'Your manners are always under examination, and by committees little suspected—a police in citizen's clothes—who are awarding or denying you very high prizes when you least think of it.'—Emerson.
'Your manners are always under examination, and by committees little suspected—a police in citizen's clothes—who are awarding or denying you very high prizes when you least think of it.'—Emerson.
Mrs. Harcourt had had a successful afternoon. All the nicest people had been at home, and a great many pleasant things had been said to her; her mother had been a charming companion. Nevertheless, there was a slight cloud on Mrs. Harcourt's face as she walked through the shrubbery that led to her house, and the fold of care was still on her brow as she entered her husband's study—a pleasant room on the ground-floor, overlooking the garden. Mr. Harcourt was reading, but he put down his magazine and greeted his wife with a smile. He was just rising from his seat, but she prevented him by laying her hand on his shoulder.
'Don't move, Percival; you look so comfortable. I will sit by you a minute. I hope I am not interrupting you.'
'Such an interruption is only pleasant, my dear,' was the polite answer. 'Well, have you and Audrey had a nice afternoon?'
'Mother came with me. Audrey had some ridiculous engagement with the Blakes. Percival, I am growing seriously uneasy at this new vagary on Audrey's part. Would you believe it?—she has been the whole afternoon at the Gray Cottage helping those children! and Michael has been there, too; we met them just now.'
Mr. Harcourt raised his eyebrows; he was evidently surprised at this bit of news, though he took it with his usual philosophy.
'Never mind, Jerry,' he said kindly, after a glance at his wife's vexed face, 'we cannot always inoculate people withour own common-sense. Audrey was always inclined to go her own gait.'
Geraldine blushed; she always did when her husband called her Jerry. Not that she minded it from him, but if anyone else—one of the boys, for example—were to hear it, the dignified mistress of the house felt she would never have got over it. In her unmarried days no one had presumed to call her anything but Geraldine or Gage, and yet before three months were over her husband had invented this nickname for her.
'It is no use fretting over it,' he went on in the same equable voice; 'you and Audrey are very different people, my love.'
'Yes; but, Percy dear, it is so trying of Audrey to take up the very people that mother and I were so anxious to avoid. I declare I am quite sorry for mother; she said, very truly, how is she to keep an intrusive person like Mrs. Blake at a distance now Audrey has struck up this violent friendship with her? She has even taken Michael there, for of course he would never go of his own accord. I am so vexed about it all; it has quite spoilt my afternoon.'
'Burnett was on the cricket-field a great part of the afternoon,' returned Mr. Harcourt. 'I saw him talking to Charrington and Sayers.'
'Then she must have asked him to fetch her,' replied Geraldine, with an air of decision that evidently amused her husband; 'for Michael told us of his own accord that he had been having tea at the Cottage. It is really very foolish and incautious of Audrey, after Edith's hint, too! I wish you would tell her so, Percival, for she only laughs at my advice.'
'And you think she would listen to me?'—still with the same amused curl of the lip.
'I think she ought to listen to you, dear—a man of your experience and knowledge of the world—if you would give her a little of your mind. It is so absurd for a grown-up person to behave like an impulsive child. Michael is particular in some things, but he spoils Audrey dreadfully. He and father encourage her. It is your duty, Percival, to act a brother's part by her, and guide her for her own good.'
Geraldine was evidently in earnest, and Mr. Harcourt forbore to smile as he answered her:
'But if she refused to be guided by me, my dear?'
'Oh, I hope better things of Audrey,' replied Geraldine, insuch a solemn voice that her husband laughed outright, though he drew down her face to his the next minute and kissed it.
'You are a good girl to believe in your husband. I don't envy Audrey's future spouse; he will have much to bear. Audrey is too philanthropic, too unpractical altogether, for a smooth domestic life. We are different people, as I said before. Come, cheer up, darling. If I find it possible to say a word in season, you may trust me to do so. Ah! there is the dressing-bell.'
And Mr. Harcourt rose and stretched himself, and began gathering up his papers as a hint to his wife that the subject was concluded.
Audrey was not so unreasonable as her sister supposed; she had no intention of placing herself in direct opposition to her family—on the contrary, she was somewhat troubled by Geraldine's chilling reception that afternoon. Michael had stopped the carriage and informed the two ladies of the manner in which he and Audrey had spent their afternoon.
'We have both been having tea at the Gray Cottage,' he said cheerfully. 'I hope you have spent as pleasant an afternoon, Gage. That youngster—Kester they call him—is a bright, intelligent lad, and Mollie is a nice child.'
'Oh, indeed!' was Geraldine's reply; 'I am afraid we are late, Michael, and must drive on;' and then she nodded to Audrey: but there was no pleasant smile on her face.
'Gage is put out with us both,' observed Audrey, as they turned in at Woodcote. 'I shall be in for another lecture, Michael.'
