Minor
By E. S. Curry, Author of "One of the Greatest," "Closely Veiled," Etc.
IMrs. Lytchett was paying a homiletic visit to Mrs. Bethune. She often did. She had great ideas of the duty of a Bishop's wife in keeping the wives of all the other clergy up to theirs; and there was much in the Bethune household that, in her opinion, required exceptional looking after. She liked Mrs. Bethune very much, and pitied her not a little. Just now, she must require help in managing Marjorie. A girl fresh from school—and not at all the school Mrs. Lytchett had advised for her—was almost always tiresome at first, till she had been settled into her place. Mrs. Lytchett meant to settle Marjorie.
Mrs. Lytchett was paying a homiletic visit to Mrs. Bethune. She often did. She had great ideas of the duty of a Bishop's wife in keeping the wives of all the other clergy up to theirs; and there was much in the Bethune household that, in her opinion, required exceptional looking after. She liked Mrs. Bethune very much, and pitied her not a little. Just now, she must require help in managing Marjorie. A girl fresh from school—and not at all the school Mrs. Lytchett had advised for her—was almost always tiresome at first, till she had been settled into her place. Mrs. Lytchett meant to settle Marjorie.
"Oh, I am glad to see you up, and looking well," she said, coming in briskly on the early afternoon's calm.
Mr. Bethune put a chair for her beside his wife's sofa, and then sat down again to the littered table. He had long ago attuned himself to a placidity and aloofness in the midst of chatter which nothing ordinary could disturb.
"How dreadfully busy Mr. Bethune looks! Is it another book?" Mrs. Lytchett said.
With a murmured, "I had better go and look after the boys," Marjorie obeyed a glance from her mother's merry eyes, and went away through the window. She was apt to fret and rebel at Mrs. Lytchett's interferences, and was specially resentful at any implied criticism of her mother.
"What a big girl Marjorie grows! She is quite startling sometimes. One forgets she isn't a child."
"She has grown up early—to fill my place," with a little sigh.
"Oh, I hope not," was the cheery response. "She could not do that, you know—at any rate, not so successfully. By the way, I came partly to ask about her. Is she engaged to Mr. Warde?"
"Engaged? No. She is scarcely eighteen."
"But he evidently admires her—there is no mistaking that—he takes complete possession of her. Now, what do you wish about it?"
"It isn't what I wish," gently. "You are very kind—but Marjorie is a girl who will settle such a matter for herself."
"Oh, but that is nonsense! Those things can always be managed with proper care."
"But I should be sorry to have her managed. Nothing forced upon Marjorie will make her happy. She must be left to herself."
"How mistaken! You would not leave her to herself if a bad man were in question."
"I should take care not to put her in the way of a bad man," with dignity.
"You would prevent her meeting him? Exactly; then why act differently when it is someone you like? However, there is time for that. There is another matter. Do you know anything of Mr. Pelham's household?"
"No, nothing."
"The Bishop likes him, thinks him a great acquisition, and he visits at Oldstead. I had him to dinner, and he and Charity sang nicely. I'm not sure," looking wise, "that there isn't something between——However, he sent his baby to see me this morning—a most wilful, spoilt little thing. That nurse will not do at all."
"You share Sandy's opinion."
"Ah! I heard your boys had taken to the baby. Perhaps that was what made her so tiresome this morning. I warned Mr. Pelham what mischiefs they were," candidly. "But the nurse is insufferable. Dressed in a sort of dove-coloured dress and a hat, and all her hair waved—kid gloves, and an embroidered skirt under her dress. I asked her if Mr. Pelham had given her leave to dress like that."
"A man does not notice," said Mrs. Bethune, glad that Marjorie was not by to comment.
"I told her that I should speak to him, as she did not seem to realise her own duty, and also about the child's dress. It was ridiculous."
"A man could not know," suggested Mrs. Bethune.
"She was very impertinent, and then we found that the baby had run away. We could not find her anywhere, and she had got to the Bishop's room through the window. It seems that your boys had shown her the way. It seems rather hard that the Bishop of the diocese shouldn't be free from intrusion in his own palace. And he was very busy—just going off."
At mention of her boys a little tender smile crept into Mrs. Bethune's eyes. "He is always good to the boys," she said to the implied reproach.
"Good, yes—but that should prevent advantage being taken. And the baby has a temper," pursued Mrs. Lytchett. "She fought and screamed when I took her from his knee. She is evidently being brought up very badly indeed. I am going to see about it now. Do you think he will be back? I hear," in accents of disgust, "that he rides backwards and forwards on one of those horrid bicycles."
