CHAPTER XXXII.
‘But I know best where wringeth me my shoe.’
‘But I know best where wringeth me my shoe.’
‘But I know best where wringeth me my shoe.’
‘But I know best where wringeth me my shoe.’
‘Betty, was I looking frightful?’ asks Susan, drawing her sister away as soon as Crosby is out of sight. ‘Tell me quite the truth. Don’t gloss things over just to please me.’
‘I won’t,’ says Betty, giggling. ‘I’ll be as honest as the sun. You looked’—pausing wickedly—‘something between Meg Merrilees and a wild Indian, with a bias toward the latter. But that needn’t put you out. He’s accustomed to wild Indians; and when one has lived with people fifty years or so, one gets to admire them. I shouldn’t wonder if he admired you. You must have taken him back to the good old days. Why didn’tyou sing “Way down upon the Swannee River” for him? That would have finished the conquest.’
‘You don’t seem to know what wild Indians are,’ Susan remonstrates calmly. ‘They live in North America, and couldn’t sing a nigger song to save their lives. You don’t seem to know, either, that it was in Africa that Mr. Crosby spent most of his time, and that the blacks there aren’t niggers at all.’
‘Oh, it’s all the same,’ says Betty airily. ‘A black’s a black for a’ that; and if they don’t sing one thing, they sing another. And any way, I could see by the gleam in Mr. Crosby’s eye, as he looked at you and your flowing locks, that he loves wildness in every form.’
Susan is silent for a time; then:
‘Betty’—in a low tone—‘how old do you think he is?’
‘I don’t think he has beaten Methuselah yet, if you mean that.’
‘No; but really, I mean how old, eh?’
‘Well’—carefully—‘allowing him the fifty years he spent with his blacks, and the fact that he told us that he started at twenty-three on an adventurous career, he must be now well into the seventies.’
Susan’s laugh—so evidently expected here—sounds to herself a little forced, though why she could not have explained.
‘Oh, not so old as that!’
‘Well, perhaps not, by a year or so,’ says Betty, as if determined on being absolutely fair and accurate to a fraction.
‘Do you know,’ says Susan, a little reluctantly, but as though she must say it, ‘I—of course, I know he is ever so much older than any of us, but, for all that, somehow, he doesn’t seem to me to be—well, old, you know.’
Betty nods, and Susan, encouraged by this treacherous sign, rashly takes a further step.
‘It has even sometimes seemed to me,’ says she nervously, ‘that he is quite young.’
‘That reminds me of something I read thismorning,’ says Betty, who is beginning to enjoy herself. ‘It ran like this: “On the whole, I consider him one of the youngest men of my acquaintance.”’
‘Where did you read that?’ asks Susan, with open suspicion.
‘In a book’—smartly.
‘Well, I suppose so. And what book, and who said it?’
‘A frisky duchess.’
‘She was young, of course?’
‘Not very,’ Betty grins. ‘Eighty-two or thereabouts.’
‘Oh, well, then, no doubt she was alluding to a mere boy of her acquaintance.’
‘Not at all. To another frisky person of the opposite sex—a young thing of one hundred and five or so.’
‘What do you mean, Betty? You don’t suppose that Mr. Crosby is a hundred and five or so?’
‘I don’t indeed. I put him in the seventies, if you remember. That would make him quite a babe to the duchess I speak of.She said her centenarian had the brightest, the most engaging manners, and, of course, that reminded me of Mr. Cros— Where are you going now, Susan?’
‘I want to put fresh cuffs on Bonnie’s shirts,’ says Susan. Her tone is a little reserved, and there is a deepening of dignity in the delicate lightness of her steps, as she turns away, that tells Betty she is in some way offended.
Betty, stricken, but with a conscience clear, runs after her and tucks her arm into hers.
‘Have I vexed you?’ asks she.
‘Vexed me?’ Susan’s tone is rather exaggerated. ‘No. How could you have vexed me?’
‘That’s true,’ says Betty comfortably, who never gets deeper than the actual moment. ‘Then I’ll come with you.’
