CHAPTER XXVIISCANDAL ABOUT MISS SUSAN
BeforeAurea had departed—and her departure was, as we know, in the nature of a flight—she had paid the necessary visit of ceremony to her Aunt Bella, who imagined herself to be busy making plum jam, but was really obstructing the operations and straining the forbearance of the new cook to a dangerous limit. The old lady trotted into the drawing-room with sticky outstretched fingers, and announced—
“Susan is out laying the croquet ground—the old bowling-green; you may go and find her.”
“If you don’t mind sending for her, Aunt Bella.”
“Oh, I know you like giving your orders! Then ring the bell. Well, and so you are off to-morrow?”
“Yes, father will come up later; he has a good deal of work in hand, and he wants to go over to Hillminster once or twice.”
“I know; I’m lending him my car on Friday.”
“Aunt Bella, I do wish you’d sell it!” said Aurea, speaking on an irrepressible impulse; “do get rid of it.”
“Rid of it! you silly, excitable girl, certainly not. I’m more likely to get rid of the chauffeur; he does not know his place, and he does other people’s jobs, too, in my time. He exercised Katie’s dogs, and attended the Hanns’ sick pony, and, when the carrier lost his horse, I believe he doctored it and probably killed it—and theysent round for subscriptions for another,Igave ten shillings—handsome, I call it!—and what do you think I saw in the list afterwards? ‘J. O., One Guinea.’ My own servant giving double—such unheard of impertinence! But Susan has spoiled him; I blameher. She talks to him as if he were an equal; I declare, if she were a girl, I’d be in a fine fright.”
Aurea maintained a pale silence.
“Yes; and Mrs. Riggs and others have remarked to me that they really thought it was dangerous to have such a good-looking young man about the place, thoughIdon’t think him good-looking—a conceited, dressed-up puppy. Oh, here’s Susan. Susan,”—raising her voice—“you see, Aurea sends foryounow!”
“And welcome! Now, my dear child, come along; I want to show you my—I mean—the new croquet ground; it’s going to be splendid! Won’t you come out and have a look at it?”
“No, thank you, Susan. It will be something to see when I come back. Let me get your hat, and we will stroll up together to the Rectory.”
“Oh, very well, my dear; but I’d like you to see the croquet lawn. Owen has made it. He really is worth half a dozen of Tom Hogben—and it’s as level as a billiard-table.”
But nothing would induce Aurea to change her mind.
Miss Susan accompanied her brother-in-law over to Hillminster, where he was due at a Diocesan meeting; it was thirty miles off, and he had suggested the train, but Miss Susan assured him, with eloquence, that “it was ten times better to motor, and to go through nice, out-of-the-way parts of the country, and see dear old villages and churches, instead of kicking your heelsin odd little waiting-rooms, trying to catch one’s cross-country slow coach, and catching a cold instead.” It happened that Mr. Morven had arranged to spend the night with friends in the Cathedral Close, but Susan Parrett was bound to be home before sunset; only on these conditions was she suffered to undertake this unusually long expedition with the precious car.
“Yes, Bella, I’ll be back without fail,” she declared; “though I’d like to stay for the three o’clock service in the Cathedral,” and she gazed at her tyrant appealingly.
“Not to be thought of,” was the inflexible reply; “you will be here at six.—Remember the motor must be washed and put away, and the evenings are already shortening.”
The run was made without any mishap, and accomplished under three hours. It happened to be market day in Hillminster, the main street was crowded with vehicles, and Miss Susan could not but admire the neat and ready manner in which their driver steered amongst carts, wagons, gigs, and carriages, with practised dexterity.
Presently they drove into the yard of the Rose Inn, and there alighted. Mr. Morven and his sister-in-law were lunching with the Dean in the Close, and Miss Susan notified to Owen, ere she left him, that she proposed to start at half-past two sharp, adding—
“For, if we are late, Miss Parrett is so nervous, you know.”
The drive home began propitiously; but after a while, and in the mean way so peculiar to motors, the car, when they were about ten miles out of Hillminster, and a long distance from any little village or even farmhouse, began to exhibit signs of fatigue. For sometime Wynyard coaxed and petted her; he got out of the machine several times and crawled underneath, and they staggered along for yet another mile, when there was a dead halt of over an hour. Here Miss Susan sat on the bank, talking with the fluency of a perennial fountain, and offering encouragement and advice.
Once more they set out, and, before they had gone far, met a boy on a bicycle, and asked him the way to the nearest forge?
With surprising volubility and civility, this boy told them to go ahead till they came to a certain finger-post, not to mind the finger-post, but to turn down a lane, and in a quarter of a mile they would come to the finest forge in the country! The misguided pair duly arrived at the finger-post, turned to the left as directed, and descended a steep lane—so narrow that the motor brushed the branches on either side, and Miss Susan wondered what would become of them if they met a cart? They crept on and on till they found themselves in some woods, with long grass drives or rides diverging on either side—undoubtedly they were now on the borders of some large property! The lane continued to get worse and worse—in fact, it became like the stony bed of a river, and the motor, which had long been crawling like some sick insect, finally collapsed, and, so to speak, gave up the ghost! The axle had broken; there it lay upon its side with an air of aggravating helplessness! and it was after six o’clock by Miss Susan’s watch!
“Now,” she inquired, with wide-open eyes, “what is to be done?”
