CHAPTER XII.—“THE SONG OF MIRIAM.”
Accordingly Missy reappeared in the verandah about tea-time, and in the verandah she was once more paralysed with the special terror that was hanging over her from hour to hour in these days. An unfamiliar black coat had its back to the parlour window; it was only when Missy discerned an equally unfamiliar red face at the other side of the table that she remembered that Christmas visitors had been expected in the afternoon, and reflected that these must be they. The invited guests were a brace of ministers connected with the chapel attended by the Teesdales, and the red face, which was also very fat, and roofed over with a thatch of very white hair, rose out of as black a coat as that other of which Missy had seen the back. So these were clearly the ministers. And they were already at tea.
As soon as Missy entered the parlour she recognised the person sitting with his back to the window. He had lantern jaws hung with black whiskers, and a very long but not so very cleanshaven upper lip. His name was Appleton, he was the local minister, and Missy had not only been taken to hear him preach, but she had met him personally, and made an impression, judging by the length of time the ministers hand had rested upon her shoulder on that occasion. He greeted her now in a very complimentary manner, and with many seasonable wishes, which received the echo of an echo from the elder reverend visitor, whom Mrs. Teesdale made known to Missy as their old friend Mr. Crowdy.
“Mr. Crowdy,” added Mrs. T., reproachfully, “came all the way from Williamtown to preach our Christmas morning sermon. It was a beautiful sermon, if ever I heard one.”
“It was that,” put in David, wagging his kind old head. “But you should have told Mr. Crowdy, my dear, how Miriam feels our heat. I wouldn't let her go this morning, Mr. Crowdy, on that account. So you see it's me that's to blame.”
Mr. Crowdy looked very sorry for Miriam, but very well pleased with himself and the world. Missy was shooting glances of gratitude at her indefatigable old champion. Mr. Crowdy began to eye her kindly out of his fat red face.
“So your name's Miriam? A good old-fashioned Biblical name, is Miriam,” he said, in a wheezy, plethoric voice. “Singular thing, too, my name's Aaron; but I'd make an oldish brother for you, young lady, hey?”
Miriam laughed without understanding, and showed this. So Mr. Teesdale explained.
“Miriam, my dear, was the sister of Moses and Aaron, you remember.”
Missy did remember.
“Moses and Aaron? Why, of course!” cried she. “'Says Moses to Aaron! '”
The quotation was not meant to go any further; but the white-haired minister asked blandly, “Well, what did he say?” So bland, indeed, was the question that Missy hummed forth after a very trifling hesitation—
“Says Moses to Aaron,
While talking of these times'—
Says Aaron to Moses,
'I vote we make some rhymes!
The ways of this wicked world,
'Tis not a bed of roses—
No better than it ought to be—'
'Right you are!' says Moses.”
There was a short but perfect silence, during which Mrs. Teesdale glared at Missy and her husband looked pained. Then the old minister simply remarked that he saw no fun in profanity, and John William (who was visibly out of his element) felt frightfully inclined to punch Mr. Crowdy's white head for him. But the Reverend Mr. Appleton took a lighter view of the matter.
“With all due deference to our dear old friend,” said this gentleman, with characteristic unction, “I must say that I am of opinion 'e is labouring under a slight misconception. Miss Miriam, I feel sure, was not alluding to any Biblical characters at all, but to two typical types of the latter-day Levite. Miss Miriam nods! I knew that I was right!”
“Then I was wrong,” said Mr. Crowdy, cheerfully, as he nodded to Missy, who had not seriously aggrieved him; “and all's well that ends well.”
“Hear, hear!” chimed in David, thankfully. “Mrs. T., Mr. Appleton's cup's off. And Mr. Crowdy hasn't got any jam. Or will you try our Christmas cake now, Mr. Crowdy? My dears, my dears, you're treating our guests very shabbily!”
“Some of them puts people about so—some that ought to know better,” muttered Mrs. Tees-dale under her breath; but after that the tea closed over Missy's latest misdemeanour—if indeed it was one for Missy—and a slightly sticky meal went as smoothly as could be expected to its end.
Then Mr. Appleton said grace, and Mr. Crowdy, pushing back his plate and his chair, exclaimed in an oracular wheeze, “The Hundred!”
“The Old 'Undredth,” explained the other, getting on his feet and producing a tuning-fork. He was the musical minister, Mr. Appleton. Nevertheless, he led them off too high or too low, and started them afresh three times, before they were all standing round that tea-table and singing in unison at the rate of about two lines per minute—
“All—peo—ple—that—on—earth-do—dwell—
Sing—to—the—Lord—with—cheer-fill-voice-
Him—serve—with—fear—His—praise-forth-tell-
Come—ye—be—fore—Him—and—-re-joice.”
And so through the five verses, which between them occupied the better part of ten minutes; whereafter Mr. Crowdy knelt them all down with their elbows among the tea-things, and offered up a prayer.
Now it is noteworthy that the black sheep of this mob, that had no business to be in this mob at all, displayed no sort of inclination to smile at these grave proceedings. They took Missy completely by surprise; but they failed to tickle her sense of humour, because there was too much upon the conscience which had recently been born again to Missy's soul. On the contrary, the hymn touched her heart and the prayer made it bleed; for that heart was become like a foul thing cleaned in the pure atmosphere of this peaceful homestead. The prayer was very long and did not justify its length. It comprised no point, no sentence, which in itself could have stung a sinner to the quick. But through her fingers Missy could see the bald pate, the drooping eyelids, and the reverent, submissive expression of old Mr. Teesdale. And they drew the blood. The girl rose from her knees with one thing tight in her mind. This was the fixed determination to undeceive that trustful nature without further delay than was necessary, and in the first fashion which offered.
