CHAPTER XVIII
“THIS time to-morrow night,” said Mr. Walters, as he slowly paced a country lane with Miss Jelks clinging to his arm, “I shall be at sea.”
Miss Jelks squeezed his arm and gave vent to a gentle sigh. “Two years’ll soon slip away,” she remarked. “It’s wonderful how time flies. How much is twice three hundred and sixty-five?”
“And you mind you behave yourself,” said the boatswain, hastily. “Remember your promise, mind.”
“Of course I will,” said Rosa, carelessly.
“You’ve promised not to ’ave your evening out till I come back,” the boatswain reminded her; “week-days and Sundays both. And it oughtn’t to be no ’ardship to you. Gals wot’s going to be married don’t want to go gadding about.”
“Of course they don’t,” said Rosa. “I shouldn’t enjoy being out without you neither. And I can get all the fresh air I want in the garden.”
“And cleaning the winders,” said the thoughtful boatswain.
Miss Jelks, who held to a firm and convenient belief in the likeness between promises and piecrusts, smiled cheerfully.
“Unless I happen to be sent on an errand I sha’n’t put my nose outside the front gate,” she declared.
“You’ve passed your word,” said Mr. Walters, slowly, “and that’s good enough for me; besides which I’ve got a certain party wot’s promised to keep ’is eye on you and let me know if you don’t keep to it.”
“Eh?” said the startled Rosa. “Who is it?”
“Never you mind who it is,” said Mr. Walters, judicially. “It’s better for you not to know, then you can’t dodge ’im. He can keep his eye on you, but there’s no necessity for you to keep your eye on ’im. I don’t mind wot he does.”
Miss Jelks maintained her temper with some difficulty; but the absolute necessity of discovering the identity of the person referred to by Mr. Walters, if she was to have any recreation at all during the next two years, helped her.
“He’ll have an easy job of it,” she said, at last, with a toss of her head.
“That’s just wot I told ’im,” said the boatswain. “He didn’t want to take the job on at first, but I p’inted out that if you behaved yourself and kept your promise he’d ’ave nothing to do; and likewise, if you didn’t, it was only right as ’ow I should know. Besides which I gave ’im a couple o’ carved peach stones and a war-club that used to belong to a Sandwich Islander, and took me pretty near a week to make.”
Miss Jelks looked up at him sideways. “Be a bit of all right if he comes making up to me himself,” she said, with a giggle. “I wonder whether he’d tell you that?”
“He won’t do that,” said the boatswain, with a confident smile. “He’s much too well-behaved, ’sides which he ain’t old enough.”
Miss Jelks tore her arm away. “You’ve never been and set that old-fashioned little shrimp Bassett on to watch me?” she said, shrilly.
“Never you mind who it is,” growled the discomfited boatswain. “It’s got nothing to do with you. All you’ve got to know is this: any time ’e sees you out—this party I’m talking of—he’s going to log it. He calls it keeping a dairy, but it comes to the same thing.”
“I know what I call it,” said the offended maiden, “and if I catch that little horror spying on me he’ll remember it.”
“He can’t spy on you if you ain’t out,” said the boatswain. “That’s wot I told ’im; and when I said as you’d promised he saw as ’ow it would be all right. I’m going to try and bring him ’ome a shark’s tooth.”
“Goin’ to make it?” inquired Rosa, with a sniff. “And might I ask,” she inquired, as the amorous boatswain took her arm again, “might I ask who is going to watch you?”
“Me?” said the boatswain, regarding her with honest amazement. “I don’t want no watching. Men don’t.”
“In—deed!” said Miss Jelks, “and why not?”
“They don’t like it,” said Mr. Walters, simply.
Miss Jelks released her arm again, and for some time they walked on opposite sides of the lane. Her temper rose rapidly, and at last, tearing off her glove, she drew the ring from her finger and handed it to the boatswain.
“There you are!” she exclaimed. “Take it!”
Mr. Walters took it, and, after a vain attempt to place it on his little finger, put it in his waistcoat-pocket and walked on whistling.
“We’re not engaged now,” explained Rosa.
“Aye, aye,” said the boatswain, cheerfully. “Only walking out.”
“Nothing of the kind,” said Rosa. “I sha’n’t have nothing more to do with you. You’d better tell Bassett.”
“What for?” demanded the other.
“What for?” repeated Rosa. “Why, there’s no use him watching me now.”
“Why not?” demanded Mr. Walters.
Miss Jelks caught her breath impatiently. “Because it’s got nothing to do with you what I do now,” she said, sharply. “I can go out with who I like.”
“Ho!” said the glaring Mr. Walters. “Ho! Can you? So that’s your little game, is it? Here—” He fumbled in his pocket and, producing the ring, caught Miss Jelks’s hand in a grip that made her wince, and proceeded to push it on her little finger. “Now you behave yourself, else next time I’ll take it back for good.”
Miss Jelks remonstrated, but in vain. The boatswain passed his left arm about her waist, and when she became too fluent increased the pressure until she gasped for breath. Much impressed by these signs of affection she began to yield, and, leaning her head against his shoulder, voluntarily renewed her vows of seclusion.
She went down to the harbour next day to see him off, and stood watching with much interest the bustle on deck and the prominent share borne by her masterful admirer. To her thinking, Captain Trimblett, stiff and sturdy on the bridge, played but a secondary part. She sent the boatswain little signals of approval and regard, a proceeding which was the cause of much subsequent trouble to a newly joined A.B. who misunderstood their destination. The warps were thrown off, a bell clanged in the engine-room, the screw revolved, and a gradually widening piece of water appeared between the steamer and the quay. Men on board suspended work for a moment for a last gaze ashore, and no fewer than six unfortunates responded ardently to the fluttering of her handkerchief. She stood watching until the steamer had disappeared round a bend in the river, and then, with a sense of desolation and a holiday feeling for which there was no outlet, walked slowly home.
