CHAPTER VIII.
Itwas not at all a bad thing to do, Florence thought, as she sat and considered the arrangement Mr. Fisher had so suddenly made in regard to the house in town and the cottage at Witley. The country would do the children good, and Aunt Anne would probably enjoy it. Of course the latter would consent to go with them. Indeed, she had clearly no other resource. Florence wondered if she would like it.
But Mrs. Baines was so full of news herself when she returned that she had no time to listen to any one else.
“My love,” she said, “I have passed a most important day.”
“Relate your adventures, Aunt Anne.” But at this request Mrs. Baines winked and spoke slowly.
“I had an engagement in the morning,” she began, and hesitated. “When I had fulfilled it,” she went on, “I thought it right, Florence, to go and call on Sir William Rammage. He has been ill, and I wanted to assure him of my sympathy. Besides, I felt that it was due to you—that it was an imperative duty on my part to ask him for an allowance, and that it was his duty to give it to me.”
“But, Aunt Anne——”
“Yes, my love. I am living now on your generous kindness; don’t think that I am insensible to it. But for your tenderness, my darling, I should have been alone in a little lodging now, as I was when—when I was first left a widow.”
“I should not like to think of you in a little lodging, Aunt Anne,” Florence said gently; and then she added gaily, “but continue your adventures.”
Mrs. Baines gave a long sigh, and was silent for a moment. She sat down on the easy-chair and, as if she had not heard Florence’s interruption, went on with a strange tragic note in her voice—
“I never told you about that time, Florence. I had three pounds in the world when I came to London; just three pounds to maintain my position until I could find something to do. I had a little room at Kilburn—a little room at the top of the house; and I used to sit day after day, week after week, waiting. I had no coals, only a little spirit-lamp by which I made some water hot, then poured it into a jug and covered it over and warmed my hands by it; it was often an hour before it grew cold, my love.”
“But why did you not come to us?”
“I couldn’t,” the old lady answered in an obstinate tone. “I felt that it would not be treating you properly to present myself before you while I was so poor and miserable”—she paused and looked into the fire for a moment, then suddenly went on: “The woman at the corner where I went every morning to buy a newspaper, saw that I was poor, and presumed upon it. Once she said I looked nipped up, and asked me to sit down and get warm. I reproved her for familiarity, and never went to the shop again.”
“But perhaps she meant it for kindness?”
“She should have remembered her position, my love, and asked me in a different manner. There is nothing more painful to bear than the remembrance of one’s own rank in life when one has to encounter the hardships that belong by right to a lower class.” Aunt Anne paused again for a moment, and gave a long sigh before she went on: “We won’t go over it, my dear. If Mrs. North had shown less levity in her conduct and more consideration to me, I should have been there still instead of living on your charity.”
“Oh no, Aunt Anne.”
“Yes, my love, it is so; even though you love me and I love you, it is charity; and I felt it keenly when you resented my little offering of cream this morning—you, to whom I would give everything I possess.”
“Oh no, Aunt Anne——” interrupted Florence.
“And so—and so,” continued the old lady with a little gasp, “I went to Sir William Rammage once more. I told him—I told him”—she stopped—“I told him how our mothers had stood over us together, years and years ago.”
“Yes, I know,” Florence said soothingly. She had heard this so often before. “I hope he was good to you?”
“My dear, he listened with compunction, but he saw the force of what I said. He will write and tell me how much he will allow me,” she added simply.
“I am very glad, Aunt Anne; I hope he will write soon, and be generous. I know it will make you happier.”
“It will, indeed,” and Mrs. Baines gave another long sigh. “I shall not be dependent on any one much longer.”
“Except upon him,” Florence said unwittingly.
“No, I shall not feel that I am dependent even upon him,” and she looked up quickly. “He will give it and I shall take it for the honour of the family. I told him how impossible it was that I could go on living upon you and Walter, that it would be a disgrace. I could not live upon him either. He has shown me so little sympathy, my love, that I could not endure it. I shall take the allowance from him as I should take an inheritance, knowing that it is not given to me for my own sake. I could not take it in any other spirit; but it would be as wrong in him to forget what is due to us, as it would be in me to let him do so. It would shed dishonour on his name.”
And again she was silent; she seemed to be living over the past, to be groping her way back among days that were over before Florence was even born, to be seeing people whose very names had not been heard for years.
“They would rise in their graves if I were left to starve,” she continued; “I have always felt it; and it was but right towards them that I should go to William; it was due to them even that I should live on you and Walter, my darling, till I received an adequate income.”
Suddenly her voice changed again, the wonderful smile came back—the happy look that always seemed as if it had travelled from the youth she had left long years behind.
“You understand, my love?” she asked. “Bless you for all your kindness, but I am not going to intrude upon you much longer. I have already seen an apartment that will, I think, suit my requirements.”
“Oh no.”
“Yes, my love, it will be much better. You cut me to the quick this morning, Florence,” and her voice grew sad; “you said that you would have to send away your dear children because my influence would spoil them.”
“Aunt Anne!”—Florence began in consternation.
“Yes, dear, yes,” the old lady said solemnly; “it gave me the deepest pain, as I sat and thought it over in the privacy of my own chamber. But when I came downstairs and you shared your dear mother’s gift with me, I knew that you loved me sincerely.”
“I do,” said Florence, soothingly.
“I am sure of it, my darling,” with even more solemnity, “but it will be better that I should take an apartment. It will rejoice your tender heart to know that by your gift you have helped me to secure one, and when I receive my allowance from Sir William I shall feel that I am independent once more. You must forgive me, my love; it is not that I do not appreciate your hospitality—yours and Walter’s—I do. But I feel that it would sadden all my dear ones who are gone, if they knew that I was alone in the world, without a home of my own. That is why I went to Sir William Rammage, Florence; and though he said little, I feel sure that he saw the matter in a proper light, and felt as I do about it.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he would think it over, and when he had made up his mind he would write to me. My love, would you permit me to ring the bell?”
“Yes, of course. Why do you always ask me? Don’t you feel at home here, dear Aunt Anne?” Florence asked, thinking that Sir William’s answer had, after all, committed him to little.
