The Chantrelles gone, with the whistle of their departing train shrilling in her ears, Mabel sighed contentedly, gathered all there was of her together and spent a full two minutes in inspecting its reflection in the mirror.
The sound of the closing of the door on them as they left had been sweet music in her ears. The warning shriek of the engine as it started out of the station, drawing them every moment further and further away from her, was sweeter still.
Then she entered into consultation with her cook; set about ordering the most appetising little dinner she could devise. There was entailed an expenditure of anxious thought; the function was an important one. Mrs. Seton-Carr was not a woman to despise details of that kind.
She had laughed once at a cynic's beliefthat, if you cannot make sure of retaining a man's love, you can, by securing the services of a good cook, make sure of his respect. Despite her laughter she was not without faith in the proverb that the road to a man's heart lies through his stomach.
The last time Prince Charlie had dined at Ivy Cottage he had not enjoyed himself; she remembered why with a little flush of shame. There was determination that he should do so this time. And she rather thought she would enjoy herself too; anyway, it would not be her fault if they failed to do so.
The shades of evening began their descent soon after half-past four o'clock. It was not too dark then for her to see her brother and Prince Charlie go by on the Parade—eastwards. The author's broad, square shoulders were unmistakable. She herself was hidden by the bedroom curtain she was behind.
They had gone in the direction of the seat. A smile found place on her face; so far all was well. Then she tried on two or three hats. Was anxious to look her best; she knew that she could talk so much better when sure of her appearance. Sadness tinged her reflection; the beauty of her millinery would be wasted in the darkness.
Then, with a sigh—she was a woman, with all a woman's belief in millinery's power—she hoped that not much talking would be needed. Silence and a good profile were more reliable. She looked at the clock: the minutes dragged slowly.
At a quarter to five she left the cottage. Before the hour reached the end of the Parade. An east wind was blowing. As she neared the seat the odour of cigars came to her, borne on the wind from which the smokers were sheltered. Then she advanced.
"Hullo, Sis!"
Dick started to his feet as if she were an apparition, spoke in an exaggerated tone of surprise; continuing:
"Who on earth would have thought of seeing you here?"
She could have soundly boxed his ears for him—well-meaning Dick—for so overdoing it. He could not have exhibited more surprise had he thought her dropped from the clouds. Brothers really are terribly trying at times.
Perhaps it was as well for him that he slowly moved away. Apparently he evinced a judicious, if sudden, interest in moonlight conchology. Anyway, he devoted his attention to some of the common objects of the sea-shore.
That Dick did move off was the essentialpoint. She saw, with relief, that he had sense enough for that. The sound of the whistling of "Rule Britannia" gradually died away in the distance.
Masters had risen to his feet the moment his eyes fell on her. Stood there doubtful what he should do. She did not leave him in doubt long; advanced towards him, and stretching out her hand, said:
"Prince Charlie, I am—oh, I am so sorry! Please forgive me!"
It was a lame speech. She was surprised at, ashamed of, herself. She had rehearsed what she had intended saying all the afternoon. Now it came to the point she could not remember a word.
Whatever she might think of her own words they were an immense surprise to Masters. He took her extended hand, common courtesy compelled him to that, and said gently:
"Forgive? You are surely—oh, I have nothing to forgive!"
"You have!"
She insisted with a charming insistence. Somehow her eyes got to need mopping with her handkerchief—a lace handkerchief with a singularly pretty border, by the way.
"I have b-behaved"—she mopped on—"like a wicked wretch t-to you."
Of course, with a man of Masters' temperamentit was most effective; she was playing an ideal game. Some men are used to tears; come to look upon them as an unavoidable factor in their dealings with women. The author had not reached that stage: probably never would.
A woman crying, or in distress, never failed to appeal to him. Perhaps Mrs. Seton-Carr knew that. Women are very subtle; their intuition is no mythical possession. Any way, she played that handkerchief of hers for all it was worth.
Masters still stood hesitating; was genuinely anxious and full of wonder: what he ought to do. Thoughts of eau de Cologne occurred to him. He knew women found relief in that kind of thing; but he bent over her and said:
"I beg you—oh, I beg, earnestly, you will not distress yourself."