She broke her promise to the boatswain the following evening. For one thing, it was her “evening out,” and for another she felt that the sooner the Bassett nuisance was stopped, the better it would be for all concerned. If the youth failed to see her she was the gainer to the extent of an evening in the open air, and if he did not she had an idea that the emergency would not find her unprepared.
She walked down to the town first and spent some time in front of the shop-windows. Tiring of this, she proceeded to the harbour and inspected the shipping, and then with the feeling strong upon her that it would be better to settle with Bassett at her own convenience, she walked slowly to the small street in which he lived, and taking up a position nearly opposite his house paced slowly to and fro with the air of one keeping an appointment. She was pleased to observe, after a time, a slight movement of the curtains opposite, and, satisfied that she had attained her ends, walked off. The sound of a street door closing saved her the necessity of looking round.
At first she strolled slowly through the streets, but presently, increasing her pace, resolved to take the lad for a country walk. At Tranquil Vale she paused to tie up her boot-lace, and, satisfying herself that Bassett was still in pursuit, set off again.
She went on a couple of miles farther, until turning the sharp corner of a lane she took a seat on the trunk of a tree that lay by the side and waited for him to come up. She heard his footsteps coming nearer and nearer, and with a satisfied smile noted that he had quickened his pace. He came round the corner at the rate of over four miles an hour, and, coming suddenly upon her, was unable to repress a slight exclamation of surprise. The check was but momentary, and he was already passing on when the voice of Miss Jelks, uplifted in sorrow, brought him to a standstill.
“Oh, Master Bassett,” she cried, “I am surprised! I couldn’t have believed it of you.”
Bassett, squeezing his hands together, stood eying her nervously.
“And you so quiet, too,” continued Rosa; “but there, you quiet ones are always the worst.”
The boy, peering at her through his spectacles, made no reply.
“The idea of a boy your age falling in love with me,” said Rosa, modestly lowering her gaze.
“What!” squeaked the astonished Bassett, hardly able to believe his ears.
“Falling in love and dogging my footsteps,” said Rosa, with relish, “and standing there looking at me as though you could eat me.”
“You must be mad,” said Bassett, in a trembling voice. “Stark staring mad.”
“Don’t make it worse,” said Rosa kindly. “I suppose you can’t help it, and ought to be pitied for it, really. Now I know why it was you winked at me when you came to the house the other day.”
“Winked!” gasped the horrified youth. “Me?”
“I thought it was weakness of sight, at the time,” said the girl, “but I see my mistake now. I am sorry for you, but it can never be. I am another’s.”
Bassett, utterly bereft of speech, stood eying her helplessly.
“Don’t stand there making those sheep’s eyes at me,” said Rosa. “Try and forget me. Was it love at first sight, or did it come on gradual like?”
Bassett, moistening his tongue, shook his head.
“Am I the first girl you ever loved?” inquired Rosa, softly.
“No,” said the boy. “I mean—I have never been in—love. I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Do you mean to say you are not in love with me?” demanded Rosa, springing up suddenly.
“I do,” said Bassett, blushing hotly.
“Then what did you follow me all round the town for, and then down here?”
Bassett, who was under a pledge of secrecy to the boatswain, and, moreover, had his own ideas as to the reception the truth might meet with, preserved an agonized silence.
“It’s no good,” said Rosa, eying him mournfully. “You can’t deceive me. You are head over heels, and the kindest thing I can do is to be cruel to you—for your own sake.”
She sprang forward suddenly, and, before the astounded youth could dodge, dealt him a sharp box on the ear. As he reeled under the blow she boxed the other.
“It’s to make you leave off loving me,” she explained; “and if I ever catch you following me again you’ll get some more; besides which I shall tell your mother.”
She picked up her parasol from the trunk, and after standing regarding him for a moment with an air of offended maidenhood, walked back to the town. Bassett, after a long interval, returned by another road.
CHAPTER XIX
JOAN HARTLEY returned to Salthaven a week after Captain Trimblett’s departure, and, with a lively sense of her inability to satisfy the curiosity of her friends, spent most of the time indoors. To evade her father’s inquiries she adopted other measures, and the day after her return, finding both her knowledge and imagination inadequate to the task of satisfying him, she first waxed impatient and then tearful. Finally she said that she was thoroughly tired of the subject, and expressed a fervent hope that she might hear no more about it. Any further particulars would be furnished by Captain Trimblett, upon his return.
“But when I asked him about it he referred me to you,” said Hartley. “The whole affair is most incomprehensible.”
“We thought it would be a surprise to you,” agreed Joan.
“It was,” said her father, gloomily. “But if you are satisfied, I suppose it is all right.”
He returned to the attack next day, but gained little information. Miss Hartley’s ideas concerning the various marriage ceremonies were of the vaguest, but by the aid of “Whitaker’s Almanack” she was enabled to declare that the marriage had taken place by license at a church in the district where Trimblett was staying. As a help to identification she added that the church was built of stone, and that the pew-opener had a cough. Tiresome questions concerning the marriage certificate were disposed of by leaving it in the captain’s pocket-book. And again she declared that she was tired of the subject.
“I can’t imagine what your aunt was thinking about,” said her father. “If you had let me write—”
“She knew nothing about it,” said Joan, hastily; “and if you had written to her she would have thought that you were finding fault with her for not looking after me more. It’s done now, and if I’m satisfied and Captain Trimblett is satisfied, that is all that matters. You didn’t want me to be an old maid, did you?”
Mr. Hartley gave up the subject in despair, but Miss Willett, who called a day or two later, displayed far more perseverance. After the usual congratulations she sat down to discuss the subject at length, and subjected Joan to a series of questions which the latter had much difficulty in evading. For a newly married woman, Miss Willett could only regard her knowledge of matrimony as hazy in the extreme.
“She don’t want to talk about it,” said Mr. Truefitt, the following evening as he sat side by side with Miss Willett in the little summer-house overlooking the river. “Perhaps she is repenting it already.”
