Reggie Peel was not quite sure whether he liked Mary with her hair up or not. The putting up of the hair necessitated a readjustment of his whole conception of her, and . . . he was very conservative.
With Mary the tom-boy child, with Mary the long-legged flapper and good chum, he was affectionately at his ease. He had petted and tormented her by turns, ever since as a boy of ten he had first seen her, a baby a year old, in his Aunt Marjory's arms. Throughout her turbulent but very cheerful childhood he had been her firm, if patronising, friend. Then as she developed into what Ger had described to Eloquent as "a bit of a gawk," he became more than ever her friend and champion. "Uncle Hilary was so beastly down on Mary;" and Mary, though she did knock things over and say quite extraordinarily stupid things on occasion, was "such a good old sort."
He had never considered the question of her appearance till this Christmas. He supposed she was good-looking—all the Ffolliots were good-looking—but it really didn't matter much one way or another. She was part of Redmarley, and Redmarley as a whole counted for a good deal in Reginald Peel's life. He, too, had fallen under its mysterious charm. The manor-house mothered him, and the little Cotswold village cradled him in kindly keeping arms. His own mother had died when he was seven, his father married again a couple of years later; but, as Mr Peel was in the Indian Forest Department, and Reggie's young stepmother a faithful and devoted wife, he saw little of either of them, except on their somewhat infrequent leaves when they paid so many visits and had to see so many people, that he never really got to know either them or his half-brother and sister.
The love of Redmarley had grown with his growth till it became part of him; so far he had looked upon Mary as merely one of the many pleasant circumstances that went to the making of Redmarley. Now, somehow, she seemed to have detached herself from the general design and to have taken the centre of the picture. He was not sure that he approved of such prominence.
She startled him that first evening when, with the others, she met him in the hall. She was unexpected, she was different, and he hated that anything at Redmarley should be different.
"Mary's grown up since yesterday," Uz remarked ironically, "she's like you when you first managed to pull your moustache."
Of course Reggie suitably chastised Uz for his cheek, but all the same there was a difference.
To be sure she still wore her skirts well above her ankles, but nowadays quite elderly ladies wore short skirts, so that in no way accentuated her youth; and after all was she so very young?
Mary would be eighteen on Valentine's day.
Arrayed in Elizabethan doublet and hose for Lady Campion's dance, Reggie stood before his looking-glass and grinned at himself sardonically.
"Ugly devil," he called himself, and then wondered how Mary would look as Phyllida the ideal milkmaid.
Ugly he might be, but his type was not unsuited to the period he had chosen. A smallish head, wide across the brows, well-shaped and poised, with straight, smooth hair that grew far back on the temples and would recede even further as the years went on; humorous bright grey eyes, not large, but set wide apart under slightly marked eyebrows; a pugnacious, rather sharply-pointed nose with a ripple in it. Reggie declared that his nose had really meant well, but changed its mind half way down. His mouth under the fair moustache was not in the least beautiful, but it was trustworthy, neither weak nor sensual, and the chin was square and dogged. His face looked long with the pointed beard he had stuck on with such care, and above the wide white ruff, might well have belonged to some gentleman adventurer who followed the fortunes of Raleigh or Drake. For in spite of its insignificant irregularity of feature there was alert resolve in its expression; a curious light-hearted fixity of purpose that was arresting.
Reggie had never been popular or distinguished at Wellington; yet those masters who knew most about boys always prophecied that "he would make his mark."
It was the same at the "Shop"; although he never rose above a corporal, there were those among the instructors who foretold great things of his future. His pass-out place was a surprise to everyone, himself most of all. He was reserved and did not make friends easily; he got on quite pleasantly with such men as he was thrown with; but he was not apersona gratain his profession. He got through such a thundering lot of work with such apparent ease.
"A decent chap, but a terrible beggar to swat," was the general verdict upon Reginald Peel.
To Mrs Ffolliot and the children he showed a side of his character that was rigidly concealed from outsiders, the truth being that as a little boy he had been very hungry for affection. The Redmarley folk loved him, and his very sincere affection for them was leavened by such passionate gratitude as they never dreamed of.
His face grew very gentle as he gazed unseeingly into the glass. He was thinking of loyal little Ger.
The clock on the mantelpiece struck the quarter. He blew out the candles on his dressing-table and fled.
Few gongs or dinner bells were sounded at the Manor House. Mr Ffolliot disliked loud noises. As he ran down the wide shallow staircase into the hall he saw that Mary was standing in the very centre of it, while her father slowly revolved round her in appreciative criticism, quoting the while:—
"The ladies of St James's!They're painted to the eyes;Their white it stays for ever,Their red it never dies;But Phyllida, my Phyllida!Her colour comes and goes;It trembles to a lily,—It warms to a rose—"
This was strictly true, for Mary flushed and paled under her father's gaze, standing there tall and slender in russet gown and white bodice, a milking stool under her arm. She wore "buckled shoon" and a white sunbonnet, and was as fair a maid as a man could see between Christmases.
She was surprised that her father should express his approval thus graciously, but she was not uplifted. It was Mr Ffolliot's way. He had been detestable all day, and now he was going to be charming. His compliments counted for little with Mary. Yesterday he had told her she moved like a Flanders mare, and hurt her feelings very much. Her dress was made in the house and cost about half the price of her shoes and stockings, but Mary was not greatly concerned about her dress. She wanted to go to the dance, to dance all night and see other people.
Mrs Ffolliot, looking tired and pale, was sitting with Ger on an oak settle by the hearth. Ger had been allowed to stay up till dinner time to see his family dressed. The twins were sitting on the floor in front of the fire. Reggie paused on the staircase four steps up, and behind him came Grantly in smock frock (borrowed from the oldest labourer in Redmarley) and neat gaiters as the typical Georgian "farmer's boy" to match Mary's milk-maid.
"Aren't you coming, Aunt Marjory?" Reggie asked. "I thought you were to appear as one of the Ladies of St James's as a foil for Mary."
Mrs Ffolliot shook her head. "I did think of it, but I've got a bad headache. Mary doesn't really need me as a chaperon, it's only a boy and girl dance; besides, you and Grantly can look after her."
Mr Ffolliot went and sat down on the settle beside his wife. "You're much better at home," he said tenderly, "you'd only get tired out sitting up so late."
Grantly and Mary exchanged glances. They knew well enough that Mrs Ffolliot had decided at the last moment that she had better stay at home to look after the twins, who were certain, if left to their own devices, to get into mischief during her absence.
