CHAPTER XXXGOOD-BY
BEFORE breakfast next morning Jim Lascelles said good-by to the Goose Girl on the slopes of Gwydr. It was an overwhelming day for that slow-witted, but tenaciously affectionate, creature. Muffin was leaving also by the eleven-o’clock train.
The eyes of Miss Perry were heavy with the tears she had wept, and with the tears she had still to weep. Prior to this tragic morning Jim Lascelles had not spoken to her upon the subject of Lord Cheriton, but the ruthless Aunt Caroline had very unceremoniously imbued her with a sense of duty. All too soon the golden age had ended. Somehow she felt that she would never climb the mountains again.
In obedience to Aunt Caroline’s injunction she had told Muffin nothing of the tragedy. That practical-minded person and uncommonly sound sleeper had been awakened six times during the night by Goose’s low sobs and convulsive caresses. On each occasion she had given Goose a hug in return, and told her not to be silly, and had immediately gone to sleep again.
When daylight came and Muffin discovered her sister’s pink-and-white countenance to be puckeredwith distress, that acute intelligence at once sought the remedy.
“I will stay with Aunt Caroline,” said Muffin, “if she will have me, and you shall go back, Goose darling, to Slocum Magna to dearest papa. But if you do, you must promise to feed my rabbits, because Milly always forgets them. Now wipe your eyes, and don’t be a silly.”
Goose promised to feed the rabbits if she went back to Slocum Magna, but she felt sure that Aunt Caroline would not like her to.
Up till the departure of the eleven-o’clock train Araminta put forth great efforts to be brave; but she had had such little practice in the art, owing to having lived a life for the most part where little bravery was called for, that she did not wholly succeed. However, when she saw Jim Lascelles striding towards them over the mountains at a quarter past six, in response to his cheery, “Hallo, you there!” she contrived to greet him in something of the true Widdiford manner.
In the opinion of Jim Lascelles, the first thing necessary was to get rid of Muffin for an hour. And this was quite easy, for the devotion of that practical mind to the fauna and flora of the neighborhood often caused her to spend an hour in the investigation of a dozen square yards of the Welsh principality.
Upon this fateful morning less than a third of Gwydr had been ascended when a profusion of rare ferns and mosses claimed Muffin’s attention. JimLascelles walked forward briskly, with his hand firmly holding the docile sleeve of the Goose Girl.
“Come on,” said Jim, with an affection of gayety that was most honorable to him. “Let us leave that Ragamuffin. In she goes, over her ankles into the mud. Torn a great piece out of her skirt on a brier. By the way, Goose Girl, has Aunt Caroline said anything to you upon the subject of Lord Cheriton?”
Mournfully enough the Goose Girl confessed that Aunt Caroline had.
“Well, you must buck up, you know,” said Jim, cheerily. “You are going to be a countess, and the family of Wakefield—Slocum Magna, I mean—will come again into its own.”
Miss Perry’s only reply was to break forth into a succession of slow-drawn sobs, which were so heavy and majestic that Jim declared they shook the mountain.
“Here is a dry place,” said he. “Let us sit down before you do some damage to the scenery.”
They sat down together upon Gwydr, with the chill mists enfolding them. For twenty minutes the Goose Girl said nothing, but merely sobbed to herself slowly and softly with the daffodil-colored mane pressed against Jim’s shoulder. Such depth and power had the Goose Girl’s emotion that it really seemed to Jim Lascelles that, had her heart not been a particularly robust organ, it must have been broken in pieces.
“I am afraid,” said Jim, rather miserably, “Ihave been a bit of a cad for leading you on, you great silly Goose.”
Miss Perry flung her arms about Jim’s neck with such force and suddenness that she nearly toppled him backwards over a precipice.
“Jim,” she sobbed, “you m-must m-marry M-Muffin.”
As Jim was in the toils of a hug that almost forbade him to breathe, he was not able to reply immediately.
“That Ragamuffin!” said Jim, as soon as he was able to do so.
“She is such a s-sweet,” sobbed Miss Perry.
“You Goose!” said Jim. “Give me a kiss, you great Goose.”
Miss Perry proceeded to do so.
“That Ragamuffin doesn’t know about it, does she?”
“Oh no,” said Miss Perry. “Aunt Caroline said she was not to.”
“That is a wise old woman. Quite right for the Ragamuffin not to know about it. She is too young. Now dry those Eye Pieces, Goose Girl, and don’t be a silly. Old man Cheriton is a very nice, kind, fatherly old gentleman.”
“He is a dear,” said Miss Perry, with a loyalty that Jim was forced to admire.
“You are really a very lucky Goose, you know,” said Jim. “You will have a nice, kind old gentleman to take you to parties and to the circus. He will give Buszard a contract for the large size, see if hedoesn’t. And Dickie will get a living, see if he doesn’t; and Charley will go to Sandhurst. As for Papa, you will be able to buy him the Oxford dictionary; Polly is as good as married to her parson; Milly can go to a boarding school at Brighton; I am absolutely confident that the Ragamuffin will have a new mauve; and as for Tobias, he will be able to live in Grosvenor Square.”
“Do you think so, Jim?” said Miss Perry, tearfully.
Jim Lascelles really covered himself with honor that unhappy morning up on Gwydr. For it is due to him to say that Aunt Caroline had knocked the bottom out of his little world. He had been tumbled out of his fool’s paradise in such a ruthless fashion that he really did not know how he was going to get over the fall.