“It ought to be a tender memory,” sighed Miss Willett. “I’m sure—”
She broke off and blushed.
“Yes?” said Mr. Truefitt, pinching her arm tenderly.
“Never mind,” breathed Miss Willett. “I mean—I was only going to say that I don’t think the slightest detail would have escaped me. All she seems to remember is that it took place in a church.”
“It must have been by license, I should think,” said Mr. Truefitt, scowling thoughtfully. “Ordinary license, I should say. I have been reading up about them lately. One never knows what may happen.”
Miss Willett started.
“Trimblett has not behaved well,” continued Mr. Truefitt, slowly, “by no means, but I must say that he has displayed a certain amount of dash; he didn’t allow anything or anybody to come between him and matrimony. He just went and did it.”
He passed his arm round Miss Willett’s waist and gazed reflectively across the river.
“And I suppose we shall go on waiting all our lives,” he said at last. “We consider other people far too much.”
Miss Willett shook her head. “Mother always keeps to her word,” she said, with an air of mournful pride. “Once she says anything she keeps to it. That’s her firmness. She won’t let me marry so long as Mrs. Chinnery stays here. We must be patient.”
Mr. Truefitt rumpled his hair irritably and for some time sat silent. Then he leaned forward and, in a voice trembling with excitement, whispered in the lady’s ear.
“Peter!” gasped Miss Willett, and drew back and eyed him in trembling horror.
“Why not?” said Mr. Truefitt, with an effort to speak stoutly. “It’s our affair.”
Miss Willett shivered and, withdrawing from his arm, edged away to the extreme end of the seat and averted her gaze.
“It’s quite easy,” whispered the tempter.
Miss Willett, still looking out at the door, affected not to hear.
“Not a soul would know until afterward,” continued Mr. Truefitt, in an ardent whisper. “It could all be kept as quiet as possible. I’ll have the license ready, and you could just slip out for a morning walk and meet me at the church, and there you are. And it’s ridiculous of two people of our age to go to such trouble.”
“Mother would never forgive me,” murmured Miss Willett. “Never!”
“She’d come round in time,” said Mr. Truefitt.
“Never!” said Miss Willett. “You don’t know mother’s strength of mind. But I mustn’t stay and listen to such things. It’s wicked!”
She got up and slipped into the garden, and with Mr. Truefitt in attendance paced up and down the narrow paths.
“Besides,” she said, after a long silence, “I shouldn’t like to share housekeeping with your sister. It would only lead to trouble between us, I am sure.”
Mr. Truefitt came to a halt in the middle of the path, and stood rumpling his hair again as an aid to thought. Captain Sellers, who was looking over his fence, waved a cheery salutation.
“Fine evening,” he piped.
The other responded with a brief nod.
“What did you say?” inquired Captain Sellers, who was languishing for a little conversation.
“Didn’t say anything!” bawled Mr. Truefitt.
“You must speak up if you want me to hear you!” cried the captain. “It’s one o’ my bad days.”
Truefitt shook his head, and placing himself by the side of Miss Willett resumed his walk. Three fences away, Captain Sellers kept pace with them.
“Nothing fresh about Trimblett, I suppose?” he yelled.
Truefitt shook his head again.
“He’s a deep ’un!” cried Sellers—“wonderful deep! How’s the other one? Bearing up? I ain’t seen her about the last day or two. I believe that was all a dodge of Trimblett’s to put us off the scent. It made a fool of me.”
Mr. Truefitt, with a nervous glance at the open windows of his house, turned and walked hastily down the garden again.
“He quite deceived me,” continued Captain Sellers, following—“quite. What did you say?”
“Nothing,” bawled Mr. Truefitt, with sudden ferocity.
“Eh!” yelled the captain, leaning over the fence with his hand to his ear.
“Nothing!”
“Eh?” said the captain, anxiously. “Speak up! What?”
“Oh, go to—Jericho!” muttered Mr. Truefitt, and, taking Miss Willett by the arm, disappeared into the summer-house again. “Where were we when that old idiot interrupted us?” he inquired, tenderly.
Miss Willett told him, and, nestling within his encircling arm, listened with as forbidding an expression as she could command to further arguments on the subject of secret marriages.
“It’s no use,” she said at last “I mustn’t listen. It’s wicked. I am surprised at you, Peter. You must never speak to me on the subject again.”
She put her head on his shoulder, and Mr. Truefitt, getting a better grip with his arm, drew her toward him.
“Think it over,” he whispered, and bent and kissed her.
“Never,” was the reply.
Mr. Truefitt kissed her again, and was about to repeat the performance when she started up with a faint scream, and, pushing him away, darted from the summer-house and fled up the garden. Mr. Truefitt, red with wrath, stood his ground and stared ferociously at the shrunken figure of Captain Sellers standing behind the little gate in the fence that gave on to the foreshore. The captain, with a cheery smile, lifted the latch and entered the garden.
“I picked a little bunch o’ flowers for Miss Willett,” he said, advancing and placing them on the table.
“Who told you to come into my garden?” shouted the angry Mr. Truefitt.
“Yes, all of ’em,” said Captain Sellers, taking up the bunch and looking at them. “Smell!”
He thrust the bunch into the other’s face, and withdrawing it plunged his own face into it with rapturous sniffs. Mr. Truefitt, his nose decorated with pollen ravished from a huge lily, eyed him murderously.
“Get out of my garden,” he said, with an imperious wave of his hand.
“I can’t hear what you say,” said the captain, following the direction of the other’s hand and stepping outside. “Sometimes I think my deafness gets worse. It’s a great deprivation.”
“Is it?” said Mr. Truefitt. He made a funnel of both hands and bent to the old man’s willing ear.
“You’re an artful, interfering, prying, inquisitive old busybody,” he bellowed. “Can you hear that?”
“Say it again,” said the captain, his old eyes snapping.
