"In the grey old chapel cloisterI sit and muse alone,Till the dial's time-worn fingersMark the moment when we twainShall in paradisal sunlightWalk together, once again."Helen Marion Burnside.
"In the grey old chapel cloisterI sit and muse alone,Till the dial's time-worn fingersMark the moment when we twainShall in paradisal sunlightWalk together, once again."Helen Marion Burnside.
There was no doubt that both Waveney and Mollie found their guest amusing. His views of life were so original, and there was such a quiet vein of humour running through his talk that, after a time, little peals of girlish laughter reached Ann's ears. It was Mollie who first struck the key-note of discord.
Mr. Ingram had been speaking of a celebrated singer whom he had heard in Paris.
"She is to sing at St. James' Hall next Saturday week," he went on. "They say the place will be packed. A friend of mine has some tickets at his bestowal if you and your sister would care to go." As usual he addressed Waveney; but Mollie's face grew very long.
"Oh, dear, how nice it would have been!" she sighed; "but Waveney is going away;" and her eyes filled with tears.
"Going away!" he echoed in surprise.
"Yes. She is going to be a reader and companion to a lady living at Erpingham, and she will only come home on Sundays;" and then a big tear rolled down Mollie's smooth cheek and dropped into her lap. "And we have never been apart for a single day!" She finished with a little sob.
"Dear Mollie, hush," whispered Waveney. "We ought not to trouble Mr. Ingram with our little worries. Erpingham is a nice place," she continued, trying to speak cheerfully. "Do you know it?"
"Oh, yes," he returned, quickly. "Most people know it. There is a fine common, and some golf links, and there are some big houses there."
"Yes; but the Red House is in Erpingham Lane."
Then Mr. Ingram started.
"I think some ladies of the name of Harford live there," he said, carelessly. "Two are very much given to good works."
"Oh, do you know them?" asked Waveney, eagerly; but it struck her that he evaded the question.
"We have mutual friends," he replied, rather stiffly. "They are excellent women, and do an immense amount of good. They have a sort of home for broken-down governesses, and they do a lot for shop-women. I have an immense respect for people who do that sort of thing," recovering his sprightliness. "I tried slumming once myself, but I had to give it up; it was not my vocation. The boys called me 'Guy Fawkes,' and that hurt my feelings. By the bye," as they both laughed at this, "I have never explained the purport of my visit. I understood from your sister," and here he looked at Waveney, "that Mr. Ward had a picture for sale. 'King Canute,' was it not? Well, a friend of mine has a picture-gallery, and he is always buying pictures. He wants to fill up a vacant place in an alcove, and he suggested some early English historical subject. He has an 'Alfred toasting the cakes in the swine-herd's cottage,' and a 'St. Augustine looking at the Saxon slaves in the market-place,' and it struck me that 'King Canute' would be an excellent subject."
"What lots of friends you seem to have!" remarked Mollie, innocently. "There is the one who shoots pheasant, and the one who buys menu cards, and now another who buys pictures."
Ingram looked a little embarrassed, but he was amused too.
"One can't knock about the world without making friends," he said, lightly. "Do you recollect what Apolinarius says: 'for I am the only one of my friends I rely on.' But the Chinese have a better maxim still: 'There are plenty of acquaintances in the world, but very few real friends.'"
"Is the picture friend only an acquaintance?" asked Mollie, rather provokingly.
"No, indeed," returned Ingram, energetically. "We are like brothers, he and I, and I have known him all my life. Well, Miss Mollie, do you think your father would be willing to let my friend have 'King Canute'? It is a famous subject, and brings back the memories of one's school days;" and then he walked to the picture and stood before it, as though he were fascinated; but in reality he was saying to himself, "Now, what am I to offer for this very mawkish and stilted performance?" And the question was so perplexing that he fell into a brown study.
Mollie looked at her sister. She was brimful of excitement. But Waveney shook her head.
"Would it not be better for your friend to see the picture first?" she said, in a cool, business-like tone; but inwardly she was just as excited as Mollie. Ten pounds would pay all they owe to Barber, and Chandler would wait. "I am sure that father would be pleased to see any one who cared to look at the picture," she finished, boldly.
Mr. Ingram regarded her pleasantly.
"You are very good, but there is not the slightest occasion to trouble you. I am my friend's agent in this sort of thing. I have been abroad a good deal, and have served my apprenticeship to art. I am an art critic, don't you know. Now, would you mind telling me, Miss Ward, how much your father expected to get from the dealers?"
"I don't know," returned Waveney, doubtfully. "There was no fixed price, was there, Mollie? Father told us that he would be content with ten pounds."
"My dear Miss Ward," returned Ingram, in a tone of strong remonstrance, "your father undervalues himself. Ten pounds for that work of art! Heaven forgive me all the fibs I am telling," he added, mentally, and then he cleared his throat. "I am no Jew, and must decline to drive a hard bargain. If Mr. Ward will let my friend have 'King Canute,' I shall be willing to pay, on his behalf, five-and-twenty pounds: I mean"—looking calmly at the girl's agitated face—"five-and-twenty guineas."
They were too overwhelmed with surprise and pleasure to answer him; and just at that moment—that supreme moment—they heard their father's latch-key.
Ingram described the little scene later on to a dear friend.
"It was Atalanta's race, don't you know. They both wanted to reach their father first; he was the golden apple,pro tem.
"The lame Miss Ward had long odds, but my little-friend of the omnibus beat her hollow. Can you fancy Titania coming down her ladder of cobwebs? Well, you should see Miss Ward number two, running downstairs—it would give you a notion of it. And there was the golden apple on the door-mat waiting for her."
"You are very absurd," returned his hearer, laughing, "but your description amuses me, so please go on."