"That rumpus with Ger upset her awfully," Mary whispered to Reggie as they went into dinner, "and she won't risk anything fresh. It is a shame, for she'd have loved it, and she always looks so ripping."
The three young people left directly after dinner. Grantly stopped the carriage at an old Ephraim Teakle's cottage in the village, and they all went in to let him have a look at them, for it was his smock, a marvel of elaborate stitching, that Grantly was wearing.
Ephraim was eighty-seven years old and usually went to bed very early, but to-night he sat up a full hour to see "them childer," as he called the Ffolliots. He was very deaf, but had the excellent sight of a generation that had never learned to read. He stood up as the young people came in, and joined in the chorus of "laws," of "did you evers," indulged in by his granddaughter and her family.
"'Er wouldn' go far seekin' sarvice at mop, not Miss Mary wouldn't," he said; "an' as for you, Master Grantly, you be the very moral of me when I did work for Farmer Gayner over to Winson. Maids did look just like that when I wer a young chap—pretty as pins, they was."
But Mrs Rouse, his granddaughter, thought "Mr Peel did look far an' away the best, something out o' the common 'e were, like what a body sees in the theatre over to Marlehouse . . . but there, I suppose 'tis dressin' up for the likes o' Master Grantly, an' I must say laundry-maid, she done up grandfather's smock something beautiful."
Abinghall, Sir George Campion's place, was just outside Marlehouse town. The house, large and square and comfortable, was built by the first baronet early in the nineteenth century. The Campions always did things well, and "the boy and girl dance" had grown very considerably since its first inception. Indeed, had Mrs Ffolliot realised what proportions it had assumed since she received the friendly informal invitation some five weeks before, she would have risked the recklessness of the twins, and made a point of chaperoning Mary herself.
For the last three generations the Campions had been strong Liberals, therefore it was quite natural that with an election due in a fortnight there should be bidden to the dance many who were not included in Lady Campion's rather exclusive visiting list.
It is extraordinary how levelling an election is, especially at Christmas time, when peace and goodwill are acknowledged to be the prevailing and suitable sentiments.
Even the large drawing-room at Abinghall wouldn't hold the dancers, so a floor and a huge tent had been imported from London, and joined to the house by a covered way. A famous Viennese band played on a stage at one end, and around the sides were raised red baize seats for those who wanted to watch the dancing. Lady Campion received her guests at the door of the large drawing-room; she caught Mary by the arm and held her to whisper rapidly, "I don't know half the people, Mary, do help me, and if you see anyone looking neglected, say a kind word, and get partners, like a dear. I depended on your mother, and now she has failed me."
Naturally the Liberal candidate was bidden to the dance, and Eloquent arrayed in the likeness of one of Cromwell's soldiers, a dress he had worn in a pageant last summer, was standing exactly opposite the entrance to the tent, when at the second dance on the programme Phyllida and the Farmer's Boy came in, and with the greatest good-will in the world proceeded to Boston with all the latest and dreadful variations of that singularly unbeautiful dance. Grantly had imported the very newest thing from Woolwich, Mary was an apt pupil, and the two of them made a point always of dancing the first dance together wherever they were. They were singularly well-matched, and tonight their height, their quaint dress, their remarkable good looks and their, to Marlehouse eyes, extraordinary evolutions, made them immediately conspicuous.
Eloquent, stiff, solemn, and uncomfortable in his wide-leaved hat and flapping collar, watched the smock-frock and russet gown as they bobbed and glided, and twirled and crouched in the mazes of that mysterious dance, and the moment they stopped, shouldered his way through the usual throng of pierrots, flower-girls, Juliets, Carmens, Sikhs, and Chinamen to Lady Campion, who was standing in the entrance quite near the milk-maid who was already surrounded by would-be partners.
"Lady Campion, will you present me to Miss Ffolliot," Eloquent asked in a stand-and-deliver sort of voice, the result of the tremendous effort it had been to approach her at all.
She looked rather surprised, but long apprenticeship to politics had taught her that you must bear all things for the sake of your party, so she smiled graciously on the stiff, rosy-faced Cromwellian, and duly made the presentation.
"May I," Eloquent asked, with quite awful solemnity, "have the pleasure of a dance?"
"I've got twelve or fourteen and an extra, but I can't promise to dance any one of them if other people are sitting out, because I've promised Lady Campion to help see to people. I'll give you one if you'll promise to dance it with someone else—if necessary——"
Eloquent looked blue. "Isn't that rather hard?" he asked meekly.
"Everyone's in the same box," Mary said shortly, "and you, of all people, ought simply to dance till your feet drop off. Let me see your card—What? no dances at all down? Oh, that's absurd—come with me." And before poor Eloquent could protest he found himself being whisked from one young lady to another, and his card was full all except twelve, fourteen, and the second extra—which he rigidly reserved.
"There," said Mary, smiling upon him graciously, "that's well over. I've been most careful; you are dancing with just about an equal number of Liberal and Tory young ladies, and you ought to take at least five mamas into supper; don't forget; look pleased and eager, and be careful what you say to the pretty girl in pink, she's a niece of our present member."
Here a partner claimed Mary, and Eloquent, feeling much as the White King must have felt when Alice lifted him from the hearth to the table (he certainly felt dusted), went to seek one Miss Jessie Bond whose name figured opposite the number on his programme that was just displayed on the bandstand.
He really worked hard. He danced carefully and laboriously—he had had lessons during his last year in London—and entirely without any pleasure. So far, he had fulfilled Mary's instructions to the very letter, except in the matter of looking "pleased and eager." His round, fresh-coloured face maintained its habitual expression of rather prim gravity. The Liberal young ladies, while gratified that he should have danced with them, thought him distinctly dull, the Tory young ladies declared him an insufferable oaf; but Phyllida the tall milk-maid, when she came across him in the dance, nodded and smiled at him in kindly approval. He noticed that she danced several times with the plain young man in the Elizabethan ruff, and that they seemed very good friends.
At last number twelve showed on the bandstand. Eloquent was not very clear as to whether Mary had given him this dance or not, but he went to her to claim it. It came just before the supper dances.
"Yes, this is our dance," said Mary, "shall we one-step for a change?"
"It seems to me," said Eloquent mournfully, "that one does nothing but change all the time. Now this is a waltz, how can you one-step to a waltz?"
"Poor man," Mary remarked pityingly. "Itismuddling if you're not used to it. Let us waltz then, that will be a change."