Audrey had no wish to be a bugbear to her family. For several reasons she thought it politic to avoid the Gray Cottage for a day or two: Mollie must not depend on her too much. When her mother and Geraldine had called, and Mrs. Blake was on visiting terms with them, things would be on a pleasanter footing. She was somewhat surprised, when Sunday came, to find Mr. Blake was the sole representative of his family in the school chapel. She had looked for the widow and her children in the morning, and again in the afternoon, and as she exchanged greetings with Cyril in the courtyard after service she could not refrain from questioning him on the subject.
'I hope Mrs. Blake has not another headache?' she asked rather abruptly as he came up to her, looking very handsomeand distinguished in his cap and gown—and again Audrey remembered her unlucky speech about the Greek god.
Cyril seemed a little embarrassed.
'Oh no, she is quite well, only a little tired; she has rather knocked herself up. Kester had a touch of his old pain, so I told him not to come.'
'And Mollie?' But Cyril did not appear to hear the question.
'Will you excuse me?' he observed the next moment, rather hurriedly; 'I think Mrs. Charrington is waiting for me—she asked me to go to the school-house to tea.'
And as he left her, Audrey found herself obliged to join her sister and Mrs. Harcourt.
'Have you many people coming to you to-morrow afternoon?' asked Geraldine, as they walked on together.
'Only the Luptons and Fortescues and Mr. Owen and Herr Schaffmann—oh, and—I forgot, father asked Mr. Blake.'
Audrey spoke a little absently. They were passing the Gray Cottage—a blind was just then raised in one of the lower rooms, and a small pale face peeped eagerly out at the passers-by. Audrey smiled and waved her hand in a friendly manner, and a bright answering smile lighted up the girlish face.
'What an untidy-looking child!' remarked Geraldine carelessly; 'is that yourprotégée?' and then she continued, in a reproving tone: 'It is really disgraceful that none of the family were in chapel. Edith was right when she spoke of Mrs. Blake's mismanagement of her children; that poor girl had a most neglected look.'
Audrey did not answer; she thought it wiser to allow her sister's remark to pass unchallenged; she had a shrewd suspicion why Mollie was not in chapel—the shabby, outgrown frock had probably kept her at home.
'Poor little thing!' she thought, with a fresh access of pity, for Mollie had certainly looked very forlorn. And then she turned her attention with some difficulty to what Geraldine was saying.
Dr. Ross was famed for his hospitality, and both he and his wife loved to gather the young people of Rutherford about them.
On Monday afternoons during the summer there was always tennis on the Woodcote lawn; one or two of the families from the Hill houses, and perhaps a bachelor master or two, made up a couple of sets. The elder ladies liked to watch the gameor to stroll about the beautiful grounds. Mrs. Ross was an excellent hostess; she loved to prepare little surprises for her guests—iced drinks or strawberries and cream. Geraldine generally presided at her mother's tea-table; Audrey would be among the players. Tennis-parties and garden-parties of all kinds were common enough in Rutherford, but those at Woodcote certainly carried off the palm.
Mr. Harcourt had always been considered one of the best players, but on the Monday in question he found himself ranged against no mean antagonist, and he was obliged to own that young Blake played superbly.
'You would have won every game this afternoon if you had had a better partner,' observed Audrey, as she and Cyril walked across the lawn. She had been playing with him the greater part of the afternoon, and had been much struck with his quiet and finished style. 'My brother-in-law has always been considered our champion player, but you certainly excel him.'
'I have had a great deal of practice,' returned Cyril modestly. 'I think you are wrong about our respective powers. Mr. Harcourt plays exceedingly well; being so much younger, I am a little more agile—that is all.'
'Yes; and you would have beaten him this last game, but for me. I have played worse than usual this afternoon.'
'You must not expect me to endorse that opinion, Miss Ross. I have never seen any lady play half so well. You took that last ball splendidly. Now we have exchanged these mutual compliments, may I ask you to show me the lake? Kester gave a tremendous description of it when he came home to-day. Captain Burnett put him in the punt, and he seems to have had a grand time altogether.'
'Oh, I heard all about it at luncheon.'
'It is good of your cousin to take all this trouble,' went on Cyril in a lower voice, as they walked down one of the terraces. 'I was quite taken aback when he spoke to me yesterday. I thought he could not be in earnest. You know he asked me to go up to his private room after luncheon, and we had a long talk until it was time to go to chapel.'
'Will it be possible for your brother to come here two or three times a week, Mr. Blake?'
'Oh yes; he can manage that short distance—at least, when he is pretty well; and the change will be so good for him. It is quite a load off my mind to know he will learn mathematics as well as Greek and Latin. You have no idea, Miss Ross,how clever that boy is. If he had only my opportunities, he would beat me hollow in no time. I tell my mother so, but she will not believe it; but she thinks with me that it is awfully good of your cousin to interest himself in Kester.'
'It will be a godsend to Michael,' returned Audrey. 'You see, my cousin's health is so bad that he cannot employ himself, and he is debarred from so much enjoyment. He helps my father a good deal with the boys when he is here, but sometimes the noise is too much for him. It will suit him far better to study quietly with your brother. Of course, he meant to be kind—he is always doing good to someone or other—but this time the kindness will benefit himself. He quite enjoyed his morning. He told me so in a tone as though he meant it.'