"There is something very refreshing in such originality," he murmured, languidly. "I have an idea that Gwen would love those girls. Gwen is all for nature and reality. Conventionality might have suggested that it was hardly mannerly to leave a guest in an empty room, even for golden apples, but no such idea would have occurred to the Misses Ward. They even forgot that sound ascends, and that I could hear every word."
"Dear me, that was very awkward!" But the lady spoke maliciously.
"I could hear every word," he repeated, and then his eyes twinkled; but he was honourable enough not to repeat the little conversation.
"Father, Monsieur Blackie is upstairs!" and here Mollie giggled. "His real name is Ingram, but Ann calls him Mr. Ink-pen."
"All right, my pet; so I suppose I had better go upstairs;" but Waveney pulled him back.
"Wait a moment, father dear. What a hurry you are in! And your hair is so rough, and your coat is dusty. Give me the brush, Mollie. We must put him tidy. Dad, such a wonderful thing has happened. Mr. Ingram wants to buy King Canute 'for a rich friend who has a picture-gallery,' and he will pay you five-and-twenty guineas."
"Nonsense, child!" But from his tone Mr. Ward was becoming excited too. "Let me pass, Mollie; you are forgetting your manners, children, leaving a visitor alone;" and Everard Ward marched into the studio, with his head unusually high.
"The 'golden apple,'aliasWardpère, was a shabby, fair little man with a face like a Greek god," continued Ingram. "He must have been a perfect Adonis in his youth. He had brown pathetic eyes, rather like a spaniel's—you know what I mean, eyes that seemed always to be saying, 'I am a good fellow, though I am down on my luck, and I should like to be friends with you.'"
It was evident that the two men took to each other at once. Ingram's pleasant manners and undisguised cordiality put Mr. Ward at his ease, and in a few minutes they were talking as though they were old friends.
The subject of 'King Canute' was soon brought forward again, and Ingram explained matters with a good deal of tact andfinesse.
Everard Ward reddened, and then he said bluntly, "You are very good, Mr. Ingram, to offer me such a handsome price, but sheer honesty compels me to say the picture is not worth more than ten pounds. I have not worked out the subject as well as I could wish." And then he added, a little sadly, "It is a poor thing, but my own."
"My dear sir," returned Ingram, airily, "we artists are bad critics of our own work. My friends regard me as an optimist, but I call myself an Idealist. I am a moral Sisyphus, for ever rolling my poor stone up the hill difficulty." Then, as he noticed Mollie's puzzled look, he continued blandly, "Sisyphus was a fraudulent and avaricious king of Corinth, whose task in the world of shades is to roll a large stone to the top of a hill and fix it there. The unpleasant part of the business is that the stone no sooner reaches the hill-top than it bounds down again. Excuse this lengthy description, which reminds me a little of Sandford and Merton. But,revenons à nos moutons, I am ready, Mr. Ward, to take the picture for my friend at the price I mentioned to your daughters; and as I have the money about me"—and here he produced a Russian leather pocket-book—"I think we had better settle our business at once."
Everard Ward was only human, and the bait was too tempting. His conscience told him that the picture was a failure, and hardly worth more than the cost of the frame; and yet such is the vanity innate in man that he was willing to delude himself with the fancy that the stranger's eyes had detected merit in it. And, indeed, Ingram's manner would have deceived any one.
"It is the very thing he wants for the alcove," he murmured, stepping back a few paces, and regarding the picture through half closed eyes. "The light will be just right, and"—here he appeared to swallow something with difficulty—"the effect will be extremely good." And then he began counting the crisp bank-notes.
Waveney's eyes began to sparkle, and she and Mollie telegraphed little messages to each other. Not only the insolent Barker would be paid, but the much-enduring Chandler. When Mr. Ward went downstairs to open the door for his guest, Waveney threw her arm round her sister, and dragged her down upon Grumps.
"Oh, Mollie, I quite love that dear little Monsieur Blackie!" she cried, enthusiastically. "Think of ten whole pounds to spend! Father can have a new great-coat, and Noel those boots he wants so dreadfully, and you must have a new jacket—I insist on it, Mollie; I shall do very well with my old one until Christmas." But Mollie would not hear of this for a moment: if any one had the new jacket, it must be Waveney. What did it matter what a poor, little Cinderella wore at home? And they both got so hot and excited over the generous conflict that Mr. Ward thought they were quarrelling until he saw their faces.
"I like that fellow," he said, rubbing his hands; "he is gentlemanly and agreeable; he told me in confidence that, though he calls himself an artist, he only dabbles in art. 'If a relative had not left me a nice little property, I should long ago have been in Queer Street,' he said, in his droll way."
"Oh, then he is not poor as we are?" observed Mollie, in a disappointed tone.
"No, he is certainly not poor," returned her father, laughing. "I should think he is tolerably well-to-do, judging from appearances, and certainly he has rich friends. He has asked my permission to call again when he is in the neighbourhood;" and both the girls were pleased to hear this.
Waveney had not seen her old friends at the Hospital for more than a week, so one morning she went across to wish them good-bye. She had a little cake that Mollie had made for them, and some tobacco that she had bought with her own money.
It was a wet day, and most of the pensioners were in the big hall. One of them told Waveney that Sergeant McGill was in his cubicle with the corporal, as usual, in attendance. "They do say the sergeant's a bit poorly," continued her informant. And a moment afterwards she came upon Corporal Marks, stumping along the corridor with a newspaper in his hand. The little man looked dejected, but he saluted Waveney with his usual dignity.
"I hear the sergeant is not well. I trust it is nothing serious." Then the corporal shook his head, and his blue eyes were a little watery.