From his earliest youth he had had a sneaking fondness for the Goose Girl. He had bled for her, for one thing. And now that she had blossomed forth into this gorgeous being who had conquered the town, she had become so much a part of his fortunes that he found it impossible to dissociate them from her. The portrait he had painted of her had absorbed all he had had to give. It could never have been wrought unless something of her own magnificence had become part of him. Such a picture was composed of the living tissue of love. It was almost more than human flesh and blood could endure to be told in a few blunt words that the source of his inspiration must be a sealed fountain from that time forth.
However, he went through with his ordeal as well as in him lay. Great had been his folly that he had ever come to inhabit his paradise at all. And now that he was tumbled out of it, it behoved him to see that he made no cry over his bruises, if only because that other foolish simpleton was striving not to cry over hers.
The departure from the railway station at Dwygyfy was a seemly affair. The Castle omnibus, a contemporary of the Ark, brought Muffin in state. She was accompanied, of course, by Polly’s dress-basket, marked “M. P.” in white letters on a black ground; and was also accompanied by Miss Burden, Ponto, Lord Cheriton, and the dismal Goose. On the way they picked up Jim and his mother and their belongings, including the half-finished picture of The Naiad.
Muffin herself was in high feather. For the first time in her life she found herself a person of means and position. Aunt Caroline had marked her esteem for her character and conduct by presenting her with a bank-note for ten pounds. Muffin, with that practical sagacity which always distinguished her intercourse with the world, was at first very uncertain in what manner to convey this royal gift to Slocum Magna. Eventually she tore it in two pieces, placing half in each stocking.
The Goose Girl behaved with signal bravery upon the down platform at Dwygyfy. Jim wished at first that she had not come. But she contrived to restrain her feelings nobly, as of course was only to be expectedof a Wargrave, a family which had gone so often to the scaffold. In consequence, they were able to snatch a few brief, inexpressibly sad, yet tender moments before the train arrived from Talyfaln.
“You are a good and brave Goose,” whispered Jim, “and a lucky Goose too, you know. You must come sometimes to see us humble suburban people, and we will lay down a red carpet for you, and in every way we will do our best. Because, you know, you are going to be very grand.”
“I don’t want to be grand,” said the Goose Girl, with whom tears were still very imminent.
“I have a great idea,” said Jim. “Get old man Cheriton to buy the Red House at Widdiford, and then ask me and my old lady to come and stay with you for a fortnight. We will give them such a roasting at the Parsonage—especially that girl Polly—as they have not had lately.”
Somehow this scheme of Jim’s seemed to infuse a ray of hope in the forlorn heart of the Goose Girl.
“Jim,” said she in a thrilling voice, “perhaps Lord Cheriton might buy the Red House for you and Muffin.”
“Or perhaps pigs might fly,” said Jim.
“Youwillmarry Muffin, won’t you?P-r-romiseme, Jim, that you will.”
“What is the good, you Goose, of myp-r-romisingto marry the Ragamuffin? How do you suppose a poor painting chap, who lives with his old mother at Balham, can marry into a family with a real livecountess in it? What do you suppose that girl Polly would have to say upon the subject?”
This great idea, however, had insinuated itself into the Goose Girl’s slow-moving and tenacious mind, and of course it stuck there.
“Jim,” said she, just as the signal fell for the train from Talyfaln, and the solemn conviction of her tone was such that Jim hardly knew whether to laugh or to shed tears, yet hardly liking in public to adopt the latter course, decided in favor of the former; “Jim,” said she, “I am sure Muffin would love to marry you. And she is such a sweet. I shall write to dearest papa about it.”
Before Jim could make a fitting reply the train from Talyfaln came snorting and rattling in with a great display of unnecessary violence. Jim had to look after the luggage, while Lord Cheriton, with his accustomed gallantry, handed Jim’s mother, her red umbrella, and her French novel into a third-class compartment. Muffin personally supervised the installation of Polly’s dress-basket into the luggage van, and gave the porter twopence out of her chain purse.
“Get in, you Ragamuffin,” said Jim, sternly, “or else you will be left.”
Muffin gave her sister, who was forlornly witnessing these operations, a final hug and received one in return. She was then handed with considerable ceremony into the compartment which contained Mrs. Lascelles.
Jim gave sixpence to the porter, and then had a craving to kiss the Goose Girl, but did not quite knowhow to manage it, as the down platform at Dwygyfy is such a public place. Therefore he had to be content with squeezing her hand.
“Now remember,” was his parting injunction, “you are a very lucky Goose Girl indeed. And your papa and Polly and Milly and all of them are going to be awfully proud of you. And if you forget the Acacias at Balham, my old mother will never forgive you.”
As Jim came aboard Cheriton shook his hand with real warmth.
“Good-by, Lascelles,” said he. “I hope there will be some entertaining at Cheriton House one of these days. I hope I can count on you and your mother to stand by me. And when the masterpiece isquitefinished let me know and I will tell you what to do with it.”
The guard slammed the door and blew his whistle. As the train moved off the window of the third-class compartment was occupied by a wonderful yet substantial vision in mauve, waving affectionate farewells to a group of three persons and a small dog assembled on the platform. They all stood watching it, until the sunlight was cheated suddenly of the daffodil-colored mane gleaming from under the Slocum Magna cucumber basket by the jaws of the tunnel immediately outside Dwygyfy station, which is two miles and a quarter in length.