He really meant it; her distress distressed him. The more she saw that the more tears she shed. Artful little crocodile!
"You w-won't f-f-forgive me!"
She knew all the time that he would.
"Pray, Mrs.—you—I—I—have nothing to forgive. But if you think I have, I forgive you freely, fully."
The road was getting smooth, she thought, but it was not safe to drop the handkerchiefyet; plainly that was a strong weapon.
"You m-m-must think me such an awful b-b-brute!"
Wretched little prevaricator! She knew quite well that he thought nothing of the kind.
"Believe me, I can never think of you in any way but the kindliest."
True; every word of it. His heart was like a photographic plate, capable only of bearing one clear picture.
"I d-daresay you wish me dead, or at the bottom of the s-sea—and I d-deserve it."
Really she did. It was most unfair—this present performance of hers. It distressed him beyond measure; he said:
"I wish you nothing but the greatest happiness it is possible for you to enjoy; wish it from my heart."
"And I—I—have behaved so—s-s-so ungratefully to you."
She uttered truth; perhaps for a change. But he denied what she said; answered:
"Not at all! You behaved rightly; as your heart dictated."
She had to flare up at that; could not help it. As a matter of fact all her actions had been in direct opposition to her heart's promptings.
"I did nothing of the sort! My behaviour was quite wrong!"
The handkerchief shifted a little to enable her to look up at him out of the corner of her eye, as she continued:
"Just the reverse of the way my h-h-heart dictated."
His own heart beat a little quicker at that, in expectation, as he asked eagerly:
"When was that?"
"At that wr-r-retched dinner."
He sat down; somehow they both sat—apparently it was a simultaneous act. He was, however, to windward of her; she engineered that. The faint perfume of the hair of her bent head came to him. It has been already mentioned that Mrs. Seton-Carr devoted attention to details. No wonder the elder Weller warned his son against widows!
"You have said either not enough or too much." He spoke hoarsely, in tense tones. "Tell me—more."
"You want to make it h-h-hard for me; to humble me m-m-more."
She sobbed out the words, the while her disengaged hand, curiously, fell on his. Naturally, his hand closed on hers, and—quite easily—he frustrated her efforts to take it away. He moved closer to her.
She turned the back of her head to him.Was not unaware of the fact that her hair grew very prettily there; fell in soft little golden curls at the nape of her neck. Of course the movement was quite an unconscious one! Perhaps, too, it was pure accident that the moon just then had popped from behind a cloud, so lighting up things; she went on:
"I t-think you are very h-hard to me."
He moved closer still; every fibre in his being thrilled by contact with the woman he loved. Had he bent down, his lips would have touched her head. The blood was racing through his veins as he wondered—should he dare? Then he thought of the dinner party—remembered Chantrelle. The thought acted as the descent of iced water might have done: she was another man's property! He took his hand away.
That alarmed her—dreadfully! She had thought all was going along so nicely; was actually getting ready for the union of lips; the final drying of her eyes. What could possibly have frozen him up like that?
"I am sorry," he said, "you should think unpleasant things of me. But is there need?"
The coldness of his tone struck a horrible chill to her heart. But it was not a moment for despair, rather for a marshalling of all herforces. She redoubled her efforts; fell on her knees by his side, and cried:
"You are cruel! I am kneeling to you, asking you to forgive me, and you won't! I knelt to you once before—here on this spot—and you were cruel to me then——"
"Ah, yes!"
He interrupted her; the memory of his brutality then—he called it so—returned to him; his words came hurriedly:
"For that I need your forgiveness; I ought to abjectly apologise. What I did, said, then was wholly under a misapprehension——"
She seized on that: it gave her a chance. Moreover, it was now or never—so she thought. Metaphorically she set her teeth and said—Now. Actually she whispered:
"Isn't it possible perhaps, that you may be under a misapprehension now?"