A sort of chance came almost immediately; it was not the best sort, but Missy had grown so desperate that now she was all for running up her true piratical colours and then sheering off before a gun could be brought to bear upon her. So she seized the opportunity which occurred in the best parlour, to which the party adjourned after tea. The best parlour was very seldom used. It had the fusty smell of all best parlours, which never are for common use, and was otherwise too much of a museum of albums, antimacassars, ornaments and footstools, to be a very human habitation at its best. Though all that met the eye looked clean, there was a strong pervading sense of the dust of decades; but some of this was about to be raised.
In the passage Mr. Appleton had taken Missy most affectionately by the arm, and had whispered of Mr. Crowdy, who was ahead, “A grand old man, and ripe for 'eaven!” But as they entered the best parlour he was complimenting Missy upon her voice, which had quite altered the sound of the late hymn from the moment when John William fetched and handed to her an open hymn-book. And here Mr. Crowdy, seating himself in the least uncomfortable of the antimacassared chairs, had his say also.
“I like your voice too,” the florid old minister observed, cocking a fat eye at Miriam. “But it is only natural that any young lady of your name should be musical. Surely you remember? 'And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances—' and so forth. Exodus fifteenth. I suppose you can't play upon the timbrel, hey, Miss Miriam?”
“No,” said Missy; “but I can dance.”
“Hum! And sing? What I mean is, young lady, do you only sing hymns?”
Missy kept her countenance.
“I have sung songs as well,” she ventured to assert.
“Then give us one now, Missy,” cried old Tees-dale. “That's what Mr. Crowdy wants, and so do we all.”
“Something lively?” suggested Missy, looking doubtfully at the red-faced minister.
“Lively? To be sure,” replied Mr. Crowdy. “Christmas Day, young lady, is not like a Sunday unless it happens to fall on one, which I'm glad it hasn't this year. Make it as lively as convenient. I like to be livened up!” And the old man rubbed his podgy hands and leant forward in the least uncomfortable chair.
“And shall I give you a dance too?”
“A dance, by all means, if you dance alone. I understand that such dancing has become quite the rage in the drawing-rooms at home. And a very good thing too, if it puts a stop to that dancing two together, which is an abomination in the sight of the Lord. But a dance by yourself—by all manner of means!” cried Mr. Crowdy, snatching off his spectacles and breathing upon the lenses.
“But I should require an accompaniment.”
“Nothing easier. My friend Appleton can accompany anything that is hummed over to him twice. Can't you, Appleton?”
“Mr. Crowdy,” replied the younger man, in an injured voice, as he looked askance at a little old piano with its back to the wall, and still more hopelessly at a music-stool from which it would be perfectly impossible to see the performance; “Mr. Crowdy, I do call this unfair! I—I——”
“You—you—I know you, sir!” cried the aged divine, with unmerciful good-humour. “Haven't I heard you do as much at your own teas? Get up at once, sir, and don't shame our cloth by disobliging a young lady who is offering to sing to us in the latest style from England!”
“I'm not offering, mind!” said Missy a little sharply. “Still, I'm on to do my best. Come over here, Mr. Appleton, and I'll hum it quite quietly in your ear. It goes something like this.”
That conquered Appleton; but the Teesdales, while leaving the whole matter in the hands of Missy and of the venerable Mr. Crowdy, who wanted to hear her sing, had thrown in words here and there in favour of the performance and of Mr. Appleton's part in it; all except Mrs. T., who was determined to have no voice in a matter of which she hoped to disapprove, and who showed her determination by an even more unsympathetic cast of countenance than was usual with her wherever Missy was concerned. Mrs. T. was seated upon a hard sofa by her husband's side, Arabella on a low footstool, John William by the window, and the two ministers we know where. The one at the piano seemed to have got his teeth into a banjo accompaniment which would have sounded very wonderfully like a banjo on that little old tin-pot piano if he had thumped not quite so hard; but now Missy was posing in front of the mantelpiece, and all eyes but the unlucky accompanist's were covering her eagerly.
“Now you're all right, Mr. Appleton. You keep on like that, and I'll nip in when I'm ready. If I stop and do a spout between the verses you can stop too, only don't forget to weigh in with the chorus. But when I dance, you keep on. See? That'll be all right, then. Ahem!”
Missy had spoken behind her hand in a stage whisper; now she turned to her audience and struck an attitude that made them stare. The smile upon her face opened their eyes still wider—it was so brazen, so insinuating, and yet so terribly artificial. And with that smile she began to dance, very slowly and rhythmically, plucking at her dress and showing her ankles, while Appleton thumped carefully on, little knowing what he was missing. And when it seemed as though no song was coming the song began.
But the dance went on through all, being highly appropriate, at all events to verse one, which ran:—
“Yuss! A fling and a slide with a pal, inside,
It isn't 'alf bad—but mind you!
The spot for a 'op is in front o' the shop
With a fried-fish-breeze be'ind you...
Well! Every lass was bold as brass,
But divvle a one a Venus;
An' Rorty 'Arry as I'm to marry
The only man between us!”