“I hope I shall never so far forget myself as not to treat you with the courtesy that you have a right to expect, my darling. I will never take advantage of our relationship.—Jane,” she said, with quite another manner, and in a cold and slightly haughty tone, to the servant who had entered, “would you have the goodness to divest me of my cloak? and if your mistress gives you permission, perhaps you would carry it up to my room?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Jane, respectfully, but without much willingness in her manner. The servants had learnt to resent the tone in which Mrs. Baines usually spoke to them. “She treats us like dirt,” the housemaid explained to the cook; “and if were made of dirt, I should like to know what she’s made of? She give me a shilling the other day, and another time a new apron done up in a box from the draper’s; but I don’t care about her for all her presents. I know she always sees every speck of dust that others would be blind to; it’s in her wink that she does.”
“And now that you have told me all your news, I want you to listen to mine,” Florence said.
Then she gave an account of Mr. Fisher’s visit, and of the letting of the house for a couple of months.
“So, Aunt Anne,” she continued triumphantly, “I want you to be very, very good, and to go with the children and two of the servants to the cottage at Witley to-morrow, and to be the mistress of the great establishment, if you will, and mother to the children till I come; that proves how bad I think your influence is for them, doesn’t it, you unkind old dear?”—and she stooped and kissed Mrs. Baines.
Aunt Anne was delighted, and consented at once.
“I shall never forget your putting this confidence in me. You have proved your affection for me most truly,” she said. “My dear Florence, your children shall have the most loving care that it is in my power to give them. I will look after everything till you come; more zealously than you yourself could. Tell me, love, where do you say the cottage is situated?”
“It is near Witley, it is on the direct Portsmouth road; a sweet little cottage with a garden, and fir woods stretching on either side.”
“And how far is it from Portsmouth, my love?” Mrs. Baines asked eagerly.
Florence divined the meaning of the question instantly.
“Oh, I don’t know, Aunt Anne; after Witley comes Hindhead, and then Liphook, and then Petersfield, and then—then I don’t know. Liphook is the place where Mr. Wimple”—the old lady winked to herself—“has friends, and sometimes goes to stay.”
“And how far is that?”
“About six miles, I think—six or seven.”
“Thank you, my love; and now, if you will allow me, I will retire. I must make preparations for my journey, which is indeed a delightful anticipation.”
Florence never forgot the October morning on which she took Aunt Anne and the children to Witley. They went from Waterloo. She thought of Walter and the day they had spent at Windsor, and of that last one on which they had gone together to Southampton, and she had returned alone. “Oh, my darling,” she said to herself, “may you grow well and strong, and come back to us soon again.”
Mrs. Baines, too, seemed full of memories. She looked up and down the platform; she stood for a moment dreamily by the bookstall before it occurred to her to buy a cheap illustrated paper to amuse Catty and Monty on the journey.
“My love,” she said to Florence, with a little sigh, “a railway station is fraught with many recollections of meeting and parting——”
“And meeting again,” said Florence, longingly thinking of Walter.
“Yes, my love,” the old lady answered tenderly; “and may yours with your dear one be soon.”
There were three miles to drive from Witley to the cottage. A long white road, with fir woods on either side. Gaps in the firs, and glimpses of the Surrey hills, distant and blue, of hanging woods and deep valleys. The firs came to an end; and there were cliffs of gravel full of the holes of sand-martins. More woods, then hedges of blackberry-bushes, bare enough now; gorse full of late bloom, heather faded and turning from russet to black. Here and there a solitary house, masses of oak and larch and fir, patches of sunshine, long wastes of shade; and the road going on and on.
“Here we are at last,” Florence said, as they stopped before a red-brick cottage that stood only a few yards back from the road. On either side of it was a fir plantation. There was a gravel pathway round the house, but the other paths were covered with tan. Behind stretched a wilderness of garden almost entirely uncultivated. There was a little footway that wound through it in and out among beeches and larches and firs and oaks, and stopped at last on the ridge of a dip that could hardly be called a valley.
“Sometimes,” said Florence, as they walked about, half an hour later, while the servants were busy within, “we go down the dip and up the other side, and so get over to Hindhead. It is nearer than going there by the road.”
“Our house is over there,” the children said.
“Their house,” explained Florence, “is a little, lonely, thatched shed, half a mile away. We don’t know who made it. It is in a lovely part on the other side of the dip, among the straggling trees. Perhaps some one tethered a cow in it once. The children call it their house now, because one day they had tea there. After I return next week we must try and walk across to it.”
But the old lady’s eyes were turned towards the distance.
“And the road in front of the house,” she asked, “where does that go to?”
“It winds round the Devil’s Punch Bowl, and over Hindhead, and on through Liphook and Petersfield to Portsmouth.”
Aunt Anne did not answer, she looked still more intently into the distance, and gave a long sigh.
“It is most exhilarating to be out of London again, my dear Florence,” she said. “I sincerely trust it will prove beneficial to your dear ones. I was born in the country, and I hope that some day I shall die in it. London is most oppressive after a time.”
“I like London,” Florence answered; “still it does now and then feel like a prison.”
“And the rows and rows of houses are the prison bars, my love. May we enter the cottage?” she asked suddenly. She was evidently tired; she stooped, and looked older and more worn than usual.
“Poor old dear,” Florence thought. “I hope she is not worrying about Madame Celestine’s bill, and that she will soon hear from Sir William Rammage. Then she will be happier.”
It was a little house, simple inside as well as out, with tiny rooms, plainly furnished. The dining-room had been newly done up, with cretonne curtains and a dado, and a buttery-hatch in which Florence took a certain pride as something rather grand for so small a place. The drawing-room was old-fashioned; a stiff roomy sofa with hard flat cushions at one end; at the other a sweet jangling piano. There were corner cupboards with china bowls of pot-pourri on them; on either side of the fireplace a gaunt, high-backed easy-chair, and on the left of each chair an old-fashioned screen on which was worked a peacock. Aunt Anne stopped on the threshold.
It seemed to Florence as if the room recognized the old lady, as if it had been waiting, knowing that she would come. There was something about it that said more plainly than any words could have said that the hands were still that had first arranged it, and many footsteps had gone out from its doorway that would never come in at it more.
