Johnny Ludlow First Series Part 59

But for having promised that lame child to call again in Torriana Square, I should not have cared to go. It was afternoon this time. The servant showed me upstairs, and said her mistress was for the moment engaged. Mabel Smith sat in the same seat in her black frock; some books lay on a small table drawn before her.

"I thought you had forgotten to come."

"Did you? I should be sure not to forget it."

"I am so tired of my lessons," she said, irritably, sweeping the books away with her long thin fingers. "I always am when _they_ teach me. Mrs.

Smith has kept me at them for two hours; she has gone down now to engage a new servant."

"I get frightfully tired of my lessons sometimes."

"Ah, but not as I do; you can run about: and learning, you know, will never be of use to me. I want you to tell me something. Is Sophonisba Chalk going to stay at Lady Whitney's?"

"I don't know. They will not be so very long in town."

"But I mean is she to be governess there, and go into the country with them?"

"No, I think not."

"She wants to. If she does, papa says he shall have some nice young lady to sit with me and teach me. Oh, I do hope she will go with them, and then the house would be rid of her. I say she will: it is too good a chance for her to let slip. Mrs. Smith says she won't: she told Mr.

Everty so last night. He wouldn't believe her, and was very cross over it."

"Cross over it?"

"He said Sophonisba ought not to have gone there at all without consulting him, and that she had not been home once since, and only written him one rubbishing note that had nothing in it; and he asked Mrs. Smith whether she thought that was right."

A light flashed over me. "Is Miss Chalk going to marry Mr. Everty?"

"I suppose that's what it will come to," answered the curious child.

"She has promised to; but promises with her don't go for much when it suits her to break them. Sophonisba put me on my honour not to tell; but now that Mr. Everty has spoken to Mrs. Smith and papa, it is different.

I saw it a long while ago; before she went to the Diffords'. I have nothing to do but to sit and watch and think, you see, Johnny Ludlow; and I perceive things quicker than other people."

"But--why do you fancy Miss Chalk may break her promise to Mr. Everty?"

"If she meant to keep it, why should she be scheming to go away as the Whitneys' governess? I know what it is: Sophonisba does not think Mr.

Everty good enough for her, but she would like to keep him waiting on, for fear of not getting anybody better."

Anything so shrewd as Mabel Smith's manner in saying this, was never seen. I don't think she was naturally ill-natured, poor thing; but she evidently thought she was being wronged amongst them, and it made her spitefully resentful.

"Mr. Everty had better let her go. It is not I that would marry a wife who dyed her hair."

"Is Miss Chalk's dyed? I thought it might be the gold dust."

"Have you any eyes?" retorted Mabel. "When she was down in the country with you her hair was brown; it's a kind of yellow now. Oh, she knows how to set herself off, I can tell you. Do you happen to remember who was reigning in England when the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew took place in France?"

The change of subject was sudden. I told her it was Queen Elizabeth.

"Queen Elizabeth, was it? I'll write it down. Mrs. Smith says I shall have no dessert to-day, if I don't tell her. She puts those questions only to vex me. As if it mattered to anybody. Oh, here's papa!"

A little man came in with a bald head and pleasant face. He said he was glad to see me and shook hands. She put out her arms, and he came and kissed her: her eyes followed him everywhere; her cheeks had a sudden colour: it was easy to see that he was her one great joy in life. And the bright colour made her poor thin face look almost charming.

"I can't stay a minute, Trottie; going out in a hurry. I think I left my gloves up here."

"So you did, papa. There was a tiny hole in the thumb and I mended it for you."

"That's my little attentive daughter! Good-bye. Mr. Ludlow, if you will stay to dinner we shall be happy."

Mrs. Smith came in as he left the room. She was rather a plain likeness of Miss Chalk, not much older. But her face had a straightforward, open look, and I liked her. She made much of me and said how kind she had thought it of Mrs. Todhetley to be at the trouble of making a fichu for her, a stranger. She hoped--she did hope, she added rather anxiously, that Sophie had not asked her to do it. And it struck me that Mrs. Smith had not quite the implicit confidence in Miss Sophie's sayings and doings that she might have had.

It was five o'clock when I got away. At the door of the office in the side street stood a gentleman--the same I had seen pa.s.s me the other day. I looked at him, and he at me.

"Is it Roger Monk?"

A startled look came over his face. He evidently did not remember me. I said who I was.

"Dear me! How you have grown! Do walk in." And he spoke to me in the tones an equal would speak, not as a servant.

As he was leading the way into a sort of parlour, we pa.s.sed a clerk at a desk, and a man talking to him.

"Here's Mr. Everty; he will tell you," said the clerk, indicating Monk.

"He is asking about those samples of pale brandy, sir: whether they are to go."

"Yes, of course; you ought to have taken them before this, Wilson," was Roger Monk's answer. And so I saw that _he_ was Mr. Everty.

"I have resumed my true name, Everty," he said to me in low tones. "The former trouble, that sent me away a wanderer, is over. Many men, I believe, are forced into such episodes in life."

"You are with Mr. Smith?"

"These two years past. I came to him as head-clerk; I now have a commission on sales, and make a most excellent thing of it. I don't think the business could get on without me now."

"Is it true that you are to marry Miss Chalk?" I asked, speaking on a sudden impulse.

"Quite true; if she does not throw me over," he answered, and I wondered at his candour. "I suppose you have heard of it indoors?"

"Yes. I wish you all success."--And didn't I wish it in my inmost heart!

"Thank you. I can give her a good home now. Perhaps you will not talk about that old time if you can help it, Mr. Ludlow. You used to be good-natured, I remember. It was a dark page in my then reckless life; I am doing what I can to redeem it."

I dare say he was; and I told him he need not fear. But I did not like his eyes yet, for they had the same kind of shifty look that Roger Monk's used to have. He might get on none the worse in business; for, as the Squire says, it is a shifty world.

Sophie Chalk engaged to Mr. Everty, and he Roger Monk! Well, it was a complication. I went back to Miss Deveen's without, so to say, seeing daylight.

XV.