'And Kester looked ever so much brighter. What comfortable quarters Captain Burnett has! I had no idea he had a private sitting-room, and he tells me he has rooms in town as well.'
'Yes; but we do not let him use them oftener than we can help. It is so dull for him to be alone. My father is anxious for him to live altogether at Woodcote—he thinks the Rutherford air suits him so much better than that of town; but Michael cannot be persuaded to give up his rooms. I tell him it is all his pride, and that he wishes to be independent of us.'
'He is your father's cousin, you say?'
'Yes; and he is just like his son,' returned Audrey, wondering why Mr. Blake looked at her so intently. 'You know, I told you that we looked upon Michael as our own brother. Here we are at the pond—or lake, as we prefer to call it—and there are the swans, Snowflake and Eiderdown, as I have christened them.'
'It is a charming spot,' observed Cyril, leaning over the fence to look at the beautiful creatures. He was quite unaware, as he lounged there, that he added another picturesque effect to the landscape, his bright blue coat and peaked cap making a spot of colour against Audrey's white gown. 'So that is the island where Kester found the forget-me-nots for Mollie? It looks as though one could carry it off bodily in one's arms,' he continued, after a reflective pause.
'Mr. Blake, I will not permit such remarks,' returned Audrey, laughing. 'I have often paddled myself about the lake. At least, it is deep enough to drown one. Now tell me how Mollie is.'
'Mollie is inconsolable because she has not seen you for twowhole days. She spent most of the morning at the window in the hope of seeing you pass.'
'Nonsense!'
'Oh, it is a fact, I assure you. My mother told me so herself. Will there be any chance of your looking in to-morrow, Miss Ross? I am going back now, and I am sure such a message would make Mollie happy for the remainder of the evening.'
Audrey smiled.
'I do not think I will send the message, Mr. Blake. I half thought of calling on some friends of mine who live a little way out of Rutherford, but if I have time——'
She paused, not quite knowing how to finish her sentence.
'Well, I will say nothing about it,' he returned quickly. 'You have been far too good to us already. Mollie must not presume on your kindness;' and then he took up his racket.
'Why are you leaving us so early, Mr. Blake? There is surely time for another game?'
'Thanks; I must not stop any longer now. My mother asked me to take her for a walk, and, as Kester can do without me this evening, I promised that I would.'
'And you will take Mollie? There is such a pretty walk across the fields to Everdeen Wood, if Mrs. Blake does not mind a few stiles. Mollie will not, I am sure.'
'I think Mollie will prefer to stay with Kester,' he replied quickly. 'I am sorry to leave so early, Miss Ross, but one does not like to disappoint other people.'
'I begin to think you are one of the unselfish ones,' thought Audrey, as she gave him her hand. Then aloud: 'You must come to us next Monday, Mr. Blake, for I am sure my brother-in-law will want his revenge. Oh, there is Booty, so of course his master is not far off. I will go and meet him.'
Then she nodded to Cyril, and turned off into a side-path just as Captain Burnett came in sight.
'Are they still playing, Michael?'
'No. Harcourt wants to be off; he and Gage are to dine at the Fortescues', so they have agreed to break up earlier. Why is Blake leaving us so soon? Your father proposed that he should be asked to dinner.'
'I don't think he would be persuaded,' she replied, wishing that she had not taken him so easily at his word. 'He has promised to take his mother for a walk. He is really a very good son. Most young men care only about their own pleasure.'
'I think I like him,' returned Michael, in his slow, considering tone. 'We had a smoke together yesterday up in my room, and I confess he interested me. He seems to feel his responsibility so with respect to that poor boy. He was very grateful to me for my proposed help, and said so in a frank, manly fashion that somehow pleased me.'
'I am so glad you like him, Michael!' and Audrey's tone expressed decided pleasure.
'Oh, we shall hit it off very well, I expect; but I daresay we shall not see very much of each other. He goes in for cricket, and makes tremendous scores, I hear, and the Hill houses will soon monopolise him. He is too good-looking a fellow not to be a favourite with the ladies—eh, Audrey?'
'I am sure I don't know,' returned Audrey, who could be a trifle dense when she chose. 'I do not think Mr. Blake is a lady's man, if that is what you mean. Don't you detest the genus, Michael?'
'Do I not!' was the expressive answer; and then he went on: 'I am quite of your opinion that Blake is a nice, gentlemanly fellow; but I think that brother of his is still more interesting. Poor little chap! he has plenty of brains; he is as sharp as some fellows of nineteen or twenty. Blake is clever enough, but one of these days Kester will make his mark. He has a perfect thirst for knowledge. I drew him out this morning, for we only made a pretence at work. You should have heard him talk.'
'That is exactly his brother's opinion,' returned Audrey; and she repeated Cyril's words.