“It always depresses me,” Florence explained; “but it is just as we found it. We refurnished the dining-room, and sit there a good deal. It is more cheerful than this. Come upstairs”—and she led the way.
The bedrooms were all small too, save one in front, that seemed to match the drawing-room. It looked like a room to die in: Florence thought so, as she entered it for the first time with Aunt Anne. A quaint four-post bedstead with dark chintz curtains, a worm-eaten bureau, a sampler worked in Berlin wool and framed in black cherry-wood hanging over the fireplace.
“This is the best room,” she said, “and we keep it for visitors. There is a little one, meant to be a dressing-room, I suppose, leading out of it,” and she went to a bright little nook with a bed in it. “I always feel that the best bedroom and the drawing-room belong to a past world, and the rest of the house to the present one.”
“It is like your life and mine, my darling; mine to the past and yours to the present.”
“I think you ought to sleep in the best room, Aunt Anne.”
“No, my love,” the old lady interrupted, “let me have this little one which is next it. When you require the other, if I am still with you, I can lock the door between. The best one is too grand for me; but sometimes while it is empty I will go in, if you have no objection, and look out at the fir trees and the road that stretches right and left——”
“I like doing that,” Florence interrupted. “It always sets me thinking—the road from the city to the sea.”
“From the city to the sea,” the old lady repeated; “from the voices to the silences.”
“Aunt Anne, we mustn’t grow sentimental,” Florence began. There was the sound of a tinkling bell. It seemed to come at an opportune moment. “Oh, happy sound,” she laughed; “it means that our meal is ready. Catty, darling,” she called, “Monty, my son, roast chicken is waiting downstairs. Auntie and mummy are quite ready; come, dear babes”—and patter, patter, came the sound of the little feet, and together they all went down.
An hour later the fly came to the door; it was time for Florence to start on her way back to town.
“I shall be with you at latest on Tuesday. Perhaps, dear Aunt Anne, if you don’t mind taking care of the bad children so long, I may go on Saturday for a day or two to an old schoolfellow,” she said. “Then I should not be here till the middle of next week.”
“Dear child, you do indeed put confidence in me,” Mrs. Baines answered quaintly.
“And, Aunt Anne, I have ordered most things in, but the tradespeople come every day if there is anything more you want. What you order is, of course, put down, but here is some money for odds and ends. Four pounds, I think, will carry you through; and here is a little book in which to put down your expenses. I always keep a most careful account of what I spend; you don’t mind doing so either, do you?”
“My love, anything you wish will be a pleasure to me.”
“If you please, ma’am,” said Jane, entering, “the driver says you must start at once if you want to catch this train.”
“Then good-bye, dear Aunt Anne; good-bye, dear dickie-birds; be happy together. You shall see me very soon again; send me a letter every other day;” and with many embraces Florence was allowed to get out of the door. But Aunt Anne and the children ran excitedly after her to the gate, and helped her into the little waggonette, and kissed their hands and waved their handkerchiefs as she drove off, and called “Good-bye, good-bye;” and so, watching them, Florence went along the white road towards the station.
butterfly
sea coast scene with lighthouse
CHAPTER IX.
Thedays that followed were busy ones for Florence—busy in a domestic sense, so that the history of them does not concern us here. Mr. Fisher called one afternoon; by a strange coincidence it was while Ethel Dunlop was helping Florence with an inventory of china. Miss Dunlop readily promised to visit his mother, but she did not show any particular interest in the editor.
“He has been so kind,” Florence said, “and don’t you think he is very agreeable?”
“Oh yes; but you know, Florrie dear, he has a very square jaw.”
“Well?”
“It is a good thing he never married again; he would have been very obstinate.”
“But why do you say never did?—as if he never would. He is only forty-odd.”
“Only forty-odd!” laughed Ethel—“only a million. If a man is over eight-and-twenty he might as well be over eighty; it is mere modesty that he is not.”
“Walter is over thirty, and just as fascinating as ever.”
Florence was rather indignant.
“Ah, yes, but he is married, and married men take such a long time to grow old. By the way, Mr. Fisher said something about a theatre-party, when his mother is here. Do you think I might ask him to invite George Dighton as well? George is very fond of theatres.”
Before Florence could reply, a carriage stopped at the door; it looked familiar, it reminded her of Aunt Anne in her triumphant days. But a strange lady descended from it now, and was shown upstairs to the drawing-room, in which Aunt Anne had sat and related her woes and known her triumphs.
“Mrs. North, ma’am,” said the servant; and then Florence understood.
She left Ethel in the dining-room with the inventory, and went up to receive the visitor. Mrs. North was as pretty as Aunt Anne had declared her to be; a mere girl to look at, tall and slim. Florence thought it was quite natural that her husband should like her to have a chaperon.
“I came to see Mrs. Baines,” she said, coming forward in a shy, hesitating manner, “but hearing that she was in the country I ventured to ask for you. What have you done with the dear old lady?” and she laughed nervously. Florence looked at her, fascinated by her beauty; by her clothes, that seemed to be a mixture of fur and lace and perfume, by the soft brown hair that curled low on her forehead, by the sweet blue eyes—by every bit of her. “She told you, probably, that she was very angry when she left me; I know it has all been very dreadful in her eyes; but she was always kind to me, and I thought by this time that she would, perhaps, forgive me and make it up; so I came.” She said it with a penitent air.
“I am afraid she is very angry,” Florence answered, laughing, for the pretty woman before her did not seem like a stranger. “Do you want her again?”
“Oh no!” and Mrs. North shook her head emphatically. “She would not come, I know; besides, it would be impossible: she led us a terrible life. But we loved her, and wanted just to make it up with her again. I think we could have put up with anything if she had not quarrelled with the servants.”
“I was afraid it was that,” Florence answered.
“Oh yes!” sighed Mrs. North; “she was horribly autocratic with them—‘autocratic’ is her own word. At last she quarrelled with Hetty, and wanted me to send her away—to send away Hetty, who is a born treasure, and cooks like an angel. It would have broken our hearts—a woman who sends up a dinner like a charm; we couldn’t let her go, it was impossible, and the old lady fled.”
“I am very sorry. You were so kind to her; she always said that.”