Here Missy and the music stopped together, Mr. Appleton holding his fingers in readiness over the next notes, while Missy interrupted her dance, too, to step forward and open fire upon her audience in the following prose:—
“Now that's just 'ow the 'ole thing 'appened. They wouldn't give my pore 'Arry no peace—catch them! Well, 'Arry'e done 's level—I will say that for 'im. 'E took on three at once; but 'is legs wouldn't go round fast enough, an' 'is arms wouldn't go round at all—catch them! Now would you believe it? When 'e's 'ad enough o' the others—a nasty common low lot they was, too—'e 'as the cheek to come to yours truly. But—catch me! 'No, 'Arry,' I sez, 'ere's 2d. to go and 'ave a pint o' four-'.lf,' I sez, 'w'ich you must need it,' I sez—just like that. So 'e goes an' 'as 'alf a dozen. That's my 'Arry all over, that is! An' w'en 'e come back 'e 'as the impidence to ax me again. But I give 'im a look like this,” cried Missy, leering horribly at the venerable Crowdy. “Such a look! Just like that”—with a repetition of the leer for Mrs. Teesdale's special benefit—“'.ause I seen what was wrong with 'im in the twinkling of a dress-improver. An' after that—chorus-up, Mr. Appleton!—why, after that—
“'Arry 'e 'ad the 'ump,
An' I lets 'im know it—plump
'E swore 'e'd not,
So 'e got it 'ot,
I caught 'im a good ole crump.
You should 'a' seen 'im jump!
I didn't give a dump!
For I yells to 'is pals
'Now look at 'im, gals—
Arry, 'e 'as the 'ump!'.rdquo;
The dancing had been taken up again with the chorus. There was some dancing plain at the end of it. Then came verse two:—
“'E swore and cussed till you thought 'e'd bust,
W'ich' is 'abit is when drinky;
'E cussed and swore till 'is mouth was sore
An' the street was painted pinky.
So I sez, sez I, to a stander-by
As was standin' by to listen,
'We've 'ad quite enough o' the reg'lar rough,
An' a bit too much o' this 'un!'.rdquo;
“'Yuss,'.rdquo; continued Missy without a break, “'an' if you're a man,' I sez, 'come an' 'elp shift this 'ere bloomin' imitition,' I sez. 'Right you are,' 'e sez, 'since you put it so flatterin' like. An' wot do they call you, my dear,' sez 'e. 'That's my bloomin' business,' sez I, 'wot's yours on the charge-sheet?' 'Ted,' sez 'e. 'Right,' sez I. 'You git a holt of 'is 'eels, Ted, an' I'll 'ang on to 'is 'air!'.rdquo;
Up to this point matters had proceeded without audible let or hindrance. But it appeared that at the psychological moment now reached by the narrator the prostrate hero had regained the command of his tongue, and the use he made of it was represented by Missy in so voluble and violent a harangue, couched in such exceedingly strong language, and all hurled so pointedly at the heads of Mr. and Mrs. Teesdale on the sofa opposite the fire-place, that an inevitable interruption now occurred.
“It's quite disgusting! I won't allow such language in my house. Stop at once!” cried Mrs. T. half rising; but Missy's voice was louder; while old David stretched an arm in front of his wife and fenced her to the sofa.
“Sit still, my dear, and don't be foolish,” said he, quite firmly. “Can't you see that it's part of the song, and only in fun?”
“Only in fun!” echoed Missy, whose speaking voice had risen to a hoarse scream. “Ho, yuss, an' I s'pose it was fun between 'Arry an' me an' Ted? You bet your bags it wasn't! Why, time we'd done with 'im, Ted's rigging was gone to glory—all but 'is chest-protector. And as for me, you couldn't ha' made a decent pen-wiper out o' my 'ole attire. An' why? Why 'cause—now then, you at the pianner!—'cause—
“'Arry' e' ad the 'ump—
The liquorin' lushin' lump—
So I sez to Ted,
“Ere, sit on 'is 'ead,
Or shove 'im under the pump!'
Ted 'e turns out a trump.
We done it with bump an' thump.
For that 'orrible 'Arry
Was 'eavy to carry—
An' 'Arry 'e 'ad 'ump!”
Now not one of them guessed that this was the end of the song. They had made up their minds to more and worse, and they got it in Missy's final dance. She was wearing a dark blue skirt of some thin material. Already there had been glimpses of a white underskirt and a pair of crimson ankles, but now there were further and fuller views. John William and Arabella had been curiously and painfully fascinated from the beginning. Their father was still barring their mother to the sofa with an outstretched arm. The poor old minister sat forward in his chair with his eyes protruding from his head. His junior, who was still thumping the old piano as though his life depended upon it, was the one person present who saw nothing of what was going on; and he suspected nothing amiss; he had been too busy with his notes to attend even to the words. Every other eye was fixed upon the dancing girl; every other forehead was wet with a cold perspiration. But Mr. Appleton was so far unconsciously infected with the spirit of the proceedings that he was now playing that banjo accompaniment at about double his rate of starting. And the ornaments were rattling on mantelpiece and table and bracket, and a small vase fell with a crash into the fender—Missy had brought it down with the toe of one high-heeled shoe. Then with a whoop she was at the door. The door was flung open. There was a flutter of white and a flare of crimson, neither quite in the room nor precisely in the passage. The door was slammed, and the girl gone.
Mr. Teesdale was the first to rise. His face was very pale and agitated. He crossed the room and laid a hand upon the shoulder of Mr. Appleton, who was still pounding with all his heart at the old piano. Appleton stopped and revolved on the music-stool with a face of very comical ignorance and amazement. Mr. Teesdale went on to the door and turned the handle. It did not open. The key had been turned upon the outer side.