Mr. Truefitt complied.
“I didn’t quite catch the last word,” said the captain.
“Busybody!” yelled Mr. Truefitt. “Busybody! B—u—s——”
“I heard,” said Captain Sellers, with sudden and alarming dignity. “Take your coat off.”
“Get out of my garden,” responded Mr. Truefitt, briefly.
“Take your coat off,” repeated Captain Sellers, sternly. He removed his own after a little trouble, and rolling back his shirt sleeves stood regarding with some pride a pair of yellow, skinny old arms. Then he clenched his fists, and, with an agility astonishing in a man of his years, indulged in a series of galvanic little hops in front of the astounded Peter Truefitt.
“Put your hands up!” he screamed. “Put ’em up, you tailor’s dummy! Put ’em up, you Dutchman!”
“Go out of my garden,” repeated the marvelling Mr. Truefitt. “Go home and have some gruel and go to bed!”
Captain Sellers paid no heed. Still performing marvellous things with his feet, he ducked his head over one shoulder, feinted with his left at Mr. Truefitt’s face, and struck with his right somewhere near the centre of his opponent’s waistcoat. Mr. Truefitt, still gazing at him open-mouthed, retreated backward, and, just as the captain’s parchment-like fist struck him a second time, tripped over a water-can that had been left in the path and fell heavily on his back in a flower-bed.
“Time!” cried Captain Sellers, breathlessly, and pulled out a big silver watch to consult, as Miss Willett came hurrying down the garden, followed by Mrs. Chinnery.
“Peter!” wailed Miss Willett, going on her knees and raising his head. “Oh, Peter!”
“Has he hurt you?” inquired Mrs. Chinnery, stooping.
“No; I’m a bit shaken,” said Mr. Truefitt, crossly. “I fell over that bla—blessed water-can. Take that old marionette away. I’m afraid to touch him for fear he’ll fall to pieces.”
“Time!” panted Captain Sellers, stowing his watch away and resuming his prancing. “Come on! Lively with it!”
Miss Willett uttered a faint scream and thrust her hand out.
“Lor’ bless the man!” cried Mrs. Chinnery, regarding the old gentleman’s antics with much amazement “Go away! Go away at once!”
“Time!” cried Captain Sellers.
She stepped forward, and her attitude was so threatening that Captain Sellers hesitated. Then he turned, and, picking up his coat, began to struggle into it.
“I hope it will be a lesson to him,” he said, glaring at Mr. Truefitt, who had risen by this time and was feeling his back. “You see what comes of insulting an old sea-dog.”
He turned and made his way to the gate, refusing with a wave of his hand Mrs. Chinnery’s offer to help him down the three steps leading to the shore. With head erect and a springy step he gained his own garden, and even made a pretence of attending to a flower or two before sitting down. Then the deck-chair claimed him, and he lay, a limp bundle of aching old bones, until his housekeeper came down the garden to see what had happened to him.
CHAPTER XX
FOR the first week or two after Joan Hartley’s return Mr. Robert Vyner went about in a state of gloomy amazement. Then, the first shock of surprise over, he began to look about him in search of reasons for a marriage so undesirable. A few casual words with Hartley at odd times only served to deepen the mystery, and he learned with growing astonishment of the chief clerk’s ignorance of the whole affair. A faint suspicion, which he had at first dismissed as preposterous, persisted in recurring to him, and grew in strength every time the subject was mentioned between them. His spirits improved, and he began to speak of the matter so cheerfully that Hartley became convinced that everybody concerned had made far too much of ordinary attentions paid by an ordinary young man to a pretty girl. Misled by his son’s behaviour, Mr. Vyner, senior, began to entertain the same view of the affair.
“Just a boyish admiration,” he said to his wife, as they sat alone one evening. “All young men go through it at some time or other. It’s a sort of—ha—vaccination, and the sooner they have it and get over it the better.”
“He has quite got over it, I think,” said Mrs. Vyner, slowly.
Mr. Vyner nodded. “Lack of opposition,” he said, with a satisfied air. “Lack of visible opposition, at any rate. These cases require management. Many a marriage has been caused by the efforts made to prevent it.”
Mrs. Vyner sighed. Her husband had an irritating habit of taking her a little way into his confidence and then leaving the rest to an imagination which was utterly inadequate to the task.
“There is nothing like management,” she said, safely. “And I am sure nobody could have had a better son. He has never caused us a day’s anxiety.”
“Not real anxiety,” said her husband—“no.”
Mrs. Vyner averted her eyes. “When,” she said, gently—“when are you going to give him a proper interest in the firm?”
Mr. Vyner thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and leaned back in his chair. “I have been thinking about it,” he said, slowly. “He would have had it before but for this nonsense. Nothing was arranged at first, because I wanted to see how he was going to do. His work is excellent—excellent.”
It was high praise, but it was deserved, and Mr. Robert Vyner would have been the first to admit it. His monstrous suspicion was daily growing less monstrous and more plausible. It became almost a conviction, and he resolved to test it by seeing Joan and surprising her with a few sudden careless remarks of the kind that a rising K.C. might spring upon a particularly difficult witness. For various reasons he chose an afternoon when the senior partner was absent, and, after trying in vain to think out a few embarrassing questions on the way, arrived at the house in a condition of mental bankruptcy.
The obvious agitation of Miss Hartley as she shook hands did not tend to put him at his ease. He stammered something about “congratulations” and the girl stammered something about “thanks,” after which they sat still and eyed each other nervously.
“Beautiful day,” said Mr. Vyner at last, and comforted himself with the reflection that the most eminent K.C.’s often made inane remarks with the idea of throwing people off their guard.
Miss Hartley said “Yes.”
“I hope you had a nice time in town?” he said, suddenly.
“Very nice,” said Joan, eying him demurely.
“But of course you did,” said Robert, with an air of sudden remembrance. “I suppose Captain Trimblett knows London pretty well?”