“I loved her,” Mrs. North answered, with a little sigh. “She was so like my dear dead mother grown old—that was the secret of her attraction for us; but she ruled us with a rod of iron that grew more and more unyielding every day. And yet she was very kind. She was always giving us presents.”
“Oh yes,” Florence said, in a despairing voice.
“We have had the bills for them since,” Mrs. North went on, with a comical air. “She used to say that I was very frivolous,” she added suddenly. “She thought it wicked of me to enjoy life while my husband was away. But he is old, Mrs. Hibbert; one may have an affection for an old husband, but one can’t be in love with him.”
“If she were very nice she would not have made that remark to me, whom she never saw before,” Florence thought, beginning to dislike her a little.
“Of course I am sorry he is away,” Mrs. North said, as if she perfectly understood the impression she was making; “he is coming back now. He has telegraphed suddenly.” There was something like fright in her voice as she said it. “I did not expect him; but he is coming almost directly. I suppose I ought to be very glad,” she added, with a ghostly smile. “I am, of course; but I am surprised at his sudden return. I took Mrs. Baines because he wished me to have an old lady about me; but I wanted my own way. I liked her to have hers when it amused me to see her have it, when it didn’t I wanted to have mine.” Mrs. North’s whole expression had altered again, and she looked up with two blue eyes that fascinated and repelled, and laughed a merry, uncontrolled laugh like a child’s. “Oh, she was very droll.”
“Perhaps it is very rude of me to say it,” Florence said primly, for deep in her heart there was a great deal of primness, “but I can understand Mr. North wishing you to have a chaperon; you are very young to be left alone.”
“Oh yes, and very careless, I know that. And Mrs. Baines used to provoke me into shocking her. I could shock her so easily, and did—don’t you know how one loves power for good or ill over a human being?”
“No, I don’t,” Florence answered, a little stiffly.
“I do; I love it best of all things in the world, whether it leads me uphill or downhill. But I am intruding,” for she saw a set cold look coming over Florence’s face. “Let me tell you why I asked for you. I have been so embarrassed about Mrs. Baines. She gave us presents, and she bought all sorts of things: but she didn’t pay for them. These bills came, and the people wanted their money.” She pulled a little roll out of her pocket. “She probably forgot them, and I thought it would be better to pay them, especially as I owed her some money when she left which she would not take;” and she laughed out again, but there was the odd sound like fright in her voice. “They are from florists and all sorts of people.”
Florence looked over the bills quickly and almost guiltily. There were the pots of fern and the flowers that had been sent to her and the children after Aunt Anne’s first visit; and there were the roses with which she had triumphantly entered on the night of the dinner-party. “Oh, poor old lady!” she exclaimed sadly.
“They are paid,” Mrs. North said. “Don’t be distressed about them and many others—lace-handkerchiefs, shoes, all sorts of things. Don’t tell her. She would think I had taken a liberty or committed a solecism,” and she made a little wry face. “But what I really wanted to see you about, Mrs. Hibbert, was Madame Celestine’s bill. I am afraid I can’t manage that all by myself; it is too long. Madame Celestine, of course, is sweetly miserable, for she thinks the old lady has vanished into space. She came to me yesterday. It seems that she went to you a few days ago, but you were out, and she was glad of it when she discovered that Mrs. Baines was your aunt, for she doesn’t want to offend you. She came to me again to-day. She is very miserable. I believe it will turn her hair grey. Oh, it is too funny.”
“I don’t think it is at all funny.”
“But indeed it is, for I don’t believe Mrs. Baines will ever be able to pay the fifteen pounds; in fact, we know that she won’t. Probably it is worrying her a good deal. I have been wondering whether something could not be done; if you and I, for instance, were to arrange it between us.”
“You are very good, Mrs. North,” Florence said, against her will.
“Oh no, but I am sorry for her, and it vexes and worries me to think that she is annoyed. I want to get rid of that vexation, and will pay something to do so. That is what most generosity comes to,” Mrs. North went on, with mock cynicism, “the purchase of a pleasant feeling for one’s self, or the getting rid of an unpleasant one. There is little really unselfish goodness in the world, and when one meets it, as a rule, it isn’t charming, it isn’t fascinating; one feels that one would rather be without it.” She rose as she spoke. “Well,” she asked, “what shall we do? I’ll pay one half of the old lady’s bill if you will pay the other half.”
“You are very good,” Florence repeated, wonderingly.
“No; but I expect you are,” and Mrs. North showed two rows of little white teeth. “I should think you are a model of virtue,” she added, with an almost childlike air of frankness, which made it impossible to take offence at her words, though Florence felt that at best she was only regarded as the possessor of a quality that just before her visitor had denounced.
“Why,” she asked, smiling against her will, “do I look like a model of virtue?”
“Oh yes, you are almost Madonna-like,” Mrs. North said, with a sigh. “I wish I were like you, only—only I think I should get very tired of myself. I get tired now; till a reaction comes. But a reaction to the purely good must be tame at best.”
“You are very clever,” Florence said, almost without knowing it, and shrinking from her again.
“How do you know? My husband says I am clever, but I don’t think I am. I am alive. So many people are merely in the preface to being alive, and never get any farther. I am well in the middle of the book; and I am eager, so eager, that sometimes I long to eat up the whole world in order to know the taste of everything. Do you understand that?”
“No. I am content with my slice.”
“Ah, that is it. I am not content with mine. You have your husband and children.”
“But you have a husband.”
“Yes, I have a husband too; a funny old husband, a long way off, who is rapidly—too rapidly, I fear—coming nearer”—Florence hated her—“and no children. I amused myself with the old lady—Mrs. Baines—till she fled from me. Now I try other things. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” Florence said.
As Mrs. North was going out of the door she turned and asked, “Have you many friends—women friends?”
“Yes, a great many, thank you,” Mrs. Hibbert said, with a little haughty inclination of the head. The haughtiness seemed to amuse Mrs. North, for the merry look came over her face again, but only for a moment.
“I thought you had,” she answered. “I have none; I don’t want them. Good-bye.”
It was nearly dark, and the one servant left to help Florence get the house ready had neglected to light the lamp on the staircase. Mrs. North groped her way down.