"Well, no, Miss Ward, not to say serious—we are none of us chickens, so to speak, and we have most of us cut our wisdom teeth a good many years ago. The sergeant has been poorly for a week now. He is down in the mouth, and I can't rouse him nohow. Would you believe it, Miss Ward, I was trying to argify with him this morning about that there Sepoy. 'For it stands to reason, McGill,' I said to him, 'that there could only be two of them;' and he fairly flew at me, lost his temper, and told me I was an infernal liar. Why, you might have knocked me down with a feather, I was so taken aback;" and the corporal's droll face was puckered up with care.
"Never mind, Corporal," returned Waveney, soothingly. "McGill was ill and not himself, or he would not have been so irritable with his old comrade. Look here, I have come to bid you all good-bye, because I am going away; and my sister has made you one of those cakes you like, and I have brought you some tobacco." Then the corporal's face cleared a little.
They found the old soldier lying on his bed, with a rug over his feet; his face looked drawn and pallid. At the sound of Waveney's light step he turned his sightless eyes towards her, and a strange expression passed over his features.
"There was only one step that was as light," he murmured, in his thick, soft voice, "and that was Sheila's, and hers hardly brushed the dewdrops from the heather." Then, as Waveney took hold of his great hand, "and it was her small fingers, too, the brown little hands that carried the creel of peat, and stacked it underneath the eaves; and it is Sheila that has come to me—Heaven bless her sweet face!—before I take the long journey."
"My dear old friend, do you not know me?" and Waveney looked anxiously at him. "It is not Sheila, it is Miss Ward who has come to wish you good-bye." Then the old man looked bewildered, and raised himself on the pillow.
"And are you ferry well, Miss Ward? And it is I who have made the mistake, like the old fool that I was. It may be I was dreaming—I was always clever at the dreams, as the corporal knows. But it seemed to me as though I could see the blue water of the loch, and the grey walls of our cottage, and the shingly roofs, and even the cocks and hens pecking in the dust. And there was Sheila coming up from the beach, with her bare feet, and red kerchief tied over her dark hair; and her smile was like sunshine, and her hands were full of great scarlet poppies. And if it was a dream, it was a good dream."
"Was Sheila your sister?" asked Waveney, softly. For she knew that Sergeant McGill had never been married, though the corporal was a widower. Then, at the beloved name, McGill roused to complete consciousness.
"No, Miss Ward. I had no sister, only six brothers, and Sheila was the lass of my heart; and when I had got my stripes we were to have married. But it was my fate, for when I came from the wars, there was the loch, and the purple moors, and the grey walls of the cottage; but Sheila, she would never come to meet me again with the poppies in her hand, and the wild rose in her cheek. She lay in the graveyard on the hillside, where the dead can hear the bees humming in the heather. But it is not the goot manners to be telling you of the old troubles, and very soon it is Sheila herself that I shall see."
"Tell Miss Ward the message that Sheila left with her mother, McGill."
"It was this that she said," he continued, in a proud tone, "'You must bid Fergus McGill not to grieve; he is a grand soldier and a good lad, and dearly I would have loved to have been his wife. But God's will be done. Tell him I will be near the gates; and that if the angels permit, that it is Sheila who will be there to welcome him.'"
"That message must have made you very happy," returned Waveney, tenderly.
"They were goot words, and I do not deny that they have given me comfort," replied McGill, solemnly. "But for years I had a heavy heart; for when a Highlander loses the lass of his heart, the world is a barren place to him. But it is the truth that Sheila has spoken, and it is herself that I shall see, with these dim old eyes."
He sank back a little heavily on the pillows. Waveney leant over him and spoke gently in his ear.
"McGill," she said, in her clear, girlish voice, "do you know you have hurt the poor corporal's feelings. You were angry with him this morning, and called him names."
Then there was a flush of shame on the grand old face.
"It was myself that was in fault, Miss Ward, for I lost my temper. But it is not the corporal who will quarrel with his old comrade. It was the liar that I called him, but it was I who disgraced myself."
"Never mind, old mate, I was wrong to argify, and so we are quits there. For it stands to reason," continued the corporal, "that when a man is poorly, he is not in a condition for fighting."
"Still, it was the bad manners to be calling any one a liar," returned Sergeant McGill. "But a Highlander's temper is not always under control. So I ask your pardon, Marks, but it was three Sepoys that I killed with my own hand, and I had the third by the throat."
"Dear Sergeant," interposed Waveney, softly, "Corporal Marks quite understands all that; and what does it matter?—a little difference between two old friends!" Then a strangely sweet smile lighted up the wrinkled old face.
"It is the voice of Sheila. And what will she be saying again and again: 'Blessed are the peace-makers'—and they are grand words."
"Shall I read to you a little?" asked the girl, timidly. Then the corporal took down an old brown Testament from the shelf, and Waveney read slowly and reverently, passage after passage, until the heavy breathing told her that McGill was asleep. Then she closed the book and went out into the corridor.
"He is very ill," she said, sorrowfully; "so feeble and so unlike himself." But the corporal refuted this stoutly.
"McGill is but poorly," he returned, so gruffly that Waveney did not venture to say more. "When he has taken a bottle or two of the doctor's stuff, he will pick up a bit; he sleeps badly, and that makes him drowsy and confused," and then he saluted, and stumped back to his comrade.
Waveney heard a different story downstairs.
"Have you seen McGill?" two or three said to her. "The poor chap, he is breaking fast. The corporal won't believe it, but it is plain as a pike-staff;" and so on.
"Mollie, dear," observed Waveney, sadly, "I have such bad news to tell you: dear old Sergeant McGill is very ill, and I fear he is going to die; and what will the corporal do without him? And it is so strange;" she went on, "he thinks he is a lad again, in his Highland home, and that his sweetheart Sheila is coming to meet him. He calls her the lass of his heart, and it is all so poetical and beautiful;" and Waveney's voice was so full of pathos that Mollie's eyes filled with sympathetic tears.