“Pretty well,” repeated the witness.
Mr. Vyner eyed her thoughtfully. “I hope you won’t mind my saying so,” he said, slowly, “but I was awfully pleased to hear of your marriage. I think it is always nice to hear of one’s friends marrying each other.”
“Yes,” said the girl.
“And Trimblett is such a good chap,” continued Mr. Vyner. “He is so sensible for his age.”
He paused expectantly, but nothing happened.
“So bright and cheerful,” he explained.
Miss Hartley still remaining silent, he broke off and sat watching her quietly. To his eyes she seemed more charming than ever. There was a defiant look in her eyes, and a half-smile trembled round the corners of her mouth. He changed his seat for one nearer to hers, and leaning forward eyed her gravely. Her colour deepened and she breathed quickly.
“Don’t—don’t you think Captain Trimblett is lucky?” she inquired, with an attempt at audacity.
Mr. Vyner pondered. “No,” he said at last.
Miss Hartley caught her breath.
“How rude!” she said, after a pause, lowering her eyes.
“No, it isn’t,” said Robert.
“Really!” remonstrated Miss Hartley.
“I think that I am luckier than he is,” said Robert, in a low voice. “At least, I hope so. Shall I tell you why?”
“No,” said Joan, quickly.
Mr. Vyner moistened his lips.
“Perhaps you know,” he said, unsteadily.
Joan made no reply.
“You do know,” said Robert.
Miss Hartley looked up with a sudden, careless laugh.
“It sounds like a conundrum,” she said, gayly. “But it doesn’t matter. I hope you will be lucky.”
“I intend to be,” said Robert.
“My hus—husband,” said Joan, going very red, “would probably use the word ‘fate’ instead of ‘luck.’”
“It is a favourite word of my wife’s,” said Robert gravely. “Ah, what a couple they would have made!”
“Who?” inquired Joan, eying him in bewilderment.
“My wife and your husband,” said Robert. “I believe they were made for each other.”
Miss Hartley retreated in good order. “I think you are talking nonsense,” she said, with some dignity.
“Yes,” said Robert, with a smile. “Ground-bait.”
“What?” said Joan, in a startled voice.
“Ground-bait.”
Miss Hartley made an appeal to his better feelings. “You are making my head ache,” she said, pathetically. “I’m sure I don’t know what you are talking about.”
Mr. Vyner apologized, remarking that it was a common fault of young husbands to talk too much about their wives, and added, as an interesting fact, that he had only been married that afternoon. Miss Hartley turned a deaf ear.
He spread a little ground-bait—of a different kind—before Hartley during the next few days, and in a short time had arrived at a pretty accurate idea of the state of affairs. It was hazy and lacking in detail, but it was sufficient to make him give Laurel Lodge a wide berth for the time being, and to work still harder for that share in the firm which he had always been given to understand would be his. In the meantime he felt that Joan’s marriage de convenance was a comfortable arrangement for all parties concerned.
This was still his view of it as he sat in his office one afternoon about a couple of months after Captain Trimblett’s departure. He had met Miss Hartley in the street the day before, and, with all due regard to appearances, he could not help thinking that she had been somewhat unnecessarily demure. In return she had gone away with three crushed fingers and a colour that was only partially due to exercise. He was leaning back in his chair thinking it over when his father entered.
“Busy?” inquired John Vyner.
“Frightfully,” said his son, unclasping his hands from the back of his head.
“I have just been speaking to Hartley,” said the senior partner, watching him keenly. “I had a letter this morning from the Trimblett family.”
“Eh?” said his son, staring.
“From the eldest child—a girl named Jessie,” replied the other. “It appears that a distant cousin who has been in charge of them has died suddenly, and she is rather at a loss what to do. She wrote to me about sending the captain’s pay to her.”
“Yes,” said his son, nodding; “but what has Hartley got to do with it?”
“Do with it?” repeated Mr. Vyner in surprised tones. “I take it that he is in a way their grandfather.”
“Gran—” began his son, and sat gasping. “Yes, of course,” he said, presently, “of course. I hadn’t thought of that. Of course.”
“From his manner at first Hartley appeared to have forgotten it too,” said Mr. Vyner, “but he soon saw with me that the children ought not to be left alone. The eldest is only seventeen.”
Robert tried to collect his thoughts. “Yes,” he said, slowly.
“He has arranged for them to come and live with him,” continued Mr. Vyner.
The upper part of his son’s body disappeared with startling suddenness over the arm of his chair and a hand began groping blindly in search of a fallen pen. A dangerous rush of blood to the head was perceptible as he regained the perpendicular.
“Was—was Hartley agreeable to that?” he inquired, steadying his voice.
His father drew himself up in his chair. “Certainly,” he said, stiffly; “he fell in with the suggestion at once. It ought to have occurred to him first. Besides the relationship, he and Trimblett are old friends. The captain is an old servant of the firm and his children must be looked after; they couldn’t be left alone in London.”
“It’s a splendid idea,” said Robert—“splendid. By far the best thing that you could have done.”
“I have told him to write to the girl to-night,” said Mr. Vyner. “He is not sure that she knows of her father’s second marriage. And I have told him to take a day or two off next week and go up to town and fetch them. It will be a little holiday for him.”
“Quite a change for him,” agreed Robert. Conscious of his father’s scrutiny, his face was absolutely unmoved and his voice easy. “How many children are there?”
“Five,” was the reply—“so she says in the letter. The two youngest are twins.”
For the fraction of a second something flickered across the face of Robert Vyner and was gone.
“Trimblett’s second marriage was rather fortunate for them,” he said, in a matter-of-fact voice.
He restrained his feelings until his father had gone, and then, with a gasp of relief, put his head on the table and gave way to them. Convulsive tremours assailed him, and hilarious sobs escaped at intervals from his tortured frame. Ejaculations of “Joan!” and “Poor girl!” showed that he was not entirely bereft of proper feeling.
