Love Me Little, Love Me Long Part 44

Lucy colored and lowered her eyes, but never said a word.

The young man came up to the gate, and then Mr. Talboys recognized him.

He hesitated a single moment, then turned and came to the group and took off his hat to the ladies. It was David Dodd!

CHAPTER XIV.

THE new guest's manner of presenting himself with his stick over his shoulder, and his carpet-bag on his back, subjected him to a battery of stares from Kenealy, Talboys, Fountain, and abashed him sore.

This lasted but a moment. He had one friend in the group who was too true to her flirtations while they endured, and too strong-willed, to let her flirtee be discouraged by mortal.

"Why, it is Mr. Dodd," cried she, with enthusiasm, and she put forth both hands to him, the palms downward, with a smiling grace. "Surely you know Mr. Dodd," said she, turning round quickly to the gentlemen, with a smile on her lip, but a dangerous devil in her eye.

The mistress of the house is all-powerful on these occasions. Messrs.

Talboys and Fountain were forced to do the amiable, raging within; Lucy antic.i.p.ated them; but her welcome was a cold one. Says Mrs.

Bazalgette, tenderly, "And why do you carry that heavy bag, when you have that great stout lad with you? I think it is his business to carry it, not yours"; and her eyes scathed the boy, fiddle and all.

All the time she was saying this David was winking to her, and making faces to her not to go on that tack. His conduct now explained his pantomime. "Here, youngster," said he, "you take these things in-doors, and here is your half-crown."

Lucy averted her head, and smiled un.o.bserved.

As soon as the lad was out of hearing, David continued: "It was not worth while to mortify him. The fact is, I hired him to carry it; but, bless you, the first mile he began to go down by the head, and would have foundered; so we shifted our cargoes." This amused Kenealy, who laughed good-humoredly. On this, David laughed for company.

"There," cried his inamorata, with rapture, "that is Mr. Dodd all over; thinks of everybody, high or low, before himself." There was a grunt somewhere behind her; her quick ear caught it; she turned round like a thing on a pivot, and slapped the nearest face. It happened to be Fountain's; so she continued with such a treacle smile, "Don't you remember, sir, how he used to teach your cub mathematics gratis?" The sweet smile and the keen contemporaneous scratch confounded Mr.

Fountain for a second. As soon as he revived he said stiffly, "We can all appreciate Mr. Dodd."

Having thus established her Adonis on a satisfactory footing, she broke out all over graciousness again, and, smiling and chatting, led her guests beneath the hospitable roof.

But one of these guests did not respond to her cheerful strain. The Norman knight was full of bitterness. Mr. Talboys drew his friend aside and proposed to him to go back again. The senior was aghast.

"Don't be so precipitate," was all that he could urge this time.

"Confound the fellow! Yes, if that is the man she prefers to you, I will go home with you to-morrow, and the vile hussy shall never enter my doors again."

In this mind the pair went devious to their dressing-rooms.

One day a witty woman said of a man that "he played the politician about turnips and cabbages." That might be retorted (by a sn.o.b and brute) on her own s.e.x in general, and upon Mrs. Bazalgette in particular. This sweet lady maneuvered on a carpet like Marlborough on the south of France. She was brimful of resources, and they all tended toward one sacred object, getting her own way. She could be imperious at a pinch and knock down opposition; but she liked far better to undermine it, dissolve it, or evade it. She was too much of a woman to run straight to her _je-le-veux,_ so long as she could wind thitherward serpentinely and by detour. She could have said to Mr.

Hardie, "You will take down Lucy to dinner," and to Mr. Dodd, "You will sit next me"; but no, she must mold her males--as per sample.

To Mr. Fountain she said, "Your friend, I hear, is of old family."

"Came in with the Conqueror, madam."

"Then he shall take me down: that will be the first step toward conquering me--ha! ha!" Fountain bowed, well pleased.

To Mr. Hardie she said, "Will you take down Lucy to-day? I see she enjoys your conversation. Observe how disinterested I am."

Hardie consented with twinkling composure.

Before dinner she caught Kenealy, drew him aside, and put on a long face. "I am afraid I must lose you to-day at dinner. Mr. Dodd is quite a stranger, and they all tell me I must put him at his ease.

"Yaas."

"Well, then, you had better get next Lucy, as you can't have me."

"Yaas."

"And, Captain Kenealy, you are my aid-de-camp. It is a delightful post, you know, and rather a troublesome one."

"Yaas."

"You must help me be kind to this sailor."

"Yaas. He is a good fellaa. Carried the baeg for the little caed."

"Oh, did he?"

"And didn't maind been laughed at."

"Now, that shows how intelligent you must be," said the wily one; "the others could not comprehend the trait. Well, you and I must patronize him. Merit is always so dreadfully modest."

"Yaas."

This arrangement was admirable, but human; consequently, not without a flaw. Uncle Fountain was left to chance, like the flying atoms of Epicurus, and chance put him at Bazalgette's right hand save one. From this point his inquisitive eye commanded David Dodd and Mrs.

Bazalgette, and raked Lucy and her neighbors, who were on the opposite side of the table. People who look, bent on seeing everything, generally see something; item, it is not always what they would like to see.

As they retired to rest for the night, Mr. Fountain invited his friend to his room.

"We shall not have to go home. I have got the key to our antagonist.

Young Dodd is _her_ lover." Talboys shook his head with cool contempt. "What I mean is that she has invited him for her own amus.e.m.e.nt, not her niece's. I never saw a woman throw herself at any man's head as she did at that sailor's all dinner. Her very husband saw it. He is a cool hand, that Bazalgette; he only grinned, and took wine with the sailor. He has seen a good many go the same road--soldiers, sailors, tinkers, tai--"

Talboys interrupted him. "I really must call you to order. You are prejudiced against poor Mrs. Bazalgette, and prejudice blinds everybody. Politeness required that she should show some attention to her neighbor, but her princ.i.p.al attention was certainly not bestowed on Mr. Dodd."

Fountain was surprised. "On whom, then?"

"Well, to tell the truth, on your humble servant."

Fountain stared. "I observed she did not neglect you; but when she turned to Dodd her face puckered itself into smiles like a bag."

"I did not see it, and I was nearer her than you," said Talboys coldly.

"But I was in front of her."

"Yes, a mile off." There being no jurisconsult present to explain to these two magistrates that if fifty people don't see a woman pucker her face like a bag, and one does see her p. h. f. l. a. b., the affirmative evidence preponderates, they were very near coming to a quarrel on this grave point. It was Fountain who made peace. He suddenly remembered that his friend had never been known to change an opinion. "Well," said he, "let us leave that; we shall have other opportunities of watching Dodd and her; meantime I am sorry I cannot convince you of my good news, for I have some bad to balance it. You have a rival, and he did not sit next Mrs. Bazalgette."

"Pray may I ask whom he did sit next?" sneered Talboys.