Chapter Seven.An Exchange of Confidences.While the girls were in London, Mrs Fortescue had by no means passed an idle day. She had meant to visit several friends with the avowed intention of talking about her young heiresses, as she invariably alluded to Brenda and Florence. She would at least amuse herself hinting at the possibilities which lay before her; but it so happened that she had scarcely got through her ordinary household duties before she had an unexpected visitor. This was no less a person than Major Reid.Major Reid was, as a rule, considered a woman-hater. Since the death of his wife he had certainly never paid attentions to any woman. On the contrary, he had avoided the society of the fair sex, and had employed himself in his library and garden, living almost entirely alone, except when his son bore him company. For him to visit Mrs Fortescue, therefore, on this special day was a great surprise to the good lady.She had not the least idea that Michael Reid cared for Florence. She had, it is true, observed his attentions to her on Christmas Eve, but had not given them any serious thought. The young man was an acknowledged flirt, and was fond of the society of all pretty girls; and what pretty girl at Langdale could compare with Florence? That she had taken a walk with him on the following day had scarcely aroused any suspicions. The young people were old friends. Florence would make a great match some day. So beautiful, so rich, so well-born—what had she not to give a husband? Poor Michael Reid would indeed be a silly man if he fell in love with a girl like Florence. The visit, therefore, of Major Reid did not in the least connect itself with Florence in Mrs Fortescue’s mind.She was up in her bedroom rearranging some of her drawers; for she was a very busy, active little woman, who kept her place in immaculate order and never was a moment unemployed. She was so engaged when Bridget came to inform her that Major Reid would like to see her in the drawing-room.“Dear, dear!” thought Mrs Fortescue. “What does the man want?”She said aloud to Bridget—“Go down to the Major; give him my compliments, and say that I will be with him in a moment.”She then proceeded to put on a clean collar and a fresh and becoming tie of cherry-coloured ribbon at her throat. Her dress was dark brown. She looked a very neat and comely little person when she entered the Major’s presence. The Major, however, had no special eye for Mrs Fortescue’s comeliness. He looked rather excited. He was holding his stick in his hand as though he did not wish to part with it, and when he stood up, it was with considerable difficulty that Mrs Fortescue could get him to sit down again.“Dear, dear!” he said. “Dear, dear! I don’t know how to apologise for coming to you at such an hour before lunch. I do hope you will forgive me.”Here he deliberately paced from the door to the mantelpiece. The room was small, and he accomplished the distance in a couple of strides; but his whole manner was so confused anddistraitthat Mrs Fortescue wondered if the good man had taken leave of his senses and was about to propose to her. She was, however, thoroughly sensible and practical; and, knowing that the Major had certainly no money wherewith to support a second wife, turned her mind from the subject and endeavoured to set him at his ease.“Do sit down,” she said. “Do you know—I am sorry to have to say it—but it fidgets me dreadfully to see people pacing about my drawing-room.”The Major dropped in the nearest chair as though he had been shot.“May I take your stick from you?” said Mrs Fortescue.He resigned it with the expression of one who was about to suffer martyrdom.“Now, that is much better,” she said. “But I would suggest an easy-chair; there is one near the window. You can then lean back and cross your legs. My late dear husband said he never felt comfortable unless he could lean back in his chair and cross his legs. Ah! how well I remember him; such a dear fellow, so devoted to me. I have never ceased to mourn for him. I could never put another in his place.”“Now I have set him at his ease, and got him to abandon the ridiculous idea of proposing to me,” thought the widow. “Yes; he looks quite happy, but I do wonder what he wants. I could have taken the opportunity in the absence of the dear girls of looking over the house linen; but he will dawdle on—I know he will. What can he have to say?”The Major was staring hard at Mrs Fortescue, but she soon perceived that though he was looking at her, he was not seeing her. He was, in fact, looking through her at something which considerably disturbed, excited, and delighted him.“The Heathcotes have gone to London, have they not?” he said.“Yes,” she replied at once. “My children have left me for the day; but they are coming back to-night—my Brenda and my Florence, as I call them—for they are to me, I assure you, Major Reid, just as though they were my very own children. For years I have given them a mother’s care, and—sweet girls!—they have repaid me amply.”“They are fine girls, both of them,” said the Major.“Fine!” said Mrs Fortescue. “I should scarcely express what the girls are by that word. Aristocratic—I should call them; more particularly Florence, and yet in some ways Brenda has a rare dignity of her own—like a sweet winter rose: that is what I call her; whereas Florence is like the passion-flower. Marvellous grace that child possesses! He certainly will be a happy man who secures her.”“I am coming to that,” said Major Reid. “I am coming to that. I want to confide in you.”Mrs Fortescue became intensely interested. She had not looked for a confidence in this visit of the Major’s; but now she saw by his red face and by the way his lips twitched that he had really come on special business.“The fact is this,” he said. “That young dog of mine, Michael, has had the audacity to fall in love with your—well, your adopted child. He is madly in love with Florence, and I have an idea that she responds to his attachment. There; I have told you the truth. I thought it only right.”“You will excuse me for a minute,” said Mrs Fortescue.She got up abruptly and left the room. The moment she had done so, the Major sprang from his easy-chair, took hold of his stick, and began to pace about more energetically than ever.“If that woman puts a spoke in Mike’s wheel, I shall hate her as long as I live!” he thought. “She is just the spiteful sort to do it. I shall have to be very wary when I talk to her.”Meanwhile, Mrs Fortescue had really left the room to recover her self-control. But she was a woman, and could quickly achieve her object. She came back looking as calm as though the Major had not brought her any special information.“You will, Major Reid, forgive me,” she said, “for having left you so suddenly, but your news startled me.”“Naturally, quite naturally,” he answered.He was clasping his stick between his two hands and leaning on it. His stick gave him a lot of support.“Quite naturally,” he repeated.“As my dear Florence’s mother—we will assume for the time being that I hold that position—you are quite right to tell me, Major Reid. But when—when did Michael give my dear girl to understand that he cared for her!”“As far as I can make out, he has always cared for her,” said the Major; “but I don’t think he showed her any serious attention until Christmas Day. You must have noticed that they were a good deal together then.”“Oh well—I naturally observed that your son was pleased to be with the prettiest girl in the room.”“Quite so; most natural, most natural,” said the Major. “Well, yesterday they took a walk together, and then he told her that he—he loved her.”“He ought to have spoken to me or to Mr Timmins.”“I don’t agree with you, madam,” said the Major. “I think the person most concerned ought to be first talked to on so essential a matter. My boy is the very soul of honour. You know what a good family we belong to. The Reids of Ardnacarrick can hold up their heads with any one. It is true, I am only the younger son; but there is never any saying what my boy may inherit by and by. Anyhow, he is a good boy, a brave boy, a true soul. He spoke openly to the girl, and she—”“Yes; that is the important part,” said Mrs Fortescue. “What did Florence say?”“She was wonderfully careful, all things considered.”“I have taught her that,” said Mrs Fortescue, drawing herself up. “I have taught her that of all qualities self-control is the most essential in the case of a woman.”“She asked him,” continued the Major, “to give her a week to decide. She has gone to town to-day. Most probably she will tell her guardian.”“Oh dear, oh dear!” said Mrs Fortescue. Then she added, the colour rushing into her cheeks: “Do you think it was quite fair of your son to try to entangle Florence before she met any other man?”“Madam,” said Major Reid, “I must not permit such a word. You must excuse me if I ask you to recall it. The Reids of Ardnacarrick may very justly unite themselves with any family in England.”“I am saying nothing against you, Major; nor indeed against your son. But Florence has only just left school: she is but eighteen years of age, and will be, I understand, exceedingly well off. She has also great beauty. My hope was that I could take a house in London during the spring and bring both girls out.”“Yes!” said the Major, his face hot with indignation. “And marry Florence to some dissipatedrouéor some horrible American millionaire! My son is a gentleman, and surely,” he added, the anxiety in his face causing him to clutch his stick more violently than ever, “they will have money enough between them.”“I do not know,” said Mrs Fortescue, “why you call it between them, when it happens to be entirely on one side.”The Major was quite silent for a minute. He felt the indignity of his present position, and would have given a good deal to put himself outside Mrs Fortescue’s house at the present moment. But as he had come there with the express intention of finding out what Florence’s fortune would be, it seemed absurd to go away without doing so. Accordingly, he said, after a pause—“My dear madam, we have known each other for years.”“We have,” said Mrs Fortescue.“And neither you nor I are to blame if the young people fall in love with each other.”“That is certainly true,” said Mrs Fortescue. “I never encouraged it.”“Oh!” said the Major. “Can you say that? You were always asking my boy over to play tennis or croquet with the girls during their holidays: in fact, he was always in and out of the house. He was the only young man you admitted into their society.”“True—very true,” she said. “I did wrong; I did not think. I hope, Major, you won’t use this knowledge to my disadvantage.”“By no means,” he replied. “I should be more than sorry to injure your position at the present moment: my entire desire, my one object is to be as friendly with you as possible. I have come to you at the first possible moment to tell you what I myself know—that the young people are much attracted each to the other, and that a marriage is likely to take place between them. It is impossible for either you or me to prevent such a union: indeed, we should be doing wrong were we to attempt it. It is best, therefore, for us to be friends in the matter. Two heads are better than one. Florence need never be ashamed of herself as Mrs Reid. As my daughter-in-law she will have a good position, and as my son’s wife she will be a truly happy woman. You can, of course, make yourself disagreeable at the present moment, but that will not prevent the marriage; for, after all, you were only paid to be good to the girls.”Mrs Fortescue sprang indignantly to her feet. People never spoke directly about money at Langdale. No one ever before had alluded to the fact that she had made a nice harvest out of the girls. No one had been so ill-bred; but now it flashed across her mind that it was true: it also came over her that she had been envied amongst the most aristocratic members of society in Langdale, because of her chaperonage of Brenda and Florence Heathcote. Accordingly, she sank down again with a faint smile on her face.“After all,” she said, her words coming out with a pause between each, “we had best, as you say, be friendly in the matter.”“Yes; that is just what I think. I can help you if you can help me—”“Won’t you stay and have lunch with me?” said Mrs Fortescue suddenly.The Major loathed having lunch anywhere except at home, where he invariably ate a chop specially prepared, and drank a glass of old port. The present occasion was too serious, however, to make him consider either his chop or port.“I shall be delighted to have lunch with you,” he said.Mrs Fortescue thought of her cold mutton and the very sour claret which she usually had on the sideboard but never drank. Still, what did food matter? The moment was too important. She reflected with satisfaction that she had one or two bottles of champagne in her wine cellar. She would have one opened for the Major. He was fond of good champagne—that she knew. Afterwards he would talk to her; they would, as he expressed it, get to understand each other.She left the room to give some directions with regard to lunch, and came back in a few minutes ready to listen to the Major. On purpose, she drew him into other channels of conversation, chatting lightly and agreeably about the girls and about other matters, even going to the length of asking his advice as to what port of town would be the best for her to take a house for the coming season.Lunch, after all, was a poor affair, when it did arrive; but the Major gallantly ate his cold mutton and drank enough champagne to put him into good humour.After the meal was over, they went into the drawing-room again, where excellent black coffee was served, and then the Major found courage to ask Mrs Fortescue that question which was burning on the top of his tongue.“You know,” he said, “that my boy Michael could not possibly marry at present, deeply as he loves Florence, were she not an heiress.”“I quite understand that,” said Mrs Fortescue.“You, my dear madam, probably know something of what her expectations are. She is a very young girl, only eighteen, but there is no sense in her waiting to marry until she is twenty-one; for marriage, as a rule, has an equal effect with coming of age, as far as money is concerned. Can you give me the least idea what she is likely to inherit?”“No; I can’t,” said Mrs Fortescue bluntly. “I have often and often tried to find out, but have never succeeded. My idea, however, is—seeing that the girls have been spared no expense whatever since the death of their parents, and knowing that their parents, during their lifetime, were very well off—that they will both be rich. I know that Mr Timmins has spent hundreds a year on their education, and as to the amount he has devoted to their dress, it has really amazed me, although it has been no affair of mine. Florence now possesses a set of sealskin which would delight any duchess in the land, and there was a little talk last year of giving her a similar set of chinchilla. She looks better in furs than her sister, who requires altogether a simpler style of dress. The girls travelled up to town first-class to-day and were met by Mr Timmins’ man—his confidential clerk: that I happen to know; but I have not the slightest idea whether Florence Heathcote’s fortune represents a pound a year, or two or three thousand.”“Two or three thousand!” murmured the Major.A greedy look came into his old eyes. He suddenly rose to his feet.“I am very much obliged,” he said. “You have frankly told me all you know.”“Most frankly; most unreservedly. You will regard our conversation as confidential?”“Certainly: it would not be fair to mention it to anybody else until the week for which Florence has stipulated expires,” said the old man. “But now; let me assure you, that were the dear girl blessed with nothing at all in the way of money she would be equally precious both to my son and to me.”“Oh, you old hypocrite!” murmured Mrs Fortescue under her breath, but she did not say the words aloud: people don’t in polite society.The Major took his leave.“Your champagne was excellent,” he said, as the widow saw him to the door. “You must let me know some day where you get it, and, of course, when the week is up and everything is comfortably arranged, you and Brenda and Florence will give us the pleasure of dining with us at the Moat.”“Thank you so much, Major,” said Mrs Fortescue.The Major walked down the street, murmuring to himself—“Two or three thousand a year! It is true—it must be true. She has practically admitted it.”He met his son, who was, in fact, waiting for him.“Come for a walk, Mike,” said the old man. “Give me your arm, my boy. I have been busy over your affairs during the morning, and the fact is, that woman’s sweet champagne has got into my head. I can’t imagine how it is that women never know the difference between dry champagne and sweet. I shall have a bilious attack after this, as sure as fate.”“Where in the world have you been, dad?” said the lieutenant, looking with apprehension at his father’s flushed face.“Why, my boy,” said the Major, “I have been eating the most abominable lunch I ever tasted in the whole course of my life at Mrs Fortescue’s.”“At Mrs Fortescue’s?” said the young man. “You surely have not been there about—about Florence and me!”“Yes, I have, Mike, and you can’t blame me; and I have got the most satisfactory information for you. The girl’s income will run into thousands, my boy—yes, into thousands.” Now, of course, Lieutenant Reid was delighted to hear this, but he felt all the same annoyed at his father’s lack of circumspection in going to see Mrs Fortescue.“The news will be all over the place,” he said. “That woman is the most inveterate gossip in Langdale. She will tell all her friends just what has happened, and if Flo chooses to give me up, you will be the one to blame.”“Oh, she won’t give you up. She loves you dearly, my boy; and no other, no other,” said the Major. “I really congratulate you, Mike; and if there is any possible way in which I can help you at the present moment, you have but to command it. Some thousands a year! Three, four, five—I should not be the least surprised if it was five thousand a year. The girls have been brought up as if they might expect that income at the very least. You’re a lucky dog—a very lucky dog, Mike.”
