +I do trust!" + +"I should hardly have been in mourning on their account. No--fat and +tough as little pigs, by the look of them. It is my father, Aunt Deb. I +thought you knew." "What!" She stopped on their way towards Rosalie and +the luggage van. "You don't say--" + +"Yes--a couple of months ago. The mater wrote to you." + +"I have been wandering from place to place--the letter never reached me." + +"Pneumonia, supervening upon influenza--that is what the doctors +called it; but it was really a complication of disorders, some of them +of long standing. Between you and me, Aunt Deb, he took a great deal +more than was good for him latterly, and that told upon him. His blood +was bad. You know he was always a self-indulgent man." + +Deb nodded, forgetting that it was a son who spoke. She was saying to +herself, "Bennet Goldsworthy, whom we made sure would live for ever! +Bennet Goldsworthy, of all people! What a relief that will be to +Claud!" And then she thought of her widowed sister, with a rush of pity +and compunction. He was her husband, after all. + +Bob's light attention to the subject was already gone. He was staring +at one of the great trunks covered with foreign labels. Rosalie +was telling him how many more Mrs Dalzell had. + +"Oh, yes," said Deb, confused and crimson, "I forgot to mention--I +suppose you don't know--that I am married. To an old friend of our +family--your mother will know him well. By the way, Bob, I must go and +see her at once. We'll have some lunch first; I must wash and change my +clothes. Then will you stay at the hotel and settle Rosalie, and see to +things? No, I would rather go alone. Stay in town and dine with me-- +and don't look so shocked, my good boy, as if I'd cut you off with a +shilling. My marriage will make no difference to you." "Aunt Deb!"-- +with dignified reproach. "As if I thought of that." + +But somehow she felt sure he did think of it. + +They had luncheon together at the hotel, and sat awhile to digest it +and to talk things over. While they sipped coffee, he told her how he +had furnished his bachelor rooms--the artistic woodwork, the curios, +the colours, how he had hunted for the right shade of red, what he had +given for a particular rug which alone would blend and harmonise. She +was brightly interested in these things, and promised to go and see +them. She was to go to lunch next day--he thought he could safely +undertake not to poison her with bad cooking or unsound wine. He lived +in chambers in Parliament Place. This engagement booked, she asked him +for his mother's address. + +Mary lived in a small street in Richmond. + +"Such a slum!" said Bob disgustedly. "But she would do it, in spite of +all that I could say. And rushed there, too, when he had hardly been +dead a week. It was not decent, as I told her, to be +advertising the sale two days after the funeral. But she is a peculiar +woman." + +"She is a Pennycuick," said Mrs Dalzell reprovingly. "She would not +care to go on living in a house that she had ceased to have the right +to live in. I should not myself." + +"But she might have gone to another place." + +"You must insist on her going to another." + +"I am afraid my influence is not enough to persuade her." + +"My dear boy, I am convinced that if you asked her to walk into a +burning fiery furnace, she would do it to please you, without a +moment's hesitation." + +"She is that way in some things, poor dear; but in others--I may talk +till I have no voice left, and she won't listen. And she was set on +this scheme. She has a mania for--for that sort of thing. One would +never believe that she was your sister. She would hate to live like +other people. She simply loves to be a nobody. I can't understand it. +You try your influence with her, will you?" + +"Well, order a carriage for me, and I will put on my things." + +He pressed her to allow him to escort her, which was obviously the +proper thing. When she refused again, and went off, like any nobody, +alone, he returned to his chambers, leaving Rosalie to the unimportant +persons whose business it was to look after her. + +Mrs Breen's house was in East Melbourne, and Deb directed the coachman +to drive there first. She remembered the fiftieth baby that was but a +few days old. + +"I must see how the poor child is doing," Deb said--not +alluding to the baby. + +And soon she saw again the exquisitely-kept garden--large for that +locality--and the spacious white house almost glittering in the sun. +She had sniffed at the bourgeois villa--she thought it bourgeois still +--but who could help admiring those windowpanes like diamonds, and that +grass like velvet, and that air of perfect well-being which pervaded +every inch of the place? As the carriage entered the fine, wrought-iron +gates, a flock of little Breens, attached to a perambulator, two nurses +and five dogs, were coming out of it; and she stopped to accost and +kiss them. Each child was as fresh as a daisy, its hair like floss silk +with careful brushing, its petticoats as dainty as its frock, its socks +and boots immaculate. There was Nannie, her godchild, shot up slim and +tall from the dumpling baby that her aunt remembered, showing plainly +the milky-fair, sunny-faced, wholesome woman that she was presently to +become. Deb gazed at her with aches of regret--she had thought them +for ever stifled in Claud's all-sufficing companionship--for her own +lost motherhood, and of lesser but still poignant regret that she had +not been allowed to adopt Nannie in Bob Goldsworthy's place. The joy of +dressing and taking out a daughter of that stamp--of having her at +home with one, to make the tea, and to chat with, and to lean on! Old +Keziah came to the door--Keziah sleek and placid, like the family she +served--delighted to welcome the distinguished traveller, but still +more delighted to brag about the last Breen baby. + +"A lovely boy, without spot or blemish," said Keziah, three +times over. "And that makes eleven, and not one too many. And Miss Rose +doing fine, thank you. I'll go and prepare her for the surprise, so it +don't upset her." + +Constance, quite a grown young lady, met her aunt on the stairs; +Kathleen and Lucy rose from the piano in the drawing-room, where they +had been entertaining their mother at a safe