‘But why should I bring you in?’ asks Susan, who has a new queer fancy to be alone.
‘To do your hair, for one thing,’ says the tease of the family with delightfulbonhomie.‘Really, Susan, you can’t appear in public like this twice; and you know we are going to be photographed in— What is the hour now? Good gracious! it’s growing very late. We must run. Bonnie’s shirts can’t be done to-day, but I’ll help you with them to-morrow. Oh, there’s auntie—’
‘Susan, you must make haste,’ cries Miss Barry, hurrying round the corner. ‘There is no time to be lost. And, my dear, your hair! How fortunate you washed it to-day! When neatly done up it will look beautiful. Betty, I have been thinking of having you taken with your hat on. Your best hat—’
‘Oh, auntie!’ says poor Betty.
‘No; well, perhaps not. What do you think, Susan?’
‘I think she would look nicer without it,’ says Susan, in answer to an agonized glance from Betty. ‘And you, auntie? I think we ought to put a fresh bow in your cap; that side one is always falling down. You have a little bit of ribbon, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, I think so; in the top drawer,’ saysMiss Barry. ‘Susan’—suddenly—‘how could you ask such an uncomfortable question before Mr. Crosby!’
‘What question?’ asks Susan, turning very red.
‘Why, as to whether I was going to have Bonnie photographed. I was quite taken aback,’ says Miss Barry, shaking her curls; ‘and, indeed, it was only the naturalsavoir fairethat belongs to me’—to give Miss Barry’s Parisian accent would pass the wit of man—‘that enabled me to conquer the situation. You might be quite sure, Susan, that if I had the money Bonnie and Tommy too should have been sent to their dear uncle.’
‘I see, auntie. I am sorry,’ says Susan, with honest, deep regret.
‘I suppose,’ says Miss Barry, with the air of one addressing a forlorn hope, ‘that you and Betty have nothing?’
It is plain that the poor lady had set her heart originally on having a ‘full set’ to send to the uncle abroad, but that reasons financial have crushed her hopes.
‘I have only sixpence,’ says Susan sadly. ‘You, Betty?’
‘I spent the twopence I had yesterday,’ says Betty, ‘on hairpins.’
‘Hairpins!’ cries Miss Barry indignantly. ‘And your hair not up yet!’
‘They were for Susan,’ explains Betty angrily, who had, indeed, bought them for Susan, but who, nevertheless, had spent an enjoyable hour with them, doing up her own hair, and seeing how she would look next year when ‘grown up.’
‘Well, that’s the end of it,’ says Miss Barry, with the courage of despair. ‘I certainly won’t ask your father for a penny, as I know he hasn’t one to spare this month; and, indeed’—sighing—‘I only hope that those reports about that bank in Scotland are untrue. It is in that he has invested the £500 he has laid aside for Carew—for his crammer, you know, and his outfit, and all the rest of it. I dare say the scare will come to nothing; but, at all events, he is a little pressed just now, so that for a mere luxurylike this I think we had better not ask him for anything.’
‘Of course not,’ says Susan. ‘But, auntie’—slowly and a little nervously—‘would you mind very much if—if Bonnie had his picture taken instead of me? I have always so longed for one of his. He is so delicate, and—’ She stops suddenly, a terrible feeling in her throat forbidding another word.
‘My dear Susan! And you the eldest! Why, it would be quite an insult to your dear uncle. No, no,’ says Miss Barry; ‘we must depend upon another time to get Bonnie and Tom taken.’
Susan turns away. Will there ever be ‘another time’ for Bonnie? So frail in the warm summer-time, how will it be with him when the snows and the frosts set in?
‘At all events, I think I will take him down with me to see the rest of us taken,’ she says presently in a depressed voice. ‘It will amuse and interest him. You know how clever he is.’
‘Yes, by all means, and I’ll take Tommy,’ says Betty, ‘though goodness knows if after that we shall any of us come out alive.’