Michael was evidently struck by them.
'He seems very fond of him, and, for the matter of that, the poor boy is devoted to his brother. I suppose that accident has made a link between them. I do not know that I ever took so much interest in yourprotégésbefore. By the bye, what has become of the O'Briens, Audrey?'
'I am going to see them to-morrow. I know what that inquiry means, Michael. You think that I am always so much taken up with new people that I forget my old friends; but you are wrong.' And then she added, a little reproachfully: 'That you of all people should accuse me of fickleness!'
Captain Burnett smiled a little gravely.
'You are investing my words with too large a meaning. I do not think you in the least fickle; it is only your headlong sympathies that carry you away.' But as Audrey looked alittle mystified over this speech, he continued: 'I would not have you neglect Mr. O'Brien for the world. I only wish Vineyard Cottage were a mile or two nearer, and I would often smoke a pipe in that earwiggy bower of his. I have a profound respect for Thomas O'Brien. I love a man who lives up to his profession, and is not above his business. A retired tradesman who tries to forget he was ever behind the counter, and who goes through life aping the manners of gentlefolk, is a poor sort of body in my eyes; he is neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring. Now Mr. O'Brien is as proud of being a corn-chandler as'—he paused for a simile—'as our drummer-boy was of belonging to the British army.'
'Poor old man! he has seen a peck of trouble, as he calls it.'
'There, you see,' interrupting her delightedly, 'his very language borrows its most powerful imagery from his past belongings! Do you or I, Audrey, in our wildest and most despairing moments, ever talk of a peck of trouble? Depend upon it, my dear, when Thomas made that speech, he was among his bins again; in his mind's eye he was measuring out his oats and beans. I think I hear him repeating again what he once said to me: "It is such a clean, wholesome business, Captain. I often dream I am back in the shop again, with my wife laying the tea in the back-parlour. I can feel the grain slithering between my fingers, and even the dropping of the peas on the counter out of the overfilled bags is as plain as possible. Mat always did his work so awkwardly."'
'I don't think he has ever got over the loss of his wife, Michael.'
'Of course not. Is he likely to do so, with Mrs. Baxter's lugubrious countenance opposite him morning, noon, and night? I don't wonder her husband ran away from her; it would take a deal of principle to put up with such a trying woman.'
'Michael, I will not have you so severe on my friends! Mrs. Baxter is a very good woman, and she takes great care of her father. We cannot all be gifted with good spirits. Poor Priscilla Baxter is a disappointed woman.'
Michael shrugged his shoulders, but he was spared making any reply, as just then they encountered Geraldine and her husband. They were evidently looking for Audrey.
'Are you going, Gage?' observed Audrey serenely. 'I was just coming up to the house to wish you good-bye, only Michael detained me.'
'I thought you were with Mr. Blake,' returned her sister, ina puzzled tone. 'I wish you would come up to luncheon to-morrow—I have scarcely spoken two words to you this afternoon. Edith is coming.'
'It will be a pity to interrupt yourtête-à-tête,' returned Audrey pleasantly; 'Mrs. Bryce has always so much to say, and she comes so seldom.' And, as her sister's face clouded, she continued: 'I will run up for an hour on Wednesday, but I really cannot neglect Mr. O'Brien any longer—he will have been looking for me day after day.'
'Oh, if you are going to Vineyard Cottage,' in a mollified tone that Audrey perfectly understood, 'you will have tea there, of course.'
'Do you think Mrs. Baxter would let me come away without my tea?' returned Audrey quickly.
She was inwardly somewhat annoyed at this questioning. She had meant to go to the Gray Cottage on her way; but now she must give that up: Mollie must watch for her a little longer. Perhaps she could go to Hillside in the morning and keep her afternoon free. And as she came to this conclusion, she bade her sister an affectionate good-bye. But as Geraldine took her husband's arm in the steep shrubbery walk, she said, in a dissatisfied tone:
'I am glad we found her with Michael; but, all the same, she and Mr. Blake were partners all the afternoon.'
'My dear Geraldine,' returned Mr. Harcourt with assumed solemnity, 'I think Audrey may be trusted to manage her own little affairs—she is two-and-twenty, is she not? When you have daughters of your own, my love, I am quite sure you will manage them excellently, and no young man will have a chance of speaking to them; but with Audrey it is another matter.' And then, in a tragic undertone: 'Have you forgotten, wife mine, a certain afternoon when you did me the honour of playing with me three whole sets, and then we cooled ourselves down by the lake, until your father hunted us out?'
Geraldine pressed her husband's arm gently; she remembered that afternoon well, and all Percival had said to her—they had just come to an understanding when her father interrupted them. For one moment her face softened at the sweet remembrance, and then she roused herself to remonstrate.
'But, Percy dear, this is utterly different. Audrey would never dream of falling in love with Mr. Blake. Fancy a girl in her position encouraging the attentions of a junior master. No, indeed; I was only afraid of a little flirtation. Of courseAudrey declares she never flirts, but she has such a way with her—she is too kind in her manner sometimes.'