distance with their +latest-learned "pieces"; they too had to be greeted and kissed--and +sweeter flesh to kiss no lips could ask for. "My husband may be a +draper," Rose had often said, "but I'll trouble you to show me a duke +with a handsomer family." + +Mentally, Deb compared the cool, flower-petal cheeks of her Breen +nieces with her Goldsworthy nephew's mouth, covering those unpleasant +teeth. It would have been fairer to compare him with her Breen nephews, +but there the contrast would have been nearly as great. John, at +business with his father, and Pennycuick, learning station management +with the Simpsons at Bundaboo, had the fresh and cleanly appearance of +all Rose's children; in physical matters they were as clean as they +looked. Bob did not look unclean, but with all his excessive smartness, +he looked unfresh. That look, and the thing it meant, were his father's +legacy to him. + +At last Deb reached her sister's room. It was another addition to the +ever-growing house, and marked, like each former one, the ever-growing +prosperity of the shop supporting it. The fastidious travelled eye +appraised the rich rugs and hangings, the massive "suite", the +delicately-furnished bed, and took in the general air of warm luxury +and unstinted comfort, even before it fell upon Rose herself--Rose, +fat and fair, and the picture of content, sitting in the +softest of arm-chairs, and the smartest of gowns and slippers, by the +brightest of wood fires, with a tableful of new novels and magazines on +one side of her, and a frilly cradle on the other. + +"My husband may be a draper," she had remarked at various times, "but +he does give me a good home." + +Deb, so long homeless amid her wealth, conceded at this moment, without +a grudge, that Rose's humble little arrow of ambition had fairly hit +the mark. + +They embraced with all the warmth of the old Redford days. A few hasty +questions and answers were exchanged, and their heads met over the cradle. + +"You poor child!" Deb exclaimed, as a matter of form. "Haven't you done +with this kind of thing yet?" + +"Oh," said Rose, "I should feel lost without one now. And we wanted +another boy--we have only three, you know. Isn't he a darling?" + +Number eleven, fast asleep, was fished from his downy bed and laid in +his aunt's arms, eagerly extended for him. His clothes might have been +woven by fairies, and he smelt like a violet bed in spring. + +Strange thrills--sharper than those that Nannie had set going--shook +Deb's big heart as she cuddled and kissed him. + +"The older I get," she confessed, "the greater fool I am about a baby. +And you do have such nice babies, Rose." + +"Yes," simpered Rose. "They ARE nicer than most, certainly--I'm sure I +don't know why." Her eyes gloated on the white bundle; she fidgeted to +get it back. "Ah, Debbie, I wish--I wish you knew--" + +"I know you do, my dear," laughed Deb, a little queerly, and she +returned the baby in order to hunt for her handkerchief. "And if you +must know the truth, so do I. It's tantalising to see you with more +than your share, while I have none--and never shall have, worse luck! +Well"--blowing her nose cheerfully--"it's no use crying over spilt +milk, is it? And I tipped the can over myself, so I can't complain. +How's Peter?" + +Rose told her how Peter was--"so dear, so good"--and then had so much +to say about the children, one by one, through all the eleven of them, +that it was quite in a hurry at last that Deb disclosed her secret. And +Rose not only sustained no shock--which would have been bad for her-- +but could see nothing in the marriage worth fussing about, except the +fact that it came too late for a family. Such a sordidly domestic +person was she! She mourned and condoled over this spilt milk--so sure +that poor Deb was but hungrily lapping up drops with the dust of the +floor--that Deb grew almost angry. She took back her own words, and +said she was glad there were no children to come between her and her +husband, who needed only each other. She implied that this union had a +higher significance than could be grasped by a mere suckler of fools +(nice fools, no doubt) and chronicler of small beer (however good the +brew). She believed it, too. Love--great, solemn, immortal Love, +passionate and suffering--was a thing unknown to comfortable, +commonplace Rose, as doubtless to Peter also. They were dear, good +people, and fortunate in their ignorance and in what it spared +them; but it was annoying when ignorance assumed superior knowledge, +and wanted to teach its grandmother to suck eggs. Was it come to this-- +that marriage and a family were synonymous terms? No, indeed, nor ever +would, while intelligent men and women walked the earth. Deb reserved +the more sacred confidences for Mary's ear. Mary had loved--strangely +indeed, but tragically, with pain and loss, the dignified concomitants +of the divine state. Mary would understand. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + + +Mary's house was a chill and meagre contrast to that of Rose, but there +was nothing cold in Mary's welcome. To Deb's 'Darling! darling!' and +smothering embrace of furs, the slim woman responded with a grip and +pressure that represented all her strength. Deb, although not the +eldest, was the mother of the family, as well as the second mother of +Bob. + +"Where is he?" were Mary's first words--and Deb smiled inwardly to see +her as absurd in her mother's vanity and preoccupation as Rose herself. +But this was a case of a widow's only son, and the visitor was thankful +for such a beginning to the interview. "Where is he?" cried the anxious +voice. "He was to have met you. And he never fails--this is not like +him--" + +"Oh," Deb struck in easily, "he was there all right, looking after his +old aunt like a good boy. He wanted to bring me, but I told him he +could be more useful looking after Rosalie and my things. I thought +we'd rather be by ourselves, Molly--poor old girl! You know I never +heard a word until he told me just now. Your letter did not reach me." + +They kissed again, in the passage of the little house. + +"You will send away the carriage, Debbie?" Mary urged, without +visible emotion. "There are stables in the next street. You will take +off your hat and stay with me a little?" + +"Indeed I will, dearest, if you will have me. Are you alone?" + +"Quite alone." + +"Where's the old lady?" + +"Oh, dead--dead long ago." + +"And Ruby?" + +Mary looked confused. + +"Ruby? Ruby is--don't you know?