While the girls were in London, Mrs Fortescue had by no means passed an idle day. She had meant to visit several friends with the avowed intention of talking about her young heiresses, as she invariably alluded to Brenda and Florence. She would at least amuse herself hinting at the possibilities which lay before her; but it so happened that she had scarcely got through her ordinary household duties before she had an unexpected visitor. This was no less a person than Major Reid.
Major Reid was, as a rule, considered a woman-hater. Since the death of his wife he had certainly never paid attentions to any woman. On the contrary, he had avoided the society of the fair sex, and had employed himself in his library and garden, living almost entirely alone, except when his son bore him company. For him to visit Mrs Fortescue, therefore, on this special day was a great surprise to the good lady.
She had not the least idea that Michael Reid cared for Florence. She had, it is true, observed his attentions to her on Christmas Eve, but had not given them any serious thought. The young man was an acknowledged flirt, and was fond of the society of all pretty girls; and what pretty girl at Langdale could compare with Florence? That she had taken a walk with him on the following day had scarcely aroused any suspicions. The young people were old friends. Florence would make a great match some day. So beautiful, so rich, so well-born—what had she not to give a husband? Poor Michael Reid would indeed be a silly man if he fell in love with a girl like Florence. The visit, therefore, of Major Reid did not in the least connect itself with Florence in Mrs Fortescue’s mind.
She was up in her bedroom rearranging some of her drawers; for she was a very busy, active little woman, who kept her place in immaculate order and never was a moment unemployed. She was so engaged when Bridget came to inform her that Major Reid would like to see her in the drawing-room.
“Dear, dear!” thought Mrs Fortescue. “What does the man want?”
She said aloud to Bridget—
“Go down to the Major; give him my compliments, and say that I will be with him in a moment.”
She then proceeded to put on a clean collar and a fresh and becoming tie of cherry-coloured ribbon at her throat. Her dress was dark brown. She looked a very neat and comely little person when she entered the Major’s presence. The Major, however, had no special eye for Mrs Fortescue’s comeliness. He looked rather excited. He was holding his stick in his hand as though he did not wish to part with it, and when he stood up, it was with considerable difficulty that Mrs Fortescue could get him to sit down again.
“Dear, dear!” he said. “Dear, dear! I don’t know how to apologise for coming to you at such an hour before lunch. I do hope you will forgive me.”
Here he deliberately paced from the door to the mantelpiece. The room was small, and he accomplished the distance in a couple of strides; but his whole manner was so confused anddistraitthat Mrs Fortescue wondered if the good man had taken leave of his senses and was about to propose to her. She was, however, thoroughly sensible and practical; and, knowing that the Major had certainly no money wherewith to support a second wife, turned her mind from the subject and endeavoured to set him at his ease.
“Do sit down,” she said. “Do you know—I am sorry to have to say it—but it fidgets me dreadfully to see people pacing about my drawing-room.”
The Major dropped in the nearest chair as though he had been shot.
“May I take your stick from you?” said Mrs Fortescue.
He resigned it with the expression of one who was about to suffer martyrdom.
“Now, that is much better,” she said. “But I would suggest an easy-chair; there is one near the window. You can then lean back and cross your legs. My late dear husband said he never felt comfortable unless he could lean back in his chair and cross his legs. Ah! how well I remember him; such a dear fellow, so devoted to me. I have never ceased to mourn for him. I could never put another in his place.”
“Now I have set him at his ease, and got him to abandon the ridiculous idea of proposing to me,” thought the widow. “Yes; he looks quite happy, but I do wonder what he wants. I could have taken the opportunity in the absence of the dear girls of looking over the house linen; but he will dawdle on—I know he will. What can he have to say?”
The Major was staring hard at Mrs Fortescue, but she soon perceived that though he was looking at her, he was not seeing her. He was, in fact, looking through her at something which considerably disturbed, excited, and delighted him.
“The Heathcotes have gone to London, have they not?” he said.
“Yes,” she replied at once. “My children have left me for the day; but they are coming back to-night—my Brenda and my Florence, as I call them—for they are to me, I assure you, Major Reid, just as though they were my very own children. For years I have given them a mother’s care, and—sweet girls!—they have repaid me amply.”
“They are fine girls, both of them,” said the Major.
“Fine!” said Mrs Fortescue. “I should scarcely express what the girls are by that word. Aristocratic—I should call them; more particularly Florence, and yet in some ways Brenda has a rare dignity of her own—like a sweet winter rose: that is what I call her; whereas Florence is like the passion-flower. Marvellous grace that child possesses! He certainly will be a happy man who secures her.”
“I am coming to that,” said Major Reid. “I am coming to that. I want to confide in you.”
Mrs Fortescue became intensely interested. She had not looked for a confidence in this visit of the Major’s; but now she saw by his red face and by the way his lips twitched that he had really come on special business.
“The fact is this,” he said. “That young dog of mine, Michael, has had the audacity to fall in love with your—well, your adopted child. He is madly in love with Florence, and I have an idea that she responds to his attachment. There; I have told you the truth. I thought it only right.”
“You will excuse me for a minute,” said Mrs Fortescue.
She got up abruptly and left the room. The moment she had done so, the Major sprang from his easy-chair, took hold of his stick, and began to pace about more energetically than ever.
“If that woman puts a spoke in Mike’s wheel, I shall hate her as long as I live!” he thought. “She is just the spiteful sort to do it. I shall have to be very wary when I talk to her.”
Meanwhile, Mrs Fortescue had really left the room to recover her self-control. But she was a woman, and could quickly achieve her object. She came back looking as calm as though the Major had not brought her any special information.
“You will, Major Reid, forgive me,” she said, “for having left you so suddenly, but your news startled me.”
“Naturally, quite naturally,” he answered.
He was clasping his stick between his two hands and leaning on it. His stick gave him a lot of support.
“Quite naturally,” he repeated.
“As my dear Florence’s mother—we will assume for the time being that I hold that position—you are quite right to tell me, Major Reid. But when—when did Michael give my dear girl to understand that he cared for her!”
“As far as I can make out, he has always cared for her,” said the Major; “but I don’t think he showed her any serious attention until Christmas Day. You must have noticed that they were a good deal together then.”
“Oh well—I naturally observed that your son was pleased to be with the prettiest girl in the room.”
“Quite so; most natural, most natural,” said the Major. “Well, yesterday they took a walk together, and then he told her that he—he loved her.”
“He ought to have spoken to me or to Mr Timmins.”
“I don’t agree with you, madam,” said the Major. “I think the person most concerned ought to be first talked to on so essential a matter. My boy is the very soul of honour. You know what a good family we belong to. The Reids of Ardnacarrick can hold up their heads with any one. It is true, I am only the younger son; but there is never any saying what my boy may inherit by and by. Anyhow, he is a good boy, a brave boy, a true soul. He spoke openly to the girl, and she—”
“Yes; that is the important part,” said Mrs Fortescue. “What did Florence say?”
“She was wonderfully careful, all things considered.”
“I have taught her that,” said Mrs Fortescue, drawing herself up. “I have taught her that of all qualities self-control is the most essential in the case of a woman.”
“She asked him,” continued the Major, “to give her a week to decide. She has gone to town to-day. Most probably she will tell her guardian.”
“Oh dear, oh dear!” said Mrs Fortescue. Then she added, the colour rushing into her cheeks: “Do you think it was quite fair of your son to try to entangle Florence before she met any other man?”
“Madam,” said Major Reid, “I must not permit such a word. You must excuse me if I ask you to recall it. The Reids of Ardnacarrick may very justly unite themselves with any family in England.”
“I am saying nothing against you, Major; nor indeed against your son. But Florence has only just left school: she is but eighteen years of age, and will be, I understand, exceedingly well off. She has also great beauty. My hope was that I could take a house in London during the spring and bring both girls out.”
“Yes!” said the Major, his face hot with indignation. “And marry Florence to some dissipatedrouéor some horrible American millionaire! My son is a gentleman, and surely,” he added, the anxiety in his face causing him to clutch his stick more violently than ever, “they will have money enough between them.”
“I do not know,” said Mrs Fortescue, “why you call it between them, when it happens to be entirely on one side.”
The Major was quite silent for a minute. He felt the indignity of his present position, and would have given a good deal to put himself outside Mrs Fortescue’s house at the present moment. But as he had come there with the express intention of finding out what Florence’s fortune would be, it seemed absurd to go away without doing so. Accordingly, he said, after a pause—
“My dear madam, we have known each other for years.”
“We have,” said Mrs Fortescue.
“And neither you nor I are to blame if the young people fall in love with each other.”
“That is certainly true,” said Mrs Fortescue. “I never encouraged it.”
“Oh!” said the Major. “Can you say that? You were always asking my boy over to play tennis or croquet with the girls during their holidays: in fact, he was always in and out of the house. He was the only young man you admitted into their society.”
“True—very true,” she said. “I did wrong; I did not think. I hope, Major, you won’t use this knowledge to my disadvantage.”
“By no means,” he replied. “I should be more than sorry to injure your position at the present moment: my entire desire, my one object is to be as friendly with you as possible. I have come to you at the first possible moment to tell you what I myself know—that the young people are much attracted each to the other, and that a marriage is likely to take place between them. It is impossible for either you or me to prevent such a union: indeed, we should be doing wrong were we to attempt it. It is best, therefore, for us to be friends in the matter. Two heads are better than one. Florence need never be ashamed of herself as Mrs Reid. As my daughter-in-law she will have a good position, and as my son’s wife she will be a truly happy woman. You can, of course, make yourself disagreeable at the present moment, but that will not prevent the marriage; for, after all, you were only paid to be good to the girls.”
Mrs Fortescue sprang indignantly to her feet. People never spoke directly about money at Langdale. No one ever before had alluded to the fact that she had made a nice harvest out of the girls. No one had been so ill-bred; but now it flashed across her mind that it was true: it also came over her that she had been envied amongst the most aristocratic members of society in Langdale, because of her chaperonage of Brenda and Florence Heathcote. Accordingly, she sank down again with a faint smile on her face.
“After all,” she said, her words coming out with a pause between each, “we had best, as you say, be friendly in the matter.”
“Yes; that is just what I think. I can help you if you can help me—”
“Won’t you stay and have lunch with me?” said Mrs Fortescue suddenly.
The Major loathed having lunch anywhere except at home, where he invariably ate a chop specially prepared, and drank a glass of old port. The present occasion was too serious, however, to make him consider either his chop or port.
“I shall be delighted to have lunch with you,” he said.
Mrs Fortescue thought of her cold mutton and the very sour claret which she usually had on the sideboard but never drank. Still, what did food matter? The moment was too important. She reflected with satisfaction that she had one or two bottles of champagne in her wine cellar. She would have one opened for the Major. He was fond of good champagne—that she knew. Afterwards he would talk to her; they would, as he expressed it, get to understand each other.
She left the room to give some directions with regard to lunch, and came back in a few minutes ready to listen to the Major. On purpose, she drew him into other channels of conversation, chatting lightly and agreeably about the girls and about other matters, even going to the length of asking his advice as to what port of town would be the best for her to take a house for the coming season.
Lunch, after all, was a poor affair, when it did arrive; but the Major gallantly ate his cold mutton and drank enough champagne to put him into good humour.
After the meal was over, they went into the drawing-room again, where excellent black coffee was served, and then the Major found courage to ask Mrs Fortescue that question which was burning on the top of his tongue.
“You know,” he said, “that my boy Michael could not possibly marry at present, deeply as he loves Florence, were she not an heiress.”
“I quite understand that,” said Mrs Fortescue.
“You, my dear madam, probably know something of what her expectations are. She is a very young girl, only eighteen, but there is no sense in her waiting to marry until she is twenty-one; for marriage, as a rule, has an equal effect with coming of age, as far as money is concerned. Can you give me the least idea what she is likely to inherit?”