"As high as we have mounted in delightIn our dejection do we sink as low."Wordsworth.
"As high as we have mounted in delightIn our dejection do we sink as low."Wordsworth.
After all, Mollie had her way, and Waveney, in spite of piteous pleading and remonstrance, became the reluctant possessor of a warm dress and jacket.
Mr. Ward had put his foot down in a most unexpected manner; if Waveney would not buy her jacket he would go without his great-coat; Barker and Chandler had been paid, and there was sufficient money for everything. And when Waveney understood that any shabbiness on her part would be grievous in his eyes, she yielded at once.
"If father wishes it I will get the things," she said to Mollie; "but I never enjoy anything unless you share it."
But Mollie would not listen to this.
"What does it matter about me?" she said, gaily. "I am only a poor little Cinderella whose pumpkin coach has not arrived. My old jacket will do quite well until Christmas."
And then, when the purchases were made, Mollie was like a sunbeam for the rest of the day.
Waveney went twice to the Hospital before she started for Erpingham, but each time she found McGill more rambling and confused; and though he roused at the sound of her voice, he always thought she was Sheila. Corporal Marks looked more dejected than ever, but he maintained that the sergeant was doing finely. Waveney thought it was only the little man's natural pugnacity and habit of arguing, and that he did not really believe his own assertion; but though he pretended to grumble, he nursed his friend devotedly. "That there corporal never leaves him," one of the pensioners remarked to Waveney. "You would think they were brothers to see them—and fight they would, too, about those plaguey Sepoys, that you might have taken them for a pair of kilkenny cats. But bless you, miss, it was just for the fun of it."
The days slipped away all too fast; and one morning Mollie awoke with the thought that only one whole day remained before Waveney left home.
They were very busy all the morning, packing her box, and in the afternoon Waveney, who felt restless and rather low-spirited at the sight of Mollie's woe-begone face, proposed they should visit their favourite haunts, the lime avenue, old Ranelagh and the Embankment.
"It is so warm, and the house feels so stuffy!" she added; for Waveney loved air and exercise, and would gladly have been out of doors the greater part of the day.
Mollie willingly assented to this, but she was languid and out of spirits, and soon grew tired; so they sat down under an acacia in old Ranelagh and watched the children playing round them. It was one of those golden days of September, when the very air seems impregnated with strange sweet fragrance, when one thinks of waving corn-fields, and how the wheat ripples in the breeze like a yellow sea; and of deep, quiet lanes—with nut copses and blackberry thickets—or, better still, of a hillside clothed with purple heather, as though Nature had flung one of her royal robes aside. A day when the grand old earth seemed mellow and ripe for the sickle of old Time, and a soft sadness and sense of quiet brooding are over everything. "The summer is over," it seemed to say, "and the fleeting shows of youth, and the fruits of the earth are garnered in Nature's storehouse, and the feast of all good things is ready; so eat and enjoy, and be thankful."
The sisters were sitting hand in hand, and Waveney's small face looked pinched and long from inward fretting, for she was one who took the troubles of life with outward calmness, and chafed under them inwardly; but the sunshine, and the crisp, sweet air and the soft patter of red and yellow leaves, brought their message of comfort.
"Mollie," she said, trying to speak cheerfully, "I am thinking what a beautiful world it is, and how good life is, after all, in spite of worries. Here we are, making ourselves miserable because I have to go away to-morrow. Do you know, we are like those two foolish children we saw that day when father took us in the country. Don't you remember how they cried because their nurse wanted them to go down a lane—it was so dark and narrow, they said, and they were sure the wolves would eat them up; but the nurse knew there was that lovely open meadow beyond. Do you read my little parable, dear?"
"Yes, I think so," returned Mollie; but she spoke doubtfully. Waveney was rather prone to moralise when she found herself alone with Mollie. She called it "thinking aloud." Mollie was her other self. She could tell her things that she would not have breathed to any other creature.
"Well, you see," went on Waveney, "one has steep little bits of road now and then, like that poor King of Corinth—Sisyphus—was not that his name? We have to roll our stone up the hill Difficulty; but one never knows what may happen next. By the bye, Mollie, I rather fancy that Monsieur Blackie only pretends to play at things, and that he is really a clever man. There is something I cannot make out about him. He is mysterious. And then, why did he buy 'King Canute'?"
"Because his friend wanted a historical picture," returned Mollie, who always believed what people said.
"I know he told us so," replied Waveney, thoughtfully. "Mollie, I have a sort of conviction that you will often see him—that he means to turn up pretty frequently at Cleveland Terrace."
"Whatever makes you think so?" asked Mollie, much astonished at this. "What a ridiculous idea, Wave! when you told him yourself that you were leaving home to-morrow."
"But he does not come to see me," retorted Waveney; and then she added, hastily, "he is a friendly sort of person, and comes to see us all."
"Oh, yes, of course," returned Mollie, perfectly satisfied with this view of the case. "Then I daresay he will come sometimes when father is at home. He asked me very particularly when he was likely to be in, and if I went out in the afternoon, and I said, 'Oh, dear no, I always go out early to do the marketing, and then I am too tired to go out again.' Waveney, he did look so kindly at me, when I said that. 'Walking tires you, then. What a pity!' and he seemed quite sorry for me."
"He is a nice little Black Prince," replied Waveney, rather absently. The children had left the gardens with their nurses, and the place was now quite deserted. The next moment a gentleman crossed the lime avenue, and walked slowly down the path. As he passed their bench, he looked at the two girls in a quiet, observant way, and passed on.