“I want to tell you something,” she said. “You said just now that I was clever. I don’t think I am, but I can divine people’s thoughts pretty easily. You are very good, I think; but consider this, your goodness is of no use if you are not good to others; good to women especially. The good of goodness is that you can wrap others inside it. It ought to be like a big cloak that you have on a cold night, while the shivering person next to you has none. If you don’t make use of your goodness,” she went on with a catch in her breath, “what is the good of it?—I seem to be talking paradoxes—you prove how beautiful it is, perhaps, but that is all; you make it like the swan that sings its own death-song. One listens and watches, and goes away to think of things more comprehensible, and to do them. Good-bye, Mrs. Hibbert,” she said gently, and almost as if she were afraid she held out her hand. Florence took it, a little wonder-struck. “You are like a Madonna, very like one, as I said just now; but though you are older than I am, I think I know more about some things than you do—good and bad. Madonnas never know the world very well. Give my love to the old lady, and say I hope she has forgiven me. I am going to Monte Carlo the day after to-morrow, only for three days, to brace myself up for my husband’s return; tell her that too. It will shock her. Say that I should like to have taken her,” and with a last little laugh she went out—into the darkness, it seemed to Florence.
But the next minute there were two flashing lamps before the house; there was the banging of a door, and Mrs. North was driven away.
Florence went slowly back to the dining-room and the inventory. Ethel Dunlop had gone. She was glad of it, for she wanted to think over her strange visitor.
“I don’t understand her,” she said to herself. “She is unlike any one I ever met; she fascinated and repelled me. I felt as if I wanted to kiss her, and yet the touch of her hand made me shiver.” Then she thought of Madame Celestine’s bill, and of Aunt Anne, and wished that the dress had not been bought, especially for the dinner-party; it made her feel as if she had been the unwitting cause of Mrs. Baines’s extravagance. She looked into the fire, and remembered the events of that wonderful evening, and thought of Walter away, and the bills at home that would have to be paid at Christmas. And she thought of her winter cloak that was three years old and shabby, and of the things she had longed to buy for the children. Above all she thought of the visions she had had of saving little by little, and putting her savings away in a very safe place, until she had a cosy sum with which some day to give Walter a pleasant surprise, and suggest that they should go off together for “a little spree,” as he would call it, to Paris or Switzerland. The fire burnt low, the red coals grew dull, the light from the street lamp outside seemed to come searching into the room as though it were looking for some one who was not there. She thought of Walter’s letter safe in her pocket. He himself was probably at Malta by this time—getting stronger and stronger in the sunshine. Dear Walter, how generous he was; he too was a little bit reckless sometimes. She wondered if he inherited this last quality from Aunt Anne. She thought of her children at Witley having tea, most likely with cakes and jam in abundance; and of Aunt Anne in her glory. She wondered if Mr. Wimple had turned up. “Poor Aunt Anne,” she sighed, and there was a long bill in her mind. Presently she rose, lighted a candle, drew down the blind—shutting out the glare from the street lamp—and going slowly to the writing-table in the corner, unlocked it, opened a little secret drawer, and looked in. There were three five-pound notes there—the remainder of her mother’s gift. “I wonder if Mrs. North had Madame Celestine’s bill,” she thought. “But it doesn’t matter; she said it was fifteen pounds. I can send her the amount.”
A couple of hours later, while she was in the very act of putting a cheque into an envelope, a note arrived. It had been left by hand; it was scented with violets, and ran thus:—
“Dear Mrs. Hibbert,“I have ventured to pay Madame Celestine. I determined to do so while I was with you just now; but was afraid to tell you, that was why I changed the conversation so abruptly. Please don’t let the old lady know that it is my doing, for she might be angry; but she was very good to me, and I am glad to do this for her. Forgive all the strange things I said this afternoon, and don’t trouble to acknowledge this.“Yours sincerely,“E. North.“P.S.—I enclose receipt.”
“Dear Mrs. Hibbert,
“I have ventured to pay Madame Celestine. I determined to do so while I was with you just now; but was afraid to tell you, that was why I changed the conversation so abruptly. Please don’t let the old lady know that it is my doing, for she might be angry; but she was very good to me, and I am glad to do this for her. Forgive all the strange things I said this afternoon, and don’t trouble to acknowledge this.
“Yours sincerely,
“E. North.
“P.S.—I enclose receipt.”
goathead within an emblem
CHAPTER X.
Itwas not till Tuesday afternoon in the week following that Florence went back to Witley.
Mrs. Burnett was at the station, sitting in a little governess-cart drawn by a donkey.
“I am waiting for my husband,” she explained; “he generally comes by this train, and I drive him home, donkey permitting. It is a dear little donkey, and we are so fond of him.”
“A dear little cart too,” Florence answered as she stood by its side, talking. “I have been hoping that you would come and see me, Mrs. Burnett; we are going to be here for six or seven weeks.”
“I know, Mr. Fisher told me,” Mrs. Burnett replied in her sweet and rather intense voice, “and we are so sorry that your visit takes place just while we are away. I am going to Devonshire to-morrow morning to stay with my mother while my husband goes to Scotland. I am so-o sorry,”—she had a way of drawing out her words as if to give them emphasis. Florence liked to look at Mrs. Burnett’s eyes while she spoke, they always seemed to attest that every word she said expressed the absolute meaning and intention in her mind. Her listeners gained a sense of restfulness which comes from being in the presence of a real person from whom they might take bitter or sweet, certain of its reality. “I hoped from Mr. Fisher’s note that you had arrived before, and ventured to call on Saturday.”
“Did you see Mrs. Baines?”
“Only for a moment. What a charming old lady—such old-fashioned courtesy; it was like being sent back fifty years to listen to her. She wanted me to stay, but I refused, for she was just setting off for a drive with your children and her nephew.”
“Setting off for a drive?” Florence repeated.
“Yes, she had Steggall’s waggonette from the Blue Lion, and was going to Guildford shopping. She said she meant to buy some surprises for you.”
“Oh,” said Florence meekly, and her heart sank. “Did you say that she had a nephew with her?”
“Well, I supposed it was a nephew, unless she has a son—a tall fair young man, who looks delicate, and walks as if his legs were not very strong.”