'It is to be hoped that she will not break as many hearts as a certain young person I know—eh, Jerry?' and Geraldine blushed and held her peace.
She never liked to be reminded of the unlucky wooers who had shaken off the dust of Woodcote so sorrowfully. As for Mr. Harcourt, he delighted in these proofs of conquests. Geraldine had not been easy to win—she had given her lover plenty of trouble; but she was his now, and, as he often told himself, no man had ever been more fortunate in his choice. For Mr. Harcourt, in spite of his delight in teasing, was very deeply in love with his beautiful wife.
'Sympathy or no sympathy, a man's love should no more fail towards his fellows than that love which spent itself on disciples who altogether misunderstood it, like the rain which falls on just and unjust alike.'—Mark Rutherford.
'Sympathy or no sympathy, a man's love should no more fail towards his fellows than that love which spent itself on disciples who altogether misunderstood it, like the rain which falls on just and unjust alike.'—Mark Rutherford.
Vineyard Cottage, where the retired corn-chandler had elected to spend the remnant of his days, was no pretentious stucco villa; it was a real old-fashioned cottage, with a big roomy porch well covered with honeysuckle and sweet yellow jasmine, and a sitting-room on either side of the door, with one small-paned window, which was certainly not filled with plate-glass. It was a snug, bowery little place, and the fresh dimity curtains at the upper windows, and the stand of blossoming plants in the little passage, gave it a cheerful and inviting aspect. The tiny lawn was smooth as velvet, and a row of tall white lilies, flanked with fragrant lavender, filled up the one narrow bed that ran by the side of the privet hedge.
As Audrey unlatched the little gate she had a glimpse of Mr. O'Brien in his shirt-sleeves. He was smoking in the porch, and so busily engaged in reading his paper that Audrey's light tread failed to arouse him, until a plaintive and fretful voice from within made him turn his head.
'Father, aren't you ashamed to be sitting there in your shirt-sleeves when Miss Ross has come to call? And it is 'most four o'clock, too—pretty near about tea-time.'
'Miss Ross—you don't say so, Prissy!' returned Mr. O'Brien, thrusting an arm hastily into the coat that his daughter was holding out in an aggressively reproachful manner. 'How do you do, Miss Ross? Wait a moment—wait a moment, until I can shake hands with you. Now, then, the other arm, Prissy. You are as welcome as flowers in May—and as blooming too,isn't she, Prissy?' and Mr. O'Brien enforced his compliment with a grasp of the hand that made Audrey wince.
'I expected a scolding—I did indeed,' laughed Audrey, 'instead of this very kind welcome. It is so long since my last visit; is it not, Mr. O'Brien?'
'Well, ma'am, tell the truth and shame the devil; that's my motto. I'll not deny that Prissy and I were wondering at your absence. "What's become of Miss Ross?" she said to me only to-day at dinner, "for she has not been near us for an age."'
'And I was right, father, and it is an age since Miss Ross honoured us with a visit,' replied his daughter in the plaintive tone that seemed natural to her. 'It was just five weeks ago, for Susan Larkins had come up about the bit of washing her mother wished to have, so I remember the day well.'
'Five weeks!' responded Audrey with a shake of her head; 'what a memory you have, Mrs. Baxter, and, dear me, how ill you are looking; is there anything the matter?' looking from one to the other with kindly scrutiny.
Mr. O'Brien and his daughter were complete contrasts to each other. He was a stout, gray-haired man with a pleasant, genial countenance, though it was not without its lines of care. Mrs. Baxter, on the contrary, had a long melancholy face and anxious blue eyes. Her black gown clung to her thin figure in limp folds; her features were not bad, and a little liveliness and expression would have made her a good-looking woman; but her dejected air and want of colouring detracted from her comeliness, and of late years her voice had grown peevish as well as plaintive, as though her troubles had been too heavy for her. Audrey had a sincere respect for her; but she certainly wished that Mrs. Baxter took a less lugubrious view of life. At times she would try to infuse a little of her own cheerfulness; but she soon found that Mrs. Baxter was too closely wrapped in her melancholy. In her own language, she preferred the house of mourning to the house of feasting.
'Oh, I hope there is nothing fresh the matter!' repeated Audrey, whose clear-sighted sympathy was never at fault.
She thought that Mr. O'Brien's genial face looked a shade graver than usual.
'Come and sit down, Miss Ross, and I will be hurrying the girl with the tea,' observed Mrs. Baxter mournfully, for she was never too lachrymose to be hospitable, and though she shed tears on slight occasions, she was always disposed to press herhot buttered cakes on her guests, and any refusal to taste her good cheer would have grievously wounded her bruised sensibilities. 'Father, take Miss Ross into the best parlour while I help Hannah a bit.'
And as Mr. O'Brien laid aside his pipe and led the way into the house, Audrey followed him, nothing loath.