Mrs. Lytchett paused to wonder a little at the sudden flush suffusing Mrs. Bethune's face, but went on: "I hope he won't introduce these things into the Precincts, now we have kept them away so long. I should have thought they might very well be left to Blackton and such places."
"Even the Duchess rides," Mrs. Bethune said softly. She felt guiltily conscious that Marjorie and Charity, under Mr. Pelham's instructions, had been riding for some days past—not only in the Deanery garden as at first, but far away into the country.
"The Duchess is the Duchess," sharply. "She does and tolerates many things that seem to me a great pity."
Mr. Pelham had ridden home early that day, with the idea in his mind of taking his baby down to the Canons' Court, and himself consulting Mrs. Bethune about her. Marjorie had said, "Mother will know"; Charity had said, "Ask Mrs. Bethune, she is the nicest woman to consult"; and his own drawing in the direction where Marjorie might be found made him jump at the advice.
But he had found a tearful nurse and a belligerent baby; and he was just emerging from a lively interview in the study, where he had been told that, "if she couldn't dress as seemed fitting in such a house, as the attendant of Miss Pelham, not just like a common nurse, she would like to give a month's notice," when he met Mrs. Lytchett crossing the hall to the drawing-room.
"This is very kind of you," he began, conscious of an audible sniff and the angry rustle of skirts behind him; and before him, Mrs. Lytchett's tilted nose and stony eyes fixed in the same direction. He had a man's horror of a scene, and he glanced apprehensively at the turned-down corners of Mrs. Lytchett's mouth.
"Bring Miss Barbara, nurse," he said hastily, and ushered his visitor into the drawing-room.
"What a remarkable apartment!" Mrs. Lytchett said in her deep voice, looking round. "What alterations you have made!"
"I hope you like it," he said courteously.
"I daresay I shall, when I get used to it. I'm not one that approves of changes," she responded. Then turning from frivolities, she sat down and began seriously upon her business.
"Your little girl came to see me this morning. I am afraid that nurse of yours is very unfit for her position, and is doing her great harm. She is spoilt and very wilful."
"My little Barbara!" murmured Mr. Pelham, a pang filling his heart at such words in connection with his baby, followed immediately by a feeling that he should like to do some harm to his visitor. Just then the door was opened widely, and the baby stood within the doorway.
To eyes not jaundiced, she was a perfectpicture in a fitting frame. The sun shone in, through old stained glass, on the brown panelling of the hall behind her. A ray, through a side window of the drawing-room, fell upon her, lighting up her vivacious, dark beauty. Nurse, on seeing the visitor, had hastily given vent to her temper, and arrayed her in the latest Regent Street confection—a dainty short-waisted, long-skirted white satin frock trimmed with costly lace, under which the bare pink toes just peeped, for Barbara had scouted the accompanying shoes.
With her face dimpling into smiles at sight of her father, she caught up her skirt with one hand and hurried towards him.
"Noo f'ock," she called out.
Then she recognised the visitor, and paused, remembering the morning's conflict, putting her finger into her mouth and considering. A little to her father's dismay she tilted her nose, and said interrogatively, "Bip? Bip?" much as if she were questioning a terrier. Then she slowly sidled to his knee, eyeing Mrs. Lytchett the while in evident doubt of her intentions.
"Bip? Bip?" she queried again insistently, pointing her finger at the visitor.
"What is it, Barbie?" her father asked gently.
"She means the Bishop," explained the Bishop's wife in disgusted tones. "That is what she was screaming all through the hall this morning, when I brought her from his study. It is a dreadful name. You must say 'Bishop,' little one," she commanded in deep tones, bending towards the baby.
Barbara was not easily frightened, but the atmosphere was stormy, and her dressing had been hurried. She glanced up into the stony eyes above her, and perhaps gauged the lack of sympathy. With a quiver of her rosy mouth she said faintly, "Barbedie say Bip," and having thus asserted herself, threw herself against her father's knees, her face buried. He afterwards related that he heard murmurs of the obnoxious monosyllable; but fortunately the situation was relieved by a piercing whistle that now sounded through the windows.
As she heard it, a delighted smile came over Barbara's lifted face—a kind of record of past delight and future hope. She raised her hand, and pointed vaguely at the outside world.
"Boy," she said ecstatically, wriggling hurriedly from her father's knee. It was Sandy's summons to his comrade, and she hastened to answer it.
"I think it is the Bethune boys on their way home from school," Mr. Pelham said apologetically.