CHAPTER XIII.—ON THE VERANDAH.
Night had fallen, and Mr. Teesdale had the homestead all to himself. Arabella and her mother had accompanied the ministers to evening worship in the township chapel. John William was busy with the milking. As for Missy, she had disappeared, as well she might, after her outrageous performance in the best parlour. And Mr. Teesdale was beginning to wonder whether they were ever to see her again; and if never, then what sort of report could he send his old friend now?
He did not know. Her last prank was also incomparably her worst, it had stunned poor David, and it left him unable to think coherently of Missy any longer. Yet her own father had warned him that Miriam was a very modern type of young woman; had hinted at the possibility of her startling simple folks. Then again, David, who took his newspaper very seriously indeed, had his own opinion of modern society in England and elsewhere. And if, as he believed, Missy was a specimen of that society, then it was not right to be hard upon the specimen. Had not he gathered long ago from the newspapers that the music-hall song and dance had found their way into smart London drawing-rooms? Now that he had heard that song, and seen that dance, were they much worse than he had been led to suppose? If so, then society was even blacker than it was painted, that was all. The individual in any case was not to blame, but least of all in this case, where the individual had shown nothing but kindness to an uninteresting old man, quite aside and apart from her position in the old man's house as the child of his earliest friend.
And yet—and yet—he would do something to blot this last lurid scene out of his mind. There was nothing he would not do, if only he could do that. Yet this only showed him the narrowness of his own mind. That, after all, was half the trouble. Here at the antipodes, in an overlooked corner that had missed development with the colony, just as Mr. Teesdale himself had missed it: here all minds must be narrow. But theirs at the farm were perhaps narrower than most; otherwise they would never have been so shocked at Missy; at all events they would not have shown their feelings, as they evidently must have shown them, to have driven poor Missy off the premises, as they had apparently done.
Mr. Teesdale became greatly depressed as he made these reflections, and gradually got as much of the blame on to his own shoulders as one man could carry. It was very dark. He was sitting out on the verandah and smoking; but it was too dark to enjoy a pipe properly, even if David could have enjoyed anything just then. He was sitting in one of those wooden chairs in which he had so often sat of late while Missy read to him, and one hand rested mournfully upon the seat of the empty chair at his side. Not that he as yet really dreaded never seeing Missy again. He was keeping a look-out for her all the time. Sooner or later she was bound to come back.
She had come back already, but it was so dark that David never saw her until he was putting a light to his second pipe. Then the face of Missy, with her red hair tousled, came out of the night beyond the verandah with startling vividness, and it was the most defiant face that ever David Tees-dale had beheld.
“Missy,” cried he, “is that you?”
He dropped the match and Missy's face was gone.
“Yes, it's me,” said her voice, in such a tone as might have been expected from her face.
“Then come in, child, come in,” said David joyfully, pushing back his chair as he rose. “I'm that glad you've come back, you can't think!”
“But I haven't come back—that's just it,” answered the defiant voice out of the night.
“Then I'm going to fetch you back, Missy. I'm going——”
“You stop in that verandah. If you come out I'll take to my heels and you'll never see me again—never! Now look here, Mr. Teesdale, haven't I sickened you this time?”
“Done what, Missy?” asked David, uneasily, from the verandah. He could see her outline now.
“Sickened you. I should have thought I'd sickened you just about enough this trip, if you'd asked me. I should have said I'd choked you off for good and all.”
“You know you've done no such thing, Missy. What nonsense the child will talk!”
“What! I didn't sicken you this afternoon?”
“No.”
“Didn't disgust you, if you like that better?”
“No.”
“Didn't make you perspire, the whole lot of you?”
“Of course you didn't, Missy. How you talk! You amused us a good deal, and you surprised us, too, a bit; but that was all.”
“Oh! So that was all, was it? So I only surprised you a bit? I suppose you don't happen to know whether it was a big bit, eh?”
But David now decided that the time was come for firmness.
“Listen to me, Missy; I'm not going to have any more to say to you unless you come inside at once!”
“But what if I'm not never coming inside—never no more?”
There was that within the words which made David pause to consider. At length he said: “Very well, then, come into the verandah and we'll have a sensible talk here, and I won't force you into the house; though where else you're to go I don't quite see. However, come here, and I won't insist on your coming a step further.”
“Honour bright?”
“Of course.”
“Hope to die?”
“I don't understand you, Missy; but I meant what I said.”
“Then I'm coming. One moment, though! Is anybody about? Is Mrs. Teesdale in the house?”
“No, she's gone to chapel. So has Arabella, and John William's milking. They'll none of 'em be back just yet. Ah, that's better, my dear girl, that's better!”
Missy was back in her old wooden chair. Mr. Teesdale sat down again in its fellow and put his hand affectionately upon the girl's shoulder.
“So you mean to tell me your hairs didn't stand on end!” said Missy, in a little whisper that was as unnecessary as it was fascinating just then.
“I haven't got much to boast of,” answered the old man cheerily; “but what hair I have didn't do any such thing, Missy.”
“Now just you think what you're saying,” pursued the girl, with an air as of counsel cautioning a witness. “You tell me I neither sickened you, nor disgusted you, nor choked you off for good and all with that song and dance I gave you this afternoon. Your hairs didn't stand on end, and I didn't even make you perspire—so you say! But do you really mean me to believe you?”
“Why, bless the child! To be sure—to be sure!”
“Then, Mr. Teesdale, I must ask you whether you're in the habit of telling lies.”