As soon as he was out of hearing, Waveney said, a little wickedly, "Mollie, we have found him at last, 'the noticeable man, with large grey eyes.'"
For this was an old joke of theirs. They had been reading Wordsworth together one summer's day on this very bench, and when Waveney had come to this stanza she had laid down the book. "I like that description, Mollie," she had said; "it gives one a pleasant idea of a person. 'A noticeable man, with large grey eyes.' Now, I wonder if we shall ever see any one answering to that description."
Mollie laughed, and looked interested when Waveney said this; but a moment later she whispered, "Hush! he is coming back;" and then, to Mollie's alarm—for she was very shy and timid—he stopped and lifted his hat.
"Will you have the kindness to inform me," he said, addressing Mollie in a peculiarly clear, mellow voice, "if this path will take me to Dunedin Terrace. I am not well acquainted with Chelsea."
Mollie blushed and looked confused. Topography was not her strong point. "I think so. I am not quite sure. Do you know, Waveney?"
"Yes, but it is rather a roundabout way. Dunedin Terrace is quite half a mile away;" and then Waveney rose from the bench and considered her bearings, while the stranger quietly awaited her decision.
He was a tall man, and though his face was plain, there was something in his expression that attracted notice, an air of unmistakable refinement and culture. The keen grey eyes had already noted Mollie's lovely face; now they were fixed on the plainer sister.
"I think I can direct you properly now," observed Waveney, with her usual brightness; "but it is just a little complicated. You must go out of this gate, and cross Cleveland Terrace, take the second turning to the right, and the first to the left, and you will be in Upper Dunedin Terrace."
"Thank you very much;" and then he repeated her directions gravely and slowly; and then, lifting his hat with another "Thank you," walked quickly away.
"Yes, I was right," continued Waveney; "he is certainly a noticeable man; and what large, clear eyes." But Mollie shrugged her shoulders a little pettishly.
"I think he was rather ugly," she remarked, "and he is quite old—five-and-thirty, at least; and did you notice his shabby coat—why, it was almost as shabby as father's."
"No," returned Waveney; "I did not notice that. I was only thinking what a grand-looking man he was, and he spoke so nicely, too!" Then, as Mollie was evidently not interested, she changed the subject; and they sat talking until it was time for them to go home to tea.
It was a melancholy evening, in spite of all Waveney's efforts. Mr. Ward was tired and dull, and Noel was out of humour; but his sisters, who understood him thoroughly, knew that this was only his mode of expressing his feelings.
So he drew up his coat-collar and answered snappishly whenever Waveney addressed him; and grew red, and pretended to be deaf, when she alluded to her going away.
And when she was bidding him good-night, and her fingers touched his rough hair caressingly, he threw back his head with an annoyed jerk.
"I hate having my hair pulled," he said, crossly; "so give over, old Storm-and-Stress;" and then he whistled and walked out of the room with his chin in the air; but not before Waveney saw that his glasses were misty.
"Mollie, darling, remember I shall be home on Sunday, and it is Tuesday now," were Waveney's last words as she jumped into the train, and her father closed the door.
Waveney stood at the window until the dark tunnel hid them from her sight. Mollie's sweet face was swollen with crying, and her father's countenance was sad and full of care; the child whom he had cherished with peculiar tenderness was leaving his roof because he was incapable of providing for his household properly. He had been a failure all his life, and he knew it; but it was bitter to him that his old friend Althea should know it, too.
Waveney took a cab when she reached Dereham. The driver touched his hat when she told him to drive to the Red House, Erpingham.
"I know it," he said, as he took off his horse's nose-bag. "There ain't a cab-driver in Dereham that don't know the ladies at the Red House; they give us a supper in Christmas week, and there is another for the costers that use their donkeys well—and it is a rare spread, too;" and then he smacked his lips and jumped on the box.
Waveney looked out and tried to interest herself in the various objects they passed; but her head felt heavy as lead. The common looked lovely in the afternoon sunshine, and, as before, the children were dancing in and out the trees. Some little boys were sailing a boat on the pond, and a Newfoundland was swimming across it with a stick in his mouth. Some riders were cantering over the grass. Every one seemed gay and animated and full of life; dogs barked, children laughed, and the cawing of rooks filled the air.
As they drove in at the lodge gates the two little Yorkshire terriers ran out barking, and the elderly maid Mitchell came to the door.
"My mistresses are out, ma'am," she said, pleasantly, "but Nurse Marks has orders to make you comfortable. Will you please to go in, and I will see to the box and pay the cabman. No, ma'am," as Waveney timidly offered her some money. "Miss Harford always pays the cabmen herself."
"Aye, and pays them well, too," observed the driver, with a complacent grin. "No arguing with a poor chap who has to work hard for his living about an extra sixpence."
Waveney felt very strange and forlorn as she stepped into the hall, with Fuss and Fury barking excitedly round her, and then she saw a little old woman with a very long nose, and hair as white as snow bundling down the wide staircase to meet her; for no other word could describe Nurse Marks's rolling and peculiar gait.
"She is the most wonderful little old woman I have ever seen," wrote Waveney, in her first letter home. "If you were to dress her in a red cloak and peaked hat she would make an excellent Mother Hubbard, or the 'old woman who lived in her shoe,' or that ambitious old person who tried to brush the cobwebs from the sky. To see her poking that long nose of hers into corners is quite killing. She has bright eyes like a dormouse, and a cosy voice—do you know what I mean by that?—and she wears the funniest cap, with a black bow at the top. But there! you must see her for yourself."