"It certainly sounds like them—no one else could make such a dreadful noise," Mrs. Lytchett answered. "Are you going to let that child go out like that, with no shoes on, and in that dress? Ah, there!"
apartment"What a remarkable apartment!"
"What a remarkable apartment!"
"What a remarkable apartment!"
She had risen and approached the window, with the view of intercepting Barbara's exit. But the baby was too quick. Hastily wriggling down the steps, in a manner peculiarly her own, she was seized upon on either hand by David and Sandy—apt at quick evasions, as well as in seeing cause for them—andwas striding with huge strides across the lawn. Point lace and satin were of no account with the Bethune boys, any more than were bare toes and a hatless head. The girl-baby, all smiles to them, they found delightful, no matter in what she might happen to be cased.
eyesHis keen eyes took in all the details of the scene.
His keen eyes took in all the details of the scene.
His keen eyes took in all the details of the scene.
"That dress will be ruined," Mrs. Lytchett said tragically; and she proceeded with energy to convey her opinions as to the dressing of little children, as well as of their nurses. When she at last withdrew to pay a visit on the Green, Mr. Pelham closed the big gate behind her with a sigh of relief.
"I daresay she is right," he thought. "But what unpleasant 'right.' I will ask Mrs. Bethune."
He felt always irresistibly drawn by the dark beauty of Mrs. Bethune's eyes. No one could see the appeal in them without a pang. Even amidst her merriment, their wistful beauty somewhat belied it. Mr. Pelham found her helplessness and patience very pathetic. She looked so young to be a prisoner—so young, too, to be the mother of all those boys—whose noise was, however, curbed somewhat near her sofa.
When she had heard his errand, she said, "I thought you had come for your little girl. She came down half an hour ago with my boys, in a dress fit for a princess. I feared they had stolen her away. We have ventured to take it off, and put her into one of the boy's blouses. I really couldn't let her go and dig in such clothes. Yes," in response to his look, "they are all in the garden. Go and see if you like her in it, and then you shall have a pattern."
Mr. Pelham, on emerging through the window into the garden, saw that the "all" included also Mr. Warde. That gentleman had shown himself disinclined to follow the Bishop's lead in being civil to the newcomer. He had not yet called on him—though when they met they were friendly in discussing mutual tastes.
Mr. Warde was sitting with Marjorie under the beech tree on the lawn, and Mr. Pelham was struck by the look of intimacy, long-established, that the books and work scattered on the table seemed to prove between them. He could not know that Mr. Warde had joined Marjorie, after she had gone out to overlook the boys. He only saw that they were sitting together in the summer shade, talking in low voices—the man with a look on his face, and a possession in his attitude, which could not be mistaken—the girl with a wistful appeal shining in her dark eyes, which might well be a response.
A cold doubt fell on the beholder as he walked slowly towards them, and his keen eyes took in all the details of the scene. He had heard rumours—Charity had half-revealed the understanding between them—but his heart had refused belief.
Could it be that, after all, they were engaged? If so, he knew that life—which, with its new possibilities, had lately become strangely sweet—would again be a dark and careful problem.
Barbara had been exercising all her fascinations in beguiling Mr. Warde. She was attired in one of Orme's blue smocks, in which her small body was somewhat lost, but in which she was equally pretty as when attired in her own daintinesses. Her nurse had fostered in her a taste for dress, which so far prompted a desire for her father's approval; but the male tuition she was now under promised soon to qualify this taste.
She had informed Mr. Warde of her importance in Orme's dress, and received his sympathy, with pretty little pattings down of the blue linen, until recalled to business by Sandy's whistle.
"Bardedie go dig," she announced, showing all her white teeth in an alluring smile, and trotting off to the cave side.
Down below, the boys were strenuously repairing the ravages of the thunderstorm, and all hands—and baskets—were in requisition. Therôleof highwayman, like that of ghost, having palled, they were eager to begin the more important one of settler. David had arranged the start for the next day, and they were excitedly making preparations and collecting necessary stores.
These included numerous and unlikely things.
"Settlers have spades; we shan't want any, as ours isn't diggin' ground," objected David to Sandy's list.
"It's ridic'lus to go settling wivout spades," said Sandy.
"Less to carry, and there'll be enough, and it isn't like straight, even ground."
"We must have a blanket. That can come off a bed. It's a mountain, Dave, 'member—the top of a mountain. An' our fambly to get up an' all. It'll be awfly hard," said Sandy, stopping for a moment in his burrowings to mop his heated face. Just then Barbara danced in, planting her feet in great delight in the damp mud Sandy had excavated.