David opened his mouth to answer very promptly indeed, but kept it open without answering at all at the moment. He had remembered something that sent his left thumb and forefinger of their own accord into an empty waistcoat pocket. “No,” said he presently with a sigh, “I'm not exactly in the habit of saying what isn't true.”
“But you do it sometimes?”
“I have done it, God forgive me! But who has not?”
“Not me,” cried Missy candidly. “There's not a bigger liar in this world than me! I'm going to tell you about that directly. I'm so glad you've told a lie or two yourself—it gives me such a leg-up—though I never should have thought it of you, Mr. Teesdale. I've told hundreds since I've known you. Have you told any since you've known me?”
The question was asked with all the inquisitive sympathy of one discovering a comrade in sin. “I mean not counting the ones you've just been telling me,” added Missy when she got no answer, “about your not being shocked, and all the rest of it.”
“That was no falsehood, Missy; that was the truth.”
“All right, then, we'll pass that. Have you told any other lies since I've been here? Just whisper, and I promise I won't let on. I do so want to know.”
“But why, my dear—but why?”
“Because it'll be ever so much easier for me to make my confession when you've made yours.”
“Your confession! What can you have to confess, Missy?” The old man chuckled as he patted her hand.
“More than you're prepared for. But you must fire first. Have you or have you not told a wicked story since I've been staying here?”
Mr. Teesdale cleared his throat and sat upright in his chair.
“Missy,” said he solemnly, “the only untruth I can remember telling in all my life, I have told since you have been with us; and I've told it over and over again. Heaven knows why I admit this much to you! I suppose there's something in you, my dear, that makes me say' more than ever I mean to say. But I'm not going to say another word about this—that's flat.”
“Good Lord!” murmured Missy. “And you've told it over and over and over again! Oh, do tell me,” she whispered coaxingly; “you might.”
“My dear, I've told you too much already.” And old Teesdale would have risen and paced the verandah, but a pair of strong arms restrained him. They were Missy's arms thrown round his neck, and the old man was content to sit still.
“Tell me one thing,” she wheedled softly: “had it anything to do with me—that wicked story you've told so often?”
Mr. Teesdale was silent.
“Then it had something to do with me. Let me think. Had it anything—to do with—your watch?... Then it had! And anything to do with that twenty pounds you sent me to the post office?... Yes, it had! You pawned that watch to get me that money. You said you had left it mending. I've heard you say so a dozen times. So this is the lie you meant you'd told over and over again. And all for me! O Mr. Teesdale, I am so sorry—I am—so—sorry.”
She had broken down and was sobbing bitterly on his shoulder. The old man stroked her head.
“You needn't take it so to heart, Missy dear. Nay, come! Shall I tell you why? Because it wasn't all for you, Missy. I hardly knew you then. Nay, honey, it was all for your dear father—no one else.”
The effect of this distinction, made with a very touching sort of pride, was to withdraw Missy's arms very suddenly from the old man's neck, and to leave her sitting and trembling as far away from him as possible, though still in her chair. Her moment was come; but her nerve and her courage, her coolness and steadiness of purpose, where were they now?
She braced herself together with a powerful effort. Hours ago she had resolved, under influences that may be remembered, to undeceive the too trustful old man now at her side. To that resolve she still adhered; but as it had since become evident that nothing she could possibly do would lead him to suspect the truth, there was now no way for her but the hardest way of all—that of a full and clean confession. Her teeth were chattering when she began, but Mr. Teesdale understood her to say:
“Before you told your lie I had told you a dozen—I spoke hardly a word of truth all the way into Melbourne that day. But there was one great, big, tremendous lie at the bottom of all the rest. And can't you guess what that was? You must guess—I can never tell you—I couldn't get it out.”
Mr. Teesdale was very silent. “Yes, I think I can guess,” he said at last, and sadly enough.
“Then what was it?” exclaimed Missy in an eager whisper. She was shivering with excitement.
“Well, my dear, I suppose it was to do with them friends you had to meet at the theatre. You might have trusted me a bit more, Missy! I shouldn't have thought so much of it, after all.”
“Of what?”
“Why, of your going to the theatre alone. Wasn't that it, Missy?”
The girl moaned. “Oh, no—no! It was something ever so much worse than that.”
“Then you weren't stopping with friends at all. Was that it? Yes, you were staying all by yourself at one of the hotels.”
“No—no—no. It was ever so much worse than that too. That was one of the lies I told you, but it was nothing like the one I mean.”
“Missy,” old David said gravely, “I don't want to know what you mean. I don't indeed! I'd far rather know nothing at all about it.”
“But you must know!” cried Missy in desperation.
“Why must I?”
“Because this has gone on far too long. And I never meant it to go on at all. No, I give you my oath I only meant to have a lark in the beginning—to have a lark and be done with it! Anyhow I can't keep it up any longer; that's all about it, and—but surely you can guess now, Mr. Teesdale, can't you?”
Again the old man was long in answering. “Yes,” he exclaimed at length, and with such conviction in his voice that Missy grasped her chair-arms tight and sat holding her breath. “Yes, I do see now. You borrowed that money not because you really needed it, but because——”
The girl's groans stopped him. “To think that you can't guess,” she wailed, “though I've as good as told you in so many words!”
“No, I can't guess,” answered David decisively. “What's more, I don't want to. So I give it up. Hush, Missy, not another word! I won't have it! I'll put my fingers in my ears if you will persist. I don't care whether it's true or whether it isn't, I'm not going to sit here and listen to you pitching into yourself when—when——”
“When what?”