“Oh yes, I know,” Florence answered, as she signed to the fly she had engaged to come nearer to the donkey-cart, so that she might not waste a minute. “He is a friend; he is no relation. Good-bye, Mrs. Burnett; I am sorry you are going away. I suppose you are waiting for the fast train, as Mr. Burnett did not come by the last one?”
“Yes, it is due in twenty minutes. Good-bye; so sorry not to have been at home during your visit. Oh, Mrs. Hibbert, do you think your children would like to have the use of this cart while we are away? The donkey is so gentle and so good.”
“It is too kind of you to think of it,” Florence began, beaming; for she thought of how Catty and Monty would shout for joy at having a donkey-cart to potter about in. And in her secret soul, though she felt it would not do to betray it, she was nearly as much pleased as they would be: she often had an inward struggle for the dignity with which she felt her matronly position should be supported.
“It will be such a pleasure to lend it them. It’s a dear little donkey, so good and gentle. It doesn’t go well,” Mrs. Burnett added, in an apologetic tone; “but it’s a dear little donkey, and does everything else well.” And over this remark Florence pondered much as she drove away.
When she came in sight of the cottage she wondered if she had been absent more than half an hour, or at all. She had left it in the afternoon more than a week ago, and the children had stood out in the roadway dancing and waving their handkerchiefs till she could see them no longer. As she came back, they stood there dancing and waving their handkerchiefs again. They shouted for joy as she got out of the fly.
“Welcome, my darling, welcome,” cried Aunt Anne, who was behind them, by the gate. “These dear children and I have been watching more than an hour for you. Enter your house, my love. It is indeed a privilege to be here to receive you.”
“It is a privilege to come back to so warm a welcome,” Florence said when, having embraced her children and Aunt Anne, she was allowed to enter the cottage; “and how comfortable and nice it looks!” she exclaimed, as she stopped by the dining-room doorway. There was a wood fire blazing, and the tea set out, and the water in the silver kettle singing, and hot cakes in a covered dish in the fender. Flowers set off the table, and in the pots about the room were boughs of autumn leaves. It was all cosy and inviting, and wore a festival air—festival that Florence knew had been made for her. She turned and kissed the old lady gratefully. “Dear Aunt Anne,” she said, and that was thanks enough.
“I thought, my love, that you would like to partake of tea with your dear children on your return. Your later evening meal I have arranged to be a very slender one.”
“But you are too good, Aunt Anne.”
“It is you who have been too good to me,” the old lady answered tenderly. “And now, my darling, let me take you up to your chamber; it is ready for your reception.”
There was a triumphant note in her voice that prepared Florence for the fire in the grate and the bouquet on the dressing-table, and all the little arrangements that Mrs. Baines had devised to add to her comfort. It was very cheery, she thought when she was alone; Aunt Anne had a knack of making one enjoy a home-coming. She sat for a few moments over the fire, and pulled out Walter’s letter and read it and kissed it and put it back into her pocket. Then she looked round the cosy room again, and noticed a little packet on the corner of the drawers. Aunt Anne must have placed it there when she went out of the room. On it was written,For my darling Florence. “Oh,” she said, “it’s another present,” and regretfully her fingers undid the string. Inside the white paper was a little pin-cushion covered with blue velvet, and having round it a rim of silver filigree work. Attached to it was a little note which ran thus—
“My Darling,—Accept this token of my love and gratitude. I feel that there is no way in which I can better prove how much I appreciated your generous gift to me than by spending a portion of it on a token of my affection for you. I trust you will honour my little gift with your acceptance.”
“My Darling,—Accept this token of my love and gratitude. I feel that there is no way in which I can better prove how much I appreciated your generous gift to me than by spending a portion of it on a token of my affection for you. I trust you will honour my little gift with your acceptance.”
“Oh,” said Florence again, in despair, “I wonder if she has once thought of Madame Celestine’s bill or the others. What is the good of giving her money if one gets it back in the shape of presents?”
But she could not bear to treat the old lady’s generosity with coldness. So Aunt Anne was thanked, and the cushion admired, and a happy little party gathered round the tea-table.
“And have you had any visitors except Mrs. Burnett?” Florence asked artfully, when the meal was over.
“We have had Mr. Wimple,” Aunt Anne said; “he is far from well, my love, and is trying to recruit at Liphook.”
“Oh yes, he has friends there.”
“No, my love, not now. He is at present lodging with an old retainer.”
“And have you been to see him?”
“No, dear Florence, he preferred that I should not do so.”
“We took him lots of rides,” said Monty.
“And Aunt Anne gave him a present,” said Catty, “and he put it into his pocket and never looked at it. He didn’t know what was inside the paper,—we did, didn’t we, auntie?”
“My dear children,” Mrs. Baines said, “if your mother will give you permission you had better go into the nursery. It is past your hour for bed, my dear ones.”
The children looked a little dismayed, but did not dream of disobeying.
“Was it wrong to say you gave him a present?” asked Catty, with the odd perception of childhood, as she put up her face to be kissed.
“My dears,” answered Aunt Anne, sweetly, “in my day children did not talk with their elders unless they were invited to do so.”
“We didn’t know,” said Monty, ruefully.
“No, my darlings, I know that. Bless you,” continued the old lady sweetly; “and good night, my dear ones. Under your pillows you will each find a chocolate which auntie placed there for you this morning.”
“And did you enjoy the drives?” Florence asked, when the children had gone.
“Yes, my dear, thank you.” Mrs. Baines was silent for a moment. Then she raised her head, and, as if she had gathered courage, went on in a slightly louder tone, “I thought it would do your dear children good, Florence, to see the country, and, therefore, I ventured to take them some drives. Occasionally Mr. Wimple was so kind as to accompany us.”
“And I hope they did him good, too,” Florence said, trying not to betray her amusement.
“Yes, my love, I trust they did.”
Then Florence remembered the bills paid by Mrs. North. They were all in a sealed envelope in her pocket, but she could not gather the courage to deliver it. She wanted to ask after Sir William Rammage, too, to know whether he had written yet and settled the question of an allowance; but for that, also, her courage failed—the old lady always resented questions. Then she remembered Mr. Fisher’s remark about Alfred Wimple’s writing, and thought it would please Aunt Anne to hear of it.