"Me," she demanded, "me too. Barbedie dig"; and, seizing a basket, she began to fill it, in keen emulation of Orme's business-likelabour. Orme was a most useful coadjutor in anything. When once set to work, he always went on stolidly till he was told to stop, or till material failed him. Nothing in the way of temptation, no delight or allurement, could turn him aside.
gazeMarjorie lifted her head to meet his gaze.
Marjorie lifted her head to meet his gaze.
Marjorie lifted her head to meet his gaze.
Marjorie's tools, like his, were her two little fat hands, and these were soon, to her delight, plastered with mud.
"How shall we get her?" inquired David, pausing and looking at the baby, working so ardently. "Must she come too?"
"'Course she must," said Sandy. "We ain't got no other girl. 'Sides, it ud be a shame to leave her out just when the fun begins. She'll have to be fetched. We'll get her to tea."
The boys' heads got together over schemes which grew more and more ambitious, and by the time the passage was cleared of thedébrisand mud, and the little ones shunted back from discovery of its exit, all details had been planned.
Sandy, hearing voices, reconnoitred, with only his eyes above ground, to find out whether friend or foe were with Marjorie. He was delighted to see Barbara's father. Here was his opportunity.
It was probably the dirtiest little boy in England who came persuasively to Mr. Pelham's side, holding the transformed Barbara—now almost equally dirty—by the hand.
"Your baby likes our house," he said. "May she come to-morrow, and stop to tea?"
Barbara, gazing with delight at her unrecognisable hands, held them up to her father's view; sufficient plea, she held these hands for a repetition of delight. And when Ross and Orme ambled up alongside, regarding him solemnly with their round blue eyes, awaiting his verdict, he said "Yes."
Sandy's remnant of conscience prompted him to say, "We'll bring her back some time—honour bright. Don't want that nasty nurse prancing 'bout."
"Hush, Sandy!" said Marjorie.
"Don't," reiterated Sandy sturdily; "her skirts scrape an' scratch—an' she screams if you do things sudden."
"I hope it is quite safe," Marjorie said a little anxiously, as Barbara was marched off to the nursery by all her swains, to be cleaned, and reinstated in her satin gown. "Sandy doesn't quite realise what a baby she is."
"No harm could happen on the way down,"Mr. Pelham said thoughtfully, "and it is but a step from my gate to the Court. I have watched how careful they are with her."
Marjorie's solicitude for his baby prompted him to inquire, rising unwillingly when that small person reappeared, "Are you dining at the Deanery to-morrow?"
"Yes," answered Marjorie. "Charity has some musical people coming down from London—and you——"
She paused, recollecting Charity's pretty air of possession when mentioning Mr. Pelham and his singing. She had said, "Mr. Pelham and I have been practising together a good deal—he sent for some new songs from town. Our voices suit perfectly—there are very few evenings, when we are disengaged, that he doesn't find his way down the hill."
She did not mention the warm and recurrent invitation of the Dean. Nor could Marjorie realise the allurement of the pretty drawing-room with its charming hostess to the lonely man. Possibly, neither would she have believed that sometimes a visionary hope that he might find her with her friend had been his lure.
Marjorie's was a home to which he did not often like to venture unasked. One evening, he had volunteered to be Charity's messenger; and he had been struck by the aloofness and quiet of the little scene into which he had been announced.
The lamp, on the minor canon's table, shining white on the scattered papers, lit up his scholarly face, as, busy with his writing and the thoughts it brought, he turned a far-away gaze on the visitor.
Another lamp, by Mrs. Bethune's sofa, shone on Marjorie's burnished head, and lighted the fragile beauty of her mother. Both were busy with needlework—the pretty smocks of the little boys. Mrs. Bethune's slender hands rested whilst she welcomed and talked to Mr. Pelham; but Marjorie's went on with their occupation. He noticed, too, the open book which lay upon the table; the quiet homeliness of this little scene, which yet Marjorie's rapidly moving fingers made part of a more strenuous life than the one he had just left; the work-a-day room in which were no luxuries, except the little table of hothouse flowers, always kept fresh and fragrant by Mrs. Bethune's many friends; and the bent, aloof figure of the student—all gave the room a totally different atmosphere from the luxurious apartment whence he had come. Its calm, and peace, and withdrawal, struck Mr. Pelham with a sense of chill. He had no part in it. Mother and child were enough for each other. Marjorie had none of Charity's pretty restlessnesses and fusses for her visitor's entertainment. As the conversation went on, she scarcely raised her eyes. He talked to Mrs. Bethune, prolonging the conversation that he might enjoy the quiet pose of Marjorie's slim figure, the pretty curves of cheek and ear, and the moving swiftness of her fingers.