His head was still between his arms upon the table and his body still shaking, when the door opened and Bassett entered the room and stood gazing at him in a state of mild alarm. He stood for a minute diagnosing the case, and then, putting down a handful of papers, crossed softly to the mantel-piece and filled a tumbler with water. He came back and touched the junior partner respectfully on the elbow.
“Will you try and drink some of this, sir?” he said, soothingly.
The startled Robert threw up his arm. There was a crash of glass, and Bassett, with his legs apart and the water streaming down his face, stood regarding him with owlish consternation. His idea that the junior partner was suffering from a species of fit was confirmed by the latter suddenly snatching his hat from its peg and darting wildly from the room.
CHAPTER XXI
MRS. WILLETT sat in her small and over-furnished living-room in a state of open-eyed amazement. Only five minutes before she had left the room to look for a pair of shoes whose easiness was their sole reason for survival, and as a last hope had looked under Cecilia’s bed, and discovered the parcels. Three parcels all done up in brown paper and ready for the post, addressed in Cecilia’s handwriting to:—
Mrs. P. Truefitt,
Findlater’s Private Hotel,
Finsbury Circus, London.
She smoothed her cap-strings down with trembling hands and tried to think. The autumn evening was closing in, but she made no attempt to obtain a light. Her mind was becoming active, and the shadows aided thought. At ten o’clock her daughter, returning from Tranquil Vale, was surprised to find her still sitting in the dark.
“Why, haven’t you had any supper?” she inquired, lighting the gas.
“I didn’t want any,” said her mother, blinking at the sudden light.
Miss Willett turned and pulled down the blinds. Then she came back, and, standing behind her mother’s chair, placed a hand upon her shoulder.
“It—it will be lonely for you when I’ve gone, mother,” she said, smoothing the old lady’s lace collar.
“Gone?” repeated Mrs. Willett. “Gone? Why, has that woman consented to go at last?”
Miss Willett shrank back. “No,” she said, trembling, “but—”
“You can’t marry till she does,” said Mrs. Willett, gripping the arms of her chair. “Not with my consent, at any rate. Remember that. I’m not going to give way; she must.”
Miss Willett said “Yes, mother,” in a dutiful voice, and then, avoiding her gaze, took a few biscuits from the sideboard.
“There’s a difference between strength of mind and obstinacy,” continued Mrs. Willett. “It’s obstinacy with her—sheer obstinacy; and I am not going to bow down to it—there’s no reason why I should.”
Miss Willett said “No, mother.”
“If other people like to bow down to her,” said Mrs. Willett, smoothing her dress over her knees, “that’s their look-out. But she won’t get me doing it.”
She went up to bed and lay awake half the night, and, rising late next morning in consequence, took advantage of her daughter’s absence to peer under the bed. The parcels had disappeared. She went downstairs, with her faded but alert old eyes watching Cecilia’s every movement.
“When does Mr. Truefitt begin his holidays?” she inquired, at last.
Miss Willett, who had been glancing restlessly at the clock, started violently.
“To—to—to-day,” she gasped.
Mrs. Willett said “Oh!”
“I—I was going out with him at eleven—for a little walk,” said her daughter, nervously. “Just a stroll.”
Mrs. Willett nodded. “Do you good,” she said, slowly. “What are you going to wear?”
Her daughter, still trembling, looked at her in surprise. “This,” she said, touching her plain brown dress.
Mrs. Willett’s voice began to tremble. “It’s—it’s rather plain,” she said. “I like my daughter to be nicely dressed, especially when she is going out with her future husband. Go upstairs and put on your light green.”
Miss Willett, paler than ever, gave a hasty and calculating glance at the clock and disappeared.
“And your new hat,” Mrs. Willett called after her.
She looked at the clock too, and then, almost as excited as her daughter, began to move restlessly about the room. Her hands shook, and going up to the glass over the mantel-piece she removed her spectacles and dabbed indignantly at her eyes. By the time Cecilia returned she was sitting in her favourite chair, a picture of placid and indifferent old age.
“That’s better,” she said, with an approving nod; “much better.”
She rose, and going up to her daughter rearranged her dress a little. “You look very nice, dear,” she said, with a little cough. “Mr. Truefitt ought to be proud of you. Good-by.”
Her daughter kissed her, and then, having got as far as the door, came back and kissed her again. She made a second attempt to depart, and then, conscience proving too much for her, uttered a stifled sob and came back to her mother.
“Oh, I can’t,” she wailed; “I can’t.”
“You’ll be late,” said her mother, pushing her away. “Good-by.”
“I can’t,” sobbed Miss Willett; “I can’t do it. I’m—I’m deceiving——”
“Yes, yes,” said the old lady, hastily; “tell me another time. Good-by.”
She half led and half thrust her daughter to the door.
“But,” said the conscience-stricken Cecilia, “you don’t under—”
“A walk will do you good,” said her mother; “and don’t cry; try and look your best.”
She managed to close the door on her, and her countenance cleared as she heard her daughter open the hall door and pass out. Standing well back in the room, she watched her to the gate, uttering a sharp exclamation of annoyance as Cecilia, with a woebegone shake of the head, turned and came up the path again. A loud tap at the window and a shake of the head were necessary to drive her off.
Mrs. Willett gave her a few minutes’ start, and then, in a state of extraordinary excitement, went upstairs and, with fingers trembling with haste, put on her bonnet and cape.
“You’re not going out alone at this time o’ the morning, ma’am?” said the old servant, as she came down again.
“Just as far as the corner, Martha,” said the old lady, craftily.
“I’d better come with you,” said the other.
“Certainly not,” said Mrs. Willett. “I’m quite strong this morning. Go on with your stoves.”
She took up her stick and, opening the door, astonished Martha by her nimbleness. At the gate she looked right and left, and for the first time in her life felt that there were too many churches in Salthaven. For several reasons, the chief being that Cecilia’s father lay in the churchyard, she decided to try St. Peter’s first, and, having procured a cab at the end of the road, instructed the cabman to drive to within fifty yards of the building and wait for her.
