Fated to Be Free Part 12

"And do you think that Snooks really wrote that review?" she continued, contemplating her father through her eyegla.s.s, for she was shortsighted.

"If you ask my sincere opinion, my dear, I must say that I think he did not; but if some other man had signed it, I should have been sure. Which now I never shall be."

Here the door was slowly opened, and the portly butler appeared, bearing in his own hands a fine dish of potatoes; from the same plot, he remarked to John, with those that had obtained the prize. The butler looked proud.

"I feel as much elated," said John, "as if I had raised them myself. Is Nicholas here?"

"Yes, sir, and he has been saying that if the soil of your garden could only be kept dry, they would be finer still."

"Dry!" exclaimed Valentine, "you can't keep anything dry in such a climate as this--not even your jokes."

"Hear, hear," said John Mortimer; "if the old man was not a teetotaler, and I myself were not so nearly concerned in this public recognition of _our_ merits, I should certainly propose his health."

"Don't let such considerations sway you," exclaimed Valentine rising.

"Jones, will you tell him that you left me on my legs, proposing his health in ginger-pop--'Mr. Nicholas Swan.'"

Mr. Nicholas Swan. Not one word of the ridiculous speech which followed the toast was heard by Laura, nor did she observe the respectful glee with which the butler retired, saying, "I think we've got a rise out of the _True Blue_ now, sir. I'm told, sir, that the potatoes shown by the _other side_, compared with these, seemed no bigger than bullets."

Mr. Nicholas Swan. A sudden beating at the heart kept Mrs. Melcombe silent, and as for Laura, she had never blushed so deeply in her life.

Joseph's name was Swan, and it flashed into her mind in an instant that he had told her his father was a gardener.

She sat lost in thought, and nervous, scarcely able to answer when some casual remark was made to her, and the meal was over before she had succeeded in persuading herself that this man could not be Joseph's father, because her coming straight to the place where he lived was _too_ improbable.

"There goes Swanny across the lawn, father," said one of the twins, and thereupon they all went to the bow-window, and calling the old man, began to congratulate him, while he leaned his arms on the window-frame, which was at a convenient height from the ground, and gave them an account of his success.

They grouped themselves on the seats near. Mrs. Melcombe took the chair pushed up for her where, as John Mortimer said, she could see the view.

Laura followed, having s.n.a.t.c.hed up a book of photographs, with which she could appear to be occupied, for she did not want to attract the gardener's attention by sitting farther than others did from the window; and as she mechanically turned the leaves, she hearkened keenly to Swan's remarks, and tried to decide that he was not like Joseph.

"The markiss, sir? Yes, sir, his gardener, Mr. Fergus, took the best prize for strawberries and green peas. You'll understand that those airly tates were from seedlings of my own--that's where their great merit lies, and why they were first. They gave Blakis the cottagers'

prize for lettuce; that I uphold was wrong. Said I, 'Those lettuce heads that poor Raby shows air the biggest ever I set my eyes on,' 'Swan,'

says Mr. Tikey, 'we must encourage them that has good characters.'

'Well, now, if you come to think, sir,' says I, 'it's upwards of ten years since Raby stole that pair of boots,' and I say (though they was my boots) that should be forgot now, and he should have the cottagers'

prize, but stealing never gets forgiven."

"Because it's such an inconvenient vice to those that have anything to lose," said Miss Christie.

"Yes, that's just it, ma'am. You see the vices and virtues have got overhauled again, and sorted differently to suit our convenience.

Stealing's no worse _probly_ in the eyes of our Maker than lying and slandering; not so bad, mayhap, as a deep _sweer_. But folks air so tenacious like, they must have every stick and stone respected that they reckon theirs."

"We shouldn't hear ye talking in this _pheelosophical_ way," said Miss Christie, "if yere new potatoes had been stolen last night, before ye got them to the show."

Laura took a glance at the gardener, as, with all the ease of intimacy, he leaned in at the window and gave his opinion on things in general. He was hale, and looked about sixty years of age. He was dressed in his Sunday suit, and wore an orange bandana handkerchief loosely tied round his neck. He had keen grey eyes. Joseph's eyes were dark and large, and Joseph was taller, and had a straighter nose.

"Swan's quite right," remarked Valentine; "we are a great deal too tenacious about our belongings. Now I've heard of a fellow who was waiting about, to horsewhip another fellow, and when this last came out he had a cane in his hand. His enemy s.n.a.t.c.hed it from him, and laid it about his back as much as he liked, split it and broke it on him, and then carried off the bits. Now what would you have done, Swan, in such a case?"

"Well, sir, in which case? I can't consider anyhow as I could be in the case of him that was whipped."

"I mean what would you have done about the cane?--the property? A magistrate had to decide. The man that had been horsewhipped said the other had spoilt his cane, which was as good as new, and then had stolen it. The other said he did not carry off the cane till it had been so much used that it was good for nothing, and he didn't call that stealing."

"Well, sir," said Mr. Swan, observing a smile on the face of one and another, "I think I'll leave that there magistrate to do the best he can with that there case, and I'll abide by his decision."

"When ye come out in the character of Apollo," said Miss Christie to Valentine, "ye should compose yourself into a grander att.i.tude, and not sit all of a heap while ye're drawing the long-bow. Don't ye agree with me, Mrs. Melcombe?"

Mrs. Melcombe looked up and smiled uneasily; but the gardener had no uncomfortable surmises respecting her, as she had respecting him, and when he caught her eye he straightened himself up, and said with pleasant civility, while putting on his hat on purpose to touch it and take it off again, "'Servant, ma'am; my son Joseph has had a fine spell of work, as I hear from him, at your place since I saw you last autumn, and a beautiful place it is, I'm told."