Only now and then Marjorie lifted her head to meet his gaze, with the wistful look now becoming habitual. For Mr. Warde's steady wooing, although, according to his promise, unvoiced, was sufficiently assiduous; and Marjorie was unconsciously making up her mind to a future which she realised would be a great delight to her parents. She was quite matter-of-fact about it. It did not occur to her that she was of sufficient importance to revolt at such a future. She did not once say to her mother, "It is my own life I have to live. Why should I marry Mr. Warde if I don't love him?" She put aside the fancies of a far different lover which, in moments of unrest, or rare idleness, filled her day-dreams.
"Life isn't a fairy tale," she settled with a sigh, at the remembrance of an arresting look she could not banish. "He cares for Charity. Everybody says so. How can I be so silly? And yet—and yet——"
"Could you not come up and see my house some day?" Mr. Pelham had asked that evening, as he was leaving. "Oh!" as a sudden thought struck him, "I have a carriage—scarcely ever used. I believe it could be made as comfortable as your chair. Would it shake you too much? And then," turning eagerly to Marjorie, "your mother could drive every day it was fine. It would be a kindness to use it!" he pleaded.
Marjorie's face lit in response. "Mother does drive sometimes. Mr. Warde——" and with angry dismay, the looker-on beheld the mounting flush. "Oh, everybody is very kind in that way," she finished hurriedly.
"But come and see my house and pictures," he persisted, turning to Mrs. Bethune. "Come to-morrow, and I will be at home to show you them, and see that you are not tired."
The visit had been duly paid and enjoyed, and plans for others made, till it soon happened that, thanks also to the boys and Barbara, scarcely a day passed without communication between the Canons' Court and The Ridges.
And so love, unconsciously fed and fostered, had grown apace.
There was a silence under the beech tree after Mr. Pelham's departure, during which both Marjorie and Mr. Warde were busy with their own thoughts. It was broken by Mr. Warde.
"When is that engagement to be announced? Is it settled yet?"
"What engagement?"
"Pelham and your friend, Charity. I never drop in of an evening but I find him there."
"Perhaps he says the same about you," said Marjorie, a flash of mischief in her eyes.
Mr. Warde's speech had broken in upon a dreamy wonder, which was making a song of joy in her heart, as to the meaning of Mr. Pelham's lingering look as he had said good-bye. With a start of recollection, and a pulling of herself together, Marjorie remembered that she had known this man, on whose looks she was dwelling, just six weeks. Six weeks! And this other man, sitting so near, with an air of possession at which her whole heart rebelled—though she quelled the expression she was longing to give way to—she had known all her life! All her life he had been intimate—one of them—as near almost as her father. And how good he had been to her, to them all! How the household would miss the constant care—first for one, then for another—which in so many ways he had evinced. Marjorie's conscience smote her when she recalled his many kindnesses, accepted as a matter of course, as between lifelong friends; kindnesses, as she quickly remembered, entirely on one side.
The recollection of her mother's pleading for him drew Marjorie's eyes in mute questioning to his face. Would he feel very much if she could not bring herself to care for him? He looked so comfortable, and healthy, and prosperous. Surely it could not matter to him what a girl might do? And then—he turned, and looked at her suddenly, to meet the questioning in her eyes. A queer, rigid expression hardened his mouth. For a moment he waited, as though preparing for a blow. Then he stood up and looked down at her, shielding her by his action from any lookers-on from the windows.
"Well, Marjorie, you have something to say to me?" and she heard him catch his breath, and pause to recover, before he added: "Say it quickly, dear. Have you changed? Have you reconsidered?"
"Mother——" stammered Marjorie, taken by surprise; "no, I haven't changed, but——"
"Yes," he encouraged; and he vaguely wondered that she was not stunned by the loud beating of his heart. It had come at last, what he longed for. It overmastered him.
"Mother said—it is love." Her head was bent, and her voice was a whisper, scarcely audible in the soft summer air; but the man heard.
"And you—and you?" he breathed.
Marjorie lifted her eyes, startled. This—what was it?—this transforming emotion, shining in the eyes, usually so quiet? She shrank back.
"No, do not," she implored. "I do not know—I do not feel like that."
She made as though to rise, and pushed him gently away. What had she said? What had she done to cause such feeling?