--an actress in London. Doing very +well, they tell me--"Miss Pearla Gold" in the profession." + +"Gracious! Why, I've seen her! Burlesque. Tights. The minx! Well, she +must be coining money, anyhow. I hope she doesn't forget to make some +return for all the trouble she has been to you." + +"She forgets everything," said the step-mother, "and we are thankful +for it. Bob hates the thought; it is hard on him, who is so different. +Don't allude to it before him, please; he feels it too keenly. Debbie, +what did you think of my boy?" "Oh, splendid!" was the cordial +response. "I could hardly believe my eyes." + +"Is he not?" the fond mother urged. "And it is not only his appearance, +Debbie--they say he is the cleverest lawyer in Melbourne. He is so +learned, so acute! He has a practice already that many a barrister, +well known and of twice his age, might envy." + +The pale woman--for her bricky colour had faded out--thrilled and +glowed. + +"Yes, he told me," said Deb; "and it was good hearing indeed. +But I always knew what he had in him.' To herself she said: 'Why, if he +is so well off, does he let her live like this?" + +Poverty--though decent poverty--proclaimed itself in every detail of +the mean terrace-house, which stood in the most depressing street +imaginable. It made the wealthy sister's heart ache. + +"And how are you yourself, Debbie?" Mary remembered to ask, as she shut +the door upon the departing carriage. "You look well. How is Francie? +We want you to tell us all about her grand doings. Bob is greatly +interested in his Italian aunt; he thinks he would like to take a +vacation trip to see her some day. By the way, did he tell you that +Rose has another? Isn't she a perfect little rabbit? And quite +delighted, Keziah says." + +As she talked in this detachment from her personal affairs, she led the +way up bare stairs to her small bedroom. The resplendent woman behind +her took note of the widow's excessive thinness, the greyness of her +straight, tight hair, the rigid lines of a black stuff gown that had +not a scrap of trimming on it--not even the lawn sleeve-bands widows +use--and thought of Bennet Goldsworthy's old-time annoyance when his +wife was proved to have fallen behind the mode. And as she expatiated +upon the charms of Rose's eleventh baby, Deb's bright dark eyes roved +about Mary's room, in which she recognised a few of the plainer +furnishings of the nuptial chamber of the past. + +But not a trace of the person who had been so much amongst them once. +His boots on the floor, his clothes on the door-pegs, his razors and +brushes on the toilet-table were gone; so were a basin and ewer +from the double wash-stand; so was the wide bed. In place of the latter +a small one--originally Bob's--had been set up, at the head of which +lay one large pillow fairly glistening with the shine of its fresh, +although darned, linen sheath. Carpet and curtains, essential to the +departed housefather, had disappeared; the bare windows stood open to +what fresh air there was; the floor, polished, and with one rug at the +bedside, exhaled the sweet perfume of beeswax and turpentine. It was +all so pathetic to the visitor, so eloquent of loss and change, that +she exclaimed, catching her sister in her arms: + +"Oh, you poor thing! You poor, poor thing!" + +Mrs Goldsworthy returned the embrace tenderly, but not the emotional +impulse. + +"You are so dear and kind," she said, in a gentle, but quite steady +voice. "I am so glad you came--so thankful to have you; but we won't +talk about that, if you don't mind. I think it is best not to dwell on +troubles, if you can help it. Tell me about yourself. I suppose you +have had lunch? Well, then, we will have a nice cup of tea. Take off +that heavy cloak--what lovely fur! And your hat too--what a smart +affair! You always have such taste. No, I am not wearing crape; it is +such rough, uncomfortable stuff, and so perishable; and the rule is not +hard and fast nowadays, as it used to be. It would be stupid to make it +so in a climate like this. Do you want a comb, dear? How brown your +hair keeps still! Then let us go downstairs to the fire." + +The fire was in a little bare parlour, as austerely appointed as the +bedroom. A tea-table was drawn up to the hearth, the kettle placed on +the coals. There seemed no servant on the premises, but the +neatness upstairs was repeated below; everything was speckless, +polished, smelling of its own purity. Well, it was a good thing poor +Molly could interest herself in these matters, and her resolve not to +brood over her troubles--if it was genuine, and not only a heroic pose +--both noble and wise. So Deb reflected; and such was the calmness of +the emotional atmosphere, the cheering effect of tea and rest and +sisterly companionship, the discursiveness of the talk, that she soon +found herself telling Mary the secret that she was so sure the widow +would hear with special sympathy and understanding. + +"It is awfully selfish," she began, "to bother you with my affairs at +such a time as this, but you've got to know it some time. The fact is-- +some folks would say there's no fool like an old fool, and perhaps +you'll agree with them; but no, I don't think you will--not you, for +you know...the fact is--don't laugh--but I'm sure nobody can help it +--I have been and gone and got married, Molly. There!" + +And, after all, it seemed that she had not come to the right place for +sympathy and understanding. Mary did not laugh, but she stared in a +wooden manner that was even more hurtful to the feelings of the new +wife. + +"Well?" she cried brusquely, after a painful pause. "Is there any just +cause or impediment that you know of? You look as if you thought I had +no business to be happy like other people." + +"Oh, if you are happy! But I am so surprised. Who is it?" + +"Guess," said Deb. + +"I could not. I haven't an idea. Some Englishman, of course." + +Deb shook her head. + +"European, then? Some prince or count, as big as Francie's, or bigger?" + +Deb wrinkled a disdainful nose. + +"It is no use, Moll; you