"My ladies are out, dearie," she began at once, rather breathlessly. "Miss Doreen is at the Home, and Mrs. Mainwaring has sent for Miss Althea unexpectedly, to go to some grand At Home; but she will be back to dinner, and she begged that you would excuse her absence, and I am going to take you to my room and give you some tea; for you are tired, dearie, I know;" and then Nurse Marks led the way upstairs, and Waveney followed, feeling as though she were the heroine of a fairy-story and that some benevolent fairy had her in tow.
"My ladies always calls this the Cubby-house," observed Nurse Marks, in a proud tone, "and to my thinking it is the nicest room in the house, though it is odd-shaped, as Mitchell says, and a trifle low."
It was oddly shaped indeed. One corner had been cut off, and the window, a wide one, had been set in an extraordinary angle, so that part of the room was insufficiently lighted. Here there was a large Japanese screen, which hid the bed and washstand.
A round table was in the centre of the room, and an old carved wardrobe and a nursery cupboard occupied the wall space. Some comfortable-looking rocking chairs, and a worn old couch, gave it a cosy aspect; but the chief feature of the room was the number of photographs and water-colour paintings that covered the walls, while framed ones stood by dozens on the mantelpiece and chest-of-drawers.
One of them at once attracted Waveney. "Why, that is the corporal," she said, in surprise. "Corporal Marks, I mean;" and she spoke in puzzled tones.
"Aye, that's Jonadab," returned Nurse Marks, complacently. "It is a grand picture, and his medals come out finely. Dinah thought a heap of that photo;" and then the bright dormouse eyes looked at Waveney, curiously. "Well, it beats me that you should know brother Jonadab. After all, the world is not so big as we think it."
"Of course I know Corporal Marks," returned Waveney, excitedly; but there was a lump in her throat, too, at the sight of the little corporal's familiar face, with its round, surprised eyes and shock of grey hair. "And I know Sergeant McGill, too."
Then, at the mention of McGill, Nurse Marks sat down and indulged in a hearty laugh.
"Well, now, if that is not like a book! And you are the young lady that Jonadab is always telling about! Is it not comfortable to know that 'their good works do follow them'? That's true, even in this world, for it stands to reason that things can't be hidden for ever. Sit down, dearie, and I will pour you out some tea. You are a bit homesick and strange, but that will pass, so keep up your heart, dear lamb;" and Nurse Marks poked her long nose into the tea-pot, for she was short-sighted; and Waveney watched her a little anxiously; but she need not have feared: Nurse Marks was a clever woman, and could always measure her distances accurately.
"Aye, he is a grand man, McGill," she remarked, as she cut some delicate bread-and-butter with a practised hand. "But he is not long for this world. Jonadab will miss him sorely, I fear; they are a queer pair to look at them, but they are just bound up in each other. They are like a couple of old children, I tell them; they quarrel just for the sake of making it up. But there, as Dinah used to say—poor thing!—her man was fine at argifying."
"Was Dinah your brother's wife?"
"Aye, dearie, and Jonadab thought a deal of her, and grieved sore when the dear Lord took her. You will be wondering at his name, maybe, for it is out of the common, is Jonadab; but mother used to tell us that when the boy came, father was so proud and pleased that he went at once to the Bible for a name. And presently he came to mother, looking as pleased as possible, as though he had found a treasure. 'Rachel,' he says, in a loud voice, 'there is not a finer fellow to my thinking than Jonadab, the son of Rechab, and he was dead against the drink, too, and it is Jonadab that we will call him;' and so Jonadab it was," finished Nurse Marks, complacently.
"There is rosemary, that is for remembrance....And there is pansies that's for thoughts."Shakespeare.
"There is rosemary, that is for remembrance....And there is pansies that's for thoughts."Shakespeare.
"That way madness lies; let me shun that."King Lear.
"That way madness lies; let me shun that."King Lear.
It was impossible for Waveney not to be amused by Nurse Marks' quaint tales; her sense of humour was too strong, and the atmosphere of the Cubby-house was so full of comfort that, in spite of herself, her sad face began to brighten.
"If you knew Sergeant McGill," she said, presently, "perhaps you knew his sweetheart, Sheila, too." Then Nurse Marks smiled and nodded, as she cut another appetising slice of bread-and-butter, and laid it on Waveney's plate—such sweet home-made bread and fresh, creamy butter!
"Aye, dearie, I knew Sheila McTavish well, for when I was a slip of a girl I had a bad illness, and my mother's cousin, Effie Stuart, took me back with her to the Highlands to bide with her for more than a year. The McTavish cottage was next to ours, and not a day passed that I did not see Sheila coming up from the loch-side with her creel, with her bare feet and red petticoat, and maybe a plaid over her bonnie brown hair. I was always a homely body, even in my young days, but never before or since have I seen a lovelier face than Sheila McTavish, 'the Flower of the Deeside'—that was what they called her."
"Was she engaged to McGill then?"
"Aye, my dearie. She had broken the sixpence with him, but he was away in India then. I remember one day, as I sat on the churchyard wall, Sheila came over the moor, and she had a sprig of white heather in her hand. She held it up to me with a smile. 'It is good luck, Kezia,' she said, and her eyes seemed full of brown sunshine, 'and this morning I have heard from Fergus McGill himself, and it is he who is the guid lad with his letters. He is coming home, he says, and then we are to be wed, and it is the white heather that will bring us luck.' Ah, dearie, before three weeks were over, Sheila, our sweet Flower of the Deeside, lay in her coffin, and they put the white heather on her dead breast; and when Fergus McGill came home there was only the grave under the rowan tree. There, there, it is a queer world," finished Nurse Marks, "and there is many a love-story left unfinished, for 'man' (and woman, too) 'is born into trouble,' and I know that the women get the worst of it sometimes; for it stands to reason," continued the old woman, garrulously, "that they think a deal more of a love tale. Now, as we have finished tea, shall I take you to your room, my dearie? It is called the Pansy Room, and is close to mine. Miss Althea is a grand one for giving names. All the bedrooms are called after flowers, to match the paper and cretonne. There is the Rose Room and the Forget-me-not and the Pink Room, and the Leafy Room, and the Marigold Room, where they put gentlemen."