“No; I can’t,” said Mrs Fortescue bluntly. “I have often and often tried to find out, but have never succeeded. My idea, however, is—seeing that the girls have been spared no expense whatever since the death of their parents, and knowing that their parents, during their lifetime, were very well off—that they will both be rich. I know that Mr Timmins has spent hundreds a year on their education, and as to the amount he has devoted to their dress, it has really amazed me, although it has been no affair of mine. Florence now possesses a set of sealskin which would delight any duchess in the land, and there was a little talk last year of giving her a similar set of chinchilla. She looks better in furs than her sister, who requires altogether a simpler style of dress. The girls travelled up to town first-class to-day and were met by Mr Timmins’ man—his confidential clerk: that I happen to know; but I have not the slightest idea whether Florence Heathcote’s fortune represents a pound a year, or two or three thousand.”
“Two or three thousand!” murmured the Major.
A greedy look came into his old eyes. He suddenly rose to his feet.
“I am very much obliged,” he said. “You have frankly told me all you know.”
“Most frankly; most unreservedly. You will regard our conversation as confidential?”
“Certainly: it would not be fair to mention it to anybody else until the week for which Florence has stipulated expires,” said the old man. “But now; let me assure you, that were the dear girl blessed with nothing at all in the way of money she would be equally precious both to my son and to me.”
“Oh, you old hypocrite!” murmured Mrs Fortescue under her breath, but she did not say the words aloud: people don’t in polite society.
The Major took his leave.
“Your champagne was excellent,” he said, as the widow saw him to the door. “You must let me know some day where you get it, and, of course, when the week is up and everything is comfortably arranged, you and Brenda and Florence will give us the pleasure of dining with us at the Moat.”
“Thank you so much, Major,” said Mrs Fortescue.
The Major walked down the street, murmuring to himself—
“Two or three thousand a year! It is true—it must be true. She has practically admitted it.”
He met his son, who was, in fact, waiting for him.
“Come for a walk, Mike,” said the old man. “Give me your arm, my boy. I have been busy over your affairs during the morning, and the fact is, that woman’s sweet champagne has got into my head. I can’t imagine how it is that women never know the difference between dry champagne and sweet. I shall have a bilious attack after this, as sure as fate.”
“Where in the world have you been, dad?” said the lieutenant, looking with apprehension at his father’s flushed face.
“Why, my boy,” said the Major, “I have been eating the most abominable lunch I ever tasted in the whole course of my life at Mrs Fortescue’s.”
“At Mrs Fortescue’s?” said the young man. “You surely have not been there about—about Florence and me!”
“Yes, I have, Mike, and you can’t blame me; and I have got the most satisfactory information for you. The girl’s income will run into thousands, my boy—yes, into thousands.” Now, of course, Lieutenant Reid was delighted to hear this, but he felt all the same annoyed at his father’s lack of circumspection in going to see Mrs Fortescue.
“The news will be all over the place,” he said. “That woman is the most inveterate gossip in Langdale. She will tell all her friends just what has happened, and if Flo chooses to give me up, you will be the one to blame.”
“Oh, she won’t give you up. She loves you dearly, my boy; and no other, no other,” said the Major. “I really congratulate you, Mike; and if there is any possible way in which I can help you at the present moment, you have but to command it. Some thousands a year! Three, four, five—I should not be the least surprised if it was five thousand a year. The girls have been brought up as if they might expect that income at the very least. You’re a lucky dog—a very lucky dog, Mike.”
Chapter Eight.A Tempting Tea.Mrs Fortescue’s morning had been so exciting that she really could not settle down at searching through her house linen for possible or impossible holes during the afternoon. It was her bounden duty to go to see the Arbuthnots. She ought to visit them after the delightful dinner they had given her on Christmas Day. Accordingly, putting on her most becoming dress, she started off between three and four o’clock in the direction of their house. She must meet the train which would bring her darlings back to her between six and seven, but during the intervening hours she might spend her time quite comfortably with Susie, chatting to her, of course—not onthesubject, but on every possible subject which led towards it, approaching it, as it were, by every devious path within her knowledge.Susie was upright, honest as the day. Mrs Fortescue was a crooked-minded woman; but very straight people are, as a rule, apt not to see the crookedness of their friends. Susie liked every one at Langdale, just as much as the Colonel liked them. She was heartily pleased to see her friend, and told her so, frankly. Susie was not wearing her grey barège, and the supporting silk lining could not therefore sustain her; but she was very neatly dressed in an old black serge which she had altered with her own clever fingers, and which fitted her plump form to perfection. Round her neck she were a neat linen collar, and had linen cuffs round her plump wrists. Her hands were ringless and very fat. Her face, always highly coloured, was a little redder than usual, because she had been taking advantage of the fine morning and spending it in the garden. She loved gardening, and there was not a day, either summed or winter, which did not give her something to do in her favourite employment.“Now,” she said, when she saw Mrs Fortescue; “thisisgood! You have come to tea, of course. I will order some hot cakes. They can be made in a twinkling. I have desired cook to do them from a new recipe which I happened to cut out of a penny paper last week. How nice you look, Mrs Fortescue! and how are the darling girls? What a decided beauty Florence is turning into!”“Of course you know,” said Mrs Fortescue, throwing meaning into her tone, “that both girls went to London this morning to spend the day with their guardian and lawyer, Mr Timmins, of Pye’s Court.”“No, I didn’t know it,” said Susie. Then she added, seeing that something was expected of her: “Did they go alone?”“Well, they went together first-class, and were met at the station by Mr Timmins’ confidential clerk. They are coming back to night.”“Dear children!” said Susie, in her sweet voice. “I am so fond of them both.”“And they are fond of you, Susie.”“I wonder what they will do in the future,” said Susie. “Is it really true that they have left school?”“Yes, it is quite true,” said Mrs Fortescue. “I am sorry,” answered Susie.“Sorry? What do you mean? Florence is eighteen and Brenda nineteen.”“Yes,” said Susie; “but one only begins to appreciate school at that age. Before, one is too young and lessons seem a useless drudgery. One’s mind is not big enough or broad enough to take in the advantages of learning. It is a great, great pity that Mr Timmins does not give them two more years at Newnham or Girton or some such place.”“Oh, my dear?” said Mrs Fortescue, throwing up her hands. “How can you say anything so horrible! Newnham or Girton! They would be simply ruined; and men do so hate learned women.”“Do they?” said Susie. She paused reflectively. “I have known one or two,” she said, after a pause, “whom men have loved very much. I don’t think it is the learning part that men hate; it is something else which now and then the learned woman possesses. Perhaps it is pride in her own attainments. Surely no sensible man can dislike a woman for knowing things.”“They do—they all do,” said Mrs Fortescue. “My dear late lamented did. He told me he could not even have looked at me if I had had a smattering of Latin or Greek; and I have heard many other men say the same.”“Then they must be quite worthless,” said Susie, “and we needn’t bother about them. Ah! and here comes the tea. Put it here, please, Peters.”The servant arranged the very tempting tea on a little table, and Susie stood up to perform her duties as hostess. She was certainly remarkably plain, but, somehow, no one ever thought her plain when they looked at her, for goodness shone out of her eyes and seemed to radiate from her stout little person. Mrs Fortescue was quite ready to do justice to the excellent tea, the rich cream, the plum cake, and that new recipe for hot cakes which Susie’s cook had so successfully carried out and which resulted in such appetising, melting morsels, that the good woman was consoled for the loss of one of her few bottles of champagne, and for the fact that she knew very well that Major Reid had hated his lunch.“Do you know,” she said, as she finished her meal, “that I never enjoy my tea anywhere as I do here. Besides, I had a hot lunch to-day. Who do you think came and had lunch with me?”“How can I guess?” said Susie. “I suppose you were all alone, as the girls were in London.”“No: I was not alone. I had a visitor—a man.”“A man?” said Susie, opening her round eyes.“Yes; no less a person than Major Reid. Now, what do you think of that?”“Oh; I like him very much,” said Susie.“Do you, now? I wonder why?”“Why,” said Susie, “because I think he is nice. He is very poor, of course, but he makes the best of his poverty, and he is very intelligent and fond of reading.”“Perhaps you like Michael too,” said Mrs Fortescue.“I am exceedingly fond of Michael,” said Susie. “He is a dear boy.”“A boy?” said Mrs Fortescue. “Do you call him that? He is a man; he is twenty-four.”“I call twenty-four quite a boy,” answered Susie. “Mike is a great friend of mine: we have always been chums, and always will be, for that matter.”Mrs Fortescue sat quite still. She longed to add something further; but Susie sat smiling to herself, for she remembered Michael’s request that he might take Florence into dinner on Christmas night, and she also remembered the fact that he had walked through the snow and slush in order to secure his heart’s desire. It would in Susie’s eyes be a delightful match if Mike and Florence married. But she was not going to speak of it. Mrs Fortescue’s small black eyes sparkled.“Well, well,” she said; “we all have our tastes. I will own that in a place like Langdale one is apt to appreciate any fairly good-looking young man. But out in the great world where one meets them in shoals—simply in shoals—a person like Michael Reid would not have much chance.”“Do you think so?” said Susie very quietly. “I am sorry for the great world, then.”“You know nothing about it, Susie.”“That is true,” answered Susie, who might have retorted, “No more do you,” but it was not her habit ever to say anything unkind.“Well,” said Mrs Fortescue, “I suppose I must be going. I have to meet the dear girls, and they will have lots to tell me. In all probability, Susie, I shall be leaving Langdale myself this spring, for no doubt Mr Timmins will wish me to undertake the chaperonage of my two sweet girls until they marry. I look to their both making great matches, with their wealth and good looks; for they are both good-looking. They ought to do exceedingly well in the marriage market.”“If you mean by that,” said Susie, the colour rushing into her face, “that they will marry men worthy of them—I mean good in the best sense of the word—good, and true and brave, then I trust they will. But if you mean anything else, Mrs Fortescue; if you mean men who will seek them for their wealth—for I presume they are rich, although really I know nothing about it, and what is more, I don’t care—then I sincerely trust they won’t marry that sort of man.”“Oh,” said Mrs Fortescue, “you don’t understand—you don’t care whether they are rich or not—”“Not one scrap,” said Susie. “How can riches add to the brightness of Florence’s eyes or the affection of Brenda’s manner? But if riches make them a little more comfortable, I hope they will have sufficient, though we don’t require much money, do we, Mrs Fortescue? I know that is not what the world would call rich,” (Mrs Fortescue hated Susie for making this remark) “and most certainly father and I are not. We just contrive and contrive, and always have enough for a jolly Christmas dinner when we can really entertain our friends. I don’t believe any two people in all the world are happier than my darling dad and myself, and it doesn’t come from riches, for we have to be very careful. Oh, no; rich people are not the happiest, I do assure you on that point.”Mrs Fortescue could not help saying, “I do not agree with you, Susie,” and she could not help giving a contemptuous glance at the old-fashioned, very plump little figure with the red face and honest round eyes. But having eaten as much as she could of Susie’s very excellent food, and found it quite impossible to draw Susie Arbuthnot into any conversation of what she considered a truly interesting nature, she left the house and amused herself doing some shopping until it was time to go to the railway station to meet the girls.There Florence alone confronted her—Florence, with a white and anxious face, although all trace of that fit of weeping which had overcome her when she parted from Brenda had disappeared from her features.“Why, Flo—Flo, darling! Where is your sister? Where is my Brenda?”“Brenda is staying for a few days with Lady Marian Dixie.”“But I knew nothing of this. She did not take up any clothes.”“We are to send her some. Mr Timmins has sent his clerk down with me, and he is coming back to the house with us now in order that I may pack some of Brenda’s things and send them to town by him. If we are quick we shall catch the half-past seven train, and she will get what things she most requires by to-night.”“I have a cab waiting for you, my love. This is very unexpected. Did you say Lady Marian Dixie?”“Yes,” said Florence; “an old friend of my mother’s.”“Well, you will have a great deal to tell me,” said Mrs Fortescue; “and how very tired you look, dear.”“I am not specially tired, but I should like to get home as fast as possible in order to give Andrews a trunk full of clothes to take back to Brenda.”“Oh, surely Brenda won’t be away so long as that.”Florence made no reply. She motioned to Andrews to get on the box beside the driver, and they returned to Mrs Fortescue’s house almost in silence. Mrs Fortescue felt that something had happened, but did not dare to inquire. She kept repeating to herself at intervals during their drive back—“Lady Marian Dixie—a friend of the girls’ mother! It sounds very nice; still, it is queer. Surely, surely Mr Timmins could not be so mad as to allow Lady Marian to conduct the girls about in London society! It would be too cruel to me, after all I have done for them.”When they reached the house, the cabman was desired to wait. Florence ran up to their room and, with Mrs Fortescue’s help, filled a trunk with Brenda’s smartest things. Mrs Fortescue talked all the time, but Florence was almost silent. The trunk was speedily packed, and the old clerk took it back to London with him.Then the two ladies, the old and the young, went into the drawing-room and faced each other.