would not come near it in fifty tries. I'll +tell you--Claud Dalzell." + +"What--the deadly enemy!" This time Mrs Goldsworthy did laugh. Deb +joined in. + +"Funny, isn't it? I feel"--sarcastically--"like going into fits +myself when I think of it, it is so screamingly absurd. And how it +happened I can't tell you, unless it is that we are fallen into our +dotage. I suppose it must be that." + +"You in your dotage!" Mary mocked, with an affectionate sincerity that +was grateful to her sister's ear. "You are the youngest of us all, and +always will be. Do you ever look at yourself in the glass? Upright as a +dart, and your pretty wavy hair--so thick, and scarcely a grey thread +in it! Of course, I don't know how it may be with him; I have not seen +him for such ages--" + +"Oh, he is a perfect badger for greyness--not that I ever saw a +badger, by the way. And he walks with a stick, and has dreadful chronic +things the matter with him, from eating and drinking too much all his +life, and never taking enough exercise. Quite the old man, I should +have called him a few months ago. But he is better now." + +Mrs Goldsworthy gave a little shudder, and her unsympathetic gravity +returned. + +"I see," she sighed. "Your benevolent heart has run away with +you, as usual. His infirmities appealed to your pity. You married him +so that you might nurse and take care of him--" + +"Not at all!" Deb broke in warmly. "And don't you talk about his +infirmities in that free-and-easy way; he is no more infirm than you +are. Did I say he was? That was my joke. He always was the handsomest +man that I ever set eyes on, and he is the same still. No, my dear, I +have not married him to take care of him, but so that he may take care +of me. I'm lonely. I want somebody. I've come to the time of life when +I am of no account to the young folks--not even to Bob, who would not +give me a second thought if I was a poor woman. No, Molly dear, it is +no use your pretending; you know it as well as I do. And quite natural +too. It is the same with all of them. Nothing but money gives me +importance in their eyes. And what's money? It won't keep you warm in +the winter of your days--nothing will, except a companion that is in +the same boat. That is what I want--it may be silly, but I do-- +somebody to go down into the valley of the shadow with me; and he feels +the same.' Something in Mary's face as she stared into the fire, +something in the atmosphere of the conversation, drove her into this +line of self-defence. 'Oh, there is no love-making and young nonsense +in our case--we are not quite such idiots as that comes to; it is just +that we begin to feel the cold, as it were, and are going to camp +together to keep each other warm. That's all." + +Mary remained silent. + +"Well, I must go," said Deb, jumping up, as if washing her hands of a +disappointing job. "The carriage must be there, and Bob will be +starving for his dinner. No use asking you to join us, I know. But you +must come to Redford soon, Molly--or somewhere out of this--when you +feel better and able. You shall have rooms entirely to yourself, and +needn't see anybody. I will come tomorrow, and you must let me talk to +you about it." + +Mrs Goldsworthy was stooping to sweep a sprinkle of ashes out of the +fender--she was like an old maid in her faddy tidiness--and when she +turned, her face was working as if to repress tears. Deb caught her up, +a moan bursting from her lips. + +"Oh, what a brute I am! when you--poor, poor old girl!--have to +finish it alone. But, darling, after all, you have had the good years-- +a child of your own--a home; we shall get only the dregs at the bottom +of the cup. So it is not so very unfair, is it?" Then Mary's pent +emotion issued in a laugh. With her face on her sister's shoulder, she +tried herself to silence it. + +"I can't help it," she apologised. "I would if I could. Debbie, don't +go! Oh, my dear, don't think I envy you! Don't go yet! I want to tell +you something. I may never have another chance." "Of course I won't go +--I want to stay," said Deb at once. + +And she stayed. The coachman was dismissed to get his meal, and +instructed to telephone to Bob to do the same. The sisters had a little +picnic dinner by themselves, washing up their plates and dishes in the +neat kitchen, Deb insisting upon taking part in the performance, and +sat long by the fireside afterwards. Fortunately, although the season +was late spring, it was a cold day; for the clear red fire was +the one bit of brightness to charm a visitor to that poor house. It +crackled cosily, toasting their toes outstretched upon the fender-bar, +melting their mood to such glowing confidences as they had not +exchanged since Mary was in her teens. No lamps were lighted. The widow +was frugal with gas when eyes were idle; her extravagant sister loved +firelight to talk in. + +But for a while it seemed that Mary had nothing particular to +communicate. Deb did not like to put direct questions, but again and +again led the conversation in the likely direction, to find Mary +avoiding it like a shying horse. She would not talk of her husband, but +interested herself for an hour in the subject of Guthrie Carey, +Guthrie's wife, his child, his home, discussing the matter with a +calmness that made Deb forget how delicate a one it was. Then Mary had +a hundred questions to ask (probably on Bob's account) about the +Countess, of whom she had known nothing of late years, while Deb had +learned something from time to time, and could give an approximately +true tale. Quite another hour was taken up with Francie's wrongs and +wrong-doings, as to which Deb was more frank with this sister than she +would have been with Rose. + +"It is no use blinking the fact," she said straight out, "that Francie +is no better than she should be. I can't understand it; no Pennycuick +that ever I heard of took that line before. She has a dog's life with +that ruffian, no doubt; and of course the poor child never had a chance +to enjoy the right thing in the right way--though that was her own +fault--" + +"I don't think," Mary broke in, "that ANYTHING is ANYBODY'S +fault." + +"That's a most dangerous heathen doctrine, my dear, but I'll admit +there's something in it. Poor Francie! she was born at a