"Which is Miss Althea's?" asked Waveney, quickly.
"Oh, the Rose Room. Miss Althea has a passion for roses. Miss Doreen sleeps in the Forget-me-not Room; everything is blue there. The other rooms are for their guests, but near the servants' quarters there are two pretty little attics called 'Faith' and 'Charity,' where they put shop-girls who have broken down and need a rest; and these are never empty all the year round. There is a little sitting-room attached, where they take their meals. There, they are crossing the tennis-lawn this moment from the Porch House. The tall one is Laura Cairns; she has had an operation and has only just left the hospital, and the little fat one is Ellen Sturt; there is not much the matter with her except hard work and too much standing."
"Oh, how good they are!" thought Waveney, as Nurse Marks bundled down the passage before her. "Every one seems to have something to say in their praise, even the cab-driver;" and then she looked round the Pansy Room well pleased. It was so fresh, and dainty, and pretty, and, after her room at Cleveland Terrace, so luxuriously comfortable.
For there was actually a cosy-looking couch, and an easy-chair, and beautiful flowers on the toilet-table, and some hanging book-shelves full of interesting books.
The window looked over the tennis-lawn with the Porch House, where the girls were pacing arm-in-arm. One of them looked up at the window, and smiled a little as Waveney gazed down at her. Nurse Marks, who was already beginning to unpack, went on talking briskly.
"It was Miss Althea's thought, but Miss Doreen helped her to carry it out. It is always like that with my ladies, they are just the two halves of a pair of scissors, but they work together finely. What one says the other does. It is like the precious ointment, that's what it is, Miss Ward, my dear! and never a misunderstanding or a contrary word between them.
"The girls come for a month, and sometimes they stay longer; and if they are well enough they wait on themselves, or if not, Reynolds, the under housemaid, sees to them; and when the weather permits they are in the garden, or on the common the whole day long, and they have the run of the Porch House, too, and help themselves to books from the library; they are no trouble and fall in with our ways, and the blessing the Red House is to some of those poor things is past my telling. Now, dearie, shall I hang these things in the wardrobe for you—there is plenty of room and to spare. And then I will go back, and finish a bit of mending for Miss Althea."
Waveney was not sorry to be left alone; she wanted to begin a letter to Mollie. She had so much already to tell her. So she sat down at the writing-table, and her pen flew over the paper, until a quick, light tap at her door roused her, and Miss Althea entered.
Waveney gave a vivid description of her to Mollie afterwards. "She looked so grand and stately that I felt quite shy; but her dress was charming. It was a soft, cloudy grey, but it shimmered as though it were streaked with silver, and she had a close little bonnet that looked like silver too, and a ruff of fine cobwebby lace round her long neck. I fancy she always wears a ruff, and she looked more like Queen Bess than ever. Somehow she is oddly picturesque, and makes other people look commonplace beside her. But there, you must see her one day for yourself."
Althea came up to the writing table as Waveney rose, a little confused, and held out her hand to the girl with one of her winning smiles.
"I was so sorry to be out when you arrived," she said, kindly, "but my aunt, Mrs. Mainwaring, sent for me most unexpectedly. I hope Nurse Marks took good care of you."
"Oh, yes," returned Waveney, shyly, "she was very kind."
"Oh, my dear old nurse is the kindest creature in the world. She literally bubbles over with benevolence. Is not the Cubby-house delightful? Did you see the toy cupboard, where all our dear old dolls and toys are stored? Marks won't part with one of them; she is quite huffy if we propose to give them away. When children come to the house, she lets them play with them under her own eye. One day she came into the library with a long face to tell me that little Audrey Neale had broken Bopeep's arm;" and Althea laughed quite merrily; then she looked at the clock on the mantelpiece, and uttered an exclamation: "Half-past seven, and I am not dressed. What will Peachey say? I will come back and fetch you directly the gong sounds;" and then Waveney was left to finish her letter.
She did not see Miss Doreen until they entered the dining-room, and then she welcomed her very cordially. To Waveney the dinner-table was a revelation. She had never taken a meal out of her own home, and the soft, shaded lights, the hot-house fruits and flowers, the handsome silver, and the fineness of the damask, excited her wonderment. The servant moved so noiselessly over the thick carpets, and then she thought of Ann stumping round the table in her heavy boots.
Ah, they would be just sitting down to supper, and Mollie would be mixing the salad as usual; for Everard Ward had learnt to enjoy a salad in his Paris days, and would sup contentedly on bread-and-cheese or even bread-and-butter, if only he could have a handful of cress, or a stalk or two of endive, to give it a relish.
Doreen and Althea were quite aware that the forlorn little stranger was not at her ease. The small, childish face looked subdued and thoughtful, and the dark,spirituelleeyes were sad in their wistfulness; but with their usual tact and kindness they left her alone, and talked to each other in their cheerful way.
Althea gave a description of her afternoon party, which was full of gentle humour; and Doreen had a great deal to say about the Home. She had had tea with old Mrs. Wheeler—and as usual the poor old soul was full of her grievances against Miss Mason.
"She is a cantankerous, east-windy sort of body," went on Doreen, with a laugh, as she helped herself to some grapes, "and she leads poor Miss Mason a life. But there! one must not judge her, she has led a hard, grinding sort of existence. Althea, these grapes are unusually fine; don't you think Laura Cairns would enjoy some? Ellen likes pears better;" and then Doreen heaped up a plate with fine fruit and bade Mitchell take it to the Brown Parlour.