“We must go and look for some farmhouse; I’m afraid you will have to pass the night there, Miss Susan, unless they can raise a trap of some sort!”
“Oh, but I’m bound to get home,” she protested, “if I have to walk the whole way. How far should you say we were from Ottinge?”
“Well, I’m not very sure—I don’t know this part of the country—but I should think about fifteen miles. You might manage to send a telegram to Miss Parrett,—in fact, I wouldn’t mind walking there myself, but of course I must stick by the car.”
“See!” she exclaimed, “there are chimneys in the hollow—red chimneys—among those trees.” And she was right.
As they descended the hill, in a cosy nook at the foot they discovered, hiding itself after the manner of old houses, an ancient dwelling with imposing chimney-stacks, and immense black out-buildings. Here Miss Susan volubly told her story to a respectable elderly woman, who, judging by her pail and hands, had evidently just been feeding the calves.
“I don’t know as how I can help you much,” she said; “this is Lord Lambourne’s property as you’ve got into somehow. Whatever brought you down off the high road, ma’am?”
“We were told to come this way by a boy on a bicycle. We asked him to direct us to a forge.”
“The young limb was just a-making game of you, he was! There ain’t a forge nearer than five miles, and my master took the horses in there this afternoon; he’s not back yet.”
“I suppose,” said Miss Susan, “that you have no way of sending me in to Ottinge—no cart or pony you could hire me?”
“I’m afraid not, ma’am. Where be Ottinge?”
Here was ignorance, or was it envy?
“Then I don’t know what I’m to do,” said MissSusan helplessly. “My sister will be terribly anxious, and I’m sure the motor won’t be fit to travel for quite a long time. What do you think, Owen?”
“I think that the motor is about done!” he answered, with emphatic decision. “To-morrow morning I must get a couple of horses somewhere, and cart her home. I wonder if this good woman could put you up for the night? This lady and I,” he explained, “went to Hillminster from Ottinge to-day, and were on our way home when the motor broke down; and I don’t think there’s any chance of our getting to Ottinge to-night.”
“Oh yes, I can put the two of you up,” she said, addressing Miss Susan, “both you and your son.”
Miss Susan became crimson.
“I am Miss Parrett of Ottinge,” she announced, with tremulous dignity; “that is to say, Miss Susan Parrett.”
“I’m sure I beg your pardon, Miss Parrett; I can find you a bed for the night. This is a rare big house—it were once a Manor—and we have several empty bedrooms—our family being large, and some of the boys out in the world. Mayhap you’d like something to eat?”
“I should—very much,” replied Miss Susan, whose face had cooled, “tea or milk or anything!”
At this moment a respectable-looking, elderly man rode up, leading another horse.
“Hullo, Hetty,” he said to his wife, “I see you ha’ company, and there’s a sort of motor thing all smashed up, a-lyin’ there in the Blue Gate Lane.”
“It’s my motor,” explained Miss Susan, “and we have walked down here just to see what you and your wife could do for us.”
“Our best, you may be sure, ma’am,” rejoined the farmer, and descended heavily from his horse, then led the pair towards the stables, where he was followed by Wynyard, who gave him a hand with them and borrowed their services for the morrow.
A meal was served in the very tidy little sitting-room, where Miss Susan found that places had been laid for Owen and herself; it was evident that the farmer’s wife considered him—if not her son—her equal! To this arrangement she assented, and, in spite of his apologies, Miss Susan and her chauffeur for once had supper together without any mutual embarrassment.
Afterwards, he went out to a neighbouring farm to see if he could hire a pony-trap for the following day, and although Miss Susan was painfully nervous about her sister, she was secretly delighted with a sense of freedom and adventure, and slept soundly in the middle of a high feather-bed—in a big four-poster—into which it was necessary to ascend by steps.
Owing to vexatious delays in securing a trap, driver, and harness, it was tea-time the next afternoon when Miss Susan drove sedately up to the hall door at the Manor.
Miss Parrett was prostrate, and in the hands of the doctor! The telegram, dispatched at an early hour from the nearest office to Moppington, was—on a principle that occasionally prevails in out-of-the-way places—delivered hours after Miss Susan had set the minds of her little world at rest! There had been an exciting rumour in the village—emanating from the Drum—that “Miss Susan had eloped with the good-looking shover,” at any rate no one could deny that they had gone to Hillminster the day before, had probably been married at the registry office, and subsequently fled!The Drum was crowded with impassioned talkers, Mrs. Hogben was besieged, and the whole of Ottinge was pervaded by a general air of pleasurable anticipation. One fact was certain, that, up till three o’clock of this, the following afternoon, neither of the runaways had returned! However, just as it had gone four, here was Miss Susan—bringing to some a distinct feeling of disappointment—seated erect in a little basket carriage, drawn by an immense cart-horse, driven at a foot pace by a boy; and a couple of hours later she was followed by the motor, this time on a lorry, and, undoubtedly, also, on what is called “its last legs.”
When everything had been exhaustively explained to Miss Parrett, she, having solemnly inspected the remains of her beautiful green car and heard what its repairs were likely to cost, heard also the price which she would be offered for it—fifteen pounds—broke into a furious passion and declared, with much vehemence and in her shrillest pipe, that never, never more would she again own a motor!
And, since the motor had ceased to be required, there was no further use for a chauffeur, and once more Owen Wynyard was looking for a situation.