disadvantage, +with that fascinating face of hers set on the foundation of so light a +character. She was too pretty, to start with. The pretty people get so +spoiled, so filled with their own conceit, that they grow up expecting +a world made on purpose for them. They grab right and left, if the +plums don't fall into their mouths directly they open them, because it +gets to be a sort of matter of course that they should have everything, +and do exactly as they like." + +"And the plain ones--they are born at a worse disadvantage still." + +"No, they are not. Look at Rose. Francie, with her gilded wretchedness, +thinks Rosie's lot quite despicable; but I can tell you, Molly, she is +the most utterly comfortable and contented little soul on the face of +this earth. She would not change places with a queen." "But Rose is not +plain. Rose is the happy medium. And THEY are the lucky ones--the +inconspicuous people--the every-day sort--" + +"What's luck?" Deb vaguely moralised. "I suppose we make our luck. It +doesn't depend on our faces, but on ourselves." + +"Ah, no!" Mrs Goldsworthy received the well-worn platitude with a +laugh. "We don't make anything--we are made. It is just a dance of +marionettes, Debbie. Poor puppets of flesh and blood, treated as if +they were just wood and nails and glue! Who set us up to make a game of +us like this? Who DOES pull the strings, Debbie? It is a +mystery to me." + +Then Deb waited for what was coming next. + +"Possibly it will be cleared up some day," she murmured, putting out +her strong, beautiful hand to touch her sister's knee. "Whether it is a +fairy tale or not, one must cherish the hope--" + +"Not I," Mary cut in swiftly--that same Mary who was once conspicuous +in her family for pious orthodoxy. "No more experiments in human +existence for me! A few years of peace and cleanness, as I am--as I +now am--I hope for that, and for nothing more; I don't want anything +more--I'd rather not. To be let alone for the rest of the time, and +then to be done with it--that sums up all the hope I have, or need." + +"Ah, my dear--" + +"No, Debbie, don't look at me with those eyes--don't pity me in that +tone of voice. I am only a heathen against my will--not so +broken-hearted as not to care what happens to me, which I believe is +what you think. I am not even sorry--I wish I was, but I can't be; in +fact, I am so happy, really, that I am going about in a sort of dream, +trying to realise it" + +"HAPPY!" + +"Perhaps 'happy' is not the word. I should say unmiserable. I am more +unmiserable than I have ever been, I think, since I was born." + +Deb's swift intelligence grasped the truth. "Ah, then she was not so +insensate as we thought!"--but made allowance for what she diagnosed +as a morbid condition of mental health. + +"Are you happier than you were at Redford--young, and loved, +and with everything nice about you--?" + +"Yes. Because then, although, of course, I did have everything, I had +no idea of the value of what I had. You can't be really happy unless +you know that you are happy. I did not know it then, but now I do." + +Deb's glance flashed round the poor room, and out of the window into +the squalid street; she thought of Bob, who almost openly despised the +mother who adored him; she calculated the loneliness, the poverty, the +--to her--ugliness of the existence which Mary's "as I am" was +intended to describe; and she groaned aloud. + +"Oh, my dear, was it really so awful as that--that the mere relief +from it can mean so much to you?" + +"I am not going to complain," said Mary. "It was not awful by anybody's +fault--certainly not by his. He did his best; he was really good to +me. It could not have happened at all, except through his being good to +me--doing what he did that night. I am not in the least bitter against +him; he was as he was made just as I am. It had to be, I suppose. The +maker of the puppets didn't care whether we belonged or not; the hand +that pulled the strings, and tangled them, jerked us into the mire +together anyhow--" "Oh, don't!" pleaded Deb. "Don't blaspheme like +that! What is religion for if not to keep us from making blunders, and +to help us to bear it when they are made--and to trust--to trust +where we cannot see--" + +Deb was unused to preaching, and broke down; but her eyes were +sermons more impressive than any of the thousands that Mary had heard. + +"Some day," said Mary, "when I get into a place where I cannot hear +religion spoken of, nor see it practised, I may learn the value of it. +I hope so. I have a chance of it now--the way is clear. I am through +the wood at last." + +Deb drew her filmy handkerchief across her eyes. + +"Yes, I know." Mary smiled at her sister's grief. "But it is only for +this once, Debbie dear. I did want to let you know--to have the +delight of not being a liar and a shuffler for once. I shall not say +such things again. I am not going to shock anybody else, for Bob's +sake. Bob, of course, must be considered; after all, it was his father. +None of us, even the freest, can be a free agent altogether; I +understand that. I shall hold my tongue. The blessed thing is that that +will be sufficient--a negative attitude, with the mouth shut; one is +not driven any longer to positive deceit, without even being able to +say that you can't help it. Oh, Debbie, you have been a free woman-- +why, why didn't you keep so?--but with all your freedom, and all your +money, you don't know the meaning of such luxury as I live in now." + +Deb gazed at her sister's rapt face, glowing in the firelight, and +wondered if the brain behind it could be altogether sane. + +"To call that HAPPINESS!" she ejaculated, with sad irony and scorn. + +"If you must fix a name to it--yes," the widow considered +thoughtfully. + +"After all, 'unmiserable' does not go far enough. I AM happy. For, +Debbie"--turning to look into the dark, troubled eyes--"I'm +clean now--I never thought to be again--to know anything so +exquisitely sweet, either in earth or heaven--I'm clean, body and +soul, day and night, inside and outside, at last." + +"Oh, POOR girl!" Deb moaned, with tears, when she realised what this +meant. + +"Rich," corrected Mary--"rich, dear, with just a roof and a crust of +bread." + +"Well," said Deb presently, "what about that roof and crust of bread? +Since we are telling each other everything, tell me what your resources +are. Don't say it is not my business; I know it isn't, but I shall be +wretched if you don't let me make it mine a little. How much have you?" + +"I don't know. I don't care. I haven't given money a thought. It +doesn't matter." + +"But it does matter. You can't even keep clean without a bathtub and a +bit of soap. But what am I thinking of?