"Nay, Marjorie," he said, and he grew rigid again in self-control; "tell me what was in your mind. I will not vex you—I will claim nothing; only tell me—tell me," he entreated.
Marjorie, looking into her memory, searched in vain for something that would meet this demand. A vague memory of her mother's words about marriage and Mr. Warde, mingled with the Duchess's conversation at the Deanery; a recollection of the constant coupling of Charity's name with that of Mr. Pelham; a tired feeling that she had been worsted in a struggle, and could no longer fight; a yearning for comfort in some undefined sorrow, to which she could give no name—a sense of irrevocableness, of emptiness, of ineffable longing. This is what Marjorie felt, and from which she turned, as human nature will turn from a hurt to which experience can give no cure.
"I do not think—I do not know whether it is love," she said at last. The man winced unconsciously at the icy aloofness of the girlish voice. "But—if—you—care——" The words fell sighingly from her lips.
"If I care?" he repeated slowly, and his voice was as cold as hers in the effort at repression; "if I care? Marjorie, I care so much that to make you happy, to win your love, I would give my life. My darling"—he paused—"how dear—how dear—I cannot make you understand. You shall never regret—never!"
He looked down for a second at the bowed white face, so unlike the face of a happy girl hearing her lover tell that she is beloved, and said softly:
"You will like to be alone; I will go. Do not think of me in any other way than as just your old friend, until—until you give it me willingly. I will claim nothing more."
"What's he been doin', Margie?"
Ages had passed, so it seemed to Marjorie, since the departure of Mr. Warde, when Sandy's question reached her ear. All the boys were standing round, looking at her with inquisitive concern. Marjorie, a limp heap, inattentive, unready to listen to them, was a new experience. Ross and Orme had tender hearts, not yet hardened by contact with an unsympathetic world. Thelatter had dug his elbows into his sister's knees, and was looking up pitifully into the far-away eyes that did not even yet see him. Conscious of the blankness, Orme felt moved to whimper; Ross thumped with sturdy fists the limp knees which, hitherto, for baby weaknesses had provided firm support.
"What's he been doin', Margie?"
As the question reached her far-away consciousness, Marjorie came back to reality with a sudden start. Mr. Warde had forgotten that the boys were still in the garden, so occupied was he and so quiet were they. But as the tea-hour approached, first one, then another, finally all four pairs of eyes had been cautiously lifted above ground to survey the situation.
Something, perhaps, in Mr. Warde's appearance, some intuition of unwonted agitation in the interview going on under their eyes, had warned David against intrusion, and he had held Sandy back until the visitor was gone.
heap"Seems you're struck all of a heap, Margie!"
"Seems you're struck all of a heap, Margie!"
"Seems you're struck all of a heap, Margie!"
"Seems you're all struck of a heap, Margie," said David now. "Has he been scolding?"
"Not exactly," faltered Marjorie; she could not meet the inquiring glances bent on her from all sides. She felt sore and shaken; and the familiar faces brought back to her recollection the full meaning of the interview through which she had just passed. What had she done? what had she said? With a shock she realised that she had agreed to become Mr. Warde's wife. Her whole soul shrank.
"Ain't we goin' to have any tea?" Sandy inquired, his mind bent on an opportunity for the acquisition of stores.
"Is it tea-time?"
"Bell went ever so long ago."
"Didn't you hear it, Margie?" Ross inquired, much impressed at such absent-mindedness.
"No, Ross. Go in, all of you, and get clean," Marjorie ordered, glancing from one to another, feeling less like a victim under the eyes of her judges now that they too were in a position to be criticised.
"'Stead of eatin' much," Sandy had exhorted beforehand, "you've got to save."
If Marjorie had not been so occupied with her own perplexities, she must have noticed, first, the ravenous appetite of the four; next, the rapidity with which the bread-and-butter and cake disappeared. All the pockets were bulging when Ross was deputed to say grace, but the little boy's face looked very disconsolate indeed. Regardless of Sandy's frowns, after struggling through the formula, in accents of lingering unwillingness, he added—
"Ain't had a good tea—me hungry as hungry."
"Me, too," said Orme hopefully.
Marjorie glanced suspiciously round on the faces of her brothers, and then at the empty board. Even so preoccupied as she was, she could not but suspect that some means, other than natural ones, must have been used to banish all that food. And when the same thing happened the next afternoon also, when a more than usually varied abundance graced the table in honour of Barbara's visit, she spoke.