Mrs. Melcombe answered this civil speech, and John Mortimer said, "How is Joseph getting, on, Swan?"

"Getting on first-rate, thank you kindly, sir," replied Swan, leaning down into his former easy att.i.tude, and keeping his Sunday hat under his arm.

"That boy, though I say it, allers was as steady as old Time. He's at Birmingham now. I rather expect he'll be wanting to _settle_ shortly."

As he evidently wished to be asked a further question, Mrs. Henfrey did ask one.

"No, ma'am, no," was the reply; "he have not told me nor his mother the young woman's name; but he said if he got her he should be the luckiest fellow that ever was." Here, from intense confusion and shyness, Laura dropped the book, St. George picked it up for her, and n.o.body thought of connecting the fall with the story, the unconscious Nicholas continuing.

"So thereby his mother judged that it would come to something, for that's what a young chap mostly says when he has made up his mind; but I shall allers say, sir," he went on, "that with the good education as I gave him, it's a pity he took to such a poor trade. He airly showed a bent for it; I reckon it was the putty that got the better of him."

"Ah," said John Mortimer, "and I only wonder, Swan, that it didn't get the better of me! I used to lay out a good deal of pocket-money in it at one time, and many a private smash have I perpetrated in the panes of out-houses, and at the back of the conservatory, that I might afterwards mend them with my own putty and tools. I can remember my father's look of pride and pleasure when he would pa.s.s and find me so quietly, and, as he thought, so meritoriously employed."

And now this ordeal was over. The gardener was suffered to depart, and the ladies went up-stairs to dress for the flower-show.

"Oh, Amelia!" exclaimed Laura, pressing her cold hands to her burning cheeks, "I feel as if I almost hated that man. What business had he to talk of Joseph in that way?"

Amelia, on the contrary, was very much pleased with Swan, because he had clearly shown that he was ignorant of this affair. "He seems a very respectable person," she replied. "His cottage, I know, is near the end of John Mortimer's garden. I've seen it; but I never thought of asking his name. It certainly would be mortifying for you to have to go and stay there with him and Joseph's mother. I suppose, though, that the Mortimers would have to call."

Amelia felt a certain delight in presenting this picture to Laura.

"I would never go near them!" exclaimed Laura, very angry with her sister-in-law.

"Why not?" persisted Amelia, determined to make Laura see things as they were. "You could not possibly wish to divide a man from his own family; they have never injured you."

"Oh that he and I were on a desert island together," said Laura. She had often said that before to Amelia. She now felt that if Joseph's father and mother were there also, and there was n.o.body else to see, she should not mind their presence; besides, it would be convenient, they would act almost as servants.

Amelia very seldom had intuitions; but one seemed to visit her then. "Do you know, Laura, it really seems to me _less shocking_ that you should be attached to Joseph (if you are, which I don't believe), than that you should be so excessively ashamed of it, with no better cause."

This she said quite sincerely, having risen for the moment into a clearer atmosphere than that in which she commonly breathed. It was a great advance for her; but then, on the other hand, she had never felt so easy about the result as that old man's talk had now made her. Laura never could do it!

So off they set to the flower-show, which was held under a large tent in a field. Laura heard the hum and buzz about her; the jolly wives of the various gardeners and florists admiring their husbands' prizes; the band of the militia playing outside; Brandon's delightful voice--how she wished that Joseph's was like it!--all affected her imagination; together with the strong scent of flowers and strawberries and trodden gra.s.s, and the mellow light let down over them through the tent, and the moving flutter of dresses and ribbons as the various ladies pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed, almost all being adorned with little pink and blue flowers, if only so much as a rose-bud or a forget-me-not--for a general election was near, and they were "showing their colours" (a custom once almost universal, and which was still kept up in that old-fashioned place).

Wigfield was a droll little town, and in all its ways was intensely English. There was hardly a woman in it or round it who really and intelligently concerned herself about politics; but they were all "blues" or "pinks," and you might hear them talk for a week together without finding out which was the Liberal and which was the Conservative colour; but the "pinks" all went to the pink shops, and the "blues"

would have thought it WRONG not to give their custom to those tradesmen who voted "blue."

You might send to London for anything you thought you wanted; but the Marchioness herself, the only great lady in the neighbourhood, knew better than to order anything in Wigfield from a shop of the wrong colour.

The "pinks" that day were happy. "Markiss," in the person of his gardener, had three prizes; "Old Money-Bags" (Mr. Augustus Mortimer's name at election time) had two prizes, in the person of his son's gardener; in fact, the "pinks" triumphed almost at the rate of two to one, and yet, to their immortal honour, let it be recorded that the "blues" said it was all fair.

John Mortimer shortly went to fetch his father, and returned with him and all his own younger children. Mr. Mortimer had long been allowed to give three supplementary prizes, on his own account, to some of the exhibitors who were cottagers, and on this occasion his eyes, having been duly directed by his son, were observed to rest with great admiration on the big lettuces. Raby's wife could hardly believe it when she saw the bright sovereign laid on the broad top of one of them; while Mr. Swan, as one of the heroes of the day, and with Mrs. Swan leaning on his arm, looked on approvingly, the latter wearing a black silk gown and a shawl covered with fir-cones. She was a stout woman, and had been very pretty--she was supposed by her husband to be so still. On this occasion, pointing out the very biggest and brightest bunch of cut-flowers he saw, Mr. Swan remarked complacently--

"They remind me of you, Maria."