“Mr. Fisher says that Mr. Wimple writes very well; he has been doing some reviewing for the paper.”
Mrs. Baines winked with satisfaction.
“I am quite sure he writes well, my love,” she answered quickly; “he is a most accomplished man.”
“And is there no more news to relate, Aunt Anne?” Florence asked; “no more doings during my absence?”
“No, my love, I think not.”
“Then I have some news for you. I hope it won’t vex you, for I know you were very angry with her. Mrs. North has been to see me. She really came to see you, but when she found you had gone out of town she asked for me.”
Mrs. Baines looked almost alarmed and very angry.
“It was most presumptuous of her,” she exclaimed.
“But I don’t understand; why should it be presumptuous?” Florence asked, astonished.
“She had no right; she had not my permission.”
“But, dear Aunt Anne, she came to see you; and why should it be presumptuous?”
“I should prefer not to discuss the subject. I have expressed my opinion, and that is sufficient,” Mrs. Baines said haughtily. “I repeat that it was most presumptuous of her, under the circumstances, to call upon you—a liberty, a—Florence,” she went on, with sudden alarm in her voice, “I hope you did not promise to go and see her.”
“She never asked me.”
“I should have put my veto on it if she had. My dear, you must trust to my mature judgment in some things. I know the world better than you do. Believe me, I have my reasons for every word I say. I treated Mrs. North with the greatest clemency and consideration, though she frequently forgot not only what was due to herself, but what was due to me. I was blind while I stayed with her, Florence, and did not see many things that I do now; for I am not prone to think ill of any one. You know that, my love, do you not? I must beg that you will never, on any account, mention Mrs. North’s name again in my presence.”
Florence felt as if the envelope would burn a hole in her pocket. It was impossible to deliver it now. Perhaps, after all, the wisest way would be to say nothing about it. She had an idea that Aunt Anne frequently forgot all about her bills as soon as she had come to the conclusion that it was impossible to make them any longer. She searched about in her mind for some other topic of conversation. It was often difficult to find a subject to converse upon with Aunt Anne, for the old lady never suggested one herself, and except of past experiences and old-world recollections she seldom seemed sufficiently interested to talk much. Happily as it seemed for the moment, Jane entered with the housekeeping books. They were always brought in on a Tuesday, and paid on a Wednesday morning. Florence was very particular on this point. They usually gave her a bad half-hour, for she could never contrive to keep them down as much as she desired. That week, however, she reflected that they could not be very bad; besides, she had left four pounds with Aunt Anne, which must be almost intact, unless the drives had been paid out of them; but even then there would be plenty left to more than cover the books. The prospect of getting through her accounts easily cheered her, and she thought that she would set about them at once.
“They are heavy this week, ma’am,” Jane said, not without a trace of triumph in her voice, “on account of the chickens and the cream and the company.”
“The chickens and the cream and the company,” laughed Florence, as Jane went out of the room; “it sounds like a line from a comic poem. What does she mean?”
Aunt Anne winked as if to give herself nerve.
“Jane was very impertinent to me one day, my love, because I felt sure that after the fatigue of the journey from town, and the change of air, you would prefer that your delicately-nurtured children should eat chicken and have cream with their second course every day for dinner, instead of roast mutton and milk pudding. White meat is infinitely preferable for delicate digestions.”
“Yes, dear Aunt Anne,” Florence said sweetly, and she felt a sudden dread of opening the books, “you are quite right.” But what did a few chickens and a little cream matter in comparison to the poor old lady’s feelings? she thought. “And if you had company too, of course you wanted to have a smarter table. Whom have you been entertaining, you dear and dissipated Aunt Anne?”
“My dear Florence, I have entertained no one but Mr. Wimple. He is a friend of yours and your dear Walter’s, and I tried to prove to him that I was worthy to belong to you, by showing him such hospitality as lay in my power.”
“Yes, dear, and it was very kind of you,” Florence said tenderly. After all, why should Aunt Anne be worried through that horrid Mr. Wimple? Walter would have invited him if he had found him in the neighbourhood, and why should not Aunt Anne do so in peace, if it pleased her? Of course, now that she herself had returned she could do as she liked about him. She looked at the books. They were not so very bad, after all.
“Shall we make up our accounts now, and get it over, or in the morning?” she asked.
“I should prefer the morning,” Aunt Anne said meekly. “To-night, love, you must be tired, and I am also fatigued with the excitement consequent on seeing you.”
“What a shame, poor Aunt Anne!” Florence said brightly. “I have worn you out.”
“Only with happiness, my dear,” said the old lady, fondly.
Florence put away her books, and stroked Aunt Anne’s shoulder as she passed.
“We will do our work in the morning,” she said.
“Yes, my darling, in the morning. In the afternoon I may possibly have an engagement.”
Florence longed to ask where, but a certain stiffness in Aunt Anne’s manner made it impossible.
“Have you any news from London?” she ventured to inquire, for she was longing to know about Sir William Rammage.
“No, my love, I have no news from London,” Mrs. Baines answered, and she evidently meant to say no more.
In the morning much time was taken up with the arrival of the donkey-cart and the delight of the children. A great basket of apples was inside the cart, and on the top was a little note explaining that they were from Mrs. Burnett’s garden, and she hoped the children might like them. Aunt Anne was as much pleased with the donkey as the rest of the party.
“There is a rusticity in the appearance of a donkey,” she explained, “that always gives me a sense of being really in the country.”
“Not when you meet him in London, I fear,” Florence said.
Mrs. Baines considered for a moment. She seemed to resent the observation.
“No, my love, of course not in London; I am speaking of the country,” she said reprovingly; then she added, “I should enjoy a little drive occasionally myself, if you would trust me with the cart, my love. It would remind me of days gone by. I sometimes drove one at Rottingdean. You are very fortunate, my dear one, in having so few sorrows to remember—for I trust you have few. It always saddens me to think of the past. Let us go indoors.”
Florence put her arm through the old lady’s, and led her in. Then she thought of the books again; it would be a good time to make them up.
“I am always particular about my accounts, you know, Aunt Anne,” she said in an apologetic tone.