Once round the room they went, and Eloquent felt that never before had he realised the true delight of dancing. He was very careful, very accurate, and his partner set herself to imitate exactly his archaic style of dancing, so that they were a model of deportment to the whole room. But it was only for a brief space that this poetry of motion was vouchsafed to him.
Mary stopped.
"Do you see," she asked, "that old lady near the band. She has been sitting there quite alone all the evening and she must be dying for something to eat. Don't you think you'd better take her to have some refreshment?"
"No," said Eloquent decidedly, "not just now. I've been dancing with all sorts of people with whom I didn't in the least desire to dance solely because you said I ought, and now I'm dancing with you and I'm not going to give it up. May we go on again?"
Again they waltzed solemnly round. Again Eloquent felt the thrill that always accompanies a perfect achievement. Again Mary stopped.
"That old lady is really very much on my conscience," she said; "if you won't take her in to have some supper, I must get Reggie, he'd do it."
"But why now?" Eloquent pleaded. "If, as you say, she has sat there all night, a few minutes more or less can make no difference—why should we spoil our dance by worrying about her? Do you know her?"
"I don't think I know her," Mary said vaguely, "but I have an idea she has something to do with coal. She's probably one of your constituents, and I think it's rather unkind of you to be so uninterested; besides, what does it matter whether one knows her or not, she's here to enjoy herself, it's our business to see that she does it. . . ."
"Why our business?" In a flash Eloquent saw he had made a mistake.Mary looked genuinely surprised this time.
"Why, don't you think in any sort of gathering it's everybody's business . . . if you see anyone lonely . . . left out . . . one tries. . . ."
"I've been lonely and left out at dozens of parties in London, where I didn't know a soul, and I never discovered that anyone was in the least concerned about me. At all events no one ever tried to ameliorate my lot."
"But you're a man, you know. . . ."
"A man can feel just as out of it as a woman. It's worse for him in fact, for it's nobody's business to look after him."
Eloquent spoke bitterly.
"But surely since you, yourself, have suffered, you ought to be the more sympathetic with that stout lady——"
"I will go, since you wish it; but I don't know her and she may think it impertinent. . . ."
"I'll come too," said Mary. "Idon't know her but I can introduce you . . . we'll both go."
The lady in question was stout and rubicund, with smooth, tightly-braided brown hair, worn very flat and close to the head, and bright observant black eyes. She wore a high black satin dress, and had apparently been poured into it, so tight was it, so absolutely moulded to her form. A double gold chain was arranged over her ample bosom, and many bracelets decorated her fat wrists. She was quite alone on the raised red seat. For the last two hours Mary had noticed her sitting there, and that no one, apparently, ever spoke to, or came to sit by her.
There she remained placidly watching the dancers, her plump ungloved hands folded in her lap. She appeared rather cold for she wore no wrap, and what with draughts and the breeze created by the dancers, the tent was a chilly place to sit in.
Mary mounted the red baize step and sat down beside the solitary one.
"Don't you think it's time you had something to eat?" she shouted . . . they weresonear the band, which at that moment was braying the waltz song from the "Quaker Girl." The old lady beamed, but shook her head:
"I'm very well where I am, my dear, I can see nicely and I'm glad I came."
"But you can come back," Mary persisted. "This gentleman"—indicatingEloquent—"will take you to have some supper, and then he'll bring youback again just here if you like. . . . May I introduce Mr Gallup?Mrs . . . I fear I don't know your name. . . ."
Eloquent stood below bowing stiffly, and offered his arm. The lady stood up, chuckled, winked cheerfully at Mary, and stepped down on to the floor.
"Well, since youareso obliging," she said, and took the proffered arm. "You don't know me, Mr Gallup," she continued, "but you will do before the election's over. Don't look so down in the mouth, I shan't keep you long, just a snack's all I want, and to stamp my feet a bit, which they're uncommonly cold, and then you can go back to the sweet pretty thing that fetched you to do the civil—oh, I saw it all! what a pity she's the other side, isn't it? what a canvasser she'd make with that smile . . . well, well, there's many a pretty Tory lady married a Radical before thisandchanged her politics, so don't you lose heart . . . soup, yes, I'd fancy some soup . . . well, what a sight to be sure . . . and how do you feel things are going in the constituency? . . ."
But Eloquent had no need to answer. His charge kept up a continual flow of conversation, only punctuated by mouthfuls of food. When at last he took her back to the seat near the band, Mary had gone to supper and was nowhere to be seen.
"I'm much obliged to you, Mr Gallup," said the lady, "though you wouldn't have done it if you hadn't been forced. Now let an old woman give you a bit of advice. . . .Lookwillin' whether you are or not."
Poor Eloquent felt very much as though she had boxed his ears. A few minutes later he saw that the Elizabethan gentleman and Mary were seated on either side of his recent partner and were apparently well amused.
How did they do it?
And presently when Reggie Peel and Mary passed him in the Boston he heard Peel say, "Quite the most amusing person here to-night. I shall sit out the next two dances with her, I'm tired."
"I was tired too, that's why . . ." they went out of earshot, and he never caught the end of the sentence.
Eloquent danced no more with Mary, nor did he sit out at all with the indomitable old lady, who, bright-eyed and vigilant, still watched from her post near the band. The end was really near, and he stood against the wall gloomily regarding Mary as she flew about in the arms—very closely in the arms as ruled by the new dancing—of a young barrister. He was staying with the Campions and had, all the previous week, been helping heartily in the Liberal cause. He had come down from London especially to do so, but during Christmas week there was a truce on both sides, and he remained to enjoy himself.
Just then Eloquent hated him. He hated all these people who seemed to find it so easy to be amusing and amused. Yet he stayed till the very last dance watching Phyllida, the milkmaid, with intense disapproval, as, her sun-bonnet hanging round her neck, she tore through the Post Horn Gallop with that detestable barrister. He decided that the manners of the upper classes, if easy and pleasant, were certainly much too free.
It was a fine clear night and he walked to his rooms in Marlehouse. He felt that he had not been a social success. He was much more at home on the platform than in the ball-room, yet he was shrewd enough to see that his lack of adaptability stood in his way politically.
How could he learn these things?
And as if in answer to his question, there suddenly sounded in his ears the fat chuckling voice of the black satin lady:
"Well, well, there's many a pretty Tory lady married a Radical before this,andchanged her politics, so don't you lose heart."
"Father's mother," living alone far away in the Forest of Dean, rarely came to Redmarley, and the children never went to visit her. A frail old lady to whom one was never presented save tidily clad and fresh from the hands of nurse for a few moments, with injunctions still ringing in one's ears as to the necessity for a quiet and decorous demeanour.