Mrs Fortescue’s morning had been so exciting that she really could not settle down at searching through her house linen for possible or impossible holes during the afternoon. It was her bounden duty to go to see the Arbuthnots. She ought to visit them after the delightful dinner they had given her on Christmas Day. Accordingly, putting on her most becoming dress, she started off between three and four o’clock in the direction of their house. She must meet the train which would bring her darlings back to her between six and seven, but during the intervening hours she might spend her time quite comfortably with Susie, chatting to her, of course—not onthesubject, but on every possible subject which led towards it, approaching it, as it were, by every devious path within her knowledge.
Susie was upright, honest as the day. Mrs Fortescue was a crooked-minded woman; but very straight people are, as a rule, apt not to see the crookedness of their friends. Susie liked every one at Langdale, just as much as the Colonel liked them. She was heartily pleased to see her friend, and told her so, frankly. Susie was not wearing her grey barège, and the supporting silk lining could not therefore sustain her; but she was very neatly dressed in an old black serge which she had altered with her own clever fingers, and which fitted her plump form to perfection. Round her neck she were a neat linen collar, and had linen cuffs round her plump wrists. Her hands were ringless and very fat. Her face, always highly coloured, was a little redder than usual, because she had been taking advantage of the fine morning and spending it in the garden. She loved gardening, and there was not a day, either summed or winter, which did not give her something to do in her favourite employment.
“Now,” she said, when she saw Mrs Fortescue; “thisisgood! You have come to tea, of course. I will order some hot cakes. They can be made in a twinkling. I have desired cook to do them from a new recipe which I happened to cut out of a penny paper last week. How nice you look, Mrs Fortescue! and how are the darling girls? What a decided beauty Florence is turning into!”
“Of course you know,” said Mrs Fortescue, throwing meaning into her tone, “that both girls went to London this morning to spend the day with their guardian and lawyer, Mr Timmins, of Pye’s Court.”
“No, I didn’t know it,” said Susie. Then she added, seeing that something was expected of her: “Did they go alone?”
“Well, they went together first-class, and were met at the station by Mr Timmins’ confidential clerk. They are coming back to night.”
“Dear children!” said Susie, in her sweet voice. “I am so fond of them both.”
“And they are fond of you, Susie.”
“I wonder what they will do in the future,” said Susie. “Is it really true that they have left school?”
“Yes, it is quite true,” said Mrs Fortescue. “I am sorry,” answered Susie.
“Sorry? What do you mean? Florence is eighteen and Brenda nineteen.”
“Yes,” said Susie; “but one only begins to appreciate school at that age. Before, one is too young and lessons seem a useless drudgery. One’s mind is not big enough or broad enough to take in the advantages of learning. It is a great, great pity that Mr Timmins does not give them two more years at Newnham or Girton or some such place.”
“Oh, my dear?” said Mrs Fortescue, throwing up her hands. “How can you say anything so horrible! Newnham or Girton! They would be simply ruined; and men do so hate learned women.”
“Do they?” said Susie. She paused reflectively. “I have known one or two,” she said, after a pause, “whom men have loved very much. I don’t think it is the learning part that men hate; it is something else which now and then the learned woman possesses. Perhaps it is pride in her own attainments. Surely no sensible man can dislike a woman for knowing things.”
“They do—they all do,” said Mrs Fortescue. “My dear late lamented did. He told me he could not even have looked at me if I had had a smattering of Latin or Greek; and I have heard many other men say the same.”
“Then they must be quite worthless,” said Susie, “and we needn’t bother about them. Ah! and here comes the tea. Put it here, please, Peters.”
The servant arranged the very tempting tea on a little table, and Susie stood up to perform her duties as hostess. She was certainly remarkably plain, but, somehow, no one ever thought her plain when they looked at her, for goodness shone out of her eyes and seemed to radiate from her stout little person. Mrs Fortescue was quite ready to do justice to the excellent tea, the rich cream, the plum cake, and that new recipe for hot cakes which Susie’s cook had so successfully carried out and which resulted in such appetising, melting morsels, that the good woman was consoled for the loss of one of her few bottles of champagne, and for the fact that she knew very well that Major Reid had hated his lunch.
“Do you know,” she said, as she finished her meal, “that I never enjoy my tea anywhere as I do here. Besides, I had a hot lunch to-day. Who do you think came and had lunch with me?”
“How can I guess?” said Susie. “I suppose you were all alone, as the girls were in London.”
“No: I was not alone. I had a visitor—a man.”
“A man?” said Susie, opening her round eyes.
“Yes; no less a person than Major Reid. Now, what do you think of that?”
“Oh; I like him very much,” said Susie.
“Do you, now? I wonder why?”
“Why,” said Susie, “because I think he is nice. He is very poor, of course, but he makes the best of his poverty, and he is very intelligent and fond of reading.”
“Perhaps you like Michael too,” said Mrs Fortescue.
“I am exceedingly fond of Michael,” said Susie. “He is a dear boy.”
“A boy?” said Mrs Fortescue. “Do you call him that? He is a man; he is twenty-four.”
“I call twenty-four quite a boy,” answered Susie. “Mike is a great friend of mine: we have always been chums, and always will be, for that matter.”
Mrs Fortescue sat quite still. She longed to add something further; but Susie sat smiling to herself, for she remembered Michael’s request that he might take Florence into dinner on Christmas night, and she also remembered the fact that he had walked through the snow and slush in order to secure his heart’s desire. It would in Susie’s eyes be a delightful match if Mike and Florence married. But she was not going to speak of it. Mrs Fortescue’s small black eyes sparkled.
“Well, well,” she said; “we all have our tastes. I will own that in a place like Langdale one is apt to appreciate any fairly good-looking young man. But out in the great world where one meets them in shoals—simply in shoals—a person like Michael Reid would not have much chance.”
“Do you think so?” said Susie very quietly. “I am sorry for the great world, then.”
“You know nothing about it, Susie.”
“That is true,” answered Susie, who might have retorted, “No more do you,” but it was not her habit ever to say anything unkind.
“Well,” said Mrs Fortescue, “I suppose I must be going. I have to meet the dear girls, and they will have lots to tell me. In all probability, Susie, I shall be leaving Langdale myself this spring, for no doubt Mr Timmins will wish me to undertake the chaperonage of my two sweet girls until they marry. I look to their both making great matches, with their wealth and good looks; for they are both good-looking. They ought to do exceedingly well in the marriage market.”
“If you mean by that,” said Susie, the colour rushing into her face, “that they will marry men worthy of them—I mean good in the best sense of the word—good, and true and brave, then I trust they will. But if you mean anything else, Mrs Fortescue; if you mean men who will seek them for their wealth—for I presume they are rich, although really I know nothing about it, and what is more, I don’t care—then I sincerely trust they won’t marry that sort of man.”
“Oh,” said Mrs Fortescue, “you don’t understand—you don’t care whether they are rich or not—”
“Not one scrap,” said Susie. “How can riches add to the brightness of Florence’s eyes or the affection of Brenda’s manner? But if riches make them a little more comfortable, I hope they will have sufficient, though we don’t require much money, do we, Mrs Fortescue? I know that is not what the world would call rich,” (Mrs Fortescue hated Susie for making this remark) “and most certainly father and I are not. We just contrive and contrive, and always have enough for a jolly Christmas dinner when we can really entertain our friends. I don’t believe any two people in all the world are happier than my darling dad and myself, and it doesn’t come from riches, for we have to be very careful. Oh, no; rich people are not the happiest, I do assure you on that point.”
Mrs Fortescue could not help saying, “I do not agree with you, Susie,” and she could not help giving a contemptuous glance at the old-fashioned, very plump little figure with the red face and honest round eyes. But having eaten as much as she could of Susie’s very excellent food, and found it quite impossible to draw Susie Arbuthnot into any conversation of what she considered a truly interesting nature, she left the house and amused herself doing some shopping until it was time to go to the railway station to meet the girls.
There Florence alone confronted her—Florence, with a white and anxious face, although all trace of that fit of weeping which had overcome her when she parted from Brenda had disappeared from her features.
“Why, Flo—Flo, darling! Where is your sister? Where is my Brenda?”
“Brenda is staying for a few days with Lady Marian Dixie.”
“But I knew nothing of this. She did not take up any clothes.”
“We are to send her some. Mr Timmins has sent his clerk down with me, and he is coming back to the house with us now in order that I may pack some of Brenda’s things and send them to town by him. If we are quick we shall catch the half-past seven train, and she will get what things she most requires by to-night.”
“I have a cab waiting for you, my love. This is very unexpected. Did you say Lady Marian Dixie?”
“Yes,” said Florence; “an old friend of my mother’s.”
“Well, you will have a great deal to tell me,” said Mrs Fortescue; “and how very tired you look, dear.”
“I am not specially tired, but I should like to get home as fast as possible in order to give Andrews a trunk full of clothes to take back to Brenda.”
“Oh, surely Brenda won’t be away so long as that.”
Florence made no reply. She motioned to Andrews to get on the box beside the driver, and they returned to Mrs Fortescue’s house almost in silence. Mrs Fortescue felt that something had happened, but did not dare to inquire. She kept repeating to herself at intervals during their drive back—
“Lady Marian Dixie—a friend of the girls’ mother! It sounds very nice; still, it is queer. Surely, surely Mr Timmins could not be so mad as to allow Lady Marian to conduct the girls about in London society! It would be too cruel to me, after all I have done for them.”
When they reached the house, the cabman was desired to wait. Florence ran up to their room and, with Mrs Fortescue’s help, filled a trunk with Brenda’s smartest things. Mrs Fortescue talked all the time, but Florence was almost silent. The trunk was speedily packed, and the old clerk took it back to London with him.
Then the two ladies, the old and the young, went into the drawing-room and faced each other.