'Joe's been troubling Priscilla again,' he observed, as Audrey seated herself on the little horsehair sofa beside the open window, and Buff, a great tortoise-shell cat, jumped uninvited on her lap and began purring loudly.
'Joe!' repeated Audrey in a shocked voice; she knew very well who was meant. Joe was the ne'er-do-well of a son-in-law whose iniquities had transformed the young and comely Priscilla into the meagre and colourless Mrs. Baxter. 'He has no right to trouble her!' she went on indignantly.
'He has been worrying for money again,' returned Mr. O'Brien, ruffling up his gray hair in a discontented fashion; 'he says he is hard up. But that is only one of Joe's lies; he tells lies by the peck. He had a good coat on, and looked as thriving as possible, and I know from Atkinson, who has been in Leeds, that he is a traveller to some house in the wine trade. And yet he comes here, the bullying rascal! fretting the poor lass to skin and bone with pretending he can take the law of her for not living with him, and that after all his ill-usage.'
'I am so sorry,' returned Audrey, and her tone said more than her words. 'He is a bad man, a thoroughly heartless and bad man—everyone knows that; and she must never go back to him. I hope you told him so.'
'Ay, I did,' with a touch of gruffness; 'I found him bullying, and poor Prissy crying her eyes out, and looking ready to drop—for she is afraid of him—and I just took down my big stick. "Joe," I said, as he began blustering about her being his true and lawful wife, "you just drop that and listen to me: if she is your wife, she is my daughter, our only one—for never chick nor child had we beside Priscilla—and she is going to stop along with me, law or no law."
'"I'll claim my own. There's two to that bargain, father-in-law," he says, with a sneer; for, you see, he was turning a bit nasty.
'"And you'll claim something else as well, son-in-law!" I replied, getting a good grip of the stick; for my blood was up, and I would have felled him to the ground with all the pleasure in life, only the girl got between us.
'"No, father—no violence!" she screeches out. "Don't make things worse for poor, unhappy me. Joe is not worth your getting into trouble on his account. Go along with you, Joe, and Heaven forgive you; but horses wouldn't drag me under your roof again after the way you have treated me."
'Well, I suppose we made it too hot for him, ma'am, for he soon beat a retreat. Joe was always a coward. I would have hurried him out with a kick, but I thought it better to be prudent; and Priscilla went and had a fit of hysterics in her own room, and she has been looking mortal bad, poor lass! ever since.'
'I wish we could save her these trying scenes, Mr. O'Brien; they get on her nerves.'
'Ah, that is what her mother said! "Prissy will never have a day's health if we can't hinder Joe from coming to plague her"—I remember my Susan saying that. Why, it was half for Prissy's sake we gave up the shop. "What is the good of filling our purse, Tom, when we have plenty for ourselves and Priscilla!" she was always saying to me. But there, I was fond of the shop—it is no use denying it—and it takes a special sort of education to fit one for idleness. Even now—would you believe it, ma'am?—I have a sort of longing to finger the oats and peas again.'
'But you are very fond of your cottage and your garden, Mr. O'Brien. Captain Burnett says it is the prettiest little place about here.'
'Ah, I have been forgetting my manners, and I have never asked after the Captain, though he is a prime favourite of mine. Oh yes, he always has his little joke. "What will you sell it for, O'Brien, just as it stands? Name your own price." Well, it is a snug little place; and if only my little woman were here and I had news of Mat——' And here Mr. O'Brien pushed his hand through his gray hair again, and sighed as he looked out on his row of lilies.
Audrey sat still in sympathising silence. She knew how her old friend loved to unburden himself. He talked to no one else as he did to this girl—not even to the Captain. He liked to enlarge in his simple way on his old happy life, when Prissy was young and he and his wife thought handsome Joe Baxter a grand lover for their girl, with his fine figure and soft, wheedling tongue.
'But we were old enough to know better—we were a couple of fools, of course; I know that now,' he would say. 'But he just talked us over—Joe is a rare hand at talking even now.He can use fine words; he has learnt it in his business. I think our worst time was when Prissy's baby died and she began to droop, and in her weakness she let it all out to her mother. I remember my little woman coming into the shop that day, with the tears running down her face. "Tom," she says, "what have we ever done to be so punished? Joe is treating Prissy like a brute, and my poor girl's heart is broken." Dear, dear! how I wanted Mat then!'
Audrey knew all about this Mat—at least, the little there was to know. One day, soon after Mr. O'Brien had lost his wife, and she had found him sitting alone in the porch, he had begun talking to her of his own accord of a young brother whom he called Mat, but to no one else had he ever mentioned his name. Audrey had been much touched and surprised by this confidence, and from time to time Mr. O'Brien had continued to speak of him, until she was in possession of the main facts.
Thomas O'Brien had lost his parents early, and his brothers and sisters had died in infancy, with the exception of the youngest, Matthew, or Mat, as he was generally called. There was so much difference between their ages that Mat was quite a plaything and pet to his elder brother. From all accounts, he was a bright, engaging little fellow, and developed unusual capacity.