This was grandmother, a shadow rather than a reality.
The Ganpies were something very different. The name, an abbreviation for grandparents, was invented by Grantly when he was two years old, and long usage had turned it into a term of endearment. People who knew them well could never think of General and Mrs Grantly apart, each was the complement of the other; and for the Ffolliot children they represented a dual fount of fun and laughter, understanding and affection. They were the medium through which one beheld the never-ending pageant unrolled before the entrancéd eyes of such happy children as happened to "belong" gloriously to one "commanding the R.A. Woolwich." And intercourse with the Ganpies was largely leavened by concrete joys in the shape of presents, pantomimes, tips, and all things dear to the heart of youth all the world over.
Such were the Ganpies. Nothing shadowy about them. They were a glorious reality; beloved, familiar, frequent.
They were still comparatively young people when their daughter married, and Mrs Grantly was a grandmother at forty-one. They would have liked a large family themselves, but seeing that Providence had only seen fit to bestow on them one child, they looked upon the six grandchildren as an attempt to make amends.
Mrs Grantly's one quarrel with Marjory Ffolliot was on the score of what she called her "niggardliness and greed," in refusing to hand over entirely one of the six to their grandparents.
It is true that the large house on the edge of Woolwich Common was seldom without one or two of the Ffolliot children. Mr Ffolliot was most accommodating, and was more then ready to accept the General's constant invitations to his offspring; but in spite of these concessions Mrs Grantly was never wholly satisfied, and it was something of a grievance with her that Marjory was so firm in her refusal to "give away" any one of the six.
Casual observers would have said that Mrs Grantly was by far the stronger character of the two, but people who knew General Grantly well, realised that his daughter had her full share of his quiet strength and determination. Mrs Ffolliot, like her father, was easy-going, gentle, and tolerant; it was only when you came "up against" either of them that you realised the solid rock beneath the soft exterior.
Now there was nothing hidden about Mrs Grantly. She appeared exactly what she was. Everything about her was definite and decided, though she was various and unexpected as our British weather. She was an extraordinary mixture of whimsicality and common sense, of heroic courage and craven timidity, of violence and tenderness, of impulsiveness and caution. In very truth a delightful bundle of paradox. Quick-witted and impatient, she had yet infinite toleration for the simpleton, and could on occasion suffer fools with a gladness quite unshared by her much gentler daughter or her husband. But the snob, the sycophant, and, above all, the humbug met with short shrift at her hands, and the insincere person hated her heartily. She spoke her mind with the utmost freedom on every possible occasion, and as she had plenty of brains and considerable shrewdness her remarks were generally illuminating.
The villagers at Redmarley adored her, for, from her very first visit she made her presence felt.
It had long been the custom at Redmarley for the ladies in the village and neighbourhood to meet once a week during the earlier winter months to make garments for presentation to the poor at Christmas, and the first meeting since the Manor House possessed a mistress took place there under Mrs Ffolliot's somewhat timid presidency. It coincided with Mrs Grantly's first visit since her daughter's marriage, and she expressed her willingness to help.
At Mrs Ffolliot's suggestion it had already been arranged that a blouse instead of a flannel petticoat should this year be given to the younger women. The other ladies had fallen in graciously with the idea (they were inclined to enthuse over the "sweet young bride"), and according to custom one Miss Tibbits, a spinster of large leisure and masterful ways, had undertaken to procure the necessary material. For years donors and recipients alike had meekly suffered her domination. She chose the material, settled what garments should be made and in what style, and who should receive them when made.
On the afternoon in question Miss Tibbits duly descended from her brougham, bearing a parcel containing the material for the blouses which Mrs Grantly volunteered to cut out. Miss Tibbits undid the parcel and displayed the contents to the nine ladies assembled round the dining-room table.
Mrs Grantly was seen to regard it with marked disapproval, and hers was an expressive countenance.
"May I ask," she began in the honeyed, "society" tone that in her own family was recognised as the sure precursor of battle, "why the poor should be dressed in dusters?"
The eight ladies concentrated their gaze upon the roll of material which certainly did bear a strong resemblance to the bundles offered by drapers at sale times as "strong, useful, and much reduced."
"It is the usual thing," Miss Tibbits replied shortly, "we have to consider utility, not ornament."
Mrs Grantly stretched across the table, swiftly seized the material, gathered it up under her chin, and with a dramatic gesture stood up so that it fell draped about her.
"Look at me!" she exclaimed. "If I had to wear clothes made of stuff like this, I should go straight to the Devil!"
And at that very moment, just as she proclaimed in a loud voice the downward path she would tread if clad in the material Miss Tibbits had selected, the door was opened, and Mr Molyneux was announced.
The ladies gasped (except Marjory Ffolliot, who had dissolved into helpless laughter at the sight of her large and portly parent draped in yards of double-width red and brown check), but Mrs Grantly was no whit abashed.
"Look at me, Mr Molyneux," she cried. "Can you conceive any self-respecting young woman ever taking any pleasure in a garment made ofthis?"
"A garment," the vicar repeated in wonderment, "is it for a garment?"
"Yes, and not an undergarment either," Mrs Grantly retorted. "Now you are here, you shall tell us plainly . . . are the things we are to make supposed to give any pleasure to the poor creatures or not."
"I should say so most assuredly," the vicar replied, his eyes twinkling with fun. "What other purpose could you have?"
Miss Tibbits cleared her throat. "I have always understood," she said primly, "that the sewing club was instituted to make useful garments for deserving persons, who were, perhaps, so much occupied by family cares that they had little time available for needle-work."
"That is," said the vicar solemnly, "the laudable object of the sewing club."
"But I don't suppose," Mrs Grantly remarked briskly, still standing draped in the obnoxious material, "that there is any bye-law to the effect that the garments should be of an odious and humiliating description."
"Of course not," the ladies chorussed, smiling. They were beginning, all but Miss Tibbits, who was furious, to enjoy Mrs Grantly.
"Then let us," Mrs Grantly's voice suddenly became soft and seductive, and she flung the folds of material from her, "give them something pretty. They don't have much, poor things, and it's just as easy to make them pretty as ugly. Ladies, I've been to a good many sewing meetings in my life, and I always fight for the same thing, a present should be just a little bit different—don't you think—not hard and hideous and ordinary. . . ."
"That material is bought and paid for," Miss Tibbits interrupted, "it must be used."