Chapter Nine.Mrs Fortescue Seeks Enlightenment.“Now, Florence,” said Mrs Fortescue, “I suppose you have got something to tell me.”“I have,” answered Florence. She spoke almost flippantly. “I am very, very hungry. I hope you have a nice dinner, a specially nice dinner for us both to enjoy together to-night, Mrs Fortescue.”“I have got a duck,” said Mrs Fortescue; “and ducks at present are exceedingly expensive; but I never think of expense when I am providing luxuries for you and your dear sister. You deserve all the good things of life, my darlings, and I trust they will fall to your portion. Nevertheless, I think, I do think you might have confided in me.”Florence coloured and then turned pale. She wondered if anyone had, in some miraculous way, become acquainted with the fact of their own great poverty; but no, the whole thing seemed impossible. Florence herself had been careful not to breathe a word on the subject, and she was pretty sure that Brenda had not done so. What, therefore, could Mrs Fortescue mean? As to the other matter—that which related to Lieutenant Reid, it is sad to have to confess that Florence, for the time being, had forgotten the gallant lieutenant.“I am hungry!” she said; “and I would rather talk to you after dinner than before: that is, if you don’t mind.”“I don’t mind at all, dearest,” said Mrs Fortescue. “You would like to go upstairs and change your travelling dress. I will send Bridget in to help you.”“Thank you,” said Florence.She was about to refuse this offer, but suddenly remembered that all her dresses fastened behind, and that she could not manage this part of her toilet now that Brenda was away. She ran upstairs at once, locked her door and flung herself on her knees by her bedside. There she uttered a strangled sort of prayer to God to give her help; but she had not been more than a minute on her knees before Bridget’s knock was heard. Florence went to the door and opened it.Bridget was always respectful to the Misses Heathcote, for they were liberal with their tips and were, she considered, exceedingly nice, lively young ladies, who made the house pleasant and enabled her to stay on with Mrs Fortescue. She would long ago have left that good lady but for the fact that the Misses Heathcote came to Langdale in the holidays, and made the place bright and cheerful, and caused her mistress to provide the best food, and, in short, to give every one in the house a good time all round.“I have come to help you, miss,” said Bridget now. “You will be that lonely without dear Miss Brenda. We none of us knew she was going to stay in town when you both left this morning.”“Oh, it’s all right, Biddie dear,” said Florence. “Brenda had to stay: I don’t want to talk too much about it, for it makes me so very sad.”“Then it ain’t all right, if it makes you sad,” said Bridget.“We have all of us to bear pain in our turn, haven’t we?” said Florence, looking full at the elderly servant with her bright eyes.“I suppose so,” said Bridget, who felt interested in this talk and inclined to concur. “My poor mother, who died a very lingering and painful death, always said that pain was the will of Providence. I couldn’t see it, miss; but I suppose she was right.”“Yes, Bridget,” said Florence; “she was quite right. Please fasten me into my white dress—this one, please. Thank you so very much.”“We have had quite an entertaining day,” said Bridget. “You wouldn’t believe it—but we had company to lunch.”“Company?” said Florence, in some astonishment. “What do you mean?”“No less a person than Major Reid.” Florence felt herself colouring violently.“He came comparatively early,” continued Bridget, “and had a long talk with my missis, and afterwards stayed to lunch. I can’t say there was much for lunch—only the mutton bone and some fried potatoes; but my missis got up a bottle of champagne from the wine cellar, and the Major drank three or four glasses. He was very friendly indeed with my missis, and seemed a good bit excited—indeed, they both were.”Florence longed to ask more questions, but refrained, and after a time, Bridget left the room. Then the girl stood with her hands clasped together gazing straight before her into the long mirror which was fastened to the wall. She saw a very charming reflection there. The form of a girl, with the extreme grace of youth and altogether well made, stood upright before her. She saw sparkling eyes, and a wealth of hair and delicate colour on the softly rounded cheeks. She knew that she was looking at herself, and it occurred to her all of a sudden that there was no wonder at all that Michael Reid should love her just for herself and not in the very least for her gold. Was not her face her fortune? She now felt quite gay and happy. She forgot her loneliness with regard to her sister and ran downstairs humming a gay song.Dinner was announced almost immediately, and the two ladies went into the dining-room and partook of it. Florence was really hungry and enjoyed the carefully prepared meal. Mrs Fortescue watched her as she ate. At last the dinner came to an end and they both retired to the drawing-room.“Now,” said Mrs Fortescue, the moment the door had closed behind the two, “I must ask you, Florence, to enlighten me. There is a great deal you ought to tell me. I have been kept in the dark too long. What arrangements has Mr Timmins arrived at with regard to your future?”“He said he would write to you. I expect you will hear from him in the morning.”“But you can tell me, darling: I need not be kept on tenter-hooks until the morning.”“I would much, much rather he told you himself,” said Florence, moving restlessly in her choir.“But why, dearest? Did he ask you not to tell me?”“He did not exactly do that; but he said he would write. From his whole tone I know he expects me to say nothing until you hear from him.”Then Florence got up. She approached Mrs Fortescue’s side, and bending down, kissed the good lady on her forehead.“You have been very, very kind to Brenda and me,” she said; “and we will never forget it, never.”“I trust indeed you won’t, my dear,” said Mrs Fortescue. “It is my wish to continue my kindness to you both. And now, Florence, I have something to say to you on my own account. A little bird has told me a secret with regard to you. Of course, dear—with regard to Mr Timmins, he must please himself as to whether he chooses to let me know what our future plans are to be, although I maintain that if I am kept much longer in the dark, I shall think he is not treating me fairly. But as to you and your dear sister—you, at least are different. Florence, I did not think, I could not imagine that you would have a love affair—you, such a child as you are too! and keep it dark from me.”Florence found herself blushing very hotly.“Who told you that I had a love affair?” she said.“My dear Florence, there is not the least manner of use in your hiding the matter from me any longer. We at Langdale know each other so well that we are, in fact, like one big family. What affects one affects all. The sorrows of one try the hearts of all the others. The joys of one equally rejoice the hearts of all the others. In your happiness, my darling, the rest of us rejoice. It was Major Reid who told me; he came himself to-day to speak of his son’s attachment to you. He was delighted himself; he has a great, great affection and a deep admiration for you, Florence; and I—I also think Michael an excellent young man.”“Oh—do you?” said Florence. “Do you, really?”She had meant to go back to her seat at the opposite side of the hearth, but instead of doing this, she now dropped on her knees close to Mrs Fortescue. She had never felt so near that good lady before—so drawn to her, so part of her: in fact, the one comfort at present in her desolate position was the knowledge of Michael’s love. She must, of course, not mention her own great poverty, but she could at least listen to what Mrs Fortescue had to say about him.“I don’t mind your knowing at all,” she said. “I felt shy about speaking to you, but as the Major has called, it makes all the difference. And he is not angry—really? You are quite, quite sure?”“Sure? my dear child. I am certain the Major is delighted, Florence. He loves you as a daughter. But now, take this little chair close to me and tell me all you have to say.”Florence found that she had not a great deal to say. There was something about Mrs Fortescue which seemed to shut her up. The first dawning of that young love which had awakened in her heart did not respond to the touch of the eager, selfish, worldly woman. Of course she did love—yes, she was certain now she loved Michael; but she hated talking about him. She would rather put him in the background, and when Mrs Fortescue—instead of answering her many questions with regard to the young man’s youth, his early history, his dead mother, his father when he was young, and those various things about his early life which Mrs Fortescue knew and Florence did not—preferred to talk about the girl’s own future, the way Michael and she would live (as Michael would probably leave the Army), and how nice it would be to settle in Langdale, Florence found a wall of separation rising up between herself and her quondam friend. She pleaded fatigue at last, and went to her room, where she spent a great part of the night in secret tears. For, notwithstanding the fact that the Major had visited Mrs Fortescue, and that Michael himself had told Florence that he would love her just the same if she were as poor as a church mouse, Florence felt certain that neither the Major nor Mrs Fortescue thought of her as a desirable wife for the young man except as a rich heiress.“Well,” she said to herself finally, as she turned on her pillow for the fifth time, “if, after hearing everything, he cares for me, I will stick to him and work hard to save a little money until we can marry; but if he doesn’t—oh, oh—”Florence would not allow herself even to finish the latter thought which came into her mind.
“Now, Florence,” said Mrs Fortescue, “I suppose you have got something to tell me.”
“I have,” answered Florence. She spoke almost flippantly. “I am very, very hungry. I hope you have a nice dinner, a specially nice dinner for us both to enjoy together to-night, Mrs Fortescue.”
“I have got a duck,” said Mrs Fortescue; “and ducks at present are exceedingly expensive; but I never think of expense when I am providing luxuries for you and your dear sister. You deserve all the good things of life, my darlings, and I trust they will fall to your portion. Nevertheless, I think, I do think you might have confided in me.”
Florence coloured and then turned pale. She wondered if anyone had, in some miraculous way, become acquainted with the fact of their own great poverty; but no, the whole thing seemed impossible. Florence herself had been careful not to breathe a word on the subject, and she was pretty sure that Brenda had not done so. What, therefore, could Mrs Fortescue mean? As to the other matter—that which related to Lieutenant Reid, it is sad to have to confess that Florence, for the time being, had forgotten the gallant lieutenant.
“I am hungry!” she said; “and I would rather talk to you after dinner than before: that is, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind at all, dearest,” said Mrs Fortescue. “You would like to go upstairs and change your travelling dress. I will send Bridget in to help you.”
“Thank you,” said Florence.
She was about to refuse this offer, but suddenly remembered that all her dresses fastened behind, and that she could not manage this part of her toilet now that Brenda was away. She ran upstairs at once, locked her door and flung herself on her knees by her bedside. There she uttered a strangled sort of prayer to God to give her help; but she had not been more than a minute on her knees before Bridget’s knock was heard. Florence went to the door and opened it.
Bridget was always respectful to the Misses Heathcote, for they were liberal with their tips and were, she considered, exceedingly nice, lively young ladies, who made the house pleasant and enabled her to stay on with Mrs Fortescue. She would long ago have left that good lady but for the fact that the Misses Heathcote came to Langdale in the holidays, and made the place bright and cheerful, and caused her mistress to provide the best food, and, in short, to give every one in the house a good time all round.
“I have come to help you, miss,” said Bridget now. “You will be that lonely without dear Miss Brenda. We none of us knew she was going to stay in town when you both left this morning.”
“Oh, it’s all right, Biddie dear,” said Florence. “Brenda had to stay: I don’t want to talk too much about it, for it makes me so very sad.”
“Then it ain’t all right, if it makes you sad,” said Bridget.
“We have all of us to bear pain in our turn, haven’t we?” said Florence, looking full at the elderly servant with her bright eyes.
“I suppose so,” said Bridget, who felt interested in this talk and inclined to concur. “My poor mother, who died a very lingering and painful death, always said that pain was the will of Providence. I couldn’t see it, miss; but I suppose she was right.”
“Yes, Bridget,” said Florence; “she was quite right. Please fasten me into my white dress—this one, please. Thank you so very much.”
“We have had quite an entertaining day,” said Bridget. “You wouldn’t believe it—but we had company to lunch.”
“Company?” said Florence, in some astonishment. “What do you mean?”
“No less a person than Major Reid.” Florence felt herself colouring violently.
“He came comparatively early,” continued Bridget, “and had a long talk with my missis, and afterwards stayed to lunch. I can’t say there was much for lunch—only the mutton bone and some fried potatoes; but my missis got up a bottle of champagne from the wine cellar, and the Major drank three or four glasses. He was very friendly indeed with my missis, and seemed a good bit excited—indeed, they both were.”
Florence longed to ask more questions, but refrained, and after a time, Bridget left the room. Then the girl stood with her hands clasped together gazing straight before her into the long mirror which was fastened to the wall. She saw a very charming reflection there. The form of a girl, with the extreme grace of youth and altogether well made, stood upright before her. She saw sparkling eyes, and a wealth of hair and delicate colour on the softly rounded cheeks. She knew that she was looking at herself, and it occurred to her all of a sudden that there was no wonder at all that Michael Reid should love her just for herself and not in the very least for her gold. Was not her face her fortune? She now felt quite gay and happy. She forgot her loneliness with regard to her sister and ran downstairs humming a gay song.
Dinner was announced almost immediately, and the two ladies went into the dining-room and partook of it. Florence was really hungry and enjoyed the carefully prepared meal. Mrs Fortescue watched her as she ate. At last the dinner came to an end and they both retired to the drawing-room.
“Now,” said Mrs Fortescue, the moment the door had closed behind the two, “I must ask you, Florence, to enlighten me. There is a great deal you ought to tell me. I have been kept in the dark too long. What arrangements has Mr Timmins arrived at with regard to your future?”
“He said he would write to you. I expect you will hear from him in the morning.”
“But you can tell me, darling: I need not be kept on tenter-hooks until the morning.”
“I would much, much rather he told you himself,” said Florence, moving restlessly in her choir.
“But why, dearest? Did he ask you not to tell me?”
“He did not exactly do that; but he said he would write. From his whole tone I know he expects me to say nothing until you hear from him.”
Then Florence got up. She approached Mrs Fortescue’s side, and bending down, kissed the good lady on her forehead.
“You have been very, very kind to Brenda and me,” she said; “and we will never forget it, never.”
“I trust indeed you won’t, my dear,” said Mrs Fortescue. “It is my wish to continue my kindness to you both. And now, Florence, I have something to say to you on my own account. A little bird has told me a secret with regard to you. Of course, dear—with regard to Mr Timmins, he must please himself as to whether he chooses to let me know what our future plans are to be, although I maintain that if I am kept much longer in the dark, I shall think he is not treating me fairly. But as to you and your dear sister—you, at least are different. Florence, I did not think, I could not imagine that you would have a love affair—you, such a child as you are too! and keep it dark from me.”
Florence found herself blushing very hotly.
“Who told you that I had a love affair?” she said.
“My dear Florence, there is not the least manner of use in your hiding the matter from me any longer. We at Langdale know each other so well that we are, in fact, like one big family. What affects one affects all. The sorrows of one try the hearts of all the others. The joys of one equally rejoice the hearts of all the others. In your happiness, my darling, the rest of us rejoice. It was Major Reid who told me; he came himself to-day to speak of his son’s attachment to you. He was delighted himself; he has a great, great affection and a deep admiration for you, Florence; and I—I also think Michael an excellent young man.”
“Oh—do you?” said Florence. “Do you, really?”
She had meant to go back to her seat at the opposite side of the hearth, but instead of doing this, she now dropped on her knees close to Mrs Fortescue. She had never felt so near that good lady before—so drawn to her, so part of her: in fact, the one comfort at present in her desolate position was the knowledge of Michael’s love. She must, of course, not mention her own great poverty, but she could at least listen to what Mrs Fortescue had to say about him.
“I don’t mind your knowing at all,” she said. “I felt shy about speaking to you, but as the Major has called, it makes all the difference. And he is not angry—really? You are quite, quite sure?”
“Sure? my dear child. I am certain the Major is delighted, Florence. He loves you as a daughter. But now, take this little chair close to me and tell me all you have to say.”
Florence found that she had not a great deal to say. There was something about Mrs Fortescue which seemed to shut her up. The first dawning of that young love which had awakened in her heart did not respond to the touch of the eager, selfish, worldly woman. Of course she did love—yes, she was certain now she loved Michael; but she hated talking about him. She would rather put him in the background, and when Mrs Fortescue—instead of answering her many questions with regard to the young man’s youth, his early history, his dead mother, his father when he was young, and those various things about his early life which Mrs Fortescue knew and Florence did not—preferred to talk about the girl’s own future, the way Michael and she would live (as Michael would probably leave the Army), and how nice it would be to settle in Langdale, Florence found a wall of separation rising up between herself and her quondam friend. She pleaded fatigue at last, and went to her room, where she spent a great part of the night in secret tears. For, notwithstanding the fact that the Major had visited Mrs Fortescue, and that Michael himself had told Florence that he would love her just the same if she were as poor as a church mouse, Florence felt certain that neither the Major nor Mrs Fortescue thought of her as a desirable wife for the young man except as a rich heiress.
“Well,” she said to herself finally, as she turned on her pillow for the fifth time, “if, after hearing everything, he cares for me, I will stick to him and work hard to save a little money until we can marry; but if he doesn’t—oh, oh—”
Florence would not allow herself even to finish the latter thought which came into her mind.