'He was a cut above us, and people took notice of him, and that spoiled him,' observed Mr. O'Brien one day.
Audrey, piecing the fragments of conversation together, could picture the clever, handsome lad learning his lessons in the little back parlour, while honest Tom served in the shop. But Mat was not always so studious: he would be sliding with the Rector's boys, or helping them to make a snow man; sometimes he would be having tea at the Rectory, or with his master, or even with the curates. One of the curates was musical, and Mat had an angelic voice. One could imagine the danger to the precocious, clever boy, and how perhaps, on his return, he would gibe a little in his impertinent boyish fashion at thickheaded, clumsy Tom among his cornbins and sacks of split peas.
Mat did not wish to be a corn-chandler. When Tom married the daughter of a neighbouring baker, Mat was heard to mutter to one of his intimates that Tom might have looked higher for a wife. He grew a little discontented after that, and gave the young couple plenty of trouble until he got his way—a bad way, too—and went off to seek his fortunes in London.
Tom missed the lad sadly; even his Susan's rosy cheeks and good-humour failed to console him for a while. Not until Prissy made her appearance—and in clamorous baby fashion wheedled her way into her father's affections—did his sore heart cease to regret the young brother.
Susan used to talk to her husband in her sensible way.
'It is no use your fretting, Tom,' she would say; 'boys will be boys, and anything is better for Mat than hanging about here with his hands in his pockets and doing nothing but gossip with the customers. He was growing into idle ways. It was a shame for a big fellow like Mat to be living upon his brother; it is far better for him to be thrown on himself to work for his bread,' finished Susan, rocking her baby, for she was a shrewd little person in her way.
'I don't like to think of Mat alone in London,' returned Tom slowly; but as he looked into his wife's innocent eyes he forbore to utter all his thoughts aloud. Tom was old enough to know something of the world; he could guess at the pitfalls that stretched before the lad's unwary feet. Mat was young, barely eighteen, his very gifts of beauty and cleverness might lead him into trouble.
'I wish I had him here,' muttered Tom, as he went off to serve a customer. 'Peterborough is a better place for him than London;' for they were living at Peterborough then.
Tom cheered up presently, when Mat wrote one of his flourishing letters; he was a fine letter-writer. He was in luck's way, he told Tom, and had fallen on his feet; at his first application he had obtained a clerkship in some business house, and his employer had taken a fancy to him.
'I feel like Dick Whittington,' wrote Mat, in his happy, boastful way; 'all night long the bells were saying to me, "Turn again, turn again, Mat O'Brien, for fortune is before you." I could hear them in my dreams—and then the next morning came a letter from Mr. Turner. Dear old chap, you won't bother about me any more, for I mean to stick to my work like a galley slave. Give my love to Susan, and kiss the little one—couldn't you have found a better name than that Puritan Priscilla, you foolish Tom?'—and so on. Audrey once read that letter, and a dozen more of the same type; she thought them very affectionate and clever. Every now and then there were graphic descriptions of a day's amusement or sight-seeing. What was it they lacked? Audrey could never answer thatquestion, but she laid them down with a dim feeling of dissatisfaction.
Mat used to run down for a day or two when business permitted, and take possession of his shabby little room under the roof. How happy honest Tom would be on these occasions! how he would chuckle to himself as he saw his customers—female customers especially—cast sidelong glances at the handsome dark-haired youth who lounged by the door!
'Old Mrs. Stevenson took him for a gentleman,' Tom remarked to Susan once, rubbing his hands over the joke. 'Mat is so well set up, and wears such a good coat; just look at his boots!—and his shirts are ever so much finer than mine; he looks like a young lord in his Sunday best,' went on Tom, who admired his young brother with every fibre of his heart.
Mat was quite aware of the sensation he made among his old friends and neighbours; he liked to feel his own importance. He came pretty frequently at first; he was tolerant of Susan's homeliness and sisterly advice, he took kindly to Prissy, and brought her a fine coral necklace to wear on her fat dimpled neck; but after a year or two he came less often.
'Leave him alone,' Susan would say when Tom grumbled to her over his pipe of an evening; 'Mat has grown too fine for the shop; nothing pleased him last time. He wanted napkins with his food because of his moustache, and he complained that his bed was so hard he could not sleep on it. It is easy to see that our homely ways do not suit him. I wish your heart were not set on him so much, Tom; it is thankless work to cling to a person who wants to get rid of his belongings.'
'Nay, Susan, you are too hard on the lad,' her husband remonstrated; 'Mat will never cut us—he has an affectionate heart. He is only having his fling, as lads, even the best of them, will at times. By and by he will settle down, and then we shall see more of him.'
But in spite of Tom's faith, that time never came. By and by Mat wrote with a greater flourish than ever.