“Why, when I've grown that fond of you, my dear!”
“And are you fond of me?” said Missy, in a softened voice that quivered badly. She put her arms once more round the old man's neck, and let her tousled head rest again upon his shoulder. “Are you really so fond of me as all that?”
“My dear, we all are. You know that as well as I do.”
Missy made one important exception in her own mind, but not aloud. Kind, worn fingers were now busy with her hair, now patting her shoulder tenderly; and in all her poor life Missy had never known a father or a father's love. Even with the will she could not have spoken for some minutes. When she did speak next it was to echo the old man's last words; “Yes, I know that as well as you do. And I know how it hurts! But tell me, can you possibly be as fond of me after this afternoon?”
“I can,” said old Teesdale. “I can only speak for myself. Maybe I think more of you than anyone else does; I've seen more of you, and had more of your kindness. Nothing could make me forget that, Missy—how you've sat with me, and walked with me, and read to me, and taken notice of the old man, no matter who else was by or who wasn't. No, I could never forget all that, my dear; nothing that you could do could make me forget one half of that!”
“And nothing that I have done?”
“Still less anything that you have done.”
“But if you found out that I'd been deceiving you all along, and obtained every mortal thing on false pretences, and taken the filthiest advantage of your kindness—surely that would wipe out any little good turns which anybody would have done you? Of course it would!”
“It might. But anybody wouldn't have done 'em—anybody wouldn't,” the old man said, leaving a kiss upon the hair between his fingers. “At all events, Missy, there's one thing that nothing could blot out; for whatever you did, you'd still be your dear father's daughter!”
Very slowly and deliberately, Missy unwound her arms and lifted her head, and got out of the chair, and stood to her full height in the dark verandah.
“That's just it,” she said calmly, distinctly. “That's just what I was coming to.”
But Mr. Teesdale had also risen, and he was not listening to Missy. For footsteps were drawing near through the grass—footsteps and the rustle of stiff Sunday gowns, and the creaking of comfortless Sunday boots—and a harsh voice was crying more harshly than was even its wont:
“Is that you, David? And is that Miriam beside you? And how dare she come back and show her face, I wonder? Ay, that's what I want to know!”
David ran to meet and expostulate with his harder half. It was seldom that he even tried to quell that outspoken tongue; but now he both tried and succeeded, though Missy in the verandah could not hear by how much artifice or in what words. In another minute, however, Mr. Teesdale was again at her side, while his wife and daughter went past them and into the house without further parley.
These few words were then exchanged in the verandah:
“Missy, she didn't mean it. You'll hear no more about it—not a word from anybody.”
“I deserve to, nevertheless.”
“So you'll come in, won't you, and have your supper like a dear good girl?”
“Ah, yes, I'll come in now.”
“I was so afraid—Mrs. T. is that hasty and plain-spoken—that what she said might make you say you'd never come into our house any more.”
“Not it,” said Missy with a laugh. “That's the sort of thing to have the very opposite effect upon you. Come on in!”
CHAPTER XIV.—A BOLT FROM THE BLUE.
Mr. Teesdale sat at his end of the old green tablecloth, reading a singularly unseasonable communication from that middle-man who bought the milk but was never in a position to pay for it. The time was half-past eleven in the forenoon of Boxing Day, and the daily delivery of letters had just taken place. It was naturally a little later than usual, but Mr. Teesdale wished with all his heart that there had been no delivery at all. At length he raised a tired face from his bad news, and let his eyes rest for the comfort of his spirit upon the red head and fringe of his solitary companion in the parlour. Missy was seated on the sofa, and all of her but the top of her head and the bottom of her dress, with a finger or two of each hand, was hidden behind the Argus newspaper. Missy always liked to see the Argus as soon as it came, though by that time it was never less than a day old, because Mr. Teesdale had it from a friend when the friend was done with it. This morning, as usual, he had handed it to the girl before opening his letters. He now sat staring absently at the girl's hair, and was therefore somewhat slow to notice that the narrow strip of forehead under the fringe was gone so white that it was difficult to tell where paper ended and forehead began. No sooner had David seen this, however, than he saw also the paper jumping up and down in the girl's grasp; whereupon the unpleasant letter in his own hands went straightway out of his head.
“Missy,” he cried, “what's the matter, my dear? What have you seen?”
Missy dashed down the paper and was on her feet in an instant. There was extraordinary spirit in the action, and her eyes were very bright.
“What have I seen?” she repeated, in a tone that suppressed excitement rather than concern. “Nothing; that is, nothing that could interest any of you; only something about a friend of mine.”
Yet she bounced out of the room without another word, and forthwith went in search of Arabella.
She found her in the dairy, which was half under the ground, and wholly out of the way.
“Arabella,” she cried wildly, “put down that bowl and shake hands. We're safe!”
Now Arabella was not a person of quick perceptions. She was imaginative, she was inquisitive, she had a romantic side which had very nearly been the ruin of her at the responsible age of thirty-two. Like the parent whom she so strongly resembled in her undiscerning nature and easygoing temperament, she was sufficiently credulous, weak, and unwise in her generation. On the other hand, she was by no means without her father's merits. She had the same talent for affection, the same positive genius for uncommon gratitude. She could never make light of a good turn, not even in her own mind; nor out of her own mouth could she make too much of one. In the family circle she had been very silent and subdued during these last days, but to Missy in private she had opened a contrite and a very grateful heart more times than the other had liked to listen. Vague doubts and suspicions of Missy she had entertained in the beginning; she might have them still; nay, they might well be stronger than ever, after yesterday.