"I can't think," she was beginning to protest, when, to Sandy's delighted relief, Mrs. Lytchett was announced as being in the drawing-room, and asking specially for her.
"Oh, dear!" sighed Marjorie, her mind travelling back to all her misdemeanours. "What can it be? I hope not the cycling."
But it was. There was an amused flash in her mother's eyes, while Mrs. Lytchett's lips looked as though they were carved in stone, so very determined was her aspect.
"I hope it isn't true, Marjorie, what I hear?" she said in aggrieved tones.
"What is that?" asked Marjorie.
"Three of those horrid bicycles passed me this afternoon close, whirling by at a furious pace. I had been to the Deanery, to tell Charity how sorry the Bishop was to miss her music. She wasn't in; and passing the garden entrance—the garden entrance—ah, I see it is true!"
For Marjorie's aspect was unmistakable. It was one of guilt. She did nothing, but sat down in a somewhat limp manner in the chair near which she stood, and looked blankly at her inquisitor.
"So I asked; I could scarcely believe my eyes. That young footman was lounging near; I suppose he was waiting for the bicycles, wasting his time. And he said you have all been riding a long time."
"Not so very long," Marjorie answered in excusing accents. "Only about a month."
Mrs. Bethune laughed, though she looked at Marjorie anxiously. When they were not too bitter, she enjoyed the humour of the encounters between Mrs. Lytchett and Marjorie. Generally the latter showed fight; but all that day she had been unusually quiet.
"I thought you knew how much the Bishop and I hated the horrid things."
The tones were deeply reproachful.
"I thought—he—had changed," Marjorie stammered.
"No; he will never change, neither shall I"—in accents of certainty. "The Bishop thinks them most unbecoming. How did you learn? I hope that young footman——" She paused, unable to put into words the suspicion she had conjured up.
"We learnt—Mr. Pelham showed us—in the Deanery garden. It isn't difficult."
"I am sorry you didn't think more of your position in Norham before setting such an example. And they cost so much!"
"Mine was a present," murmured Marjorie, unwontedly gentle.
"A present! From Mr. Pelham?"
"It came with Charity's."
"From the Dean. Oh! that is different."
Marjorie's memory went back to the sunshiny afternoon under the chestnuts at the Deanery, when the two new glittering machines—just arrived from the maker—had been brought out to Charity's tea-table.
"One for me!" she had exclaimed, reading the label in delight. "How kind of the Dean!"
But when she thanked the Dean, in pretty gratitude, a little later, he had disclaimed the gift.
"Who sent for it for me? Can it really be for me? Not Mr. Pelham, surely?" (for it was he who, at the Dean's request, had ordered Charity's). He, too, disowned being the giver.
"But you know?" Marjorie asked.
"Yes, I know. The giver is one who has every right to give you pleasure."
Something in his manner put her on the track, and she remembered that the Bishop had been in the garden when the purchase had been talked about. When she saw him next, he did not disavow her thanks.
"I like to see you enjoying yourself, my dear," he answered in his kind tones. "I thought how bright and happy you both looked the other day. Only don't have any accidents."
"I don't think it was the Dean," Marjorie's truthful nature prompted her to answer now. "It was—the Bishop."
"And I asked him not! I begged him not to carry out his intention. Poor Norham!" with a sigh, "it has given in at last, and now you and Charity have started, every girl in the place will follow. I blame the Duchess."
When the visitor had gone, Marjorie stood for a moment at the window, anxiously watching Sandy speeding up the garden as fast as his legs could carry him.
"The boys have got some scheme on, I believe, mother," she said. "Dave and Sandy have been full of mystery all day, and Ross is pompous. I wish we weren't going to leave you alone to-night," she said tenderly.
"I like you to go with your father, dear—he will not stay for the music, so I shall not be alone long. And now—I must expect to lose you gradually, dear."
"Oh, not yet." With passion Marjorie pushed the thought away.
Many little hindrances occurred whilst she was dressing. One knock preceded the entrance of Sandy, an unwonted visitor at such a time. He looked eager and excited; but he stood fidgeting by Marjorie's dressing-table, watching the arrangement of her hair, and did not appear in any hurry to explain what he needed.
"Is all girl's hair done like that? What a bover it must be," he remarked after a little time. "Ishouldlike that tiny, squinchy, soft brush, Margie."
"What for?"
"To brush Barbie's hair. It's in a awfle mess."
"Well, take it," said Marjorie kindly. "And it's time you took her home. She goes to bed at seven, and you promised."