'Wish me joy, my dear Susan and Tom,' he wrote, 'for I am going to be married, and to the prettiest and the dearest girl in the world. Just fancy, Tom, her uncle is a Dean! what do you think of your brother Mat now? "Turn again, turn again, Mat O'Brien"—that is what the bells said to me, and, by Jove! they were right. Haven't I had a rise this Christmas?—and now my dear little Olive has promised totake me for better or worse. Oh, Tom, you should just see her—she is such a darling! and I am the luckiest fellow in the world to get her! I can see Susan shaking her head and saying in her wise way that I am young to take the cares of life on my shoulders; but when a fellow is head over heels in love, he cannot stop to balance arguments. And after all, we are not so imprudent, for when the Dean dies, and he is an old man, Olive will have a pretty penny of her own. So wish me joy, dear Tom, and send me your blessing.'
Tom fairly wept over this letter; he carried it about with him and read it at intervals during the day.
'If only she makes the lad happy!' he said to Susan. 'To think of our Mat marrying a gentlewoman, for of course a Dean's niece is that;' and Susan, whose knowledge of the world was small, supposed so too.
Tom was hoping that Mat would bring his young wife down to receive his brotherly congratulations in person; but there was always some excuse for the delay. Olive was delicate; she could not travel; Mat could not leave her to come himself, and so on. Tom never doubted these excuses; he even made his little joke about the lad becoming a family man; but Susan, who was sharper than her husband, read between the lines. Mat was ashamed of bringing the Dean's niece down to see the shop; it was possible, but here Susan almost shuddered at the awfulness of the thought, that he might not have told his wife that he had a brother.
'Mat is as weak as water, with all his cleverness,' she said to herself; 'if he has not told her yet, he will put it off from day to day. There is nothing easier than procrastination if you once give in to it. Few people speak the truth like my Tom, bless him!'
Susan would not grieve her husband by hinting at these suspicions, though they grew stronger as time went on. Mat never brought his wife to see them; he seldom wrote, unless to tell them of the birth of a child, and then his letters were brief and unsatisfactory. Tom once wrote and asked him if he were happy, 'for somehow Susan and I have got into our heads that things are not quite square,' wrote the simple fellow. 'Do come and let us have a chat together over our pipes. Prissy is getting quite a big girl; you would hardly know her now.'
Perhaps Mat was touched by this persistent kindness on his brother's part, for he answered that letter by return of post.
'One must not expect too much happiness in this crooked old world,' he wrote; 'but you and Susan are such old-fashioned people. Olive and I have as much enjoyment of life as ordinary folk. We quarrel sometimes and make it up again. I was never a very patient mortal—eh, old chap?—and one's temper does not improve with age.' And then after a little talk about the children, who had been ill with scarlatina, the letter wound up by begging the loan of a five-pound note.
Tom did not show this letter to Susan. For the first time in his life he kept a secret from the wife of his bosom. He put two five-pound notes in an envelope, and sent them with his love to Olive and the children. A pang of remorse must have crossed Mat's heart at this fresh act of kindness; but though he acknowledged the gift with the utmost gratitude, he neither came nor wrote again for a long time.
Some time after that Tom took an odd notion in his head: he would go up to London and see Mat and his wife and children; he was just hankering for a sight of the lad, as he told Susan. To be sure, Mat had never invited him—never hinted at such a thing in his letters; he could not be sure of his welcome. Susan tried to dissuade him, but to no purpose; for once Tom was deaf to his little woman's advice. He left her in charge of the shop one fine spring morning and started for London and Bayswater, where Mat lived.
He came back earlier than Susan expected, and there was a sad look in his eyes as he sat down and filled his pipe. Susan forbore to question him at first; she got him some supper and a jug of the best ale, and presently he began to talk of his own accord:
'There were other people living in No. 23 Mortimer Terrace. The O'Briens had left more than a year ago, and no one knew where they were. Fancy Mat leaving and never giving me his address!' finished Tom with an air of deep depression.
He was evidently much wounded at this want of brotherly confidence.
'But surely you know his business address, dear?' Susan asked quietly.
No; Tom did not know even that. He reminded her that Mat had long ago left his old employers, and had set up for himself; but Tom did not know where his office was.
'I always wrote to his private address, you know, Susan,' he went on. 'Mat told me that no one ever opened his lettersbut himself; but how am I to find him out now if he chooses to hide himself from his only brother?'
And though Tom said no more, he moped for many a day after that fruitless expedition.
By and by the truth leaked out—Mat was in trouble, and in such trouble that no fraternal help could avail him. One awful day, a day that turned Tom's hair gray with horror and anguish, he heard that Mat—handsome, brilliant Mat—was in a felon's cell, condemned to penal servitude for a long term of years. In a moment of despair he had forged the name of one of his so-called friends, and by this terrible act had obtained possession of a large sum of money.
Tom's anguish at this news was not to be described; he cried like a child, and Susan vainly tried to comfort him.
'My father's name,' he kept repeating—'he has disgraced our honest name! I will never forgive him; I will have nothing more to do with him—he has covered us all with shame!'
And then the next moment he relented at the thought of Mat, beaten down and miserable, and perhaps repentant, in his wretched cell.