Chapter Ten.“As Poor as a Church Mouse.”On the following morning, Mrs Fortescue received her promised letter from Mr Timmins. He sat down to write it almost immediately he had seen Florence off by the train, and it arrived by first post the next day. Mrs Fortescue was in the habit of having her letters brought up to her bedroom, where she used to read them, luxuriously sipping her tea and eating her thin bread and butter the while.Florence was sound asleep in bed while Mrs Fortescue was reading the most startling information she had perhaps ever got in the course of her life. Mr Timmins’ letter ran as follows—“My dear Madam,—“I do not know whether the contents of this letter will surprise you, but, after all, they need scarcely do so, for I have never for a single moment given you to understand that you would have anything further to do with the Misses Heathcote after the period devoted to their education was over. That time has now been reached, and the sum of money left by their late father for their education has been expended in strict accordance with his directions.“I have been happy enough to find a suitable home for the next three months for dear Brenda Heathcote, who will stay with my friend, Lady Marian Dixie, in London. Florence is at liberty to join her sister there whenever she wishes to do so. But from what I heard yesterday I rather gather that she may have inducements to remain on at Langdale for a short time. I am the last person in the world to interfere with any young girl’s predilections, provided they are in themselves innocent and suitable, and from what Brenda has mentioned to me, the man who has given his heart to Florence appears to be worthy of her. He will certainly be submitted to as severe a test as can be given to any man; but if he is worthy, he will not, I am sure, regret the noble and true wife that such a beautiful and good girl as Florence Heathcote will make him. If, on the other hand, he is unworthy of her, the sooner he shows himself in his true character, the better. As you probably know of this affair, I need not allude to it further. But what I have now to say to you is that your guardianship of my wards comes to an end on the twentieth of January. Until that date, I should be glad if you would keep Florence with you, and I will, of course, pay you in full for the maintenance of both girls, as Brenda’s leaving you at an earlier date was an unforeseen coincidence over which you had no control.“You will receive your cheque weekly as heretofore, and if you have been in any way obliged to go to additional expense for the girls, pray add it to your account.“Thanking you for all you have done for them in the past,—“I am, yours faithfully,—“James Timmins.”Mrs Fortescue read this letter the first time in great bewilderment of mind. She did not in the least take it in. She had, in short, to read it from three to four times before its contents were in the least made clear to her. Even then she felt, as she expressed it, all in a muddle. She was also in a great rage, and considered herself most badly treated. The fact of the girls’ being poor did not once enter into her calculations. She only thought of herself. She, who had worked and slaved for these two young girls for long and anxious years, was to have nothing whatever to do with their future. They were to be handed over to nobody knew who. Brenda had already been taken from her. She was living with a rich woman—a person of title, who was doubtless paid an extravagant sum for her support. Florence might marry Michael Reid if she pleased. Where was she, Mrs Fortescue, to come in? She was left out of everything!The angry woman was too indignant to finish her dressing. She hastily smoothed her hair, put on a becoming dressing-gown, and, with the open letter in her hand, went straight to Florence’s room. She gave a peremptory knock at the door and, when the girl said “Come in,” entered without ceremony.“Mr Timmins’ letter has arrived, Florence. I must say that I consider both you and your sister have treated me shamefully—shamefully!”Florence, who was half way through her toilet, and looked very sweet and pretty with her rich hair hanging about her neck and shoulders, and in a neat white embroidered dressing-gown, sank into a choir and looked full at Mrs Fortescue.“I thought you would be sorry,” she said; “but I don’t think, after all, you are as much to be pitied as we are.”“Now what in the world do you mean by that?”“Why, didn’t he tell you?” said Florence. “You said you had heard from him.”“Yes; I have. You are to stay with me till the twentieth of January, and then I have nothing further to do with you.”“But surely, surely,” said Florence; “you would not wish to have anything to do with me after then, would you?”“What in the world do you mean?” Florence coloured.“I see he has not told you,” she said. “He ought to. It was not right of him to leave it to me. But I will tell you: I don’t really mind.”“Oh—do speak out, child! You keep me so frightfully in suspense I can scarcely endure myself.”“Well,” said Florence, “you would not care to keep us for nothing, would you?”“Nothing! nothing! What does the girl mean? Why, surely you are rich? I gave Major Reid to understand yesterday that your yearly income must run into four figures. We were divided as to the amount, but I thought fifteen hundred a year each. Florence, what are you alluding to?”Florence turned very white.“It is awful only to be cared for because one has money,” she said. “Well, there is one person who cares for me quite independently of that. And now I will tell you the truth. I have not any money—that is, I have a few pounds. Mr Timmins gave me ten pounds yesterday, and I shall have a few more pounds before all our affairs are wound up, but something quite inconsiderable. I am as poor as a church mouse, and so is Brenda. Our money was spent on our education. Now it is finished, all used up. We are penniless. Now—now—you know all about us.”Florence stood up as she spoke and extended her arms wide as though to emphasise her own words.“We are penniless,” she repeated. “Now you know.”Mrs Fortescue was absolutely silent for a minute. Then she uttered a violent ejaculation and, turning round on her heel, left the room. She slammed—absolutely slammed the door after her. Florence sat very still after she had gone.“She would like me to leave at once,” thought the girl. “But Michael—dear Michael: he at least will be true to his word. Oh, what am I to do! I hate beyond everything in the world staying here—staying on with her when she can look at me like that. Is it my fault that I am poor! I think that I am very cruelly treated.”Tears rushed to her eyes. She stayed for a time in her room, then finished her dressing. She went downstairs to breakfast. To her surprise Mrs Fortescue was not in the room. After a moment’s hesitation, she rang the bell. Bridget appeared.“What is it, missie?” she asked.“I want my breakfast, please,” said Florence.“My missis sent to tell you that there were no fresh eggs in the house, so that perhaps you would do with the cold ham. I don’t see why fresh eggs should not be bought for you, but those were her orders, I’ll make you some new coffee, nice and strong, and bring it in, in a few minutes.”Florence laughed. Her laughter was almost satirical. In a short time, Bridget came in with the coffee and a bone of ham which had been cut very bare.“I can’t make out,” said Bridget, “what is the matter with my missis. I never saw anybody in such a raging temper.”“But where is she?” asked Florence.“Oh, gone out, my dear—gone out. She has been out nearly an hour.”“Did she eat any breakfast?” asked Florence.“That she did—the eggs that were meant for you, too; for you know she never takes eggs in the winter; she considers them too dear. But she ate your eggs this morning, and said that you might do with the ham bone.”“Thank you,” said Florence.She carved a few slices from the bone, then looked up at the old servant with a smile.“It is such a relief,” she said, “not to conceal things any longer. I will tell you, Bridget. I wonder if you are going to be just as horrid to me as Mrs Fortescue.”Bridget stood stock still staring at the girl.“The fact is,” said Florence, “Brenda and I haven’t got any money. We’re not heiresses at all. We are just very poor girls who have to earn our own living. We have nothing to live on—nothing at all. I expect if all were known, you have more money at the present moment than I have, Bridget. I shouldn’t be a scrap surprised if you had.”Bridget stared open-mouthed.“You poor thing!” she said, after a pause. “You ain’t a bit fit to earn your own living.”“No; I am not,” said Florence; but here a ghost of a smile crossed her face.Bridget after a time went out of the room. Florence did not feel at all inclined to eat the dry ham and stale bread, which were all that was left for her breakfast. She had a certain sense of the great injustice of being treated in this manner; for was not Mr Timmins paying Mrs Fortescue just as much for her support as though she and her sister were both living with the good lady?After a time, she got up and left the dining-room. Things were very dreary. It was so strange of Mrs Fortescue to go out. Mrs Fortescue had always fussed a good deal about the girls, and had made their arrangements for the day her first consideration. Now she did not seem to think Florence of the slightest importance, and had gone away without alluding to her. She had not come back either. Florence felt restless. She wanted to go and see Susie Arbuthnot, but thought it was too early. She left the room, however, prepared to put on her outdoor things. She would have liked it if Michael had called. Now was the opportunity for Michael to show his devotion, to assure her of the great truth of his own words; then if she were as poor as a church mouse, she would still be all the world to him.But Michael did not come. Florence ran up to her room. She put on her hat and jacket. They were just as becoming as yesterday, and her young face looked just as pretty—prettier, indeed; for sorrow had brought out fresh charms and had added to her loveliness. Her eyes, always bright and capable of varying expressions, were now filled with intense pathos.She had just run downstairs, and was crossing the hall, when she saw Mrs Fortescue come in. To her relief, she perceived that this good woman was accompanied by Susie Arbuthnot.“Oh Florence—dear!” said Susie.She went straight up to the girl, folded her arms round her and kissed her.“I have a proposal to make to you,” she continued, “and if it is agreeable, we will carry it out at once. I don’t think Mrs Fortescue will object, will you, Mrs Fortescue?”“Well, really!” said Mrs Fortescue; “I don’t think thatmywishes are worth consulting. I am of no importance—no importance whatever. But all I insist upon is that until the twentieth of the month I receive the ten guineas a week which Mr Timmins owes for you and your sister. You are welcome to stay at my house, or to do what Susie Arbuthnot—who is quite extraordinary and unlike other people—proposes. But I will have my ten guineas a week, or I go to law with Mr Timmins. I will at least have that much money at my disposal.”“What do you want me to do, Susie?” said Florence, with that new-born dignity which suited her so very well, and with that wonderful, new pathos in her eyes which made her look altogether lovely.“I want you to do this,” said Susie; “to come straight back with me to the Grange. Neither father nor I want ten guineas, nor one penny a week, and you are to stay as long as ever you like. I want you to come now. Why, Flo, it is you I love just for yourself, not because you are an heiress. As a rule, I hate heiresses—not that I have met many.”“Nor have I,” said Mrs Fortescue, with a snap. “They are mostly creatures of imagination. They don’t exist outside story-books. Well, Florence, say what you will do. Of course you can stay here if you wish; I want you clearly to understand that I don’t turn you out.”“Of course you don’t,” said Florence; “and I know that you will get your money in full. I’ll see to that. But I should love to go with you, Susie; and—may I go at once?”“Indeed you may, darling. I have come for you,” said Susie Arbuthnot.“Who will pack her things?” said Mrs Fortescue. “Bridget has no time to spare; when a woman is as poor as I am and has only one servant, she can’t have that servant’s time being given up doing odds and ends for penniless girls. Penniless girls ought to understand how to manage their own affaire; otherwise, they are no use in the world.”“Hush!” said Susie, in so stern a voice that Mrs Fortescue turned and looked at her in some amazement. “You will be sorry another time that you spoke like this. Come upstairs with me, Florence; we will soon put your things into their trunks, and then we can drive to the Grange. I will order a fly.”“I can pay for it, you know, Susie,” said poor Florence. “I have plenty of money, plenty, until the twentieth of January—”“And after that, nothing—nothing at all,” said Mrs Fortescue. “Did ever any one before in all the world hear of such improvidence—girls who have had hundreds a year spent on them to be brought down to nothing! Oh, I have been shamefully deceived! But you’ll rue it—both of you. Yes, you will. That sister of yours, Florence, is just as improvident as you are, and has just as little power of making herself useful to any one. This fine woman. Lady Marian Dixie, will soon discover her uselessness. But go upstairs, my dear, do. I shall be very glad to have your room. I cannot afford, however, to give you any of Bridget’s valuable time.”Florence ran upstairs as if in a dream. Susie accompanied her.“Don’t fret, Florence,” she said, when they entered the pretty bedroom. “She is a very hardened, money-loving woman, and you have managed to disappoint her; but she will get over this, of course.”“And you are not disappointed?” said Florence.“Oh no, darling,” said Susie with a smile. “I never in the very least cared about your money. It was you I loved, and you are not changed.”Here she took the bright girl’s face between both her hands and kissed her on her lips.“Oh, Florence!” she said. “Talk ofyouas penniless—you, with those eyes, that youth, that beauty and that true heart! Florence, darling; you are rich in great possessions!”“I think I am,” said Florence, joyfully, “now that I have found a friend. Oh yes,” she added, “I am sure I am.”It took but a short time to pack the different articles of Florence’s wardrobe into the neat trunks which were waiting to receive them. Susie herself went out to fetch a cab, and before lunch time Florence was installed at the Grange. The Colonel was delighted to see her, and received her with the same graceful old-fashioned courtesy he had done on Christmas Day. This was perhaps, if anything, slightly accentuated. He did not once allude to the subject of money, nor did he express any commiseration for Florence’s poverty. On the contrary, he expected her to be in an excellent humour, and took her about the garden showing her his favourite plants, and pointing out different mysterious little plots of ground which would, as he expressed it, “blossom like the rose” when the spring arrived.“Ah,” he said, “it is a great mystery—a very, very great mystery, that of death and resurrection. All the seeds in the ground down there are apparently dead, and there is nothing as far as we can tell to call them into life again. Frost night after night, snow on the ground, biting cold rains, no growth, no movement—and yet the germ is safe within, folded in each of the little seeds; and when the right moment comes, it will begin to fructify, and there will come out the little tender plants—just the merest little shoots at first—which will grow together day by day; and then there will come the hardy plant, and then the bud, and then the blossom, and then again the seed; and that same must die in order to bring forth fresh life. It is all lovely and all true and like our own life, isn’t it, Florence?”“Yes,” said Florence; “it does seem so.”“You are lonely without your sister, my dear.”“I am rather lonely,” said Florence. But it was not the thought of Brenda which was depressing her. She had got over her separation from her sister for the time being: besides, they could meet, and would meet, at any time. She was expecting Michael Reid and wondering if he would look in at the Arbuthnots’. So far he had not come, nor had his name been alluded to.While Florence and the old Colonel were pottering about the garden, out came Susie with her red and yet sunshiny face.