Susan has started very early (it is only ten minutes after one), so as to give Bonnie plenty of time to get down to the village without fatigue. Miss Ricketty will give him a seat in her place; a penny out of the last sixpence will buy him a cake or some sweets; and then, with a little rest, he can easily go on to the room rented to the photographer by Mr. Salter, the hardware Methodist.
She has now reached Miss Ricketty’s, and has been welcomed by that excellent if slightly eccentric spinster with open arms. Bonnie is literally in her arms—and now is ensconced in the cosiest corner of this cosy little shop, behind the tiny gateway. Indeed, Miss Ricketty is preparing in a surreptitious manner to bring down a jar of unspeakably beautiful bull’s-eyes for Bonnie’s delectation, when Susan intervenes.
‘No—no indeed, dear Miss Ricketty. He has a penny of his own to-day. And he loves buying. Don’t you, Bonnie? Another day, perhaps. And I think a cake would be better for him, don’t you? You would rather have a Queen cake, Bonnie darling, wouldn’t you?’—appealingly.
‘Yes,’ says Bonnie, out of the sweetness of his nature, seeing she desires it, though his soft eyes are dwelling on the lollipops. But that he can’t have both is a foregone conclusion, as Susan tells herself with a sigh. The remaining fivepence will have to do many things until next week, when father will give her her tiny weekly allowance again. Besides, a cake is ever so much better for him than bull’s-eyes. Thus Susan consoles herself.
‘Are you goin’ to be took, Miss Susan?’ asks Miss Ricketty, settling herself, as she calls it, for a good chat.
Susan laughs.
‘Not by the sergeant, any way,’ says she.
‘Ah, ye will have yer joke now. An’, sure, I’m a silly old fool. But ye’re goin’ to have yer picture done, aren’t ye? Fegs, ’twould be a shame if ye didn’t. ’Tis a mighty purty picture would be lost to the world if you held back. Why, all the world is crowdin’ to that man’s door. I saw Lady Millbank go in just now. An’ at her time o’ life! Law, the vanity o’ some folk! D’ye know what me brother said to me to-day?’
‘What?’ asks Susan, who is growing interested.
‘Whether I wouldn’t like to see me own face on a card. An’ I tould him as I had seen it for sixty years in a lookin’-glass, an’ that was good enough for me.’
‘But, Miss Ricketty,’ says Susan, seeing with her delicate sense of sympathy beneath the veil that conceals Miss Ricketty’s real desire to be ‘seen on a card,’ ‘why not be taken? It would not give you pleasure, perhaps, but see what pleasure it would give to others. And as for me, I should love a photograph of you.’
‘Oh now, Miss Susan! Sure, ye know, ye wouldn’t care for a picture of the likes of me.’
‘I should like it more than I can say,’ says Susan. ‘Miss Ricketty’—with pretty entreaty— ‘you really must make up your mind to it.’
‘Well, I’ll be thinkin’—I’ll be thinkin’,’ says Miss Ricketty, who is all agog with excitement and flattery. ‘I suppose, Miss Susan dear, that shawl they sent me from America would be too bright?’
‘The very thing,’ says Susan. ‘It would be lovely. And your people in America will certainly recognise it, and it will give them great pleasure to know that you treasure it so highly.’
‘There’s a lot in that,’ says Miss Ricketty, musing—she muses considerably. ‘Well, perhaps—’ Here she pauses again. ‘It may be,’ says she at last. She might, perhaps, have condescended to explain this last oracular speech, but that her bright eye catches sight of three young ladies going past herwindow. ‘There they go! there they go! Look at them, Miss Susan, my dear! Did ye ever see such quare crathures? May the Vargin give them sense! Look at their hats, an’ the strut o’ them! They’ve a power o’ money, I’m tould. “Articles of virtue” Mr. Connor called them the last day he was in here; but, faith, where the virtue comes in—they do say— But that’s not talk for the likes o’ you or me, dear. But tell me now, Miss Susan, what of Mr. Crosby? I’ve heard that he— Oh, murdher! talk of the divil—’
Miss Ricketty retires behind a huge jar of sweets as Crosby comes into the shop.