But one thing was now certain concerning these shy misgivings; they might rise to the mind, but they would never again pass the lips. No matter what Missy did or said, henceforth, Arabella would shield her with all the ingenuity at her command: which was not a little: only it was sometimes hindered by a certain slowness to perceive which frequently accompanies a constitutional readiness to imagine. So when Missy wanted her to shake hands because they were safe, Arabella looked perfectly blank.
“How are we safe?” she asked. “What are we safe from?”
“Why, from your friend.”
“My friend? Ah!” She understood now.
“Yes, he won't trouble us much more,” pursued Missy, sidling rhythmically from one foot to the other, while her eyes lit up the dairy. “O 'Bella, 'Bella, if you knew how I feel——”
“Stop a moment,” said Arabella, white as the milk that she had spilled in her agitation; “is he—is he—dead?”
“Dead? I wish he was. No, no; he's only in prison.”
“In prison?”
“Yes; run in the day before Christmas Eve—the day after I swep' him out o' this—no, the very day itself. See where you'd ha' been! 'Bella, 'Bella, let's drink his health in a pint of cream! It seems too good to be true.”
But Arabella was grasping with both hands the shelf which supported the bowls of milk for creaming, and her face was drawn and wretched.
“Don't, Missy!” she exclaimed with tears in her voice. “You wouldn't if you knew how sorry I am. What is he in prison for? What has he been doing?”
“Writing a cheque he had no business to write and getting the money. That's what it was this time. But it isn't the first time; no, don't you believe it.”
“I am so sorry,” repeated Arabella, covering her eyes.
“But why? What for?”
“For him. I—I thought I loved him.”
“You thought you loved him,” Missy repeated buoyantly. She was all buoyancy now. “Yes, many a girl has thought that before you, my dear. And them that thought it too long, they didn't come to think they hated him. Not they! They jolly soon knew!”
The other's wet eyes were wide open.
“How is this, Missy? You seem to know all about him. You never told me that before.”
“No, I didn't. What was the use when I'd got rid of him—for the time being, anyway? I was very much afraid he'd turn up again, and I was keeping what I knew until he did. I thought it'd be time enough to tell you then; but I'll tell you now if you like. It makes no difference one way or the other, now that our friend's in quod. Very well then, as soon as ever I heard his voice that dark night I knew that I'd heard it before. Never mind where—maybe in England, maybe on the ship, maybe after I landed in Melbourne. You mustn't want to know too much. It's good enough, isn't it, that I knew what sort he was, and that when I'd known him before he was sailing under another name altogether? Yes, I thought that'd knock you! You knew Stanborough, I knew Mowbray, and the police, they've run in a man of the name of Paolo Verini, alias Thomas Stanborough, alias Paul Mowbray. 'A handsome man of foreign appearance,' the Argus says. You may look for yourself. But if that isn't good enough for you I don't know what is.”
“It might be someone else for all that,” murmured Arabella, shuddering at the thought of the man in prison. “Have you any other reason for making so certain that it is the same?”
“I have. I wouldn't tell you before, but now what does it matter? I've expected him turning up every hour since that night. He swore that he would; and he would have, you may depend, if he hadn't got run in.”
Arabella was silent; she felt that also. She had never been able to understand how a man of so firm a purpose as her lover should have made so facile a capitulation to a mere girl like Missy. Presently she asked a question:
“Did he recognise you. Missy?”
“No,” replied Missy, after a little hesitation. “No, he did not,” she repeated more firmly. “And look you here,'.ella, take my advice and never give him another thought. He was a bad egg, that's what he was; you may thank your stars that he is where he is, as I thank mine.”
“I can't help being sorry,” sighed Arabella, wiping her eyes with her apron; “but that doesn't make me less thankful to you, Missy. You've saved me, body and soul. I was under a spell, but you broke it. I don't understand it. I can't feel it now. But God knows how I felt it then, and what would have got me but for you! So I can never be thankful enough to you, Missy, and I shall never, never be able to tell you how thankful I am.”
“Then never try,” said Missy lightly; “only think kindly of me when you find it a hard job. That's all you've got to try to do.”
And with a light-hearted laugh and a kiss from the fingers Missy was out of the dairy and above ground in the brilliant noonday sun.
There was no one about in the yard. Missy was glad of that, because there was no living soul whom she desired to see or to speak to for hours to come. The naked sword hanging over her head had suddenly been lifted down, snapped, and thrown away; she must be alone to appreciate that. Nevertheless this should be her last day at the farm; and again, she must be alone to make the most of the last day. Alone to consider all things, especially the life lying ahead; alone to drink for the last time of the sweet sensations of this peaceful spot, and so deeply, that the taste should be with her till her dying day. Then she would depart in peace; and lastly, she must be alone to invent the why and wherefore of this departure.
So she opened the gate leading out of the yard, and going down through the gum-trees into that shallow gully, she mounted the other side, and stopped to stand in triumph under the very tree from behind which Stanborough, or Verini, had sprung and caught her in his arms. She pictured him in his cell at that moment, with only one small iron-barred square of that blue sky which was all for her; and she drew into her throat and nostrils a long draught of eucalyptus perfume. This was one of the sensations which she desired always to remember. At length, still sniffing and glancing ever at the deep blue sky above the tree-tops, yet with both eyes and ears attentive to her friends the parrots, she turned sharp to the left, crossed the road below the Cultivation, and struck into the thick of the timber on the further side.