--of course, you will settle +all that with Bob." + +The little word of three letters brought Mrs Goldsworthy down from her +clouds at once. + +"Oh, no!" she cried quickly, almost fearfully. "On no account would I +interfere with his arrangements, his career. He would do everything +that was right and dutiful, I am sure, but I would sooner starve than +take charity from my own child. But there's no need to take it from +anybody. I have all I want." + +"How much?" + +"I couldn't tell you to a pound or two, but enough for my small wants." + +"They do seem small, indeed. Where are you going to live? Won't you +come to me, Molly? Redford is big enough, and it's morally +yours as much as mine. You should have your own rooms--all the privacy +you like--" + +"No, darling--thank you all the same. I have made my plans. I am going +to have a little cottage somewhere in the country, where there is no +dust, or smoke, or people--where I can walk on clean earth and grass, +and smell only trees and rain and the growing things. Alone? Oh, yes! +Of course, I shall see you sometimes--and my boy; but for a home--all +the home I can want or wish for now--that is my dream." + +"I don't think," said Deb, "that I ever heard human ambition--and +happiness--expressed in such terms before." It was the final result of +Mary's experiment in the business of a woman's life. + +Deb drove back to her hotel, thoughtful and sad and tired. When Rosalie +had left her for the night, she wrote to Claud by way of comforting +herself. She told him what she had been doing--described her +interviews with Rose and Mary respectively, and the impressions they +had left on her. + +"Of all the four of us," she concluded her letter, "I am the only one +who has been fortunate in love. I found my mate in the beginning, +before there was time to make mistakes--the right man, whom I could +love in the right way--and we have been kept for each other through +all these years, although for a long time we did not know it. And now +we are together--or shall be in a few days--never to part again. It +is the only love-story in the family--I don't except Rose's, because I +don't call that a love-story--which has had a happy ending." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + + +Down the middle of the big T-shaped wool-shed, in two rows of six pens +each, with an aisle between them, the bleating sheep were massed. They +had been driven into that aisle and thus distributed, as a crowd of +soldiers might be packed into their pews at church, and twelve little +gates had then been shut upon them. Each gate had a corresponding one +at the opposite end of the pen, opening upon a broad lane of floor, and +facing a doorway into outside pens and the sunny paddocks of the +background. Between gate and door, on his own section of the boarded +lane, a sweating, bare-armed man with shears performed prodigies of +strength and skill. Every few minutes he snatched a heavy sheep from +the pen beside him, flung it with a round turn into a sitting posture +between his knees, and with the calm indifference to its violent +objections of the spider to those of the fly that he makes into a +parcel, sliced off its coat like a cook peeling a potato. The fleece +gently fell upon the floor, as you may see an unnoticed shawl slip from +an old lady's shoulders, and before it could realise what had happened, +the poor naked animal found itself shot through the doorway, to stagger +headlong down the sloping stage that was its returning path to freedom. +Twelve of these stalwart and strenuous operators, lining the long walls +at regular intervals, six a side, were at it with might and +main (payment by results being the rule in this department of +industry), and attendant boys strolled up and down, picking the fleeces +from the floor and carrying them to the sorter's table. One was the +tar-boy, whose business it was to dab a brushful of tar upon any +scarlet patch appearing upon a white under-coat where the shears had +clipped too close. The sorter or classer stood behind his long table, +above and at right angles to the lines of sheep-pens and shearers. Near +him on either hand were racks like narrow loose-boxes, built against +the walls; behind him the hydraulic press cranked and creaked as its +attendants fed and manipulated it, and the great bales, that others +were sewing up, weighing, and branding, were mounting high in the +transepts of the building--the two arms of the capital T. The air was +thick with woolly particles and the smell of sheep; the floor was dark +and slippery, and everything one touched humid with the impalpable +grease of the silky fleeces circulating all about the shed. Strict, +downright, dirty business was the order of the day. + +The manager--Jim Urquhart, grey-bearded, in a battered felt hat and a +slouchy old tweed suit--stood by the sorter's table, his wide-ranging, +vigilant eye suddenly fixed upon it. As each fleece was brought up, +shaken out, trimmed, tested with thumb and finger, rolled into a light +bundle, inside out, and flung into one or another of the adjacent +racks, he followed the process as if it were something new to him. The +shade of difference in the texture of the staple of one fleece as +compared with another appeared of more concern to him than the absolute +difference, which seemed to shout for notice, between Deborah +Dalzell and the other features of the scene. + +A snowy, lacy petticoat all but swept the greasy floor. An equally +spotless skirt, fresh from the laundry, gathered up in one strong +pendant hand, gleamed like light against its background of greasy +woodwork and greasy wool. The majestic figure of the lady of Redford +advanced towards him. Her lord strolled behind her. Often--but not for +many a long day--had the vision of her beautiful face come to Jim in +this fashion, a radiance upon