She boldly raised her head and looked him straight in the face as she spoke. Tears had not in the least, strange to say, disfigured hers; her grief had not been that kind! She continued:
"Don't do as you did then; don't push me away from you!"
That was a rubbing of it in with a vengeance. Had the effect of making him speak with a strange quiver in his voice.
"Please—please get up! I don't like—I can't bear—to see you——"
Her disobedience was of the studied kind. She got so close to him that he felt the warmth of her body, the up-creep of her hands on his breast, the sweet warm breath from her lips. So holding him—holding in every sense of the word—she said with a spice of defiance in her voice:
"I won't get up till you tell me you forgive me everything!"
She had him at such a disadvantage! It was really grossly unfair. The poor wretch did not know whether he was on his head or his heels. Then, almost before he knew what he was doing, his arms were about her; he could not help it. He gripped her to him so closely that she could have cried out—but it was too sweet a pain to ask relief from.
"Tell me." His voice was raucous in its hoarseness. "You do not—do not belong to Chantrelle?"
A laugh came to her lips. A tinge of jealousy in the man she loves pleases a woman, spices things as it were. Besides, looked at from the right view-point, it is the subtlest of flattery.
Hence her laughter.
Mrs. Seton Carr seemed in no hurry to withdraw herself from the author's tightly clasping arms. Seriously, it was really very disgraceful behaviour of hers. She excused herself with the knowledge that there was no audience: save the moon and the sea. After subsidence of her laugh she said:
"I have said good-bye for ever to the Chantrelles. They have left Ivy Cottage. I shall never see them again——"
"I thought——"
"I loved him?" she interrupted gleefully. "I didn't—I just hated him——"
"Yet you——"
"Pretended I did because I wanted to annoy you! There! I wanted to annoy you because—I.... Don't, Prince Charlie! You're making me look so untidy.... Yes do—I don't mind.... They'll think it was the wind."
Thoughts of other people and of dinner came to them at last. But it was half-past seven before they started to walk back home. What they said during all the time they were on the seat is a matter of concern to themselves only.
Besides which, when people are in love, their conversation is not remarkable for originality and general interest. Even authors get out of the stirrups—off their high horse—and talk like other people.
She explained to him that she had loved him from the first. He, wondering how he could have been blind to the fact, hugged her close again. Thereupon, she complained that he hurt her, and then contradicted herself; in fact behaved like a true woman.
She confessed why she had not told him she was Mrs. Seton-Carr at first: because she was a leader of London fashion, and she knew he hated London Society and everything connected therewith. The newspaper people chronicled her movements and she was much talked about; she had thought he would not fail to recognize her name.
But she need not have feared; he would not have done so. Fashionable Intelligence, and all columns captioned in kindred fashion, he never read. Had an idea of his own that in the study of mankind hissociety papers were not very suitable textbooks.
It would naturally be supposed that seeing how late it was they would have hurried home. Not they! It was nearly eight o'clock when they reached Ivy Cottage. Dick was waiting for them.
"This is a pretty idea, upon my soul!" His greeting. "A nice way to treat your brother! Dinner has been waiting hours!"
"Never mind, Dick dear," replied his sister, pecking at his lips as she removed the pins from her hat. "It doesn't matter, it really doesn't matter in the least."
"Doesn't it! It matters to me! Am I supposed to be a fasting man, giving a seaside exhibition of myself? There's been no midday meal, because I had to bolt whilst you were turning people out of the house neck and crop. I did think I was going to get some dinner! I don't even get an apology. You're flouncing around grinning all over your face as if you'd picked up sixpence. What have you been doing?"
"There—sit down—like a good boy. Here's the soup coming. Now start and try to make up for lost time."
She ran to her room and threw off her hat and mantle. Laughed at her reflection in the glass—a laugh inspired by sheer happiness.Then she crept softly into Gracie's room; the child was not yet asleep, though sleepy. Bending over the cot she kissed the little rosy face, and Gracie's arms went up and around the neck of her Dear Miss Mivvins.