She had shut out of her light mind every thought of penitence and remorse. There was no further occasion for her to take a serious view of the situation. The very air seemed charged with a new and most delicious sense of freedom; enough, for the present, to revel in this, without thinking of anything at all. Another comparatively new sense, that of her own iniquity, was a dead nerve for the time being. Missy was too thankful for what she had escaped to consider what she deserved; indeed, she had considered this sufficiently. On the other hand, she was enjoying a natural reaction in the most natural manner imaginable. All by herself, among the gum-trees, she burst into song, or rather the snatch of one. And on the whole one would call it unconscious song, for the snatch ran—
“You should 'a' seen 'im jump!
I didn't give a dump!
For I yells to 'is pals
'Now look at him, gals—
'Arry 'e 'as the——'”
Here it broke off. Missy halted too.
“Morning, John William,” said she.
He was standing in front of her, with his gun under his arm and a dead hare in the other hand. He returned her salute gravely. Then—
“You seem very happy,” he said, with a spice of bitterness.
“Oh, I haven't got it,” laughed Missy, “have you?”
“Got what?”
“The 'ump.”
He shook his head and grinned; as he looked at her the grin broadened.
“So I didn't shock your head off, either!” exclaimed Missy.
“Not likely. I thought it was splendid myself.”
“Then why did you look so glum just now?”
“Missy, I didn't——”
“You did! I thought you'd caught the 'ump from 'Arry. I believe you have. You're looking as glum as ever again!”
It was true. But he said:
“Missy, I don't feel a bit glum.”
“No?”
She was examining him coolly, critically, and he knew it.
“Not a bit!” he reiterated, hacking out a tuft of grass with his right heel. Then his miserable eyes rose fiercely upon the girl. She had been waiting for this look, however.
“You are making a great mistake,” she said, “if you are imagining yourself the least little atom in love with me.”
For the instant her outspokenness enraged him; then it made him meek.
“I am imagining no such thing, Missy; I know it. But I also know that it is a mistake—when you are so far above me.”
“There you go! That is your mistake. It's the other way about—it's you that's so far above me. John William, if you only knew what a bad lot I am—-”
“I don't care what you are.”
“You don't know what I am. That's just it! I'm not what you think I am, I'm not what I make myself out to be; I'm not—I'm not!”
She was speaking passionately, being, in fact, once more on the verge of a full confession. All in a moment the impulse had come over her, and nothing could have stopped her but the thing that did. John William was not listening to a word she said; he was only gazing in her eyes.
“I don't care what you are, Missy; I shouldn't care if you were as black as sin! No, I should like it, for the blacker you were, the nearer I should be to you—the more chance I should have. If you were bad—which is all nonsense—you would still be too good for me; but I should love you, Missy, whether or no. I shall love you all my days!” He looked at her once with ravening eyes, and then spun round upon his heel. She called him back in a broken voice to tell him everything; but he shook his head without looking round, and the tree-trunks closed behind him like a door. Then Missy drew a very long breath, wiped her eyes, and sat down to think.
Her conscience was wide awake now. For an hour she let it tear and rend her. By the end of the second hour she had hardened her heart once more.
“I'm not meant to confess, that's evident,” she exclaimed aloud. “I was a little fool ever to think of it.”
A little fool, at that rate, she continued to be; inasmuch as for yet another hour she permitted her mind to dwell upon her attempted confessions, to old Teesdale yesterday, to John William to-day. It hurt her to think of the kindness and credulity of those two. It hurt her so much that she wept bitterly, only thinking of old David and John William his son. Yet she was thankful they had not listened, she was thankful they did not know, she was doubly thankful that she was to go away of her own accord, and without being found out after all. If she could ever make the slightest atonement! But that was for future thought.
The afternoon was well advanced when Missy once more crossed the road below the Cultivation. She was now in a perfectly philosophic frame of mind. Also she had slightly altered her plans. She would not invent an excuse for her departure; she would go without saying a word to any of them; she would run away in the night. And she would leave all her things behind her. The present value of them would not go far towards redeeming Mr. Teesdale's watch; still they must be worth something.
This she was thinking as she came to the end of the gum-trees, and opened the gate which was grown familiar to her hand and eye. Then suddenly she reflected that dinner must long be over, that she would barely be in time for tea. And the goodness of Mrs. Teesdale's tea was the next thought that filled her mind: she had the smell in her nostrils, she could almost feel the hot fluid coursing over her parched palate as she rounded the hen-yard and caught sight of the verandah. Thereat she came to a sudden standstill, and yet another new set of thoughts. The verandah was half hidden by a two-horse buggy drawn up in front of it.
“More visitors!” said Missy. “Well, I won't shock this lot. I wonder who they are? They must be swells!”
In fact, a man in livery held the reins, the afternoon sun made fireworks with the burnished harness, and the buggy was a very good one indeed.
Missy kept her eyes upon it as she approached the house. She never saw the faces that appeared for an instant at the parlour window and then disappeared. Her foot was lifted, to be set down in the verandah, when the door was flung open, and Mrs. Teesdale marched forth.
“Stand back!” she screamed. “Not another step! You would dare to set foot inside my doors again!”
Missy fell back in wonderment. As she did so a dainty-looking young lady appeared in the doorway behind Mrs. Teesdale, and screwed up her fair face at the glare of the afternoon sun. And Missy left off wondering, for in an instant she knew who that dainty-looking young lady must be.