"Yes, but"—objected Sandy eagerly—"not to-day. Mr. Pelham said she might stay a bit longer. Is your bed or mine biggest, Margie?"
"Mine. What a funny boy you are, Sandy."
"Could I have a blanket off your bed, Margie? Nurse'll fuss ever so, if I take ours—an' I can't poss'bly do wivout one."
Marjorie's thoughts had passed away from her little brother and his needs; and the absent assent she gave was enough for Sandy. He dragged the blanket from the bed, and ran off, hugging it in his arms. He found always that directness was his best aid. Not often did Sandy beat about the bush.
Marjorie went down, cloak and gloves in hand, a dainty, graceful figure in her soft white dress. Her father was waiting for her, sitting in unwonted idleness by her mother's sofa.
Marjorie looked at them curiously as she crossed the floor, noting, as she would not have noted another time, that her mother's hand was clasped in her father's. Love, the love she had pledged herself to, was theirs. They loved each other well, it was easy to see; though, to Marjorie, it seemed impossible that her dignified father could ever have told his love behind a door.
Her aspect was stern, like that of a young judge, as she looked down upon them now. Somehow, to her, love's outward features were no longer fair.
"You look very nice, Margie," her mother said softly, looking at the tall, slim form, crowned by its cold pure face. "That dress is a success. Look, father."
Mr. Bethune turned his eyes upon his daughter, and smiled.
"Yes," he said; "she looks sweet and clean. She is like you, Alysson," his voice lingering and breaking, "in the old days."
anxiousAnxiously watching Sandy speeding up the garden.
Anxiously watching Sandy speeding up the garden.
Anxiously watching Sandy speeding up the garden.
Marjorie heard, wondering. Alysson! How sweet the name sounded with that caressing accent on its second syllable. This was the first time she had ever heard her father call her mother thus.
She walked beside him through the evening sunset, down the Canons' Court, to the music of the cathedral chimes; her cloak cast round her emphasising the youthful slenderness, which made her seem so tall. Mr. Warde, from the Deanery steps, watched them approach, his heart bounding withdelight at her fairness. Only when they reached the door, a thought occurred to Marjorie, and she turned to her father in a little concern.
"I saw nothing of the children. I quite forgot them. Did you see them?"
"Mother said"—it was work-a-day "mother" now, not the tenderly breathed "Alysson"—"that they had gone off, she thought, with Pelham's baby."
flyingThe hasty, flying figure.
The hasty, flying figure.
The hasty, flying figure.
"Oh! I hope so," said Marjorie, with a little cold thrill of prophetic fear. "How careless of me not to see! However, mother will see that it is all right."
Charity's London friends had been late in arriving, and dinner had been put back a little to give them time to dress. It was about half-finished, and the timepiece on the mantelshelf was chiming half-past nine, when Marjorie saw a footman speaking to her father at the other end of the table.
Mr. Bethune asked a quick question or two, and then rose and slipped away.
Marjorie wondered for a moment, and then again grew interested in her neighbour's talk. When Charity's signal drew the ladies into the hall, she was detained a second by the enveloping skirt of one of the ladies.
A colloquy was going on at the hall door. The soft night air streamed in, feeling cool and grateful to Marjorie's heated cheek. As she lingered, she caught the hurried words in a familiar voice—
"Tell Mr. Pelham, please, immediate! Mr. Bethune is gone to the police—but he is to go, and Miss Bethune, at once to Mrs. Bethune. Poor lady, she is——"
With a little cry, Marjorie was at the door.
"What is it, nurse?" she asked breathlessly. "Barbara?"
Almost with a note of triumph at the importance of her news, the woman said, "Neither Miss Barbara nor any of the young gentlemen can be found anywhere, miss. They have all clean disappeared. Oh, sir," in accents of direful import, as Mr. Pelham reached Marjorie's side, "Miss Barbara is lost!"
Down the steps, waiting for no wrap, sped Marjorie; and the twilight, now descending on the Canons' Court, closed her in. For a second, through the dimness, Mr. Pelham saw the hasty, flying figure in its soft white robe, and caught a glimpse of her face. It was a vision that burnt itself on his memory.
Mr. Warde leapt with him down the wide steps.
"We shall soon find her, never fear," he said kindly—he had only heard the end of nurse's message. "I will call my servants, and be with you directly."
[END OF CHAPTER NINE.]
By the Rev. George Matheson, M.A., D.D., F.R.S.E., St. Bernard's, Edinburgh.
"But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy."—Ezraiii. 12.
"But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy."—Ezraiii. 12.