When the sisters rose from the table Althea touched Waveney's arm.
"Come with me to the library," she said, in a kind voice. "We shall sit there this evening. We do not often use the drawing-room—it is a very big room, and we always feel rather lost in it."
"I call this big, too," remarked Waveney, in rather an awed voice. She had never seen such a beautiful room in her life; it was better than any of the dream rooms at Kitlands.
The grand oriel window, with its cushioned seat; the carved oak furniture, and bookcases filled with handsomely-bound books; the fine engravings on the walls;—all excited her admiration. But when Althea drew back a curtain and showed her a tiny room hidden away behind it, with a glass-door opening on the terrace, she could not refrain from an exclamation of delight.
"Oh, what a dear little room!" she said, quite naturally.
"Yes, I call it my cosy nook. But it is not really a room, it is merely a recess." And Waveney thought how well Miss Althea's name suited it. There was a small writing-table prettily fitted-up, an easy-chair, and a work-table.
"I am so glad you have taken a fancy to it," went on Miss Althea—and she looked very much pleased—"because this is to be your little sanctum. You see, it would never do for me to have my reader and companion far away from me. And yet I imagine we should both find it irksome to be always together—even my sister and I could not stand that; but, you see, when the curtain is dropped, you will be quite private."
"And it is really for me!" and Waveney's eyes sparkled with pleasure.
Then Miss Althea smiled, and put her hand kindly on the girl's arm.
"I want you to be happy with us, my dear, and not to look upon us as strangers, because in the old days your father was a dear friend of ours. Last night an idea struck me. Do you think you would feel more at home with us if we were to call you by your Christian name? You have such a pretty name, and it is so uncommon."
"Oh, please do," returned Waveney, flushing with shy pleasure. "It was silly of me, but I was so dreading that 'Miss Ward;'" and somehow a load seemed lifted off her at that moment.
"She is such a little childish thing," observed Miss Althea afterwards; "and yet she has plenty of character. We are very unconventional people, Doreen, you and I; but I never could endure these artificial barriers. My dignity, such as it is, is innate; it does not need bolstering up. I could not be stiff and proper with Everard Ward's daughter;" and then a strangely sad look came into Althea's eyes, as though some ghost from the past had crossed her path; "no, certainly not to Everard Ward's daughter;" and Doreen smiled as though she understood her.
Doreen's world was inhabited by warm-blooded human beings; no ghostly visitants ever haunted her. "I am a woman without a story," she would say. "Most people have some sort of romance in their lives—even unmarried women have their unfinished idylls; but my life has been bare prose." But she always laughed when she made these speeches, for there was nothing morbid in Doreen's character.
Althea proposed, as the evening was mild and balmy, that they should take a turn in the garden.
"It will be very pleasant on the terrace, and in the kitchen-garden," she remarked, "but, of course, we must avoid the grass. Are not these shut-in lawns pretty? Through that arch, if it were light enough, you would have a glimpse of my flower-garden. I call it mine, because I give it my special supervision. Doreen takes more interest in the kitchen-garden, and when I boast of my roses and begonias, she is dilating on the excellence of her strawberries and tomatoes."
"I think I should care most for the flower-garden," observed Waveney. And then, of her own accord, she began telling Miss Althea about the pensioners' little gardens, and the corporal's flowers.
Althea listened with much interest, and then, little by little, her quiet questions and sympathetic manner induced Waveney to break through her shy reserve, and speak of her home. Althea soon found out all she wanted to know: the home that was so perfect in Waveney's eyes, the little warm nest that held all her dear ones, seemed meagre and bare to the elder woman, who had been used to luxury all her life, and had never had a want ungratified.
As the girl talked on in anaiveway, all at once a vision rose before Althea's eyes of a brilliantly-lighted ball-room, and of a fair, boyish-looking man, with stephanotis in his buttonhole, standing before her with eager looks.
"It is our valse, Althea, and I have been looking forward to it all the evening." And then—and then——But she started from her reverie with a quick feeling of shame. Why had these thoughts come to her? He was Dorothy's lover, not hers. Had he ever cared for her really? "It was all a mistake. It was not he who was to blame, it was I—I!" and even in the September darkness she smote her hands angrily together. The love had been in her imagination; it had never existed—never. She had bartered her warm woman's heart for a shadow, and alas, alas! it was not in Althea's nature to change. "If I love once, I love for ever," she had once said in a bitter moment to Doreen. How she repented that speech afterwards! "No; you do not understand, neither do I; but I think it is my nature to be faithful."
When Althea roused from her brooding, she found that Waveney had become silent. "You were speaking of your sister, were you not?" she said, gently. "Some one told me," she continued, a little vaguely, "that she was very pretty."
"Oh, yes," returned Waveney, eagerly, "everyone thinks Mollie quite lovely. It is such a pity she is lame. It spoils things so much for her, poor darling! But people admire her just the same—in the street they turn round and stare at her; but Mollie never seems to notice them a bit. That reminds me of such a funny speech"—and here Waveney began to laugh. "An old Irishwoman who works for us sometimes, once said to her, 'It is my belief, Miss Mollie darlint, that the Powers above were after fashioning an angel, and then they thought better of it, and changed it into a flesh-and-blood woman. For the angel still laughs out of your eyes, mavourneen.' And would you believe it, Miss Harford, that Mollie only burst out laughing when Biddy said that, but I think it was beautiful."
"I must see your pretty Mollie," returned Althea, thoughtfully; "but we must go in now."
"I think I must tell Moritz that," she said to herself, with a smile. "'The angel still laughs out of your eyes, mavourneen.' How very like an Irishwoman!"