The church was open, and a peep through the swing-doors showed her a small group standing before the altar. With her hand on her side she hobbled up the stone steps to the gallery, and, helping herself along by the sides of the pews, entered the end one of them all and sank exhausted on the cushions.
The service had just commenced, and the voice of the minister sounded with unusual loudness in the empty church. Mr. Truefitt and Miss Willett stood before him like culprits, Mr. Truefitt glancing round uneasily several times as the service proceeded. Twice the old lavender-coloured bonnet that was projecting over the side of the gallery drew back in alarm, and twice its owner held her breath and rated herself sternly for her venturesomeness. She did not look over again until she heard a little clatter of steps proceeding to the vestry, and then, with a hasty glance round, slipped out of the pew and made her way downstairs and out of the church.
Her strength was nearly spent, but the cabman was on the watch, and, driving up to the entrance, climbed down and bundled her into the cab. The drive was all too short for her to compose herself as she would have liked, and she met the accusatory glance of Martha with but little of her old spirit.
“I went a little too far,” she said, feebly, as the servant helped her to the door.
“What did I tell you?” demanded the other, and placing her in her chair removed her bonnet and cape, and stood regarding her with sour disapproval.
“I’m getting better,” said the old lady, stoutly. “I’m getting my breath back again. I—I think I’ll have a glass of wine.”
“Yes, ’m,” said Martha, moving off. “The red-currant?”
“Red-currant!” said Mrs. Willett, sharply. “Red-currant! Certainly not. The port.”
Martha disappeared, marvelling, to return a minute or two later with the wine and a glass on a tray. Mrs. Willett filled her glass and, whispering a toast to herself, half emptied it.
“Martha!” she said, looking round with a smile.
“Ma’am!”
“If you like to go and get a glass you can have a little drop yourself.”
She turned and took up her glass again, and, starting nervously, nearly let it fall as a loud crash sounded outside. The bewildered Martha had fallen downstairs.
CHAPTER XXII
JOAN HARTLEY did not realize the full consequences of her departure from the truth until the actual arrival of the Trimblett family, which, piloted by Mr. Hartley, made a triumphant appearance in a couple of station cabs. The roofs were piled high with luggage, and the leading cabman shared his seat with a brass-bound trunk of huge dimensions and extremely sharp corners.
A short, sturdy girl of seventeen jumped out as soon as the vehicles came to a halt, and, taking her stand on the curb, proceeded to superintend the unloading. A succession of hasty directions to the leading cabman, one of the most docile of men, ended in the performance of a marvellous piece of jugglery with the big trunk, which he first balanced for an infinitesimal period of time on his nose, and then caught with his big toe.
“What did you do that for?” demanded Miss Trimblett, hotly.
There is a limit to the patience of every man, and the cabman was proceeding to tell her when he was checked by Mr. Hartley.
“He ought to be locked up,” said Miss Trimblett flushing.
She took up a band-box and joined the laden procession of boys and girls that was proceeding up the path to the house. Still red with indignation she was introduced to Joan, and, putting down the band-box, stood eying her with frank curiosity.
“I thought you were older,” she said at last. “I had no idea father was married again until I got the letter. I shall call you Joan.”
“You had all better call me that,” said Miss Hartley, hastily.
“Never more surprised in my life,” continued Miss Trimblett. “However—”
She paused and looked about her.
“This is George,” she said, pulling forward a heavy-looking youth of sixteen. “This is Ted; he is fourteen—small for his age—and these are the twins, Dolly and Gertrude; they’re eleven. Dolly has got red hair and Gerty has got the sweetest temper.”
The family, having been introduced and then summarily dismissed by the arbitrary Jessie, set out on a tour of inspection, while the elders, proceeding upstairs, set themselves to solve a problem in sleeping accommodation that would have daunted the proprietor of a Margate lodging-house. A scheme was at last arranged by which Hartley gave up his bedroom to the three Misses Trimblett and retired to a tiny room under the tiles. Miss Trimblett pointed out that it commanded a fine view.
“It is the only thing to be done,” said Joan, softly.
“It isn’t very big for three,” said Miss Trimblett, referring to her own room, “but the twins won’t be separated. I’ve always been used to a room to myself, but I suppose it can’t be helped for the present.”
She went downstairs and walked into the garden. The other members of the family were already there, and Hartley, watching them from the dining-room window, raised his brows in anguish as he noticed the partiality of the twins for cut flowers.
It was, as he soon discovered, one of the smallest of the troubles that followed on his sudden increase of family. His taste in easy-chairs met with the warm approval of George Trimblett, and it was clear that the latter regarded the tobacco-jar as common property. The twins’ belongings—a joint-stock affair—occupied the most unlikely places in the house; and their quarrels were only exceeded in offensiveness by their noisy and uncouth endearments afterwards. Painstaking but hopeless attempts on the part of Miss Trimblett to “teach Rosa her place” added to the general confusion.
By the end of a month the Trimblett children were in full possession. George Trimblett, owing to the good offices of Mr. Vyner, senior, had obtained a berth in a shipping firm, but the others spent the days at home, the parties most concerned being unanimously of the opinion that it would be absurd to go to school before Christmas. They spoke with great fluency and good feeling of making a fresh start in the New Year.
“Interesting children,” said Robert Vyner, who had dropped in one afternoon on the pretext of seeing how they were getting on. “I wish they were mine. I should be so proud of them.”
Miss Hartley, who was about to offer him some tea, thought better of it, and, leaning back in her chair, regarded him suspiciously.
“And, after all, what is a garden for?” pursued Mr. Vyner, as a steady succession of thuds sounded outside, and Ted, hotly pursued by the twins, appeared abruptly in the front garden and dribbled a football across the flower-beds.
“They are spoiling the garden,” said Joan, flushing. “Father is in despair.”