“Now,” she said, “you two have talked long enough, and I want Florence. Florence, we are going to do a lot of preserving this afternoon. I mean to make more marmalade than I have ever made before, and it is a tremendous business; but I have managed to get a hundred Seville oranges at quite a moderate price at Johnson’s. We’ll begin our preparations as soon as ever lunch is over. But now it is on the table; so do come in, good folks, both of you, and eat.”“I should like to help with the marmalade too,” said the Colonel.Susie laughed.“Oh no, you won’t,” she said. “You did last year, don’t you remember? and nobody would eat the Colonel’s marmalade. Each jar had to be marked ‘Colonel Arbuthnot’ on account of the thickness of the rinds. You had it all to yourself, and I think you are about sick of it.”“But I’ll do better this time; I really will, Susie,” said the poor Colonel.“Oh, it does seem so very silly to cut up that beautiful rind so thick; it isn’t men’s work,” said Susie, “and that’s the truth; but it’s meant for women like Florence and me. If Flo cuts the rinds thick, she will feel the full impetus of my wrath. You go into the library and get your books in order, father. I dare say Flo and I will come in and read to you presently; but between lunch and tea-time we are going to be busy over our marmalade, and we don’t want you hovering round.”“There, there!” said the Colonel, “there, there! What is the good of an old man who is always in the way?”“Things are being done for him all the time,” said Susie. “Now, how do you like that curry, sir? Let me tell you that I made it myself.”“It is delicious, my dear,” said the Colonel. “I could almost fancy myself back in Bengal. It has got the true oriental flavour. Where did you discover that knack of blending the ingredients so that you don’t get one flavour over and above the others? Really—this curry is achef-d’oeuvre. Try some, won’t you, Florence?”But Florence declared that she could not eat curry with the true eastern flavour and preferred some cold mutton, which Susie out for her with right good-will.“I like your food,” she said. “It is so good and wholesome. I hate messy things. Mrs Fortescue was always making things up for us, imagining that we could not eat plain things.”“You will get very plain things here,” said Susie. “It’s only father who has to be petted and fussed over. But then he is worth it—he is such an old dear,” and she looked at him with her honest eyes beaming with affection.When the meal had come to an end, Florence and Susie were immediately supplied with two large linen aprons, and the work of making marmalade began. For a time, Florence pretended to enjoy it, then her knife slackened, and Susie shouted to her that her pieces of orange peel were almost if not quite worthy of the Colonel’s own.“I am not going to have it,” she said. “We can only manage to live comfortably by never wasting anything, and if you can’t cut the oranges better than that, you had better stop.”“Oh, Susie, I am sorry! I will be good.” Florence made a violent effort to do better, but ended in cutting her finger, and then Susie had to spend a long time in binding up the wound and pitying the sufferer.“You are not a bit yourself to-day,” she said. “What is the matter with you?”“Well, I don’t know,” said Florence. “I am both happy and unhappy.”“I shouldn’t have thought,” said Susie gravely, “that you were a bit the sort of girl to care whether you had money or not.”“I shouldn’t mind in the least,” answered Florence, “only that it seems to make such a wonderful difference with people. Mrs Fortescue has turned out so horribly nasty.”“Oh no,” said Susie. “She is quite natural; she will be all right in a day or two, and as affectionate to you as ever. She is a little disappointed, that is all. She takes her disappointments badly: some people do.”“But you, Susie—you and your father—you are so sweet.”“Well, dear,” said Susie, “I do trust that our sweetness does not depend on the fact that you and Brenda are entitled to so many hundreds a year. I have always been fond of you just for your two selves and for nothing else.”“There is one thing that makes me a little anxious,” said Florence; “but, of course, it is all right—of course it is.”“What is it, darling?” asked Susie. “You may as well out with it, for I can see plainly that you are harbouring a very uncomfortable and anxious thought in your heart.”“Well,” said Florence, “it is this way. I am thinking about Michael. I am wondering if—if he will mind.”“Do you mean Michael Reid?”“Yes.”Susie was silent, but she laid down the sharp knife with which she had been cutting her orange peel and looked full at the girl.“What do you think yourself, Florence?”“I think this,” said Florence. “I think that if I doubt him I am about the most unworthy, the most cowardly girl in all God’s world. For when he told me—oh yes, Susie, he did tell me—for when he told me so plainly that he loved me, he said it was for myself, and that if I were as poor as a church mouse, he would love me just, just the same.”“Then, of course, it is all right,” said Susie. She spoke cheerfully.“Yes; of course it must be all right,” said Florence; “but I knew at the time that I was poor, although I was not allowed to say a word about it. Mr Timmins had given us such explicit directions, and Brenda and I felt ourselves in quite a false position. So I told him I would not give him his answer for a week. I shall probably know nothing about him for at least a week.”“Probably not,” said Susie. “And now, let me give you a word of advice. I have known Michael since he was a boy. He is a good fellow, as young men go; but he has plenty of faults—”“Oh no—I am sure he hasn’t.”“He has,” said Susie. “Every one has. You have, and I have, and even daddy has—particularly when it comes to cutting the orange peel. But now, I will tell you what I feel. If Michael finds when he is put to the test that he doesn’t care for you, although you are as poor as a church mouse, you are very well rid of him; and if he does care for you, he is worth waiting for.”“Yes, yes,” said Florence; “that is what I think. And oh, Susie, I mean to work so hard just to help to earn money for him.”“You poor little thing!” said Susie. “I wonder how you will earn money.”“I don’t know; but there must be lots of ways. A girl can’t be given hands, and arms, and legs, and a brain, and a head all for nothing.”“A great many are, it seems to me,” said Susie, with a sigh. “But there—we have cut enough orange peel for to-day. We must go and get tea for daddy. Come with me into the kitchen, and I will complete your education by teaching you how to make a proper tea-cake.”
On the following morning, Mrs Fortescue received her promised letter from Mr Timmins. He sat down to write it almost immediately he had seen Florence off by the train, and it arrived by first post the next day. Mrs Fortescue was in the habit of having her letters brought up to her bedroom, where she used to read them, luxuriously sipping her tea and eating her thin bread and butter the while.
Florence was sound asleep in bed while Mrs Fortescue was reading the most startling information she had perhaps ever got in the course of her life. Mr Timmins’ letter ran as follows—
“My dear Madam,—“I do not know whether the contents of this letter will surprise you, but, after all, they need scarcely do so, for I have never for a single moment given you to understand that you would have anything further to do with the Misses Heathcote after the period devoted to their education was over. That time has now been reached, and the sum of money left by their late father for their education has been expended in strict accordance with his directions.“I have been happy enough to find a suitable home for the next three months for dear Brenda Heathcote, who will stay with my friend, Lady Marian Dixie, in London. Florence is at liberty to join her sister there whenever she wishes to do so. But from what I heard yesterday I rather gather that she may have inducements to remain on at Langdale for a short time. I am the last person in the world to interfere with any young girl’s predilections, provided they are in themselves innocent and suitable, and from what Brenda has mentioned to me, the man who has given his heart to Florence appears to be worthy of her. He will certainly be submitted to as severe a test as can be given to any man; but if he is worthy, he will not, I am sure, regret the noble and true wife that such a beautiful and good girl as Florence Heathcote will make him. If, on the other hand, he is unworthy of her, the sooner he shows himself in his true character, the better. As you probably know of this affair, I need not allude to it further. But what I have now to say to you is that your guardianship of my wards comes to an end on the twentieth of January. Until that date, I should be glad if you would keep Florence with you, and I will, of course, pay you in full for the maintenance of both girls, as Brenda’s leaving you at an earlier date was an unforeseen coincidence over which you had no control.“You will receive your cheque weekly as heretofore, and if you have been in any way obliged to go to additional expense for the girls, pray add it to your account.“Thanking you for all you have done for them in the past,—“I am, yours faithfully,—“James Timmins.”
“My dear Madam,—“I do not know whether the contents of this letter will surprise you, but, after all, they need scarcely do so, for I have never for a single moment given you to understand that you would have anything further to do with the Misses Heathcote after the period devoted to their education was over. That time has now been reached, and the sum of money left by their late father for their education has been expended in strict accordance with his directions.“I have been happy enough to find a suitable home for the next three months for dear Brenda Heathcote, who will stay with my friend, Lady Marian Dixie, in London. Florence is at liberty to join her sister there whenever she wishes to do so. But from what I heard yesterday I rather gather that she may have inducements to remain on at Langdale for a short time. I am the last person in the world to interfere with any young girl’s predilections, provided they are in themselves innocent and suitable, and from what Brenda has mentioned to me, the man who has given his heart to Florence appears to be worthy of her. He will certainly be submitted to as severe a test as can be given to any man; but if he is worthy, he will not, I am sure, regret the noble and true wife that such a beautiful and good girl as Florence Heathcote will make him. If, on the other hand, he is unworthy of her, the sooner he shows himself in his true character, the better. As you probably know of this affair, I need not allude to it further. But what I have now to say to you is that your guardianship of my wards comes to an end on the twentieth of January. Until that date, I should be glad if you would keep Florence with you, and I will, of course, pay you in full for the maintenance of both girls, as Brenda’s leaving you at an earlier date was an unforeseen coincidence over which you had no control.“You will receive your cheque weekly as heretofore, and if you have been in any way obliged to go to additional expense for the girls, pray add it to your account.“Thanking you for all you have done for them in the past,—“I am, yours faithfully,—“James Timmins.”
Mrs Fortescue read this letter the first time in great bewilderment of mind. She did not in the least take it in. She had, in short, to read it from three to four times before its contents were in the least made clear to her. Even then she felt, as she expressed it, all in a muddle. She was also in a great rage, and considered herself most badly treated. The fact of the girls’ being poor did not once enter into her calculations. She only thought of herself. She, who had worked and slaved for these two young girls for long and anxious years, was to have nothing whatever to do with their future. They were to be handed over to nobody knew who. Brenda had already been taken from her. She was living with a rich woman—a person of title, who was doubtless paid an extravagant sum for her support. Florence might marry Michael Reid if she pleased. Where was she, Mrs Fortescue, to come in? She was left out of everything!
The angry woman was too indignant to finish her dressing. She hastily smoothed her hair, put on a becoming dressing-gown, and, with the open letter in her hand, went straight to Florence’s room. She gave a peremptory knock at the door and, when the girl said “Come in,” entered without ceremony.
“Mr Timmins’ letter has arrived, Florence. I must say that I consider both you and your sister have treated me shamefully—shamefully!”
Florence, who was half way through her toilet, and looked very sweet and pretty with her rich hair hanging about her neck and shoulders, and in a neat white embroidered dressing-gown, sank into a choir and looked full at Mrs Fortescue.
“I thought you would be sorry,” she said; “but I don’t think, after all, you are as much to be pitied as we are.”
“Now what in the world do you mean by that?”
“Why, didn’t he tell you?” said Florence. “You said you had heard from him.”
“Yes; I have. You are to stay with me till the twentieth of January, and then I have nothing further to do with you.”
“But surely, surely,” said Florence; “you would not wish to have anything to do with me after then, would you?”
“What in the world do you mean?” Florence coloured.
“I see he has not told you,” she said. “He ought to. It was not right of him to leave it to me. But I will tell you: I don’t really mind.”
“Oh—do speak out, child! You keep me so frightfully in suspense I can scarcely endure myself.”
“Well,” said Florence, “you would not care to keep us for nothing, would you?”
“Nothing! nothing! What does the girl mean? Why, surely you are rich? I gave Major Reid to understand yesterday that your yearly income must run into four figures. We were divided as to the amount, but I thought fifteen hundred a year each. Florence, what are you alluding to?”
Florence turned very white.
“It is awful only to be cared for because one has money,” she said. “Well, there is one person who cares for me quite independently of that. And now I will tell you the truth. I have not any money—that is, I have a few pounds. Mr Timmins gave me ten pounds yesterday, and I shall have a few more pounds before all our affairs are wound up, but something quite inconsiderable. I am as poor as a church mouse, and so is Brenda. Our money was spent on our education. Now it is finished, all used up. We are penniless. Now—now—you know all about us.”
Florence stood up as she spoke and extended her arms wide as though to emphasise her own words.
“We are penniless,” she repeated. “Now you know.”
Mrs Fortescue was absolutely silent for a minute. Then she uttered a violent ejaculation and, turning round on her heel, left the room. She slammed—absolutely slammed the door after her. Florence sat very still after she had gone.
“She would like me to leave at once,” thought the girl. “But Michael—dear Michael: he at least will be true to his word. Oh, what am I to do! I hate beyond everything in the world staying here—staying on with her when she can look at me like that. Is it my fault that I am poor! I think that I am very cruelly treated.”
Tears rushed to her eyes. She stayed for a time in her room, then finished her dressing. She went downstairs to breakfast. To her surprise Mrs Fortescue was not in the room. After a moment’s hesitation, she rang the bell. Bridget appeared.
“What is it, missie?” she asked.
“I want my breakfast, please,” said Florence.
“My missis sent to tell you that there were no fresh eggs in the house, so that perhaps you would do with the cold ham. I don’t see why fresh eggs should not be bought for you, but those were her orders, I’ll make you some new coffee, nice and strong, and bring it in, in a few minutes.”
Florence laughed. Her laughter was almost satirical. In a short time, Bridget came in with the coffee and a bone of ham which had been cut very bare.
“I can’t make out,” said Bridget, “what is the matter with my missis. I never saw anybody in such a raging temper.”
“But where is she?” asked Florence.
“Oh, gone out, my dear—gone out. She has been out nearly an hour.”
“Did she eat any breakfast?” asked Florence.