"It shall be used," cried Mrs Grantly, "I'll buy it, and I'll make it into dusters for which purpose it was obviously intended, and every woman in Redmarley shall have two for Christmas as an extra. A good strong duster never comes amiss."
"Perhaps," Miss Tibbits said coldly, "you will undertake to procure the material."
"Certainly," said Mrs Grantly, "but I'll buy it in blouse lengths, and every one different. Why should a whole village wear the same thing as though it was a reformatory?"
It appeared that the vicar had called with his list of the "deserving poor." In five minutes Mrs Grantly had detached each person, and made a note of her age and circumstances. She had only been in the village a week, and she already knew every soul in it.
She whirled off the vicar in a gale of enthusiasm, nobody else got a word in edgewise. Finally she departed with him into the hall, and saw him out at the front door, and her last whispered words were characteristic:
"You've let that Tibbits woman bully you for twenty years, now I'm going to bully you for a bit instead, and between us we'll give those poor dears a bit of cheer this Christmas."
From that moment the vicar was Mrs Grantly's slave.
Nobody knew how the affair leaked out, but the whole thing was known in the village before a week had passed, with the result that fifteen women visited the vicar, one after the other, and after much circumlocution intimated that "If so be as 'e would be so kind, they'd be glad if 'e'd 'int to the ladies as they 'adn't nearly wore out last Christmas petticoat, and, if it were true wot they'd 'eard as they was talkin' of givin' summat different, might Mrs Mustoe, Gegg, Uzzel, or Radway, etc., have anything they did choose to make as warn't a petticoat."
There was a slump in petticoats.
In despair he went to Mrs Grantly, and she undertook to see the matter through.
"It's absurd," Mrs Grantly remarked to her daughter, "in a little place like this where one knows all the people, and exactly what they're like, to make things all the same size. Fancy me trying to get into a blouse that would fit that skinny Miss Tibbits! A little common sense is what's needed in this sewing society, and, Marjory, my dear, I'm going to do my best to supply it."
* * * * * *
Throughout the years that followed, Mrs Grantly continued to supply common sense to the inhabitants of Redmarley. She found places for young servants, both in her own household and those of her friends, till gradually there were many links between the village and "'Orse and Field and Garrison."
More than one Redmarley damsel married a gunner "on the strength." Had the intending bridegroom been anything else, Mrs Grantly would herself have forbidden the banns!
That year Christmas Day fell on a Sunday, and on the Saturday afternoon Eloquent drove out from Marlehouse to Redmarley to spend the week-end with his aunt. She was out when he arrived, and he went straight to the vicarage, asked for the vicar, and was shown into the study, where Mr Molyneaux sat smoking by the fire in a deep-seated high-backed chair.
Even as he entered the room, Eloquent was conscious of the pleasurable thrill that things beautiful and harmonious never failed to evoke. The windows faced west; the red sun, just sinking behind Redmarley Woods, shone in on and was reflected from walls covered from floor to ceiling with books; books bound for the most part in mellow brown and yellow calf, that seemed to give forth an amber light as from sun-warmed turning beeches.
The vicar had discarded his clerical coat, and wore a shabby grey-green Norfolk jacket frayed at the cuffs; nevertheless, Eloquent sincerely admired him as he rose to give courteous greeting to his guest.
The old vicar was stout and bald, and the grey hair that fringed his head was decidedly rumpled. A long face, with high, narrow forehead and pointed beard, cheeks heavy and creased, straight nose, with strongly marked, sensitive nostrils. The mouth, full-lipped and shutting firmly under the grey moustache, cut straight across the upper lip; the eyes, rather prominent blue eyes, had once been bold and merry, and were still keen. A fine old face, deeply lined and sorrowful, bearing upon it the impress of great possibilities that had remained—possibilities. He was somehow in keeping with his room, this warm, untidy, comfortable room that smelt of tobacco and old leather, where there was such a curious jumble of things artistic and sporting: a few pictures and bas-reliefs, nearly all of the pre-Renaissance Italian School, a big stuffed trout in a glass case, a fox's brush and mask, an old faded cricket cap; and over the carved mantelshelf, the portrait of a Georgian beauty in powder and patches, whose oval face, heavy-lidded eyes, and straight features were not unlike the vicar's own.
There was in the vicar's manner the welcoming quality that puts the shyest person at his ease. He was secretly much surprised that young Gallup should call upon him; but no hint of this appeared in his manner, and Eloquent found no difficulty in stating the object of his visit with business-like directness.
"I came to ask you," he remarked with his usual stiff solemnity, "if you would care for me to read the lessons at morning service to-morrow. . . . I do not read badly. . . . I have studied elocution."
The humorous lines round the old vicar's eyes deepened, but he answered with equal gravity, "That is very good of you, and I gratefully accept your kind offer. General Grantly has promised to read the first lesson, but I shall be glad if you will read the second. Will you do both at the afternoon service? There's no evensong on Christmas Day."
This was rather more than Eloquent had bargained for, but . . . she might come to the afternoon service as well. "I shall be most happy," he said meekly, "to do anything I can to assist."
The vicar rang for tea, but Eloquent arose hastily, saying he had promised to have tea with his aunt. He had no desire to prolong the interview with this urbane old gentleman now that its object was achieved. Mr Molyneux saw him to the front door and watched him for a moment as he bustled down the drive. "So that," he said to himself, as he went back to the warm study, "is our future member . . . for everyone says he will get in. Why does he want to read the lessons, I wonder? It will certainly do him no good with his dissenting constituents, and it is they who will get him in—what can his object be?"
The Ffolliot family formed quite a procession as they marched up the aisle on Christmas morning. General and Mrs Grantly were there; Reggie, Mr and Mrs Ffolliot, and the six young Ffolliots. They overflowed into the seat behind, and the Kitten, whom nothing ever awed or subdued, was heard to remark that since she couldn't sit with Willets, the keeper, who always had "such instasting things in his pottets," she'd sit "between the Ganpies." Reggie, Mary, and her four brothers filled the second seat: Mary sat at the far end, and Ger nearest the aisle, that he might gaze entrancedly at his grandfather while he read the lesson. Reggie came next to Ger, and Grantly separated Uz and Buz, so that Eloquent only caught an occasional glimpse of Mary's extremely flat back between the heads of other worshippers.