Mr. Vyner shook his head indulgently. “Girls will be girls,” he said, glancing through the window at Gertrude, who had thrown herself on the ball and was being dragged round the garden by her heels. “I’m afraid you spoil them, though.”
Miss Hartley did not trouble to reply.
“I saw your eldest boy yesterday, at Marling’s,” continued the industrious Mr. Vyner. “He is getting on pretty well; Marling tells me he is steady and quiet. I should think that he might be a great comfort to you in your old age.”
In spite of the utmost efforts to prevent it, Miss Hartley began to laugh. Mr. Vyner regarded her in pained astonishment.
“I didn’t intend to be humorous,” he said, with some severity. “I am fond of children, and, unfortunately, I—I am childless.”
He buried his face in his handkerchief, and, removing it after a decent interval, found that his indignant hostess was preparing to quit the room.
“Don’t go,” he said, hastily. “I haven’t finished yet.”
“I haven’t got time to stay and talk nonsense,” said Joan.
“I’m not going to,” said Robert, “but I want to speak to you. I have a confession to make.”
“Confession?”
Mr. Vyner nodded with sad acquiescence. “I deceived you grossly the other day,” he said, “and it has been worrying me ever since.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Joan, with a lively suspicion of his meaning.
“Pardon me,” said Mr. Vyner, with solemn politeness, “if I say that it does. I—I lied to you, and I have been miserable ever since.”
Joan waited in indignant silence.
“I told you that I was married,” said Mr. Vyner, in thrilling tones. “I am not.”
Miss Hartley, who had seated herself, rose suddenly with a fair show of temper.
“You said you were not going to talk nonsense!” she exclaimed.
“I am not,” said the other, in surprise. “I am owning to a fault, making a clean breast of my sins, not without a faint hope that I am setting an example that will be beautifully and bountifully followed.”
“I have really got too much to do to stay here listening to nonsense,” said Miss Hartley, vigorously.
“I am a proud man,” resumed Mr. Vyner, “and what it has cost me to make this confession tongue cannot tell; but it is made, and I now, in perfect confidence—almost perfect confidence—await yours.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Joan, pausing, with her hand on the door.
“Having repudiated my dear wife,” said Mr. Vyner, sternly, “I now ask, nay, demand, that you repudiate Captain Trimblett—and all his works,” he added, as ear-splitting screams sounded from outside.
“I wish——” began Joan, in a low voice.
“Yes?” said Robert, tenderly.
“That you would go.”
Mr. Vyner started, and half rose to his feet. Then he thought better of it.
“I thought at first that you meant it,” he said, with a slight laugh.
“I do mean it,” said Joan, breathing quickly.
Robert rose at once. “I am very sorry,” he said, with grave concern. “I did not think that you were taking my foolishness seriously.”
“I ought to be amused, I know,” said Joan, bitterly. “I ought to be humbly grateful to your father for having those children sent here. I ought to be flattered to think that he should remember my existence and make plans for my future.”
“He—he believes that you are married to Captain Trimblett,” said Robert.
“Fortunately for us,” said Joan, dryly.
“Do you mean,” said Robert, regarding her fixedly, “that my father arranged that marriage?”
Joan bit her lip. “No,” she said at last.
“He had something to do with it,” persisted Robert. “What was it?”
Joan shook her head.
“Well, I’ll ask him about it,” said Mr. Vyner.
“Please don’t,” said the girl. “It is my business.”
“You have said so much,” said Robert, “that you had better say more. That’s what comes of losing your temper. Sit down and tell me all about it, please.”
Joan shook her head again.
“You are not angry with me?” said Mr. Vyner.
“No.”
“That’s all right, then,” said Robert, cheerfully. “That encourages me to go to still further lengths. You’ve got to tell me all about it. I forgot to tell you, but I’m a real partner in the firm now. I’ve got a hard and fast share in the profits—had it last Wednesday; since when I have already grown two inches. In exchange for this confidence I await yours. You must speak a little louder if you want me to hear.”
“I didn’t say anything,” said the girl.
“You are wasting time, then,” said Robert, shaking his head. “And that eldest girl of yours may come in at any moment.”
Despite her utmost efforts Miss Hartley failed to repress a smile; greatly encouraged, Mr. Vyner placed a chair for her and took one by her side.
“Tell me everything, and I shall know where we are,” he said, in a low voice.
“I would rather—” began Miss Hartley.
“Yes, I know,” interrupted Mr. Vyner, with great gravity; “but we were not put into this world to please ourselves. Try again.”
Miss Hartley endeavoured to turn the conversation, but in vain. In less than ten minutes, with a little skilful prompting, she had told him all.
“I didn’t think that it was quite so bad as that,” said Robert, going very red. “I am very sorry—very. I can’t think what my father was about, and I suppose, in the first place, that it was my fault.”
“Yours?” exclaimed Joan.
“For not displaying more patience,” said Robert, slowly. “But I was afraid of—of being forestalled.”
Miss Hartley succeeded in divesting her face of every atom of expression. Robert Vyner gazed at her admiringly.
“I am glad that you understand me,” he murmured. “It makes things easier for me. I don’t suppose that you have the faintest idea how shy and sensitive I really am.”
Miss Hartley, without even troubling to look at him, said that she was quite sure she had not.
“Nobody has,” said Robert, shaking his head, “but I am going to make a fight against it. I am going to begin now. In the first place I want you not to think too hardly of my father. He has been a very good father to me. We have never had a really nasty word in our lives.”
“I hope you never will have,” said Joan, with some significance.
“I hope not,” said Robert; “but in any case I want to tell you—”
Miss Hartley snatched away the hand he had taken, and with a hasty glance at the door retreated a pace or two from him.
“What is the matter?” he inquired, in a low voice.
Miss Hartley’s eyes sparkled.
“My eldest daughter has just come in,” she said, demurely. “I think you had better go.”