Mrs. Seton-Carr had not been away from the dining room more than two minutes; when she returned to take her place at table mischievous Dick was ready waiting for her, said:
"What I want to know is, what the deuce you two have been sitting out on that blessed seat all night for? Why couldn't you come in like rational beings and sit in chairs and talk?"
"Never you mind, Dick; don't ask questions. Have some more soup?"
"Oh, you can't stop my mouth with soup! I have been kept without food for so long that I'm afraid to eat much! I expect it was some of that tommy-rot Prince Charlie was always flooding my ears with. About your eyes and hair and——"
"Now, Dick," interrupted Masters, "drop that please. It is a forbidden subject."
"Is it? I am not to talk about what you said?" He turned to his sister and continued: "What have you had to say then, Sis? Been telling him how you begged and prayed of me not to let him——"
"Dick! If you don't be quiet, I'll never forgive you!"
"Now, look here." Dick assumed an aggrieved tone. "Am I supposed not to talk at all? Is this house run on the silent system? I might just as well be having dinner in a deaf and dumb asylum."
"Talk sensibly then," said his sister patronisingly, "and we'll listen to you with pleasure."
"We! Oh, it's reached that stage, has it: plural! 'M very well. Let's take up a serious subject: horribly serious. Have you lunatics decided when your two throbbing hearts are going to be merged into one; when you are to be married?"
"Dick! Don't you want—let me pass you some more vegetables!"
"Don't stop his thirst for information," interposed Masters quietly. "He's got to be best man, so he may as well know. It is settled that we are to be married by special licence on New Year's Day."
"Oh, Prince Charlie!" she cried. "I never said—indeed I didn't——"
"No, dear," he replied calmly. "I know you did not. But you said that that woman I made love to on the boat—what was her name?—Amy—pass the sauce, Dick—alleged that I said it rested withme, so far as the naming of the day was concerned."
"How can you——"
"It occurred to me that that was a capital idea. I am not one of those superior persons; am never above taking a hint. I know I have had—thanks to you—the most unhappy end of a year. By way of compensation I am going—thanks to you again—to have a most happy beginning of one."
Dick viewed the consternation displayed on his sister's face to the accompaniment of a broad grin on his own, said:
"That's right! Start quarrelling now, even before you are tied up! Goodness knows what it will be like after, when you are sentenced to—I mean when you are linked for life. Miserable wretches! You have my sincerest sympathy; all my pity."
"It takes two to make a quarrel."
Prince Charlie uttering the aphorism. Then with a smile, holding out his hand to Mabel, he continued:
"You agree with me, don't you, darling? Just by your action convince this beardless youth that we are in accord about the first of January—if we are to be married on that day, put your hand in mine."
She hesitated a moment, perhaps herbrother's derisive laugh helped to her action: she put it right there.
"There's one thing about this affair—having long been an acute sufferer from my headstrong sister's temper," said Dick, grinning all over his face—"about which I am distinctly displeased."
"You are going to make one of your terrible jokes, Dick!" she said. "I can see it in your face!"
"Oh, let him run loose," interposed Masters. "It's Christmas time, you know. What's the joke? If it's going to give us pain, out with it—as the boy said to the dentist."
"If you labour over one of your usual atrocious puns, Dick," warned his sister, "I'll throw you down and pummel you black and blue!"
"I was merely going to observe," said her brother, regardless of the threat, "that I was glad that at length you had found your master!"
He had to howl for mercy before she let him go.
Gracie had to be reckoned with. Prince Charlie was looked on as her exclusive property. Considerable diplomacy and tact would have to be brought to bear; that exacting atom of humanity needed careful handling.
Uncle Dick, with a thoughtfulness which earned from his sister and prospective brother-in-law grateful thanks, went out, late as it was, and routed round the few shops of which Wivernsea boasted. The shops were full of people and empty of wares. By diligent search he ran to earth in a grocer's shop a box of crackers, packed by Tom Smith, as he needed to find it packed: labelled Pantomime. He thought that would answer the purpose of conciliating his niece.
He was not disappointed. On the morrow,with a harlequin's cap and mask, a wand, and conjured up recollections of last year's pantomime all went well. Promise of a visit that week to another pantomime completed the matter. There was no breach.