"Oh come, all ye faithful!" the choir sang lustily as it started in procession round the church, and the faithful responded vigorously. The Kitten pranced on her hassock, and always started the new verse before everyone else in the clearest of pure trebles. The Ffolliot boys shouted, and for once Mr Ffolliot forebore to frown on them. No woman with a houseful of children can remain quite unmoved on Christmas morning during that singularly jubilant invocation, and Mrs Grantly and Margery Ffolliot ceased to sing, for their eyes were full of tears. Mr Ffolliot fixed his monocle more firmly, and bent forward to look at the Kitten, and to catch her little pipe above the shouts of her brothers behind.
The Kitten sang words of her own composition during the Psalms, her grandparents both singing loudly themselves in their efforts not to hear her, for the Kitten's improvisations were enough to upset the gravity of a bench of bishops.
The General read the first lesson in a brisk and business-like monotone, and when he had finished his grandsons applauded noiselessly under the book-board.
The Kitten was very much to the fore during "Praise him and magnify him for ever," and then came the second lesson.
Eloquent walked up the aisle and took his stand at the lectern with the utmost unconcern. Shy and awkward he might be in ordinary social intercourse, but whenever it was a matter of standing up before his fellow-creatures and haranguing them, his self-consciousness dropped from him like a discarded garment, and he instantly acquired a mental poise and serene self-confidence wholly lacking at other times.
The second lesson on Christmas morning contains the plainest possible statement of a few great facts, and Eloquent proclaimed them in a singularly melodious voice with just exactly the emphatic simplicity they demanded.
The perfect sincerity of great literature is always impressive. All over the church heads were turned in the direction of the lectern, and when the short lesson ended the Kitten demanded in a quite audible voice, "Why did he stop so soon for?"
Eloquent looked at Mary as he passed down the aisle to his place, half-hoping she might meet his glance with the frank confident smile he found so disturbing and delicious. But her eyes were bent upon her prayer-book and she appeared quite unconscious that someone had just been reading the Bible exceptionally well.
He felt chilled and disappointed. "It is quite possible," he reflected bitterly, "that in this out-of-the-way old church they don't know good reading from bad."
There is no sermon at Redmarley on Christmas morning, and people who have been at the early service get out soon after twelve o'clock. Eloquent waited in the churchyard and watched the young Ffolliots and Reggie Peel come out. Mary saw him and nodded cheerfully, but she did not, as he felt might have been expected, come up to him and exclaim, "How beautifully you read!"
No one did.
Such of the congregation as had already been to early service hurried home to look after the dinner; or, as in the case of the young Ffolliots, to deposit prayer-books and take violent exercise until lunch time.
In the afternoon Eloquent read the lessons to a very meagre assembly. The Manor House seats were empty and his enthusiastic desire to be of assistance to the vicar cooled considerably. His aunt during dinner announced with the utmost frankness that wild horses would not drag her to church "of an afternoon"; she "liked her forty winks peaceable." She, however, further informed him that "he read very nice"; but as she had said the same thing of Grantly Ffolliot's performance, her nephew could not feel uplifted by her praise.
The vicar poured a little balm on his wounded spirit by hastening after him as he walked slowly and gloomily homewards, to thank him with warm urbanity for his kind help, but he made no remark upon his reading. They parted at the vicarage gate, and Eloquent pursued his way alone.
He felt restless and curiously disappointed. Everything was exactly as it had been before, and somehow he had expected it to be different.
So far he had encountered no special desire on the part of the "upper classes" to cultivate him. He was quite shrewd enough to perceive that those he had met—the Campions at Marlehouse and the few who had offered him hospitality in London—had done so purely on political grounds.
Only one, so far, had shown any kindness to him, the shy, wistfully self-conscious young man, hungry for sympathy and comprehension. Only one, Mary Ffolliot, had seemed to recognise in him other possibilities than those of party: but had she?
Anyway, here was he in the same village with her not a mile away, and yet a gulf stretched between them apparently impassable as a river in flood to a boatless man who could not swim.
That evening Miss Gallup decided that her nephew did not possess much general conversation.
The twins were not in the least alike, either in disposition or appearance, but they were inseparable. They were known to their large circle of friends and still more numerous censors as "Uz" and "Buz," but their real names were Lionel and Hilary, a fact they rigidly suppressed at all times.
Buz was tall for his age, slender and fair, with regular, Grantly features, and eyes like his mother's. Uz was short and chubby, tirelessly mischievous, and of an optimistic cheerfulness that neither misfortune nor misunderstanding could diminish. Buz was the reading Ffolliot, imaginative, and easily swayed by what he read; and his was the fertile brain that created and suggested all manner of wrong-doing to his twin. Just then the mania of both was for impersonation. "To dress up," and if possible to mislead their fellow-creatures as to their identity, was their chief aim in life. Here, the "prettiness" that in his proper person Buz deplored and abhorred came in useful. He made a charming girl, his histrionic power was considerable, and on both accounts he was much in demand at school theatricals; moreover, his voice had not yet broken, and when he desired to do so he could speak with lady-like softness and precision.
"Who's the chap that read the second lesson?" he asked Ger, who proudly walked between the twins on their way from church. Ger adored the twins.
"He's the muddy young man who came last Sunday," Ger answered promptly. Proud to be able to afford information, he continued, "His aunt's our nice Miss Gallup, and he's going to get in at the Election, nurse says."
"Oh, is he?" cried Uz, whose political views were the result of strong conviction unbiassed by reflection. "We'll see about that."
"I feel," Buz murmured dreamily, "that it is my duty to find out that young man's views on Female Suffrage. The women in this district appear to me sadly indifferent as to this important question. It's doubtful if any of them will tackle him. Now I'm well up in it just now, owing to that rotten debate last term."
"When that long-winded woman jawed for nearly an hour, d'you mean?" asked Uz "Exactly. I never dreamt she would come in useful, but you never know."
"Shall you call?" Uz gurgled delightedly. "Where'll you get the clothes? Mary's would be too big, besides everyone about here knows 'em, they're so old, and she'd never lend you anything decent.'
"I shouldn't ask her if I really wanted them; but in this instance I scorn the mouldy garments of Sister Mary."
"Whose'll you get?" Uz asked curiously.
"My son," Buz rejoined, "I shall be like the king's daughter in the Psalms. Never you fear for my appearance. As our dear French prose book would remark: 'The grandmother of the young man so attractive has a maid French, of the heart excellent, and of the habits most chic.'"
"You mean Adèle will lend them?"
"You bet. She says I speak her tongue to the marvel, is it not?"
