Comedies of Courtship Part 30

"You'll be here to-morrow?"

"Yes. For the last time."

She dropped this astounding thunderbolt on Charlie's head as though it had been the most ordinary remark in the world.

"The last time! Oh, Miss---" No: somehow he could not lay his tongue to that "Miss Brown."

"I can't spend all my life in Lang Marsh," said she.

"Agatha," he burst out.

"No, no. This is not the last time. Sha'n't we keep that?" she asked, with a provokingly light-hearted smile.

"You promise to be here to-morrow?"

"Oh, yes."

"I shall have something to say to you then," Charlie announced with a significant air.

"Oh, you never lack conversation."

"You'll be here at five?"

"Precisely," she answered with mock gravity; "and now I'm gone!"

Charlie took off his straw hat, stretched out his right hand, and took hers. For a moment she drew back, but he looked very handsome and gallant as he bowed his head down to her hand, and she checked the movement.

"Oh, well!" she murmured; she was protesting against any importance being attached to the incident.

Charlie, having paid his homage, walked, or rather ran, swiftly away.

To begin with, he had none too much time if he was to meet Victor Sutton; secondly, he was full of a big resolve, and that generally makes a man walk fast.

The lady pursued a more leisurely progress. Swinging her hat in her hand, she made her way through the tangled wood back to the high-road, and turned towards Mr. Prime's farm. She went slowly along, thinking perhaps of the attractive young fellow she had left behind her, wondering perhaps why she had promised to meet him again. She did not know why, for there was sure to happen at that last meeting the one thing which she did not, she supposed, wish to happen. However, a promise is a promise. She heard the sound of wheels behind her, and, turning, found the farmer's spring-cart hard on her heels. The farmer was driving, and by his side sat a nice-looking girl dressed in the extreme of fashion. On the back seat was a young man in a very light suit, with a fine check pattern, and a new pair of brown leather shoes.

The cart pulled up.

"We can make room for ye, Miss," said old Mr. Prime.

Nettie Wallace jumped tip and stood with her foot on the step. Willie Prime jumped down and effected her transfer to the back seat. Agatha climbed up beside the farmer and stretched her hand back to greet Willie. Willie took it rather timidly. He did not quite 'savvy' (as he expressed it to himself); his fiancee's friend was very simply attired, infinitely more simply than Nettie herself. Nettie had told him that her friend was 'off and on'(a vague and rather obscure qualification of the statement) in the same line as herself--namely, Court and high-cla.s.s dressmaking. Yet there was a difference between Nettie and her friend.

"Anybody else arrived by the train?" asked Agatha.

"A visitor for the Court. A good-looking gentleman, wasn't he, Willie?"

Nettie was an elegant creature and, but for the 'gentleman' and that slight but ineradicable tw.a.n.g that clings like Nessus' shirt to the c.o.c.kney, all effort and all education notwithstanding (it will even last three generations, and is audible, perhaps, now and then in the House of Lords), her speech was correct and even dainty in its prim nicety.

"Ah!" said Agatha.

"His name's Sutton," said Willie; "Mr. Charles--young Mr.

Merceron--told me so when he was talking to me on the platform."

"You know young Mr. Merceron?" asked Agatha.

"Why, they was boys together," interrupted the old farmer, who made little of the refinements of speech. In his youth no one, from the lord to the laborer, spoke grammar in the country. "Used to larn to swim together in the Pool, didn't you, Willie?"

"I must have a dip there to-morrow," cried Willie; and Agatha wondered what time he would choose. "And I'll take you there, Nettie. Ever been yet?"

"No. They--they say it's haunted, don't they, Willie?"

"That's nonsense," said Willie. London makes a man sceptical. The old farmer shook his head and grunted doubtfully. His mother had seen poor Agatha Merceron; this was before the farmer was born--a little while before--and the shock had come nigh to being most serious to him. The whole countryside knew it.

"Why do you call it nonsense, Mr. Prime?" asked Agatha.

"Oh, I don't know, Miss---"

"Miss Brown, Willie," said Nettie.

"Miss Brown. Anyway, we needn't go the time the ghost comes."

"I should certainly avoid that," laughed Agatha.

"We'll go in the morning, Nettie, and I'll have my swim in the evening."

Agatha frowned. It would be particularly inconvenient if Willie Prime took his swim in the evening.

"Oh, don't, Willie," cried Nettie. "She--she might do you some harm."

Willie was hard to persuade. He was not above liking to appear a daredevil; and the discussion was still raging when they reached the farm. The two girls went upstairs to the little rooms which they occupied. Agatha turned into hers, and Nettie Wallace followed her.

"Your Willie is very nice," said Agatha, sitting on her bed.

Nettie smiled with pleasure.

"And now that you've other company I shall go."

"You're going, Miss?"

"Not Miss."

Nettie laughed.

"I forget sometimes," she said.

"Well, you must remember just over tomorrow. I shall go next day. I must meet my grandfather in London."

Nettie offered no opposition. On the contrary, she appeared rather relieved.

"Nettie, did you like Mr. Sutton's looks?" asked Agatha after a pause.

"He's too black and blue for my taste," answered Nettie.