prosaic business that it was not allowed +to interfere with; now, for the first time, his eye avoided, his heart +shrank from recognising it. + +Then he lifted his gaze at last, for she was close beside him. And what +a ray of loving old-comradeship shone on him from those star-bright +orbs of hers, undulled by the years that had lightly frosted her dark +hair. She put out her hand, and held it out until he had apologised for +his greasy paw, and given it to her warm grasp. + +"Why haven't you been to see me--to see us?" she asked him, smiling. +"Didn't you know we came home last night?" + +"I thought you might be tired--or unpacking," Jim lamely excused +himself. "But whenever it is convenient to you, Deb--Mrs Dalzell--I +am always close by; I can come at any time." + +He looked at her husband. + +"Claud, you remember Jim?" + +It was so many years since the men had met that the question was not +uncalled for. They nodded to each other, across the enormous gulf that +separated them, while Deb explained to her husband what an +invaluable manager she had. Jim had grown homelier and shabbier with +his advancing years; Claud more and more exquisitely finished, until he +now stood, in his carefully-careless costume--his short, pointed beard +the same tone of silver-grey as his flannel suit, his finely-chiselled +features the hue of old ivory--a perfect model of patrician 'form'. +Only there was plenty of vigour still manifest in the bushman's bony +frame, while the man of the world wore a valetudinarian air, leaning on +the arm of his regal, upright wife. + +"Eh, isn't it like old times!" she mused aloud, as her eyes roamed +about the shed, where every sweating worker was finding time to gaze at +her. "I see some of the old faces--there's Harry Fox--and old David-- +and isn't that Keziah's grandson? I must go and speak to them." + +She left her husband at the sorter's table, that he and Jim might get +reacquainted--men never learned to know each other while women were in +the way--and it seemed to them both a long time before she came back. +Claud asked questions about the clip, and other matters of business; +and he criticised the manager's management. + +"Rather behind the times--isn't it?--for a place like Redford. I +thought all the big stations sheared by machinery now." + +"I've only been waiting for Miss--Mrs Dalzell's return to advise her +to have the machines," said Jim, scrupulous to give Deb's husband all +possible information. + +"We must have them, of course. I believe in scientific methods." + +Mr Dalzell did not ask Jim how his sisters were, and how his +brothers were getting on--did not remember that he had any. And when +Deb came back, to be gently but firmly ordered out of that dirty place +by her new lord and master, the latter failed to take, although he did +not fail to perceive, the hint of her eyes that Jim should be asked to +dinner. + +"No," said he, linking his arm in hers as they left the shed, "no +outsiders, Debbie. I want you all to myself now." + +And the words and tone were so sweet to her that she could not be sorry +for the possible hurt to Jim's feelings. She was young again today, +with her world-weary husband making love to her like this. That theory +of their having come together merely to keep each other warm on the +cold road to the grave was laughingly flung to the winds. She laid her +strong right hand on his, limp upon her arm, and expanded her deep +chest to the sunny morning air. + +"Oh, Claud! Oh, isn't it wonderful, after all these years! You remember +that night--that night in the garden? The seat is there still--we +will go and sit on it tonight--" + +"My dear, I dare not sit out after sunset, so subject as I am to +bronchitis." + +"No, no, of course not--I forgot your bronchitis. This is the time for +you to be out--and this air will soon make another man of you, dear. +Isn't it a heavenly climate? Isn't it divine, this sun? Look here, +Claud, we've got some capital horses--or we had; I'll ask Jim. What do +you say to a ride--a long, lovely bush ride, like the old rides we +used to have together?" + +Words cannot describe the pang that went through her when he +shook his head indifferently, and said he was too old for such violent +exercise now. + +"Stuff!" she cried angrily.-- + +"Besides, I haven't been on a horse for so long that I shouldn't know +how to sit him," he teased her lazily. "You wouldn't like to see me +tumble off at your hall door, before the servants, would you?" + +"Oh, Claud! And to think how you used to ride!" + +But of course she knew this was a joke, and laughed it off. + +"It's nothing but sheer indolence," said she, patting the hand on her +arm--that shapely ivory hand, with its polished filbert nails--"and I +see that my mission in life is to cure you of it. Come, we will make a +start with a real country walk." + +She began to drag him away from the bowered homestead, but he planted +his feet, and took his hand from her arm. + +"Not now, Debbie," he objected gently, but with that subtle note of +mastership that had struck so sharply into Jim's sensitiveness; "it is +mail-day, and the letters will be at the house by this time." + +"What do letters matter to us?" + +"That we can't tell until we see them." + +They went in out of the sunshine to their arm-chairs in the shade. The +English mail had arrived, and it was very interesting. Letters from +lords and ladies, piles of papers of fashionable intelligence, voices +from that world which one of the pair had already begun to hanker to be +back in, although not yet distinctly conscious of it. The bride fetched +her work-basket, and busied herself with a piece of useless embroidery, +while the bridegroom read aloud to her passages from the epistles of +his titled correspondents, and from the printed chronicles of +their doings here and there. She had dreamed of his reading again the +sort of things that he used to read, while she sewed and listened; but +in the life that he had lived and grown to there had been no room for +learning and the arts. He had dropped them, with his health and his +horsemanship, long ago. The coroneted letters and the MORNING POST +occupied them until luncheon. + +At luncheon, as at every other meal--despite the new husband's +expressed desire to have his wife to