CHAPTER XXXII.MRS. ROGERS SPEAKS HER MIND.
“Hallo, Bob, are you going anywhere in particular?” was Godfrey’s salutation to Robert Macpherson, when the next afternoon he met him at a point in the grounds where two paths diverged.
“Just to town for a walk. Are you going anywhere in particular?” was the reply, to which Godfrey responded:
“Just away from town for a walk.”
And so the two took different roads and sauntered on until, curiously enough, they met again at the gate of Mrs. Rogers’s cottage, where Gertie sat alone upon the porch.
“Did you start to come here?” Robert asked, coloring a little, and Godfrey replied:
“Yes; did you?” while his face wore a look of annoyance, which was in no wise lessened when ten minutes later Tom Barton also appeared, and seemed to think it a good joke that they had all met there together and so found each other out.
“I don’t know what there is to find out,” Godfrey said doggedly, adding, as he rose to his feet with an impatient shake of his pants: “This is most too much of a good thing, and I think I’ll go.”
“Please, Mr. Godfrey, don’t,” Gertie said beseechingly, feeling intuitively that hers was rather a novel position, alone with three young men, and that Godfrey was in some way a protection.
He came to see her of course, but she was too much a child to think for a moment that the remembrance of her blue eyes and wavy hair had brought the others there. They came, no doubt, to get somesewingdone, and she was sorry her auntie was gone, and very glad when at last she saw her coming round the turn in the road, for now they could give their orders and go away.
For an instant Mary Rogers stopped short at sight of three town-bred, fashionable young men, with perfumed locks, and fancy canes, and short coats, and soft hats, sitting before her door, with Gertie in their midst, looking so beautiful and pure and innocent, and so unconscious withal of the admiration she was exciting. Then, the good honest-minded woman’s resolution was taken, and she went swiftly up the walk and courtesying to her visitors asked what she could do for them.
“Nothing, nothing, madame, we simply came to call,” Tom Barton replied, inspecting her curiously, as if she had been a Hottentot, and wondering how that dainty bit of flesh and blood in the blue dress and pantalets chanced to belong to her.
“Come to call, did you. I am sorry then I happened to be out. Gertie, I brought this letter from the office for Mrs. Simmons. Tie on your bonnet and take it to her directly,” Mary Rogers said, while a dead silence fell upon the group of young men, each of whom looked at the others inquiringly.
Gertie was only sorry to leave Godfrey, but reflecting that if she hurried he might be there when she came back, she hastened away, while her admirers looked after her until the turn in the road hid her from view. Then Mrs. Rogers spoke, standing up before them with a flush on her face and a dignity in her tone and manner which commanded respect from her audience.
“Young men,” she began, “you came to see Gertie, and I don’t like it, and won’t allow it either. She is too young to have such ideas put in her head, even were you honest, which you are not. Not one of you would marry her, or be willing to be seen with her by your fashionable city friends, if she were older than she is. You do not look upon her as your equal, and you only come to amuse yourselves with her because she is pretty and sweet; but it shall not be. It’s no credit to a girl in Gertie’s position to have a lot of chaps like you hanging round her and putting stuff into her head, and I won’t have a breath of harm done to her future good name by your coming here and talking nonsense, which you don’t mean, and I put it to your honor to do by my child as you would have a body do by your sister if she was as young and innocent as Gertie.”
“By George, you are right! and I give you my hand as a gentleman that by no act of mine shall Gertie be compromised!” Tom Barton exclaimed, as he rose to his feet and offered his hand to Gertie’s champion.
Tom’s example was followed by Robert Macpherson, but Godfrey sat still in his chair. Mrs. Rogers did not mean him, of course. She knew he never would harm any woman, and he was not going to promise not to see Gertie Westbrooke, and talk to her, too, as much as he liked. But it was a good thing to snub that drunken Tom Barton, who was half-intoxicated now, and he felt like cheering Mrs. Rogers, and meant to stay after the others were gone, and tell her so. But Robert Macpherson meant to stay, too, and, after waiting impatiently ten or fifteen minutes, Godfrey arose at last and said good-afternoon, wondering within himself why “Bob would stick himself where he was not wanted.”
Robert had business with Mrs. Rogers, and, when alone withher, he began at once by assuring her that so far as he was concerned she had nothing to fear for Gertie.
“And you will know you have not,” he continued, “when I tell you that she is the very image of the only sister I ever had,—the little girl who died when just Gertie’s age, and of whom I never think without a throb of pain.”
It was this wonderful likeness, he said, which first attracted him to Gertie, and made him so desirous for her portrait, as he had none of his sister. And then he went on to tell how fond he was of his profession as an artist, and that as there were so many fine views in the vicinity of Hampstead, he wished to remain there for a time, sketching and studying the autumnal scenery, and, as he would not of course stay at Schuyler Hill, he wished to rent a room in some quiet house, and take his meals at the hotel.
Had Mrs. Rogers such a room, and would she let it to him for a liberal compensation? Mrs. Rogers was in need of money. Her own health was not good, and Gertie’s education and music would cost so much that Robert’s offer was a tempting one, and she considered it for a few moments, and then said yes, and showed him the large, pleasant room where Abelard Lyle’s coffin had stood, and where, within a few days, easels, and pallets, and brushes, and paint were scattered about promiscuously; for Robert had taken possession, and dubbed the room his “Den,” and was going to paint “La Sœur” from Gertie’s face, and then retouch from his memory of his sister.
Mary Rogers had struck a powerful blow for Gertie, and hedged her round with the respect of the young men, who otherwise might have turned her head as she grew to womanhood, with all her wondrous beauty and fascinating sweetness, but for a time she felt some misgivings as to the propriety of having taken Robert Macpherson as a lodger. But when she saw how quiet and unobtrusive he was, never seeking either herself or her child, unless he needed them for the sittings, her watchfulness gradually subsided, and she felt that her home was pleasanter for having the artist there.
Tom Barton came sometimes to see him, but he never asked for Gertie, and if by chance he saw her going out or coming in, he treated her with as much deference as if she had been one of the ladies from Schuyler Hill. For a few weeks Godfrey was there every day, and sometimes twice a day, but as she knew him better Mary had no fears of him, and trusted her darling to him as if he had been a brother.
And Gertie did him good, and always reproved him in her outspoken way, when she found him relapsing into careless habits of speaking, and kept him constantly upon his good behavior when he was with her. But she did not think him a gentleman, and she frankly told him so when in November he came to say good-by, before going to Andover, where he hoped to prepare himself for Yale the following year. In a laughing way he referred to her promise made on the ship, and she replied:
“I heard you say by George, and call your father the Governor, and you arenota gentleman yet;” but her lip quivered a little, and it was long ere Godfrey forgot the expression of the blue eyes, which looked at him so wistfully as Gertie said good-by, and told him so innocently how much she should miss him.