“That she did—the eggs that were meant for you, too; for you know she never takes eggs in the winter; she considers them too dear. But she ate your eggs this morning, and said that you might do with the ham bone.”
“Thank you,” said Florence.
She carved a few slices from the bone, then looked up at the old servant with a smile.
“It is such a relief,” she said, “not to conceal things any longer. I will tell you, Bridget. I wonder if you are going to be just as horrid to me as Mrs Fortescue.”
Bridget stood stock still staring at the girl.
“The fact is,” said Florence, “Brenda and I haven’t got any money. We’re not heiresses at all. We are just very poor girls who have to earn our own living. We have nothing to live on—nothing at all. I expect if all were known, you have more money at the present moment than I have, Bridget. I shouldn’t be a scrap surprised if you had.”
Bridget stared open-mouthed.
“You poor thing!” she said, after a pause. “You ain’t a bit fit to earn your own living.”
“No; I am not,” said Florence; but here a ghost of a smile crossed her face.
Bridget after a time went out of the room. Florence did not feel at all inclined to eat the dry ham and stale bread, which were all that was left for her breakfast. She had a certain sense of the great injustice of being treated in this manner; for was not Mr Timmins paying Mrs Fortescue just as much for her support as though she and her sister were both living with the good lady?
After a time, she got up and left the dining-room. Things were very dreary. It was so strange of Mrs Fortescue to go out. Mrs Fortescue had always fussed a good deal about the girls, and had made their arrangements for the day her first consideration. Now she did not seem to think Florence of the slightest importance, and had gone away without alluding to her. She had not come back either. Florence felt restless. She wanted to go and see Susie Arbuthnot, but thought it was too early. She left the room, however, prepared to put on her outdoor things. She would have liked it if Michael had called. Now was the opportunity for Michael to show his devotion, to assure her of the great truth of his own words; then if she were as poor as a church mouse, she would still be all the world to him.
But Michael did not come. Florence ran up to her room. She put on her hat and jacket. They were just as becoming as yesterday, and her young face looked just as pretty—prettier, indeed; for sorrow had brought out fresh charms and had added to her loveliness. Her eyes, always bright and capable of varying expressions, were now filled with intense pathos.
She had just run downstairs, and was crossing the hall, when she saw Mrs Fortescue come in. To her relief, she perceived that this good woman was accompanied by Susie Arbuthnot.
“Oh Florence—dear!” said Susie.
She went straight up to the girl, folded her arms round her and kissed her.
“I have a proposal to make to you,” she continued, “and if it is agreeable, we will carry it out at once. I don’t think Mrs Fortescue will object, will you, Mrs Fortescue?”
“Well, really!” said Mrs Fortescue; “I don’t think thatmywishes are worth consulting. I am of no importance—no importance whatever. But all I insist upon is that until the twentieth of the month I receive the ten guineas a week which Mr Timmins owes for you and your sister. You are welcome to stay at my house, or to do what Susie Arbuthnot—who is quite extraordinary and unlike other people—proposes. But I will have my ten guineas a week, or I go to law with Mr Timmins. I will at least have that much money at my disposal.”
“What do you want me to do, Susie?” said Florence, with that new-born dignity which suited her so very well, and with that wonderful, new pathos in her eyes which made her look altogether lovely.
“I want you to do this,” said Susie; “to come straight back with me to the Grange. Neither father nor I want ten guineas, nor one penny a week, and you are to stay as long as ever you like. I want you to come now. Why, Flo, it is you I love just for yourself, not because you are an heiress. As a rule, I hate heiresses—not that I have met many.”
“Nor have I,” said Mrs Fortescue, with a snap. “They are mostly creatures of imagination. They don’t exist outside story-books. Well, Florence, say what you will do. Of course you can stay here if you wish; I want you clearly to understand that I don’t turn you out.”
“Of course you don’t,” said Florence; “and I know that you will get your money in full. I’ll see to that. But I should love to go with you, Susie; and—may I go at once?”
“Indeed you may, darling. I have come for you,” said Susie Arbuthnot.
“Who will pack her things?” said Mrs Fortescue. “Bridget has no time to spare; when a woman is as poor as I am and has only one servant, she can’t have that servant’s time being given up doing odds and ends for penniless girls. Penniless girls ought to understand how to manage their own affaire; otherwise, they are no use in the world.”
“Hush!” said Susie, in so stern a voice that Mrs Fortescue turned and looked at her in some amazement. “You will be sorry another time that you spoke like this. Come upstairs with me, Florence; we will soon put your things into their trunks, and then we can drive to the Grange. I will order a fly.”
“I can pay for it, you know, Susie,” said poor Florence. “I have plenty of money, plenty, until the twentieth of January—”
“And after that, nothing—nothing at all,” said Mrs Fortescue. “Did ever any one before in all the world hear of such improvidence—girls who have had hundreds a year spent on them to be brought down to nothing! Oh, I have been shamefully deceived! But you’ll rue it—both of you. Yes, you will. That sister of yours, Florence, is just as improvident as you are, and has just as little power of making herself useful to any one. This fine woman. Lady Marian Dixie, will soon discover her uselessness. But go upstairs, my dear, do. I shall be very glad to have your room. I cannot afford, however, to give you any of Bridget’s valuable time.”
Florence ran upstairs as if in a dream. Susie accompanied her.
“Don’t fret, Florence,” she said, when they entered the pretty bedroom. “She is a very hardened, money-loving woman, and you have managed to disappoint her; but she will get over this, of course.”
“And you are not disappointed?” said Florence.
“Oh no, darling,” said Susie with a smile. “I never in the very least cared about your money. It was you I loved, and you are not changed.”
Here she took the bright girl’s face between both her hands and kissed her on her lips.
“Oh, Florence!” she said. “Talk ofyouas penniless—you, with those eyes, that youth, that beauty and that true heart! Florence, darling; you are rich in great possessions!”
“I think I am,” said Florence, joyfully, “now that I have found a friend. Oh yes,” she added, “I am sure I am.”
It took but a short time to pack the different articles of Florence’s wardrobe into the neat trunks which were waiting to receive them. Susie herself went out to fetch a cab, and before lunch time Florence was installed at the Grange. The Colonel was delighted to see her, and received her with the same graceful old-fashioned courtesy he had done on Christmas Day. This was perhaps, if anything, slightly accentuated. He did not once allude to the subject of money, nor did he express any commiseration for Florence’s poverty. On the contrary, he expected her to be in an excellent humour, and took her about the garden showing her his favourite plants, and pointing out different mysterious little plots of ground which would, as he expressed it, “blossom like the rose” when the spring arrived.
“Ah,” he said, “it is a great mystery—a very, very great mystery, that of death and resurrection. All the seeds in the ground down there are apparently dead, and there is nothing as far as we can tell to call them into life again. Frost night after night, snow on the ground, biting cold rains, no growth, no movement—and yet the germ is safe within, folded in each of the little seeds; and when the right moment comes, it will begin to fructify, and there will come out the little tender plants—just the merest little shoots at first—which will grow together day by day; and then there will come the hardy plant, and then the bud, and then the blossom, and then again the seed; and that same must die in order to bring forth fresh life. It is all lovely and all true and like our own life, isn’t it, Florence?”
“Yes,” said Florence; “it does seem so.”
“You are lonely without your sister, my dear.”
“I am rather lonely,” said Florence. But it was not the thought of Brenda which was depressing her. She had got over her separation from her sister for the time being: besides, they could meet, and would meet, at any time. She was expecting Michael Reid and wondering if he would look in at the Arbuthnots’. So far he had not come, nor had his name been alluded to.
While Florence and the old Colonel were pottering about the garden, out came Susie with her red and yet sunshiny face.
“Now,” she said, “you two have talked long enough, and I want Florence. Florence, we are going to do a lot of preserving this afternoon. I mean to make more marmalade than I have ever made before, and it is a tremendous business; but I have managed to get a hundred Seville oranges at quite a moderate price at Johnson’s. We’ll begin our preparations as soon as ever lunch is over. But now it is on the table; so do come in, good folks, both of you, and eat.”
“I should like to help with the marmalade too,” said the Colonel.
Susie laughed.
“Oh no, you won’t,” she said. “You did last year, don’t you remember? and nobody would eat the Colonel’s marmalade. Each jar had to be marked ‘Colonel Arbuthnot’ on account of the thickness of the rinds. You had it all to yourself, and I think you are about sick of it.”
“But I’ll do better this time; I really will, Susie,” said the poor Colonel.
“Oh, it does seem so very silly to cut up that beautiful rind so thick; it isn’t men’s work,” said Susie, “and that’s the truth; but it’s meant for women like Florence and me. If Flo cuts the rinds thick, she will feel the full impetus of my wrath. You go into the library and get your books in order, father. I dare say Flo and I will come in and read to you presently; but between lunch and tea-time we are going to be busy over our marmalade, and we don’t want you hovering round.”
“There, there!” said the Colonel, “there, there! What is the good of an old man who is always in the way?”
“Things are being done for him all the time,” said Susie. “Now, how do you like that curry, sir? Let me tell you that I made it myself.”
“It is delicious, my dear,” said the Colonel. “I could almost fancy myself back in Bengal. It has got the true oriental flavour. Where did you discover that knack of blending the ingredients so that you don’t get one flavour over and above the others? Really—this curry is achef-d’oeuvre. Try some, won’t you, Florence?”
But Florence declared that she could not eat curry with the true eastern flavour and preferred some cold mutton, which Susie out for her with right good-will.
“I like your food,” she said. “It is so good and wholesome. I hate messy things. Mrs Fortescue was always making things up for us, imagining that we could not eat plain things.”
“You will get very plain things here,” said Susie. “It’s only father who has to be petted and fussed over. But then he is worth it—he is such an old dear,” and she looked at him with her honest eyes beaming with affection.
When the meal had come to an end, Florence and Susie were immediately supplied with two large linen aprons, and the work of making marmalade began. For a time, Florence pretended to enjoy it, then her knife slackened, and Susie shouted to her that her pieces of orange peel were almost if not quite worthy of the Colonel’s own.
“I am not going to have it,” she said. “We can only manage to live comfortably by never wasting anything, and if you can’t cut the oranges better than that, you had better stop.”
“Oh, Susie, I am sorry! I will be good.” Florence made a violent effort to do better, but ended in cutting her finger, and then Susie had to spend a long time in binding up the wound and pitying the sufferer.
“You are not a bit yourself to-day,” she said. “What is the matter with you?”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Florence. “I am both happy and unhappy.”
“I shouldn’t have thought,” said Susie gravely, “that you were a bit the sort of girl to care whether you had money or not.”
“I shouldn’t mind in the least,” answered Florence, “only that it seems to make such a wonderful difference with people. Mrs Fortescue has turned out so horribly nasty.”
“Oh no,” said Susie. “She is quite natural; she will be all right in a day or two, and as affectionate to you as ever. She is a little disappointed, that is all. She takes her disappointments badly: some people do.”
“But you, Susie—you and your father—you are so sweet.”
“Well, dear,” said Susie, “I do trust that our sweetness does not depend on the fact that you and Brenda are entitled to so many hundreds a year. I have always been fond of you just for your two selves and for nothing else.”
“There is one thing that makes me a little anxious,” said Florence; “but, of course, it is all right—of course it is.”
“What is it, darling?” asked Susie. “You may as well out with it, for I can see plainly that you are harbouring a very uncomfortable and anxious thought in your heart.”
“Well,” said Florence, “it is this way. I am thinking about Michael. I am wondering if—if he will mind.”
“Do you mean Michael Reid?”
“Yes.”
Susie was silent, but she laid down the sharp knife with which she had been cutting her orange peel and looked full at the girl.
“What do you think yourself, Florence?”
“I think this,” said Florence. “I think that if I doubt him I am about the most unworthy, the most cowardly girl in all God’s world. For when he told me—oh yes, Susie, he did tell me—for when he told me so plainly that he loved me, he said it was for myself, and that if I were as poor as a church mouse, he would love me just, just the same.”
“Then, of course, it is all right,” said Susie. She spoke cheerfully.
“Yes; of course it must be all right,” said Florence; “but I knew at the time that I was poor, although I was not allowed to say a word about it. Mr Timmins had given us such explicit directions, and Brenda and I felt ourselves in quite a false position. So I told him I would not give him his answer for a week. I shall probably know nothing about him for at least a week.”
“Probably not,” said Susie. “And now, let me give you a word of advice. I have known Michael since he was a boy. He is a good fellow, as young men go; but he has plenty of faults—”
“Oh no—I am sure he hasn’t.”
“He has,” said Susie. “Every one has. You have, and I have, and even daddy has—particularly when it comes to cutting the orange peel. But now, I will tell you what I feel. If Michael finds when he is put to the test that he doesn’t care for you, although you are as poor as a church mouse, you are very well rid of him; and if he does care for you, he is worth waiting for.”
“Yes, yes,” said Florence; “that is what I think. And oh, Susie, I mean to work so hard just to help to earn money for him.”
“You poor little thing!” said Susie. “I wonder how you will earn money.”
“I don’t know; but there must be lots of ways. A girl can’t be given hands, and arms, and legs, and a brain, and a head all for nothing.”
“A great many are, it seems to me,” said Susie, with a sigh. “But there—we have cut enough orange peel for to-day. We must go and get tea for daddy. Come with me into the kitchen, and I will complete your education by teaching you how to make a proper tea-cake.”