Gracie gave up all rights in Prince Charlie. Indeed, viewed his changing into the character of a new papa with curious equanimity. Curious, that is to say, to any one ignorant of her knowledge of the doings of fairies. The literature upon which she fed was of the divided syllable type. A story without a fairy in it was beneath her contempt.
So it was that on Christmas morning she viewed the matter complacently. Having disposed of Prince Charlie to her mother, she gave him Miss Mivvins as a Christmas box. Borrowed his fountain pen, and in a large round hand wrote:
"With best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year."
"With best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year."
Dancing up to, and putting this into Miss Mivvins' hand, she gracefully led that lady to her former prince; was rejoiced when she saw how glad he was to accept her gift!
And the wish was realized too: their Christmas was of the merriest. Gracie said she had never spent so happy a one in all theyears of her life; was of opinion that the harlequin had been at work with Uncle Dick; he was so different from what he used to be.
Uncle Dick was, and he knew it. Looked back at his past with eyes full of horror, at his prospective brother-in-law with love in them, because he felt, knew, to whom his reformation was due.
Gracie's other wish was granted: the new year was a happy one. It commenced with the actual transformation of Prince Charlie into Gracie's new papa. The child said she had never made a change which pleased her so much.
As Gracie wisely observed, it was not now a matter of occasional calls, he was always there. So much better, wasn't it? She really thought they had all been quite foolish not to think of arranging it so before.
As to Uncle Dick—well, as Gracie said, he was changed. And it was a permanent change, too; he feared no relapse. Just sometimes the memory of the old evil times would return, and a suspicious moisture come into his eyes. He could not help thinking of what might have been, and what was. Thanked God from his heart for his present condition.
As to Miss Mivvins—well, of course she nolonger exists. She merged into Mrs. Masters on the first day of the new year.
Another change which had Gracie's full approval.
THE END.
Transcriber Notes:Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the speakers. Those words were retained as-is.The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate. Thus the page number of the illustration might not match the page number in the List of Illustrations, and the order of illustrations may not be the same in the List of Illustrations and in the book.Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected unless otherwise noted.On page 15, a single quotation mark was replaced with a double quotation mark.On page 85, "thet" was replaced with "that".On page 86, a period was added after "face".On page 125, "overspead" was replaced with "overspread".On page 132, a period was added after "husband".On page 163, "convalesence" was replaced with "convalescence".On page 179, a single quotation mark was replaced with a double quotation mark.On page 189, a period was added after "morrow".On page 193, a double quotation mark was added after "getting well.".On page 205, "protègè" was replaced with "protégé".On page 207, a single quotation mark was deleted before a double quotation mark.On page 227, a single quotation mark was replaced with a double quotation mark.On page 257, a period was replaced with a question mark.On page 264, a single quotation mark was deleted before a double quotation mark.On page 296, a period was added after "fashion words".On page 304, a hyphen was added before "r-retched dinner".
Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the speakers. Those words were retained as-is.
The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate. Thus the page number of the illustration might not match the page number in the List of Illustrations, and the order of illustrations may not be the same in the List of Illustrations and in the book.
Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected unless otherwise noted.
On page 15, a single quotation mark was replaced with a double quotation mark.
On page 85, "thet" was replaced with "that".
On page 86, a period was added after "face".
On page 125, "overspead" was replaced with "overspread".
On page 132, a period was added after "husband".
On page 163, "convalesence" was replaced with "convalescence".
On page 179, a single quotation mark was replaced with a double quotation mark.
On page 189, a period was added after "morrow".
On page 193, a double quotation mark was added after "getting well.".
On page 205, "protègè" was replaced with "protégé".
On page 207, a single quotation mark was deleted before a double quotation mark.
On page 227, a single quotation mark was replaced with a double quotation mark.
On page 257, a period was replaced with a question mark.
On page 264, a single quotation mark was deleted before a double quotation mark.
On page 296, a period was added after "fashion words".
On page 304, a hyphen was added before "r-retched dinner".