“Yes, my love,” answered the old lady; “I admire you for it.”
Florence looked at the figures; they made her wince a little, but she said nothing.
“The bill for the waggonettes, Aunt Anne?” she asked.
“That belongs to me, my dear.”
“Oh no, I can’t allow that.”
“My love, I made an arrangement with Mr. Steggall, and that is sufficient.”
Again Aunt Anne’s tone forbade any discussion. Florence felt sure that one day Steggall’s bill would arrive, but she said nothing.
“Do you mind giving me the change out of the four pounds?” she asked, very gently. Mrs. Baines went slowly over to her work-basket, and took up a little dress she was making for Catty.
“Not now, my love; I want to get on with my work.”
“Perhaps I could get your account-book, Aunt Anne; then I should know how much there is left.”
Mrs. Baines began to sew.
“I did not put anything down in the account-book,” she said doggedly. “I considered, dear Florence, that my time was too valuable. It always seems to me great nonsense to put down every penny one spends.”
“It is a check on one’s self.”
“I do not wish to keep a check on myself,” Mrs. Baines answered, scornfully.
“Could you tell me how much you have left?” Florence asked meekly. “I hope there may be enough to help us through the week.”
She did not like to say that she thought it must be nearly untouched.
“Florence,” burst out the old lady, with the injured tone in her voice that Florence knew so well, “I have but ten shillings left in the world. If you wish to take it from me you must do so; but it is not like you, my darling.”
“Oh, Aunt Anne,” Florence began, bewildered, “I am sure you—— I did not mean—I did not know——”
“I’m sure you did not,” Mrs. Baines said, with a sense of injury still in her voice, “but there is nothing so terrible or so galling to a sensitive nature like mine—and your dear Walter’s takes after it, Florence, I am sure—as to be worried about money matters.”
“But, indeed, Aunt Anne, I only thought that—that——” but here she stopped, not knowing how to go on for a moment; “I thought that perhaps the unpaid books represented the household expenses,” she added at last. Really, something must be done to make the old lady careful, she thought.
“My love,” Mrs. Baines said, with an impatient shake of her head, “I cannot go into the details of every little expense. I am not equal to it. Everything you do not find charged in the books has either been paid, or will be charged, by my request, to my private account, and you must leave it so. I really cannot submit to being made to give an explanation of every penny I spend. I am not a child, Florence. I am not an inexperienced girl; I had kept house before, my love—if you will allow me to say so—before you were born.” The treble note had come into Aunt Anne’s voice; it was a sign that tears were not far off.
But Florence could not feel as compassionate as she desired. She smarted under the loss of her money; there was nothing at all to represent it, and Aunt Anne did not seem to have the least idea that it had been of any consequence. Florence got up and put the books away, looking across at Aunt Anne while she did so. The expression on the old lady’s face was set, and almost angry; her lips were firmly closed. She was working at Catty’s little dress. She was a beautiful needle-woman, and embroidered cuffs and collars on the children’s things that were a source of joyful pride to their mother. But even the host of stitches would not pay the week’s bills. If only Aunt Anne could be made to understand the value of money, Florence thought—but it was no use thinking, for her foolish, housekeeping heart was full of domestic woe. She went upstairs to her own room, and, like a real woman who makes no pretence to strong-mindedness, sat down to cry.
“If Walter were only back,” she sobbed, as she rubbed her tearful face against the cushions on the back of the basket-chair by the fireside. “If he were here I should not mind, I might even laugh then. But after I have tried and tried so hard to save and to spend so little, it is hard, and I don’t know what to do.” She pulled out Walter’s letter and read it again by way of getting a little comfort, and as she did so, felt the envelope containing the receipts of the bills Mrs. North had paid. She did not believe that Aunt Anne cared whether they were paid or not paid. She always seemed to think that the classes, who were what she pleased to consider beneath her, were invented simply for her use and convenience, and that protest in any shape on their part was mere impertinence.
The day dragged by. The children prevented the early dinner from being as awkward as it might have been. Mrs. Baines was cold and courteous. Florence had no words to say. She would make it up with the old lady in the evening, when they were alone, she thought. Of course she would have to make it up. Meanwhile, she would go for a long walk, it would do her good. She could think things over quietly, as she tramped along a lonely road between the hedges of faded gorse and heather. But it was late in the afternoon before she had energy enough to start. On her way out, she put her head in at the dining-room door. Mrs. Baines was there with the morning paper, which had just come. She was evidently excited and agitated, and held the paper in one hand while she looked out towards the garden. But she seemed to have forgotten all the unpleasantness of the morning when she spoke.
“My love, are you going out?” she asked.
“I thought you had an engagement, Aunt Anne, and would not want me.”
“That is true, my dear, and I shall be glad to be alone for a little while, if you will forgive me for saying it. There is an announcement in the paper that gives me the deepest pain, Florence. Sir William Rammage is ill again—he is confined to his room.”
“Oh, poor Aunt Anne!”
“I must write to him instantly. I felt sure there was some good reason for his not having told me his decision in regard to the allowance.” Then, as if she had suddenly remembered the little scrimmage of the morning, she went on quickly, “My love, give me a kiss. Do not think that I am angry with you. I never could be that; but it is unpleasant at my time of life to be made to give an exact account of money. You will remember that, won’t you, dear? I should never expect it from you. If I had hundreds and hundreds a year I would share them with you and your darlings, and I would ask you for no accounts, dear Florence. I should think that the money was as much yours as mine. You know it, don’t you, my love?”
“Yes, dear, I think I do,” Florence answered, and kissed the old lady affectionately, thinking that perhaps, after all, she had made rather too much fuss.
“Then let us forget about it, my darling,” Mrs. Baines said, with the gracious smile that always had its influence; “I could never remember anything long of you, but your kindness and hospitality. Believe me, I am quite sure that you did not mean to wound me this morning. It was your zealous care of dear Walter’s interests that caused you for a moment to forget what was due to me. I quite understand, my darling. Now go for your walk, and be assured that Aunt Anne loves you.”
And Florence was dismissed, feeling as the children had felt the evening before when they had been sent to bed and told of the chocolate under their pillows.