On Boxing-Day Eloquent called upon as many of the vote-possessing inhabitants of Redmarley as could be got in before his aunt's early dinner. He found but few at home, for on that morning there is always a meet in the market-place at Marlehouse, and the male portion of the inhabitants is sporting both by inclination and tradition. He found the wives, however, and on the whole they were gracious to him. His visit pleased, for the then member, Mr Brooke, had not been near Redmarley for years, and left the whole constituency to his agent, who was nearly as slack as the member for Marlehouse himself.
Eloquent, who had by no means made up his mind as to Female Suffrage, was much relieved that not a single woman in Redmarley had so much as breathed its name. His inclinations led him to follow where Mr Asquith led, but his long training in the doctrines of expediency gave him pause. He decided that he could not yet range himself alongside of the anti-suffrage party. As his old father was wont to remark cautiously, "You must see where you are first," and as yet Eloquent had not clearly discovered his whereabouts.
He ate his cold turkey with an excellent appetite, feeling that he had spent a useful if arduous morning. The give-and-take of ordinary conversation was always a difficult matter for Eloquent, but on this occasion he related his experiences to his aunt, and was quite talkative; so that, to a certain extent, she revised her unfavourable impression as to his conversational powers, and became more hopeful for his success in the Election. His gloom and taciturnity on Christmas Day had filled her with forebodings.
In the afternoon he devoted himself to his correspondence. His aunt gave up the parlour to him and went out to see her friends, while he sat in stately solitude at a table covered with papers plainly parliamentary in kind.
For about an hour he worked on undisturbed. Presently he heard the front gate creak, and looking up beheld a bicycle, a lady's bicycle, propped against the garden wall. Someone rapped loudly at the front door, and whoever it was had hard knuckles, for there was no knocker.
Presently Em'ly-Alice, Miss Gallup's little maid, appeared holding a card between her finger and thumb, and announced—"A young lady come to see you, please, sir."
For one mad moment Eloquent thought it might perhaps be Mary with some message for his aunt, but the card disillusioned him. It was a very shiny card, and on it was written in ink in round, very distinct writing—
"Miss Elsmaria Buttermish."
He had barely time to take this in before Miss Buttermish herself appeared.
"I'm glad to have found you at home, Mr Gallup," she announced easily; "I come on behalf of our beloved leaders to obtain a clear statement of your views as to 'Votes for Women,' for on those views a great deal depends. Kindly state them as clearly and concisely as you can."
Miss Buttermish drew up a chair to the table, sat down and produced a note-book and pencil; while Eloquent, speechless with astonishment and dismay, stood on the other side of it holding the shiny visiting-card in his hand.
Miss Buttermish tapped with her pencil on the table and regarded him enquiringly.
Apparently quite young, she was also distinctly pleasing to the eye. She wore an exceedingly well cut, heavily braided black coat and skirt, the latter of the tightest and skimpiest type of a skimpy period. Her hat was of the extinguisher order, entirely concealing her hair, except that just in the front a few soft curls were vaguely visible upon her forehead. A very handsome elderly-looking black fox stole threw up the whiteness of her rounded chin in strong relief, and her eyes looked large and mysterious through the meshes of her most becoming veil. Eloquent was conscious of a certain familiarity in her appearance. He was certain that he had seen her before somewhere, and couldn't recall either time or place.
"I'm waiting, Mr Gallup," she remarked pleasantly. "You must have made up your mind one way or other upon this important question, and it will save both my time and your own if you state your views—may I say, as briefly as possible."
Eloquent gasped . . . "I fear," he said, "that I have by no means made up my mind with any sort of finality—it is such a large question. . . . I have not yet had time to go into it as thoroughly as I could wish. . . . There is so much to be said on both sides."
"There," Miss Buttermish interrupted, "you are mistaken; there isnothingto be said for the 'antis.' Their arguments are positively . . . footling."
"I cannot," Eloquent said stiffly, "agree with you."
"Sit down, Mr Gallup," Miss Buttermish said kindly, at the same time getting up and seating herself afresh on a corner of the sofa. "We've got to thresh this matter out, and you've got to make up your mind whether you are for or against us. You are young, and I think that you hardly realise the forces that will be arrayed againstyouif you join hands with Mr Asquith on this question."
Miss Buttermish sat up very stiff and straight on the end of the sofa, and Eloquent, still standing with the table between them, felt rather like a naughty boy in the presence of an accusing governess. The allusion to his youth rankled. He did not sit down, but stood where he was, staring darkly at his guest. After a very perceptible pause he said:
"It is impossible for me to give you a definite opinion . . ."
"It's not anopinionI want," Miss Buttermish interrupted scornfully, "it's a definite guarantee. Otherwise, young man, you may make up your mind to incessant interruption and . . . to various other annoyances which I need not enumerate. We don't care a bent pin whether you are a Liberal or a Tory or a red-hot Socialist, so long as you are sound on the Suffrage question. If you are in favour of 'Votes for Women,' then we'll help you; if not . . . I advise you to put up your shutters."
Eloquent flushed angrily and, strangely enough, so did Miss Buttermish at the same moment. In fact, no sooner had she spoken the last sentence than she looked extremely hot and uncomfortable.
"I see no use," he said coldly, "in prolonging this interview. I cannot give you the guarantee you wish for. It is not my custom to make up my mind upon any question of political importance without considerable research and much thought. Intimidation would never turn me from my course if, after such investigation, I should decide against your cause. Nor would any annoyance your party may inflict upon me now, affect my support of your cause should I, ultimately, come to believe in its justice."
Miss Buttermish rose. "Mr Gallup," she said solemnly, "there is at present a very wide-spread discontent among us. Till we get the vote we shall manifest that discontent, and I warn you that the lives of members of Parliament and candidates who are not avowedly on our side will be made"—here Miss Buttermish swallowed hastily . . . "most unpleasant. Those that are not for us are against us, and . . . we are very much up against them. I am sorry we should part in anger . . ."
"Pardon me," Eloquent interrupted, "there is no anger on my side. I respect your opinions even though as yet I may not wholly share them."
Miss Buttermish shook her head. "I'm really sorry for you," she murmured; "you are young, and you little know what you are letting yourself in for."
Eloquent opened the parlour door for her with stiff politeness, and she passed out with bent head and shoulders that trembled under the heavy fur. Surely this militant young person was not going to cry!
He followed her in some anxiety down to the garden gate, held it open for her to pass through, which she did in absolute silence, and he waited to watch her mount her bicycle.
This she did in a very curious fashion. She started to run with it, leapt lightly on one pedal, and then, to Eloquent's amazement, essayed to throw her other leg over like a boy.
The lady's skirt was tight, the Redmarley roads were extremely muddy, the unexpected jerk caused the bicycle to skid, and lady and bicycle came down sideways with considerable violence.