himself--his valet was present as +butler, watching over the dyspeptic's diet, and seeing that the wine +was right. Neither master nor man trusted anybody else to do this. It +was a large crumple in Deb's rose-leaf, Manton's limpet-like attachment +to Claud, who seemed unable to do anything without his servant's help, +and the latter's cool relegation of herself to the second place in the +MENAGE. It was all very well for HER to give her husband the premier +place--she did it gladly--but for Manton to take possession of +Redford as a mere appendage of his lord's was quite another matter. It +was still the honeymoon, and he might do as he liked--or rather, as +Claud liked; but it was not difficult to foresee the day when the valet +who dictated to her cook would become too much for the proud spirit of +the lady of the house, with whom it had ever been dangerous to make too +free--or to foretell what would happen then. + +Claud dozed through the afternoon--like most idle and luxurious men, +he drank a great deal of wine, which made him sleepy--and Deb took the +opportunity to go all through her house and put everything in order. +They met again at tea, and had a stroll about the garden, arm-in-arm +and happy. Dinner was a rather silent function. Deb wished for +Jim, and regretted her easy abandonment of him; Claud never talked when +he was eating--the business was too serious, and Manton was there. But +while her husband smoked over his coffee, serene and charming, she sat +alone with him, revelling in his wit and gaiety, telling herself that +he was indeed the splendid fellow she had always thought him. + +Then they went up to the big drawing-room--he was used to big rooms-- +and he flung himself at full length upon one of the downy couches, and +she put silk pillows under his head. + +While she was doing it, he pulled her down to him and kissed her. + +"It's nice, isn't it?" he murmured in her ear. + +For answer, she pressed her lips to his ivory brows and his dropped +eyelids. Her big heart was too full for speech. + +"Now I am going to play to you," she whispered, and went off to the old +piano, that the tuner had prepared for this sacred purpose. + +What years it was since she had cared to touch piano keys! And never +since the love-time of her youth had she played as she did now--all +the old things that he had ever cared for, with the old passion in +them. . . . + +And while she played--he slumbered peacefully. + + +* * * * * + + +Jim, when his day of hard work was over, went back to his manager's +house--all the home he knew--had a bath, put on clean clothes, ate +perfunctorily of roast mutton, and bread and jam, and sat down with his +pipe on the top step of his verandah, where he hugged his knees and +watched the stars come out. He was a confirmed old bachelor now, "set", +his sisters said, in his bachelor ways. None of them lived with +him, to keep his house and cheer him up. It was too dull for them (with +the mistress of Redford never there), and besides, he did not want +cheering; for himself, he preferred dullness. An old working +housekeeper "did" for him, cooking his simple meals--eggs and bacon +alternating with chops for breakfast, and mutton and bread and jam for +his tea-dinner, with a fowl for Sundays--keeping his few plain rooms +clean and his socks mended. A hundred or two a year must have covered +his household expenses; the hundreds remaining of his handsome income +went to shore up the weak-kneed of his kindred, who had the habit of +falling back on him when their funds ran out, or anything else went +wrong with them. + +He was a great reader. Books lined the walls of his otherwise meagrely +furnished rooms--they represented the one personal extravagance that +he indulged in--and newspapers and magazines came by every mail. In +these and in his thoughts he lived, when not intent upon the affairs of +the estate, which in the eyes of some appeared wholly to absorb him. +Tonight his thoughts sufficed. The latest parcel from Mullens' lay +untied, the new American periodicals with wrappers intact. Deb was home +again--that was enough food for the mind at present. + +But, oh, what a home-coming! His own and only "boss" no longer, as +heretofore, but subject to a husband who clearly meant to be his +master, and as clearly meant him to have no mistress any more. Neither +in the way of business nor in the way of sentiment could she be again +to him what she had been throughout his life--the altar of his +sacrifice, the goddess of his simple worship, his guide, his +goal. He must not hope, nor try, nor even long for her now. That one +last comfort was taken from him. + +Well!... + +He walked about, while the fiercest paroxysm racked him. As some of us +in our pain-torments rush to lotion or anodyne, he sought the soothing +of the starry night, the cool darkness that had so often brought him +peace. To get away from the faintly audible tinkling of the shearers' +banjo and their songs, he strolled in the opposite direction, and that +was towards the dark mass of the trees encircling her house--her home, +in which he had no part. Mechanically he noted a garden gate open--she +had left it so--open to the rabbits against which its section of the +miles of wire-netting fencing the grounds had been so carefully +provided, and he went forward to shut it. Being there, he had a distant +view of the big drawing-room windows, thrown up and letting out wide +streams of light across the lawn. And while he stood to gaze at them, +picturing what within he could not see, he heard the piano--Debbie +playing. + +And so she had an appreciative audience, although she did not know it. +Below her windows, out of the light, Jim--poor old Jim!--sat like a +statue, his head thrown back, his eyes uplifted, tears running down his +hairy, weather-beaten face. It was the most exquisitely miserable hour +of his life--or so he thought. He did not know what a highly favoured +mortal he really was, in that his beautiful love-story was never to be +spoiled by a happy ending. + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of Sisters, by Ada Cambridge + diff --git a/old/sster10.zip b/old/sster10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..26429cc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/sster10.zip |