"Damn!" exclaimed Miss Buttermish.
"Oh, those modern girls!" thought the shocked Eloquent as he ran forward to assist. He pulled the bicycle off Miss Buttermish, and stood it against the wall. She sat up, her hat very much on one side.
"Do you know," she said rather huskily, "I do believe I've broken my confounded arm."
She held out her left hand to Eloquent, who pulled her to her feet. Her right arm hung helpless, and even through her bespattered veil he could see that she was very white.
"Pray come in and rest for a little," he said concernedly, "and we can see what has happened."
"I'm sure it's broken, I heard the beastly thing snap——" the girl stumbled blindly, Eloquent caught her in his arms, and saw that she had fainted from pain.
He carried her into the house and laid her on the horsehair sofa, put a cushion under her arm, and seizing the large scissors that his orderly aunt kept hanging on a hook at the side of the fire, cut her jacket carefully along the seam from wrist to shoulder. She wore a very mannish, coloured flannel shirt. This sleeve, too, he cut, and disclosed a thin arm, extremely brown nearly to the elbow, and very fair and white above, but the elbow was distorted and discoloured; a bad break, Eloquent decided, with mischief at the joint as well probably. He had studied first-aid at classes, and he shook his head. It did not occur to him to call the little servant to assist him. With his head turned shyly away he removed the young lady's hat and loosened her heavy furs. Then he flew for water and a sponge, thinking the while of her curious Christian name "Elsmaria." She looked pathetically young and helpless lying there. Eloquent forgot her militancy and her shocking language in his sorrow over her pain. As he knelt down by the sofa to sponge her face he started so violently that he upset a great deal of the water he had brought.
It was already growing dark, but even in the dim light as he looked closely at Miss Buttermish without her hat, her likeness to Mary Ffolliot was striking. She wore her hair cropped close. "Could she have been in prison?" thought Eloquent, remembering how light she was when he carried her in.
With hands that trembled somewhat he pushed the wet curly hair back from the forehead so like Mary's. There were the same wide brow, the same white eyelids with the sweeping arch and thick dark lashes, the delicate high-bridged nose and well-cut, kindly mouth; the same pure oval in the line of cheek and chin.
Certainly an extraordinary resemblance. She must at least be a cousin; and, in spite of his sincere commiseration of the young lady's suffering, he felt a jubilant thrill in the reflection that this accident must bring him into further contact with the Ffolliots.
There was no brandy in the house, for both he and his aunt were total abstainers, so he fetched a glass of water and held it to the young lady's lips as she opened her eyes. She drank eagerly, looked searchingly at him, then she glanced down at her bare arm and the cut sleeve. The colour flooded her face, and with real horror in her voice she exclaimed, "You've never gone andcutthat jacket!"
"I had to. Your arm ought to be set at once, and goodness knows where the doctor may be to-day. You'd best be taken to Marlehouse Infirmary, I think; it's a bad break."
"But it's her best coat, quite new," Miss Buttermish persisted fretfully, "quite new; you'd no business to go and cut it. I promised to take such care of it."
"I'm very sorry," Eloquent replied meekly; "but it really was necessary that your arm should be seen to at once, and I dared not jerk it about."
"Can it be mended, do you think, so that it won't show?" There was real concern in her voice.
"I'm sure of it," he answered, much astonished at this fuss about a coat at such a moment; "I cut it carefully along the seam."
"I say," exclaimed Miss Buttermish, "I must get out of this"—and she prepared to swing her feet off the sofa—rather big feet, he noted, in stout golfing shoes. Forcibly he held her legs down.
"Please don't," he implored. "You must not jar that arm any more than can be helped. Shall I go up to the Manor House and get them to send a conveyance for you?—you really mustn't think of walking, and I don't know where else we could get one to-day."
Miss Buttermish closed her eyes and frowned heavily. Then in a faint voice—
"How do you know I'm from the Manor House?"
"Well, for one thing, you're very like . . . the family."
"Allof them?" she asked anxiously.
"You are very like certain members of the family I have seen," he said cautiously. "May I go? I'll send the servant to sit with you——"
Miss Buttermish clutched at him violently with her left hand, exclaiming, "No, no—don't send anybody yet; I must get out of this beastly skirt before anyone comes. . . . Look here, you're a very decent chap and I'm sorry I rotted you—will you play the game when you go home and hide these beastly clothes before anyone comes? The blessed thing hooks at the side, see; it's coming undone now; if you'll just give a pull I can wriggle out without getting up. . . . Oh, confound . . . I'm Buz, you know, I dressed up on purpose to rot you . . . but if youcouldnot mention it . . ."
Her head fell back and she nearly fainted again from pain. Eloquent divested her of her skirt, and with it the last remnant of Miss Buttermish disappeared—a slim slip of a boy in running shorts, with bare knees, and a gym-belt lay prone on the sofa, very pale and shivering.
In absolute silence Eloquent folded the skirt and the coat, and laying hat and furs on the top, placed them in a neat heap on a chair in the corner.
He went to his bedroom, fetched the eiderdown off his own bed and covered the boy with it. As he was tucking in the eiderdown at the side Buz put out a cold left hand and held him by the coat sleeve, saying curiously—"Are you in an awful bait? are you going to be really stuffy about it?"
Eloquent looked straight into the quizzical grey eyes that held his.The boy's voice belied the eyes, for it was anxious.
"Of course not," he said quite seriously, "I'm only too sorry your trick should have had such a disastrous conclusion. Who shall I ask for up at the house, and what shall I do with the things?"
"Oh take them with you—could you? Give 'em to Fusby, and tell him to put them in their rooms—the furs are granny's. He'll do it and never say a word; decent old chap, Fusby. I say, I'm awfully sorry to be such a nuisance. I'm certain I could walk home if you'll let me."
"That you certainly must not do, I'll go at once. Here's the hand-bell. I'll tell the maid that she is to come if you ring. I expect my aunt will be in directly—I'll be as quick as I can—cheer up."
Eloquent bustled about putting the remains of Miss Buttermish tidily into his suit-case while the grey eyes followed his movements with amused interest.
"I'm most awfully obliged," said Buz in a very low voice; "I do feel such an ass lying here."
There was a murmur of voices in the passage. The front door was closed with quiet decorum and the little sitting-room grew darker. Two big tears rolled over and Buz sniffed helplessly, for his handkerchief was in the pocket of the jacket lately worn with such gay impudence by Miss Elsmaria Buttermish.